WARNING: The following article contains a lot of spoilers for “Fugitive of the Judoon,” if you’ve not seen the episode, do it now!

“ho flo lo lo plo sho so wo flo flo to kro flo sco.” Well, he’s not my favorite new Who trans-series companion, River Song, but I’ll take him and call him sweetie all night long. Though that’s for later. Let’s talk about the fact that this is the second time Chibnall has co-written an episode and I’m willing to say that it is a solid nine out-of-ten episode. It is here that I’ll point out, I don’t like numbering things in a review, to me it devalues the opinion to water it down with little but a number. However, it is an editorial rule, and I needed padding for anyone thinking I wasn’t about to spoil the episode out the gate.

I’d go as far as to point out, this episode alone has raised the bar of the last few, as it ties into a story that was being told but wasn’t in our face. This is what Chibnall should be doing, a rather grand serial but each episode is contained in the build. It is the knocking sound of two hearts beating in one body, it’s River, it is Freema Agyeman in “Army of Ghosts” before “Smith and Jones,” as was the case with Catherine Tate in “The Runaway Bride” and then “Partners in Crime,” Wilfred through the years, or Karen Gillan and Peter Capaldi (companion and Doctor) in “The Fires of Pompeii.” It’s that Donna gawking moment done well.

Though I’ll say this about the episode, I hate the companions. I’ll get into the details of how the episode played out in a minute, but once you remove Graham, then Yas and Ryan, it just gets better. I’ve already said a long-standing companion came back, but Captain Jack shows what a companion is in stark contrast to the long streak of cardboard cutouts with flexible lips to exposit. Jack had energy, he moved, he is Doctor Who as it should be, fun.

So let’s get to the point without having to list a spoiler notice midway through. “Everything you think you know is a lie,” and here is a lovely woman worried about time, making her birthday breakfast, and her husband that is sleeping in until after 8 AM. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but they are what Doctor Who is about, characters that feel personal and feel like we know them. I made this point with Picard and Avenue 5, but believable characters make for a much more invested viewer, something the latter is missing with Josh Gad and Zach Wood.

Ruth and Lee, along with everyone in Gloucester are great; you just want to be around them. Ok, maybe not the guy in a café, he was a bit of an “I’ve seen alien, and they stuck something up my bum” man. He’s the man that you walk into a pub, see him across the room, and walk right back out because you don’t want to hear his nonsense on a secret society in Cardiff led by a bisexual man from the future. While I’m on those I don’t like, the young woman that just wants to hear about Harry Potter. Everyone that wants to hear about a child that’s given everything in fiction, but not the history of real people doing the same, can get in a bin.

I loved the old woman just knitting. Oh, she was brilliant and perfectly placed, so much so that when I saw her behind Ruth I had feelings. Ok, not those feelings you creepy perv, I thought she was going to be the fugitive and Lee was just a bit of a distraction. I’m glad I was wrong, what we got was much better. Remember, I am saying that an episode that Chris Chibnall wrote (co-wrote) is that good that I was thinking and getting tricked by myself. That right there is some proper Doctor Who; when I’m thinking the gentle old woman is the creepy alien the other creepy aliens are looking for.

Let’s get to the Judoon, shall we? I love them. Humongous space rhinos clad in leather speaking in that weird authoritative language I used at the start. The only thing that would get me more excited would be the image of Captain Jack Harkness or The Face of Boe in 2020. Yes, this episode was stacking itself against my pessimistic “bias” when it came to Chibnall and kept getting better since there’s so much misdirection on display with the Judoon. Though that’s 700 words, four minutes in, and hardly any ground covered, I better get a move on.

Ruth is lovely, Lee has been a weird one about town, Alan (Café) is the weird one about town, and Marcia is someone I want to sit down and just knit with. The Judoon are looking for someone, The Doctor is still off in space (figuratively and literally), and the companions are just the worst thing since The Doctor de-white-faced a man in Nazi-controlled France. “Hold on, I’ll ask her,” is the worst thing Graham has said and he’s a 50+ bus driver in the UK, he’s said some stuff. There is no point in having the three of them if all they are going to do is ask each other what to ask The Doctor.

