Running Time: Approx. 53 minutes. Written by: Noga Flaishon. Directed by: Ken Bentley. Produced by: Noga Flaishon.
THE PLOT:
The Doctor traces the appearances of The Tourist to the Aegis Protectorate, a weapons manufacturer whose Trojans allow customers to engage in casualty-free peacekeeping, with soldiers remotely controlling mechanized troops in the field.
Aegis's ruthless CEO, Athena Nikos (Juliet Aubrey), is preparing to unveil an even deadlier and more efficient Trojan at the company's upcoming arms expo. The Doctor is forced to rely on an old enemy to get her and Yaz into the event. But once inside, Yaz begins experiencing hallucinations.
The Tourist is here - and it's using its powers to try to take control of Yaz!
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Her psychic paper allows her to impersonate a colonel during the opening teaser. She pouts a bit about this, complaining that Yaz would make a far more convincing officer. She separates from Yaz as soon as they get into the expo, searching for restricted areas. That takes her through the kitchens, where in a fun moment she pauses to snack on a canapé. Her best scenes come near the end, when worries about Yaz's safety result in her showing some real anger.
Yaz: Save for those scenes near the end, this is a rare story in which I think Mandip Gill outshines Jodie Whittaker. Gill certainly gets more interesting material, as Yaz's consciousness shifts between the expo and her mindscape, a recreation of Sheffield. She struggles to keep The Tourist from seizing control... and for a while, she fails, which allows Gill to have some fun being genuinely malicious.
Athena Nikos: The villain is one of the story's weaker elements. Actress Juliet Aubrey is fine, camping it up as the callous arms merchant. Too bad that the character doesn't' come across as either imposing or interesting. She's obviously evil, even doing a requisite double-cross of an ally at one point. But she isn't clever enough to actually pose a challenge for the Doctor, who is able to defeat her with minimal effort in the final minutes. I think the story really needed to allow her a moment in which she actually did something genuinely monstrous (turning on another shady character doesn't rise to that level) in order to make her cartoonish evil into something effective. As it stands, I'm afraid I just kept thinking of her as "Temu Servalan."
THOUGHTS:
Aegis acts as the endpoint of the first six Thirteenth Doctor Adventures, and it fills that role serviceably. The script provides answers about "The Tourist" and why the entity has been reaching out to the Doctor, and those answers fit the hints and teases dropped in previous stories. It also fits the season it's part of, its anti-war themes making it a strong companion for Ride or Die.
Even so, I've found this review difficult to write. This is a "middle story," not good enough to gush about but not bad enough to tear into. I found it enjoyable while listening - but even while listening, it seemed as if something was missing, and my opinion has only slid since.
The story is purely surface-level. The villain runs a generic EvilCorp. The Doctor's infiltration of the top-secret areas is conflict-free, with her just waving her pyschic paper around and being literally taken to the door to the Locked Room with Answers. Even Yaz's thread, which contains the most interesting scenes, doesn't even try to delve into her personal hopes and fears. Finally, while Mandip Gill seems to relish the scenes with an angry Tourist possessing Yaz, not much ends up being done with the idea.
In the end, it just needs... well, more. We're told that Sontarans and other old enemies are at this expo. Why not have somebody recognize the Doctor and force her to hide from them even as she continues to impersonate an official? Why not have Yaz possessed earlier and doing things that are more ruthless, maybe even a bit shocking? Why not give the villain a personality beyond "evil and greedy?" Yes, I know it has to be kept to a single-disc length - but single disc doesn't have to mean 50 minutes. Ride or Die ran a full hour; The Return of the Doctor ran even longer; and in both cases, I think the extra 10 - 15 minutes allowed for a depth and texture that's absent here.
OVERALL:
Aegis is by no means a bad release. It's well paced and entertaining, and it does a serviceable job of wrapping up "The Tourist" arc.
Its problems are very similar to... well, to The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos: It's entirely adequate, but its events feel too small-scale for its role; its story is perfectly acceptable, but little advantage is taken of the opportunities to do anything more interesting. It's fine - but it's no more than fine, and for the widely touted "mid-season finale," I just don't think that's quite good enough.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
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