Last week in Doctor Who, we had a double dose of surprises and loads of excitement. Captain Jack Harkness came back, and we found out the Doctor has another regeneration we’ve never seen before. This week in “Praxeus,” we had a little more of a mild episode. Albeit, it was enjoyable, but it did not have the same excitement factor as previous episodes. This post contains spoilers, so please do not read any further if you have not seen the episode.
What happens in the beginning of Praxeus
“Praxeus” starts off with a British astronaut crashing to Earth. Adam Lang (played by Matthew McNulty) cannot control his space pod, and ends up disappearing. Then, we see an off duty officer chasing someone in a grocery store who was in the process of stealing something. Come to find out, Jake Willis (played by Warren Brown) is actually a police officer who has been on sabbatical for some time. He was just trying to help, but it clearly wasn’t working out for him.
Then, we flash to Peru. Two girls, Gabriela (played by Joana Borja) and Jamilla, are vloggers. Gabriela says that this river in Peru is the most beautiful river she has ever seen. Now, however, it is covered in plastic garbage. A large flock of black birds circles above, and the entire riverbank is disgusting. The girls end up camping there for the night, and Jamilla hears something. Of course, she gets up to investigate. Did anyone else yell at the screen here? Whenever there’s a strange sound in a strange setting, you aren’t supposed to get up and look. Naturally, Jamilla gets attacked by something. The birds? An alien?
Flash to Jake, sitting in a bar, and the television he’s watching has news that Adam Lang is missing. Moments later, he gets a text message that says, “HELP ME.” It’s Adam! He’s in Hong Kong, far from where his pod crash landed, which was the Indian Ocean. Thank goodness he isn’t dead!
The TARDIS fam is separated
Back in Peru, Gabriela is looking for her friend. Ryan (played by Tosin Cole) shows up and tells her not to touch the birds. He has noticed that something is wrong with them. Graham (played by Bradley Walsh) and Yaz (played by Mandip Gill) are in Hong Kong. They have tracked a strange energy reading to the same location Jake ends up in. Jake kicks down the door, and the three of them begin to investigate.
Now, the Doctor (played by Jodie Whittaker) runs out of her TARDIS in Madagascar. A naval officer has washed up on the shore. He mentions that his ship capsized in the Indian Ocean. So now we have two strange instances happening in the same place. This leads us to believe something is going on that connected these two events. The Doctor notices strange markings on the officer’s hand. It begins to take over his whole body, and then he explodes! Disintegrates into nothing. Yikes!
Back in Peru, Gabriela gets a message on her phone showing her that her friend had been taken to a hospital. She and Ryan head to the hospital, but it’s empty. There is no one around, no other patients, no doctors…something weird is going on here. They head towards “quarantine” and find Jamilla under a cloth. It seems she was pronounced dead. Ryan looks closer and uses some sort of tech to show the Doctor what’s going on. Jamilla has the same scales/markings that the naval officer had. Sure enough, Jamilla’s body jerks around, is over taken by the scales, and then disintegrates the same way. That is now two identical deaths in two very different places.
Graham, Yaz, and Jake are still in Hong Kong. They not only find what was giving off the strong energy readings, but they also find Adam! He was hooked up to the device that was giving off readings. Something (or someone) begins to shoot at them, and they get away. They were able to save Adam. The Doctor arrives with Gabriela and Ryan and has everyone else get safely into the TARDIS. Yaz chooses to stay behind and investigate the device that seemed to be so significant. Go Yaz! Gabriela stays behind as well. It was really great to see Yaz step up and go off without everyone else. However, I was worried about her. It’s usually when the companions are alone that something bad happens to them.
We find out what Praxeus really is
The Doctor takes everyone, minus Yaz and Gabriela, to Madagascar. We find out that Jake and Adam are married, which is how Adam was able to reach out to text Jake to help him. It was nice to have a little bit of a backstory for the two of them, rather than Jake getting a random text from someone who needed his help. Just like in Peru, there is a huge flock of black birds circling the beach here in Madagascar. Suki Cheng (played by Molly Harris) and Arumu (played by Thapelo Maropefela) have set up a lab on the beach and are trying to figure out the issue with the birds. Also, they are creating a micro-filtration system that recycles water.
Back to Yaz and Gabriela. When they go to get the device from the building in Hong Kong, Yaz notices that it is triangulating with two locations: Peru and Madagascar. Next, whoever was firing at them in the beginning is back, and this time it uses a teleport to get away. Instantly, Yaz’s eyes light up. Yaz, we all knew what you were thinking before you even said it. She wants to follow it. So, she and Gabriela do just that…
In the lab on Madagascar, Adam gets a blood test done by the Doctor. His blood is full of alien pathogens. The scales we saw on the naval officer and on Jamilla are on Adam’s body as well. However, they haven’t taken over his body yet. Apparently, whatever it is is attacking plastic. It got into the water in the micro-filtration system. Since the micro-filtration system is filtering out plastic in the Indian Ocean, people are now drinking micro-plastic. That’s gross to think about. Graham objects, saying, “I’m not full of plastic!” While Ryan comes back with, “You’re full of something.” Their back and forth banter is wonderful. Their relationship has come so far since series 11. The alien pathogen is having a field day with the birds on the beach since they are the ones who happen to eat plastic more often than they should.
