#(such as turning a more modern TARDIS into a whole ship to see if they could and just sorta creating a more succinct plan after that)

[deathxproof-archive]

@anywherexwhen get tumbled into a very different universe with very similar casing

There was a cargo ship that wasn’t a cargo ship in a strange, somehow off little seaport town in the middle of coastal New England. Everything about the air was off, but that ship especially. There was something about it, like it was always there but stuck out as new and different every so often. Like it was almost… Alien. And ethereal. Nobody human could really pay too much attention to it, even if they wanted to. 

But as hard as it was tried, it was difficult to try and mask over humans’ perceptions of even an attempted small, relatively unassuming cargo sailing ship. People in towns and cities noticed it was there in a quiet, amused sort of confusion. And the people who needed it could see it, for the most part. And those people in a small, relatively odd and off feeling New England seaport town were talking about how strange it was to show up as well, starting their little human rumors about strange activity and dealing before they could even leave shore again. 

It was such a small ship that hearing there was any sort of stowaway from one of their few crew members had Koschei positively intrigued. It didn’t quite make sense— they had apparently just found him. Travelers and potential thieves and other stowaways were absolutely rare nowadays, and that had made it even more exciting for him, too. The Doctor was brought to the deck, and Koschei came to meet them where they were holding their discovery. “Alright,” he says, and it’s an all-too-familiar voice attached to an all-too-familiar face, all blonde and scruffy and dressed in a black hoodie, jean jacket, heavy boots, and a little fisherman’s beanie. “A for Effort, you at least got up and in, now I have to ask you…” 

Koschei paused as he walked right up to his crew and the Doctor, brows knit, expression pausing. That wasn’t, that was the same— He was— But Koschei had just seen… Oh, now this really was odd, wasn’t it?

“… Oh, hello.” he says, a confused little smile on his face as he leaned closer as if to get a better look at him. Not quite malicious as might be expected, just an amused curiosity as he looked at the Doctor with recognition... Did the crew that found him even notice the face, yet? “Oohh, look at you. Aren’t you strange…” He says, reaching out, poking at him briefly to make sure that he was even real. No questions answered since he got there, only more being asked. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

[gingerteaonthetardis]

WIP Telephone: "Spooky"

if you don't want to see what might become an increasingly long tumblr post, feel free to block the tag "WIP telephone." (i'll also be tagging it "long post," just in case. don't want to clog up people's dashes.)

when i logged on this morning and opined what to do with all the WIPs i know i'll never finish, it was brilliantly suggested that i offer some of them up to be collaboratively worked on by my pals here on tumblr. it's intended to be a tag game, of sorts, with each person adding maybe a hundred words (obviously, since my WIPs are all more than a hundred words, my starting excerpts are going to be… a bit longer than that, oops; and feel free to add more than that, if you feel like doing so) and then tagging someone else to add more, and so on, etc. etc.

if it's fun and anyone's interested, i'll do more, but i thought i'd start with something... 🍂 seasonally appropriate. 🍂 i'll be sharing additions as they come along!

also, tagging you for the next hundred words, because you're the one who started it all: dear @mrunmione (i'm not telling which doctor this is supposed to be; i'll let you pick!)

-

She hadn’t meant to say it.

“I’m not sleeping in here without you.”

In all honesty, she’s perfectly capable of sleeping on her own in a strange place; she’s done it plenty of times before. Living with the Doctor means getting used to sleeping in unusual spots. Hospital gurneys. Motel rooms in the far future where the beds float. Under ballroom tables, though that was just the once, and she’d had a lot to drink. The occasional jail cell.

Needless to say, she’s well acquainted with catnaps in odd places.

Only “odd” isn’t really the same as “haunted.”

And this place—wherever they are—is definitely haunted.

No matter what the Doctor says.

-

"Spooky," she decreed as they trudged up the damp path toward the house on the hill. "Think it's haunted?"

"There's no such thing," he insisted. The Doctor rolled his eyes in clear scepticism, but they both knew there was some reason the TARDIS landed them there. 

Entering through the unlocked door, they set about taking readings of the entrance hall and cramped lower rooms, all covered in dark wood and heavy tapestries. The decor was decidedly out of date, like something from a period film. No modern lighting, no electrical outlets to speak of. 

But though the place had something unsettling about it, it also seemed decidedly empty.

“This house is old,” the Doctor said, eyes intent, scanning over the low ceilings. “A few hundred years, I’d say. Maybe more."

When Rose wandered to the hearth, his supposition was confirmed by two small, framed sketches: two different women, their hair pulled back in artful ringlets and their faces set in gentle Mona Lisa smiles. One was dark and the other fair. And there were no names. 

They were both dated 1781. 

Before she could point them out, the Doctor was already running up the main staircase, rattling off jargon that she couldn’t even begin to understand—nonsense about atmospheric pressure and residual readings of… something—his voice too-loud in the stillness of the house. 

She trailed after him, only sort of half-listening. But as she turned the corner back into the hall, the whole place rumbled—and thumped, a sound like stones grinding against the bottom of a ship. The floorboards shook perilously under her feet, and she reached out on instinct, steadying herself against the base of the bannister.

“Doctor?"

The Doctor, of course, didn't so much as move. He remained stopped about halfway up the stairs, effortlessly balanced despite the unstable terrain. His head cocked and a half-smile on his lips, he said, "That wasn't a quake."

Of course not.

"What was it, then?"

His smile spread, becoming a full, face-overtaking, slightly manic sort of expression. "I have no idea."

To her very great alarm, he sounded delighted.

-

"Don't tell me you're scared, Rose," the Doctor laughs, sending the torchlight juddering through the darkness. "Look, it's cosy!"

"I'm not scared," she insists. "It's just—"

"Yes, spooky." It's a little too dim to tell, but she's pretty certain he's rolling his eyes. "So you've said." 

He'd picked her room for the night seemingly at random, nudging open doors until he found one with a suitable bed. And in the faint light, the bedroom does seem—nice. Less haunting, maybe, than the rest of the house. But still… off, somehow, in a way she can't quite put her finger on.

As she steps around him, careful not to cut off the wavering beam of the torch, she peers around, making note of all she can see: the crisp linens, the intricately carved wooden bed posts, the glint of polished glass—an oil lamp, she realises.

Something catches at the back of her mind, and she turns toward the Doctor with a frown already creeping over her face. "It's all sort of… clean, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's not musty or anything in here." Gesturing at the bed, she waits for the torch to illuminate the bedspread; startlingly, the coverlet is tucked down, as if someone had only just recently got in or out. Though, perhaps not. Maybe the last occupant of the house just really went in for turn-down service.

But then, she sees it, on the pillow…

She ducks down, looking closer at the little shadow against the pale linens. A faint waft of something carries up to her nose, and it takes her a moment to register just what it is: floral, reminding her faintly of Mickey's Gran.

"Lavender," she murmurs, thumbing over the little bundle of flowers, held together by faded ribbon. "It's fresh."

With a click, the torch light blinks out, and for an instant, she is overtaken by unstoppable, irrational fear. The Doctor is in the room with her, and as he's reminded her several times tonight, they've swept the whole house, searched every nook and cranny: there's nobody here.

But the wind howling outside the window, the faint blueness of the night, and the whisper of dry, bare tree branches scraping together all press in around her, thick as shadow, making her skin crawl and her breath catch.

The prospect of passing a whole night like this, alone with the dark and whatever lurks inside it, is almost too much to bear.

So, fine. She is a little bit scared.

Then there's a rustle, a scrape, a hiss, and then a match blooms with fire, lighting the sharp lines of the Doctor's face from below. He's grinning as he lowers the match to light the oil lamp.

"You're right," he says pleasantly. "This is spooky."

[that-homoerotic-blouse]

Donna awoke with a frown and the hum of a song ringing in her ears.

She had never been the kind of person to turn a blind eye and ignore an inconvenience (her neighbours knew this well, when they decided to drill together that horrid IKEA furniture one Wednesday evening and she appeared on their doorstep with her arms crossed and her deadly glare), and faithful to her principles, she got up.

Immediately she felt something in her stomach starting to boil because who the hell thought it was a good idea to give a fucking symphonic concert at 2am, do you think this is the Royal Albert Hall or something? And she was more than ready to slap her palm across Ziggy Stardust’s face and send him straight into his next regeneration if it was necessary.

The diabolical tune grew louder as she walked through the lengthy corridor, and Donna bristled and fumed. However, when she finally turned the corner to the console room and her hands were about to occupy their usual spot on her hips, something stopped her in her tracks.

She found them there.

She should’ve guessed he wasn’t alone; he was never alone these days.  

Oh.

They were dancing.

Or something like it.

Because there was barely any space between them and they stood so close that they were stepping over each other’s feet, but they didn’t seem to mind one bit. Because they swayed in a lazy, vague motion that hardly matched the rhythm at all. Because their eyes were closed and the hands were burrowed deep, clutching the fabric of his suit and her jacket. Because it was the sort of embrace she had only seen in cheesy films and cheap soaps that would make her roll her eyes away with annoyance. Because it was clear that the music was just a petty excuse and the dancing a farce. And because, to top it all off, for the most unfathomable of reasons, neither of them was wearing shoes.  

The sight brought a smile to her face, of all things. And she would never admit it to herself, but her frown softened just a bit. Her hand fell to her sides, and whatever anger that had been building up inside her died out like a candle.

It was an old song. Very old. It reminded her of long dresses and black and white Hollywood musicals, from the forties or fifties. Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman or something like that. It was one she was sure to have listened to somewhere, somewhen, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint the time nor the place. Her gramps would’ve known; he would love it. Probably there had been an evening, long ago, out in the hill, with his modern telescope and his archaic radio, when these very tunes had started to sound, filling the winter air, and he had fiddled shakily with the knobs and turned up the volume with his face alight with the excitement of a child at Christmas. Donna, listen! This, this is a classic! And he had probably told her the title, but she found she couldn’t quite remember.

It was beautiful nonetheless.

Even the buzzes and whirrs of the TARDIS seemed to have dimmed down in favour of the music.

Cheeky ship.

The song kept on playing and the dancers were all left feet. What a pair. And then, in an almost unnoticeable shift, she raises her head from his shirt and mutters something that the melody leaves clouded and obscure, and Donna can’t make out the words. But inexplicably, wonderfully, he throws back his head in laughter and she joins until they’re stifling the laughs on each other’s shoulder. And there it is again, that light. It’s only in rare occasions that she’s seen it, but there’s no mistaking that it’s there, in his eyes. Time slows down when the Doctor smiles, and right now the whole universe frozen, every planet and star still on its axis. Like a photograph.

Long time no see.

And Donna still doesn’t know much about her—only that her name is Rose and she lived in South London and that she’s been gone for a long time—but already she has no doubts: she’s bloody amazing.

She gave one last look at the scene: God, they were awful and sappy and embarrassing to watch, and they were beaming.

And as Donna headed back to her room, the hum of the melody didn’t quite bother her half as much as before. In fact, she found she didn’t mind at all.  

***

For the prompt “dancing” of Timepetalsweek :)

[user-2-electric-boogaloo]

A Comparison of RTD and Steven Moffat: Saving The Day

So for this analysis I’m going to compare when Moffat and RTD save the day well and when they save it poorly. There are a few bits of criteria I need to explain.

 First I will only be including main series, no Torchwood, no spin-offs, and no mini episodes.

Second, I have to define what makes a good and a bad ending (my examples will come from episodes written by neither of them): 

Bad endings include when the sonic saves the day (see The Power Of Three) (there are exceptions, see below), when a character spouts some useless technobabble that doesn’t make any scientific sense/when it doesn’t make logical sense in general, when the Doctor invents/presents a machine/equipment that miraculously stops the baddy and is never referred to again (see Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS), and any other ending I deem to be bad (see The Vampires of Venice)

Good endings include when the sonice activates a device that has been well established to save the day, when technobabble is used that actually makes some scientific sense, and just generally when the baddy is destroyed in what I deem to be a creative manner that makes sense with all the things that had been set up in that episode (see The Unquiet Dead).

There will also be cases where there isn’t really a day to be saved, however this happens more often with Moffat.

Let us begin (obviously there will be spoilers but the last episode in the list aired nearly 4 years ago so what you doing with your life).

RTD:

Rose: Bad

What even is anti-plastic?! Like seriously, he’s faced the Autons loads of times and has never thought to use it any other time.

The End Of The World: Bad

The Doctor just goes up to the appearance of the repeated meme (ha meme) and rips its arm off. He then just summons Cassandra back by twisting a knob which apparently everyone can do if “you’re very clever like me”.

Aliens Of London/World War Three: Good

Just nuking them all was a bit dodgy but I’ll give it to him purely because it had been set up earlier in the episode and it is a genuine option that could have been taken.

The Long Game: Good

The heating issue was set up within 2 minutes of the episode starting. It’s always good to see the Doctor using his enemies weakness against them.

Boom Town: Good

Only just. It’s technology that hadn’t been showcased ever before and came out of nowhere, but I’m allowing purely because it was setting up The Parting Of The Ways.

Bad Wolf/The Parting Of The Ways: Good

See above. It was set up the story before so it works.

The Christmas Invasion: Bad

This was so close to being good. If RTD had just let the Sycorax leader be honourable then everything would have been fine. Instead he had to let him be dishonourable and then the Doctor through the Satsuma at a random button that for no apparent reason caused a bit of floor to fall away.

New Earth: Bad

It only makes sense if you think about it for less than 10 seconds as just pouring every cure to every disease ever into a giant tub and then spraying said supercure onto them all, then having them hug each other to pass it on. That is suspending my disbelief just a bit too far.

Tooth And Claw: Good

Everything is set up in the episode so I’ll allow it but I fail to see how Prince Albert had the time to ensure that the diamond was cut perfectly.

