I am not a fan of this episode. It has some really great plot points and themes but the whole episode fails to bring them together in a satisfying way, and most of the guest characters aren't really useful.
Simon Pegg, in my mind, made for an OK editor, but this story would have been great with him as the Editor-In-Chief. I don't see why we needed an alien with an unpronounceable name and a CGI design that has aged incredibly poorly. Humans are perfectly capable of being awful to each other without outside intervention, and here was an opportunity to play that up. Pegg could have been great as an evil mastermind instead of a mere henchman.
With Adam, I'm confused. Rose has changed her look since the last ep, and the way they act in the beginning seems to suggest some time has passed since they left the museum. But then it doesn't appear that time has passed at all because Adam feigns feeling uneasy and wants to be alone. He leaves at the end of this episode with a character arc so unsatisfying it might be more accurate to say he didn't have one at all. The doctor does something incredibly nonsensical and leaves him, a known alien artefact profiteer, with the stuff installed in him, even though he makes a show of erasing the phone answering machine. Despite trying to scare him, he would obviously have the ability to analyse, pilfer, and sell what is in him. Nothing about his character makes any sense.
Cathica and Suki are alright, but I am not sure they really did anything of much consequence, excepting cathica jumping in right at the very end.
The standout guest for me here is Tamsin Grieg as the sales medic. I forgot she was ever in DW. A future where they upsell medical treatment like they would options in a car is freaky, even down to them installing extras that are on offer without even asking. Her creepy performance really sells how weird it all is.
I don't like the whole body horror "you can see inside your brain" stuff, even with the dated CGI. Gives me the ick. And also makes no sense - if you have a chip, why on earth do you need trepanning other than to shock the viewers?
Which brings me to the themes and major plot points. We have:
- future medical horror show (used better in the next series with 10)
- workplace political drama,
- journalism and its role in politics (I think this alone should have been the plot),
- conspiracies vs freedom fighters,
- privacy rights (very perceptive in ~2000),
- digital money and worker scrip,
- racism (RTD re-used this "you don't see racism" idea to much better effect in Gatwa's series); Just to name a few. If the episode had focused more on just one of these that would have been better.
The design of the station itself is confusing, even if the CGI visuals and set design are nice. It has spinny bits, but because they're always in the central column it clearly has artificial mavity, so why does it need the spinny bits‽ I also don't rally understand why they needed the "it's really hot" ventilation plot point - usually larger animals tend to have a lower metabolism, not higher, and the editor was going to invite the doctor up anyway. And you don't ventilate the get rid of heat in space, you radiate it.
As usual I enjoyed the score, from classic themes to the upbeat accompaniment during the tourism scene early in the episode, and the later conspiratorial detective melody.
The only thing that really happens of any note here is the perhaps unnecessary setup for the series finale, and a deepening of 9 and Rose's relationship, which could have easily happened in any scenario.