Yaz and Gabriela transport safely, and they find an alien colony perhaps? They found a missing submarine as well as whoever was attacking them. The alien attacking them has the scales! What does this mean?
Suki Cheng, the one with the lab and fancy equipment, is not human! She tells the Doctor this scaley virus is called “Praxeus.” The Doctor had just come up with a possible cure when Suki leaves with all of the answers. That can’t be good. The team is overcome by the pathogen-infested birds and is able to escape into the TARDIS with the possible antidote for the Praxeus virus. As they head toward Yaz’s location, Adam tells the Doctor to test the antidote on him. What have they got to lose? He is getting worse, and they don’t know how much longer he has.
Will the Praxeus cure work?
Once the Doctor and her friends find Yaz and Gabriela, the Doctor figures out they are not on another planet. They are deep down in the Indian Ocean where there is a hot spot that pulls in plastic garbage. Poor Yaz was disappointed. She thought she had found an alien planet on her own. I would be disappointed, too. Suki explains that her people on her planet were wiped out because of the Praxeus virus, so they came to Earth to find and test a cure. Her team basically used humans as test subjects. Unfortunately, humans reacted much quicker to Praxeus than her race.
Inside of the TARDIS, Adam and Jake are able to have a moment. Adam tells Jake he needs to start living his life. The TARDIS starts beeping. This is something we haven’t seen it do before, so it was hard to figure out what was going on in this moment.
Then, Suki ends up taken over by Praxeus and suffers the same fate as the other two casualties we saw. Moments later, Adam and Jake stumble out of the TARDIS. The cure worked! Adam was all better, and the beeping in the TARDIS was it spitting out more of the antidote. This was such a relief. Adam surviving meant that the team could spread the antidote across the globe and rid Earth of the terrible virus. However, the only way they could do that was by flying Suki’s busted ship into the atmosphere. Everyone was working together to get it to work. It was great to see everyone, especially the companions, work so hard.
The conclusion
The autopilot doesn’t work, and they all run back into the TARDIS for safety…but where is Jake? The ship takes off, and Jake is piloting it! The Doctor walks him through how to fly and how to release the antidote. In this moment, we are fairly certain the ship will explode. Everyone in the TARDIS was begging the Doctor to save him. I was begging the Doctor to save him! They went through so much, and it felt like a tragedy was coming at the end of this episode. Of course, in Doctor Who fashion, it was in just the last moment the Doctor was able to save him moments before the ship blew up. Love wins! Adam and Jake are reunited, and everyone saved the world.
Additional thoughts on “Praxeus”
This episode was visually stunning. The acting was wonderful, and having a connection with Adam and Jake’s backstory made the end of this episode all the more beautiful. Adam and Jake didn’t have the best marriage, but now they have a chance to work on things and be better to each other. Warren Brown and Matthew McNulty were incredible. As was Joana Borja. Gabriela was a fun character who I felt was very easy to connect with. All three companions shined in this episode. Each of them had such specific jobs, and they worked so hard to help the Doctor this time. Also, I am pretty sure the three energy readings were the ones that the last episode mentioned in the end. So, it was great that this was loosely connected to last week’s episode. It also made a good stand-alone episode. There was no real “bad guy,” just a pretty terrible situation. There was no alien monster/creature threatening to destroy something or someone, but there was an alien trying to find a cure for her own people and going about it the wrong way. In my opinion, it was a little bit anticlimactic. I still enjoyed this episode, though. It’s hard for me to NOT enjoy Doctor Who.
Fan Reactions
I loved that Yaz got a lot of screentime and was able to do things on her own and the doctor letting her! It was so fun watching her do the exploring and finding out mysteries on her own! She nailed finding the space ship.
— Dragon (@DarkDragonFiree) February 3, 2020
"Look at you going off on your own an not getting killed". Totally going to say this to my kids now #DoctorWho
— MyCupofTea (@AnonQuaggaLCSW) February 3, 2020
Graham: EXCUSE ME! I'm not full of plastic.
Ryan: *under his breath* You're full of something.Now that's family.#DoctorWho
— Miraculous Ladybug🐞🐞🐞 (@mychempunk) February 3, 2020
I’m loving all the globetrotting we’re getting this season. #DoctorWho
— Spider-Vel (@Slcarter85) February 3, 2020
Doctor Who will return next Sunday on BBC America at 8pm.
For more Doctor Who coverage:
Doctor Who “Fugitive of the Judoon” was a roller coaster of an episode
Doctor Who Series 12, Episode 4 “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror”
Interview With Dan Hadley Of Type 40: A Doctor Who Podcast
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