Fifteenth Doctor Era
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The Devil's Chord
The One With… a twist at the end, and with a ham so astronomically large that they make the Daleks, Kroagnon, the Wire, Soldeed, King Yrcanos, the Empress of the Racnoss, and even the Captain from "The Pirate Planet" combined look stoic.
Ruby's gotten the bright idea to land in The '60s in search of The Beatles, to which the Doctor excitedly agrees. However, once they make it to EMI Recording Studios, all of the musicians inexplicably stink. Stranger still, the Doctor notices that there's no music playing anywhere.
Tropes featured in The Devil's Chord include:
- Abstract Eater: The Maestro can eat music, but unique from other examples they can also eat music that goes unplayed, meaning that engineering the death of anyone that can play music still feeds into their power.
- Alternate History: Due to the Maestro's interference in the 1920s, music as a concept has become looked down upon by the 1960s, with Paul McCartney and by extension the rest of the Beatles only forming for monetary gain. The Doctor also finds a newspaper detailing a threat the USSR has made towards Finland, showing that the politics of this world are being affected by the lack of music as well. This eventually culminates in the Doctor and Ruby returning to 2024 to discover London (and presumably the rest of the world) has become a desolate wasteland, due to a nuclear war breaking out, as without music no one could express themselves except through violence.
- Ambiguous Situation: Susan Foreman's fate has been left unresolved since the revived series began, and up until now it had been presumed by fans she was either deceased or otherwise lost. However in this episode, the Doctor admits for the first time that he himself doesn't know what happened to her. So she could've died in the Time War, or in the Master's genocidal rampage against Gallifrey... or she could still be out there somewhere.
- Artistic Licence – History: The episode is set in February 1963 and features Cilla Black - but she hadn't been signed yet at the time (she was signed in September that year) and so shouldn't have been at the EMI Recording Studios. Also, John Lennon is wearing the round spectacles that would become his iconic accessory later in the Sixties (probably to identify him to the audience). That said, all this may be justified by Alternate History being explicitly in play, with the Doctor finding a news article about the USSR issuing a threat towards Finland, something that never happened in "correct" history.
- Ascended Fridge Horror: After it was only implied in previous episodes, her fate during and after the Time War left ambiguous, the Doctor explicitly brings up the possibility that Susan was killed in the Master's genocide of the other Time Lords.
- Avenging the Villain: Subverted Trope. The Toymaker warned the Doctor in "The Giggle" that his legions would arrive in the universe, but the Maestro thanks the Doctor for banishing their father.
- Bad Future: The Maestro's meddling leaves humanity with no outlet for their emotions, causing a Hopeless War that reduces Earth to a wasteland by 2024.
- Beyond the Impossible: Ruby points out that the Maestro shouldn’t even have been able to fit inside an upright piano, let alone have it still work with them inside it, but as a child of the Toymaker, the laws of physics mean nothing to them.
- Book Ends: The show opens and concludes with diegetic musical covers of the theme song, and the disappearance and reappearance of Harbinger.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: When Ruby is kidnapped by the Maestro's musical notation, the Doctor briefly notes that he thought the music he'd been hearing was non-diegetic, suggesting he could hear the soundtrack of the episode itself.
- Call-Back: As in "Pyramids of Mars", the Doctor reveals to a companion who wants to escape an otherworldly monster in the past that if they don't defeat the evil, then the present time will be doomed.
- The Cameo: For the first time in 19 years, Murray Gold appears onscreen as himself, playing the piano during "There's Always A Twist At The End".
- Cerebus Retcon: When the Doctor "bi-generated" back in "The Giggle", both of him seemed completely happy, nay overjoyed, with the situation, and neither gave any indication that it was in any way a particularly painful or unpleasant experience. Here we learn that, in fact, it was a horrifying one which involved the Doctor's soul being literally torn in half, and they wouldn't be able to survive it a second time.
- Changed My Jumper: Initially, the Doctor and Ruby are content to just step out into 1963 as is, until Ruby invokes this. After all, if you're going to the '60s, gotta dress the part. The two bounce with glee at the thought.Ruby: Wait, wait, wait! If we're in the '60s... what about my clothes?
(A Beat as the Doctor turns back to her)
The Doctor: Good. Thinking. - Close-Enough Timeline: The Doctor defeats the Maestro in 1963; it's not clear if this undoes everything they've done since 1925, or just gives a new generation of musicians an opportunity to fix it.
- Continuity Nod:
- Visiting 1963, the Doctor points out that near Shoreditch, his younger self currently lives with his granddaughter, Susan.
- The Maestro's piano rendition of the Doctor Who theme tune plays over the opening credits, just like the Doctor's own electric guitar rendition once did. Both of the preceding cold opens mention Beethoven, too.
