Doctor Who: Praxeus (2020) - Review

'Praxeus' is a rather unfortunately placed episode in Doctor Who: Series 12. After the surprising twists and turns in last week's 'Fugitive of the Judoon', with a cliffhanger ending leading into this episode and a co-writer credit to series showrunner Chris Chibnall, I (and I suspect many other fans) went into 'Praxeus' expecting a direct continuation that would further the series arc in a new and interesting way, whereas what we actually got was a run-of-the-mill, monster-of-the-week episode in a slot that really needed something more interesting and "important" to the series.

This all contributes to my general indifference towards 'Praxeus' as an episode; it simply did nothing to really maintain my investment, and instead I found myself waiting patiently for some indication of where the series would actually be going next in terms of the big arc plot. It also doesn't help that 'Praxeus'' themes of plastic waste and its environmental impact are only three weeks away from 'Orphan 55''s heavy-handed climate change message. Sure, Doctor Who can tackle these ideas in multiple episodes, but I felt as though I'd seen this before, and only very recently - again, 'Orphan 55' was only three episodes ago. This is nowhere near as messy or poorly-structured as 'Orphan 55', but 'Praxeus' did fall into a similar trap I found with writer Pete McTighe's previous episode 'Kerblam!', in that I found the set-up ingenious and the climax fell completely flat.

Sure, the ensemble cast is probably a bit too big for a single fifty-minute episode, but everyone had clear characterisation, the companions were split off to contribute towards the plot in interesting ways, and the episode was pretty well-paced. My ultimate problem was that I simply found myself not particularly invested in a story with such an underdeveloped threat. The Praxeus pathogen makes people explode into dust, but its not clear how widespread such a virus is. There's no news reports showing various countries around the world getting it, no indication of how the emergency services are coping, and how Praxeus is spreading. There are narrative gaps that you could probably drive a reasonably-sized car through (like how astronaut Adam Lang was able to text his husband presumably without a phone to hand, given he'd just been in space), but the episode doesn't even attempt to try and distract you with an exposition-dumping villain. In fact, there is no villain, which would vary up the stakes if it wasn't for the fact that this is a recurring feature in this era of the show. Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who features virtually no standout villains, bar returning foes the Master and the Dalek, so to see yet another episode without a proper baddie is just exasperating. "Humanity is the real villain" is a narrative twist that stops working if you keep repeating it over and over again, and 'Praxeus' falls right into this trap.

'Praxeus' just has very little to offer beyond its initial intrigue. The scale of the episode feels large, but then everything gets resolved in such a convenient way that ultimately doesn't feel earned. There's a romance in there that doesn't get established until a good half-way through for it anchor the story emotionally, there's no monsters or villains to fight, and everyone's investigations just conclude with "and now we're going to conveniently fly a cure around the world". I wouldn't mind if Pete McTighe came back to write another episode of Who, but could it be a bit more satisfying next time?

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