The Story and the Engine Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lagos, Nigeria

The Doctor travels to Lagos, to visit his favorite barbershop. Lagos was the capital of Nigeria
from 1906 to 1991. With over 20 million people, it is a Megacity and is rapidly growing. Lagos owes much of its growth to the petroleum industry.

According to the Doctor, it is 2019 in Lagos. President Muhammadu Buhari had recently been re-elected by a decent margin. Buhari was also Minister of Petroleum Resources, one of the more powerful jobs in Nigeria.

Ncuti Gatwa was born in Rwanda, and his family fled the genocide in 1994 to move to the United Kingdom. Filming an episode set in Africa was at the top of his wish list for the show.

Answer: Omo

Omo runs the barbershop. In Yoruba, Omo means child. Omo is an old friend of the Doctor, as are many people in the marketplace in Lagos. It is clearly a special place for the Doctor. The barbershop, formerly a sanctuary, is now a place of danger as it has been hijacked by a demi-god with an evil agenda.

Omo was played by Sule Rimi. He has been working regularly in television since 2010, including a stint on "Andor" (2022). Rimi was Paul Pullman in "The Day of the Jackal" (2024). Eddie Redmayne played the title assassin.

Answer: Yo Yo Ma

The story is about Yo Yo Ma, the world's greatest cellist. He visited Africa to study folk music and found many examples in Botswana. As the story goes, the music evolved as the things around the singer changed.

Yo Yo Ma has been regarded as one of the world's great musicians ever since he was a young child. He is widely seen as the world's most talented cellist, renowned for his work in Baroque music, especially Johann Sebastian Bach.

Answer: A giant spider

The Nexus, the ship they are traveling on, is shaped like an enormous spider, surrounded by what seems to be a web. This is in keeping with the theme of Anansi, who is sometimes depicted as a spider in Ashanti legends.

The Doctor overloads the engines of the Nexus and the spider explodes towards the end of the episode.

Answer: Loki

When the Barber claims to be the essence of various story-telling gods, the Doctor laughs and begins to name drop his adventures with the Gods. The Doctor tells of drinking with Dionysus (Greek god of wine), watching Marvel films with Saga (who criticized the depiction of Thor, and she would know), playing chess (and losing) with Bastet, and attempting to lose a bet with Anansi.

Anansi is the trickster god of the Ashanti people of western Africa. He is known for defeating his enemies by being clever, an aspect that would obviously appeal to the Doctor.

Saga is from the Norse pantheon and was a consort of Odin.

Bastet is the Egyptian goddess of stories, but also love, lust, and marijuana. She is generally depicted as a cat.

And Loki, the god that Doctor didn't mention, was the trickster god of Norse mythology.

Answer: Abena

Abena is the daughter of Anansi, the trickster god. A very, very long time ago, so long it was when the Doctor was the Fugitive Doctor, the Doctor lost a bet with Anansi and was supposed to marry Abena, although she wasn't eager about it. In Ghana, the name Abena means "born on Tuesday."

The Doctor apologized to Abena for leaving her in the lurch so long ago. We even had a brief glimpse of Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor, with a hint we might see more in the future.

Abena was played by Michelle Asante. She has been acting since 2007, in both films and television. She has also done lots of voice work on video games. This is actually her second appearance on "Doctor Who"; she had a small part as one of the neighbors in "The Forest at the End of the World" (2014).

Answer: False

At best, the Barber was a demi-god. He was the assistant to the story-telling gods, collecting the stories that connected them to humanity. When the Barber asked to be recognized for his work, the gods basically laughed at him and told him to sit down and shut up.

A resentful Barber then sought to sever the ties between humanity and the Gods by destroying their stories. The Doctor explained what a catastrophic impact that would have on Earth and its seven billion inhabitants.

The Barber was played by Ariyon Bakare, in a brilliant performance. Bakare is a veteran actor who got started in 1990. He was a regular on "The Doctors" (2001-2005) as Ben Kwame. He has numerous film and television credits, including several appearances on "Good Omens" (2019), the David Tennant fantasy show. This is actually his second appearance on "Doctor Who"; he was Leandro in "The Woman Who Lived" (2015). Now we know what he looks like without lion makeup.

Answer: Peter Capaldi in "The Zygon Inversion"

A clip from Peter Capaldi's speech in "The Zygon Inversion" is one of the first images we see. One of the best speeches in the whole history of the series, the Twelfth Doctor talks about the horrors of the Time War and how the guilt drives how he lives his life.

"The Rings of Akhaten" speech may have been more appropriate, as it focuses on the Doctor's long history and the power of storytelling.

"The Pandorica Opens" speech at Stonehenge has the Doctor facing off against virtually every enemy he's ever had and daring them to take him on.

And in "Genesis of the Daleks" the Fourth Doctor ponders the morality of genocide, even against a race that brings as much evil and death as the Daleks.

Answer: Greeting Belinda at the hospital

The Doctor tells a story about Belinda and one of her patients. Belinda correctly diagnoses the woman and saves her life. The woman later thanks Belinda, and we see Mrs Flood entering the hospital during the scene. The fascinating thing is the Doctor has literally thousands of years of stories he could have told and he chose an everyday life story about his newest companion.

While Mrs Flood seems to be responsible for the destruction of Earth, "The Story and The Engine" revealed nothing new about her agenda.

Answer: Inua Elams

Inua Ellums, a writer from Nigeria, wrote "The Story and the Engine." It is an extension of his play "The Barbershop Chronicles," which follows the lives of black men at barbershops in the UK and various African nations. Ellums is the first African writer to work on "Doctor Who."

Russell Davies said he had seen "The Barbershop Chronicles" and was eager to work with Ellums to create an African-based episode of "Doctor Who."

Makalla McPherson was the director. She has been working in British television since 2015, and her credits include "Doctors" (2013-19) and "East Enders" (2021).

Sienna-Robyn Mavanga Phipps made the briefest of appearances towards the end of the episode, with Belinda asking about a baby. Sienna played Poppy in "Space Babies" (2024), which is generally considered the weakest episode of Ncuti Gatwa's first season.

Harri McAinsh joined the crew of "Doctor Who" this season as art director and has done some amazing work so far, especially the animation in "Lux" and the giant spider in "The Story and the Engine" (2025).