Doctor Who #1047: The Devil's Chord

“I thought that was non-diegetic.”

TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired May 10 2024.

IN THIS ONE... The Maestro steals all the music in the world.

REVIEW: Doing a musical number in Doctor Who? You kinda blew your wad in the Christmas special already, didn't you, Russell? The Devil's Chord would have been a lot more special if you hadn't, but it's better motivated in this case. We don't need to rely on "Broken Universe" theories for this one, as there's a child of the Toymaker in play (as to why Games would give birth to Music, as opposed to these being siblings in the same Pantheon...) who can bend the rules of reality just like he did in The Giggle. Maestro is the very essence of music, and if I get this right, feels like something is taken away from them when anyone PLAYS music. Maestro will get it all back and aims for a universe-wide musical entropy where only the Aolean tones of nuclear winter can be heard, effectively stealing the "Music of the Spheres" (see the Proms "episode" of the same name). That's a fantastic premise brought to life by drag artist Jinkx Monsoon who is spectacular in the role. If the episode works half as well as it does, it's because Maestro is a delicious creature with a cool look and an outrageous personality/delivery. The way concepts are coming to life in the series puts me in mind of the New Adventures novels, but really, we're in Doctor Who comic strips territory here, with a strikingly cartoonish villain who can use musical notes as physical objects. They can also break the fourth wall and talk to camera, but the Doctor also does that (and arguably has since the Hartnell era), but I tend to think of that as non-diegetic.

Of course, there is some measure of nonsense to any RTD script. We're led to believe here that music is extinguished in 1925, sending history down the wrong path, but the Beatles still got together to put terrible nursery rhymes on vinyl? Last gasp or not, how do we still have proper musicians from our timeline still getting interested in this. Why is there even an industry if music is so terrible, and fills you with dread when you play it (as it summons Maestro). These four lads got interested in music enough to still be geniuses at it, and they'll provide the final chord at the end to banish Maestro from our universe. Like I said, there's always a measure of nonsense in RTD scripts. He just wants his moments even of they don't make sense. For example, while it's fine to have Maestro identify as "they", their arguing with a man from 1925 about is just stupid. Maestro also having a son, here called H. Arbinger, is one of those plays on words RTD loves (Professor Yana, the anagrammatic solution at the end of this season, etc.), but it begs more questions than there are answers to. We're not supposed to think about it too hard, even though they obviously tell the audience there are mysteries to think about.

What this is, really, is an ode to music, and we'll have lots of interesting gags relating to this, most prominently the use of Murray Gold's music as part of the action. (He also appears as a conductor/musician.) Maestro plays the Doctor Who theme, resolving into the opening credits before playing on the Doctor's jukebox. They later play the "Sound of Drums" as a sonic attack. There's a musical battle with various instruments acting as weapons (Maestro initially affects the fiddle, which is the Devil's instrument). A completely silent moment. Ruby inspiring London with a real piece of music, which just happens to be "Ruby's Theme". And of course the musical number at the end, motivated by all the music rushing back into the world (we might question why it's retroactive but shhhhhh), taking inspiration from Big (using the Abbey Road crosswalk) and Singing in the Rain. I don't love "There's Always a Twist at the End" - it's a little too discordant for me - but it speaks to narrative devices and Doctor Who's in particular, while also being a pun about the use of Susan Twist in every episode (and therefore being in the credits at "the end" - here she's EMI's lunch lady). That RTD sometimes gives us twists that don't make sense just to confound expectations is a discussion for another day.

THEORIES: We've got a lot of ground to cover, but let's start with Shoreditch. The Doctor specifically mentions his granddaughter Susan in this episode, pointing to the neighborhood where he and she are right this minute in September of 1963. Did they notice this? Was Susan the only kid in school who remembered music (she was specifically a fan in An Unearthly Child), making her even odder to her classmates? Since the 1st Doctor didn't take part in these events, history was rewritten so that he wouldn't remember it as the 15th, presumably. RTD confuses the issue of the Doctor's lineage by having the Doctor say he had kids or WILL have them, citing time travel as a confounding element. The simplest explanation is that he's using verb tenses in relation to universal history - his children aren't born yet and his Gallifrey is in Earth's future. But RTD could be implying something even more insane, like having the second Tennant Doctor, still alive and well, having kids (he's "settled down, after all" and eventually bringing them or baby Susan to be raised by the 1st Doctor. That leaves questions like just who the Doctor bred with (and is Susan therefore not fully a Time Lord?), so I'm going to opt for the first explanation. Before moving on, might I also frown at the notion that the Master's genocide of the Time Lords could have had a roll-on effect through time and space, killing Susan in the process. After all, the Doctor and the Master didn't suddenly turn into Cyberlords. Still, this is a spark of hope quite different from what we got in RTD's original run when the Doctor claimed he would "know" if any Time Lords were left after the Time War. It's implied Susan was out there at least until the Chibnall years.

When the Doctor takes Ruby back to 2024 - pulling the same trick he did in Pyramids of Mars, and that's a clue, folks -  he asks when Ruby left and she says June or July. The previous episode took place on Christmas, so months have passed. She's wearing the same outfit, but the Doctor isn't. So she's got a limited rotation, fine. Still, her request to go see the Beatles seems like a very early idea. If the Doctor came back to see her 6 months after their first couple adventures - leaving room for bonus stories with different companions, which I'm sure Big Finish will look into - that doesn't really jibe with the "will I see you again?" vibes of the season finale, but it's not an outright contradiction. Nor is it impossible for her to answer the Doctor's question about a destination and still have months of adventures (like those depicted in the comics).

It's not addressed in the finale, so this is perhaps the episode where sense is made of Ruby's ability to manifest snow. Maestro finds a hidden song in Ruby's throat and it's the Carol of the Bells, also from that night. But they also say the "One Who Waits" (also name-checked by the Toymaker) must have been present at those events - a direct line to the revelations of the finale. In other words, what makes Ruby special (her birth riddled with coincidence acting like a kind of fixed point that keeps replaying around her) ISN'T because of some strange lineage, but because the secret villain of the season has entangled himself in those events (and is a hidden presence even in this episode). It's Sutekh's obsession with this moment that is manifesting the memory, not Ruby, those of course, Broken Universe effects still apply. We'll obviously have to come back to this later.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - It's a lot of fun, and the nonsense elements are (mostly) justified by a cool conceptual villain.