Counter Culture

2,251 words, 12 minutes read time.

A critic asked to summarise Lux in two sentences, at some unspecified point in the future might write, ‘It was ambitious and innovative, had loads of potential, retains many good points, but, like almost every episode from the ‘RTD 2 era’, it is an incoherent, unsatisfying mess. Lux is remembered primarily for one ‘Meta’ scene that both referenced and hastened the show’s long hiatus.’

Plot

After last week’s more traditional Science Fiction season opener, The Robot Revolution, we’re back to the Pantheon of Gods, which Russell T Davies (RTD) first introduced us to in The Giggle, the last of the three Sixtieth anniversary specials in late 2023.

This time in the spotlight, almost literally, we have Lux, the God of Light, who manifests in the form of a traditional, old-school Disney-type animated character, Mr. Ring-a-Ding, in a cinema in Miami, Florida, 1952. Breaking free of the cinema screen, he imprisons fifteen local cinema goers within the frames of celluloid film.

The Doctor and Belinda, as part of the ongoing season arc of attempting to return the new companion home to England on the date she left, May 24^th this year, find themselves in Miami and begin to investigate the disappearance of the ‘Miami 15’. In their interactions with the lead villain, they too find themselves trapped within celluloid, briefly turned into animated form themselves, before finally escaping by smashing through a modern flat TV screen into a British living room where they interact with ‘Doctor Who fans’. These three fans advise on how to defeat Lux. Returning to Miami, our heroes follow this advice, and with the help of Mr. Pye, the cinema projectionist, who sacrifices himself with the help of his dead wife by setting alight to the many rolls of film, burning down the cinema. This exposes Lux to outside sunlight, an influx of light so great that he begins to grow, to lose his animated form, ultimately merging to become ‘all light’. The missing fifteen walk free from the cinema, seemingly unharmed.

That’s a simplified version, and much else happens along the way, but that’s essentially it.

Positives

It looks great. Miami, 1952, at least an idealised, Disney-fied version of it, is very well realised, the cars, the clothes, the gaudy neon signs, the diner, the ‘picturehouse’…

An early shot of one of the ’15’ screaming out from the frames of film looks genuinely terrifying. The animations of Mr.-Ring-a-Ding and of the Doctor and Belinda were impressive and, based on my admittedly limited knowledge in this area, looked appropriate to the period. Close to the end of the episode, the distorted image of Lux as he began his transformation away from his animated Mr Ring-a-Ding manifestation towards infinity was also impressively horrifying.

Even the ‘fourth wall’/Meta-break is visually striking.

Ncuti Gatwa continued the improvement seen in his portrayal of the Doctor in last week’s season opener. Arguably, he even finally had his proper ‘Doctor moment.’ This was in the diner when he had been explaining to a shocked Belinda that they were at a point in history when segregation was still in place in America. He responded to her incredulity that he wasn’t as outraged as she was about this fact by saying, ‘I’ve toppled worlds. Sometimes I wait for them to topple themselves.’ I shine.’ Good lines, well-delivered, which could have come from the mouth of any of the modern Doctors not played by Jodie Whittaker.

Grudging credit must be given to Davies for his tackling of the segregation theme in general. We might have expected him to go to town on this, but, for once, he showed restraint. Or, maybe, as I mentioned in my review of The Robot Revolution, much work was put into post-production and re-editing in response to criticisms of last year’s series. Of course, there was no necessity to set the episode in segregation era America in the first place, either, and it could be argued that the contrast between the restraint displayed here and the histrionics on race-related issues at the end of Dot and Bubble shows an inconsistency of characterisation. True, characters should grow and develop over time, but that was a mere five episodes ago, and the Doctor was, supposedly, no less a Time Lord then than he is in Lux.

Sadly, though not unexpectedly, Ncuti’s good work was undercut by his usual array of campy posturing, with no consideration given by Davies to how adding such flamboyant characteristics, clothes and modes of speech (‘honey,’ ‘babes’) to his skin colour would likely have been received at this time, in this place.

Gatwa’s threads look very nice, but once again, he’s deprived of a recognisable ‘Doctor costume’ which immediately signals to the viewer that this is the character he is portraying.

Verada’s Sethu’s Belinda was a much more engaging character here than in the season opener, with less moaning and ‘pushing back’ against the Doctor and more entering into the spirit of being a companion at the beginning of what ought to be a series of epic adventures through space and time.

There was some good dialogue and banter between Doctor and companion, and other characters, and some good one-liners from Mr Ring-a-Ding (‘I never should have learnt perspective!’), and it’s probably a bit late in the day to be mentioning how superbly voiced the ‘villain’ was by Alan Cummings. I believe he does this sort of thing for a day job, and you can see, or at least hear, why. 

Negatives

As much more of a Science Fiction than a Fantasyfan, I’m not greatly impressed by the move in this direction since Davies once more took over as showrunner. I can certainly appreciate the genre in the hands of masters such as Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Ursula Le Guin, and even J.K. Rowling. But these writers spent decades, a lifetime in the case of the former, building complex, internally consistent worlds full of characters who are believable in the context of those worlds. RTD is no Tolkien. As far as I know, he has no track record of writing Fantasy, and I have no sense of him believing in his ‘Pantheon of Gods’ to the extent of being able to stand even a few minutes of questioning concerning the nature of these ‘Gods’ and how they relate to one another. For Davies, it seems the ‘Fantasy’ tag is merely a convenience that frees him from the need to write plots that make sense to anyone other than himself.

