

You’ve actually seen trans people, in person, threaten to burn down a surgery building? I doubt this.
As for people being suicidal, that’s a known problem which happens as a result of being trans in a country that wants to deny them support, which is exactly why trans people are trying to get recognition in the first place. Denying that isn’t exactly going to make their mental health any better, and they can’t be blamed for that.
This episode contains a very powerful and pointed message, but as the episode reveals at the end, it will be lost on those who need to hear it most. Some people are too far gone and will refute the obvious, even when they on some level know it is true, and I struggle to fit myself into their mindset to understand that. Clearly a stab at conspiracy peddlers, toxic masculinity influencers, the press and politicians that use scapegoats, and all the others that prey on insecure people’s worries and fear. They probably don’t watch DW and wouldn’t understand the point made here if they did, one can only hope this helps to immunise any kids watching against falling into these traps as they grow up.
Now, my thoughts on the plot here are not super positive.
First, Kate, what the hell? If Ruby needs to talk to someone, Kate needs to as well. The head of a global security org can’t behave like that, even if it is part of some calculated effort to undo the damage done by a conspiracy peddler. The public reaction to “the person we think is making stuff up to control us and out us in harms way is actually willing to put us all in harms way and she’s vindictive as hell, she just let that guy get his arm mauled off” being livestreamed should have gone the other way and made the whole situation and public attitudes to UNIT worse. At one point she says to tap the CCTV feeds into his livestream - if I understood that correctly, that means they could have just shut his feed down remotely from the beginning, and avoided this whole mess, if they’d just been a bit more proactive. Which brings me to my next grumble…
I really don’t like the writing trope of “here’s a super powerful group that exists to protect the world, only they have terrible OpSec so it’s easy for people to infiltrate them”. No-one, even the analysts (or was he a receptionist? I’m unclear what his job was) at UNIT would have access to all their staff’s names and addresses, and any looking into that would necessarily have to be done with more than one person, just to be sure there was no ill intent. They certainly shouldn’t be bale to remotely control the building’s door locks. And if UNIT can screen out applicants like Conrad for being untrustworthy, how did they let someone who’s into conspiracy sites in to begin with?
Now, positives:
I really enjoyed Gatwa’s performance here. He was hardly in this episode, but that bit at the end really shows his range. He can go from happy and carefree to deadly serious in an instant.
Our monster of the week, the shreek, is an interesting idea. The exist out of our dimension and can pop in to attack those they’ve previously marked. I’m kind of getting Predator vibes from it’s behaviour and looks. It does sort of beg the question why they wouldn’t just attack and kill their victims right away. Waiting a year to juice up the taste of fear hormones can’t have that much pay off, unless they live in a timestream that means they’re not actually waiting that long.
I enjoyed seeing ruby again, following along Doctor’s prior companions after they’ve left the Tardis is always nice. Seeing her breakdown and admit the need for help is refreshing, and honestly that should be more commonplace. I’m glad to see Ruby’s family is staying strong, they can be there to support her. Though I suspect they might be even more dangerous to Conrad than Kate was if they ever got close to him.
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