Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Doctor Who discussion, this time looking at Season 12 episode 4, Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror. After a strong opening story in Spyfall (part1 was definitely the stronger half) the show hit a snag with the somewhat condescending Orphan 55 (which was not as terrible as many people argue). Did episode 4 get things going again? On the whole I would say yes. This episode was a solid outing, utilising the “meet the famous historical figure” trope effectively. I’m a bit of a Tesla geek too so I enjoyed all of the little historical nods thrown in there.

Most of that came down to Goran Visnjic’s brilliant portrayal of Nicola Tesla. He was warm, likeable and engaging and acted as a great guest star. I already adored the actor from his stint in the very underrated series Timeless, and I thought that he was the episode’s MVP here. You felt sympathetic towards him and he actually acted as a great one-time companion. Actually, you didn’t need any of the companions here. They were all pretty useless with Tesla and Edison along with Tesla’s assistant filling in the companion roles much more effectively. The performances from Ryan and particularly Yaz weren’t that great in the little they were given. Yaz’s delivery felt really awkward at times. And who on earth thought her pushing over that one tiny shelf of bread to block four giant wall-crawling scorpions would be effective in any way whatsoever!?

The bad guys were effective with a simple premise: they travel around planets getting people to invent stuff while also stealing technology as well. It was clear and nicely explained which is a good improvement from my criticism of the premier. The designs were solid even if the giant scorpions were not the most imaginative idea. I liked the queen design but was not sold on the choice of voice. Why didn’t she look anything like a scorpion though? She actually had a good confrontation with the Doctor at the end and the Doctor actually had some solid lines throughout. This was a good turnaround as she came across as really rude at the start but luckily they mostly contained that to the first ten minutes. A step up from last week and that was a real necessity as last week wasn’t good. It wasn’t anything amazing or particularly special but it was a solid and decent outing.

DD Rating: 7.25/10