‘Eternity is long, and we are cursed to see it all.’ The Armageddon Factor of the 21^st Century with two godlike beings pitting twin planets into the chaos of war for their own perverse entertainment. Zellin and Rakaya reference the Guardians and seem to be Eternals (in the vein of Captain Wrack and, perhaps, the Shadow, on his base between two warring worlds). They reference the Toymaker as a peer, and talk about humans as ‘Ephemeral’, whose nightmares fuel the Eternals’ creativity.

I liked this much more than I remembered. My heart sank when it began with the caption ‘Aleppo, Syria’ – which seemed to threaten another globetrotting “How many pages?” epic in the vein of Spyfall or Praxeus. But, despite the presence of godlike beings, this is mostly focused on the interior lives of the Fam, giving us our first new insights into them since Season 11. Ryan has to face up to the impact his own choice to go travelling has had on his friends. Graham has an almost Wilf-like sub-plot as he meets his own Silver Cloak group to play cards, and is forced to confront his own fears of his in-remission cancer and his guilt over Grace’s death. Even more impressively, I understand why Yaz was attracted to policing – the ability to make a positive difference in a crisis. It turns out Yaz was going through her own crisis three years ago, and the intervention of PC Patel was a life-changing moment.

By the end of the episode, all three seem to have reached a turning point. In Graham and Ryan’s case it means giving voice to feelings they’ve kept buried, and which perhaps have started to make them reconsider their time with the Doctor (Yaz seems more reconciled to continuing). It doesn’t help that the Doctor, in a reversion to early Capaldi type, has no reassurances or inspiring words to offer Graham. This doesn’t feel entirely in character for this incarnation, who’s never previously been short of an inspirational poster quote, but I generally prefer the less goofy take we’re getting this year.

The episode is flawed – there are, again, too many characters (the women from Aleppo really aren’t required, and it would have been far better to focus on the Fam and Tibo); the resolution seems throwaway, and the Chagaska monster is an unimpressive addition when there are much creepier elements. But I think the upsides are strikingly different than what we’ve seen earlier this season: Zellin’s detachable fingers; the harp-like controls for the space station; the cartoon depiction of the Eternals’ past crimes. We should, by now, be clued in to be suspicious of any imprisoned being, but the choice to cast Rakaya as a woman of colour tends to make the audience inherently sympathetic, so when she’s revealed to be a being of immense power and malevolence it’s got some of the impact of ostensible victim Darla being revealed as a predatory vampire in the first minutes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Re-evaluation required.

Next Time: The Haunting of Villa Diodati