Review: 'Doctor Who' meets James Bond in the swashbuckling 'Spyfall'

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As usual, the series works best in adventure mode — and Season 12 is off to a flying start, writes Times TV critic Robert Lloyd.

, who had costarred in Chibnall’s “Broadchurch,” was a surprise.) Some hidebound fans refused to imagine that a character defined by physical alteration, in a series that does not fret much over canonical consistency, could change into a woman. But viewership is on par with preceding seasons, and Whittaker owns the character as surely as any of her predecessors, bringing the requisite reckless curiosity and physical bravery and adding a screwball exuberance all her own.

Chibnall’s first season, which was also Whittaker’s, had its greater and lesser episodes — nothing yet to match the best of Russell T. Davies, who revived the series in 2005, or Stephen Moffat, who succeeded him as head writer, but with some solid ideas and memorable moments. It took some time to find its feet, but it was no disaster. And “Spyfall” — a two-part episode that concludes Sunday, when the show takes up its regular time slot — comes on strong.

Intense, sometimes quasi-romantic bonding between the Doctor, who flits about in space and time, and a traveling companion has been a distinguishing feature of the 21st century series. Like William Hartnell’s First Doctor, back in 1963, however, Whittaker travels not with a companion but a company, a “fam” to use her own word: young Yasmin , young Ryan and not-young Graham , Ryan’s stepfather. They have issues with one another but the Doctor is above the fray.

Perhaps the only completely consistent point throughout the series — in this century anyway — is that the Doctor is a person who needs people, which is why the show works best as pure swashbuckling adventure, as in most of “Spyfall,” or when it revels in the emotional connections between characters, their partings and reunions, and moments of mutual understanding.

 

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It was great...best in quite awhile!

Don't ruin Bond too.

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