Love And Monsters: Bad

It’s Love And Monsters. Need I say more?

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: Good

It was very clearly set up throughout the episode.

The Runaway Bride: Bad

I don’t like how a few bombs can supposedly drain the entire Thames.

Smith And Jones: Good

All the events were well established

Gridlock: Good

It’s a fairly bland way to save the day, just opening the surface to all the drivers. But how else could he have done it?

Utopia/The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords: Bad

As much as I like the idea that he tuned himself into the archangel network, he basically turned into Jesus. It is arguably the least convincing ending in modern Doctor Who history.

Voyage Of The Damned: Bad

Why was he the next highest authority? If he’s the highest authority in the universe why didn’t they default to him in the first place? If not then why not default to Midshipman Frame? And if he’s somehow in between them then why? Also Astrid killed herself for no reason when she easily could have jumped out of the forklift.

Partners In Crime: Good

It works in the context of the episode, but I don’t see why they needed two of the necklace things.

Midnight: Good

It’s human nature, you can’t get more well set up than that.

Turn Left: Good

It works logically

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End: Bad

Donna just spouts a load of technobabble whilst pressing buttons and then the Daleks are magically incapacitated.

The Next Doctor: Bad

Why do the infostamps sever Hartigan’s connection with the Cyberking? As far as I remember it ain’t explained.

Planet Of The Dead (co-written with noted transphobe Gareth Roberts): Good

A good couple scenes are dedicated on getting the anti-gravs set up.

The Waters Of Mars (co-written with Phil Ford): N/A

The day isn’t really saved cause everyone still dies anyway.

The End Of Time: Good

Using a gun to destroy a machine is much better than using the sonic to destroy it.

Summary for RTD:

Out of 24 stories written by him, I deem 10 to be bad endings with 1 abstaining. That’s 41.7% of his episodes (43.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Steven Moffat:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Good

You’ll see this a lot with Moffat, he knows how to explain things without stupefying levels of technobabble. “Emailing the upgrade” is a perfect example of this.

The Girl In The Fireplace: Good

Some basic logic, the androids want to repair their ship, but they can’t return to it, they no longer have a function so they shut down.

Blink: Good

Always loved this one, getting the angels to look at each other, however they do look at each other sometimes earlier in the episode.

Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead: Bad

This is more of a problem with the setup of the episode, I don’t like that he can negotiate with the Vashta Nerada. I’d rather see them comprehensively beaten, but I guess it’s good for the scare factor that they can’t be escaped from.

The Eleventh Hour: Good

He convinced the best scientists all around the world to set every clock to 0 all in less than an hour. In the Doctor’s own words “Who da man!”

The Beast Below: Good

The crying child motif pretty much ended up saving the day (well for the star whale, life went on as normal for pretty much everyone else).

The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone: Good

The artificial gravity had briefly been set up earlier so I’ll allow it.

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang: Good

Everything had been set up perfectly, the vortex manipulator, the Pandorica’s survival field thingy, the TARDIS exploding at every moment in history.

A Christmas Carol: Good

Literally the entire episode is the Doctor saving the day by convincing Kazran not to be a cock.

The Impossible Astronaut/Day Of The Moon: Good

The silence’s ability to influence people is their whole thing, so using it against them is a good Doctory thing to do.

A Good Man Goes To War: N/A

The day isn’t really saved, Melody is lost, but River shows up at the end so is all fine? I love the episode it’s just the day isn’t really truly saved (yes I know Amy was rescued but she still lost her baby).

Let’s Kill Hitler: N/A

There isn’t really a day to be saved. They all get out alive but no one is really saved other than maybe River but we all knew she was gonna live anyway.

The Wedding Of River Song: Good

Whilst opinion is divided on the episode, the ending still works. the Tesseracta was established in Let’s Kill Hitler, and the “touch River and time will move again” was established well in advance.

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe: Bad

I don’t like how the lifeboat travels through the time vortex for no reason but to rescue the dad. It don’t make no sense and I don’t think it’s explained

Asylum Of The Daleks: Good

Oswin had access to the Dalek hive mind so of course she should be able to link into the controls and blow everything up.

The Angels Take Manhattan: Good

Paradoxes really do be something powerful, and they even acknowledge how nobody knows if it’d work so I’ll let it slide.

The Snowmen: Bad

Lots of people cry at Christmas, why are the Latimers anything special?

The Bells of Saint John: Good

The whole episode is about hacking so why shouldn’t the Doctor be able to hack the spoonheads

The Name Of The Doctor: Good

It was the story arc for the season pretty much, so of course it was explained well in advance.

The Day Of The Doctor: Good

Both the storing Gallifrey like a painting and the making everyone forget if they’re Human or Zygon works in the context of the episode.

The Time Of The Doctor: Bad

Since when were the Time Lords so easily negotiated with?

Deep Breath: Good

I like the dilemma over whether the half-face man was pushed or jumped.

Into The Dalek: Good

It’s set up well with this new Doctor’s persona of actually not being too nice of a guy (at first).

Listen: N/A

There isn’t a day to be saved. It’s just 45 minutes of the Doctor testing a hypothesis and I low-key love it.

Time Heist (co-written with Steven Thompson): Good

It works logically so I’ll allow it however it isn’t very well set up at all.

The Caretaker (co-written with noted shithead Gareth Roberts): Good

The machine to tell the Blitzer what to do was set up well in advance so I’ll allow it.

Dark Water/Death In Heaven: Good

The fact that Danny still cares even as a cyberman is set up fairly early on after his transformation.

Last Christmas: Good

He does use the sonic to wake up Clara but he convinces the others to wake up through talking so I’ll allow it.

The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar: Good

It’s set up well with that little scene from actually inside the sewers.

The Girl Who Died (co-written with Jamie Mathieson): Good

IDK why the vikings would randomly keep electric eels but they’re set up well so I’ll ignore it. 

The Zygon Inversion (co-written with Peter Harness): N/A 

Not including this one as it’s only the second part and I’d argue the ending is most likely Harness’.

Heaven Sent/Hell Bent: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved, yes Heaven Sent really is amazing but it’s only the first part and, being completely honest, he dies several billion times before finally getting through the wall.

The Husbands Of River Song: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved here.

The Return Of Doctor Mysterio: Good

He gets Grant to catch the bomb which is good. But he does just sonic the gun out of Dr Sim’s hand and says UNIT is on its way which just sort of wraps it up very quickly.

The Pilot: N/A

No day to be saved here.

Extremis: Good

You could technically call it the sonic saving the day, I consider it to be the Doctor emailing the Doctor to warn him of the future.

The Pyramid At The End Of The World: Good

The fire sanitising everything makes sense and it’s in character for Bill to love the Doctor enough to cure his blindness in return for the world

World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls: Good

Yes it is the sonic just blowing the cybermen up, but it’s blowing them up with well established pipelines so I’ll allow it (also the story is amazing).

Twice Upon A Time: N/A

No day to be saved here. Just Doctors 1 and 12 getting angsty about regenerating.

Summary for Steven Moffat:

Out of 39 stories written by him, I deemed 4 to be bad with 7 abstaining. That’s 10.3% of his episodes (12.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Conclusions:

Moffat was much better at saving the day than RTD

Moffat liked telling stories where the day didn’t actually need to be saved

I’ve spent way too long on this and I need to sleep

If I spent as much time on this as my coursework I’d probably pass

If you’re still reading this, you probably need to get a life

[libermachinae]

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part II: Breathe - Chapter 5:  Thoughts Expand in Blooms

Also available on AO3! Summary: The consequences of Ratchet and Rodimus' chase become known. Chapter Word Count: 2644

---

“Try again.”

“Yes, sir. Rodimus, come in Rodimus. This is Blaster, coming to you live from the Lost Light command deck. Do you read me? Status and further instruction requested. Over.”

Years of handling the Wreckers’ fluctuating schedules meant it was no effort for Ultra Magnus to resist rubbing his optics as he watched the progress of their three recovery speeders. Siren, Crossblades, and Waverider had launched with minimal deviations from standard procedure (Crossblades would receive a write-up for nonessential helical rotation) and tracked Arcee’s shuttle up to acceptable pursuit range. That was where the chase had stalled, as Rodimus had provided no further instructions and protocol required command from a captain before they could proceed. Either captain.

Protocol fell apart when one refused to leave his hab and the other had stopped answering his comms. Magnus started mentally writing up a proposal for temporary transfer of pursuit command responsibilities while they waited.

The control panel refreshed as the latest information poured in. The speeders were entering upper atmosphere, rotating in pyramid formation in the shuttle’s trail. Acceleration had decreased to the minimum required to maintain orbit and altitude held steady as they sailed through Scarvix’s exosphere.

“Ultra Magnus, I have a visual on Rodimus’ ship,” Bluestreak reported.

“Pull it up.”

The datafeeds compressed to the right of the screen, replaced with the compound live feed from the speeders, displaying the shuttle’s stern, the glow of its thrusters closer to a lightbulb than anything spaceworthy. The engines were keeping it aloft, but there was an unnatural stillness about it, like debris floating through space.

“Again.”

Blaster adjusted settings on the ship’s communications hub and leaned into the mic.

“Rodimus, come in Rodimus. This—”

There was a crackle and buzz as the ship’s receiver finally picked up a signal.

“This is Rodi—ack, Ratchet, this is Ratchet. We read you.”

Blaster’s shoulders relaxed as he transferred primary input to the third in command’s station, but Magnus did not match his relief. Underneath the fritz of the shuttle’s poorly maintained equipment, Ratchet’s voice was shaking.

“Ratchet, this is Ultra Magnus. Report.”

“Report. Report… um, Arcee’s gone. We lost her. Satellite. Crash. Is Cyclonus there?”

“No. What is your—”

“Get him,” Ratchet interrupted.

“Where is Rodimus?” Magnus asked. Ratchet was supposed to be one of the good ones, recognizing his place within the chain of commands. Making demands was out of character for him.

“Here! I’m here,” Rodimus’ voice crackled down the line. “Present. Available. Get Cyclonus.”

Magnus sent the ping and tagged it urgent. Cyclonus had never been known for tardiness, but that put it on the record.

“What is your status?” he asked as he acknowledged Cyclonus’ response.

“Good! Weird? Ratchet is banged up, which is bad. He suffered impact shock in his lower spinal strut, chance there’s a disk… how do I…”

Magnus’ orbital ridge twitched, a coding bug when expression protocols tried to assign a profile to stress of unknown origin. He wiped the cache, regaining his neutral set, and sent a command to have the speeders approach the shuttle. Visual on the command deck would be helpful, but flight integrity was his main concern. If neither Rodimus nor Ratchet was in the right mind to pilot, they would need to engage in emergency grounding maneuvers.

“Ratchet, are you still there? Rodimus sounds incoherent; what is his status?”

“He’s fine.” His voice was briefly drowned out by shuffling and crashing on the other end. “—cessor’s functioning normally. It’s loud, but it’s working.”

“He’s overheating?” Magnus asked.

“Not his fans, his thoughts.”

“Is his comm link malfunctioning?”

“He’s bright like the goddamn sun. I can barely get two words in. Will you shut that off? ”

“Ratchet?” Speeders were closing in.

“Not you.”

“Stop yelling at me!” Rodimus snapped, volume raising and lowering like he was pacing around the microphone. “I heard you the first time.”

“I don’t see how. I can barely hear myself.”

“Aw, poor Rodimus, doesn’t get to hear his own voice.”

“ You’re Rodimus, that’s my line.”

“Rodimus, Ratchet, Waverider is en route to board,” Ultra Magnus interjected. “If you are able, please lower the hatch for arrival, otherwise he will engage emergency stove—”

“No, don’t!”

It wasn’t just that they shouted at the same time, but that Rodimus and Ratchet’s voices matched in pitch, tone, and cadence which caused Magnus, for the third time in his life, to forget what he had been saying.

“Is Cyclonus there?” Rodimus asked.

“There’s something on board,” Ratchet said. “Don’t know what it is, but you can’t let anyone else get near it.”

“It did a weird thing. I’m Rodimus, but also I’m Ratchet? And both?”

“Those sound like the same things, Rodimus,” Magnus said, half distracted as he instructed Waverider to return to position.

“They’re not,” Ratchet said.

“Sir?” Cyclonus’ voice came as a blessing. Magnus gestured him forward.

“Cyclonus just arrived,” he announced. “Cyclonus, Rodimus and Ratchet uncovered something on Arcee’s shuttle. It’s…” He blanked.

“I can feel Ratchet’s processor,” Rodimus said, rushing like it would make any of this comprehensible. “He’s thinking and it’s all really fast and hard, but it’s not rough like you would expect? Like, the feeling of grit in your gears, I thought it would be like that, but it’s more like there’s just a lot of gears and it takes a lot of power to turn them all, and it’s too hard to decide whether to focus on just one or the entire thing. And he keeps thinking about me and my thoughts and how they’re not like that, and I’m thinking about him, and then I get stuck because all the thoughts start to sound the same and I don’t know which ones came from me or which are Ratchet or even which me is me. It’s all a big thought reservoir, a—a thought battle, an entire brain war and I don’t know which side I’m on!”

Cyclonus’ gaze was steady at the screen. Once it was clear that Rodimus was done, he leaned over the microphone.

“Can you send an image of the object?” he asked.

“Sure,” Ratchet said.

Blaster raised his hand.

“Image received.”

Ultra Magnus nodded and the feed of the shuttle was replaced with a still capture, a calamity of wires and light that took his visual center a full millisecond to parse.

“It’s the Enigma of Combination,” Cyclonus said.

“What’s that?” He could differentiate the orbital plating of the object itself and the red dwarf dew drop at its center, but the light it cast on its surroundings made his spark flicker with a disturbing fuzz.