- The Maestro mockingly calls the Doctor "timey-wimey" when they meet.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Compared to the Toymaker, who wanted everyone to play his games, the Maestro wants to be the sole person that plays music. Whereas rules of the game define the Toymaker, the Maestro has no qualms about cheating. While the Toymaker kept his first victim alive to torment for decades, the Maestro kills theirs within a couple minutes of meeting them. And while the Toymaker was explicitly a Politically Incorrect Villain who repeatedly made racist remarks, the Maestro is a Politically Correct Villain who uses they/them pronouns and briefly mocks Timothy Drake for accidentally misgendering them.
- Creator Cameo:
- The old lady who is killed by Maestro while playing the piano is played by June Hudson, a 1970s BBC costume designer who worked on both Doctor Who and Blake's 7.
- Series composer Murray Gold makes an appearance, according to the credits As Himself, playing the piano in one shot during the ending musical number.
- Dance Party Ending: At the end of the episode, Ruby and the Doctor get involved in an extravagant musical number of "There's Always a Twist at the End" at EMI Recording Studios.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Downplayed, as it’s just confusion rather than intolerance or hatred. Timothy Drake, a man from the 1920’s, instantly pegs the Maestro as a man in drag, but when the Maestro insists on they/them pronouns, Timothy reacts with confusion (seemingly not realizing that they/them can be a singular pronoun), something the Maestro mocks him for.
- Diegetic Switch: At the end of the cold open, the Maestro taps out the first few notes of the Doctor Who theme, blending into the theme proper, and it ends by leading into a rendition of the theme on the Doctor's jukebox.
- Dragged Off to Hell: The Maestro is sent back from whence they came when the Beatles complete the lost chord that the Doctor began on the studio's piano.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Doctor tries pointing out to the Maestro that their father adamantly stuck to the rules and never cheated. The Maestro isn't so constrained.
- Evil Is Hammy: The Maestro is quite possibly one of the hammiest Who villains ever, and that is saying something. Appropriately enough, they're the child of another such Large Ham, the Toymaker."BUT IT'S SOOOOOOOO SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD, Timothy... you never had the LUCK. YOU NEVER GOT. THAT. BREAK."
- Good Is Not Nice: When Ruby says that Maestro's plan in 1963 won't succeed because she was born in 2004 and there's no apocalypse then, the Doctor takes her back to 2024 and shows her the nuclear wasteland that will exist if they don't defeat Maestro. The entire time, he's solemn and grim in a way this incarnation had never been before in order to emphasize the urgency of defeating the villain. Ruby is quite upset by this and gets his point.
- Herald: Henry Arbinger, also known as the Harbinger.
- Historical Domain Character: The four Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr; plus Cilla Black. McCartney and Starr, unusually for Doctor Who historical celebrity characters, were still alive when the episode was broadcast.
- Hope Spot: The Doctor seems to find the lost chord that will banish the Maestro, but then they get the last note wrong, which allows the Maestro to recover and send the piano out of the room. It takes the combined effort of John Lennon and Paul McCartney to finish the chord and send the Maestro packing.
- Horrifying the Horror: The Maestro is thoroughly weirded out and declares that something is "wrong" with Ruby upon hearing the rendition of "Carol of the Bells" echoing from her childhood. They're also terrified by the possibility of The One Who Waits returning, further building up the being's status as The Dreaded.
- It Only Works Once:
- Invoked by the Doctor. It is possible to trick and even defeat a god, but any solution you come up with will only work once. This is vividly demonstrated during the climax, where the Maestro completely shrugs off and seemingly breaks (or at least damages) the Sonic Screwdriver after it was previously used to mute all sound in their vicinity.
- In a meta-sense, the Doctor discussing how bi-generation was so harrowing that they wouldn't survive going through it again leans on the fourth wall to state that it won't be happening again in the foreseeable future.
- Kick the Dog: The Maestro gives an unspecified nasty fate to an elderly woman who heard Ruby's piano playing, who then sat down at her own piano in her apartment to play some music (presumably something she remembered from before the Maestro arrived in the 1920s and started taking music away).
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After eating Timothy Drake's inner music, the Maestro glares right at the viewer, before tapping out the beginning of the show's theme. They also wink at the camera before closing the curtains into the flat of the old woman they're about to do something horrible to.
- Left the Background Music On: As the Doctor and Ruby rush to try and stop the Maestro, typical energetic music is playing… then Ruby notes that she can hear the music as well.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Once he learns that the Maestro was summoned by playing the Lost Chord, the Doctor accurately deduces that there must be a chord that banishes them. The problem with that, of course, is figuring out which one out of countless note combinations.
- Mickey Mousing: When Ruby and the Doctor walk back to the TARDIS, the zebra crossing on Abbey Road plays musical notes as they walk, in somewhat of a nod to the piano scene from Big.
- Mirror Character: The Doctor ruminates on Susan Foreman, his long-lost granddaughter who may have died in either the Time War or the Master's genocide of the Time Lords. He doesn't know her fate— nor, for that matter, the existence of Harbinger, the Toymaker's grandson.
