![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/bba7e167a33996b041261854a293f63be5-doctorwho-thestory-engine.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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Doctor Who<\/a><\/p>\n The Story & the Engine<\/p>\n \n Season 15<\/p>\n Episode 5\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 5 stars<\/p>\n *****\n <\/p>\n \n Photo: James Pardon\/BBC Studios\/Disney\/Bad Wolf\n <\/p>\n At the end of this week\u2019s adventure, one of the men who was trapped in the barbershop turns from the Doctor to thank Abby. \u201cHe rescued us, but you \u2026 you kept us alive,\u201d he says, bowing. It\u2019s the same sentiment that we see a patient express to Belinda, who put in the overnight hours to treat warning signs that no one else at the hospital cared to see. When a success story is passed down, who gets to be the main character, and whose contributions are forgotten? This episode is all about giving credit where it\u2019s due. Obviously, because that\u2019s the right thing to do \u2014 but also because when people feel overlooked and wronged, they sometimes become villains. (Or as Belinda so unoriginally puts it, \u201cHurt people hurt people.\u201d)<\/p>\n The TARDIS has touched down in Lagos, Nigeria, which has a big communications technology market that will ostensibly help boost the vindicator to get Belinda home. As an added bonus, this means the Doctor can visit Omo\u2019s Palace, run by Omo, whom he met as a child while putting out a forest fire and has since become close friends with. The shop has offered the Doctor acceptance and community as someone whose Black body means he deals with racism. Belinda understands this, and sends him off to have a good time.<\/p>\n But warm, colorful streets bustling with people who greet the Doctor like family lead to a dull, deserted alley with missing posters and warnings to stay away. A mysterious man known as the Barber has taken over Omo\u2019s premises, which we later learn involved putting a time-space compressor in the door frame. This means that Omo\u2019s Palace is in Lagos \u2026\u00a0but also on the back of some sort of giant spider structure with an engine that is using the power of stories to crawl to the gods. We\u2019re getting weird this week!<\/p>\n Abby, a woman whose face is familiar to the Doctor, is the only one aside from the Barber who can leave the shop. The Barber and Abby have been holding Omo and several customers hostage inside, forcing them to get haircuts as they tell stories that are gorgeously illustrated in real-time on a window. The men\u2019s hair grows back immediately, and Abby brings them food, but they\u2019re starting to run out of stories, which is where the Doctor comes in.<\/p>\n Although the Doctor initially volunteers to speak, he changes his mind after the Barber\u2019s cape settles on him with a seemingly painful spark. Since he can\u2019t get out of the chair, he ends up telling the thematically relevant story about Belinda at the hospital. His story shows up in the window as camera footage, not drawings. It turns out that Omo, who correctly predicted that the Doctor\u2019s stories offer more power, was hoping the Doctor would show up so the Barber would let everyone else go. The Doctor considers this to be a deep betrayal of trust. The Doctor does have a history of voluntarily risking his life for strangers in these exact kinds of situations, but I guess it hits different when the decision is made on his behalf by someone he trusts so much. Plus, when was the last time he had a place that he called home?<\/p>\n Belinda, who has been subjected to several loud alarms in the TARDIS, has now also made her way into the barbershop, where the Barber cuts his hair and declares that he has been many gods: Anansi, Saga, Bastet, Dionysus, Loki \u2026 it\u2019s a monologue that is just as dramatic as that of the Pantheon gods who have revealed themselves on the show so far. But the Doctor and Belinda just burst out laughing \u2014\u00a0the Doctor has met \u201call those Story Lords,\u201d so he knows the Barber is lying.<\/p>\n After Abby puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, the Barber clarifies that he is the human who told the myths and legends that strengthened the gods\u2019 connection to humans. \u201cThey only exist now because of me,\u201d he says, going on to explain that he used a strand of \u201cgods\u2019 blood and essence\u201d to build the web-like Nexus that the spider is crawling on. He made the Nexus work on its own, but never got the recognition for his efforts. Instead, the gods threw him out, leaving him with only a desire for vengeance (and the engine that is powering said spider).