THE STORY AND THE ENGINE
Director: Makalla McPherson
Writer: Inua Ellams
Main Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Sule Rumi, Ariyon Bakare, Michelle Asante, Stefan Adegbola, Jordan Adene, Michael Balogun, Jo Martin
Streaming Service: Disney+, iPlayer
“I’m born. I die. I’m born!” – the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa)
Before “The Engine,” there was “The Story”
One thing Doctor Who has in spades is expansive media. Thankfully, you can just watch the show, and that’s all the context you need. However, there is a vast, rich history of other Doctor Who stories out there for you to explore if you so choose, and one thing this episode offers up is not only an engine but also a story.
Uploaded online not long before the episode aired was an official prologue short story written by episode writer Inua Ellams (The Wire-Headed Heathen, An Evening with an Immigrant), with art by Bunmi Agusto (Lands of the Living, Dialogue Between Two Clouds). The story What I Did On My Holidays by Omo Esosa tells of how Omo, the barbershop owner seen in the episode—played by Sule Rumi—meets the Doctor when he was a child. Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, Omo is sent to live with his grandparents in the village of Etsako, located in Edo State, Nigeria.
During his stay, he learns of a group of “soldiers” guarding a generator that’s been fenced off, which also keeps the locals from reaching their nearest water source, because someone is taking oil from the land. He also meets a girl named Blue, and together, the two break into the fenced-off area to turn off the generator. It’s there that they learn that whoever was taking the oil has botched the job, and there’s oil leaking everywhere. They accidentally destroy the generator, creating a huge fire that tears through the forest into the village.
That’s when the Doctor shows up and helps them extinguish the fire from his TARDIS. The Doctor and Omo become friends, and that’s where we leave off for the episode to pick up…
It’s a really nice little story, and it helps to widen the world of the Doctor himself, as we see him going to a location that’s not seen much in the show, which mostly focuses on the UK-based adventures of the Time Lord. There are a lot of layers in the world these characters inhabit without the Doctor, just in the way characters speak to one another, as well as their dialects. Omo is an outsider to this village; you can sense it through how the character handles himself. It’s a really good character that works all around. Omo is a city kid, and his worries at the beginning of the story are those of an innocent mind who, most importantly, doesn’t have to worry about the type of stuff that Etsako is going through. And Blue is a great mirror in that she’s so hardened compared to him. It’s a good duality.
The art is also great. Bunmi captures the feel of the story wonderfully, and I really like her style. The two pieces—the story and the art—complement each other nicely.
I liked this short story a lot. You can read it here.
The harbinger of stories
The main episode, “The Engine and the Story,” finds the Doctor and Belinda (Varada Sethu) in Lagos, Nigeria, to create another Vindicator tether to get Belinda back home. While there, the Doctor visits his old friend Omo, who now owns a barbershop, which is mysteriously located in a deserted area of town where people are going missing. It doesn’t take long for the Doctor to find out that Omo and his customers—played by Stefan Adegbola, Jordan Adene, and Michael Balogun—are trapped in the shop by a mysterious character known only as “the Barber” (Ariyon Bakare) and his partner Abena (Michelle Asante). Each character must tell stories to the Barber while he cuts their hair. These stories are then used to feed the time engine, which is in the shape of a spider that is traveling across an interstellar web, called the “World Wide Web” or the “Nexus,” to the kingdom of the Gods so that the Barber may take over as the king of the Gods.
Using certain technology, the barbershop has been fixed upon the machine to power it while simultaneously existing in Lagos so that new customers can stumble in and get trapped within the building. We eventually learn that this Barber is basically a harbinger of the Gods who once told stories and fed them by growing their legend until he was sacked because he was no longer needed. Now he seeks revenge alongside Abena, the daughter of Anansi, and will stop at nothing to get his way.
We get some interesting moments, such as learning that the Barber has seemingly been behind the stories of this season so far, although it is unclear how that is connected to the overall saga, given that he seems not to have been in his role for a while.
Furthermore, the Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin) makes a brief appearance, as we learn that she was the incarnation of the Doctor once betrothed to Abena before abandoning her. Excitingly, for long-term Whovians, she has a line suggesting that one day her tale, which started and was then cut short during the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) era, might be finished one day—I hope it is!
I liked how the window in the shop serves as a projection for the stories told by the characters, and we even get a glimpse at the beginning of the stunning artwork by Agusto from the prologue story. The Doctor uses this to overload the engine by telling the story of his many lives, and in a trope that always makes me happy, we get flashes and lines of dialogue from past Doctors. The engine is then destroyed, and everyone is freed, and the Barber cannot fulfill his mission.
What does it mean, and where do we go
I’m uncertain how this episode ties into the overall story. Fans have theorized that Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) might be the God of Stories. Perhaps the Barber was her personal harbinger until she fired him, which could explain the Barber being the reason for these stories this season that happen to feature the Doctor—a sort of God in his own right with how big his adventures have become onscreen and off—as well as Belinda who for whatever reason is very important to this story. However, we just don’t know yet.
I also felt the ending was a bit rushed in how some of the characters move on from the events of the episode. It’s a sort of hurried “here’s where all the characters will end up” moment that would have been better had it been given more room to breathe. While I love Belinda, and she does get some good moments this episode, her character still seems wholly defined by her continued reminder to the Doctor that she needs to get home. While this is logically something someone who doesn’t want to be on these adventures would do, in an adventure show, it creates a dichotomy that doesn’t work for me.
I like it when the companions embrace the adventure, at least at a certain point, with the understanding that eventually they’ll get home. Past being a nurse and wanting to get home, I don’t know a whole lot about Belinda as a character and that’s a problem, especially since it’s looking more and more likely she’s only going to be a one season companion.
However, I really liked this episode overall. It’s culturally rich, it’s something desperately new for this show, and it has something to say. Ellams really pushes the boundaries of Doctor Who in this episode, and it’s really nice. I am white, and I am not a part of black culture. But, it’s easy to see that this episode is dripping with culture, with the viewer being able to pick up on things that are potentially part of Ellams lived experiences and that of others and he turns it into an episode that while not perfect, mostly because of the constraints of being an hour long story, still ends up being one of the best episodes—if not the best episode—of the season. I also loved the scenes that take place in the cramped market space.
For such a confined space, making for a budget-friendly episode, “The Story and the Engine” makes itself bigger on the inside with its complex ideas and morally dubious but not outright evil characters. I hope we get to see both the Barber and Abena again in the future. Heck, give the Barber his Big Finish audio spin-off where he tells different stories! That would be great!
Although this is a really good singular episode, the overall season story is still clunky. I’m quite intrigued to see how it all comes together.
