A Clever Easter Egg In Doctor Who Season 15, Episode 2’s Opening Minutes Gives Lux A Bigger Connection To The Doctor

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Doctor Who season 15, episode 2, “Lux.”The villain in Doctor Who season 15, episode 2, “Lux,” enters the fray in a very unorthodox way, and it connects the installment’s titular character to the show’s primary protagonist. Alan Cumming’s Mr. Ring-a-Ding/Lux Imperator initially seems to be “just” an animated character that has come to life, but the reveal that he is a member of Doctor Who‘s Pantheon as the God of Light comes shortly after his introduction.

By the end of “Lux,” it’s unclear whether Cumming’s character can return. I think he can, as other members of the Pantheon have already seemed beaten and have come back further down the line – like Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf). Lux’s powers give him the ability to manipulate light, which makes his capabilities incredibly broad and truly fearsome. There are similarities between the Doctor and Lux, and the presence of one seemingly innocuous item in the cold open of “Lux” drives home that connection even further.

Doctor Who Season 15’s Lux Uses One Of The Doctor’s Trademarks For Evil

Spoons have saved the day in the Doctor’s hands

Lux begins the story as a non-corporeal entity, traveling on a beam of moonlight. Entering through the skylight in the Palazzo, the beam reflects off a spoon left out by the movie theater’s projectionist. After a few perfectly angled refractions, Lux makes his way onto the Mr. Ring-a-Ding footage and takes the character’s shape as his own. The spoon is actually a reference to the Doctor, as he has used the piece of cutlery several times throughout the show’s history to save the day.

The Doctor never carries conventional weaponry, and rarely even handles it. So, he will quite often use what’s available, and the innocence of something so harmless as a spoon has several times served as an artful commentary on how the Time Lord strives to quash violence by adopting non-violent methods. So, by including a spoon in Lux’s entrance to the show, the God of Light sullies one of the Doctor’s iconic tools.

Does The Spoon Confirm A Larger Connection Between The Doctor & The Pantheon?

Gatwa’s Doctor has shown signs of being a Pantheon member

Lux and the Doctor are both very powerful beings, and the fact that Cumming’s character can successfully use Fifteen’s regeneration energy to build himself a sturdier body is quietly one of the biggest reveals in “Lux.” I’m not saying that Lux is a Time Lord, but it’s not out of the question that the Doctor is a Pantheon God and doesn’t know it. After all, the Doctor underwent a memory wipe at the hands of Division before the era of William Hartnell’s First Doctor, and no one knows the character’s true origin yet after Chris Chibnall’s Timeless Child retcon.

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The Doctor Who fandom seems convinced the show is drawing to a close in its current form, and the showrunner has referenced that in opinion in “Lux.”

The spoon could just be there coincidentally, but it could be a sign of something far more significant. I think the most likely connection, if there is one at all, is that the spoon was put there intentionally by someone else in the Pantheon, and they chose that particular item because they know the Doctor’s history and are toying with him. Doctor Who has become increasingly supernatural during the Disney era, so there could be other explanations that stray from the show’s sci-fi storytelling habits.

Doctor Who

5/10

Release Date

December 25, 2023

Directors

Douglas Camfield, David Maloney, Christopher Barry, Michael E. Briant, Barry Letts, Michael Ferguson, Richard Martin, Peter Moffatt, Pennant Roberts, Lennie Mayne, Chris Clough, Ron Jones, Paddy Russell, Paul Bernard, Michael Hayes, Timothy Combe, Morris Barry, Gerald Blake, Graeme Harper, Waris Hussein, Rodney Bennett, Mervyn Pinfield, Hugh David, John Gorrie

Writers

Russell T. Davies, Dave Gibbons, Kate Herron, Steven Moffat

Franchise(s)

Doctor Who