How do you even start with this one? This is the last good (and untainted) episode of Jodie’s run that beautifully captures the spirit of Doctor Who and what you want coming away from such a show. “It Takes You Away” subverts and bends all of its setups without ruining what came before it. Horror in many ways, it is the story of the young blind woman, Hannah, waiting for her dad to return in a cabin in the woods and greatly benefits from the sum of all of its parts. Later, it turns into a gorgeous moment of sentimentality that is fully earned, for once.

From the Woolly Rebellion to the talking frog that is god, Grace, or something entirely different, and even to Ribbons and Hannah’s distrust of Ryan, the episode does everything it needs to and more. Despite being set in a dark and murky Norway (the frilly bit at the top), there is a sense of fun about it that we just didn’t have beyond the copious amounts of Cumming last time. The human-sheep relations, eating dirt and getting the trip advisor rating, and the overall investigation theme of trying to solve a problem throughout make “It Takes You Away” ostensibly Doctor Who.

It is not perfect, that’s for sure, but less than 5 minutes in we’ve got Yaz (a police officer don’t you know?) saying that we have to make sure everything is alright as she notices the child’s shoes. That is the character we should have had. I love Graham and Ryan was certainly there, but if we went off in “The Woman Who Fell To Earth” with Yaz and sometimes back for Graham and Ryan, I would love this characterization of Yaz. Not, as we had with Spider-Mcgee’s wonder emporium where she forgot what she is.

The best bit is, she sounds like the rozzers (cops for Americans) here: “What thing sweetheart?” It is said with care, compassion, and empathy for the young and seemingly defenseless. This is how she should have been not only throughout this episode, but the entire 5-year (three series plus specials) run. It doesn’t last because Ryan is left with Hannah to look after her while the Doc, Graham, and Yaz go off into the mirror universe. I’m not complaining about Graham going off, he’s the best of all of them. He pulls cling-filmed food from his pocket because he doesn’t like being away from the TARDIS too long, he’s the best.

I think “It Takes You Away” is so good simply because it is the episode of characters. Yaz is back to being a cop, Graham is the funny old man who’s lovely, and Ryan can’t understand how troubling it is not to have your parent around for a few days because his dad left him. Motivations are clear, the statement of intention is loud, and everything a writer should be doing to lay pipe (as Blake Snyder said) is done to make everything worth your time.

Ed Hime’s experience as a playwright adds to the quality of getting those pieces into place. Hime’s story is much like Pete McTighe‘s in many ways, with love and adulation of a show being expressed by simple writing that allows for fun references and adds their own marks to the world. The Woolly Rebellion is a plot point I’ve had scripts about ever since because it is such a fun idea, and that’s what Doctor Who is all about. I just wish Ribbons had that same treatment: A past story being added on to.

The much darker element of the episode is the land between (not that one) where a disfigured form that is seemingly many years old clutches a red balloon. I said it last week and I’ll say it again, Lucy Cartwright should have been Ribbons. They both live in mirrors, they both use red balloons, she wore a ribbon in her hair and he’s called Ribbons. It just makes so much sense to connect Paul Cornell’s Human Nature and “Family of Blood” to this. It is, outside of everything Chibnall ever wrote, the biggest missed opportunity. You could even write away the appearance as the mirror world corrupting her, but mirrors retain what she was.

Kevin Eldon is fantastic, from a mysterious mirror creature to a creepy Big Brother contestant, he nails that unsettling feeling. Though the Solitract exposition scene is a little too much, it gets the point across, it does what it is supposed to when defining this mirror universe as a trap-conscious universe, but to say it is simple so all the family stays in the loop would be wrong. Maybe something earlier in the episode could have laid the pipe to get this across easier, but here it feels like a massive techno-babble info dump.

The fact that Ryan is the one to find the speakers is nice, the entire feeling between the three main sets fits so well, and who knew a fan of Slayer and a fan of Arctic Monkeys could love each other? The mirror world – and I do love that the shirt was flipped even if other bits weren’t – is such a fantastic idea. It is an entire universe that just wants to be friends, with nothing evil or rather intentionally evil, it just wants to connect with our universe through a fantasy-like story of good and evil. Is there anything more Doctor Who than a talking frog that is a conscious universe that just wants to be friends?

Ultimately, if it weren’t for “Orphan 55,” I’d have said Ed Hime should have taken over instead of Chibnall, though that’s the benefit of hindsight. Truly, “It Takes You Away” is one of those episodes I’d come back to as much as we do with “Blink” or “The Doctor Dances.” I particularly love Graham, especially when he’s defending himself after walking up to the mirror “I wasn’t lured, it wasn’t like I gave it my credit card details.” It doesn’t matter what you think of the rest of the cast, though I do love Jodie when she’s given enough to work with, Graham is playing the Doctor here more than anything else. Yaz plays a cop, the Doc plays the problem solver, and Ryan was certainly there to call Graham “grandad” finally.

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Doctor Who "It Takes You Away"

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• Yaz finally acting like a proper cop!
• Graham is the best and I love him.
• A conscious universe that wants to be friends.
• Grace!
• Ryan's "a shedload of them in the... shed"

Cons

• The Solitract scene might have confused itself too much to keep everyone in the loop
• Messy direction in the middle.