It was, perhaps, inevitable, that Doctor Who would eventually do an episode parodying Eurovision. It is rather unfortunate that episode was timed to occur as Eurovision 2025 is sparking considerable controversy for a number of reasons. (It is unknown if this is related to why Ncuti Gatwa cancelled his appearance at the event, but having watched this episode, it is probably best he kept his distance, whatever the reason.) It is also ironic as, much like Eurovision, The Interstellar Song Contest is a lot of flash with little substance.

The plot is a well-aged Doctor Who standard: The Poseidon Adventure in Space. This is when a group of random people are thrown together and use their eclectic skills to survive a disaster. In this case, the disaster is a terrorist attack on the titular Interstellar Song Contest.

After flushing a stadium full of people into space, the Hellian called Kid intends to broadcast a signal that will kill the trillions of people watching the event. All of this is to avenge the Hellian homeworld (which was destroyed by the corporation that sponsors the Interstellar Song Contest) and his people, who are literally demonized by popular culture at this point in time. Hellians are all said to be cannibals and witches due to their prominent horns, and bigotry against them is not only allowed but encouraged.

Writer Juno Dawson has a solid story hook here, despite the stock plot. An examination of how the freedom fighter of today becomes the terrorist of tomorrow and at what point justice becomes revenge would be timely and in keeping with the themes of Doctor Who. Unfortunately, The Interstellar Song Contest doesn’t have that level of nuance.

We don’t have the time to assess Kid’s motivations. We don’t even have time for The Doctor to try and talk Kid down or convince him not to be the monster society sees him as. Not when there are so many other story beats to get to.

The shallowness of the story extends to the rest of the ensemble as well. The Doctor gets an assist from a married couple, who are entirely defined by their jobs; nurse and hologram engineer. Belinda runs into a singer, who is secretly a Hellian (naturally she’s friends with Kid), and her prejudiced manager. Nothing comes of his threats to stop representing her, as their story ends with her singing the song of her people to the universe to make a statement against racism. His reactions are not recorded and it is rather odd that this happens independent of The Doctor, who you’d think would be the first to suggest sparking a social revolution with a song. Alas, he’s too busy electrocuting Kid through a hologram. (This scene tries to evoke the spirit of the Ninth Doctor in Dalek, but it just doesn’t work.)

Unfortunately, SPOILERS are inevitable past this point, so if you just wanted to know what I thought of the episode, it’s a bit rubbish. For more details on why it is rubbish and yet utterly essential to Doctor Who Series 2, read on after the image.

A common complaint of the New Who era of Doctor Who was that there were too many filler episodes that did nothing to advance the season’s storylines. Russell T. Davies seems to have over-corrected in the 15th Doctor era, where the shorter episode runs per series have resulted in some episodes feeling overstuffed with content. This is the case with The Interstellar Song Contest.

Beyond the contest itself, and cameos by the likes of Rylan Clark and Graham Norton, this episode features a cameo by Carole Ann Ford as The Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan. She appears to The Doctor in a series of visions, spurring him to action and inspiring him to mercy. The show has been teasing the return of Susan for some time, but it was jarring for it to suddenly come now.

It was not so jarring, however, as the post-credit scene which revealed the identity of Mrs. Flood and (shocker) it turns out she IS a Time Lady after all. And not just any Time Lady, but one who bi-regenerates into The Rani. This too, has been a long awaited moment that RTD has joked about for years, so the fact that it comes out of nowhere here is shocking for all the wrong reasons.

In any other season The The Interstellar Song Contest would have been a filler episode. It is at its best when it focuses on the spectacle and had it been allowed to be fun and fluffy outside of an anti-prejudice message, it might have worked. Unfortunately, it is overburdened by the plot points of the series at large and several long-awaited moments the fans have wanted to see for years. The cruel irony is that these moments are not enough to be filling, and yet there’s so many of them they lose all impact. The only thing that redeems the episode is the outstanding production design and, ironically, what few songs we see.