This week on Doctor Who, The Doctor and his companion deal with stories and folktales as they deal with a Barber who needs stories told to fuel his vengeance in the Episode ‘The Story and the Engine”. Last time, the Doctor and Belina were still trying to figure out how to get back to their time period, but will this story get them any closer to home?
Doctor Who: Recapping Into the Vortex
This episode begins in a barbershop as an older gentleman is getting his haircut and tells a story of how he met the doctor as a child. He retells the story of a fire that went through his village and how, as a child, he ran to the river to try to get water in a little cup even though everyone else was laughing at him.
Just then, the doctor shows up to put the fire out in the boy’s village and becomes friends with a boy. As a story is being told, there are visuals in the background being shown. It turns out that the imagery is part of a creature that is keeping them trapped there. It must be fed stories to survive.
Meanwhile, while The Doctor lands the TARDIS and gets his reading, he explains his physiology to Belinda. The Doctor does bring up the fact that he is now a black man and that he is treated differently in some places on Earth, but there’s one place he loves to go back to where he doesn’t have to worry about how he looks, and that’s a barbershop in Logos called Omo’s Palace. Omo was the boy whose village was saved by The Doctor. The doctor decides to go visit him, but notices a sign that says “Turn Back”, posters of men missing, including his friend Omo.
They investigate, and if you know anything about The Doctor, they love a good mystery. When the doctor finds Omo, any others, he is introduced to the new management of Omo’s barber, a mysterious Barber who informs them that a story must always be told while sitting in the barber’s chair. Turns out each story is the fuel for the Barber’s spaceship that is currently being flown in space. The Barber is also joined by his assistant, Abena, whom The Doctor seems to recognize from somewhere.
When it is the Doctor’s turn to get into the barber’s chair, the Barber himself pulls out his clippers and starts cutting while the doctor tells a story. At first, the doctor is resistant, but then, once he tells a story about his current companion, Belinda, and how she helped an old woman, the Barber ship starts to fill itself to almost max capacity. This changes things for the Barber and his assistant, who let slip that the Barber is on his way to take control of a distant planet.
Feeling the Betrayal
The doctor, feeling betrayed, approaches Omo and realizes that this is a trap, so that he and the others can go free. Before even trying to let them go, the Doctor expresses the fact that he thought he could trust Omo, that his shop felt like a home. When the Doctor tries to set them free, it turns out that the ship they are on is a giant spider-like mechanical ship. The Doctor learns this as he opens the door, and everyone hangs on to something for their dear life as the shop depressurizes in space.
Belinda soon joins the doctor and Omo shop, and we learn that the Barber is something of a story legend as he claims to be from mythical stories. This turns out to be nothing but fiction as The Doctor explains to everyone in the shop that he has met some of the legends that this being has claimed to be.
The Barber tells the doctor that he is behind the stories and the one trying to keep them alive. The Doctor also comes to realize that the Barber’s assistant is the daughter of Anansi, who felt trapped by her father, scared someone would win her in a bet. She told her stories of the Doctor traveling in time and space, praying that they would help her.
The Doctor explained how they were fugitives many lives ago and how they couldn’t take her with them. The episode gets closer to us, and we learned that The Barber wants to cut ties with the gods and the web of stories tying them to humans. This comes as a big shock to Abena, who is now conflicted about what she should do next. She ultimately decides to tell a story while weaving a map into The Doctor’s hair, showing them where to go in order to save everyone.
The Barber feels betrayed by her and decides to revoke her access to get back to Earth and hunt down The Doctor and Belinda. They end up finding the heart of the ship, and when I say heart, I mean “heart”, as the core of the ship is alive. The barber tries to stop the doctor, but the doctor ends up overloading the ship’s core with his own stories and the lives that he’s lived.
They only end up saving everyone in that barbershop, but he also saves the Barber himself. In the end, the doctor saves everyone, all the men trapped in the shop go home to their families, but not before honoring Abena. The Barber realizes his wrongdoing, and The Doctor tasks him to write his own story.
The Overall View
The episode was very eye-opening, mostly to the culture that goes around in Africa and the stories that are told. I like the fact that they do address that the doctor is a person of color now and that the owner passed doctors, including the Fugitive Doctor played by Jo Martin, who also hints that maybe their story is not over just yet. This episode shows that Doctor Who and its writers are not afraid to go beyond their comfort zone when it comes to writing an episode. I hope that we get more stories like this one day from them, and I hope that someday, the Doctor and Belinda get home.
