Doctor Who: “The Story and the Engine” Spins a Dull Tale – 2nd Opinion, Take 2
J.C. reviews the fifth episode of Series 15.
I’ll be blunt: I found “The Story and the Engine” one of the dullest episodes Doctor Who has produced in years. If you sat through all 47 minutes and found something to latch onto emotionally or narratively, I envy you. I truly do. The episode reaches for mythic depth but rarely finds the structure, pace, or emotional drive to support its ambition. Instead, it delivers a slow-moving parade of monologues about “storytelling”, while forgetting to tell a compelling story of its own.
Most of the “action” takes place in a single location, the barbershop, which puts enormous pressure on the script to be razor-sharp and gripping. Unfortunately, the writing leans on repetition, personal anecdotes, and philosophical musings rather than tension or meaningful character development. There is a plot, technically, in which a Lagos barbershop is revealed to be a spaceship feeding off stories to power a reality-bending engine, but the narrative unfolds so slowly, and with so little momentum, that it often feels like a stage play stuck in a loop. Given Inua Ellams’ background in theatre, that tracks, but his script struggles to translate that style into something better suited to television. Doctor Who can be lyrical and ambitious, but it also has to be entertaining. I’d take episodes like “Orphan 55” over this any day. It was a disaster, but at least it was an entertaining disaster.
The Doctor spends most of the episode reacting, listening, explaining or getting his hair trimmed, rather than driving the story. He eventually resolves things (which is nice to see for once in this incarnation), but the dramatic energy doesn’t come from him. This isn’t character depth, it’s passivity. Then there’s the scene where the Doctor reflects on feeling far more accepted in Lagos than anywhere else on Earth now. The intent is clear, but it doesn’t really land. The moment feels more like the writer speaking through the character than something that naturally fits the Doctor’s voice or the tone of the episode.
What’s also missing is any acknowledgement of the Doctor’s natural position as an outsider on Earth. The Doctor isn’t just a visitor, but an alien, removed from human culture by biology, history, and perspective. That’s been central to the character’s appeal: someone who helps humanity without ever fully belonging to it. To frame his sense of acceptance solely through the lens of race on one continent, while ignoring his broader alienation from Earth itself, feels reductive. The episode forgets that the Doctor is meant to stand apart, not just socially, but cosmically.
It’s also strange that an episode so intent on saying something meaningful sidesteps a pressing issue in the country it takes place in. In Nigeria, homosexuality is still criminalised, and in some regions, it carries the threat of capital punishment. While the Doctor doesn’t map neatly onto human categories, this incarnation of the Doctor has been characterised by expressions of same-sex attraction. Given that Ellams has previously explored the dangers of being gay in Nigeria in his own work, notably in Black T-Shirt Collection, the choice to leave that out in the episode feels all the more puzzling.
Belinda’s involvement feels minimal for the second week in a row. She reacts to the TARDIS alarm and eventually finds the Doctor, but she never really has much drive in the story. Even her “big” moment, the tale the Doctor tells about her, is something she doesn’t get to tell herself. And what a great tale it was… Look, I get it. It’s clearly meant to show that even an “ordinary life” can still be powerful, but knowing that doesn’t make the tale any more engaging. Beyond that, it fits an emerging trend now where nurses are shown as the real heroes, while doctors are ineffectual. There’s a growing sense that Russell T Davies’ second era has a bit of a chip on its shoulder about this, as if the show is working through a grudge. See also: social media trolls, podcasters and critical fans.
As for the guest characters this week, Omo is introduced as an old friend of the Doctor and the owner of the barbershop at the centre of the story. We’re told they have a meaningful history, but we never see it, as their bond is delivered entirely through exposition. The episode doesn’t spend enough time showing them reconnect or establishing emotional depth between them, so when Omo ultimately betrays the Doctor’s trust, the moment lacks the emotional weight it needs. The Doctor reacts with anger and hurt, but it doesn’t land as powerfully as it should, because the relationship feels too thinly sketched. It’s a nice idea, but without any groundwork, so there’s just no sting.
The rest of the cast blur into archetypes. Tunde, Rashid, Obioma, each gets a backstory, but none feels like a character beyond their one anecdote. Abena, daughter of Anansi, ought to have been a standout. But her turn from accomplice to redeemer is so abrupt it barely registers. One minute she is enforcing the villain’s will. The next, she is trimming the Doctor’s hair in quiet defiance.
The episode’s main villain, the Barber, is another pseudo-philosopher, though with a slightly more developed backstory. He’s a fallen human archivist bent on revenge against the gods, but he spends most of the runtime delivering abstract lectures rather than doing anything compelling. There’s also a giant space spider, which looks impressive for about ten seconds before doing absolutely nothing of consequence. Even the rules of the Story Engine remain vague. We’re told it feeds on stories, but the stakes for failing to do so are never made clear. The threat feels implied rather than earned.
By the end, somehow both the Barber and Abena are just forgiven. No real consequences. No moral reckoning. The barbershop patrons, some of whom have had their lives disrupted for years, even kneel before Abena. It is not just strange. It is bizarre! Compare that to last week’s “Lucky Day“, where Conrad was arrested, scolded by the Doctor, and condemned to die for spreading misinformation. Meanwhile, in “The Story & the Engine”, we meet a man who abducted innocent people, held them in psychological captivity, drained their personal stories for fuel, and plotted a targeted cultural genocide by wiping out entire pantheons of belief. And his accomplice enforced it all until the final hour. And what do they get? A fresh start, a new name, and not a word of real accountability. The Doctor’s moral compass isn’t just off, it’s caught in a time loop with no fixed point.
Finally, the Fugitive Doctor. Well… she got a single line. Either continue the story properly or leave it alone. Don’t wave the lore around like a shiny object and expect that to be enough. And I say this as someone who doesn’t even like the idea of pre-Hartnell Doctors.
Overall, “The Story and the Engine” is a Doctor Who misfire. It talks endlessly about the power of stories, but forgets to tell one truly worth hearing.
