YMMV / Doctor Who S40E2 "The Devil's Chord"

• Fridge Brilliance: The episode ends with a song-and-dance number called "There's Always a Twist at the End". What is the name of the actress who keeps popping up in small roles? Susan Twist.
• Fridge Horror:
  • How many people did the Maestro kill between 1925 and 1963 to make humanity lose interest in music?
  • Even worse? The Toymaker said “my legions are coming”. Maestro was just one of many, and they almost spelled the end of the Doctor and of all life in the universe. They didn’t operate on fair play, and it took wits and some straight-up luck for the Doctor and Ruby to defeat them. How many other Eldritch Abominations await the Doctor and their companions? And what if they’re even worse?
• Genius Bonus: Towards the end of the episode, the non-diegetic background music plays a snippet from Danse macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns. It has a spooky sound, yes, but it's also famous for its use of tritones, the foundations of the "Devil's Chord" mentioned in the title.
• Jossed: Fans speculated both that the Maestro was the Big Bad of the series, and that they were the latest incarnation of the Master due to the name. The Maestro is explicitly one of the Toymaker's creations, and for all their power, gets the Dragged Off to Hell treatment at the end of the second episode (albeit with a hint that they might return one day as Sealed Evil in a Can).
• Just Here for Godzilla: A lot of the pre-release hype for the episode came from people eager to see Jinkx Monsoon playing a Doctor Who villain.
• Love to Hate: The Maestro might be cruel and planning to watch the whole of existence die, but Jinkx Monsoon absolutely steals the whole episode and makes them such a blast to watch even as you are rooting against them.
• Narm Charm: An episode where the villain is an outrageously campy Large Ham who chews the scenery in every scene, has a gimmick around stealing the abstract concept of music, and is played by a Drag Queen known primarily for her comedic roles should be utterly absurd. But the episode plays the Maestro deadly seriously, making it clear that, as amusing as they are to watch, they are still a horrifyingly powerful and amoral entity who poses a threat to the entire universe. Notably the Doctor, who would usually shred such a villain to pieces with their wit, is flat out terrified of the Maestro, and they are only defeated by dumb luck.

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