Revisiting the two episodes that launched season 1 with a same-day release, I feel like my estimation of them has flipped somewhat. Watching them back to back on the day, I was more partial to "Devil's chord" — now it seems like masterful performances covering up a whole lot of nothing.

Jinkx Monsoon carries the show with her delicious hamming, it takes power to overshadow Ncuti Gatwa as she does here. Everything else seems rudderless, though — like it's only there to tie Monsoon's scenes together: Timothy Drake, for all his presumed unwritten music, really meant nothing to the plot.

The Doctor showing Ruby the devastation of 2024 without music was an entirely hollow nod to "Pyramids of Mars". Basically just a band plagiarising its own greatest hits. Even the Beatles are underwhelming in this story, and not just due to the premise that Maestro is gobbling up music.

That core of the story, as depressing as it is rightfully presented, is completely let down by the climax that is apparently just about finding the right "anti-chord" to banish Maestro? And the woefully underdeveloped Lennon/McCartney just happens to wander through the halls of Abbey Road and hit the right note to fill the CGI power bar?

Okay, I guess. But then "music rushes back into the world" and as a result we get ... a cheesy, lightweight pop song, arguably worse than the Maestro-era Beatles classic "I've got a dog"? That's hardly a celebration of music, more like a wet handshake.

I'm all there for Maestro's vaudeville villainy, and the basic story setup! The execution was just so disjointed that it might have been an episode of "The Muppet Show" rather than a purposely written, 45 minute single story.

One scene that will stay with me, and I feel would have been a better climax, is the silent moment where the Doctor's sonic cancels out all sound. In an episode where all hinges on music and its absence, that leaves a far bigger impression than (Ugh!) "There's always a twist at the end".

If I were to grade this episode out of ten, I'd give it four points for the idea, five for casting Jinkx Monsoon, but deduct three for story execution and another three for that awful song routine. Trois points!

I enjoy this one a lot more in retrospect - the first time around, I didn't really connect with it, but there's some real good stuff in this one.

A few weeks ago, I went back and watched "Pyramids of Mars", and discovered that the scene where the Doctor brings Ruby to the "present" to reveal it's been devastated closely mirrors the Doctor doing the same to Sarah Jane in that story, which is appropriate since "Pyramids of Mars" is the debut of Sutekh.

A Beatles story without the notoriously expensive Beatles music was a unique challenge. I will say that the actor playing John Lennon absolutely nailed Lennon's mannerisms, particularly when singing in the studio.

I've had a lot of fun with these retrospective discussions, but I think we've hit the point of diminishing returns, and going further back into the archives right now probably wouldn't generate a lot of interest. Maybe we can revisit the concept in the future.