DOCTOR WHO: LUX (TV) (2025, UK, 44m, PG) ***
Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adventure
dist. BBC One; pr co. Bad Wolf/BBC Wales; d. Amanda Brotchie; w. Russell T. Davies; exec pr. Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins, Phil Collinson; pr. Vicki Delow, Chris May; ph. Nick Dance (Colour | 2.00:1); m. Murray Gold; ed. Ulrike Münch; ad. Alex Stannus.
cast: Ncuti Gatwa (The Doctor), Varada Sethu (Belinda Chandra), Linus Roache (Reginald Pye), Alan Cumming (Mr Ring-a-Ding), Millie O’Connell (Sunshine Sally), Lewis Cornay (Logan Cheever), Lucy Thackeray (Renée Lowenstein), Jane Hancock (Helen Pye), William Meredith (Policeman), Ian Shaw (Newsreader), Cassius Hackforth (Tommy Lee), Ryan Speakman (Husband), Samir Arrian (Hassan Chowdry), Bronté Barbé (Lizzie Abel), Steph Lacey (Robyn Gossage), Anita Dobson (Mrs Flood).
The Doctor’s quest to get Belinda home takes the Tardis to Miami in 1952, where an abandoned cinema is hiding a terrifying secret. Can the Doctor uncover Lux’s power? A wild and technically superbly realised fantasy, this second episode of the new season is brimming with ideas, but is also often undone by an overly self-referential tone and some obvious one-liners. Davies has again contributed a highly conceptual script that is weakly thought through. Light can bring a cartoon character, and malevolent force, wonderfully voiced by Cumming, into our world and by doing so remove humans from our world to a world of celluloid and fiction. This is not a new concept to the series – it was done with more clarity in Patrick Troughton’s ‘The Mind Robber’. Here Davies goes a step too far in making his own series a reality in this fantasy world, watched by three fans, representing those obsessives about the series. Ultimately, the story is swallowed by its over-ambition. That said Sethu continues to impress as Belinda, striking a great rapport with Gatwa’s Doctor.
