In Lagos, Nigeria, there is a barber shop, run by a man named Omo. Omo’s Palace. Like most barber shops, it is as much a haven for storytellers as it is a place to get your hair cut. And like most barbers, Omo himself is no mean storyteller. His best one involves a blue box and the man called The Doctor, who helped him put out a fire when no one else would try.

The Doctor still checks in on Omo and his Palace from time to time. Not because he needs a haircut all that often but because he enjoys a good story as much as anyone. Better than anyone else, in fact.

However, in his absence, Omo’s Palace has become a place of terror. It is still a place of stories, but now they serve a dark purpose. The stories are fuel for the fire tended by the new Barber and the shop’s regulars are prisoners in a place beyond time and space that is also Omo’s Palace…

The Story and the Engine is noteworthy for many reasons. It is the first episode of Doctor Who written by Inua Ellams, OBE. It is historically notable as the first episode written by a Black man. Yet it is most noteworthy as the most original Doctor Who episode in some time and the first of Series 2 that doesn’t feel like it is rehashing an older Russell T. Davies story.

Eliams treads territory that is familiar to him but not for Doctor Who, having won acclaim for his play Barber Shop Chronicles. The play is about the cultural importance of barber shops and how they are a landmark for Black men around the world. The Doctor briefly talks about this with Belinda, as he goes off for a trip to Omo’s Palace while calibrating the signal that can get her home. She points out that the TARDIS already styles his hair for him. He agrees, but explains that the barber shop is a community and he feels a sense of belonging there that is all too rare for the Last of the Time Lords.

The moment that follows is something we’ve seen all too rarely in recent years in Doctor Who. The early days of RTD had scenes where The Doctor just reveled in being around people and not being the Lonely God, if only for a few hours between disasters. The Story and the Engine has such a moment, with Ncuti Gatwa walking through a marketplace, hugging an “Auntie” who recognizes him, and just generally loving life and the “inventive invincible species” that are his favorites out of all the people in the universe.

The rest of the episode is brilliant, too, particularly for the villain, The Barber. I’ll not spoil the secret of his identity, but the fake out is rather brilliant. Particularly because everything up until that moment seemed to be screaming that we were about to meet yet another member of the Pantheon of Discord.

The Story and the Engine is, like The Doctor himself, a glorious oddity, staged more like a play than a television episode. This is to its benefit, however, as this highlights the memorable villain and a perspective we rarely seen in modern televised sci-fi. The only real flaw is a somewhat pat ending, but everything else in this story about stories and barbershops is a cut above. (See what I did there?)