Shows that don’t have a fixed endpoint have this issue where the quality of an episode can vary quite a lot depending upon who the writer is. Doctor Who has this problem worse than most, and I think it’s because their showrunners themselves suck. I think this particular showrunner (Chibnall?) had an obsession with faces, because there were several episodes during his time where something weird was done with a face, like sticking it on sheet like they do here. (I don’t have a problem with a face on a sheet. I do have a problem with that face talking without a throat or lungs!)

Doctor Who does go balls-to-the-wall with the Rule of Cool, and sometimes they can pull it off, but often not IMO (e.g. the face on the sheet). I think the old Doctor Who is much better, but the pacing on it was much slower because they usually didn’t try to cram the entire story into one or two episodes. It’s so slow, though, it would bore modern audiences to death. I like it because there is a lot more dialog and the story is allowed to grow over the course of 4-6 episodes. There was much more suspense because they had an incredibly low budget for special effects. It could just be nostalgia, but I think the stories were much better, too. In a cheesy sci-fi B-movie kind of way, at least.