‘Doctor Who’ 11x04 recap: ‘Arachnids in the UK’ is not for arachnophobes
“Doctor Who” season 11 episode 4 is definitely not for arachnophobes. “Arachnids in the UK” features humongous spiders and Mr Big.
“Doctor Who” 11x04 “Arachnids in the UK” spoilers are below. The show aired on BBC in the UK on Sunday and on the ABC in Australia on Monday.
The Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) has successfully landed the TARDIS in Sheffield, where Yasmin (Mandip Gill), Ryan (Tosin Cole) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) live. Yaz invited them to her nearby flat, but Graham preferred to return to his own home, where the grieving widower started missing his wife.
While Yaz was off to fetch her mother, who worked at a luxury hotel until she was fired by its American owner, Robertson (Chris Noth), the Doctor and Ryan encountered Dr Jade McIntyre, who appeared to be worried at her colleague’s absence. When they broke into the colleague’s place, they saw that it was infested with thick spiderwebs and the colleague attacked by a massive local spider.
McIntyre admitted that they were investigating bizarre behaviour spider patterns after recently experimenting with the species. The Doctor traced the source of spiders to the hotel where Yaz’s mum, Najia, worked. Meanwhile, Graham also found a big spider in his own home, rushing to the Doctor to tell her of his find.
They learnt that the hotel was built over a series of abandoned mine tunnels used as a dumping ground for industrial waste. The spiders, which were the offspring of a specimen used in experiments at McIntyre’s laboratory, mutated from the waste and had therefore grown into gigantic sizes.
To kill the spiders humanely, the group lured them in the hotel’s panic room with music. They then found the mother spider in the ballroom, struggling to breathe. The spider’s size had become too big for its body to handle, which would mean that it was about to die. But before it could take its last breath, Robertson shot it using his dead bodyguard’s gun, much to the Doctor’s disgust.
Later, Ryan, Yaz and Graham approached the Doctor to ask her to let them join in her adventure. Yaz said her family, although were loving and meant well, were driving her crazy. Ryan said he didn’t want to go back to work in a warehouse. While the two younger companions wanted to get away from their everyday lives, Graham didn’t want to stay in his house to wait for his grief to go away.
“The thing about grief is it needs time. Well I don’t want to sit in my house waiting for it to go away. It’s that my house is full of Grace, it makes it so much harder. But being with you, seeing all these things, it really helps,” a tearful Graham beseeched the Doctor.
The Doctor warned them that she couldn’t guarantee their safety and that they wouldn’t be the same person once they went back after their journey. The trio wouldn’t be swayed, though, insisting that they all wanted whatever unknown adventures the Doctor would offer them.
And so the Doctor welcomed the newly united Team Tardis aboard.