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| Something isn't quite right with the robots... |
THE PLOT:
The Doctor receives a delivery from Kerblam!, the biggest retailer in the galaxy. Much to the Doctor's delight, it's a fez - doubtless ordered two lifetimes ago. More interesting to the others is the packing slip, which has a message printed on the back:
"HELP ME."
They travel to the Kerblam! warehouse, where they go undercover as new workers. They meet Judy (Julie Hesmondhalgh), the friendly but ineffectual "Head of People", and Slade (Callum Dixon), an overbearing manager. The Doctor and Ryan go to work in the packing stations, where they befriend Kira (Claudia Jessie), an enthusiastic young employee. Yaz is assigned to Fulfillment, retrieving items from the warehouse with Dan (Lee Mack), a veteran staffer. Both Kira and Dan separately remark on employees who have suddenly "gotten the sack," with Kira mentioning a co-worker who never arrived back at her home. Meanwhile, Graham is assigned to maintenance, where he bonds with Charlie (Leo Flanagan) and takes the opportunity to learn the layout of Kerblam!
Then Dan takes a call to retrieve an item from a remote, mostly closed-off floor... and vanishes. When Yaz follows, she comes face-to-face with some Kerblam! delivery bots. And the robots are definitely not behaving according to their program...
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: "I don't like bullies, don't like conspiracies, don't like people in danger, and there's a flavor of all three here." After getting the message, the Doctor is initially content to try a low-key approach, more-or-less blending in among the workers. After Dan's disappearance, she abandons that entirely, directly confronting Slade and Judy, breaking into locked cabinets, and even hacking into Kerblam!'s base code. She manages to stop what would have amounted to a 9/11-style event, but not without collateral damage. Right after her confrontation with the villain of the piece, she looks anything but pleased. For a brief moment, she actually looks like she's been utterly defeated.
Graham: "You're just making sounds now!" Graham's bemused exasperation, both at the strange but recognizable Warehouse of the Future and the Doctor's behavior, provides a lot of amusement. He's none too pleased when the Doctor switches jobs with him, which sticks him with "Premium Maintenance" (read: janitor). He doesn't dwell on his annoyance, though, using his affable nature to form a friendship with Charlie and to get the younger man to obtain a map for him. He pays attention to his surroundings, which means that when the Doctor needs to access "Kerblam Version 1.0," Graham knows exactly where she can find it.
Yaz: This isn't remotely a Yaz spotlight episode, and yet it may well be her strongest showing of the season. When the message arrives, she is the first of the Doctor's companions to urge investigating. She genuinely bonds with Dan, and is concerned enough for her new co-worker to go looking for him immediately after he disappears. When Ryan hesitates before jumping onto the conveyor, she is a silently encouraging presence - Then provides more vocal encouragement when they have to jump from one conveyor belt to another. The episode ends with her making a request of the Doctor: To visit the family of one of the story's casualties.
Ryan: "Halfway across the universe, and I feel like I'm back at work." Kerblam! reminds Ryan of the various jobs he has held, and not in a good way. The Doctor seems to enjoy doing this kind of mindless drone work (doubtless it's a new experience for her... for less than a day), but Ryan knows this kind of work too well and finds no fulfillment in it. When Kira gushes about how work gives people purpose, he responds, "some work." His familiarity with these types of warehouses does mean he knows exactly how to get into closed off areas when it's needed.
The script also wins points for not only remembering Ryan's coordination issues, but properly engaging with them. We learn that at his warehouse job, he had difficulty with some tasks at first. "Takes me a while to learn things physically," he tells the others. "Get there in the end, but some stuff takes me a bit longer" - and during that period, he only kept his job with the help of friends who covered for him. He hesitates before jumping on the conveyor belt at the end, but does not take the chance to stay back when it's offered. "That's not how we roll, is it, Yaz?" - which earns him an appreciative glance from her.
THOUGHTS
Kermblam! is a good, solid episode of old-school Doctor Who. A well-paced mystery, some creepy robots, an undercurrent of commentary on current society. I could easily see this episode working with pretty much any Doctor, with only relatively minor rewrites. It's one of the least immediately interesting episodes of the season, but it makes up for that by being one of the most entertaining.
Pete McTighe's script gets a lot of mileage from the obvious parallels between Kerblam! and modern corporations (the obvious target being Amazon). The work is dehumanizing, repetitive, and dull, something commented on by both Ryan and the Doctor. The workers wear devices to monitor productivity - something Ryan reminds us is not really science fiction when he observes that "wore on of these at (his) last job." Oversight is all but nonexistent, leaving complaints and issues no place to be properly addressed, something that frustrates even the management whose job it is to deal with those issues.
There is also a nice sense of an established world here. The viewer sees the work as dehumanizing, as do the regulars, but the actual human employees of this time and place seem genuinely enthusiastic about having these jobs. Judy, whose title is Head of People, proudly declares that the company is "Ten-Percent People Powered!", as if having actual humans making up 10% of the workforce is a rare and special achievement. Kira mentions having only received one gift in her entire life - not complaining, but instead reflecting in wonder on receiving a small box of chocolates. Dan "splurges" on a flight back home twice a year to see a daughter he obviously adores. Even the one character who is angry and frustrated at the state of affairs isn't raging against the nature of the jobs - Just that the quota for them is a measly 10%. It all creates a grim picture of a society whose problems extend far beyond the story's warehouse setting.
The script is quite well-structured, to a degree that becomes very clear on second viewing. The mystery plays fair with the viewer, with clues planted in the early scenes that most simply won't catch the first time around. I appreciated that apparent stock characters - an ineffectual Human Resources staffer, a sneering manager - end up being more rounded than they first appear. The villain's identity is a surprise that works, because when it's revealed it fits with what has gone before.
I only have only one issue with the story, but unfortunately it's a big one. Late in the episode, suspense is built when a likable guest character is put into jeopardy. It's actually refreshing that the regulars don't manage to rescue this character in time. But it is not the villain who kills this character - and the murder goes largely uncommented on by the Doctor and her friends. The scene itself plays out very effectively, and I have no problem with the Doctor not addressing it in the climax (she's a little busy preventing thousands of deaths at that moment). But the epilogue should really see her doing something about it. Instead, the script appears to forget entirely, which just doesn't sit right.
Kerblam! is still a good episode: Well-paced, often funny, with the best balance of the four regulars since Rosa. But the failure to address that guest character's murder leaves a sour taste - A shame, because this good episode would otherwise be a quietly superb one.
Rating: 7/10. But probably would have been a "9" without that single, severe misstep.
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