“A plague,” Cyclonus said. “Considered a long-lost relic even in my own time. I would doubt this was the legitimate article, if Rodimus hadn’t so perfectly summarized its less infamous effects.”

“It can do more?” Magnus asked. What it had already done— whatever it had done, he still was not clear on the details—seemed itself too much for a bot to handle. Or two.

Cyclonus hesitated.

“Well, you see…”

“No. No, no, so much no, you’re kidding. Ratchet, tell me they’re kidding!”

“I don’t bloody well know!” he snapped back. He had sunk back into the pilot’s chair while Rodimus paced the bridge. His spark was spinning like a centrifuge, its engine overfed by the deluge of panicked thoughts tumbling through his mind. It was all Cyclonus and shuttle and Arcee and combination and Drift, new threads knocking each other out of the way so nothing could reach a conclusion, just endless half-thoughts pinged repeatedly. Worst was when Rodimus tripped over the junk now scattered across the bridge as it brought everything to a shuddering halt, like a whole expressway’s worth of engines seized up simultaneously.

He pressed his hands to his face and tried to focus on keeping his vents open, ignoring the storm of queries of Is Ratchet overheating? and Drift is going to kill me.

“I can’t be in a combiner with Ratchet!”

He hates me he hates me he hates me rattled around their processors like screws in a box.

“The Enigma has determined otherwise,” Cyclonus said.

So now the damn thing was having its own thoughts?

“It’s thinking ?” Rodimus asked, earning an additional glare from Ratchet.

“No one knows,” Cyclonus said. “It’s ancient technology, built on the same principles that govern sparks.” Principles that even modern science knew so little about. Ratchet was going to say it but froze when he felt Rodimus grab for it, tossing at it a hundred questions he had no answers to: Is that thing a person and Where do sparks come from and Would this stop if we broke it followed by another run of apologies.

“The Enigma has you in a holding pattern,” Cyclonus went on. “There aren’t enough of you to form the combiner, so it’s keeping your sparks connected until it can interface with at least one more Cybertronian.”

Ratchet saw the image that formed in Rodimus’ mind and his glower deepened.

“I don’t have the knowledge or the skills to disconnect something like that,” he said. “Sparks are complicated, Rodimus, and there’s still so much we don’t know about them. I didn’t even think it was possible to maintain a connection of this magnitude without direct contact.” Rodimus’ next idea was even worse. “Have you met your crew? The moment you put it in a box and tell no one to look, Brainstorm, Skids, and Whirl are all going to make breaking into it their personal quest.”

“Isolating the Enigma will not contain its effects,” Cyclonus added. “Because the holding pattern is an open channel, you have become conduits for the Enigma’s energies. If even one of you encounters another compatible component, it will complete the process, regardless of its distance from you.”

Rodimus stilled, then sunk to the floor, his thoughts miserably coalescing into a single thread.

“So, either we drag someone else into this mess, or we’re stuck in this shuttle, trying to think over each other forever?” Forever was steeped in darker emotions that caught Ratchet off-guard, which Rodimus immediately covered up with nonsense branches of observations about the junk on the floor. A negativity storm, Drift would have called it.

From behind, he heard Rodimus chuckle, though his thoughts betrayed little amusement.

“If I may,” Cyclonus said, interrupting no one. “Ratchet, I do respect you as a physician, but modern medicine is not the only source of knowledge concerning the Cybertronian body. Even modern theology, shallow thought it may be, offers insights to the nature of sparks that your specialty lacks.”

“No.” Ratchet scowled and shook his head, though more so at the way he felt Rodimus stirring that observation than the idea itself. “None of the woo-woo nonsense. Drift’s mindfulness agility course was bad enough.”

Unfortunately, his words made Rodimus’s thoughts expand in blooms, accompanied by shuffling as he stood to lean over the pilot’s chair.

“Drift was always trying to get me into his meditation thing,” he said. “He—he talked about the Rossum connection, how the mind impacts the spark and vice-versa. It was mostly, you know, power poses and cool sword moves, but there was more advanced stuff we didn’t get around to.”

“It could be a lead,” Cyclonus said, his grave voice somehow failing to make a dent in Rodimus’ growing enthusiasm. “I know very little about Spectralism, but if it involves manipulation of spark energies, there is a chance it could be used to counteract the effects of the Enigma.”

“Yeah, remember how Drift can see auras?” Rodimus said. “Maybe he can see where we’re tangled and just undo the knot.”

“There is no scientific backing to that kind of pandering—”

But we don’t have any other ideas.

Rodimus drew him up short, his own dearth of creativity reflected back to him as though in a mirror. Loathe though he was to admit it, Rodimus was right: they had nothing else. No leads, no one to fall back on. Cybertron’s history, the ancient mythologies that might have shed light on this technology, was lost to war and time, and all that was left was the third, fourth-hand accounts of people who claimed to know what was lost.

There was a chance Drift would have nothing to offer them, but even the possibility of guidance was an improvement over the helplessness Ratchet felt when he tried to imagine them fixing this on their own.

He received an image burst: Drift, wild and beautifully unhinged, leaping for the chance to care for Ratchet with literally open arms. Rodimus shut it down, distracting himself by counting rivets in the bridge ceiling, but vibrating embarrassment persisted between them.

“Would it be appropriate to call Drift for this?” Ultra Magnus asked, pulling the further from their internal squirming. “The truth about his role in the Overlord plan came out months ago, and since we’ve made no effort to contact him. To approach him now so he can solve this seems exploitative.”

Ratchet caught only the yellow of Rodimus’ hand before the captain vaulted over the back of the pilots’ chair, landing with a solid bang.

“I’ll take the blame,” he said.

“For what?” Ratchet asked, though he could already see it.

“For not fixing this sooner,” Rodimus said. He shrugged, a movement so automatic Ratchet did not pick up who it had been directed to. “I’m the captain. It was my responsibility and I failed. That shouldn’t doom Ratchet to having to live with my mistakes.”

He avoided Ratchet’s optics as he spoke, but Ratchet still caught his expression, the shiver of his spoiler as he spoke. It struck him that the reason Rodimus was so hard to read from an external perspective was because a single look meant so many things: frustration, guilt, grief, and hope piling on top of each other too quickly to discern where any one emotion rooted. His thoughts were going in so many directions all the time, of course it would be a challenge for everyone else to keep up.

“How do you intend to locate Drift?” Ultra Magnus asked, ever pragmatic.

“I have a tracker,” Ratchet said.

“I memorized the specifications for his shuttle,” Rodimus added, his processor spitting out the codes in full.

“And will that ship be adequate? Do you need additional supplies?”

Ratchet turned in the seat, looking around the scattered contents of the bridge, to say nothing of what their collision might have done to the storage down below. Despite the mess, he saw what looked like intact crates of potable energon, and the shuttle’s own systems were not in imminent danger of running dry.

“We’re stocked,” he said, and catching Rodimus’ primary concern, went on, “Unless Cyclonus know how far the Enigma’s effect extends, it’s going to be too risky to dock back in the Lost Light. We’ll make due with what’s here.”

“I’ll have Rewind compile you a list of known energon distributors with minority Cybertronian populations. That will be your best opportunity to refuel without risking exposure, should the need arise.”

Could the Enigma grab non-Cybertronian mechanicals? Rodimus wondered, a query Ratchet did not have the energy to entertain.

“Thanks, Mags,” Rodimus said out loud. “Take care of the place while we’re gone; you know the drill.”

“Of course, Rodimus. Uh, stay safe?”

Rodimus laughed, a sound that Ratchet felt as a golden thread, spun in a ripple through space before vanishing to nothing. He squinted, trying to make sense of what the hell that had been, but Rodimus’ burst of enthusiasm and plans for the coming journey overwhelmed him.

“Don’t worry, Ratchet’s pride will make sure I get back in one piece.”

You—!

It was going to be a long journey to the outer rim. Though Rodimus was grinning cheekily, the tense coil at the center of his thoughts agreed.

[timeagainreviews]

My Series 10 Rewatch: The Pilot

Hello friends! If you caught my last update, you'll know I took the last couple weeks off to study for my Life in the UK test. My test was on Saturday and I am happy to report that I passed! I think it took me longer to go through security than to take the actual test. After two weeks of studying, I am very much ready to get back into the groove of talking about Doctor Who. We now continue with my series ten rewatch!

The title "The Pilot," is an interesting choice for the first official episode of series ten. While it references the plot of the episode, there is also an implication that this story is a bit of a reset to a new beginning. It acts as a pilot to the Doctor and Bill show. Not only had Clara been the companion for basically three seasons at this point, there was also a year of hiatus between "The Husbands of River Song," and "The Return of Doctor Mysterio." It is a weird placement for a final season for a showrunner and lead actor. It's also a weird place to drop a brand new companion.

This new version of Doctor Who opens with the Doctor as a university professor teaching possibly the worst class on campus, that everyone seems to love. His star pupil is a girl named Bill, who isn't actually a student but loves his lectures. Speaking of star pupils, there is also a love interest for Bill in the form of a girl named Heather, but more on that later. The Doctor's office at the university is peppered with references to the past. On his desk sits a jar with the sonic screwdrivers of previous Doctors, like an assortment of pens. There are also portraits of River and Susan. And tucked away in the corner of the room sits the TARDIS, with an "out of order," sign hanging from its doors.

The first time I watched this episode I started to groan at the fact that the TARDIS was out of commission. Not because it should never happen, but more that I expected this to be incredibly tedious. After several years of Steven Moffat's plot arks leading to disappointment, I was bracing to be underwhelmed. As it turns out, the TARDIS works as good as it ever did. But the Doctor and Nardole are grounded regardless. This is due to the fact that there is some sort of door or safe they've been tasked with guarding, which brings us back to the whole bracing for mediocrity thing. I remember immediately thinking "Missy is in there." Spoiler alert- she absolutely is.

Dumb safes and meaningless promises meant to build up empty intrigue aside, the real reason to get excited for series ten is Bill. I was immediately interested in the concept of a black gay companion with a gender fucky name. I remember when the pictures circulated of her wearing a vintage Prince jumper and everyone was speculating whether she was from the '80s or '90s. This only added to my excitement for her character. As many of you know, I am a big fan of the idea of companions in modern Doctor Who that aren't from modern-day earth. Sadly, as it turns out, she's not a hip '80s lesbian, she's once again from modern-day England. Oh well, at least Nardole is from the future. Though I don't understand why he is suddenly a cyborg that makes whirring noises and drops lug nuts. There was none of that in Doctor Mysterio.

The Doctor calls Bill into his office where he confronts her about attending his classes. He wants to take her on as her personal tutor, despite her not being a student. He mentions that he noticed she smiles when she's confused, which is a good indication that she is openminded and naturally curious. It's even implied that he sees a little bit of Susan in her. I liked that little nod to Susan, though it begs the question why the new series has never had her return. While looking at the pictures, Bill indicates that she has no pictures of her mother before she died.

The Doctor uses this as an opportunity to do a kindness for his new friend Bill. Using his ability to time travel, the Doctor goes back in time to take a shoebox worth of photos of Bill's mother. Nevermind that doing this might change the trajectory of her mother's life, thus undoing any chance that she might meet Bill's father. It's a sweet moment for Bill, but it's undercut by Moffat's shitty writing. Bill notices the Doctor's reflection in one of the photos, but never brings it up. She doesn't even thank him. It doesn't really go anywhere other than to inform the audience that the TARDIS does, in fact, still work.

It's this kind of gay people need tragic backstories for no reason mentality that frames a lot of this episode. While I applaud Moffat's inclusion of a gay companion, it comes off as a middle-aged man's depiction of a young gay woman. There is diversity on the screen, but none in the writing room. This is made all the more apparent by Bill's horrible chips anecdote. Bill has a crush on a student who comes into the cafeteria where she works. So she gives her extra chips every day until it starts making the girl fat. The Doctor asks her why she is telling him this story and she replies with "I was hoping it would go somewhere." As did Steven Moffat, but it didn't. It just hangs there like a fart saying "Did I mention I was gay?"

The next few scenes take place over a montage. We see Bill and the Doctor in their respective student and tutor roles. And we also see Bill having a bit of a social life. Bill catches the starry-eyed glances of Heather at a club and they both stand there on the dance floor staring at each other. There's an implication that the two of them are into each other, but we never actually see anything to show why they would actually like one another other than raw animal attraction. In fact, their few interactions are actually rather awkward and cold. There's about as much chemistry between the two of them as there was between Clara and Danny. Which if you remember was zero.

There isn't really a whole lot of focus on anything other than characters for this episode. Moffat usually writes in one of two ways- heavy on character and light on plot, or so heavy on plot that it sits weird against his characters. This would be the former, as the plot is nearly non-existent. Bill begins to notice Heather around and tries to chat her up. Heather shows Bill a puddle that doesn't make sense considering it hadn't rained in days. I kind of love Bill's reasoning that the puddle is piss from the men on campus. That was genuinely funny. Well done, Moffat. But there is more to this puddle in that it also shows your reflection wrong. Heather notices this because the reflection of the star in her eye isn't where it should be.

Let's talk about Heather for a moment. She's a very odd character. Firstly, there is her eye, which has a defect that gives her iris a star shape. Bill asks the Doctor what kind of defect would do this, but neither the Doctor or the show has an answer. Much like Moffat's running gag from "The Curse of the Fatal Death," said- I'll explain later. But later never comes. Other than her eye, Heather's other two biggest traits are that she's most likely a lesbian and that she wants to leave. Her personality isn't really all that important other than to act as the thrust for the plot, which is sadly from another episode of Doctor Who altogether.

