Andor: What a Festive Evening

 "You'll make up for this forever..."

Wow. Even by Andor standards this is quite an episode.

We begin with an intense and very revealing scene: last episode Cassian was distinctly unimpressed with the amateur and doomed nature of the putative Ghorman rebellion, seeing that it would be a self-destructive gesture. He cares about people. Yet Luthen sees things differently. He cares only for the rebellion, the greater good, and cares not if people have to be sacrificed... hence a fascinating row.

And then Cassian finds out about Luthen almost recruiting Bix for a mission last episode: Luthen, utterly amoral yet with a social conscience, in the abstract at least(!), is manipulating them. And, indeed, everyone. He's a fascinating character, on the side of "good" yet in some ways as amoral and manipulative as any of the imperials.

So, despite the imperials' plotting (poor Syril, for example, doesn't know the whole picture), Luthen's fingers are in all the pies here. Bix and Andor persuaded to go on a mission together. A genuinely captivating sequence, at at posh party (cameo from Bail Organa!) with Kleya trying to remove a listening device from an antique... successfully, but not in a way as to dissipate the general air of foreboding.

And, of course, the mission on Ghorman. As soon Cinta and Vel kissed I knew that happy-ever-afters were out of the question. But ouch, Vel's speech at the end is so powerful.

This is, so far, even better than the first season.

Doctor Who: Wish World

 "This isn't exposition, Doctor."

The opening scene to this episode is decidedly odd, in ways which, I think, are oddly clever. It's Bavaria, 1865. A time and place which is somewhat redolent of fairy tales. And, sure enough, a seventh son is born to the seventh son of a seventh son, which must surely be rather unlikely. And so in swoops Archie  Panjabi's rather wonderful new Rani to steal the baby... and magically turn the rest of the family into violets (evoking Luke being turned into a tree in Mark of the Rani?), ducks and an own respectively.

This is pretty much as fairytale as it gets. Magic, not science, although I suppose there's that famous quote from Arthur C. Clarke. But hasn't there been a lot more of this sort of thing in doctor Who lately, along with the fourth wall breaking? Almost as though reality is not the same as it was. Perhaps since the Doctor and Donna did that thing with the salt in Wild Blue Yonder...?

We then move to a bit of a mini-Doctor Who trope: reality has changed. The Doctor (or "John Smith") and Belinda are a married couple, and Poppy from Space Babies (and as glimpsed in The Story and the Engine) is their Daughter. The likes of Ruby, Mel, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, Colonel Ibrahim and Shirley all exist within this world, which is disturbingly trad and socially conservative, especially with regards to gender roles and sexuality. Given this existence's reactionary bent, it shouldn't be a surprise for us to see Conrad, that cad, on the telly. It'll be May the 24th tomorrow. And there's this constant, Orwellian pressure not to doubt this reality, or one may be disappeared.

Oh, and there are skeletal dinosaurs walking all over the place, because of course there are.

There are some nice touches. Ruby remembers a little more because, with the events of 73 Yards, she has previous. Conrad's storybook, about the story of "Doctor Who" (was that the sound of the fourth wall collapsing again?) is by "I.M. Foreman". And even Susan Triad works at "John's" office... from tech billionaire to tea lady.

And yet there are, in another nice little assault on the fourth wall, little plot holes in this reality which make it really rather hard not to doubt. Things cannot hold. Conrad is exhausted from maintaining his ideal reality. The older Rani is beginning to resent her "mistress". The Rani is at the centre of London, with a plan that does not bode well for the continued existence of the populace. And Shirley, with the other marginalised, disabled, lets Ruby in on their plot against Conrad and... well, as in other episodes, I approve of what's been said in the socio-political commentary here, but would it not be more effective if it were a little more subtle? Subtext over didacticism? Never mind.

Inevitably, the Doctor and Belinda find themselves doubting this implausibly reality and captured... via appearances by both Rogue and Susan: with all that's going on, with there be much time to devote next season to the latter? Or is she for Season Forty-Two?

