With Arachnids in the UK, this season continues on its steady improvement. The characters are fleshing out nicely and supporting family and friends adding to their dimensions. I found the reasoning for each to continue being companions particularly interesting.
The story was a nice change. It wasn’t an alien invasion, it wasn’t in London and it was in the present. The Doctor is very proud of herself that she got them to the right place for a change! She is fantastic at the socially awkward one liners and her facial expressions are over the top. This story continued the tradition of seemingly unrelated threads coming together in the end. The spiders are all going crazy without an obvious reason. The Doctor finds a strong advisor who begins to bring the mystery together. The Doctor’s unique ability of seeing connections, places a bulls-eye on a swanky new resort. We meet the owner, a stereotypical American businessman, who is a shoot first control freak. As his eyes are opened to the damage he has caused, he becomes angrier and eventually killing the “mother spider”. A brief mention of a toxic waste disposal company ends up tying up the loose ends.
This was a story in the vein of “Dalek”, where the problem was caused by simple human greed. It was also the first horror type of story for this series. So far we have had the rogue alien on earth, the mystery on another planet, the historical and now the horror. The spiders were very well done, and seeing dozens crawling in the dark was genuinely scary. We are missing the far future, the space station and the comedy. Pardon me if I missed a genre.
The ending made me ponder something. These 3 companions somewhat mirror the first 3 Doctors since the return. Graham is running from loneliness and grief, like 9. Ryan is more or less out to see the universe and have fun, similar to 10. Finally, Yaz wants to impress, and is very family oriented, as was 11 with the Ponds.
Overall, decent episode—just waiting and hoping for one to make me say wow. 3 out of 5.