Doctor Who is a very old show. It’s bound to repeat itself. Chris Chibnall ripped off "The Silurians," wholesale with "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood." I get that this was necessary as a means to re-establish the Silurians and why they've remained underground. But on other occasions, Doctor Who seems to repeat itself out of sheer laziness. Remember when the library in "Forest of the Dead," saves everyone at their time of death? Or when Missy plucks people out of their timeline at their time of death? Or when the Testimony records people in history at their time of death? Or when the Thijarians comfort people at their time of death? Because I do. So it's not surprising that when Moffat wants to steal from another episode, he steals from one from his own stint as showrunner.

The episode I'm talking about is "The Lodger," written by transphobic Brexiteer shitlord- Gareth Roberts. In it, a spaceship disguised as a top story flat lures people to their demise while searching for a pilot to take it into space. The ship's main criteria for a pilot is that the candidate be someone with wanderlust. Does any of this sound familiar? That's the exact same M.O. of the mysterious puddle. It latches onto Heather because it senses her desire to travel and extrapolates that into consent to take over her body and use her to pilot it around the universe. However, another part of Heather's psyche has kept it earthbound- a desire to be with Bill. If you remember correctly, this is very similar to how "The Lodger," ended. Craig and Sophie's desire to stay together is what kept them from being reduced to ash by a machine too stupid to realise it was killing its host.

Now, I understand that it sounds like I'm ripping on Moffat quite a bit, but I actually do like him as a writer. "Heaven Sent," is one of the best episodes in the entire history of Doctor Who. This one, however, is not great. After the puddle overtakes Heather's body, it begins to follow Bill everywhere. At first, Bill thinks the puddle is Heather, but her creepy Midnight-esque repetition of everything Bill says is enough to raise suspicion. Bill begins to run to the safety of the Doctor, where she finds him and Nardole fussing with the giant safe. The room in which the safe is located only lets friends inside, which is either telling or worrying as the puddle is able to simply wash into the room under the door. As I watched the water flow down the stairs I found myself feeling forgiving toward the effects department from "The Horror of Fang Rock." Green blobs beat slow-mo water any day.

For no reason other than it needed to be more spooky, the puddle screams like a wraith every time we see it. I loved the little addition of Heather's wet mascara adding to her ghostly appearance. The Doctor, Nardole, and Bill take a trip around space and time to see if they can shake the puddle. But no matter where they go, the puddle is never far behind. For a creature made of water, it certainly is thirsty. And trust me, that's far better a pun than the one I was considering. The WAP references were just too low of a fruit.

For reasons I can't exactly pinpoint, the Doctor decides to take the chase right in the middle of a battle between the Daleks and the Movellans. While I love the return of the Movellans in all of their Rick James majesty, it's a very weird scene. As far as I can devise, the Doctor is merely trying to see if the puddle can withstand the blast of a Dalek. It almost feels like Moffat needed to wake the audience up with a jolt of Dalek action. Up to this point, there has been very little tension. What I can't figure out is what Nardole is doing with the Fourth Doctor's sonic screwdriver the whole time. From what I can tell, he's shutting doors, closing off the corridors and locking Daleks out. Maybe? I really don't understand.

The Puddle takes the form of a Dalek just long enough to make us worry that maybe Nardole didn't get them all. Watching the Dalek disintegrate into a puddle of water was genuinely cool. I was reminded of things like the clear Dalek from "Revelation of the Daleks," or the visible innards of the teleporting Dalek in "Remembrance of the Daleks." I like it when the show does weird visual stuff with the Daleks. It's part of why I love Davros so much. The puddle reforms as Heather, holding out her hand for Bill to take, which the Doctor warns her not to take.

Part of the tragedy of the Doctor's character is how oblivious he is to human emotion. It's part of why he needs human companions in the first place. He couldn't possibly conceive of a situation where Heather's own yearning for Bill might be the cause for all of their problems. But Bill sees this. She sees the human desire underneath all of the scary and so she too reaches out, grasping hands with Heather. What I don't understand is why Heather needed to leave and see the universe without Bill. Why they needed to say goodbye at all is more of that "gays can't have nice things," bullshit I mentioned earlier. Let's walk through the logic a bit.

Toward the beginning of the episode, the Doctor explains that the acronym for TARDIS- Time and relative dimension in space, means life. If you think about this, it's him saying that life is basically you in a point of time and a point of space, relative to you. Thus it explains the very essence of being alive and experiencing the universe from your unique perspective. But toward the end of the episode, he changes this position to mean that TARDIS means "What the hell?" As in, just go ahead and live life how you choose. This comes after the Doctor trying to wipe Bill's mind and deciding he can't. This leads to the Doctor allowing himself to travel, despite the promise he made about the safe nobody cares about. Basically, Heather doesn't get to join in on the Doctor and Bill's travels because Moffat still had to do a thing.

A lot of this episode is neutered by this need to adhere to the season ark. Which I now realise is a major contributing factor as to why I so often forget Nardole is a companion. Nardole is forced to become the Doctor's babysitter, forcing him to hide his travels with Bill. Because of this, we see Nardole as more of an authority figure than a companion. He's the strict schoolmaster the Doctor and Bill are forced to sneak past on their way to adventure. What this does, sadly, is cut Nardole out of a lot of the adventures. The same thing happened to Danny Pink, whose opposition to the Doctor often times left him out of the fun. Also like Danny Pink, it's an arrangement that worked best with Rory Williams and has been imitated to hell and back since.

While I can't consider this episode a total success, I also can't write it off outright. It would be easy to damn it in a "Simpsons did it," fashion for taking its plot from a previous episode. It would be easy to write it off for being plot light queer bait where nothing really happens. I could rail on the inclusion of the Daleks for the sake of Daleks. But I have to ask myself- what is the function of this episode? The answer to this question brings me back to its title. This episode is a pilot for a new iteration of the series. We're in a new place with some new faces, and some familiar ones. The pieces on the board have changed location and strategy. If the function of this episode was to hit reset, I would say it succeeds.

Bill is a very likeable character. You immediately want to see more of her. Her introduction is both charming and endearing. The roundabout way she took to arrive at saying "it's bigger on the inside," seemed less thick than quirky, which is right on the money. You want to see more of her. You want to hear more of her questions. You want to experience the universe through the filter of her perception. We needed a companion who was different from the previous one. It was important that the audience is able to move forward with the new cast. We're not comparing Bill to Clara as many did with Martha and Rose. We're not being asked to forget the past any more than we are being asked to cling to it. This is exactly the right tone and in that way, I find it to be wholly successful.

[feelieking]

Series 12

A somewhat belated post - I started typing up my thoughts about Series 12 shortly after it ended, but only found the energy for a sustained bout of typing while taking a few days off work.

Season 12 of Doctor Who is now over. Readers may recall that I felt season 11 was pretty lacklustre. Season 12… has been an improvement, but a lot of the issues remain. The cast are great – Jodie Whittaker is fantastic, and I honestly cannot understand the vocal subset of fandom who insist on saying she can’t act – but there are too many regular characters, which means that none of the three companions get a decent share of screen time or character development. There’s been an improvement in the number and development of the guest characters, but many episodes have really suffered from the problem of scooping up all of the NPCs into the TARDIS and carting them along. As a consequence, a lot of episodes really struggle to cultivate a sense of location, and having guest characters in the TARDIS becomes run of the mill.

It’s also very interesting to me that, after making his first series almost entirely continuity-free, Chibnall’s second series is probably the most fanwanky we’ve ever had. Spoilers for all of the episodes follow.

Spyfall is a strong start to the series. The aliens were far scarier and better realised than anything for the preceding series, and part one benefitted from a strong sense of style and place, a slow build of the plot, and a genuinely shocking and tense cliffhanger. Part two floundered a bit by comparison, choosing to rattle through both Ada Lovelace in Victorian England and Noor Inayat Khan in Nazi-occupied Paris. Either one of these pairs of characters and settings would have been strong enough for an episode on their own; smooshed together, neither was really given a chance to develop. Still, the Doctor/Master scene on the Eifel Tower was very well done.

Orphan 55 seemed to go down very badly with my friends when it was transmitted, but I rather enjoyed it. It was a very trad base under siege story with a proper cast of supporting characters and some genuinely tense and scary moments. The “twist” of it being Earth all along, however, fell very flat – it’s a bit of a cliché by now, added nothing to the story, and has been done better before by earlier Doctor Who stories! The Doctor’s moralising speech at the end also made me grind my teeth – as others have said, it’s not that I disagree at all with the moral, but that we were bright enough to work it out from the episode without needing to have the Doctor break the forth wall to address the audience directly. I also question the logic of the Doctor taking the entire supporting cast, including a frail elderly lady and a young child, with her on her monster hunt, rather than leaving a group behind at the more defensible holiday camp.

Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror was really good, and felt like the most Doctor Who-y story of the Chibnall era by some margin. Great cast, great monsters (despite the usually reliable Anjili Mohnidra hamming it up as the scorpion queen) – all three of the main human guest cast were proper, fleshed-out characters – and a strong sense of location. The thing that struck me afterwards, however, as I rhapsodised about how much I’d enjoyed this episode and that it was the best new Doctor Who story in ages, was that in a Davies or Maffatt season, this would have been a good middle of the road episode, and not the showstopper it was here.

What can I say about Fugitive of the Judoon? The whole episode is one big slight of hand, which is pulled off very well – but as a consequence, it’s difficult to think on the plot as a whole. The Judoon are back as a returning monster at least in part to distract from the surprise reappearance of Captain Jack, which I suspect in turn was at least in part to keep the audience’s mind off of who Ruth could really be. The pay-off to that, when it comes, is a satisfyingly shocking moment that raises a lot of intriguing questions.

Praxaeus, sadly, was a bit of a damp squib. It’s one of the worst offenders for the Chibnall-era trope of gathering all of the guest cast in the TARDIS and setting big chunks of the story there. The idea of the Doctor and her companions investigating a global crisis at different locations around the world had a lot of promise, but because the Doctor was able to just swoop in and scoop them all up in the TARDIS whenever needed, that idea never really came to fruition. Because the guest cast were all thrown onto the ship, a lot of them never really got the chance to shine – and it’s never explained exactly how captured astronaut Adam is able to text his location to grumpy policeman husband Jake – though at least kudos goes to the episode for a really down to earth portrayal of a same-sex marriage.

Can You Hear Me? was hugely frustrating – this could have been a gem of an episode, but as it is it sinks like a lead balloon. The problem is that the writer has thrown far too many ideas at the story in the hope of seeing what sticks. A mental hospital in Fourteenth Century Aleppo being terrorised by monsters from the nightmares of one of the patients would have been a really good episode. The Doctor’s companions and their friends being trapped in their dreams in modern day Sheffield would have been a really good episode. A ship full of experiments orbiting two colliding planets would have been a reasonably decent episode – but by trying to do all three at once in fifty minutes, nothing is given any chance to breathe and develop. Again, supporting characters are just thrown into the TARDIS and moved from arbitrary location to arbitrary location, and then the monster is defeated by… the dialogue saying that they’ve been defeated. It’s such a shame, because there’s so much good stuff here – Ian Gelder is superb as Zellin, and could have easily been a great recurring villain if they’d chosen to make more than one episode from these ideas – but sadly the whole thing is so much less than the sum of its parts.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati, by contrast, is superb – one location, really well developed and realised, a strong, well-drawn cast of supporting characters (and some very handsome gentlemen as well!) and no TARDIS scenes. The early parts of the episode are fantastically tense and creepy, with the horror of being trapped in a moebius strip of a house very effectively portrayed. Like any haunted house story, it loses some interest once the reason for the “haunting” is revealed, but the second half remains strong not least because Ashad the emotional Cyberman is superbly well portrayed.

Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children is very much a game of two halves. Part one is pretty effective – Ashad continues to be an excellent villain (his big virtual confrontation with the Doctor is superb) and the grim reality of the Cyber Wars is very well conveyed. Showing the potency of the Cybermen by having them effortlessly destroy all the Doctor’s clever gadgets and scatter her companions is an excellent touch, and Graham and Yaz’s fight for survival is compelling and convincing. The wheels very much come off in part two, however – I like Dhawan’s Master (more on him later) but the fact that he perfunctorily kills off the far more interesting Ashad is a mistake, as is halting the episode for what feels like half an hour of tedious Gallifreyan story time. The “Cyber Lords” are a bad fan fic idea, look derisible and do absolutely nothing before they’re dispatched. The actual Cybermen, terrifying in small numbers last week, are unable to hit a single human with dyspraxia running away from them in their dozens this week. The big questions of the episode – why is there a magic portal to Gallifrey? How did the Master destroy the entirety of his own race singlehandedly? – are never even asked, let alone answered. And as for the awful deus ex “death particle” suddenly jumping out of the plot with no set-up – eugh! Pretty much the only thing this episode has going for it are the excellent Graham/Yaz scenes.

The two things this series is likely to be remembered for are the new incarnation of the Master, and the revelations about the Doctor. Sacha Dhawan is great in the role – his Master feels genuinely unhinged and properly dangerous, with a real predatory cunning – but given how perfect Missy’s arc and final scenes were, I’m genuinely a little disappointed to see the character back, especially in full-on villain mode. However, I will concede that jealousy over discovering that the Doctor really is “special” is a very in-character motivation for him to renew his vendetta.

As for the shock revelations – the idea of a secret incarnation that the Doctor herself does not remember is intriguing, and Jo Martin really makes the role her own. There was a lot of speculation at the time that she’s the “Season 6B” Doctor, between Troughton and Pertwee, and that’s still the idea that I like, and seems ripe for development. If she’s pre-Hartnell, then why does she call herself the Doctor, and why is her TARDIS a police box?

