Ah, Chibnall, today is some of your best work, and it is still a bit crap. “The Power of Three,” otherwise known as either, “that episode with the cubes” or, “That one episode by Chris Chibnall that was actually interesting for a minute.” I quite like the first 30-35 minutes of “The Power of Three”. It is a bit of a passive one, but it works because it is setting up a mystery. The trouble is, this lad, he can’t do a mystery without bundling it at the end and making it a bit of the onomatopoeic sound that a wet bag of porridge makes on a concrete floor.

So, the basic premise goes as thus: Cubes randomly appear out of thin air and do nothing for several months. U.N.I.T. under control of Katherine Sally Lethbridge-Stewart (Oh Jemma Redgrave, you are fantastic!) has tried everything, et cetera. Suddenly, out of the blue they start counting down, but counting down to what? See, with that almost Edgar Wright-esque montage of the months ticking by and the Doctor being bored sitting doing nothing for a while, that’s a great set-up. On paper, it sounds boring, and this is the problem I have with anything I write. Everything seems uninteresting and monotonous on paper, so why bother in the first place.

The thing is, every time I arrive back at “The Power of Three,” it is the ending that sticks with me. It makes no conceivable sense as a climax. At best, it is rushed, and at worst it is just complete bat guano. Some have compared it to the Davies-era of Doctor Who, which I can see, all the way down to the magic button ending (Hi, “The Christmas Invasion!”). However, I think the magic button ending, while it does feel like a cop-out, can work in the Davies sense of writing we saw so much of from series 1-4. Call this bias if you like, I just don’t think Chris Chibnall is a writer of that quality to pull off an ending like that and have a long coat that is merely smoldering at the ends.

Which makes you wonder: With this being his last episode until 2017 (ok, he wrote 2-minutes of an episode in 2017), who thought it was a good idea to put him in charge? I know, I have written enough about it, and I’ll do so again when we get around to series 11 and series 13. Let’s take this series and its writers alone, excluding Moffat as showrunner. Toby Whithouse did a solid job with “A Town Called Mercy,” Neil Cross is great with “The Rings of Ahkaten” though loses points for “Hide,” Mark Gatiss’ “Cold War” is one of my favorite villain returns episodes, and Neil Gaiman’s “Nightmare in Silver” is top-notch if you trim the fat from it. The point is, Chibnall is about to leave, and this was his latest example of work before becoming showrunner.

I’ve listed some excellent talent, and as bitter as it sounds, I just think someone else could have made a more interesting and exciting show than what Chibnall has these last few years. Of course, that is being a bit revisional with history. It is assuming X-writer would be better than Y, plainly on the fact that out of the few examples provided, I liked more from X than Y. There is no going back, there is no changing it, and there is nothing to be done about it. Chibnall has had his run, we just need to wait and see who is going to come in and try to recover it.

Long diversions from the topic at hand aside, I honestly do think “The Power of Three” is some of Chibnall’s best work. It is fun, it is exciting (even in the non-cube-based action), and ultimately, it feels like there is character. That happens to be a criticism I have of his later work; Yas forgets she’s a cop, Ryan forgets he’s got Dyspraxia, and Graham… Well, Graham is the highlight because he does have character. I don’t mention it enough, but the direction from Douglas Mackinnon is both simple and works well with the aforementioned Edger Wright-esque montages of the adventures.

To tell you the truth of criticisms with any direction, I don’t feel as qualified to speak on the matter. I know when it goes wrong, just see any opinion I’ve expressed over Star Trek: Discovery‘s first two episodes and subsequent tumble-drier-based shots. However, that’s the thing about good direction and editing. When it is good it isn’t noticed, and if it wants to be noticed, it has to be done very well. No, this isn’t the “I love Edger Wright hour,” I’d save that for a rant on Ant-Man‘s disastrous production. Another good example of well-done direction would be Chad Stahelski of the John Wick films. The thing is, Mackinnon isn’t winning any awards for his direction either because it is what the standard should be: Good, solid, reliable direction that keeps the pace and working hand-in-hand with the editor.

Despite the repeated notion that it is just a mystery, it is also fun. The obvious line to note is “There are soldiers all over my house, and I’m in my pants.” There are brilliant lines everywhere, great little reactions such as the one to Werner Thomas’ so-called chicken dance (or proper “Ententanz”) song, and generally there is some proper heart in all of it. The Doctor being forced to sit around, that montage of him with a football and painting the fence, it all shows that world he is grown so used to. It is why he pulls companions out their hum-drum lives into his and not the other way around.

However, the episode is also used to show that Amy and Rory are finally finding a way to settle down. They are making plans, not just in the near future, but distant too. The whole thing is set up to have that hand-off of companions in a departure that isn’t filled with death, disappointment, anger, or heartbreak. Companions trying to distance themselves from the Doctor, not because they dislike him or fear the danger, but because they want to live that normal life.

Ultimately, I don’t hate “The Power of Three”. It lacks a bit towards the end and even more at the end, but it is fun getting there nonetheless. I love Brian and his balls, and I always will. The world built around the episode isn’t one of great sci-fi and I’m ok with that, because it is homely. There is some adventure, there is the fun with U.N.I.T. and I’ll always have a soft spot for Kate, but it doesn’t feel too alien. To use the praise others have brought to it, it is like a Davies-era episode, and that’s is like a comfortable pair of slippers when Moffat is throwing madness at the wall. For a series that’s had Nazi dustbins, a lion, a witch, and World War II, literal dinosaurs on a spaceship, and a terminator in the wild west, this felt grounded in every respect.

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Doctor Who "The Power of Three"

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• I love an episode with a Lethbridge-Stewart.
• Just a fun episode.
• A Chibnall episode with some character.

Cons

• THAT ending.
• A slightly muddy attempt to capture a RTD-style of writing.
• Sometimes it is an episode that's too passive for the run-time.