Here is a novel concept to make them useful, drop two of them off somewhere. I don’t care if it is in the deepest pit of hell otherwise known as South Croydon, only bring someone that is useful to the plot. Yas remembered she’s a cop, for all of the two-seconds the plot needed her to be to say one thing. Graham did nothing but kiss Jack (a job Alexx would have done for free), and Ryan did? Nothing. Drop one off somewhere and pick one up elsewhere, I just don’t need or want any of them together.

That said, I love the little relationships formed throughout those in the episode. The café scene with Alan and Lee is ace because it feels like genuine contempt between the two in this love triangle, or rather something of an L-shape. It’s also a great scene for misdirection too as Lee mutters “humans!” under his breath because Alan is just that annoying. Let’s not forget Jodie’s fantastic line, “Don’t let anyone in. Especially alien police in helmets and black leather.” Don’t get me so excited in one scene, I’ve had dreams about that, or maybe it was a Village People music video.

“I’ve got no money. I’m sorry, I’m terrible at this job,” give that writer a medal for one of the best throwaway lines ever. It tells you so much about Alan with just so little, and it is that “ahhhh there’s a space rhino in my face!” kind of line. His turn through the entire scene is great. First, it is terror as alien police in black leather force their way in, then he has the upper hand with the file on Lee he’s been building, and then he falls back to terror after shoving one of them.

I know I do it every week, but I’m so happy it is a good episode I’m saying this for. Jodie is a shining star next to the rather contrite example of companions she has to work with. Again, it is another scene of her just flashing the psychic paper, showing authority, all while trying to save the Earth, the humans, and others on the planet. I’ve already said the phrase “it’s proper Doctor Who,” but that’s what it should be instead of “Orphan 55” where nothing can be done.

However, it is a scene where both The Doctor both has to turn and explain to Yas and Ryan, “a bit of alien kit, innit!” Then Yas for the briefest of moments remember, “Am I a pencil? am I a shoe? Oh, heaven’s I’m a cop too!” Why not just suck Graham and Ryan off to Captain Jack’s ship the second the gang is in Gloucester? Leave Yas and put some character in the woman for a change. When an animatronic rhino head has more depth and character by being berated and saying “Oh,” there’s something wrong with your companions.

So Graham has been sucked off to a ship with a distorted American accent, I got a little bit excited. There’s no way you are hiding Captain Jack Harkness’ bellow a slightly broken sounding speaker, I’ll know that man from a million or billion miles away. Are there any more gay actors to come this season in leading roles? First Fry mistook Graham for The Doctor and now John Barrowman, it is a weird pattern of “I know The Doctor and he’s standing right here.” I wonder if that’s just to annoy the section of the internet that turns away from a gay kiss or the section that yells about a woman being The Doctor.

Anyway, back at Lee and Ruth’s place, the Judoon gave The Doctor a couple of minutes to find the fugitive and fix the problems. I’m going to try and speed up from here on in because this is where I’d usually give the spoiler warning, but you’ve missed that bus already. Both have been scanned and found to be human, Ruth by the Judoon and the Doctor, while Lee by only The Doctor. Again, this is top-notch misdirection for everything that’s going on.

A box of mystery causes Lee to relinquish his guard, and we know there’s something tricky going on. Meanwhile, Jack learns “Not he, she.” As I’ve said, it is Jack’s energy that shows what a companion is all about. Once again we have someone sacrifice himself for the episode’s group to escape, so we’ve got our running in Doctor Who. Once Ryan and Yas are done with their distraction for Lee, they’re sucked off to Jack’s ship too. Three guesses how that goes for Jack when he knows it is “she, not he.”

So the mystery box has in it… a half medal. I’ll admit, I was kind of hoping for something like Derek Jacobi’s small pocket watch, but I guess a medal from a now-destroyed planet is good enough. It was the line “Faithful companion,” from Gat that made me audibly say “No, you’re not doing that too me. That’s cruel and ingenious, I love it.”

