'The Story & the Engine' (Story Code 2.05) by Inua Ellams

“You want a story about Weeping Angels and Ice Warriors, but nothing is more vivid than an ordinary life…” - The Doctor

In a Lagos barbershop, the owner, Omo Esosa, recounts the story of how he met the Doctor, as a barber cuts his hair. As Omo’s tale appears as images on the shop window, three men listen on intently. When Omo’s story ends, wall-lights change from red to green - then quickly turn back to red. The patrons panic, as “something” needs feeding…

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor gets an idea to help get Belinda home: Lagos in Nigeria has the largest communications market in Africa, which he can use to boost the Vindicator. It is also near his favourite barbershop, ‘Omo’s Palace’. After materialising the TARDIS to Lagos in 2019, the Doctor takes the required Vindicator reading, then explains to Belinda how his latest incarnation is treated like family at Omo’s, a place where he can relax and tell stories. Leaving Belinda in the ship, the Doctor nips off to the barbershop, encountering many friends in the local marketplace on the way; he soon comes across a ‘turn back’ sign, and posters of four missing people: Omo, Tunde, Obioma and Rashid. Reaching the barbershop, the Doctor steps inside; to his surprise the door immediately locks behind him - which triggers a deafening alarm inside the TARDIS. In the shop the Doctor meets Omo, and is surprised to find the other three missing men there too. Omo warns that the shop is under new management, and the new Barber won’t let anyone leave. When the red-light alarm blares, Obioma’s shaved head rapidly grows hair; but he has run out of stories, so Rashid sits in the barber’s chair, and while the Barber wields his clippers, tells a tale about songs and music, accompanied by images on the shop window. When the green light goes on, Omo explains that the trapped patrons’ stories are feeding something that is always hungry - and now they need the Doctor to tell a story. To the Doctor’s surprise a woman enters: the Barber’s assistant, Abby, bearing food for the patrons; the Doctor recognises Abby, but she cuts him dead and enters the door leading to the back of the shop. The Doctor learns that everyone knows him thanks to Omo’s stories, and that the shop is travelling to an unknown destination. Omo tells of how he lost control of his shop when he took up the Barber’s offer of a haircut; he and the others have been trapped for ages ever since. When the light goes red, the Doctor insists that he tell a story. As a force holds him in the chair, the Doctor recounts the time when Belinda’s nursing skills saved a patient’s life. Once his tale is finished, the Doctor’s hair regrows; noting this, the Barber and Abby consider how his stories could supercharge the engine, allowing the Barber to finally reclaim his throne. Back in the TARDIS, Belinda instructs the ship to locate the source of the disturbance causing the alarm, then sets off to find the barbershop. Meanwhile, the Doctor ignores his fellow prisoners’ warning and sonics open the shop door; as a vacuum threatens to suck them outside, everyone clings onto furniture for dear life. Gripping the doorframe, the Doctor sees that the shop is sitting atop a giant mechanical spider, which strides across a huge web hanging in space. Elsewhere, Belinda makes her way through the marketplace and streets, glimpsing a mysterious ghost girl (who looks suspiciously like Captain Poppy from ‘Space Babies’) who promptly vanishes. After the Barber and Abby close the door, the Doctor learns that the barbershop is located in both Lagos and outer space (‘the Nexus’) at the same time, and that a time-space compressor in the doorframe only allows transit to the Barber and Abby. To the Doctor’s delight, Belinda enters the shop, the door immediately slamming behind her. When the Doctor demands to know the Barber’s true identity, the man starts cutting his own hair and identifies himself as a number of ancient gods, all known for telling stories. But the Doctor and Belinda just laugh: they have met the real versions of these gods, and know that the Barber is lying. Defeated, the Barber confesses how he was once human, and devoted his life to telling stories that strengthened the gods’ existence using humanity’s beliefs. When the gods needed more power, the storyteller used their blood and essence to build a model to collect stories and ideas and link them together, which the gods then expanded into the Nexus. Over the centuries the Barber collected stories from pubs, church confessionals, theatres, and cinemas - including the Palazzo Picture House in Miami, where the Doctor met Lux. But the Nexus worked too well, and so the gods dumped the storyteller. To gain his vengeance, the Barbar salvaged his Story Engine, using it to build the giant mechanical spider that traverses the Nexus. Just then the spider grinds to a halt, having burned too much energy when the Doctor forced open the shop door. The Doctor finally realises the Abby’s real identity: Abena, daughter of Anansi; she holds a grudge against the Doctor, who failed to rescue her in an earlier incarnation, when they were a fugitive from the Time Lords. Apologising for his past actions, the Doctor confronts the Barber about his real plan: he is travelling to the centre of the Nexus to destroy the gods by cutting them from the web, removing them from humanity’s memory. The Doctor implores Abenda to help, but the patrons drag him back to the chair to tell more stories and supercharge the engine. Having heard the Barber’s lies exposed, Abena intervenes, telling a story of how escaped slaves used to weave secret maps in their children’s hair, handing down the means to freedom through the ages. As she recounts the tale, Abena weaves her own map in the Doctor’s hair; when she has finished, the Doctor sonics out the lights, grabs Belinda and races out the back door. Following Abena’s map, the Doctor and Belinda make their way to the Story Engine: a huge mechanical brain, which contains a beating heart within, where the Barber’s stories are stored. The Barber tries to stop the Doctor and Belinda from disrupting the power to the engine, but he is too late: the engine is now connected to the Doctor, and it plays images from the Time Lord’s past adventures on various screens and the shop window. As these tales supercharge the engine, the delighted Barber realises his adversary’s neverending story can provide neverending power; but when the Belinda warns that the engine is now overloading, the Barber finally sees reason, and he releases his prisoners. As the shop begins compressing, Omo, Tunde, Obioma, Rashid and Belinda race through the door, back to the safety of Lagos. The Doctor and the Barber are not far behind, but as they flee the shrinking shop the giant spider tries to follow - until a zap from the Doctor’s sonic sends it back into the Nexus, where it overloads and explodes. After expressing their gratitude to Abena, Tunde, Obioma and Rashid rush off to rejoin their families. With the Barber now free of his burden of vengeance, Omo generously bequeaths him his barbershop so that he can retire; Omo also offers the Barber the name ‘Adetokunbo’ after his father. Abena forgives the Doctor and sets off to begin a new life. Leaving the Barber to enjoy his second chance at his own life, the Doctor and Belinda head back to the TARDIS. Belinda asks the Doctor about the spooky child she saw, which her friend attributes to stories leaking out from the barbershop. As they enter the TARDIS, the Doctor tells Belinda the story of how he and Omo first met…

