“Boom” is an episode of the 14th season of the new “Doctor Who” series, also indicated as season 1, and follows “The Devil’s Chord“. It’s available in the UK and Ireland on BBC channels and in many other countries on the Disney+ platform.
Beware that in various adverts and marketing materials, this season is promoted as season 1, marking the start of production by Bad Wolf and distribution by Disney+, hence the double notation. On BBC’s website, “Boom” is indicated as episode 3 of 8 while Disney+ indicates it as episode 4.
Note. This article contains some spoilers about “Boom”.
The Tardis takes the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) to the planet Kastarion 3, where Church soldiers are fighting enemies they can’t even see. When the Doctor steps on a mine produced by Villengard Corporation that uses its victims as explosives, it’s not just his life that is in grave danger because he’s a Time Lord, and exploding would cause destruction across much of the planet.
Moffat! For a while, everyone denied it but Steven Moffat’s return to “Doctor Who” as a screenwriter was finally revealed. His first episode tells a brutal war story in which he takes up some elements of the past, starting with the Church as a military organization, with the war economy in the spotlight as more important than the humans involved in it.
A thousand considerations could be made on the economic interests behind wars, even just by commenting on the most recent news on the profits of weapons manufacturers obtained in recent years. These companies have a vested interest in having wars and having them continue indefinitely. On Kastarion 3, war is truly about money and that’s brutally shown with the soldiers’ lives at stake.
Steven Moffat stresses the sheer cynicism behind the war economy through operations conducted by ambulances driven by artificial intelligence. Among other things, they are programmed to offer thoughts and prayers, a formula also used by weapons manufacturers after school shootings in the USA.
On Kastarion 3, war claims many victims even though the Church soldiers can’t even see their enemy. They have faith, and that’s enough to keep fighting. When the Doctor suggests surrender as a solution, he discovers that only the Bishop can order surrender. Replace Bishop with other terms connected to religious hierarchies and the situation may remind you of other wars.
It’s a brutal episode but it also offers some hope in the end. All in all, it would be enough to remember that we’re human and our feelings to avoid many problems. Perhaps, anticipating the criticisms of some believers who feel offended, in the end, there’s also a somewhat softened vision of faith.
From a subjective point of view, “Boom” shows why I prefer Steven Moffat to Russell T Davies, even when there are no time travel consequences involved. This is by far my favorite episode in a long time. The connection to the rest of the season with snow, which is unknown on Kastarion 3, is only a moment but it reminds us that we still have something to discover about Ruby Sunday and there’s Susan Twist as the face of the ambulances.
