"The Devil's Chord" is the second episode of the fourteenth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who.

"The Devil's Chord" was watched by 3.91 million viewers and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Monsoon’s performance.

Maestro then breaks the fourth wall, looking into the camera before playing the opening notes of the Doctor Who theme music.

After viewing similar sessions with Cilla Black and an orchestra, they talk to John Lennon and McCartney and discover that the world has lost its taste for music.

[a] After escaping Maestro, the Doctor takes Ruby back to 2024, discovering the ruins of London in a nuclear winter.

[3] In the episode, the Doctor makes a joke about diegetic music,[4] which according to Davies, was not well received by the production team who repeatedly suggested cutting it.

[5][6] Davies included references to Doctor Who's first serial, An Unearthly Child (1963), as well as the twelfth series episode, "The Timeless Children" (2020).

"The Devil's Chord" takes place at the same time period as An Unearthly Child, and the Doctor tells Ruby that he was living nearby in Shoreditch with Susan.

[11][12] "The Devil's Chord" was produced in the fourth production block of the fourteenth series along with the sixth episode, "Rogue".

[17] Twist went on to appear in every other episode of the series, cumulating in a role as Susan Triad, a creation of the finale's primary antagonist, Sutekh.

[20] Former Doctor Who costume designer June Hudson makes a cameo appearance as an elderly woman who is killed by Maestro.

[36] Writing for Radio Times, Louise Griffin attributed the low ratings to the episodes launch on BBC iPlayer nearly 20 hours previously.

The website's consensus reads: ""The Devil's Chord" gets by with a little help from some famous friends -- and a memorably villainous turn from Jinkx Monsoon as Maestro.

"[26] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the episode a score of 72 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[30] Hoai-Tran Bui's review from Inverse was more mixed, though she described the episode as "an intriguing marriage of high-concept sci-fi with high camp that delivers a promising look at what this new era of Doctor Who could look like.