The Story and the Engine is a powerful episode of Doctor Who. This episode is so close to perfection for me but just manages to slip through. In this episode not only do we explore the general idea of the meaningfulness and raw power of humanity’s time honored tradition of storytelling, we get a sort of tease that there could be something in the works to tell more of the story of the Fugitive Doctor, and one of my favorite things that Doctor who does from time to time, we got to see clips of old Doctor Who episodes.

My only real gripe with this episode is that the way that the Doctor gets the map out of the situation he is in: not the format of the map, more just the fact that: A, the big bad is there watching and the Doctor is actively being told by another character that the exact thing she is doing is what slaves would do in order to have non-confiscatable maps, and B, how easily the Doctor gets someone with lifelong contempt for him to just flip on a dime. I get helping him in that situation, that part makes sense, but to appear to lose all those pent up issues seems strange.

9/10. I am certain “I’m born. I die.” is going to be quoted quite a lot going forward.