And so we have them both introduced to the Rani, as memories stir and we get some answers. The Doctor "stirred the gods"... during Wild Blue Yonder? The baby is Desiderium, god of wishes, boosted by the Vindicator and a sprinkling of technobabble. It's May the 24th, the stroke of midnight, and the outside world dissolves (the "Bone Palace", conveniently, is a fixed point). And the revelations come quick as the cliffhanger approaches. The Rani is doing this to find the "One Who Was Lost"... Omega! and one last thing... Poppy actually, genuinely is the Doctor's daughter! And... Susan's mum...?

Hmm. I enjoyed this episode, it entertained me, but will they stick the landing? That's the question. It's all contingent.

(Incidentally, I love how, in a world where we Brits have been pronouncing the word "omega" the American way for decades now, Doctor Who has accidentally preserved the older British pronunciation that's archaic in 2025... fandom aside!)

Doctor Who: The Interstellar Star Contest

 "You came back from the dead!"

"Sums up my career."

SPOILERS, obviously.

I'm not much of a one for light entertainment, so I wasn't sure I'd like this episode as much. I don't mean that as a criticism, mind: there hasn't been a dud this season so far, and Doctor Who bloody well should try and appeal well beyond middle aged geeky blokes like myself. Yet I thought it was brilliant, and not only because of that ending. But that we shall come to.

Despite this being an episode based on Eurovision (complete with not only Rylan Clark and Graham Norton, at last appearing in Doctor Who by actual design) and set in a space station, which is the most RTD thing ever, we have another new writer this week, which is brilliant.

Anyway, the opening is fun, with Belinda rather amusingly insisting that, yes, this time she actually wants to stay for a bit. Of course, given what we later learn, it's unclear how an Earth cultural institution could have become a spiral arm-wide phenomenon nine centuries later, but such things are easily handwaved. After all, there are nice little nuggets for the fans, such as star singer Cora ostensibly being from Trion, home planet of one Vizlor Turlough.

The threat, with the Hellions, is allowed to cleverly unfold, with a brilliant central performance from Freddie Fox as Kid. It's should make us uncomfortable that there will undoubtedly be parallels in our own world to the atrocities perpetrated by the Corporation upon the poor people of Hellia. Yet, while kid turns to mass murder, Cora instead turns to something both more positive and more effective- and there's a message for us all there in our oh so imperfect world. Blind, angry revenge is not the answer.

Mike and Gary are great as down-to-Earth audience identification characters- and I recognised Charlie Condou as Jonathan Yeah? from excellent sitcom Nathan Barley, in a minor little actor spotting triumph. But there's lots of good character stuff for the Doctor and Belinda, each separated and thinking the other dead, Belinda panicking about her situation and and realising she never got to tell the Doctor he was wonderful. This is an absolute acting triumph from Verada Sethu.

And then we have the Doctor going way too far in his attack on Kid, not so much the Time Lord Victorious but the Time Lord Damaged by Trauma. Ncuti Gatwa, too, is incredible here.

But... yeah. Let's talk about the big reveals, shall we? Susan- actually Carole Ann Ford- was a huge shock. She's only in the Doctor's head, but, with the little seeds planted last season, I'm sure she's out there... a Season 42 thing?

And then the Vindicator is finished, the Doctor can finally take Belinda home, but we get some exposition (from Graham Norton, who else?) telling us that Earth ceased to exist on 24th May 2024... and, as the TARDIS heads towards that date, the door blows off.

And that's all. Mrs Flood is indeed the Rani, which was unfortunately spoiled for me by the thumbnails of videos from inconsiderate YouTubers. But... a bi-generation? Archie Penjabi's Rani and Mrs Flood? Yeah, still processing that.

I definitely enjoyed this a lot. It may be a first viewing thing- watching this a second time without the big reveals may possibly be a different experience. But the episode works on its own terms, I think, with a nice subtext.

Doctor Who: The Story & the Engine

 "This ship is in outer space, and in Lagos, at the same time..."

Yet again, we get another bloody good episode, full of heart and crammed with so many ideas. Not a dud yet this season: every episode has been good or better. And this may be one of the better ones.

