‘I’m normally very good at keeping up with things, but you lost me quite early on.’ I said The Halloween Apocalypse teetered on the brink of incoherence. This not only tips over the edge, it plummets, like Kylie going down on Starship Titanic. Starting with ‘Bel’s Story’ didn’t help – my reaction was pure “Not Another One” meme as Chibnall throws more random characters into the mix including the Grand Serpent and ‘Awsok’, plus that funny Victorian Scouser wandering about again. And Daleks, Cybermen, and a Weeping Angel – gotta catch ‘em all!

‘Hello, dear. I don’t understand any of this.’ The bulk of this episode is the first substantial appearance of the Sontarans as villains since 2008. I sense an effort to rehabilitate them as credible baddies after years of Strax’s antics. But wisely, Chibnall doesn’t try to make them entirely serious – they are, after all, Robert Holmes creations with all the cynicism that implies. Extrapolating from classic series appearances, when they frequently seemed closer to cracking the secrets of Gallifrey than even the Daleks, these Sontarans have launched a temporal (not ‘tempura’, Dan) offensive, enforcing Jingo Linx’s claim to the Earth from their base in present-day Liverpool.

‘This is impossible. The end of the universe is chasing us.’ Praxeus, but with everything turned up to 11.  Rather than a global apocalypse this offers up a cosmic cataclysm with the same frenetic jumping from location to location, and a whole load of new characters to try to follow. Perhaps the fact that almost none of them interacts is down to the production challenges created by the pandemic – but given Chibnall’s previous form it’s as likely that this is just how he wrote it.

‘It’s all lies. None of this is the truth.’ The Deadly Assassin of the 21^st Century, with a showdown between the Doctor and the Master on Gallifrey, a lengthy sequence in the Matrix, and a similar emetic reaction from a subset of fans. Whether it proves as influentially iconoclastic as Robert Holmes’ story only time will tell. And around the edges, it also acts as a series climax, wrapping up Asahd’s plans for the ascension of the Cybermen, revealing the truth about Ruth and Brendan, and explaining the Master’s Time Lord plan.

‘I’ll have to bill you for therapy at this rate.’ First impressions were that this was The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos done right, with genuine stakes and a credible villain. Like Tim Shaw, Ashad has beef with the Doctor – but in Ashad’s case he has the power to back up his threats, and much of this episode’s propulsive energy comes from his relentless, single-minded hatred. He’s the Locutus of the Cybermen: the rest of the species are emotionless drones, while he acts as a channel for their malevolence.

‘Beware of the lone Cyberman. Don’t let it have what it wants.’ This fulfils the same role (and episode position) as last series’ The Witchfinders: a quintessentially Doctor Who-ish pseudo-horror where the supernatural events have a rational explanation, meaning the show can have its cake and eat it. Disembodied skeletal hands crawl the lightning-lit corridors of the Villa Diodati, space folds back in on itself trapping the villa’s occupants, a ghostly figure is glimpsed from the windows, and all the basic ingredients for Mary Shelley’s seminal work of sci-fi horror are revealed to her, because God forbid a woman can conjure these things out of her imagination.

‘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.