Ncuti Gatwa (The Doctor), Varada Sethu (Belinda Chandra), Sule Rimi, (Omo Esosa), Ariyon Bakare (The Barber), Stefan Adegbola (Rashid Abubakar), Jordan Adene (Tunde Adebayo), Michael Balogun (Obioma Okoli), Michelle Asante (Abena), Simon Bailey (Paramedic), Adrian Pang (Consultant), Tessa Bell-Briggs (Patient), Anita Dobson (Mrs Flood), Inua Ellams (Market Seller), Funmi James (Security Guard), Poppy (Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps), The Doctor (Jo Martin)

Directed by Makalla McPherson

Produced by Vicki Delow
Executive Producers Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins and Phil Collinson
A Bad Wolf / BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
10th May 2025 @ 7.10pm


Notes:
*Featuring the Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda

*This episode premiered in the UK on the BBC's iPlayer in Ultra-High Definition (UHD) at 08.00 on the morning of 10th May 2025, and was simultaneously streamed on Disney+ outside the UK and Ireland

*The title sequence begins as images in the barbershop window, before becoming the full opening credits

*Mrs Flood appears in the Doctor’s recounting of Belinda’s story

*A prequel to this story, by episode writer Inua Ellams and artwork by Bunmi Agusto, was published on the BBC's 'Doctor Who' website on 8th May 2025. Titled 'What I Did On My Holidays By Omo Esosa', it was written from the perspective of Omo as a schoolboy, and detailed how he and the Doctor met in Etsako, during a terrible forest fire caused by an illegal mining operation's oil spill.