Doctor Who Series 12 Episode 6 - Praxeus - Review

Starring: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole & Mandip Gill

Written By: Pete McTighe & Chris Chibnall

Directed By: Jamie Magnus Stone

After the mindf*ck that was 'Fugitive Of The Judoon' last week, Pete McTighe returns alongside Chris Chibnall with 'Praxeus'. Last time McTighe gave us 'Kerblam!', arguably one of Series 11's more popular entries and a mostly solid episode by all accounts. It derailed massively by the end with an incredibly tone-deaf ending about how an exploitative capitalist system "isn't the problem", but hey, I'm willing to put that down to a lapse of judgement and McTighe has another crack of the whip this time. There's no single real hook taking us into 'Praxeus' - we know very little about it, so let's see what it has in store... 

The TARDIS crew split up to tackle a series of incidents around the world. In Peru, Ryan investigates something seriously wrong with the wildlife, in particular the birds. In Hong Kong, Graham and Yaz encounter ex-police officer Jake in search of his husband, an astronaut recently crash-landed back on Earth. And in Madagascar, the Doctor arrives to find a seriously ill man washed up on the shore. An extra-terrestrial threat has arrived on Earth, confirmed when the man's body becomes engulfed in a crystalline substance and violently disintegrates. What is behind it, and what links these events in Hong Kong, Madagascar and Peru?

Before I get into the episode itself, it's worth mentioning something I noticed about the wider structure of Series 12 whilst watching. After 'Spyfall' established what happened to Gallifrey and brought the Timeless Child back to the forefront, it was rested for the next couple of weeks, getting no more than a very vague mention in the odd line or two. Then along came 'Fugitive Of The Judoon' which was completely swallowed up by this arc and teased us even more with events being set up for the finale. Now with 'Praxeus', we return to that state of rest with the seismic events that unfolded last week barely getting a mention this week. Structuring a series of television like this is not without its flaws. When you have this big important episode that links in to the series arc one week, then a couple of weeks of standalone stories, followed by another big important episode, it kind of devalues those standalone stories. It suggests you could even skip them. What little marketing there has been for Series 12 has been strange with this too. Twice now they've advertised episodes with "You can't miss how this one ends" which as 'Orphan 55' proved, can be a detrimental approach if used unwisely. Some accounts are even advertising with "just X number of episodes to go until the finale" - come on, that makes it sound like it's not even worth tuning in for the next few weeks! Standalone episodes like 'Praxeus' can be great, but they directly suffer from this ill-thought approach. 

With that out of the way, what can we say about 'Praxeus' itself? Well while I have some qualms with it, it is certainly functional and has a great premise going for it. I've seen a couple of people kick up a bit of a stink that 'Praxeus' is the second entry to Series 12 to deal with environmental issues. In 'Orphan 55', we saw our world ravaged by climate change and nuclear war and where the population had evolved into monsters. With 'Praxeus' there's a bit more subtlety and while there are ecological themes in here, the focus is less on climate change and more on plastic pollution. There had been rumblings of this series doing a plastic-themed episode for a while, with rumours floating around that the Sea Devils were set to reappear. Although given the reliance on lore and familiar faces already this series, I'm happy to wait for the Sea Devils to pop up another day. Unlike 'Orphan 55' which was very blunt and "tell rather than show" (not necessarily a bad thing, for the record), with 'Praxeus' the plastic pollution angle is better weaved into the actual story. The Doctor isn't outright telling us that plastic pollution is awful, the events of the episode do the talking for us. (Spoiler Warning!) In a twist reveal, we learn that an alien species brought the Praxeus infection to Earth because it was the perfect Petri-dish to study its effects, given the amount of plastics polluting the planet. That's a gem of an idea, timely given contemporary virus outbreaks such as coronavirus, plus a far superior twist to what we had in 'Kerblam!'. 

