Doctor Who: The Ghost Monument

We're two episodes in, and things are pretty solid so far. Jodie Whittaker is still killing in, though the Companions aren't quite as three-dimensional as they could be (perhaps there shouldn't be quite so many straight away?)

In any case, here are some brief thoughts...

1. The fact that the cliff-hanger was resolved pretty quickly felt like old-school Doctor Who, along with the fact the characters spent most of this episode running around a desert (it's not quite a quarry, but the spirit of the seventies was there).

2. I like the bonding between Graham and Ryan, both united in their grief for Grace, but still perceptive enough of their surroundings to realize that on a three-sunned planet, the boat would naturally be powered by solar. I almost wish they had been separated from the women for a bit longer, but oh well.

3. I literally jolted when Susan Lynch appeared, as I had just finished watching her in Killing Eve. Like, directly before watching this.

But as aliens, couldn't she and Epzo have been given... I don't know – an alien skin colour? Or a few facial extremities? Something to demonstrate they weren't human?

4. The plot and its mystery were pretty good; raising plenty of questions and then answering them as the episode unfolded. What was the tent? Can they trust Angstrom and Epzo? What's with the paper lying all about the place?

5. A race! That's a great concept, even though the two remaining participants were doing a lot of leisurely walking instead of running (despite the massive stakes each one had) and it was an idea that was perhaps worthy of a much bigger budget. I mean, an intergalactic race/scavenger hunt on hostile alien planets? I'd watch that in a heartbeat.

6. The Ghost Monument is the Tardis. That's a nice bit of timey-wimey plotting right there: the idea that the Tardis has been on another planet long enough to become a "monument", just waiting for the Doctor to return.

7. The boat ride gives us a chance to get to know our guest-stars better, though it fell a little flat. Angstrom's story is so tragic that there's no question the Doctor should have been helping her win at all costs, (thank goodness they didn't go with my initial suspicion: that she'd made it up just to get the new travellers on her side) and Epzo's sad backstory made me roll my eyes.

Thing is, the story of a child told to jump out of a tree by their parent, only for the lesson to be "don't trust anyone" when they're deliberately not caught isn't a new one. In fact, I've seen it play out between Han Solo and Kylo Ren in some Star Wars fan art – which not only demonstrates how whacko Kylo-stans are (because they honestly think that's in-character for Han) but that it's been around for a while now.

8. So there's clearly going to be a season-long arc, which involves a return of the alien species in the premiere (and no doubt the little girl who was mentioned as being caught in stasis) and something called the Timeless Child. To quote the sentient paper: "We see deeper though, further back. The Timeless Child… we see what’s hidden, even from yourself. The outcast, abandoned and unknown…"

Honestly, I was actually hoping for a season of one-shot adventures, but ah well. I suppose these days everything has to be interconnected in some way.

9. So the competitors agree to a tie, which seems totally contradictory to both their personalities, not to mention an incredibly pat way of wrapping up their individual storylines. What I really want to know is if they ever bothered to come back for the people that a) they saved from the vacuum of space in the first place, and b) were last seen by them as stranded on a dangerous desert planet. Wouldn't that haunt you?

10. The new Tardis interior is a little dark and gloomy for my taste, but then that's the beauty of this show: if you don't like it, it'll change again eventually.