There ’s a moment in “ Kerblam ! ” where Jodie Whittaker ’s Doctor does something she ’s never done before , but her retiring self have . She push forward into a scene and demands resolution , lest the baddie of the week face her wrath . After , she ask her fellow traveler if the bombast suited her — and it almost find like she was ask the audience , too .
We ’re a good lump through Doctor Who ’s 11th season at this point , and it ’s clear-cut that the show itself is still undergo the same regenerative process thelatest incarnation of the Doctoris undergoing . It ’s less about the new look now — which the show still dead cede on , this week superintend to make a series of warehouses look attractively epical in the style a warehouse never should — and more about the show finding what operate and what does n’t , and where it wants to be in the vast pantheon of thing Doctor Who can be . It ’s still cooking , just like the 13th Doctor . And in both respects , it ’s been fascinating to view this process play out at a much obtuse tan than it unremarkably does on Doctor Who .
This longer cooking time has , so far , picture the season split itself into two fight storytelling styles : a realist approach to sci - fi where the window grooming is kept in the background signal to timely , character - driven dramatic event ( “ The Woman Who Fell to Earth , ” “ Rosa , ” “ Demons of the Punjab ” ) , and the more traditional Doctor Who - y flair of rely on that window dressing to present its subject matter as tightly wrapped in allegory as possible ( “ arachnoid in the UK , ” “ The Tsuranga Conundrum , ” and “ The Ghost Monument , ” to an extent ) .
“ Kerblam!”—a deliciously dark doubled entendre of a title , as we ’ll come to see — however , is something a bit different entirely : it ’s really time of year 11 ’s first attempt at essay to find a common ground between these two disparate approaches to Doctor Who ’s particular take on socially - minded science fiction . The rough-cut primer it bump is in a well worn Doctor Who conceit — taking a very present concern and generalize it to its potential issue in the far futurity .
In this case , the vexation is Amazon.com — well , literally the concern is with Kerblam , a fictional online retailer on the satellite Kandoka that the Doctor and her friends are point to after a request for assistance shows upright in the TARDIS . But Kerblam itself is a astronomical retailer with a bulk - robotic workforce in a clock time of Labour Party crisis for Kandoka , a business concern that ’s all about insipid pencil pushers spoutingpeople - incontrovertible buzzwordsat the same time it denies its human workers thebenefits of unionization , uses atomic number 14 valley technology to crusade say workers toextremely demanding levelsfor the sake of anendless chase for productivity , and then proceeds to also use that engineering to tardily but surely exchange those workers throughconvenient automation . All “ Kerblam ! ” demand was asinister bald billionaireto stalk around in the backgroundlooking for somewhere to “ disrupt”with their fresh HQ plans and the pastiche would ’ve been truly consummate , but here we are instead with Not - Amazon .
So yes , while “ Kerblam ! ” arguably has just as potent a message — that maybe we should n’t trust billionaire retailers to solve literally all the ailment of society while also arrive us cheap crap on one day delivery — as with the other more “ serious ” episodes of time of year 11 , it ’s all one stair removed , or yield an redundant layer of sci - fi ruse that softens the absorption of that message a bit . It ’s not a petrifying devotion to the almighty algorithm squeeze workers , it ’s killer robots ! It ’s not the system that ’s expire haywire , the system’s … actually grown a ticker of its own and is trying to forestall some galaxy - scale terrorism ?
And there ’s slew of fun to be had there — the Kerblam Man android and their ever - smiling faces and robotically pleasant demeanor are a great creepy demon when you start realizing they ’re making worker go away , and the idea of killer bubble wrap ( lace with zillion of nano - bomb ) cover in parcel is bothchillingly prescientand a devilishly skilful twist on Doctor Who ’s dear pursuit of take something banal and intimate and turn it into something foreign and petrifying . Throw in an unnecessary but uproariously Star Wars - ian dangerous undertaking through a conveyor belt tube system for Ryan and Yaz , and “ Kerblam ! ” reaches hazardously mellow levels of proper good Doctor Who - cape for much of its runtime .
