The Tsuranga Conundrum (TV story)

The Tsuranga Conundrum was the fifth episode of Series 11 of Doctor Who.

Synopsis
As the Thirteenth Doctor and her friends end up stranded without the TARDIS on a hospital ship in space, with a strange and potentially deadly intruder on board, it is up to them, the crew, and the patients to figure out what it is, what it wants, and how to stop it before the creature tears the ship apart.

Plot
On Seffilun 27 in a Junk galaxy, the Doctor, Ryan, Yasmin, and Graham are hunting for something the Doctor desires to find with special detectors retrieved from the TARDIS parked nearby. While looking, they find something, the Doctor realising that it is a sonic mine, and accidentally triggers it and explodes just as Yaz asks how long they have.

The Doctor awakes on a hospital ship Tsuranga, finding the others alright despite her own apparent pain in her side.

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Cast

 * The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
 * Graham O'Brien - Bradley Walsh
 * Ryan Sinclair - Tosin Cole
 * Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
 * Astos - Brett Goldstein
 * Mabli - Lois Chimimba
 * Eve Cicero - Suzanne Packer
 * Durkas Cicero - Ben Bailey-Smith
 * Ronan - David Shields
 * Yoss - Jack Shalloo

Crew
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The Doctor

 * The Doctor has a stethoscope.
 * The Doctor claims she is a doctor of medicine, science, engineering, candy floss, LEGO, philosophy, music, problems, people and hope, but mostly hope.

Culture

 * Yaz compares Tsuranga to the Red Cross.
 * Astos says he made a rookie mistake.
 * Danger levels mentioned are chalice and Beetroot.
 * Graham mentions how he has watched every episode of Call the Midwife, although he looks away at the squeamish parts.

Species

 * Gifftan males and females can both become pregnant, with males only birthing male children and vice-versa. Gifftan young are gestated for a week in a pregnancy sac before the sac is painlessly cut open during birth.
 * Gifftan babies are born with two umbilical cords.
 * Images of a Cyberman, an Ood, a Weeping Angel, a Raxacoricofallapatorian, a Sontaran, a Silent, a Silurian, and a Zygon appear on a console screen in rapid succession before Mabli selects a briefing on the Pting.
 * These are given as the Perils Of The Constant Division with Pting labelled Item Seven Alpha Cubed.
 * Time Lords possess an organ called an ecto-spleen. When damaged they could cause pain.
 * Eve Cicero went up against the Aeons and the Underkind.

People

 * Eve Cicero is a Neuro pilot with Pilot's Heart, although she plays it off as corton fever.
 * She is mentioned in the Book of Celebrants for her part in defeating the Army of the Aeons in the Battle of the Underkind.
 * Ryan mentions Grace's funeral, his dad and his mom's death.
 * The Doctor calls to meeting, Poirot-style.
 * Astos was Chief Medic.

Locations

 * The junk planets Seffilun 27 and Seffilun 59 are located in a Junk galaxy.
 * The TARDIS team had just been rainbathing in the upward tropics of Kinstarno.
 * Keebans are from the Keeba galaxy.
 * Yoss is stationed in Pod Two.
 * Tsuranga is heading for Resus One, specifically the Tsuranga Hub.
 * Tsuranga has entered the edges of the Constant Division.
 * Ronan says complaints are filed to Keeba Central.

Medicine

 * Eve uses adrenaline blockers to get through her condition.

Technology

 * The TARDIS team is searching the junk planet with modified metal detectors.
 * Graham found a sonic mine. The Doctor failed at putting it in temporal lock.
 * Tsuranga patients all has to wear medtags, indicating their full bio-history, allergies, fluid levels, lifespan data.
 * The TARDIS team were rescued by robo-dredgers.
 * All assessment zones on Tsuranga have privacy indicators built in.
 * Ronan is a Clone Drone Android.
 * Tsuranga is a QuadZone Rescue Craft.
 * Resus One has post-recuperation onward teleports.
 * Tsuranga has a NavChamber for navigation.
 * Tsuranga has self-repairing shielding.
 * Tsuranga has two life pods. One in portside and one in starboard.
 * The staff uses comm dots to communicate on great distances.
 * Everyone onboard Tsuranga has ocular recorders. Yaz says it's like a posh version of her uniform camera.
 * Resus One can perform remote structural termination (RST) to Tsuranga.
 * Anti-matter drives were used in the 67th century to power their ships.

Sport

 * Yaz mentions footballer Siobhan Chamberlain when kicking the Pting down a corridor on the Tsuranga.

Story notes

 * Pretty much every scientific fact about anti-matter given by the Doctor in this episode is true to real science. However, in reality, because antimatter is produced via pair production, energy gained by antimatter-matter reactions would not exceed the energy required to create it; therefore energy generation would have to be performed by captured antimatter that has not been manufactured.
 * Tim Price receives a creator credit for the Pting, the first time such a credit is given on a creature or character's first appearance.

Ratings

 * 6.12 million (UK overnight)

Filming locations
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Production errors
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Continuity

 * The Doctor notes that she has "only just" recovered her TARDIS. (TV: The Ghost Monument)
 * The Doctor says "snap" when her and the general say the same thing. She has said this in her second, sixth, (TV: The Two Doctors) tenth (TV: Time Crash) and twelfth (TV: Twice Upon a Time) incarnations.
 * The Doctor uses her stethoscope. It was commonly used by her tenth incarnation (TV: Evolution of the Daleks, Midnight, The Next Doctor) and occasionally her eleventh incarnation. (TV: The Lodger)
 * The Doctor and her friends have been rescued from a perilous situation before by a passing ship. (TV: The Ghost Monument)
 * Ryan mentions how his dad did not come to Grace O'Brien's funeral. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
 * Graham still calls the Doctor "Doc". (TV: Rosa, Arachnids in the UK)
 * Graham once more tries to fist bump Ryan only for the man to refuse as it's "uncool" of him. (TV: Rosa)
 * Ryan elaborates on his mother's death. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
 * Graham mentions the fact that Ryan spends time on YouTube. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
 * The Doctor's sonic screwdriver is once again eaten. (TV: The Eleventh Hour, A Christmas Carol)
 * Once again, the Thirteenth Doctor loses possession of her TARDIS. (TV: Twice Upon a Time) She also lost it during her first, (TV: Marco Polo) second, (TV: The Faceless Ones, The Evil of the Daleks, COMIC: Egyptian Escapade) third, (COMIC: Backtime) fourth, (TV: The Ark in Space, AUDIO: The Beast of Kravenos) eighth, (AUDIO: A Life in the Day, The Sontaran Ordeal) tenth, (TV: The Impossible Planet, Blink, Utopia, Voyage of the Damned, The Poison Sky) eleventh (TV: Amy's Choice, The Lodger, The Doctor's Wife) and twelfth incarnations. (TV: Face the Raven)
 * The Doctor loves the musical Hamilton, and has seen it many times throughout her lives. (COMIC: The Long Con)
 * Graham mentions that Ryan is descended from an Earth nurse. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)

DVD releases
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Blu-ray releases
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Digital releases
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