After so many episodes concerned with the arc, characters from the past and so forth it's such a relief to get a story of the week. Yes, Mrs Flood appears, but only briefly... and yes, we get a surprising and welcome cameo by Jo Martin. And, although it seems at one point that we're getting another member of the Pantheon, Anansi, that's a clever bit of misdirection. And even if, as seems possible, stories are the concept at the centre of the season arc, the focus on story here is merely thematic.

So we have, near as dammit, a story of the week, with original concepts and a brand new villain. Good. It's also great to have an episode set in Nigeria- the TARDIS can go anywhere, not just an island off the coast of northern Europe. Episodes like this give the series a sense of scale... although one thing about the setting did amuse me: it's 2019, not quite the present, because Belinda can't be in 2025 until the plot demands.

The cold open gives us a fascinating mystery, and I love the little animations as the stories, so wonderfully reminiscent of west African folklore, are told. Omo, the Barber and Abena are stronger characters than the other young men, but this is not a story peopled by redshirts. These characters are far from two dimensional. And there's a fascinating character point for the Doctor, too: he's Black now, and having to adjust to how he's perceived in certain times and places. So why not spend time in Lagos, in a barber's shop, getting to know people in a place where his blackness makes him comfortingly anonymous?

The mystery builds wonderfully, and I love the concept of a barber's shop that is both in Lagos and... not. Even better when the Doctor discovers they're on the back of a giant robotic Anansi spider. This is brilliant. We're in West Africa, Anansi is the most widely known figure from West African folklore, so why not riff on him? And I love the misdirection: The Barber is not Anansi, god of stories (although surely Anansi, like Loki, is more of a trickster god... perhaps the same as the Trickster, come to think of it?), but rather a disgruntled former employee who wants to kill all the gods, which will have consequences for human culture, an excitingly fertile thought. Then there's Abena, another mythological character, who has a grudge against the Fugitive Doctor.

As good as all these breathless, brilliant, science fiction ideas, though, is the Doctor's very human story about Belinda, a simple tale of nurses and what heroes they are.

The ending is perfect- reconciliation and forgiveness for everyone, the Doctor managing to save the day only because of Abena's wonderful story, loads of tension. Maybe I'm still not fully grasping who and what the Barber was, but I don't think I really needed to. This episode was entertaining, ingenious, and deeply, deeply satisfying.

Andor: Harvest

 "I wish you were drunk."

Wow. Three episodes in and we get a truly great episode. All three subplots here deepen the series' theme- the grim reality of negotiating life under totalitarian tyranny. And it's done superbly, with script, acting and some particularly creative direction.

So we have Dedra meeting Syril's overbearing mother for the first time, petty tyrant that she is. One one level it's satisfying to see Dedra laying down the law against the abuse of her partner... but she does this by using her position in the Imperial state, with veiled threats. Still, given the initial inequality between them, Dedra clearly sees her new partner as highly capable, a kindred spirit, and worthy of respect. Interesting, too, to hear about her background, raised coldly by the state following her parents' arrest.

There's the tension of the imperial audit, as the net closes in on the fugitives... and the awfulness of that creep from last episode first insisting on sexual favours from Bix in exchange for not arresting her, a promise he may not even keep, and then trying to rape her, leading to her defending herself and ending up arrested. This horrible scene has no doubt played out many times over history, an appalling thought. Cassian may come to the rescue- although not without casualty- but the sheer horror of this lingers.

Then there are the multiple horrors facing Mon Mothma. There's the looming and imminent threat of blackmail, of course, but that can wait a few days. Even worse, as shown by the early scene between her and Leida, as Mon is forced to confront what she's done. She's doing what she's doing to help the rebellion, but at the cost of a forced marriage of her daughter to some oaf. No wonder she gets drunk, like her own mother at her own wedding... and the trippy camerawork is exquisite. Just like Andor as a whole.

Doctor Who: Lucky Day

 "How committed are you to the lies you've told?"

Like, I trust, most of us, I was somewhat displeased by the dismaying tendency of so many people to vote Reform UK on Thursday. The disease of far right populism is a very present danger. So it's highly gratifying to see good old RTD write an episode addressing this, with the real monster not being an alien creature but a cynical, far right grifter, a thinly veiled version of Tommy Robinson. Good. On this occasion I don't even care about the total lack of subtlety towards the end, as the Doctor turns up to give Conrad a proper good bollocking. 

