Doctor Who (2025): Lux – A Visual Marvel Backed Up By Fun Script (SPOILERS)

In the days leading up to Series 15, it struck me that Russell has structured this series in a very similar way to the last one. The Robot Revolution is a bright and silly family-friendly introduction like Space Babies, next week’s Episode 3 looks set to be a dark and confined piece like Boom was, and we know from set pictures and basic info that Episode 4 serves as this series’s 73 Yards – a Doctor-lite episode that focuses heavily on Ruby Sunday. Whether this was a conscious choice by Russell or not, it’s still interesting to see the show use this basic structure while continuing to experiment within those parameters.

Lux is a prime example of this. With the period-piece setting, boisterous guest performance and several playful set-pieces, this is very reminiscent of last year’s Episode 2, The Devil’s Chord. That episode was undoubtedly fun but stifled a little bit by the amount of stuff on display – it moved at such a pace that the 1960s setting and musical themes couldn’t be explored as much as they should have been. For all the visuals, Lux is comparatively simpler. The cast is smaller, we’re mostly limited to one location, and the danger feels less wide-reaching. That’s not a bad thing though, as the episode pushes Russell T. Davies to get the most out of the elements he has to play with, and he most certainly does. I enjoyed the hell out of this episode.

After a standard but effective cold open that establishes the setting and the episode’s overall mood, Lux starts right where The Robot Revolution left off. The arc that this series is playing with doesn’t get much of a look-in here but Lux further solidifies the dynamic between the Doctor and Belinda, as the Doctor’s makeshift device to bounce the TARDIS back to 2025 lands them in 1952 Miami and, for as much as Belinda might not want to fully travel, she is naturally ecstatic when she realises they’ve actually landed in another time and she joins the Doctor in dress-up. Cue the Doctor and Belinda jiving out of the wardrobe in 1950s costumes accompanied by a needle-drop of Roll Over Beethoven. 

Initially the Doctor and Belinda aren’t going to be there for long and the Doctor plans to go back into the TARDIS, but Belinda soon realises that they’re not going anywhere – fifteen people have mysteriously gone missing and the local picture house is boarded up, so of course the Doctor has to know what’s going on. She’s not quite as confrontational here as she is in The Robot Revolution, and there’s some moments peppered in here that help her better understand who the Doctor truly is, but Belinda still gets good stuff to do in Lux and still acts as the breath of fresh air she was last week.

Without a doubt the episode’s main hook is the use of animation. The episode’s villain is Mr Ring-A-Ding, a cartoon character come to life who reveals himself as Lux, the God of Light. We’ve now seen four Gods from the Pantheon in this era of the show (the other three being the Toymaker, Maestro and Sutekh) and, while I still marginally prefer Neil Patrick Harris’s The Toymaker, Alan Cumming’s Lux is a close second. 

Like the other members of the Pantheon, he manages to be genuinely creepy and sinister despite the zaniness and it’s a fantastic visual creation. The images of him coming out of the screen and using the Doctor’s body to turn himself 3D are superb. Cumming also provides a fantastic voice performance – he previously appeared as King James in the Thirteenth Doctor episode The Witchfinders and I always found him a bit out of place there, since the Chibnall era was going for a more naturalistic mood which his hamminess didn’t quite gel with. The looser and fantastical feel of Russell’s writing suits him perfectly, and he’s relishing every line he’s given. His jingle is genius, as is the design.

We’ll get on to a particular moment in the second act later (oh, we will), but this is where the episode really starts having fun with the animation concept. Trapped in an abandoned cinema with Lux, the Doctor and Belinda become pawns in Lux’s games and they find themselves in 2D form too. In obvious but funny in-jokes, the pair find themselves exploring their inner thoughts and emotions to, quite literally, give their figures ‘depth’. Escaping the film by literally breaking the frame is also a nice touch, and even when the episode is firing on every CG cylinder, it doesn’t overshadow the rest of the visual style. Amanda Brotchie does a phenomenal job with the direction, and that cinema looks bloody gorgeous. It’s an old cinema but there’s still so much majesty to it, and it manages to have that inviting old-timey look while possessing just a bit of the eeriness needed to make the episode work.

So this really is a visual and technical marvel. Plot-wise, it’s quite thin, but I actually don’t think that’s a criticism in this situation. Lux starts with a mystery of why a cinema is chained up (I don’t know, probably because it’s 4 in the bloody morning?) and the case of these missing people, and once it gets into the cinema it’s a non-stop confrontation with Mr Ring-A-Ding, with no other needless complications or distractions. 

The only thing that gives you pause for thought is the acknowledgement of racism. Of course, this is 1952 Miami so things are still very much segregated, but the people we meet actually seem quite understanding. The guy behind the counter at the diner allows the Doctor and Belinda to speak to the grieving parent, claiming that no-one will notice at this time of night anyway. 

Rosa was probably the last episode that addressed racism in this blunt a way and while that was definitely a better episode for it, it’s nice to see Lux look at it from a different perspective to Rosa. The worker at the diner and this grieving mother are not judging the Doctor and Belinda for their race, but for their kindness and how they can help with the situation. I don’t know whether it was necessary, but I’m happy that it’s there all the same.

So now let’s talk about the big thing: Doctor Who went meta. One of Lux’s tricks was to have the Doctor and Belinda exit the film they were trapped in, only to come out of a TV screen and be face to face with excited Doctor Who fans, wearing Doctor Who apparel with all the DVDs behind them, ecstatic that their favourite heroes are actually real.

Doctor Who has previously broken the fourth wall. The Feast of Steven and Before The Flood see the Doctor talking directly to the audience, and Remembrance of The Daleks features a TV announcer discussing the new science-fiction show that’s about to start, cutting to the next scene right as he starts saying Doctor Who. But it’s never broken the fourth wall like this before.

This rumour had been slowly circulating in the days leading up to Lux and when it actually happened my laughter couldn’t have been any more nervous. I was really scared that Russell was going to go too far with it, and if he’s not done with this concept then who knows? He could still push it. But for what it’s worth right now, I think this scene was great. The love for the show from these actors felt genuine and the use of Murray Gold’s Sad Man in A Box gave me Goosebumps.

I’m not too sure about the bit where he asks what their favourite adventure is and they all say Blink, which seems to indicate that Doctor Who fans are in unanimous agreement, something that hasn’t happened in years, and they also completely neglect the adventures of the Fifteenth Doctor, something which Ncuti brings up himself. However, I loved that they kept them alive in the end credits, even after the influence of Lux has gone.

This was an interesting idea that gets brought up in Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, the other fourth-wall breaking bit of metafiction I can think of. When the crew realise their visions of just being characters on a TV show were only illusions, Lister asks back on Red Dwarf what will happen to that universe, and Kryten says that it’s a rule of quantum mechanics that the alternate reality will continue to exist believing that it’s the real one. I’m going with this explanation for now as to why they’re still alive, as I really can’t see Russell going back to this idea, so this scene really worked for me. I just hope that this is all that’s done with the ‘the Doctor knows he’s in a TV show’ idea.

Lux was a lot of fun and it seems that most fans are in agreement. A friend of mine called this episode ‘boss’ and Ncuti’s best episode, and while I don’t fully agree (73 Yards and Dot & Bubble still beat it in my opinion), Lux sits comfortably alongside Boom in the ‘damn good’ category: it’s just a great script with a really cool visual aesthetic and an awesome guest character. It’s a perfect example of what a monster-of-the-week episode in the Disney+ era can look like.

Alex’s Archive – Doctor Who: Lux