The Devil's Chord

Having been disappointed by the first episode, the pre-titles sequence set the tone for a much better, more enjoyable time. The moment Maestro played into the intro was just fantastic!

The story progressed at a good pace and Jinx Monsoon stole the scenes they were in akin to the way that Neil Patrick Harris did as the Toymaker. However the episode still lacked that little extra that turns a good episode into a great episode. The jeopardy was cranked up too quickly for a natural build and not played about with enough to actually believe it (even in the reality pause world of Dr Who). I suppose the musical number at the end fit but I just wasn't keen. Having said that, I'm sure plenty will disagree on that.

Notice I've not mentioned the Beatles yet, which was the big selling point of the episode? Well that's because their initial introduction was actually quite funny but they were pretty much rendered insignificant after that except at a very predictable point. I also felt the musical number could have sounded more Beatles-esque. Opportunity missed.

In summary, fun, enjoyable and watchable, just not great.

Performance of the main villain is unforgetable, mainly because I will not get it out of my head how terrible it was - just yelling, screaming and making weird facial expressions. Not just the villain, but everyone, including the Doctor and Ruby, is acting poorly - they are either screaming like teenage girls, yelling or crying with a lot of tears.

Dialogues are rudely primitive, lacking that kind of intelligent and witty humour that was so characteristic for Doctor Who in the first Russel T Davies era.

Story and the plot is very non-sensical, it lacks any real meaning and the resolution very illogical.

It had its moments, but a bit disappointing overall. Problems: Beatles, especially Paul really didn't look much like the people they were playing. The plot seemed a bit disjointed. There really wasn't enough research into the era, which led to some anachronisms; the big one was the women's clothing - this was supposed to be set in 1963, but the miniskirt didn't surface until 1966. (X-men and the Man From Uncle film made the same mistake!). The men's clothes were better. I can't say I'm a big fan of turning it into a musical. Overall, it could have been better than it was without a lot of extra work.

The Doctor and Ruby travel back to the 1960's, and meet The Beatles.

Definitely an improvement over Space Babies, a very creative and imaginative storyline, well executed, with some exuberant performances.

Some exquisite imagery, scenes of a future, devastated Earth looked terrific. Ncuti and Millie looked fabulous in their sixties outfits.

Very Disney at times, but you can definitely see that there's some money being spent on this show.

I wish they'd gotten together a quartet that resembled The Beatles a little bit more, they just weren't right somehow.

Jinkx Monsoon, as camp and over the top as you'd expect, and as we all know The BBC loves A drag Queen, but Jinx did a good job, I'm sure there'll be more to come, I enjoyed the character.

Was that a Susan Foreman reference?

7/10.

... but it gets ruined because RTD can't play it straight.

I kinda wish they would still have a pauper's budget again, because it seemed to have worked mich better during his first run. Yes he was also campy there and also at times edged on the thin line between "a little silly" and "completely bonkers". But with this episode he completely wrecked that line.

The villain was extraordinary. Or could have been if they didn't run their mannerisms into the ground. A little less forced drama, a bit tighter pacing, especially during the "final battle" and this could have been an absolute delight.

And don't get me started on that musical number at the end. I enjoyed it in the first episode, but here it felt so overly forced and was not fun at all. More like a parody of Austin Powers. Horrible.