- Mythology Gag: After leaving the Earth silent and humanity-less, the Maestro declares their next goal will be to destroy the Music of the Spheres, leaving themselves as the only composer of music in the universe.
- Near-Villain Victory: The Doctor flubs the ending to the lost chord that would seal away the Maestro, and both he and Ruby get imprisoned in nearby instruments with little effort on the Maestro's part. Only the intervention of the Beatles on the piano saves the day and gets the Maestro Dragged Off to Hell.
- Next Sunday A.D.: Modern day for Ruby is said to be June or July 2024, when the episode came out in May.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: The Maestro is a cosmic entity and child of the Toymaker who uses they/them pronouns.
- Oh, Crap!: Upon hearing Maestro echo an all-too-familiar giggle, the Doctor's face drains as he takes Ruby and bolts away, knowing that he doesn’t stand a chance against them.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The Maestro's goal after wiping out all life on Earth is to take their act on the road, and wipe out all life everywhere, becoming the ultimate solo act.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: When Russell T. Davies said that this episode would be more fantastical than anything the show had ever attempted before, he certainly meant it. The Maestro's powers are probably the closest thing to actual magic yet seen on the show (even more so than their father, the Toymaker, or some of the villains who fought the Seventh Doctor), with no attempt whatsoever to give a scientific explanation for their reality-warping powers; both the Maestro and the Doctor lean on or outright break the fourth wall on multiple occasions; and the whole thing culminates in a Dance Party Ending.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Snippets of "Three Blind Mice", Debussy's "Clair de Lune", "Carol of the Bells", "Reveille" and "Largo al factotum" from The Barber of Seville are heard throughout.
- Sequel Hook:
- We get more hints that something weird is going on with Ruby's birth, as the rendition of "Carol of the Bells" which was playing on the night she was abandoned at the church is somehow embedded into her soul and powerful enough that the Maestro themself is left dumbstruck by it. The Maestro attributes this to "the Oldest One", whom they claim must have been there on the day Ruby heard the song, though they can't explain why. As they're banished back to where they came from, the Maestro also makes another reference to "the One Who Waits", claiming that they are almost here.
- During the Dance Party Ending, Henry Arbinger appears to watch in confusion. This is despite him appearing to only be a construct of the Maestro who was destroyed at the start of the episode. This implies that he is much more than he seems, and will return.
- Stealth Pun: The dancers seen in "There's Always a Twist at the End" are, in fact, doing the Twist.
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: In the cold open, the Maestro asks Timothy Drake for the name of the boy whom he tried to teach the piano to, and then cackles when his name, Henry Arbinger, spells out "Harbinger".
- Stylistic Suck: Played for Horror. The Doctor and Ruby travel back to 1963 to hear the Beatles record their first album, only for the Fab Four to play an abysmal, rambling, tuneless song about a dog. Meanwhile, Cilla Black can’t even form coherent phrases, and an orchestra can only play a dreadful version of “Three Blind Mice.” This is when the Doctor realises that something has gone very wrong with the timeline.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending: The Doctor warns Ruby that being around him means "there's always a twist at the end"— then winks at the camera, and the episode then ends on a musical number titled "There's Always a Twist at the End". However, the appearance of Henry Arbinger does undermine this somewhat, teasing a possible future villain.
- The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: Maestro namedrops the David Bowie song "Sound and Vision" while posing to replicate its cover art
◊. - Theme Tune Cameo: The theme tune is played on the TARDIS jukebox at the beginning of the episode, the Maestro also plays part of it a few times.
- Time Skip: The preceding episode, "Space Babies", had the Doctor returning Ruby home around Christmas, but here she cites her "present day" as being in June 2024 or so, suggesting that she's been traveling with the Doctor for around six months.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The Maestro was accidentally called to the earthly plane by a musical genius discovering and playing the "Lost Chord". He ends up their first victim.
- Vagueness Is Coming: Much like their father, the Maestro cryptically warns that The One Who Waits is coming, before the Maestro is Dragged Off to Hell.
- Wham Line: A wham sound. As the Maestro emerges from the piano, they emit a very familiar giggle, revealing their connection to the Toymaker.
- World of Silence: Ironically this is the Maestro's ultimate goal. First engineering Earth to be blasted into a wasteland by war, the only music being the wind blowing through the ruins of humanity, before moving onto the greater universe and stopping the music of the spheres, leaving them the only musical performer left in the universe.
- Would Harm a Senior:
- The Maestro angrily attacks (and is heavily implied to have killed, from the Scream Discretion Shot) an elderly woman in London who heard Ruby's piano playing from the rooftop and was inspired or reminded to sit down at her own piano and start playing herself.
- In the episode's cold open, the Maestro's first victim, Timothy Drake, is fairly advanced in age himself.
- Writing Around Trademarks: The episode was inspired by the production team knowing that they would never be able to afford the rights to use any of the Beatles' music (even with a bigger Disney budget), so they had to create a reason for its absence in an episode involving the Beatles.
