A little later than scheduled, our reviewer James Willets is here to pick over the bones of one of New Who’s most divisive episodes in ages.
There was a point about halfway through ‘Rings’ when I thought (realised?) that this was going to be one of my favourite episodes for a long time. After journeying to an intergalactic version of Camden Lock and rescuing this week’s plot-relevant moppet, we got a sequence so wonderfully constructed and unusual, it made me realise how rarely we get to see something different in Doctor Who.
This was the first episode in years that felt truly alien. For all its sci-fi trappings, Doctor Who can often feel like a trip though other programmes the BBC does – lashings of period drama, becostumed thespians and CGI Macguffinery and very little in the way of actual world building.