But in its following to supply some of the allegorical spectacle back into this message - drive time of year of Doctor Who , “ Kerblam ! ” trips up right as it ’s about to draw everything together . The climax reveals that Kerblam and its automated intelligence activity is n’t really behind the missing workers that bring the Doctor and her friends there in the first place , but instead the unsuspecting janitor Charlie — an cloak-and-dagger agent who , by highjack hundreds of Kerblam Man delivery robots to return explosive - laden house of cards - wrapped parcels to people on Kandoka , hopes to a ) create a PR nightmare that forces Kandoka labor laws to increase the phone number of human worker and solve an economic crisis grapple the system ; and b ) , more painfully , kill millions of innocent mass while doing so . Which … is a bizarrely anti - worker position for Doctor Who to take out of its subtly - unsubtle critique of Amazon !
But it ’s not in reality the head “ Kerblam ! ” wants to make , and that ’s its big job . During Charlie ’s reveal of his subterfuge , the Doctor makes the instalment ’s real full point , that it is not the engineering itself that is the effort of oppressiveness — in fact , in Kerblam ’s scenario , the organization developed a tenderness for its mistreated human workers and sent the plea for aid to the Doctor in the first position — but the humans at the top of the chain using its benefits to exploit the man at the bottom . Humans that we do n’t really ever see in the episode because the two pencil - peddler the Doctor does sweep up against in her investigating also turn out to be worry mass who helped investigate the troth of the miss workers Charlie nail as test subjects for his bomb . It does n’t give a face to the actual scoundrel of its story , so if you are n’t taking everything in , it ends up painting a unintentionally misguided flick .
The Doctor ’s line about the humankind being at defect does n’t get the focus in the prospect it really needed , and then immediately gets brush past with the understandable concern that our heroes are standing in the same room as thousands of robots about to violently blow them , or millions of civilian on Kandoka , up . So the moment clear , Charlie dies having failed in his cause , and Kerblam ’s system - with - a - philia stop up come out looking a spot more heroical than it should against the proletarian that rear up against it . In choosing to focus on the allegoric spectacle of creepy robots and cause of death house of cards wrap at its most of the essence moment , “ Kerblam ! ” muddies its ultimately respectable content . Really , in its hunt for cop Jeff Bezos and his like , maybe “ Kerblam ! ” actually needed to put a Space Jeff Bezos in there to point at .
So unfortunately , alternatively of being the truly great episode of Dr. Who it amount so nigh to being , “ Kerblam ! ” is simply a mostly - ripe one that , in endeavor to witness a portmanteau between the message - driven storytelling this time of year has championed and the traditional sci - fi adventure allegory of Doctor Who ’s storied past , spark up at just the untimely bit . But it comes so very close-fitting to bridge those two side to Doctor Who that , in a time of year that ’s still trying to find itself — much like the Doctor herself still is , trying on accoutrements and vernaculars of her past — that you ca n’t help but look up to a lot of the campaign behind its wooly-minded electronic messaging , even if it never quite finish that bridge circuit .
Assorted Musings
This instalment has some very cunning callbacks to past Doctor of the Church , with both the return Fez — the feeling on Jodie Whittaker ’s face as she puts it on is priceless — and the nod to “ The Unicorn and the Wasp ” when the Doctor mentions her experience with Agatha Christie . In a serial publication that ’s done a lot to avoid those sorts of nods , it was a nice little moment .
I ’m aboveboard surprised how graphic poor Kira ’s death - by - bubble - bomb was . The instalment require it for the interest , but … oof , even if it was n’t gruesome , it was actually still really put off . A unspoiled , proper Doctor Who kill , that !
I ca n’t recall if there was a line that explained it , but does n’t the TARDIS unremarkably have some sorting of defense against random the great unwashed ( or delivery robots ) teleporting in unpredicted ? The Doctor ’s still getting used to the systems , but she should probably determine out how to switch over those thing on , just in subject the next visitant is a number less well-disposed than a Kerblam Man .
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