#I JUST WANTED DOCTOR WHO TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT CAPALDI WAS IN TORCHWOOD

[youremyonlyhope]

Ok but can we talk about how despite teasing us with constant “Am I a good man?” themes over the last 3 years, Doctor Who still hasn’t acknowledged that Twelve has the face of John Frobisher.

I’ve waited patiently, and now Capaldi only has the Christmas Special left. SOMEONE PLEASE JUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT CAPALDI WAS IN TORCHWOOD.

[the-apples-were-monitored]

Ruby and her friends audition for their class production of Les Mis

Book 3 of As Heaven is Wide

Chapter 1

...

"The singing thing. I guess you're the only tech I know so I forget that you're a little more shy. I didn't even realize how bad that might make your anxiety. Dad did, though, so he killed the karaoke machine."

Selwyn glanced at Aziraphale. "You did that?"

He smiled. "I wanted to give you a way out that wouldn't be embarrassing. Trying to do anything more direct might've called attention to you more, which might make your anxiety worse."

"I appreciate that," Selwyn said. "I just don't know if I can do this audition thing."

"Why not?" Ruby asked. "If it's the singing thing, you saw that the only one with any talent is Ariela."

"It's not just that. It's that I'm..."

"What?" Ruby asked. "Gay? Autistic? What?"

"...Welsh."

Ruby looked at her blankly. "Welsh? What's that got to do with anything?"

"I can't do accents."

"So?"

But it was dawning on Crowley. "Oh. There aren't really Welsh characters in most big productions, are there?"

"If they cast Welsh actors, they're always expected to take on another accent," Aziraphale acknowledged.

"It's really a problem across the board if you're a British actor but aren't English," Crowley said. "I mean even with the slim pickings for non-RP English accents, you'd still find more of those than Scottish or Welsh characters."

"Doctor Who seems to do well," Ruby said. "I mean they let 12 be Scottish and did all those Welsh characters on Torchwood."

"Yes, but that's an irregular situation," Crowley said. "Plus, they never let any of the other Doctors be anything other than English. It's a bloody miracle they allowed a woman or someone from the north. But the show has been more progressive in its newer incarnation, even if I'm not quite sure that Alan Cumming as the Tenth Doctor was exactly the right direction, but it was revolutionary for the time."

"And it irrevocably changed the Doctor's dynamic with Rose and Jack," Ruby acknowledged. "Still massively prefer all other eras, even though Midnight and Blink were incredible performances and I will admit to tearing up during his regeneration." Ruby smiled suddenly. "Aw, Crowley! I got you talking about Doctor Who!"

Crowley was suddenly coming to this horrific realization himself. "No'm not."

"You are! You have opinions!"

"No I don't," he said dismissively. "I don't care."

"You do care! You just had an opinion on the bloke who played the Tenth Doctor!"

"I like Alan Cumming, I do, but I do think there may have been someone better for the job who was overlooked."

"Like who?"

"I dunno. Alan Cumming was already a big name. The beauty of Doctor Who is taking some nobody and catapulting him to new career heights."

"Aw! There's a beauty in Doctor Who! You pay attention! You have opinions! And I fundamentally disagree because Billie Piper wasn't some nobody! Neither was Jodie Whittaker! And Peter Capaldi certainly wasn't!"

"I just thought Ten was a bit mean to Martha. Sort of dismissive."

"Aw! You care about Martha!"

"She wasn't getting obvious signals that that Doctor was gay is all I'm saying."

"Crowley!"

"You two are being adorable," Aziraphale said. "But back to the matter at hand, please!"

"Oh right," Ruby said. "But don't think we're not going to talk about this later!"

"I consider myself forewarned," Crowley groaned.

[aion-rsa]

Who Will Be Doctor Who’s Next Showrunner?

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When big changes come to Doctor Who it’s the Doctor who grabs all the headlines. That, after all, is showbusiness: children don’t ask for bedsheets bedecked with the faces of the show’s writing or production team. It’s the showrunner – much more than anyone else, including the actor playing the lead role – upon whom the fate and fortunes of the show rest. They decide everything from the look, feel and tone of the seasons, to the thrust and arc of the narrative, to who writes, directs and stars – from the smallest bit-part to the Doctor themselves. The buck stops with them, in other words, and a showrunner can very much make or break an era.

So while speculation rages about who will take on the mantle of the 14th Doctor, it’s Chris Chibnall‘s replacement as showrunner who will ultimately carry the weight of the universe on their back. Realistically, a candidate needs not just writing but also producing experience (Chibnall had co- and executive producer credits on Torchwood, Camelot, Law & Order:UK, Broadchurch and more before landing Doctor Who). Because the UK TV industry has significant work to do on widening access for writers and producers of colour, that requirement frustratingly narrows the field for such jobs at present. But let’s have a look at a few options; some shoo-ins for the top spot, some just wildcards, but all of them with something real to offer.      

Pete McTighe

Pete McTighe has the experience and qualities you’d want in a prospective Doctor Who showrunner: he’s been a long-time admirer of the show since the Classic days; he’s written for the show (Series 11’s ‘Kerblam’ and Series 12’s ‘Praxeus’); he’s helmed trailers for the Classic series’ Blu-ray sets; and, perhaps most crucially of all, he has hands-on experience of calling the shots. McTighe’s prison-drama Wentworth (pictured above) first aired in 2013 and has since racked up award after award in its native Australia (McTighe is British). It’s also been something of a critical darling worldwide, routinely praised for a realism and a grittiness that cleaves close to the best HBO dramas. BBC mystery thriller Pact concluded in June and Wentworth‘s final season airs later this month, meaning that McTighe now has a hole in his schedule. Might he be about to fill that jail-shaped gap with a police box? Quite apposite too, perhaps, that McTighe was able to take a show like Prisoner: Cell Block H (as it was known in the UK), a beloved old soap opera from the 1970s/80s, with rickety, wobbly sets and a low-budget aesthetic, and transform it into a lean, mean, emotionally-satisfying, rollicking thrill-ride with contemporary sensibilities. The man has form.