The whole “Timeless Child” nonsense however – why on Earth did anyone think that a protracted subplot to explain away a moment from the Brain of Morbius (transmitted forty-four years previously!) was a good idea? How alienating must this have been for casual viewers? As an idea, I think it stinks, not out of a slavish insistence that the Hartnell incarnation must have been the first but for the fact that the Doctor only really became the Doctor – the hero – as the series was starting. Chibnall tries to have his cake and eat it by erasing the Doctor’s knowledge of her previous lives, and reminding us on screen that the interesting thing about the Doctor is not her origins, but who she is now – but as that’s the case, why are we supposed to care about her Timeless Child incarnations? What was the point of it? Even if you subscribe to the idea that “who is the Doctor?” is an interesting and worthwhile mystery, the Timeless Child isn’t a mystery answered, just a mystery deferred. If I had to sum up my feelings in one word, it would be “meh.”

[deadly-kitten-kay]

okay, let's try this again! also, i almost didn't find your ask box. the top of your page is asterix??? but if hovered i could see where your ask box is. okay, so #3 and/or #4 (i could see them easily together) but I couldn't pick a ship last time. I was gonna let you pick. Destiel or DCJ (or, if you ship them, because i can't remember if you do, a third choice could be Denny)

3. Drunk/sloppy kiss & 4. Awkward kiss

1,612 word Featuring DJC (Also on Ao3 for those that prefer to read there) 

feel free to leave me a kiss prompt and pair

It had been years since Dean was able to spend time with his two best friends from high school. Castiel and Jimmy Novak moved on to bigger and better things after high school. Jimmy and Castiel both went to medical school. Both studied to be surgeons, one cardiology the other pediatrics. Dean was proud of both of them and never let it know how much it had hurt him to be away from the twins. He knew they would accomplish great things. That's why when Dean had gotten the call from Jimmy boasting the good news about himself and Castiel, he wasn't surprised. Both men had made it through undergrad and graduate school, about to embark into their residency. While it had been over eight years since he had seen either of the brothers, Dean was bound and determined to see them now.It was also a good way to see if he still felt the way he had in high school. Dean sighed at his own thoughts. He was such a moron in high school. He was so far in the closet about his bisexuality that he surpassed Narnia. In fact, he's pretty sure the closet was really the Tardis because of how big and well hidden he was.Jimmy outed Dean first. True, it was only to Castiel, but it was enough. But with that outing, Dean was able to breathe and be himself around the brothers. At least, until he fell in love. But that wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem was that he had fallen in love with both of the Novak boys. And it was hard not too. The two of them were like yin and yang. They balanced each other perfectly. Jimmy being more carefree and reminding both Dean and Castiel to let loose and live free, while Castiel was more reserved, a good head on his shoulders. It was a long running joke between the three that twins were the devil and angel that would help Dean decide. Castiel being the angel and Jimmy the devil.But regardless of how well the three of them got along, it was absurd of Dean to even fathom having both of them. Even at his young age, he had known it was wrong to date them both, essentially cheating on one with the other. Of course, no matter what his rational mind tried to think, his irrational heart would often lead him into fantasies with the twins. Downright pornographic fantasies that would leave him hard and achy and needing to run to the shower, before either one woke up when staying over on the weekends.Then after the boys left to study medicine on the East coast, the rumors started. Everyone in their godforsaken town would tell anyone who was listing about those “incestuous Novak kids” and how Dean's parents should be thanking God that their sinful ways didn't rub off on him. Once he hit twenty-one and some asshole started blabbing at the mouth, speaking ill of his best friends, Dean suddenly had himself a bed in the county lockup.No matter what, he had refused to let his desires believe the talk. He never pushed the twins when they talked to each other or face timed. He wouldn't even tell him what he had heard. Dean had felt it better than if they were involved with each other, that maybe they would trust him enough to tell him.This line of thinking wasn't currently helping him at this moment in time as his train from Kansas pulled into the Baltimore station. He felt like he was going to be sick from the combination of anxious and excited nerves.

Jimmy laughed as his brother bounced on the balls of his feet, desperate to see over the heads around him. They had both heard the announcement that Dean's train had pulled into the station. Jimmy thought it was silly that Dean was still adamant in his refusal to get on a plane. Thank God, Castiel had a strange fascination with modern ways of transportation and was able to convince Dean that take the train was far more economical than driving himself. Truth be told, Jimmy was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure the only reason Dean relented was that Castiel laid a mother of a guilt trip on the poor guy. Regardless how it came to pass, the day that both he and his brother had longed for was here. And for the first time in who knows how long, Jimmy was witnessing a side of his brother he doesn't see very often.“Cas, seriously...” he pulled his brother's wrist, the only acceptable way to hold him in public. “Stop bouncing, you're going to pull something.” he teased.Castiel looked back at his with a wide smile and crinkly blue eyes. “I can't help it! I've missed him. And he's going to be here for a whole month. That's thirty-one days, Jimmy!”“Yeah and I'm excited too, Cas. But what if he isn't okay with things?”That made Castiel stop his movements as he turned to look at his brother. Even now, while Jimmy had filled out more in the shoulders, he was Castiel's mirror. And in that mirror, Jimmy had voiced the one thing Castiel had tried his hardest to keep from coming to light. Knowing that it would affect Jimmy just as much as it did him.Castiel stepped closer, hooking his pinky under Jimmy's watch band. “You need to have faith in Dean.”Jimmy smiled at that. Of course, Castiel would say that. “You still okay being the DD tonight?” Jimmy asked, a signal that he was okay. Castiel flashed him another brilliant smile before looking for Dean again.“Of course. I still say we should drink that the apartment. That way I can do it too.”Jimmy snorted. “No way, dude. We would need to buy out two BevMo's just to make you have a buzz.”.Castiel was poised to say something in response but a familiar baritone calling their names snapped both of their attention to the right. They had barely made visual confirmation before both brothers were wrapped into the stronghold of Dean. Jimmy tried to ignore how right it felt.

Castiel had gotten his way. Once Dean had heard wind of how he wanted to stay home and drink rather than a bar crawl, Dean sided with him. Dean had a point when he mentioned to Jimmy that they missed their chance to celebrate their twenty-first together and tonight would be their do-over.“But what if we lost our virginity that night?” Jimmy challenge, already feeling a buzz from the locally brewed stuff Cas preferred.Dean scoffed and shook his head. “Are you kidding? You two are far too good looking to have not had gotten laid before then.”Jimmy shrugged. “We were fifteen and it was awkward as fuck,” he giggled a little at the memory and Castiel frowned at him.“It was only awkward because Anna walked in right after.”Dean couldn't help but laugh at the image of their cousin walking in on their post-coital fog. He shook his head. There was no way that did that together.“Actually there is,” Castiel said softly causing Dean to gape at him.“Did I say that out loud?”Jimmy laughed and nodded. “Cassie was my first,” he sang as he crawled from his spot on the floor over to Cas who was suddenly more interested in his bottle of gray goose.“No way...” Okay, Dean was officially fucking drunk, Castiel thought as Dean stared at them in wide-eyed fascination.“Yep. He taught me how to kiss. And I learned how to make him come apart with just my tongue,” Jimmy explained, stopping himself on all fours near Cas. He face was so close that Castiel could smell the beer on his breath. “Jimmy,” Castiel hissed trying to get his brother to stop as Dean made a whining noise. “Wanna see?” Jimmy asked looking over at Dean who nodded. “Look, Cassie. Dean wants to watch.”“Jim-”Castiel's words were abruptly cut off by his brother's very drunkenly, sloppy kiss. It was too much tongue and way too wet to be enjoyable. Seriously was Jimmy trying to lick Castiel's face like a cow does a salt lick? Normally Castiel could handle his drunken brother but this was just too much for Castiel and too awkward. He pushed Jimmy back, who made a sound of protest.“You're drunk,” Castiel said flatly.“And horny!” Jimmy laughed as Castiel rolled his eyes before looking at Dean who was watching them with interest.“I apologize, Dean. It was not my intention for you to find out about us while under the influence.”Dean shrugged. “It's okay, Cas. I just wish you guys would have told me sooner.”That made Jimmy sit back on his haunches as he darted his gaze between Castiel and Dean.Castiel sighed. “I understand, that what we do is taboo. But I love Jimmy. I can't help that.”“Cas?” Castiel looked up to see Dean smiling at him. “Dude, you don't have to explain it. I've been in love with you both since sophomore English. I just didn't know how to tell you or act on it honestly.”“Easy. You just did. Can we go fool around now?” Jimmy asked causing the others to laugh.Castiel shook his head. “No. Water. Aspirin. Bed. We'll talk about this when we're sober.”They did talk about it. For all of ten minutes. After which the twins took turns showing off their skills to Dean. Jimmy was a much better kisser when he was sober. Just saying.

[volucris-liga]

OKAY SO while i was watching The Doctor Falls i was liveblogging on a google doc on my phone and it turns out it’s five pages long so here we go, under a Read More:

Why are there scarecrows this is creepy as hell OH O H Well that's terrifying Holy shit Thunder? WHAT THE FUCK Oh hi actual cybermen OH FUCK OH FUCK THATS BILL AND SHES GOT THE DOCTOR AND HES UNCONSCIOUS WHAT THE FUCK This might be the last time I see these credits oh god ASKDGDHJFJDH MASTERS NO PLS DONT REMIND ME NOPE NOPE MISSY NO DONT HURT HIM wow Nardole way to be loyal THEYRE FRICKING DANCING HOLY FUCK okay yep thank you for this, Moffat TWELVES IN A WHEELCHAIR I love the Masters together but also Missy no </3 </3 Bill was there for 10 years, then time gap of 2 hours of being a Cyberman okay, good to have a concrete timeline PLS GIVE ME BACKSTORY INFO OF WHAT HAPPENED ON GALLIFREY PLS okay they cured him and he left ahhhhh okay so his Tardis got stuck on the Mondasian ship, he was typically Master-ish, then hid out in disguise for a while cause they all hated him lol acknowledging all the cyberman origins DONALD TRUMP PPFFFFFFFFTTTTT THANK U DOCTOR WHO !!! lol they're coming after them Missy’s legit scared oh god Also THE MUSIC OMFG AGAIN lol he changed them to target Time Lords Sonics :D I love u Twelve PAHAHAHAHA OMG MISSY XDDDD <3<3 missyyyyyy Oh no my heart YAY NARDOLE OH NO NOOOOOO MISSY SAVE HIM AAAAAAAA BILL BILL SAVED HIM SHES DEF STILL IN THERE MISSY DONT YOU FUCKING DARE ppffffff Yaaaaaaaaaay Bill!!!!!!! I have emotions OH MY GOD BILL????? BIIIILLLLL oh wait no she's still Cyberman isn't she she just doesn't see herself that way oh no she knows now JELLY BABIES everything hurts I love her and everything hurts oh no oh noooooo “somebody broke the barn” omg Nardole nooooooooo my heart SIMM tbh I'd be willing to bet almost anything that the Masters fucked it's been like two weeks Ugh Simm can u stop TWELVE OH NO MY BBY HES BEEN HOLDING BACK REGENERATION BASICALLY THE WHOLE TIME HASNT HE well that hurts oh nooooooooooo Bill </3 everything hurts Ahhhhhh the memory explanation. MISSYYYYY <3 <3 she still thinks of Bill as Bill MISSY THAT WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA SIMM SHUT THE FUCK UP ooooooh that shot with the sonics MODERN CYBERMAN MODERN CYBERMAN well, a whole bunch of extra time has passed down there so. Nice job guys. aaaaaand they can all fly. THEY CAN ALL FLY THROUGH THE CEILING lol poor nardole EYELINER oh right the master’s Tardis!!! MUSIC that is hopeful music sdfkglfhsfkdh lol he fucked up his own Tardis OMFG MISSY I LOVE YOU lol okay maybe the Masters haven't fucked. But they want to. hah, nardole. Are we gonna actually get backstory? OMG ‘I'll try anything once’ biiilllll </3 !!!!!!!!!!!! He chased after them lol My heart I love Twelve and everything hurts aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa if Twelve cries at any point here I will cry oh no oh noooooo my heart Fuck you Simm PLS STAY MISSY PLS NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO “Me too” BUT YOURE NOT STAYING AND EVERYTHING HURTS FDHFKGLHS nooooooooooooooo No don't leave Please fuck. HHHHH SHES WATCHING THE EXPLOSIONS omg Nardole was actually useful The music is so good in this episode TWELVE DONT DO THE THING aaaaaaa nardole oh god Bill’s staying with Twelve <3 <3 MISSY MISSY MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE PLS MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC ITS MISSY’S THEME I THINK SHE’S GONNA KILL HIM THATLL BE WHY SHE CANT REMEMBER REGENERATING SDKFLFHSHKFFH I LOVE MISSY I LOVE HERRRRR YEP SHE FUCKING STABBED HIM IM SCREAMING WAIT HHHHHHH AWWWWWWWW I LOVE BILL “WITHOUT HOPE WITHOUT WITNESS WITHOUT REWARD” HHHHHH TWELVE BBY HOLY FUCKING SHIT MISSY’S GONNA GO BACK FOR THE DOCTOR ISNT SHE “IT’S TIME TO STAND WITH HIM” IM DYING THIS EPISODE HAS KILLED ME “It's where we’ve always been going and it's happening now, today” IM SO HAPPY THIS IS EVERYTHING I WANTED I LOVE MISSY haha Simm you lost WAIT NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO FUCK YOU OH NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MISSYYYYYYYY PLS NO DONT DIE NOOOOOOOOOOOOO NO NO NO TWELVE’S NEVER GONNA KNOW PLS NO D: Nope nope nope I'm not okay never gonna be okay again about this Missyyyyyy </3 And if Twelve regenerates I'm very much gonna cry I'm already crying this all started, both of them, the night before I moved to college, and now it's all ending and this era meant so much to me and I got so attached to Twelve and to Missy with all the Nethersphere stuff oh nooooooooooooooo Oh god Twelve got shot TWELVE YOU WILL ALWAYS BE THE DOCTOR <3 Ow ow ow omg regeneration energy OH MY GOD OH MY G O D “No stars” FUUUUCK my everything hurts BILL THATS BILL SHES ALIVE AND SHE’S GONNA SAVE HIM PLS OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HEATHER H E A T H E R I KNEW SHE WAS GONNA COME BACK I THOUGHT THAT AFTER THE FIRST EPISODE AND THEN I FORGOT IM SCREAMING IM SO HAPPY A LESBIAN ROMANCE IS SAVING THE DAY AND BILL CAN GET TO GO LIVE AND TRAVEL WITH HER SHE PULLED HER CONSCIOUSNESS AWAY IM AAAAAAAA <3 <3 IM SO HAPPY OH MY GOD OH MY GOD THATS WHY SHE COULD CRY AS A CYBERMAN IM SO FUCKING HAPPY AND THEY SAVED THE DOCTOR WELL HE’S STILL GONNA REGENERATE BUT HE’LL LIVE wait is nardole just stuck on that ship forever now My bbys AND SHE CAN MAKE HER HUMAN AGAIN SHE’S GIVING HER THE CHOICE AND SHES GONNA CHOOSE TO TRAVEL OH MY GOSH ASKDJGJGLDHFKKGJF IM SO HAPPY BIIIILLLLLL AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA <3 <3 AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW BILL SAVED HIM ASDKFJFH SDKFJSGJFHD CLARA WAS IN THOSE MEMORIES MISSYYYYYYY ALSO SHES THE LAST ONE IN THE MEMORIES IM SCREAMING TWELVE’S MUSIC AND HE’S SAYING OTHER DOCTORS’ FIRST/LAST LINES SKAJDJFJDKFHSGSKFJFJLSJFHFJ TWELVE THAT’S NOT HEALTHY YOUVE GOTTA REGENERATE BBY NOOOOO MY HEART CLOISTER BELL OH NO TWELVE STOP YOUVE GOTTA REGENERATE I DONT WANT YOU TO EITHER BUT YOUVE GOTTA OH MY GOD IS THAT ONE THATS ONE IM SCREAMING I KNEW ABOUT THE SPOILER FROM THE FILMING PICTURES A COUPLE DAYS AGO BUT SKFJFHLFGJ I DONT KNOW HOW TO PROCESS THIS EPISODE