To paraphrase what a wise man once said... there are parts of the Internet that have bred some terrible things, things that oppose all that we believe in. They must be fought.

One may question, of course, the need for Doctor-lite episodes where seasons are only eight episodes long, but heigh-ho. After that brief scene at the start, in 2007, we don't see Belinda again at all (then again, if she appeared, we wouldn't be able to have a story set in 2025...) and the Doctor appears only for the later scene with Ruby from just after The Devil's Chord and, of course, for the aforementioned bollocking. Instead, it's down to Ruby Sunday, her family, and the UNIT gang, to hold the fort in the Doctor's absence. And, actually, this is an interesting long term writing choice to use Ruby in this way. Are we going to keep checking in on her, focusing on the after-effects of being the Doctor's companion and adjusting to "real" life? Having had this experience- betrayal, doxxing, worse- is going to have a deep effect on her character.

The episode is very clever: until the twist arrives, the relationship between Ruby and Conrad develops in ways that are rather sweet, only for the rug to be pulled from underneath us as Conrad turns out to be the cynical leader of some vile conspiracy theorists profiting from insinuating that UNIT are just faking all these alien invasions, which will ultimately result in Earth being vulnerable. They remind me in many ways of anti-vaxxers (Conrad, I note, doesn't take the antidote), and remind us that conspiracy theories- all of them- are dangerous.

The final showdown (it's a shame Mel was missing) is fascinating- yes, it's satisfying to see Kate release the Shreek on Conrad, and the result seems to discredit him, but I suspect the harm has not gone away entirely. And Kate, it very much seems, will have to face the consequences.

There's a satisfying resolution, of sorts- well, until bloody Mrs Flood turns up- but these people will never go away, never stop endlessly flooding the zone with their bullshit and their dead cats and their hate. But the future doesn't belong to the incels, the MAGA morons, Nigel Farage, or Elon Musk. It belongs to us.

So that's four bloody good episodes out of four so far. Good going. Here's hoping they can keep this up.

Doctor Who: The Well

 "It's not appropriate to call me 'Babes'!"

This episode was, of course, absolutely brilliant, if not quite up there with its prequel, and I suspect that it will be rather well-received by fandom. I should emphasise that I thought it was brilliant. yet, despite that, it also felt like a variation on things we've seen before, and I mean that in more than the sense that this is a follow-on from Midnight- although, yes, there certainly are an awful lot of references to stuff that happened many years ago in the current era. Fine for people like me but might this put off newer viewers? Every now and then, yes, but this often? This is something that RTD used to carefully avoid explicitly doing the first time around, after all. 

This in many ways feels like an old-fashioned Troughton base under siege, albeit with it being the deputy and not the base commander who takes a dislike to the Doctor. The antagonist- something that hides behind you and can only be seen out of the corner of your eye, that kills anyone behind it, and will go behind your back if you kill its host- is sublimely creepy and clever. Yet the combination of the concept and the episode's look gives off vibes that are more The Satan Pit than Midnight. And, while a bloody good bit of telly, it falls into a pre-existing story type, it feels to me. Are we, er... going back to the well a bit too often...?

Ahem. Sorry...

There's so much to like, though, right from the start with Belinda's fear that something has happened to earth, and her parents. And here we have the Doctor, again, making rash promises about things being fine that he may not be able to keep- perhaps setting up a future clash? And I love the pre-titles bit: the two of them land, are given helmets, and... out of the airlock and into space.

I also like Rose Ayling-Ellis as Alice and, while some of the social commentary this season has been a bit too unsubtle and ineffective here, I think the emphasis here on how "Signing still makes some people paranoid" is justified. Interesting, too, how these people have never heard of Earth, or of humans- we're clearly meant to wonder if this means that Earth ceased to exist in May 2025. But surely, 500,000 years from now, if humanity has colonised the Galaxy, would Earth be seen as any more than one of many, many inhabited worlds, its place as the cradle of humanity forgotten?