In addition, as Brendan, host of my favourite Doctor Who podcast (‘Sense Sphere’) puts it, ‘These Gods are crap!’ turning up in random places which may or may not be related to the Doctor turning up at the same place and time, and then being quickly and easily defeated after causing harm to a limited number of people for a while or, this case, maybe not defeated, because becoming at one with all light is presumably where Lux as the God (or ‘a’ God?) of Light, started from before randomly manifesting as a cartoon character in a cinema because of a chance occurrence (moonlight reflected from a spoon).

I also don’t feel invested in the Belinda ‘Journey home narrative’. It worked fine with Ian and Barbara in the early days of the show, because it was clear at that point that the Doctor had no control of where and when the Tardis materialised.

But here?

As I understand it, the Tardis can’t land on the target date of May 25^th, so the Doctor has built a gadget, the Vortex Indicator (Vindicator), which, in theory, could, by getting somewhere (and somewhen) in the right vicinity, drag the Tardis to the desired destination. In which case, why are they in Miami in 1952? It would make sense for the Doctor to at least attempt to materialise on May 24^th and, if successful, take Belinda to one of his favourite clubs for a few hours until the clock strikes midnight and, voila, it’s the 25^th. She can say a quick ‘Hi,’ to celloist mum and karaoke dad (new information gained in Lux. What a surprise that it’s only the mum who is given a proper career), have a few hours’ sleep and be at the hospital in time for her 2-10 shift preventing the NHS from collapse.

Job done.

Such things are logistic plot-point problems writers can easily deal with, explaining away as necessary, if they are aware of them. But that will often require an editor with the confidence and authority to read through their work and drop them a friendly email saying ‘Very good, but…’

Pacing

Like so much of this incarnation of the show, the actual plot is slight and could be raced through in much less than its forty-five-minute time allocation. But telling it in such a way that it doesn’t strain the viewer’s credulity, at the same time as peopling it with believable characters we feel we’ve come to know and have grown to care about, can’t be. So, that early image of the character we saw screaming from within a celluloid frame was never capitalised upon, because we never saw this character again until he miraculously walked free from the cinema at the end. He didn’t even have a name (only Tommy Lee, son of one of the characters at the diner, had that), so why should we feel relieved that he’s been rescued from his horrifying ordeal?

A lack of consequences is another big problem with the show in its current run. Almost every major character was dissolved into dust early in the season one finale The Empire of Death. By the end, they’d all been resurrected. Similarly, Mr. Pye was the only character who died in Lux.

Linus Roche, a fine character actor in his own right as well as the son of William Roche (Ken Barlow in Coronation Street), deserves a lot of credit for his portrayal of the projectionist. But he got no more than a few minutes of screen time, so, again, why should we care?

***

Over the last week, I’ve watched the latest run of six Black Mirror episodes on Netflix, and this set me thinking that, in at least one future world, Doctor Who could be improved if it could be detached from the BBC completely (as far as new content is concerned). The move from Channel Four to a fully streamed service allowed Black Mirror to achieve what Davies had said was his ambition for Who, to take it from being a niche British show to a truly global phenomenon which enjoys both public and critical acclaim. Netflix provided Black Mirror with a much bigger budget than could have been imagined during its first two series, which were funded by and shown only on Channel Four. But, more importantly, the move freed it from forty-five to fifty-minute episode time constraints. Stories now take as long as the show creator and writer, Charlie Brooker (sometimes with co-writers), feels are needed to tell them. I’d recommend watching, back-to-back, the season four episode, USS Callister and its new season seven sequel USS Callister: Into Infinity, both feature-length, both incredibly tightly written, working on several levels, including meta-Star Trek parody, but managing to incorporate genuinely thrilling SF adventures with real consequences for believable characters who viewers have formed a relationship with.

It helps that Brooker is a brilliant writer, and even his early, time-constrained episodes stand up well. But he would never have been able to produce something this ambitious within the parameters of British network television.

And Doctor Who could never attempt to emulate it, no matter how many billions Disney, or anyone else, throws at it while it remains tied to BBC television scheduling.

The ‘Meta’ Scene

I intended to say more about the ‘scene with the fans’ than I will, because it remains to be seen if this will have a significance in the series beyond Lux, in the season climax as, I think, is strongly suggested by Mrs Flood’s nod and wink references at the end of the episode. I’ll provisionally stick to three short points: 1) It put a break on the story, adding to the pacing problems 2) If the show does end up on ‘indefinite hiatus’ then, as I indicated at the beginning of the review, this is the scene that everybody will remember it for, irrespective of its many good qualities. 3) It’s the sort of indulgence that a show can perhaps get away with when it’s at the top of its game and is still clearly beloved. I doubt many Buffy fans rewatch the musical episode often, but they can forgive and even admire its existence. In a show that is haemorrhaging viewers (I’ll talk more about ratings in a future review, but a 23% drop in the overnight figures from The Robot Revolution to Lux can’t be spun in a positive direction, and now even the pretence of pretending all is well is falling away) it risks further alienating loyal viewers, whether it was affectionately stereotyping Doctor Who fans or not, as well as being incomprehensible to new viewers.  

If the show is cancelled, what photo-still from its illustrious sixty-two-year history will accompany the headlines? I’ll take a wild stab that it’ll be of Ncuti Gatwa and Veranda Sethru standing, with three cosplaying ‘fans’, next to a television screen upon which are displayed the ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘BBC’ logos as well as the legend #RIPDoctorWho.

Anthony C Green, April 2025