<\/p>\n The Doctor finally recognizes Abby as Abena. She\u2019s the daughter of the god Anansi, who once purposely lost a bet to make the Doctor marry her. Abby says she hoped that the Doctor would help her, but instead found herself \u201chumiliated.\u201d The camera moves to reveal that the Doctor at the time was Jo Martin\u2019s Fugitive Doctor, who previously worked for a secret Gallifreyan organization known as the Division and intriguingly notes that she was \u201cbusy in a different story that might be finished one day.\u201d Left behind, Abby has stayed with the Barber, whom she believes has plans to defeat the gods and become a trustworthy, careful \u201cstoryteller supreme.\u201d<\/p>\n But when the Barber admits that he lied to Abby and that his actual plan is to cut the gods out of memory (which will apparently kill them and all humans as a result), she decides to help the Doctor. Abby winks at him and braids his hair while telling a story about how people once escaped slavery by relying on women who braided escape routes into hair. The Barber is apparently not very smart, because he doesn\u2019t realize what Abby is doing until Belinda and the Doctor are running to follow the map in his hair. The Barber revokes Abby\u2019s door access, then heads to the engine room.<\/p>\n Citing the urban legend<\/a> about Ernest Hemingway\u2019s six-word story, the Doctor shares his succinct life story (\u201cI\u2019m born. I die. I\u2019m born.\u201d), which is endlessly powerful due to his regenerations. He doesn\u2019t even need to be getting a haircut. The engine \u2014\u00a0a beating heart inside of a brain \u2014 starts to overload. Faced with an impending explosion, the Barber opens the shop door so that everyone can return to Nigeria. At the last second, the Doctor convinces the Barber to also leave so that he can live long enough to write a different ending to the story of his life.<\/p>\n All the resolution happens in a rush. In case it wasn\u2019t clear, the Barber point-blank states that all of this started because he wanted to be credited for his work. The Doctor suggests that he continue telling stories by opening a barbershop. In general, everyone\u2019s in a forgiving mood. The Doctor apologizes to Omo just as quickly as he previously yelled at him to never speak to him again; Omo offers a hand to the Barber and tells him to take both his shop and his father\u2019s name; and Abby states that she will not hold any hate in her heart toward the Barber. Fittingly, the episode about stories ends in a pretty storybook way \u2014\u00a0in the last scene, the Doctor starts to tell Belinda about Omo, starting with, \u201cOnce upon a time\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Doctor Who has been really into puns lately. We got a few internet-related ones this week; the Nexus was the \u201cworld wide web\u201d that the spider crawls on, and the Doctor called the Barber a troll hiding his identity on the web. Interestingly enough, the issue of credit is pretty relevant to digital spaces, where content is often reshared or recreated without proper credit.<\/p>\n \u2022 The baby that Belinda sees in the street on the way to the barbershop is Poppy from \u201cSpace Babies.\u201d<\/a> The Doctor later suggests that her presence can be explained because stories were \u201cleaking\u201d out, so it might not have been the real her. But I hope wherever she is, Poppy\u2019s doing well.<\/p>\n \u2022 I feel robbed of getting to see more of the Fugitive Doctor and Abby together. The forced-marriage trope, but Black and sapphic? I\u2019m sure fanfiction writers are already picking up their pens. By the way, given that the Doctor recognized Abby and remembered leaving her, I\u2019m very curious to know how much of the Fugitive Doctor\u2019s life he remembers.<\/p>\n \u2022 Belinda staying overnight\u00a0at the hospital when she was already leaving a 13-hour shift to celebrate her grandma\u2019s birthday \u2026 they better have paid her double overtime for that. Mrs. Flood also made her weekly cameo in this story. How long do we think it\u2019ll be until the Doctor and Belinda realize that she\u2019s been popping up everywhere?<\/p>\n \u2022 Next week\u2019s episode will air during the same week as the Eurovision semi-finals and final. (Ncuti Gatwa is serving as<\/a> the UK\u2019s spokesperson.) So obviously, the preview has us headed to the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest. \u201cThe Well\u201d<\/a> made it unclear how long into the future humanity survives (or ever existed), but Eurovision apparently never dies.<\/p>\n VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n