Doctor Who: The Devil’s Chord

Doctor Who is back on screens, beginning its first season with a double bill, Space Babies and The Devil’s Chord. The Devil’s Chord hits all the right notes with the introduction of villainous Maestro, even if the series is yet to find its groove.

Leading straight on from Space Babies, the two episodes released simultaneously for the launch of the series, there’s for now a moment of calm before the oncoming storm. The title card opens the show in the 1920s as Timothy Drake (Jeremy Limb) performs The Devil’s Chord, summoning Maestro to our realm in the process.

A cold open resulting in an early death isn’t unusual for Doctor Who, but Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) immediately breaking the fourth wall, a device associated with theatre in addressing the audience, most certainly is. Maestro turns their attention to us, eyes locked, and begins playing a single note. Repeating it again. And again and again. The note becomes the theme tune composed by Murray Gold, and as the TARDIS circles through the screen, intertitles appear and go, all that lingers in the back of our minds is that this is all Maestro’s doing, and we’re at their mercy. A plaything for their amusement – an ideology that is likely to sound familiar.

Back to the confines of storytelling as written by Russell T Davies, and directed by Ben Chessell: the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) are in the comfort of the TARDIS, and its Ruby’s interest in wanting to see the recording of The Beatles at Abbey Road that becomes the adventure’s next destination. The studios, then called EMI Recording Studios happened to have not just the Liverpudlian band recording, but Cilla Black (played by Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget’s breakout performer Josie Sedgwick-Davies). Except everything about their music is wrong. All the beauty of the art faded.

As the episode continues, the Doctor and Ruby learn more of Maestro, and their omnipotent powers in controlling and owning music. Yet its the arpeggio chuckle Maestro musters, as their body contorts outwards from inside a piano that causes the Doctor to hide with fear. This chuckle, this giggle, had been heard before. A product of The Toymaker, last seen in The Giggle (2023), Maestro too has full control over their chosen domain. The Toymaker has games, Maestro has music. And neither are to be reasoned with.

Ultimately this episode is Jinkx Monsoon’s playground, and she owns it. Her character’s unpredictability, sliding between daemonic, playful, and performative is extraordinary, made all the more impressive as the actress’ first broadcast performance. Maestro, much like the Toymaker before them, is a mighty foe and the manipulation of space and time is fair game.

At its core though, there is something about The Devil’s Chord that unfortunately doesn’t fully land. Whilst Maestro is exceptional, and there is so much of the episode to celebrate, from the hair and makeup, to Gatwa’s musicality throughout every turn or jive, or even how through every scene is a form of music, whether composed or aeolian toned, there is regrettably a slight disharmony to its storytelling that skips beats and fails to resolve its established dynamics which niggles away and distracts from becoming fully immersed. Even the episode’s main draw, The Beatles, are under utilised, with plot points about John Lennon waking up crying being underdeveloped. For the episode to market itself so heavily on The Beatles, it’s surprising how little importance they play to the episode.

Further, as a hypothetical, if Maestro had been removing and disrupting music from the 1920s until the 1960s, would their banishment in 1963 fix everything from the 1920s, or now that has happened, has it always been that way? Similarly, the Doctors way of brushing past a Back to the Future (1985) style timeline erasure for Ruby Sunday, is just to explain that he’s responsible, but how.

Equally, in its final musical number, There’s Always A Twist at the End, the inclusion of Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas and dancer Johannes Radebe, feels an odd cameo to include, along with Murray Gold who all play themselves in the 1960s musical number.

The farcicality of the episode’s premise runs away with itself when the strength in what made it so terrifying was showing how grounded our titular characters are, when juxtaposed with godlike beings who see our laws of physics as a mere suggestion.

There are also themes of breaking the fourth wall throughout the episode, such as the Doctor remarking his suspicion of a musical arrangement was non-diegetic, a term used to describe music that doesn’t fit the world, which is important to highlight. Whilst the show has knowingly addressed audiences before, such as the cold open to Listen (2014), the sheer amount of knowing winks and nods to the camera from Maestro and the Doctor throughout The Devil’s Chord is an eerie indication to the way the show, and our culture, has become oddly accustomed to a self-aware stance from media. Or without theorising too much, a projection and continuation of the themes of storytelling and identity that the show is tackling.

But I’ll leave that to you to decipher.

Doctor Who: The Devil’s Chord is available on BBC iPlayer, with new episodes released weekly on Saturday at midnight on the streaming platform, or broadcast later in the day on BBC One. Outside the UK the show can be watched exclusively on Disney+.