TV Review | Doctor Who: “Arachnids in the UK” by Chris Chibnall

We’ve come a long way since Metebelis III. The first Doctor Who story in a staggering forty-four years to feature giant arachnids as its monster of the week dazzles in just about every respect, despite not having a great blue crystal anywhere in sight.

Fulfilling the “Aliens of London” function in this brave new era’s burgeoning native, “Arachnids in the UK” sees the Doctor return her friends home to their native Sheffield in the present day. There they discover that something has caused the city’s spider population to grow out of control and converge on an unopened hotel that Yaz’s mum - sorry, Najia - is getting set to manage.



Whilst the episode’s ambitious effects leave a lot to be desired - director Sallie Aprahamian might have considered taking a leaf from The X-Files’ playbook and using far less light in some of the more effects-heavy sequences - any visual shortcomings are made up for by Chris Chibnall’s scintillating script. Like many of the series’ finest offerings, “Arachnids in the UK” is as fast and as funny as it is unsettling. Yet such qualities belie the aching pathos at the story’s heart; I’ve heard of sympathy for the Devil, but sympathy for a spider? Thirty-seven seasons in and Doctor Who still continues to astound with its innovation.



And Chibnall’s plot is the season’s most sophisticated so far. Impossible to predict but thoroughly rewarding in its payoff, “Arachnids in the UK” eschews the series’ reliance on extra-terrestrial threats to the planet and instead serves as the series’ most scathing ecological commentary since “The Green Death” of 1973. The writer doesn’t limit his social commentary to conservation concerns, though - the character of Robertson, for instance, who’s magnificently realised by Chris “Mr Big” Noth (yes – I’ve seen almost every episode of Sex and the City, just as the missus has sat through most episodes of modern Doctor Who), is a harrowing reflection of those with power and wealth today. What’s particularly unsettling about the character is that at a first glance he’s every bit the loathsome, larger-than-life human foil that we’ve seen so many times before in Doctor Who, but then you realise: there’s no such thing anymore, life really is that large now. Robertson might be planning to run against Trump in the 2020 election (should Trump make it that far...), but he’s a representation of him in all but name.



The episode is also a strong character piece for the ensemble, cementing Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor in the role through an enchanting fusion of social awkwardness and gung-ho cool. Gone are the days of the Doctor not doing “domestics” - she throws herself headlong into dinner at Yaz’s here, her patent loneliness turning quickly to exuberant delight. She calls people “dude” now, can do the kookiest of small talk, and is as naively nonchalant about her possible involvement in a same-sex/different species relationship as she is Ed Sheeran’s identity.



And this week it’s also Yaz’s turn to shine. For the first time, we see her character in context, surrounded by her family. She’s not just the ambitious, downtrodden trainee police officer we saw in “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”; she’s also a daughter and a big sister, and so we get to see her trying to reconcile those roles with her new one as a time-travelling adventurer. It’s a wonderful dynamic; the back and forth with her mum (Shobna Gulati of Corrie fame) is particularly arresting.



The men take a bit of backseat, in contrast, though the script does check in with Ryan a few times - usually for action sequences - and we start to explore Graham’s grief in earnest. Chibnall presents us with a wonderfully moving and ambiguous sequence that could just as easily be a moving character moment, the prelude to a spooky story later in the season, or perhaps even both. I do think more needs to be made of Ryan’s dyspraxia, though - it’s not been mentioned in a couple of weeks despite the character needing to do some really quite coordinated stuff. Surely catching and securing a giant spider is on a par with riding a bike? I’m no expert, of course, but that’s kind of the point - I was expecting to be by four episodes in, and not just because I’ve done my due diligence on Wikipedia.

Overall, though, “Arachnids in the UK” is another hit for what is fast becoming, once again, a hit series, and I await Team TARDIS’s first voyage into the future with bated breath.

The new series of Doctor Who airs on Sunday nights on BBC One and this episode is available to stream or download on BBC iPlayer in the UK, where the preceding 149 episodes are also currently available. A series pass is available from iTunes for £23.99.