After what was something of a major misstep of a first episode I’m happy to say I really enjoyed “The Devil’s Chord”. I mean, if you don’t like big over-the-top scenery-chewing villains like I do you may dislike this episode as well, but I had a smile of my face for most of it… MOST of it, can’t say the musical number at the end was good, not because it was out of place (it actually made sense) but because it had crap lyrics and wasn’t catchy at all, two things you kind of need for a musical piece! Well, anyway, let’s take a look!
The story opens with a pre-credits sequence of a man discovering “the devil’s chord” and after playing it is visited by the over-the-top Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), who proceeds to “eat” his musical talent and set their sights on the rest of music in general. After the opening The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) asks where in time and space Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) would want to go and she surprises our titular Time Lord by saying she wants to see the Beatles record their first album, despite being born in 2004 (apparently she had an elderly relative who played the songs when she was young, or something…) They not only decide to go to 1963 but also to dress for the occasion, complete with The Doctor somehow growing an afro! Handy. When they arrive however they see the Beatles and hear a really flat, naff song about a dog, and further investigation reveals that all music has vanished which had led the world to fall into a depressing grey version of itself. The Doctor and Ruby play a musical piece on a piano and come face to face with the Maestro, who lets The Doctor in on their origin by doing the Toymaker’s giggle from, well, The Giggle.
This is actually a promo picture, not a screenshot but hey, I’m limited when it’s this close after airing… Also: great afro!
The Doctor and Ruby flee and manage to escape for a time, with The Doctor panicking that the last time he came in contact with an Elder God his soul was “literally ripped in half” and he doesn’t know if he can go through that again. Ruby says it must be okay because she’s still alive so The Doctor takes her to 2024 to show a world in ruin as apparently without music all of humanity instead goes to war and wipes each other out. It’s here that the Maestro takes direct control of the environment, reveals she is the Toymaker’s daughter and has control of all music, and that she prefers the sounds of death and destruction to a catchy tune. The Doctor and Ruby head back to the TARDIS and make it back to 1963 but are soon cornered once again by the all-powerful Maestro…
It’s a fun story, full of a frankly really fun central performance by Jinkx Monsoon as the Maestro, which when combined with Ncuti and Millie still being on fine form themselves meant it was overall a good time in front of the Telly, thank God after the last episode, frankly…
The Continuity:
Subtly is not on the table for this villain!
Beyond several callbacks to “The Giggle” there aren’t a lot. The Doctor points out that he and Susan are living on Totter’s Lane at this point, calling back to the very first episode “An Unearthly Child”, which is funny to think that was set in 63 because it actually WAS 1963 where as now the show is so far in the future its visiting its own original era as a historical time period…
There also the moment of a companion mentioning they must succeed because they’re still alive, leading to The Doctor taking them to a doomed future, which is an exact copy of a scene from Fourth Doctor classic “The Pyramids of Mars”. In the behind-the-scenes stuff on YouTube Russell T. Davies mentions the episode by name, so it wasn’t a coincidence, just RTD looking for a good time to pull the same trick.
Overall Thoughts:
“You wait around for an Elder God to appear, then two come along at once!” “…What?”
“The Devil’s Chord” is a fun 50 minutes with Jinkx Monsoon leaving no scenery unchewed in a great central villain performance, and Ncuti and Millie still on fine form. The song at the end was a bit naff and after all the pre-promotion focusing on the Beatles they didn’t really do much, but I can’t complain, especially after the previous story…
The Doctor figures out that if a specific chord brought the Maestro to this reality a similar chord will lock them away again, and after Ruby mysteriously breaks free of the Maestro’s control because “the oldest one must have been there at her birth” (interesting!) The Doctor gets all but one chord right and due to that he and Ruby and soon captured within instruments and things look bleak, but two of the Beatles come across the piano The Doctor used to play most of the notes and proceed to play the rest of the chord, sealing the Maestro away and returning the timeline back to normal.
It’s the Beatles! … Right, that was fun, let’s move on.
To celebrate The Doctor and Ruby take part in a spur-of-the-moment elaborate dance number based around the phrase “there’s always a twist in the end” but as mentioned above the lyrics are pants and it’s not actually catchy at all so it sort of falls flat. Ah well…
Hogan Reviews 
i personally wasn’t a fan of this episode. to me it didn’t really make sense. like everything seemed too on the nose… that a villain would have a music related name, wear music themed clothes, be summoned by music and would use music as a weapon. it’s more like some bad batman villain rather than a doctor who one.
and also if your power came from music, and you thrived on music why would your aim be to end music?
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