It's interesting how the Doctor perhaps learns what the entity is, but we don't. But the ending is clever, satisfying and nicely tragic. Although that Mrs Flood... blimey, she gets everywhere. But, well, I liked this episode a lot. But I liked it for reasons that perhaps feel a bit too familiar?

Doctor Who: Lux

 "You're Scooby Doo!"

"Honey, I'm Velma..."

I suppose you could, at points, criticise this episode for bits of plot sleight of hand- for example, why does Lux manifest himself in that particular time and place? What's the cause? Is Lux's defeat perhaps a little too neat. Also, there will be those who say that the whole Pantheon thing is tired and, although they can only do episodes with a new "god" so many times before coming to the big conclusion, at this point I think it's basically fine. I like the Pantheon. It's fun.

And yes, there will be those who criticise the meta stuff, the most violence done to the fourth wall in Doctor Who since The Mind Robber. But let us not jump ahead. 

The opening sequence is of course superb, quickly giving us impressions of time and place: what could be more early '50s America than a monochrome cinema newsreel about the atom bomb followed by a cartoon? It's the atomic age, it's Miami... and suddenly Mr Ring-a-Ding starts addressing the audience and comes out of the screen. Brilliant.

The relationship between the Doctor and Belinda develops nicely, too. She's still very firm about getting home but much more open to being "one of his adventures" after her experiences here. And RTD squares this plot circle rather well here, with a machine that needs them to visit several places so the Doctor can "triangulate" in order to get to May 2025.

This is Miami, Florida, in 1952: the story has to address the appalling reality of segregation, but this is well handled, with a subtlety much more effective and hard hitting than would have been the case otherwise. And this is also used as a character moment. So, indeed, is the deliciously fourth-wall breaking moment where the increasingly sinister Mr Ring-a-Ding turns the Doctor and Belinda into cartoons... and they manage to become live action again by acquiring character "depth" so as not to be two-dimensional. Clever.

Of course, the fact that they still find themselves within a frame of film is a whole other level of metatextual because, of course, this is television. if we handwave away the fact that everything is digital nowadays, then... well, non-diegetically the characters always have been trapped in a frame of film and always will be.

And then... Doctor Who fans, who've been following the season and insist that the Doctor and Belinda are TV characters. I love this, and no only for the cheerful acknowledgement that fandom will never, ever rate any other story above Blink. Because this is actually quite philosophical, and evokes an ancient Chinese point about dreams- "Was I Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or am I now really a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu?"

The decision that, actually, the Doctor and Belinda are real and the fans are not certainly seems arbitrary, but I'm assuming that all this metatextual stuff is going somewhere. After all, we've seen it before, both with Mrs Flood, whose comments here are certainly interesting, and in The Devil's Chord ("There's always a twist at the end") which is, of course, another Pantheon episode. All very interesting Is Mrs Flood also of the pantheon, "goddess" of reality, or stories?  But I also like the human touch shown here, the real yet humble pathos as the fans imagine they're about to vanish out of existence. It's nice to see them again at the end... although no, RTD, this does not make up for the cat last week.

Overall, then, this episode is crazy and brilliant and right up my street with all the meta stuff, with great production values and superb characterisation. But there's a caveat, of course: this needs to be going somewhere and the payoff has to be worthwhile. I suspect the finale will be more meta still...

Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution

 "Apparently I'm the Queen of Outer Space. If you could tell the police..."

Well, that was rather good, I thought. One of the better season openers of recent years, certainly head and shoulders over Space Babies. It's a solid concept, a satisfying plot, a good introduction to new companion Belinda Chandra... and it's actually about something. Even better, while social commentary in Doctor Who can sometimes err on the unsubtle side, this time the balance is nicely judged.

So... yeah, fairly long blog post coming up. I'm in the mood. And it's Doctor Who, always the core of this blog, however much it's grown. 

So we begin seventeen years ago, with teenage Belinda and her boyfriend, with Belinda being given a certificatre naming a star after her, a cheerfully blatant example of Chekhov's gun. It's a cute little scene, with Alan's adorable nervousness about kissing her, so much s that we ignore the fact that Belinda blatantly looks Varada Sethu's actual age. But it's a nice, innocent start... or so it seems.