[chasingthecosmos]

Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 5/40 Read on AO3 here.

“‘Oh, dear. Looks like we might have picked up an extra passenger,’ the Doctor grumbled to himself. His gaze raised to Rose’s once more and she was struck by the sheer intensity of it and the way that he managed to look at once so familiar, and yet so different from what she was used to. ‘Best find something to hold on to,’ he warned her ominously.”

A Season 8 & 9 AU centering around Rose Tyler and her newly-regenerated Doctor as they both struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of some unknown force that seems to be drawing them together. Will they be able to solve the mystery of who is pulling the strings before it’s too late?

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first. Tags will be updated as I go.

The Doctor ended up leaving Rose behind again in order to chase after the half-face man, but at least this time, the Doctor didn't abandon her on her own. Rose managed to make it out of the spaceship disguising itself as a restaurant with the help of Jenny, Vastra, and Strax while the Doctor sailed off on his own solo mission to put an end to the cyborg who seemed to be in charge of the whole operation.

He was still keeping his side of their bond eerily, stubbornly silent, though, and Rose had all but given up on trying to reach out to him as she settled back into her strange, day-to-day life in Victorian England with a green woman from the dawn of time and her strange band of misfits. That is, until one morning when she woke up and - for some reason completely unknown to her - changed into her old, modern-day clothes instead of the nineteenth-century dresses that she had been forced to wear ever since the Doctor had left her behind. She knew that she should have been more surprised when she heard the whirring sounds of the TARDIS engines later that day, but she couldn't spare time for such trivial thoughts when she was already running headlong after the achingly familiar sound of home.

Oh, dear, I've missed you! Rose called out desperately as she finally reached the old blue box and practically threw her arms around its girth in excited reunion. The ship's song in her head was back to its usual, steady melody, and the TARDIS greeted her with a warm apology, making sure that Rose knew that it was on her behalf as well as the Doctor's.

Where's he been? Rose asked curiously. What have you two been up to?

The TARDIS merely made an amused, mysterious noise in response and beckoned her forward, eagerly unlocking the doors for her so that she could step freely through the threshold. As soon as the doors were opened, Rose realized immediately that the interior had been changed again, though the alterations were a bit more subtle this time - just a few changes to the console controls and a row of bookshelves that lined the upper levels of the room, along with a glowing orange rotor rather than the cool blue that she had grown so accustomed to.

"You've redecorated," she murmured appreciatively as she gazed around the ship's sleek, modern surfaces.

"Yes." The Doctor's unexpected, quiet response instantly drew Rose's gaze up to the second level of the room, where she could see him reclining in a high-backed leather armchair and watching her with a pensive expression. She could tell that he was waiting for more - possibly eager to hear her opinion on whether or not she approved - but she obstinately refused to give it.

It's lovely, she admitted to the TARDIS silently as she ran a loving hand across her console, using the one form of communication that she knew the Doctor wouldn't be able to hear while he was so stubbornly closing himself off from her.

The ship's consciousness trilled appreciatively in response, causing the Doctor's gaze to narrow on Rose in suspicion as he finally pushed himself out of his chair and slowly descended the steps to meet her on level ground.

"I'm the Doctor," he told her, his voice low and weighty and filled with the many other things that he refused to say, "I've lived for over two-thousand years, and not all of them were good. I've made many mistakes, and it's about time that I did something about that." He circled the console the long way around, his gaze never once leaving hers as he slowly came to a stop before her, still making sure to keep a generous distance between them.

Suddenly, Rose felt his consciousness within the back of her mind grow and blossom until she was able to reach out over their bond and feel the solid outline of his presence once more. He still didn't open up to her, not all the way - but it was enough to take her breath away as she eagerly embraced the partner who she had been missing ever since he had decided to cut himself off from her.

I'm sorry, he muttered gently. For everything ...

Rose pulled against his thoughts, silently willing him to give her the full connection that she still so desperately longed for, but he continued to restrain himself as he met her gaze steadily and waited for her to make some sort of response.

Finally, she narrowed her eyes on him as she muttered out loud, "'Two-thousand years'? Is that the number you're going with, now?" She shook her head at him exasperatedly, but she couldn't suppress her smirk as she glanced back up at him and added, "You always were rubbish at keeping time. Seems like you're getting worse in your old age."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" the Doctor demanded, his brows furrowing as he gazed down at her in confusion, clearly not expecting this to be her response.

Rose chuckled lightly under her breath as she tentatively took a step forward, watching intently as her one, small movement immediately made the Doctor grow tense and defensive. She bit her lip as she hesitantly raised her gaze back to his and deliberately reached out to him with her mind instead.

What's wrong? she asked gently. Why won't you talk with me?

Rose held her breath as the Doctor's gaze dropped to her lips for just the smallest fraction of a second before he spun away from her and quickly pulled a lever on the TARDIS console that instantly put them into flight. When he twirled back to her face again, he had his new coat thrown open to reveal the bright red lining within and his hands were stuffed into his pockets in a casual stance that belied his stiff posture.

"What do you think?" he asked, deliberately seeking her approval yet again.

Rose took a long moment to look him over, a smile turning up her lips as she slowly met his gaze once more. He was still tall, though he was a bit skinnier than he had been before. The jacket he wore was perfectly tailored to him, and she found that she liked the strict, professional air that it gave him. This version of him clearly favored dark colors, as her gaze skimmed over his matching black boots and trousers. He was also wearing a crisp white Oxford that he kept completely buttoned, though Rose thought it looked oddly empty and a bit too formal with no tie of any sort to hold it in place. All in all, she thought he looked rather dashing, but she wasn't about to stroke his ego and tell him so, especially when he still insisted on being so withholding himself.

"Where are you taking us?" she murmured off-handedly as she pointed dismissed his request for her input once more. She saw his expression fall in disappointment as she slowly began to circle the TARDIS console and he moved to mirror her steps in order to meet her on the other side of it.

"Thought I'd take you back home," he replied with a casual shrug, not meeting her eyes as he stopped and leaned his arms against the console a good distance away from her. "I thought you might still be looking forward to that Christmas dinner."

"'Home'?" Rose repeated in confusion, screwing up her eyebrows at him as she watched his distant, weary expression. "What, you mean the Maitlands's house?"

"If you like," the Doctor replied with another disinterested shrug.

Rose realized suddenly that she was longing to go home - but not to that strange house on Earth that she barely even knew. Her home was the TARDIS - it always had been, and it always would be. She wondered if the Doctor was subtly trying to tell her something as she looked up at her in consternation at the old ship's time rotor and contemplated what she was going to do if he actually didn't want her to travel with him anymore. Could she really go back to a normal, human life in a world that she didn't even rightfully belong to anymore?

"And ... if I don't?" Rose asked, her voice barely more than a whisper as she managed to catch the Doctor's eye again from across the console. He was watching her with a hard expression on his face, but she thought she saw the slightest lift to the edges of his lips before the moment was interrupted by the cell phone that Rose still had in her pocket - the one that the Doctor had given her when she had returned to Earth earlier in an attempt to prepare a normal, happy Christmas for them.

Rose quickly retrieved the ringing device from her pocket and flashed the Doctor a look of confusion as she glanced down at the unknown string of numbers on the screen before her. Who else could possibly have this number? Who else would even care to call her?

"You'd better get that," he told her gently, the smile on his lips growing slightly as he watched her, "it might be your boyfriend."

Rose furrowed her brow at him in silent question as she hit the green button on the phone's screen and held it up to her ear. "Hello?" she asked as she turned away from the Doctor and waited for the person on the other end of the line to answer.

There was a long pause before a familiar male voice replied, "It's me."

"Sorry? It's who?" she replied in confusion.

"It's me, Rose - the Doctor." His voice sounded breathless and strained, as though he had just finished running a marathon and was still fighting to recover.

"What do you mean, 'the Doctor'?" Rose repeated, feeling her heart skip a beat in her chest as her mind instantly reached for the source of her bondmate's familiar voice. Instead of finding his familiar, comforting presence, however, she was met with a cool wall of indifference as he continued to resolutely shut her out of his thoughts.

"I'm phoning you from Trenzalore," he explained slowly, "from before I changed. I mean, it's all still to happen for me. It's coming - oh, it's a-coming. Not long now. I can ... feel it."

Rose turned around in breathless wonder to stare hard at the other man on the opposite side of the room from her. It was clear that he was fighting very hard not to fidget as he watched her every reaction, still waiting for her response, even now.

"Why?" she demanded into the phone as she felt the first of her heartbroken tears break free and trail down her cheek. "Why would you do this?"

"Because I think it's gonna be a whopper," he replied simply, "and I think that you might be scared. But you mustn't be scared, love. Never be scared of change. It happens to all of us, after all."

"So who is it?" the man across the room called out to her suddenly.

"Is that the Doctor?" the man on the phone asked.

"Is that the Doctor?" the man in the TARDIS echoed knowingly.

"Yes ..." Rose replied breathlessly, not even sure which man she was addressing any more.

"He sounds old," the Doctor on the phone muttered ruefully. "Please tell me I didn't get old, anything but old ..."

"Says the man who doesn't even know his own, proper age," Rose replied, laughing out loud despite herself as she shook her head at his vanity. "He says you're over two-thousand-years-old, now. How's a girl supposed to keep up when you keep doubling your age like that."

The Doctor in the room with her glanced down at the console controls to hide his smile, but the Doctor on the phone sighed heavily as he muttered, "I've missed you, Rose - still do. Always have ... always will." He paused for a moment before he added, "Say you'll stay with him, Rose, eh? For me? He needs you."

"Is that what this has all been about?" she asked in breathless wonder as realization slowly began to dawn over her. "Is that seriously why you're phoning?" She shook her head again as she stared hard a the man across the room from her who was currently watching her with an intense look from underneath his furrowed brows. "You daft, old idiot."

The Doctor on the phone chuckled under his breath before he replied, "Goodbye, Rose. I'll be seeing ya." She hung up the phone before she could be tempted to beg him into staying on the line with her, just to hear his familiar voice for a little bit longer.

"Well?" the Doctor before her asked leadingly as he struck another forced, casual stance.

"Well what?" Rose demanded, placing her hands on her hips as she flashed him a blank, unamused look.

"He asked you a question," the Doctor replied awkwardly, clearly struggling to say the words that he knew needed to be said. "Will you help me?"

"Well, are you going to let me?" Rose asked him pointedly.

That seemed to throw the Doctor for a loop, and his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as he shifted his weight awkwardly from side to side and murmured hesitantly, "What?"

Rose rolled her eyes at him exaggeratedly before crossing the TARDIS console room in four long strides to stand directly in front of him, stubbornly invading the bubble of personal space that he had been upholding around himself ever since he had come back into his right mind again. She narrowed her eyes up at him as she purposefully poked at his silent, sealed off thoughts with her own and waited for him to catch her hint.

He watched her for a moment with a dark, haunted expression before he carefully obeyed and allowed the walls around his thoughts to crumble and fall away. What Rose found waiting for her there was enough to take her breath away as she was nearly overcome by the conflicting emotions of both love and fear. It seemed that the Doctor had been keeping her at arm's length in an attempt to somehow shield her from himself, afraid of hurting her, both physically and emotionally. But there was no denying the heated flame of longing and desire that burned through it all, making him desperate for her approval and acceptance.

Rose narrowed her eyes on him as she attempted to dig deeper, to get him to show her the full extent of all that lay within his mind that he was being so oddly cagey about, but he silently begged for her to respect his wishes and let him come to terms with things on his own time as he continued to shutter away parts of himself outside of her reach.

