Preface: I’ve heard people say far too often that the ESC is “too political”, and that’s nonsense. The ESC is not political enough. It is produced and sanitised and sterile with just enough of a hint of backroom politics to keep people angry in the right way without causing too much damage to the status quo. It needs to be more political, and it needs to be the artists themselves being political. Art without politics is worth less.

Now on to the episode: I enjoyed it. Being an ESC episode, I knew there had to be a Graham Norton cameo, and that did not disappoint. The acerbic “wish I hadn’t signed away my appearance rights” was great. I recognise the name Rylan, but I actually have no idea who that is IRL.

We have in this episode one of the most dangerous villains we’ve ever had, and it was a random wronged victim, not a demigod, not a race of nazi-standin stormtroopers, just a regular person who was maligned by society. I like this a lot. It’s a reminder that if you push people too far, you make them into lone wolf villains that can be more dangerous than you could imagine. The fact that the Corp killed an entire planet for fake honey is disgusting, but makes for an entertaining story. Totally not subtle but at this point I feel like subtlety even outwith doctor who is kind of dead, at this point I don’t mind it that much. The fact that the threat was really high stakes but not “the entire universe” high (because someone has to stay alive to hold the Corp to account) paradoxically makes it seem like higher stakes than usual. As in, it could actually happen without meaning the series has to end. Doctor going nuts is a bit off putting to watch, but that’s the point. It reminds me a bit of 10s first outing where after the PM kills all the Sycorax he loses it, though certainly not as off the rails as happens in this ep.

I enjoyed the song contest parody, especially the juxtaposition of the horror and the camp awfulness. Lots of diversity here in the casting and characters, which is good as always. The gambling rule was a good justification for the plot to proceed as it did. The whole episode is poking fun at and criticising the awful things that sponsors of nice events and causes do. I wonder how the ESC / Morrocanoil feel about this - the ESC’s main sponsor, and there’s suggestions they operate in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, which bears some echoes to what the Hellia went through. I notice that they didn’t explicitly mention the ESC by name once in the episode. did they have difficulty getting the rights to that? Can’t imagine why… The whole hellia story needs to be explored in more detail.

Grumbles: Plotwise I am a bit confused how Kid got into the station in the first place. Surely it would take more then just having one Helper already on the inside. I’m getting the same annoying reaction of “this highly important place has really shit security” that I got from UNIT previously. Is there no 2FA in the future?

There was a pronoun thrown in there (she/her), and aside from a “definite article” gag it was the only one. I usually dont nit-pick on these things but it stood out in a bad way here. It would have fit in better if they had done that more than once, maybe with a few neo pronouns thrown in as well (there are aliens after all).

Miscellaneous wider plot notes: A confusing susan cameo, amazing they actually got Carol Ann Ford for that. Wonder if that’s going to be followed up or not. Finally got answers for Mrs flood. I’m glad it wasn’t the master. Interesting they’re making bigeneration a general thing, and not just a one-off.