And then we move to Belinda's life in the present day, as a nurse, with all the overwork and dedication and stress and being lovely that is implied by that. We briefly see that, as well as the fact that she lives in straintened circumstances with housemates. Little does she know that things are about to get worse, and she's going to be desperate to get back to this life.

This is Doctor Who, so naturally a spaceship lands and some mech type robots kidnap her to be "queen" of the planet named after her, which is a hilatriously brilliant Doctor Who idea... and feels very Moffat in an RTD script.

Interesting that she knows Mrs Flood, though: Ruby must be a neighbour too, and they may even know each other too. That's as much of a coincidence as the stuff the Doctor later pontificates about regarding her 51st century descendent. But she really is in a rather entertaining pickle. And it's very admirable indeed how RTD manages to make the exposition itself highly entertaining- at first it seems these people welcome their new robot overlords, but all this stuff about every ninth word is clever and highly entertaining. And yes, if you feel like questioning why words should matter to a machine instead of syllables and, indeed, you feel that this makes no sense... ah, actually that's a clue, and after the reveal at the end it makes perfect sense. Nicely done.

Also nicely done is a little subversion of the trope of aliens that look exactly like humans- with Belinda being a nurse we learn that these people's internal organs are very slightly different from ours. And then there's the timey-wimey stuff, with the two star certificates from different time zones and the Doctor lightly lampshading that the two objects must never, ever touch, or else. Yes, Chekhov has a fair few firearms in this story, but I'm fine with that.

I'm also fine with the Doctor's emotions- Ncuti Gatwa's tears show us just how much the loss of Sasha 55 (his partner?) meant to him. He's such a bloody good actor, best since Capaldi and possibly even Eccleston.

And then... Belinda betrays them all, shock horror. Except she does it in order to sacrifice herself in order to save all these people, whom she's only just met and who haven't, on the whole, been particulartly nice to her. This tells us a fair bit about her- she's brave, selfless, a good person, but not one for just blindly doing what she's told. 

And so we have the reveal... it's not AI, it's Alan, and the "planet of the incels". This is brilliantly done, with Alan's coercive control of Belinda given a much bigger canvas in the shape of an entire planet. It's clever. Mind you, I hate planet-wide robot tyranny as much as anyone, but could we still just send that imbecile Andrew Tate into space anyway? Please?

And then the really clever bit. I'll confess I'm a bit worried aboiut Belinda being "important"- why do companions always have to come complete with a pre-existing mystery these days?- but it's delightful how the Doctor isbeing his usual self with a new companion but Belinda calls him out on his behaviour, including scanning her DNA without permission, as crossing a line into being controlling. This is brilliant, reminding us that all pf us, even the "good guys", need to watch ourselves for this kind of behaviour.

So we have Earth of 2025 repelling the TARDIS, meaning that Belinda who, like Ian and Barbara all those decades ago, just wants to go home, is unable to do so. I like her. She has depth, and doesn't just defer to the Doctor.

So yes, not really sure we need that much mystery, but this episode is an excellent start to the season. Let's keep this level of quality, if we can...

Doctor Who: Boom

 "Keeps you dying. Keeps you buying."

Phew, I've finally seen this, after twenty-four hours of feeling like I'm in that episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? that everybody remembers. This may happen a few more timnes this series but, well, let's just say that Doctor Who may be vastly important, of course it is... but some things matter musch, much, more.

Anyway, Steven Moffat is back and this episode is a thing of wonder. It's very high concept- the Doctor saves himself, Ruby, the Anglican Priests around them and indeed much of the planet- all whuile standing on a landmine and incredibly close to death- and, incidentally, Ncuti Gatwa's performance here, the right, Doctorish type of fear, is acting perfection. Yet, by Disney standards- there's a lot of CGI- this episode, with its small cast and small stakes, feels like it was the season cheapie. But then so was Blink, and, well.

This is Moffat at his very best- not spread thinly as showrunner but able to focus all his Moffaty goodness into forty-four minutes. As we expect, the plot works like clockwork and has a highly satisfying resolution. Yet, in other respects, this is different, and perhaps deeper. And everybody does not live.

