DOCTOR WHO, 15.2 – ‘Lux’

Following last week’s introduction of nurse Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), it’s arguably more important to see how any new companion interacts with The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) in a story separate from themselves. “Lux” found the new TARDIS duo touching down in Miami, Florida, 1952, as part of a plan to help Belinda get back home, only to be drawn into a mystery about a nearby abandoned movie theatre.

As the teaser revealed, the Art Deco cinema was closed after audience members went missing three months before. As the projectionist, Reginald Pye (Linus Roache), was showing a cartoon, the central character Mr Ring-a-Ding (Alan Cumming) was magically brought to life thanks to a mysterious beam of moonlight reflecting off a spoon and into the projector itself, enabling him to leave the confines of the silver screen and trap the filmgoers inside strips of celluloid. Months later, Mr Pye continues to show movies to an empty auditorium every night, as Mr Ring-a-Ding is trapped inside the dark building and unable to escape.

The gimmick of “Lux” was giving viewers a fully animated villain, portrayed in a Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) style rather convincingly. There isn’t a great amount of interaction between the cartoon Mr Ring-a-Ding and the real actors, and he doesn’t leave the confines of the cinema as a backdrop, but even with those limitations, the idea worked beautifully within its means. Alan Cumming (who previously guest-starred in the flesh for “The Witchfinders”) was able to use his go-to American accent, although it’s a shame the story didn’t naturally end with Mr Ring-a-Ding becoming a real person that Cumming could portray himself for a few scenes. As he films The Traitors USA series up in Scotland every summer, you might have thought he’d have been able to spare the BBC one afternoon in Wales. It felt like a missed opportunity not to see him, although I did enjoy the climax with Mr Ring-a-Ding at least achieving a degree of Toy Story (1995)-esque three-dimensionality, but as unnerving as those “Homer Simpson in real life” images.

There wasn’t much else to “Lux” beyond the novelty of its enemy, but it sustained its runtime well, considering the story was so sketchy. Russell T Davies intended to write an entertaining episode full of creative diversions that played with the core idea of reality and fiction colliding in various ways; so there was a fun sequence with The Doctor and Belinda finding themselves turned into cartoons, or breaking the fourth wall to escape the celluloid they found themselves trapped within.

The most memorable moment was undoubtedly the scene where the Doctor and Belinda clambered out of a television screen, finding themselves in the living room of three Whovians. It’s a delicate thing to be so meta, with the Doctor meeting fans of the show we know he’s in—one wearing a Tom Baker scarf, another a Cyberman T-shirt, with Matt Smith’s fez on a table and Doctor Who merchandise on a bookshelf. But, given the potential for this to be ridiculous and cringeworthy, the balance of comedy was perfectly judged. It was an amusing interlude with many choice lines (“What’s your favourite episode?” asked the Doctor. “Blink. Definitely Blink”, they all agreed, dismissive of Gatwa’s newer adventures). It might have gone off the rails or become too indulgent, but RTD made it work with affectionate asides about fan culture (“hashtag RIPDoctorWho”), and meta-commentary on how Steven Moffat’s episodes are often more popular than his own. It wasn’t the shark-jumping moment it could so easily have been.

The downside of “Lux” is that Mr Ring-a-Ding was an expensive effect, so his presence wasn’t as extensive as Whovillains played by real actors would be. This limited his threat somewhat. And while he was introduced as a fairly benign Max Fleischer-style cartoon with a creepy grin, he didn’t develop into a particularly menacing antagonist, and it wasn’t exactly clear what his objective was. It didn’t help that his existence was so limited, as I’m sure more money would have enabled him to be a more engaging enemy.

That’s possibly why it was revealed that Mr Ring-a-Ding is one of the Pantheon of Gods—Lux Imperator, to be precise—making him the fourth deity we’ve encountered after the Toymaker in “The Giggle”, Maestro in “The Devil’s Chord”, and (retroactively?) Sutekh from “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” and “Empire of Death”. This helped to give him a greater sense of power and strength, connecting him to this era’s interest in cosmic entities beyond The Doctor’s usual expertise, but Mr Ring-a-Ding ultimately proved to be too hollow in comparison to those others. Again, getting Alan Cumming on screen for the climax might have overcome this, as he can camp it up better than Neal Patrick Harris and Jinkx Mosoon.

Elsewhere, Murray Gold’s return to the show as composer has ultimately been a boon to Doctor Who, as Jodie Whittaker’s run without him lacked the sense of energy and fun we’d grown accustomed to, but it has to be said he often ladles on the music too thickly! There were several scenes here that were intended to be quiet and emotional on the page, but most had oddly inflated music themes that felt misplaced. The worst offender was the Whovians saying goodbye to their Time Lord hero, knowing his leaving will end their existence, but Gold’s use of “The Sad Man With a Box” was too much, considering the quietness of the actors in selling that moment. The music didn’t enhance our emotions; it distracted us because it was so beyond what the actors were trying to communicate.

Overall, “Lux” was a bold experiment that mostly succeeded. It’s a shame the adventure felt limited by the (mostly) single indoor location and what Mr Ring-a-Ding could do even with a Disney TV budget, but Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu made for a compelling duo being thrown into plenty of crazy situations. I especially enjoyed the moment they had to open up to each other in cartoon form, to gain three-dimensional depth. Literally!

So, while the subplot of Mr Pye being manipulated into keeping Mr Ring-a-Ding around because his late wife can be resurrected from old film reels to keep him loyal didn’t work for me, and living cartoon Mr Ring-a-Ding himself was a wonderful visual effect in need of a better character to underpin it, “Lux” exuded so much fun and had enough pace and creativity to make it go down well.

UK | 2025 | 43 MINUTES | 16:9 HD | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

writer: Russell T. Davies.
director: Amanda Brotchie.
starring: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Linus Roache, Alan Cumming (voice), Lewis Cornay, Anita Dobson, Millie O’Connell, Cassius Hackforth, Lucy Thackeray, Jane Hancock, Samir Arrian, Bronte Barbe, Steph Lacey, Ryan Speakman, Ian Shaw & William Meredith.