Lee sent a text to Ruth, and Ruth and The Doctor are cornered in Gloucester cathedral by Judoon, leading Ruth to ask what happened to Lee. It didn’t help that Gat shot him after Lee sent Ruth’s activation code via WhatsApp. Yeah, Ruth is the fugitive even after two scans by two aliens, it’s almost as if she’s special. With that Ruth is all Mission Impossible on the Judoon, even breaking off a horn and sending them back to their ship.

“Follow the light. Break the glass,” well, let’s get to the lighthouse and break some glass, shall we. For a second I just want to say, using the cuts to Jack and back, was a great piece of editing. It not only allowed for a larger story to be told with Jack giving a warning to the gang as his proxy, ultimately letting him come back later and have some fun, but those cuts let The Doctor travel without having to shoot too much of that travel to clog up the episode. It is a brilliant little trick and gives the story some room to breathe as we know there’s more to it.

Lighthouse, a blank gravestone, and a piece of glass to break, it sounds like we’re about to ramp up with some of that regeneration energy. Not for Jodie but for Jo Martin’s Ruth, The Doctor. Since Sunday, Chris Chibnall and Vinay Patel have had massive bulges in their underwear, because that took some testicles of titanium to pull off not only one woman as The Doctor, but two of them. One of the two ladies I’m sure has the Daily Mail comment sections yelling about a black woman being a Time Lord. Not just any Doctor, but a Doctor we’ve not seen in our 13th (kind of) regeneration.

It is the look, as soon as she was standing there in that shirt, I was all over that and happy she was there. It is the authority of her saying “Hello, I’m The Doctor. I’m a traveler in space and time.” I’ve been trying to figure out what to say once I get to this point, but I just love it. It has made me almost 180 on Chris Chibnall if he can do this clever long-game trick. I say that because after “Spyfall Part 1 and 2,” “Tesla’s Night of Terror,” and “Orphan 55,” I didn’t care too much about watching the rest of the series. I was watching more on an episode-to-episode mindset, “Fugitive of the Judoon” was just a fantastic piece of television.

I don’t want to go any further mostly because we’ve already gone on far too long. The episode as a whole made this entire slog of the first four episodes worth it, I might even go back to gleam something else from The Master’s “Everything you think you know is a lie.” This is the thing, I was told last week following Tesla’s episode that a British newspaper claimed the show was failing with its worst ratings since 1963. That’s important because Capaldi had episodes dip into 4.7 million, Sylvester McCoy’s final series 3.1 million, Jodie’s first series is only beaten by Tennant’s last series on averages in new Who-era, and she beats a lot of old Who too.

My point is, this is the type of episode that’s going to boost the 7 and 28-day counts as well as the overall series viewer counts. “Jodie’s second series is failing,” no it is not, it is lower than last series and I agree with the poor showing from the first four episodes, but it is not because of her. We the viewer are fickle and wanted something instant because the series was promoted at standalone episodes, it had to be for the twists. However, now it is a proper arching storyline across the series, that’s worth watching. At least this episode is.

I’ve said it at the top and I’ll say it again, this is one of the best episodes of recent years equal to that of a Moffat-era episode like “The impossible Astronaut,” “Let’s Kill Hitler,” and “The Pandorica Opens.” If somehow my warning and nine out of ten ratings didn’t grant you enough of a reason to just go watch it, do it now. It is brilliance.

Next week it is “Praxeus,” written once again by Chibnall but with Pete McTighe, so once again Chibnall will be pulled in by someone good. McTighe wrote the episode from last series called “Kerblam!” Oh, I do love the Kerblam man, though the last time I said someone wrote a good episode before and came back we got “Orphan 55.” We can’t win them all.

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Doctor Who "Fugitive of the Judoon"

0.00

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Captain Jack's energy
• A series of great misdirections.
• The Doctor did something.
• Memorable lines.

Cons

• Why do we have companions?