You really are a daft, old idiot, Rose reminded him as she heaved a loud sigh and suddenly threw her arms around his neck, instantly forcing him into a hug that the Doctor's new body didn't seem to know how to reciprocate. She made sure to project into his mind all of the long hours of her own desperation and longing that she had been forced to endure while she waited for him to come around, all of the worry and hurt that she had felt when his thoughts had suddenly gone silent inside of her head. Don't you ever think of doing that again, she warned him dangerously as she felt the tense line of his body relaxing slightly into her.

"I ... I don't think I'm a hugging person now," the Doctor muttered quietly as he fidgeted his arms awkwardly around her, never quite returning her embrace as he seemed to struggle with what to do or say next.

"I'm not sure you get a vote," she replied pointedly as she turned and placed a hard kiss against the side of his cheek.

There was another hint of a smile on his lips as he hesitantly met her gaze, but Rose smiled wide enough for the both of them as he easily agreed, "Whatever you say ..."

[cornishbirdblog]

There are a handful of man-made landmarks in Cornwall that are unmistakable and unforgettable. Carn Brea Castle is one of these. A tiny fortress perched high on one of our most enigmatic hills it is pretty magical.

Carn Brea Castle stands on the eastern summit of Carn Brea hill, one of the highest points in Cornwall. At 215m (750ft) has a commanding position overlooking the once highly industrial towns of Redruth, Pool and Camborne.

The writer Folliott-Stokes vividly describes the scene in 1931 from St Agnes Beacon another high point on the near by coast.

“Some five or six miles inland we see the abrupt and curiously shaped hill known as Carn Brea, crowned with a lofty monument to the memory of Lord de Dunstanville. Beneath it is a chaos of tall chimneys and above them a pall of smoke. This is the black country of Cornwall and beneath that blue-grey smoke are some of the most famous tin mines in the world . . .”

Carn Brea Hill

The story of the castle is intrinsically linked to story of the hill on which it stands. And Carn Brea Hill alone is fascinating, with so many interesting facets there’s no time to explore them all in too much detail here. But it is important to note, however, that the setting in which Carn Brea Castle finds itself is a particularly special one. There is more than 6000 years of human history on this rocky hill.

The outcrop of Carn Brea was once a major Early-Neolithic settlement and tor enclosure. The people who lived there built a series of huge stone walls, two metres high and at least two metres thick. These walls encircled the central outcrops of the hill and were roughly 700m in length. The evidence of burning and the hundreds of arrowheads found on the hill suggest that the inhabitants were attacked at some point in the settlement’s history.

Of course, the story of the little castle began long after these distant events. But it is thought that some of the granite from the ancient enclosure were used to build its chunky walls. And Carn Brea Castle’s past is full of interest and adventure too. This building has had many varied and colourful lives.

The White Tower

The building that we see today is much larger than the original structure. There have been a number of additions, the last in 1979. The castle first gets a mention in 1478 when William of Worcester writes about “the Tower Castle owned by Sir John Bassett, Knight.”

The true origins of the structure are pretty obscure however. But it has been suggested that Carn Brea Castle’s first life was as a chapel or oratory dedicated to St Michael. Built in around 1379, one hundred years before William of Worcester saw it, the people that constructed the castle could not have chosen a more precarious position. They perched the building high up, straddling the tumble of giant granite boulders.

Early in the castle’s history it’s walls were covered in plaster. The white colour of the little tower may even have led to the name of the hill’s neighbouring parish. Illogan.

Murray writes in 1859:

The Cornish words lug gan signifying the white tower, and lug gan the tower on the downs.

Not everyone liked the white look however:

Recently this fine relic of antiquity has been daubed over with plaster and robbed of all interest . . . The defacement which has first taken place renders it almost ludicrous, especially on the site which it occupies being neither castle nor dwelling.- Cyrus Redding, 1832.

A lighthouse and a folly

In around 1780 the castle was converted into a folly for the Basset Family. Carn Brea Hill was part of their enormous Tehidy Estate and the castle acted as a ‘pleasure house’ and a status symbol. It’s thought that the building was redesigned in a gothic style to be used as a hunting and feasting lodge.

Again it was constructed erratically to incorporate many of the boulders. The layout is irregular, roughly 60ft by 10ft, and now included decorative battlements.

There is a great description of the scene left us by Rev. John Swete, who visited Redruth in 1780.

“Passing through the country, the face of which was extremely deformed by the rubbish thrown up from mines, about six we arrived at Redruth. Being now within a mile of Karnbre Hill – a place I was particularly solicitous of seeing, as it had been in a distinguished manner appropriated to the mysteries of Druidism, and where I learnt were to be seen every variety of those rude monuments consecrated to their worship. I immediately hired a boy to conduct me there and, leaving my companions refreshing themselves in the inn, soon found myself at the foot of the craggy ascent of the Hill. The first object that struck me was the remains of an old Castle situated on a carn at the Eastern end. It had a fine romantic appearance from the ground below and no less a curious one as I approached it. The architect seems to have chosen out the most wild spot on the whole hill. For its erection placing it on the verge of a precipice and on very irregular ledge of huge uneven rocks . . . the Eastern Tower hath quite lost its garb of antiquity having been modernized by the last Mr Bassett without a grain of taste.”

Sometime after the death of Francis Basset in 1835 the castle started being used as a beacon for ships. It’s stunning position means that it is visible from miles around and for much of coast between St Ives and St. Agnes. The West Briton reported in August 1898:

“For a very long the tenant of Carn Brea Castle was bound by a clause in the agreement to show a light in the window towards Tehidy House and consequently facing the Bristol Channel. This beacon light was plainly visible by sailors on the sea on clear nights and was a great service to them in reckoning their position at sea. This clause in the landlord and tenant agreement was faithfully observed for a long period but between ten and fifteen years ago it ceased to be kept in its entirety and the light was extinguished at eleven or twelve o’clock at night.”

A beacon was also lit on the hill, as they were across the country, to celebrate Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838.

Giants

Legend has it that the rocks beneath where Carn Brea Castle now stands were once the seat of a mighty giant. There are also rock formations across the hill called the Giant’s coffin, the Giant’s head and hand, the Giant’s wheel and the Giant’s cradle.

The legend says that the giant eventually grew old and lay down to die on Carn Brea Hill. He turned to stone and the land passed to the Basset family.

Smuggler’s Tunnel

Legends persist of a lost smuggler’s cave on Carn Brea Hill. It was first mentioned in around 1866 and is not completely improbable as there was said to have been an old smugglers route that ran from Godrevy to Stithians, passing close to Carn Brea. A hollow found between the Castle and the Dunstanville Monument is thought to be the Smugglers’ Cave. From here a tunnel was said to stretch through the hillside to Redruth town or St Euny Church below. This tunnel, now blocked for safety reasons, is more likely to have been a old mine shaft however.

A tumultuous 20th century

After its many early guises as a chapel, a hunting lodge and a lighthouse the 20th century was no less varied for the Castle.

In 1902, according to the West Briton, Carn Brea castle was occupied by an old man and his wife who had lived there for 30 years. They made some extra money by charging visitors a penny each to see the view from the roof.

In 1980 former miner, Mr M. Martin, then 83 years old remembered the castle being used as a little shop where he could buy tobacco and groceries. This shop was run by Fred Pooley and his family until they emigrated to Canada in 1923.

Carn Brea Castle with St Agnes Beacon in distance

In 1944, Carn Brea castle was advertised to let. The advert described it as having:

“Five rooms and a cooker in kitchen. No mains services. Water from well. Telephone. Flat roof battlement for sunbathing. Rough rabbit shooting over 100 acres. Apply E. Carvolth, Bognor Regis.”

Soon after this the castle fell victim to vandals and was said to be in ‘a deplorable state’ by 1957. Luckily it was then sold and restored by Mrs. N. M. Hill. And this led to another lovely episode in the castle’s history which occurred in 1961. The new tenant Miss Wendy Lewis, who was famous for walking from John O’Groats to Land’s End, moved in that September. For some reason the people of Redruth decided to crown her with a garland of heather and daisies that had been gathered on the carn. She was then escorted to the castle by Redruth Town Band for a party to celebrate her arrival.

The Next Tasty Chapter

The next chapter came a few years ago when Carn Brea castle became a restaurant. The 1979 extension allowed space for kitchens and the castle first opened as a restaurant in 1980. The Jordanian Sawalha family are now using this amazing space to dish up delicious middle eastern style food and music.

I think it makes a fabulous place for a meal, although the road to the top can be very rough. The castle is like the Tardis. It is much bigger inside than I expected and very atmospheric. The view from the roof is not to be missed! Even on a misty night, as it was when I was there, it really is spectacular and these days there is no one charging you a penny a head from the privilege.

Further Reading:

St Agnes Beacon

Chapel Carn Brea – Cornwall’s First and Last Hill

Largin Castle – Iron Age Hillfort

The Marvellous Miss Molly’s Tearoom- a rather curious hidden treasure!

Walking Opportunities:

Carn Brea and Great Flat Lode Circular Walk

The history of Carn Brea Castle There are a handful of man-made landmarks in Cornwall that are unmistakable and unforgettable. Carn Brea Castle is one of these.

[timeagainreviews]

Those are excellent nose hairs

Hello friends! It's been a long weekend for yours truly, as I was in Nottingham for a convention. My hooves are very tired. This review is going up a bit later than I would like as the hotel I was staying at's TV's volume only went up to fifteen, which made it hard for me to watch the episode properly. Now that I'm home and have watched the episode with the sound full blast, I can give it a proper review.

When we last left the Doctor and her crew, they were suspended in space. Of course, none of us were actually worried, after all, they showed the shot of them being picked up in the series trailer! Also, come on, they're not gonna kill our friends. In true Doctor Who fashion, the cliffhanger was resolved in seconds. Graham and Ryan find themselves aboard a spaceship with a standoffish captain named Angstrom. She doesn't trust them, despite saving their lives. Yaz awakens aboard a different ship in a sort of stasis capsule to the sound of the Doctor and the ship's captain Epzo bickering. Neither one of them can agree on the best way to crash-land Epzo's ship- "Cerebos."

Upon landing on the planet, Ryan, Graham, and Angstrom begin walking toward a still unknown destination. From above comes Cerebos, like a comet falling from the sky, directly at them. Having never seen a science fiction movie, the three of them run in the direction of the ship's trajectory, as opposed to, you know, left or right. The ship skids through a ravine and it's not until the Doctor yells "Brakes!" does the ship stop, due to previously unseen wheels.

Happy to see each other alive, the Doctor and her new friends take a moment to appreciate the fact that they're on their first alien planet. They also learn that Epzo and Angstrom are familiar with one another as competitors. Suddenly, an alarm sounds, beckoning them toward a mysterious destination, which turns out to be a tent in the middle of a desert where the hologram of a callous wealthy man named Ilin sits like a king. Opulence drips from him despite his shabby digs.

We learn that Ilin is the facilitator of the last "Rally of the 12 Galaxies," or as the Doctor put it, "Paris-Dakar in space.” The prize is an exorbitant amount of money, enough to set the winner for life. Out of 4,000 entrants, Epzo and Angstrom are the only two left. The name of the planet on which everyone has found themselves is most closely translated to "Desolation," and it's the final leg of the race.

The racers final task is to navigate Desolation, a planet "made cruel," toward the titular "Ghost Monument." The Doctor being who she is, asks to know the appearance of the Ghost Monument. Ilin, annoyed by the request, reluctantly presents a holographic image of the monument. The Ghost Monument, much to the Doctor's delight, is none other than her TARDIS, which has been phasing into existence every 1000 cycles. Due to the nature of the time machine, it appears to have been doing so for a very long time. It's a moment in the episode that feels genuinely gratifying, as the pieces for our new Doctor are beginning to fall into place.

Ilin and his tent disappear instantly, leaving everyone at the mercy of this cruel planet. Strewn about are what looks like the remnants of a society. Structures are tangled with strange gauzy strips of fabric. Buildings are in ruin. The Doctor can't make heads or tails what happened to this civilisation. The water is full of carnivorous bacteria, the air is poison, and there are sniper robots. In a scene that evoked strong "Keys of Marinus," vibes, they must travel across a deadly body of water, aboard an abandoned boat.

In these moments, we're given a further glimpse into the motivations of both Epzo and Angstrom. Angstrom wants to win the race so she can save what's left of her family from tyranny, while Epzo is simply a very lonely man with a painful past ripped straight out of the movie Wetlands (of all places). On the other hand, we don't get much more of a glimpse into the Doctor's new companions. We learn that Yaz's family is a bit irritating, and incomplete, as she doesn't mention a mother. Ryan and Graham are still basically where we left off- Ryan won't call Graham granddad, and Graham still doesn't know how to reach him. Ryan still struggles with ladder-related dyspraxia, but it seems to disappear when he takes out a group of sniper bots with one of their own weapons. There seems to be a sort of fluctuation in characterisation present in this, and last week's scripts.

The Doctor is presented in a way that is meant to illustrate not only her competence but also her philosophy. This is where Chris Chibnall's writing has continually stuck in my craw. As with last week, where the Doctor denounced knives, despite having travelled with two knife-wielding companions in the past, she goes on about guns once more. We all know the Doctor is against guns, but why is it not okay to kill lifeless sniper robots with a gun, but okay to kill all of them with an electromagnetic pulse? The Doctor does these kinds of things all the time, but Chibnall has brought our attention to it.

The Doctor helps the racers and her friends through what looks like a dilapidated parking garage filled with sniper bots into an underground network of tunnels and chambers. While underground, the Doctor learns that our baddies from last week, the Stenza, had forced the scientists of the world above to create weapons of death to the point that it killed their planet. We also learn that both Graham in Angstrom lost their wives to the Stenza.

