The Devil's Chord, the echo of emptiness

I think this problem is partly due to the writing, but even more so to the production. A huge project like Doctor Who, so well known, and with an actor as famous as Ncuti Gatwa, may have suffered from a desire to hide every on set during filming so that nothing would be spoiled. And yet, it is not as though the series had never been this big or this popular before: it faced that challenge in the 2000s and 2010s, and everything turned out fine. So perhaps different production choices were made here compared with those earlier eras, because in the meantime the internet has evolved, people’s ability to take and share photos has changed, and so on. Even if that is not entirely justified, the production may simply have taken far too many precautions.

The Devil’s Chord is a perfect illustration of this issue: the characters move through empty sets. Literally. There is no one in the streets. There is no one in the corridors. There is no one anywhere. And when there are a few extras, they do not really exist, have no impact on the scene, and suffer none of the consequences of the characters’ actions. And yet the concept of this episode is brilliant. It is a very strong idea, made possible by the show’s turn toward a more “magical” dynamic. It could have done this before, but never quite to the point of some of the refreshingly wild visual flourishes we get here.

On a first viewing, in the middle of all the hype, it can seem genuinely delightful. But the more I rewatch it, the more I feel this emptiness is simply too palpable, even in the staging itself. Beyond the empty sets, we get shots of extras at windows, for example, whom we cannot even place, and who remain frozen in static shots. We see London from above, and the Doctor is looking down on it saying, “I’m over there, in a junkyard, with my granddaughter,” as if to say, “I am not here.” We see an all-powerful antagonist who attacks only one person outside the heroes. And once again, we see the Doctor and Ruby standing in front of a green-screen version of London, this time devastated and… empty.

As Ruby and the Doctor decide to go and watch the Beatles record their first album, they discover that music seems to have vanished, that people no longer make it, or only make very bad music. The Beatles exist, but deep down they do not seem to want to exist. That is because Maestro, one of the gods of the Pantheon the Doctor has only recently begun to face, steals the music inside people and feeds on it, making the world sad and slowly bringing about the death of humanity. It is a basic idea, but it is a theme worth exploring and one that could become something truly compelling.

The episode’s aesthetic, emptiness aside, is rather appealing: Maestro is full of colour, musical notes appear in the air, notions of space are warped by Maestro, the music is at times diegetic and at other times non-diegetic, and everything blurs together. It is bold in a good way. But the script starts to collapse a little, like a mille-feuille that slides apart layer by layer as you try to eat it. Because unfortunately, none of it quite makes sense: no one likes music, and yet people still make it by forcing themselves to do so (why? Do they still have radios and record players even though they do not like music?); they seem afraid of good music, but no one knows Maestro since they act in secret, so there should be no reason to fear them; and if music has been disappearing from people’s hearts since the beginning of the century, as the opening scene suggests, then how is it that after several decades, so little has changed?

These are all issues the script simply avoids. On the last point alone, one solution seemed obvious: either have Maestro appear at the beginning of the Beatles’ life as a band or focus on the piano teacher from the opening and not force the Beatles into the story at all. Besides, the fact that they are the Beatles changes nothing about the episode. They could have been any musicians, since the story is not especially about their music. From a production standpoint, however, it changes a lot, because then you can announce that “the Doctor is going to meet the Beatles.”

So why is this not a bad episode either? Because it tries things, and at this stage it reveals a little more about the dynamic of this new era. Namely, it shows us a moment in the Doctor’s life when he is afraid. The Doctor needed, in order to rise a little from his own ashes, to be shaken up. And that is exactly what happens here, from the very first episode of the season (Space Babies). The Doctor is afraid and runs away. For many people that may seem like a mistake, but as a character-building idea, it is actually quite interesting. We know now, as I write this analysis, that Gatwa unfortunately did not get enough seasons to fully complete this story arc, but at this point it feels rather welcome. Here is a Doctor who does not really know what to do, who doubts, makes mistakes, and takes reckless risks. In short, a Doctor who is not in danger because he knows everything and believes himself to be the best, like many of his predecessors, but the opposite: a Doctor thrown into a universe he does not know, where the rules have changed.

The opening of the episode is extremely strong, and the episode itself is aesthetically rather lovely to look at, but unfortunately the script and its mystery do not really hold together. Jinkx Monsoon, who plays Maestro, is fantastic, but underused—or badly used. This is therefore an episode that has everything it needs to be one of the best of the season but misses the mark because of one precise choice: the inclusion of the Beatles. In the end, there are really two episodes here. Either an episode about Maestro, or an episode about the Beatles—but trying to do both at once is probably what stops this episode from being truly masterful.

So let us move on to the episode itself and what emerges from it. COMPLETE ANALYSIS OF THE DEVIL’S CHORD