Two people attempt to harness rocks into a grand formation and as one does so, they spot a blueish light behind them. They aren't meant to understand but to see the world in the Creator's way. He shows what he can do on her say so. He puts together some levitating rocks in the air.
3,407 years later the Doctor (Jodi Whittaker) picks up distress signals in the TARDIS from nine planets, all coming from the same area. She determines violent psychotropic waves are being omitted from the planet. She gives them brain inhibiting implants, neuro balancers, to wear before they investigate the planet and the TARDIS lands there, in one of the ships sending out the distress signal, as a man appears with a gun. Ryan (Tosin Cole) sees the crew log come on screen. She introduces herself and the others and he "looks like an urgent call". He thinks 'they' sent her, but they can't be with them cos they just arrived here. He can't recall if there's any other crew around. He doesn't remember his name either and he forget when he went outside where the battle took place. He asks who she is again. She gives him a neuro balancer too, to help calm his mind.
Ryan thinks he could have killed his own crew as Graham (Bradley Walsh) says he's the commander. His name is Paltraki, as a message comes through for him. The Creator wants what they took from him otherwise his crew will suffer and as one of them tells him not to return, she is killed for everyone to see. The Doctor wants to know what he has and it appears to be a spherical object inside a cuboid covering, but they don't know what it is. The Doctor also recognizing the voice of the Creator, as do the others, it's Tim Shaw (Samuel Oatley) returning for yet more humiliation and a failed plan of destroying the planets and specifically, Earth. Graham tells the Doctor he has to get revenge on him for Grace but she's against it. As she gives each of them something to do, such as the console which apparently shows where his crew may be. So if they reverse it and retrace its steps as Graham says, they could find out where Paltraki (Mark Addy) has been.
Outside, they see masses of ships that were destroyed during the battle and come to a floating rock formation. She gives them communicators to stay in touch and she will find Tim Shaw, as she tells Graham and Ryan to find the crew and the same to Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Paltraki. He starts to remember now and the Doctor zooms in on an entrance on the rock, wading through water once more and adding she should've wore Wellies and she could've invented them too. They're pulled inside by the rock and as they go their separate ways, Graham and Ryan have another conversation, where Ryan tells him he can't do anything stupid and he must be the better man, as his Nan would say. As robots come towards them from both sides. Ryan tells him to duck as they fire on each other.
Yaz asks Paltraki about his home and where he's from as he begins to remember, but his memories are chaotic as they return all at once. He asks where she's from and she replies Earth, which sounds like a horrible name to him. They come to a place where they find more cuboid objects but don't know how they got there or what they are. The Doctor meets Andinio (Phyllis Logan) and they exchange a barrage of questions which the Doctor doesn't get many replies to. She says she wants to meet the Creator and he tells her to bring her the Doctor. Tim Shaw appears to be in pain and wants the Doctor to suffer what she did on Earth and blames her for the deaths on this planet. But she tells him he can't do that, it wasn't her fault. The Ux hail him as a god but she says he's not since he's all about the pain and suffering. He blames her for not being able to rule the Stenza. However the Ux have more than provided him with exalted status of a god by their desire to worship anything they can.
As Graham and Ryan find the other ship's crew all in stasis pods. As they try to release them which Graham finds a light and Ryan finds more of them. He tells Graham that he wants him to be safe and he calls him "grandpa" again which he didn't think he's heard for a second time. It took him long enough to say it and now he's used to it. As well as telling Graham he loves him. Which Graham asks him to repeat as he did last ep when Ryan called him grandpa for the first time. Ryan not falling for it. As they release the others, the Doctor finds Yaz and the other objects but Tim Shaw doesn't tell her what they're doing there.
She works out they're planets and they need to be replaced into their rightful orbit and Tim Shaw wants to destroy the Earth. As the Ux put in his plan of harnessing energy to destroy, with Delph (Percelle Ascott) not wanting to go ahead with it but is forced to do so by Andinio. The Doctor must stop them and Yaz reasons that she should 'kill' them using the 2 versus 7 billion argument. (Didn't we get Earth and the universe in peril last ep too!) She thinks she could unplug them somehow and they both come up neuro balancers at the same time. They will have to use their own, even if they will get affected by the planet. This works and she brings the TARDIS to them so the Ux can help put the planets back. By rigging up some cables and them both using their psychic powers. Finally succeeding as Paltraki takes the survivors back to his ship and Ryan takes the two remaining ones; telling Graham not to do anything stupid and makes him promise.
Of course there was going to be a showdown but not in the sense of how anyone imagined, as Graham finally tells Tim Shaw that he's the better man and lowers the gun. Ryan returns to help him as Graham shoots Tim Shaw in the foot, which is all he can do cos he doesn't have the courage to go through with it. They put him into a stasis pod sentencing him to life, and telling him to remember one name; "Grace." Paltraki takes the survivors back to their planets and Delph says he can take them too as they need a new home.
SO ends this series of escapades with the new Doctor and team, or rather fam and pretty much they were straightforward stories, without having us think too much or overtly about the villains or the plots. As said Tim Shaw being humiliated again and locked up as in the opening ep where he was transported by the Doctor elsewhere and living in isolation. Graham and Ryan forging a new relationship together without Grace and Yaz, well not much happening with her. Graham got to say "yippy kai ai..." as he blew the robots up and the Doctor going back on what she told Ryan about not killing. He was new so she had to lay down some ground rules for him, but under some circumstances, killing can't be avoided. But she told Graham that if he killed Tim Shaw then "I can't have you travel with me." The Doctor did make an allusion to Journey's End ep and this was a story resembling The Pirate Planet with Doctor Four, as Tim Shaw also wanted to 'shrink' the Earth.
Roll on the new year!
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