'Doctor Who' Season 12, Episode 6 Recap: "Praxeus"

After Doctor Who's giant reveal of a new Doctor plus Jack Harness, this week starts out relatively calm. The opening feels like it should be the beginning of Seven Worlds, One Planet until a spacecraft suddenly crashes through the atmosphere. As the astronaut, Adam Lang (Matthew McNulty), desperately tries to survive, somewhere else on the planet, an off-duty (currently inactive) police officer, DI Jake Willis (Warren Brown), is unsuccessfully attempting to keep law and order in his mum's shop. And in Peru, two travel bloggers, Jamila (Gabriela Toloi) and Gabriela (Joana Borja) of the vlog Two Girls Roaming have traveled to one of the world's most beautiful rivers. Only they discover it's become a plastic dumping ground, where the birds are unwell.

Graham: Well, excuse me, Inspector Morse, but I'm not the fantastist around here.

Jake knows Adam well enough to become emotional when he sees reports of his module crashing on TV. (We learn later they are married,  but Jake's self-esteem problems have derailed things.) As he stares at the TV, he receives a mysterious text from Lang, begging for help, claiming he landed in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Gabriela discovers Jamila is gone, having slept through her friend being attacked by birds in the night. But she's not alone. Ryan is in Peru, exploring what's gone wrong, collecting dead birds, and makes friends with a suspicious Gabriela.