After the race is over, only the Doctor and her new friends remain, stuck on the surface of Desolation. The Doctor is at one of her lowest points, as even she is beginning to doubt herself. In a very sweet show of camaraderie, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham reinforce their belief in the Doctor. It is at this moment when a glimmer of hope is heard in a familiar sound. Last week I voiced my concern that the Doctor might have to "earn," her TARDIS back. Much to my relief, this was not the case. Evidently, it was a case that the TARDIS saw the Doctor was now a woman, and her whole “bachelor pad,” with candle wax dribble and books on the stairs was suddenly unsuitable. “Out you go, while I spruce up!” And I’m glad for it. Not only would a Doctor without her TARDIS story have been tedious, it would have also been a rather incomplete feeling series. With a new Doctor, it's good to have a bit of the familiar around, even if it looks a bit different!

In a line that is probably now my new sexuality, the Doctor pleads with the TARDIS and says "Come to daddy... er mummy." Our trusty blue box finally manages to materialise, and like something out of a Lassie movie, or even a love story, the Doctor runs to it. It's a truly beautiful moment that left me in tears. In my review for "An Unearthly Child," I talked about the first TARDIS reveal. It's seldom, however, that we get to see the Doctor have the same reaction to seeing the inside of her TARDIS, which is why this one is so great. Having been apart from what is possibly her oldest friend, she gets to rediscover her new interior alongside her companions. And like that, the show feels like it can truly move forward.

Now then, let’s talk about what worked, and what didn't. First of all, how about that introduction? Yet another one of my fears was that Doctor Who had gone the way of many modern television series, and dumped the intro, which would have been a crime! Thankfully, this was not an issue. I mentioned earlier the "Keys to Marinus vibe," I got from this episode. That intro is pure Hartnell era, through and through. After getting a better listen to Segun Akinola's theme tune, I must say I like it. Though I feel that some of the effects placed upon the sound seem to cancel out certain notes. While it lacks the high energy of some of the previous themes of the "new Who" era, it gains a level of creepiness and danger we've not seen since the 70's.

The story itself is pretty simple, but that's not any kind of judgement on my behalf. Simple can be a welcome break after Moffat's long-winded, and often unfulfilling story arcs. Though the bit about "The Timeless Child," was so Easter eggy, that I thought Moffat may have snuck into the writing room with a Chris Chibnall mask and monkeyed with the script. I'll be honest, I have zero interest in that storyline. It's called Doctor Who, not Doctor Who was Once a Little Kid Known as the Timeless Child. IDGAF.

One of the interesting elements of these past two episodes has been Chibnall's characterisation of the Doctor. In some ways, it's evident how well he knows the character. Simply in the manner by which the Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver, do we see her character come out. The sonic is often criticised as a plot-convenient deus ex machina, but in many ways, it is the Doctor condensed into an object. It fixes things and opens the doors to new possibilities. The Doctor tries to teach her companions her philosophy, not with weapons, but with hope.

I said earlier how Chibnall has also, a somewhat muddied philosophy of the Doctor. His sophisticated ideas, don't really stand up to their own scrutiny. When the Doctor and her companions have their backs against the wall, it's suddenly ok to destroy the Remnants (killer strips of fabric now animated under the night sky), with a blaze of fire. What was different between these and the sniper robots? The Remnants could actually speak, yet it's less ok to shoot the mindless robots because...guns? These aren't massive sins, but they are worrisome. As I've said, Chris Chibnall is the one element of the new series that has worried me. Even his one-off jokes can serve as tiny red flags.

In the previous episode, we learn that the Doctor has empty pockets, something that had come up more than once in "The Woman Who Fell to Earth." However, in this episode, it turns out that she has filled her pockets. It would make sense if the object she pulls out of her coat were merely a simple pair of sunglasses. But these weren't just any sunglasses, these once belonged to either Pythagoras or Audrey Hepburn. Which is fine, it's cute, right? But where did they come from? Her coat from her days as a white haired Scotsman was empty, and her new coat came from a charity shop. With no TARDIS, how does she get a pair of sunglasses from one of two dead people? Perhaps it's as River says- the Doctor lies. Or perhaps Chibnall just wanted a cute joke. Either way, Graham looks fabulous in those shades.

Evidently, Chris Chibnall's true talent lies in being able to recognise talent. He's found a wonderful group of actors and directors. Jodie Whittaker is a genius pick for the Doctor. Segun Akinola is brilliant in his musical direction. Even his vision for what the series should look like is inspired. The retro vibe suits not only the Thirteenth Doctor but also the concept of the first female Doctor. Something I had hoped they wouldn't ignore. While some of the cinematography has been frustrating, with close-ups cropping off 20% of actor's faces, and points of focus not always being properly framed, it's also kinetic and gorgeous. The new TARDIS control room is beautiful. I'm hoping the little spinning crystal TARDIS serves a function of some sort, as well as the hourglass, which was perplexing in its function (as well the TARDIS should be). My favourite bit was the little custard cream biscuit dispenser. Pure cuteness, that.

This episode has been particularly hard to review, as I didn't hate it, not by far. But it was also disjointed and frustrating at points as well. I'm still giving a lot of leeway to everyone involved, as it's early days. Neither Stephen Moffat or Russell T. Davies wrote a homerun within their first two episodes. Chris Chibnall has managed to breathe new life into the series again, which is a feat unto itself. The TARDIS has done herself up, and so has the show. And as the Doctor said, "I really like it."

[timeagainreviews]

An Unearthly Comparison

Before we begin, I would like to start by saying- I know that "An Unearthly Child," is considered part of the Cave of Skulls serial. I've chosen to treat it as it's own separate story, due to the fact that it has very little to do with the other three episodes. As far as I am concerned, you could have put any story at the end of An Unearthly Child, and the results would have been the same.

In the last two days since "The Woman Who Fell to Earth," aired, I've had discussions as to why the Doctor lost her TARDIS, and what that might mean. A worry I had was that the TARDIS had rejected Jodie, and was making her prove she was still the Doctor, which would suck for obvious reasons. But my friend suggested something else- it's just a plot device. And it makes sense. Why would Yasmine leave behind her job to travel with the Doctor? What better way is there to keep Graham and Ryan together as a family? The Doctor can't just kidnap people can she?

Watching "An Unearthly Child" can be really jolting for a lot of modern Doctor Who fans. The Doctor is cantankerous, aloof, unhelpful, and contumacious. Sure, we've seen these traits in all of our modern Doctors, but with William Hartnell, it's so prevalent. Which is why it's hard to believe there was a version of him that was even more unpleasant! So naturally, I had to find out for myself.

For those of you not in the know, when "An Unearthly Child" (or AUC) was originally filmed, BBC's Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, was unhappy with the results. He told producer Verity Lambert to reshoot the episode in its entirety with a few changes to the characters and script. Ironically, with all of the official episodes of Doctor Who that were destroyed, this unaired pilot still exists! The episode lived another sort of double life, as it was aired two weeks in a row, due to the Kennedy Assassination the day before the premiere. Or as Terry Pratchett put it- "because of public demand and that pesky business with the grassy knoll."

The beginnings of the two different versions of aren't all that different. There is an audible "bang," sound in the opening music that I had never noticed before. And oddly enough, the picture quality in the unaired version is a bit crisper. You can actually read the I.M. Forman written on the gate of the scrapyard on Totter's Lane. Though I will say the camera work in the aired version is much snappier. I'm not sure if it's just the version I have, or if it has anything to do with the 16 mm telerecording. Who knows?

Try to imagine, if you will, what it was like to watch Doctor Who back then. Science fiction was still a thing of ire. Spaceships were stupid looking, and the stories were hacky. But this was something different. Something like C.S. Lewis (who also died the day before the episode aired). No matter what programs Doctor Who has inspired since, there's still nothing quite like it. Nothing that gets so borderline surreal. Nothing that has so much staying power.

We're introduced to Ian and Barbara. Two teachers at Coal Hill School in London. Barbara is concerned about a mutual student who perplexes her. In rewatching these episodes, I was reminded of the scene in Donnie Darko when Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle discuss the titular character, a student of theirs that seems to stand out from the rest. In comparing the two versions of AUC, the biggest difference is that Ian and Barbara are sitting down in the aired version, which seems like a good choice. There's a more intimate, less rushed feeling. They feel more familiar with one another. Evidently, the original script had indicated a romance between them but was later toned down. I don't know why. I ship it.

It's through this interaction that we meet Susan. I've always had some rather conflicted feelings about Susan. On one hand, she's kind of endearing, and in other ways, she's downright annoying. When we meet her through the lens of Ian and Barbara's perspective, she's brilliant, enigmatic, and strange. Possessing knowledge no person her age should actually know.

The Susan we meet moments later is a bit more of a kid you'd expect in the 1960's. She listens to surfer music by the fictional "John Smith and the Common Men," while sort of strumming along with the music. This marks the first appearance of the name John Smith in Doctor Who, by the way. The impression I get is that Susan was supposed to be kind of "hip." Even her hairstyle was designed by Vidal Sassoon, which is actually still pretty cool.

After surreptitiously trying to learn more about Susan's home situation by offering her a ride home, we're left alone with the young girl. One of the things I'm kind of sad they scrapped in the aired version, is Susan's little inkblot Rorschach test she reads like tea leaves. It was a very "I Ching," moment, that I thought made her seem almost mystical. Instead, the scene ends with Susan looking through a book on the French Revolution (all white with big black letters like it was produced in the Repo Man universe), and exclaiming- "That's not right!"

Ian and Barbara follow Susan to the address in her school file, 76 Trotter's Lane, the same scrapyard from the beginning of the episode. They follow her in to find nothing but a bunch of junk and a large blue police box. Upon touching it, Ian describes the box as "alive." It is at this point, that the two versions of the episode begin to diverge the most.

William Hartnell's initial portrayal of the Doctor is almost villainous. Where he's supposed to come off as mysterious, he comes off as scheming and methodical. Instead of thinking he has some great secret he's worried about getting out, he appears more to have some horrible secret he's hiding. You almost side with Ian and Barbara, that Susan is in danger. It's easy to see how this is wrong for the character. You want the Doctor to be independent, and at times, contrarian, but never to the point that he seems like the antagonist. Dr Smith in Lost in Space comes to mind. His initial portrayal was one of a villain, but over time, his strength was found in being a sort of anti-hero, and friend to Will Robinson.

The way they solved this? Well, he appears more curious. More aloof. Less direct and confrontational. There's a bit more twinkle in his eye the second time around. Vague threats turn into goading and daring. As Ian interrogates the Doctor, the Doctor takes interest in some of the random junk around him. His curiosity, mixed with his blasé attitude toward their concern gives him the right mix of intrigue and mischief. You can tell he's hiding something, but it feels less to evade justice, but rather to protect himself, Susan, and even the two interlopers.

A lot of the beauty in capturing this balance is in the name of the show. Who is this Doctor? Why is he in a scrapyard? What is the deal with that police box? These are the right questions that the audience should be asking. You should wonder about his intentions, but not be able to say outrightly- this man is a criminal. But Ian and Barbara are still unconvinced, as they push forward into the big box, and like a C.S. Lewis novel, into a whole new world.

Some of the best moments in Doctor Who are the big reveal of the TARDIS. It will never not be cool. But the unique element to this reveal is it's the first one that was a big reveal to the audience as well. That's actually rather unique when you give it some thought. Usually, we're all in on the joke, waiting for it. We know about the wide-eyed expressions, mouths agape. "It's bigger on the inside!" they'll say. You know something is weird about the police box. They've framed it in the middle of the shot. The episode begins around it. We've been beckoned toward it since the beginning of the story. Even with the red herring of seeing a policeman walking past it at the beginning, the low hum it emits betrays any sense that it is merely common.

Ian and Barbara, have at this point, seen too much. It's still early, days and our Doctor doesn't like showing off his special ship. We learn it's name, given by Susan as an acronym for "Time and Relative Dimension in Space," (later to be changed to "Dimensions," for no apparent reason). One of my favourite aspects of this scene is the Doctor explaining the TARDIS's dimensional capabilities by comparing it to television's ability to shrink a large object down onto a screen. It's sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, but I love it.

Another big difference we see here is that in the first version, Susan explains that she was born in the 49th century. It's a little too on the nose. Explains a little bit of the "Who" in the title too much. Another thing is the hum of the TARDIS is much more abrasive in the original version. In reviewing it just a moment ago, my cat gave me a rather cross look from the shrill noise. Like Ian said, “I have... a very sensitive ear.” Though this is not the last time the Radiophonic Workshop will pierce your eardrums.

It's in this scene that we see the greatest disparity in William Hartnell's performance. He's angry, confrontational, and even calls Susan a stupid child at one point. His temper is evident and not at all endearing. It makes his decision to kidnap Ian and Barbara less one of survival, and more of one of control. While it has never made a whole lot of sense what danger two school teachers knowing his secrets could present, the Doctor chooses to kidnap his new guests. We never know why he was in the scrapyard (though we do find out in later episodes) or why Susan wanted to attend school. Susan's "why," may be self-evident, in that she's a child who wants to be around other children, but the Doctor's reasons are less evident. Either way, the scene fares far better in the aired version.

What comes next is one of my favourite shots in the history of the show. There's something exhilarating about the TARDIS among a rocky terrain, and the approaching shadow that cuts a long menacing shape against the horizon. It's pure science fiction and yet another big reveal. The Doctor wasn't lying. This ship of his really can move through space in an instant. It's a beautiful beginning to one of television's greatest sagas.

Thanks for reading! I won't be writing the Cave of Skulls retrospective until maybe next week. I have a convention to attend this weekend, so I probably won't have the time. You should probably expect more series 11 coverage around then too!