Arachnids in the UK

Writers: Chris Chibnall
Director: Sallie Aprahamian
Executive Producers: Matt Strevens and Chris Chibnall

Starring Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, Chris Noth

A BBC Studios production for BBC One

First UK broadcast Sunday 27 October on BBC One
Running time: 50 minutes

SPOILERS MAY BE AHEAD - READER BEWARE

The Doctor gets her friends back home to Sheffield, as promised, but finds it a bit difficult to say goodbye right away.  She joins Yaz and Ryan for tea, as Graham heads home to face the emptiness of his home without Grace, and while at Yaz's flat...they run into a new problem (I know...shocking), this time it is big spiders.  Events lead the TARDIS team to a yet to be opened hotel owned by a miserable American businessman played by Law & Order's Chris Noth, and there they find that the big spiders are numerous and some are even larger than a human being. 

As a simple monster of the week, it's a fairly enjoyable episode. The spiders are big and scary, but they aren't defeated with the most interesting of  climaxes. The businessman who longs to be President is a pretty generic baddie, but Noth does play him with plenty of gusto.  As I've come to expect, I think our new TARDIS team is quite enjoyable to watch.  We get a bit more depth for Yaz this week, a little bit of character building for Ryan, and some really lovely character stuff for Graham. 

Really, what I am enjoying about this season hasn't been so much the plots or the villains (other than last week's Rosa), but I've been far more interested in the character stuff with all of our new leads.  Whitaker really works as The Doctor, she plays the part in her own way but still owns the room like all her predecessors.  And her new Team TARDIS is a good group, and I'm enjoying getting to know them each week.  This episode sufficiently builds up their characters just enough to make you believe them when they tell the Doctor they'd like to continue traveling through time and space with her. 

Chibnall has been writing almost all of the episodes of the season so far, co-writing last week's with Malorie Blackman.  I'm assuming much of the episode was written by her, and he punched it up for his long term season plans or something.  But at any rate, he has had been a credited writer on everything this season, and while his stories aren't blowing me away with their originality, his character stuff has been top notch.  I'm enjoying his stuff, and while I am looking forward to seeing some episodes written by other writers (which will have to wait until after next week it seems), I think he has done a good job of reinventing the show over the first half of his first series as showrunner. 

This is a fairly generic Monster of the Week which has just enough character stuff to keep me interested.  It isn't perfectly executed, but I am finding myself loving the new cast enough that I like spending an hour with them each week.