The Interstellar Song Contest

★★★★☆

TX: 17/05/2025

Written by Juno Dawson   Directed by Ben A Williams

The Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda arrive at the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest, an intergalactic version of the Eurovision Song Contest. Years ago, an Icelandic friend of mine, who is a professional dancer, competed in the Eurovision Song Contest. Her and the rest of the Icelandic Eurovision team (Hatari) staged a pro-Palestine protest during the competition. And Jeremy Corbyn was very impressed by this, his face lit up when I told him about it earlier this year! By the way, I wholeheartedly stand with Palestine! 🇵🇸 This is the most pro-Palestine and anti-Israel website ever! We should cut off all diplomatic relations with Israel and send them no money and no weapons. Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide! Benjamin Netanyahu should be in prison! And I also stand with Ukraine! 🇺🇦 It is possible that this episode is an allegory for Israel (the Corporation) vs Palestine (the Hellions) or Ukraine vs Russia. The Doctor and Belinda are amazed by the spectacle of the many galaxies and planets competing in the competition, including Trion (Planet of Fire). Competitions are fine if you win them! Mrs Flood is also in attendance. However, two horned alien terrorists called Hellions sabotage the competition by opening the roof of the space station, sucking all of the guests into the vacuum of space. This is one of the darkest and saddest episodes of Doctor Who to date! Belinda survives but she assumes that the Doctor is dead. Belinda makes contact with the other survivors and one of them tells her that she used to be a horned alien too. The Doctor sees a vision of his granddaughter Susan and this helps him to regain consciousness and use a confetti cannon to propel him back to the arena. The Hellion terrorists intend to use a delta wave (Kinda, The Parting of the Ways) to be sent through the broadcast and kill three trillion people watching the contest. The Doctor confronts the Hellions in the control room, who are both bitter that the Corporation destroyed their homeworld and they have vowed revenge. In a moment of rage, the Doctor begins torturing the male Hellion called Kid, but Belinda arrives and stops him. Two of the survivors are engineers, and they are able to use a tractor beam on the station to teleport down all of the competition guests floating in space (who were actually kept in suspended animation), including Rylan Clark. The Doctor and Belinda are about to leave in the TARDIS when a hologram of Graham Norton informs them that the Earth has been destroyed on 24th May 2025, the day Belinda left. Inside the TARDIS, the cloister bell rings and the TARDIS turns red. The TARDIS doors explode upon landing back on Earth on that date. The ending of this episode is similar to the cliffhanger ending of Turn Left. Meanwhile back at the contest, the engineers beam down Mrs Flood who reveals herself to be the Rani (The Mark of the Rani, Time and the Rani) and she bi-generates (The Giggle). Now there are two Ranis that the Fifteenth Doctor will have to deal with! The reveal of Mrs Flood as the Rani before she bi-generates into a younger incarnation echoes the reveal of Professor Yana as the Master in Utopia. The new Rani paraphrases the Fourth Doctor in Robot when she says that she is “the definite article” so to speak. The Interstellar Song Contest was written by Juno Dawson, the first transgender person to write for Doctor Who. 🏳️‍⚧️ I stand with the trans community and I support transgender rights. My pronouns are he/him. At university, I was on the committee of a diverse science fiction society, which included many LGBT members (including one transgender person). I would love to watch Varada twerking to the Dugga Doo song!