‘The Timeless Child… She doesn’t know… We see what’s hidden, even from yourself.’ After The Woman Who Fell to Earth channelled The Hungry Earth, this goes for Dinosaurs on a Spaceship with the Doctor’s fam promoted to full-on gang with the addition of big game players Angstrom and Epzo, a rapacious villain, rampaging robots and a race against time. It gives this a certain dynamism, especially against the vast backdrops of the South African location filming, even if there’s not much plot to speak of.

Mostly this exists to see the new Doctor in action with her new companions. As such, we get a totally linear story with no B-plots or diversions as they make their way through the hostile landscape to the finish line. I’m not entirely convinced this was a good idea. I can see Chibnall is going for a different approach, with a proper ensemble crew rather than the Doctor-plus-one the modern show has previously stuck with, but to make that work well I think you need to have quite vivid characters instead of everyone talking in the same fortune cookie homilies: ‘Can I just say, you are amazing… I’m proper impressed’ (The Doctor); ‘We’ve got each other’ (Yaz); ‘We’ve come this far ain’t we? Who says we’re giving up?’ (Graham).

The only time three companions have ever worked was back in the Hartnell era when the Doctor was an unknown quantity, the show was on 40-odd weeks of the year and the cast had to cover each other’s holidays. Even when the new series has had two companions there’s clearly been a main one (Rose, Amy, Bill) who we got to know before more were added. By the end of this, everyone has had another scene that sheds a bit more light on them (Ryan goes shoot-em-up; Yaz practices her empathy on Angstrom; Graham tries to talk to Ryan about Grace), but on balance I think this would have worked better had the separation at the start of the episode – the Doctor and Yaz with Epzo, Graham and Ryan with Angstrom – continued throughout.

This might also have justified the two, wildly different sets of monsters that otherwise don’t really work together in the same episode. The Remnants, malevolent crumpled linen, are creepy and weird. The sniper robots aren’t. I can imagine a version of this that made the most of the Remnants flitting through haunted ruins, hunting the Doctor’s gang. Or, alternatively, two teams each facing a different monster. This just seems like Chibnall couldn’t make his mind up which to use.

Still, even though its linear nature makes this a bit plodding, the aesthetics are striking. The new title sequence swaps time tunnel variants for a modern take on howlround, and combined with Segun Akinola’s more muscular, percussive theme and incidental music gives this a proper post-Murray Gold identity. It looks beautiful, with Art Malik’s Psychic Circus tent perched amid sun-soaked locations. The new TARDIS prop is great – so it’s a pity the interior, a mixture of hubcaps and earwax candles, is disappointing.

Next Time: Rosa