It's 3,082 years after Ruby's birth (Late 51st century? Time agents, Boeshane Peninsula and Magnus Greel?) , a timeframe Moffat likes to play with.The Anglican priests are back... but this time there's an attempt to almost explain them with the line that priests not being soldiers isan unusual "blip". There's an ambiguity about religious faith- on the one hand, it can dull sceptical thinking, yet on the other it can comfort- which doubtless reflect's Moffat's own thoughts, an atheist, but certainly not a "New" one.

Yet the central conceit here (SPOILER KLAXON!!!) is deliciously and unashamedly political: an arms corporation that keeps casualties at the most proftable level, and a war against a phantom enemy purely so that said corporations can supply weapons. The ultimate end result of unregulated corporate greed run amok. 

There's not much arc stuff here- Villengard and the Anglican soldier priests aside, both Moffat creations of old- but we get that snow with Ruby again: all very "Bad Wolf". And it's good to see Varada Sethu from Andor. But sometimes a good standalone episode, or indeed a great one such as this, is just what the Doctor ordered.

Andor: Rix Road

" Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that."

This is, if not unexpected in what happens, a tense and taut finale with lots of intense character moments as everyone gathers round for Maarva's funeral- with her fiery death speech inspiring the people of Fennix to rise against the empire. Hope may, indeed, lie in the proles.The riot is glorious.

Other sruff happens; Mon Mothma lays the ground of a cover story for her financial doings, but nevertheless introduces her daughter to that dodgy bloke's son in a possible forced marriage, Ouch. But it's mostly focused on and around the funeral, with Andor rescuing poor Bix and getting his friends a way off the planet. Interesting that Syril Kane should save Dedra from certain death. He clearly has not only ambition but a huge crush on her. To be continued, I've no doubt.

The ending is something of a cliffhanger; will Luthen, who will do anything for the cause, murder Andor to keep him quiet? Cassian calling his bluff is an extraordinary piece of acting from Diego Luna. And this is an extraordinary finale.

Andor: The Eye

 "We win, or everyone dies..."

As expected, this episode is full of tension and entirely concerns the heist, which is more or less a success, albeit not without some hairy moments, nor is it without tragedy. The episode is brilliantly shot and extremely exciting, with Andor actually taking something of a backseat until the latter part of the episode. This is very much an ensemble piece.

And there are lots of ensemble case moments. Poor, young, idealistic Nemik dies for the cause. Skeet, so seekingly principled, turns out to be a mere mercenary, far more cynical than a disgusted Kassian, who just shoots him. Vel turns out to be nervous, but reliable when in the swing of things. Taramyn is a former Stormtrooper. This is a well-characterised gang of individuals.

We get the sense of what a big deal this rebel raid is, too. The Empire israttled. Mon Mothma, in the Senate, gets the coldest of shoulders. It's clear that a big crackdown is coming.

And Andor is alone again, off into the galaxy with his share of the loot. I won't pretend I'm a fan of non-stop acion, but this was very well done. Most importantly, it did not neglect the characters. For an episode full of bangs, this was not bad at all.

Andor: The Axe Forgets

 "Who brings a treasure to a robbery?"

This episode is brave and interesting. We finished the last instalment poised to execute a heist... yet we slow down and examine the characters before vthe heist, with Andor being distrusted until he admits he's being paid. The character dynamics are excellent. This is bloody good, a slow burning series that develops its characters.

We further explore the relationship between Mon Mothma and her toxic husband. Syril Karn, at rock bottom and humiliated, is about to be found a new job by his equally poisonous mother. It's clear that he will clash with Kassian again. We learn why Lieutenant Gorn has turned against the Empire- love has made this fundamental everyman realise that he is serving evil. He is like many a colonial soldier. Colonialism is a clear theme.

We have a brief look at the rivalry between them two imperial officers on Coruscant. Yet the meat of the episode consists of Andor experiencing friction with his comrades, and we, along him, get to know them.

This is slow, considered, bloody good telly, and, for Disney Plus stuff based on Star Wars, it's nothing like The Mandalorian. I'm loving it now. I'm confidient I'm about to love it even more.