Doctor Who Review: Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror (Season 12 Episode 4)
It’s another day in the life of The Doctor and the Tardis fam and this time, they’re traipsing about the 1900s on Doctor Who Season 12 Episode 4, “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror.”
This week’s episode features the inventor Nikola Tesla and comes complete with the Thomas Edison rivalry and the alternating versus direct current debate. But, this is Doctor Who, so of course, there are aliens thrown in with the help of giant space scorpions.
It’s bold to put Nikola Tesla in the spotlight. He’s an important figure in history and there’s a lot to unpack regarding his story.
Much of “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror” rides on the chemistry between Jodie Whittaker and guest star Goran Visnjic. Whittaker is continuing to be the smart-yet-goofy Doctor we love, but opposite Visnjic’s Tesla the banter really comes out.
The subject matter helps to aid that. Tesla dreamed up the 20th century before it happened, and when you consider how ahead of his time he was, things like the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and self-assured knowledge about the Orb of Thassor don’t seem so weird.
Writing Tesla in such a way that he’s excited to have another brilliant and creative mind to talk to is the best choice that could have been made for this episode. This is the kind of dynamic I really wish that we could see the Doctor have with the Tardis fam.
TESLA: What, that instrument detects energy? Is…is it your own design?
THE DOCTOR: I made it. Mainly out of spoons.
TESLA: You’re an inventor!
THE DOCTOR: I have my moments.
Speaking of the Tardis fam.
For most of the episode, it feels like the companions are there to highlight a layman’s knowledge. While the companions are usually the viewers’ eyes into the Doctor’s world, but on this episode, they seem to serve the function of a chorus instead of an integrated part of the story with asides for commentary.
DOROTHY: That was Harold Green, one of Edison’s men.
YAZ: As in, Thomas Edison? Lightbulb guy?
GRAHAM: All right, we all know Edison. It’s Tesla you’ve never heard of.
RYAN: Oi, he’s literally standing right there.
I like the idea of multiple companions, but it doesn’t seem to be working.
Graham and Ryan have their grandfather/grandson relationship to lean on and it’s enjoyable to watch, but it kind of feels like their story has nowhere to go this season. I keep looking for something they can’t walk away from, and aside from the fact that they like traveling with the Doctor, I’m just not seeing a reason for them to be there.
In contrast, Yaz seems to be the one at the center of it all and with the most hands-on approach to tasks at hand. She’s even the one who asks the Doctor if everything is going to change now that Tesla has saved the world.
That exchange alone feels reminiscent of when the Doctor took Amy to meet Vincent Van Gogh. Amy returned to the present thinking she’d see many more paintings because Van Gogh had lived a long and full life. Yaz’s reaction even feels familiar.
It’s sometimes hard to reconcile how the Doctor’s actions don’t have an effect on the present. The Doctor always seems to explain it away with how easily humans forget things, to the point where it’s another of the show’s running gags. (Remember when The Monks took control of Earth for six months in Season 10?)
Tesla’s appearance on the show, so shortly after Ada Lovelace’s appearance patterns a broader theme. Two alien races chasing after two brilliant ahead-of-their-time minds with no affects on the present? Feels a little too convenient, and I wonder what a present might look like when the Doctor takes her Tardis back to Earth.
I wish the show has explored more of the Kasavan’s interest in Ada Lovelace on Doctor Who Season 12 Episode 2, “Spyfall: Part Two.” It’s nagging me that there must be a connection. Right now the only thread that connects it is that both Lovelace and Tesla were intelligent people who imagined a future their peers thought was impossible.
I am trying to wrap my head around where this might be going in connection to the myth of the Timeless Child, but I am not entirely sure all the pieces are there.
Let’s talk about the Skithra for a second.
The moment it was revealed that the true form of the aliens were scorpions, I got a flashback to Doctor Who Season 11 Episode 4, “Arachnids in the UK” written by Chris Chibnall.
Funny coincidence that “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror” is also fourth in this season’s line up.
This episode is leaps and bounds above “Arachnids in the UK” for one simple reason, it has a satisfying conclusion. Writer, Nina Metivier does a great job setting the pace of this story and weaving in details about Nikola Tesla’s career and inventions.
The introduction of the Skithra Queen elevates the threat and was necessary for the scenes with Yaz and Tesla on the ship. They could have pulled a long-running Doctor Who trope and had the Doctor claim to speak space scorpion.
Yet, it does feel like the entire point of The Queen during this story is to deliver a final line about a dead planet and twist the knife in the Doctor’s back a little further. In three out of four episodes, there’s been talk of dead planets and it’s starting to feel like annihilation is inevitable.
Given the destruction that we’ve either seen or has been alluded to in the first three episodes, I am hoping the writers are ramping up dealing with some of that weight we saw the Doctor carrying in the final scenes of “Spyfall: Part Two.”
“Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror” is largely a standalone episode that’s enjoyable to watch. It’s definitely a well thought out primer to a rivalry between two great minds that shaped the modern age. Where it fails is integrating its main cast together to strengthen their bonds, and give them more to do than serve as a chorus for the audience.
If the next episode leans into the mythology set up in the premiere, then maybe we can expect something to be fleshed out a little more.
Stray Thoughts:
- The Doctor’s anticlimactic entrance to Tesla’s lab is just perfect.
- Likewise, Tesla and Edison’s reaction to the Tardis is also a nice of pace.”Bigger on the inside” jokes are a Doctor Who staple, but sometimes it becomes predictable. Hearing Edison and Tesla talk about it with a turn of the century demeanor is a nice touch.
- The connection between the Skithra’s pillaging and Edison’s Think Tank business model is not lost of me. It’s slightly more subtle than the ending of Doctor Who Season 12 Episode 3, “Orphan 55,” but still doesn’t shy away from trying to drive a point home.
- Kind of surprised that The Doctor didn’t make a crack about visiting the Empire State Building with Martha Jones.
- Actually, come to think of it, isn’t New York City supposed covered in paradoxes now after Doctor Who Season 7 Episode 5, “The Angels Take Manhattan.” Or can this be explained away by the fact that the Doctor didn’t land her Tardis in the city, and instead upstate, near Niagra Falls? Or is it because this is Long Island and not Manhattan?
- Is Ryan getting the role of Kirk in this team? Two episodes in a row, both times he’s flirted with female guest stars. Can you call his conversations with Dorothy flirting?
What did you think of this episode of Doctor Who? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Doctor Who airs Sundays at 8/7c on BBC America.
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Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.