The comparisons to 'Orphan 55' are inevitable I suppose - heck, they even both have massive supporting casts. To its credit, 'Praxeus' does manage its cast and array of locations a whole lot better than 'Orphan 55'. The scope is large, as are the number of characters but for the amount it's juggling it works reasonably well. It's far from perfect however. Characters like Gabriela, the vlogger Ryan meets in Peru, let the side down quite considerably. Honestly she isn't particularly likeable and seems to get over the death of her friend and vlogging partner pretty quickly. There's also Aramu in Madagascar, and while he's much more endearing than Gabriela, once he's killed off by the violent flock of birds, I don't think that death registers or is even mentioned by anyone else. Fortunately there are characters that fare a lot better, namely Jake and Adam. Their arc throughout the story, specifically Jake's was quite heart-warming. I loved that scene where Jake and Graham slip away and, accompanied by a gorgeous sunset, just talk about their lives and relationships. Graham's quiet response to the question "Have you any idea how hard it is being married to someone that impressive" broke my heart - it was lovely little nod to Grace. Kudos to 'Praxeus' for not following through on the "bury your gays" trope either - a refreshing change of pace for both LGBT+ characters to make it out alive. It's a shame none of the other characters resonate quite as strongly though. With the exception of those two, the rest of the cast are a bit of a dull, grey blur: I wasn't a big fan of Gabriela, Aramu is forgotten about, and even Suki is forgettable for the most part.

'Praxeus' does fare better from a production point of view. Jamie Magnus Stone returns to direct, and while I didn't have too much to say about his work on 'Spyfall', here I have much more to dig into. One thing the globetrotting side of this episode allowed was some gorgeous visuals. As stunning as the Jodie Whittaker era has looked on the whole, a few episodes can get brought down by the over-use of lens flare (the scenes with Jack on that ship last week) and many settings having this prominent golden glow. The colour scheme is much more prominent for 'Praxeus' though: the gorgeous blue sky when the TARDIS arrives on the Madagascan beach contrasts nicely with the neon pink glow of the Hong Kong backstreets. It can be easy to take for granted, and while I think more could've been wrung out of the different settings, the fact that we're now visiting so many places around the world and in just one episode, is an impressive feat for a show on 'Doctor Who's budget. I also can't go on without mentioning the fantastic effects work on the Praxeus infection itself. The way the body is swarmed with crystalline plastic, becoming rigid and brittle before violently exploding is a nasty effect that looks properly painful. The aggressive flock of birds is another great bit of effects work too, paying homage to one of my favourite films, 'The Birds', in the process. 

The only other point I have regards 'Praxeus' concerns the companions, and I'm once again repeating myself when it comes to Series 12. Almost every review I've done for this series so far has contained at least one of these complaints: either too many ideas for one episode, or the general redundancy of Graham, Ryan and Yaz. While 'Praxeus' avoids the former, the same isn't true for the latter. It's odd seeing as the companions are split up and given their own individual missions this week. Ryan has his own thing going on in Peru, as do Graham and Yaz in Hong Kong. Yet Ryan again felt like a non-entity here, and Graham only gets a pass for being usual charming and loveable self. Surprisingly, it's once again Yaz that's the stand-out, only because she actually seems to do something. Her going off with Gabriela and investigating more about the gas-masked aliens seemed strange at first. I know there's been some theories buzzing around that something isn't right with Yaz, or that she may even betray the Doctor at some point. While I agree there seems to be something strange happening, I'm not sure if it's just because Yaz actually has stuff to do this series, certainly a whole lot more than in Series 11. 

At the end of the day, 'Praxeus' is … fine. I'd say it's probably the least remarkable story Series 12 has offered so far - a functional fifty minutes of 'Doctor Who' and rarely much else. It has plenty of stuff working in its favour. It's a great-looking episode, and like I said I really love its main premise, with engaging characters like Jake and Adam to prop it up. It's a shame the rest of the characters are just a bit dull, and none of the companions leave much of an impression either. I don't know if this episode might have benefitted were it to come earlier in Series 12's run. While I wasn't a huge fan of 'Fugitive Of The Judoon', the leap from a mind-blowing episode like that to a fairly routine one like 'Praxeus' doesn't do it many favours.

Praxeus

6/10