Sarah Dollard

Another Australian connection, this time in the form of bone fide antipodean Sarah Dollard, who wrote ‘Face the Raven‘ and ‘Thin Ice‘ during Peter Capaldi’s tenure. Prior work commitments prevented Dollard from writing for Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, something she lamented at the time.

For those of the ‘Doctor Who has become too political’ persuasion, Dollard’s thoughts on the writing process for ‘Thin Ice’ should serve as both a rebuke and reassurance: “There was no way to write about a woman of colour going into the past on Earth without acknowledging how the colour of her skin would have impacted how people reacted to her there. Obviously, it also had to be entertaining and true to the tone of the show, so I tried to make it an intrinsic part of the story, rather than just add-on.”

Dollard cut her teeth on Australian soap opera Neighbours, and wasn’t long before she was writing for sci-fi and fantasy favourites including Merlin, Primeval, Being Human, Doctor Who, A Discovery of Witches (pictured above) and, most recently, an adaptation of the award-winning Young Adult horror fantasy Cuckoo Song (yet to air on Netflix). Availability could be an issue in whether Dollard could return to Doctor Who as its showrunner, given her busy schedule and writer-producer role on Netflix big-hitter Bridgerton.

Toby Whithouse

There was a time when Toby Whithouse was the heir apparent to Steven Moffat. At least in the eyes of Whovians. In 2015 he said this about speculation that he might be taking over the show post-Moffat: “No-one at the BBC has ever had this conversation with me. No-one has asked me, no-one has approached me about if Steven leaves, when Steven leaves. These are conversations that happen purely among fans, not on any official level.”

Still, he has the pedigree. Not only did Whithouse create Being Human for BBC Three (also one of Sarah Dollard’s first UK writing jobs), but he also wrote for the first three of modern Doctors, notably the episodes ‘School Reunion’, ‘The God Complex’ and ‘Under the Lake/Before the Flood’, showing terrific range, and a deft and respectful approach to the show’s mythos and history. Recently, Whithouse has written for the BBC’s new sci-fi series Noughts and Crosses (pictured above) but seems to have drifted away from Doctor Who. Acknowledging that this is just another conversation happening “purely among fans”, might the allure of the big chair tempt him back?

Kate Herron

Kate Herron may be a reasonably fresh face in the entertainment industry, but already she’s proven herself capable of taking on the sort of awesome responsibility that would make even a grizzled veteran wince. There can be few franchises heavier with expectation than Marvel (along with, perhaps, Doctor Who and Star Trek), and few characters as beloved as Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Kudos to Herron then, for dazzling Kevin Feige with her talent and vision, earning directorial control of the first season of Loki and carrying it out to general acclaim.

Plenty have said that Loki was some of the best Doctor Who we’ve seen in years. It’s hard not to see where they’re coming from when considering the way Loki balances humour, heart, and sci-fi, whilst dabbling with time and dealing with multiple variants of its main character.

Herron recently announced that she wouldn’t be returning for Loki Season 2: ‘I’m really happy to watch it as a fan next season, but I just think I’m proud of what we did here and I’ve given it my all. I’m working on some other stuff yet to be announced.’ It’s this enigmatic ‘other stuff’ that has sent the Doctor Who rumour mill into over-drive. Might Herron be trading one time-wimey extravaganza for another? Might there be a further clue in this other snippet from a recent interview? Time will tell. 

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Mark Gatiss

In some sense, Mark Gatiss is Doctor Who. At the very least the show is encoded in his DNA. Very few people have done so much in, and for, the Whoniverse, and Gatiss has pretty much done it all. He’s written novels set in the Classic Who Universe; he’s acted in the modern iteration of the show (‘The Lazarus Experiment’, ‘The Wedding of River Song’, ‘Twice Upon a Time’); he’s written for the show (most notably ‘The Unquiet Dead’); he’s narrated documentary segments about the show; and he wrote the acclaimed 50th anniversary stand-alone about the early days of the show at the BBC, ‘An Adventure in Space and Time‘.  He’s even been both the Doctor and the Master, albeit in Big Finish form. About the only aspect of Doctor Who Gatiss hasn’t embraced is being in charge. Given how prolific Gatiss is outside of Doctor Who, and how the Sherlock and Dracula (pictured above) co-creator gravitated away from the show in recent years, it’s unlikely – though of course not impossible – that he’d take over from Chris Chibnall.  

J. Michael Straczynski

Now, Twitter is neither a negotiating table, nor often a particularly accurate representation of objective reality. Still, there’s no reason to suspect that J. Michael Straczynski’s recent enthusiastic offer to replace Chris Chibnall is anything less than sincere. Less tangible is the real-world prospect of the job ever being offered to him. Not because he couldn’t rise to the challenge – the man is a sci-fi behemoth, his work straddling the mediums of the graphic novel, TV and cinema, and encompassing damn near everything from Murder She Wrote to Marvel, DC to World War Z, and Ghostbusters to Babylon 5 (pictured above)– but down to the BBC preferring to hand the reins of its flagship family sci-fi show to someone UK-based. It doesn’t stop us wondering, though, how the man behind the deliciously cluttered, cultured and brilliant Babylon 5 would transform the Whoniverse.

Vinay Patel

For Series 11, Chris Chibnall wanted a range of fresh, representative voices that would better reflect the diversity of the show’s audience, and open up new avenues of dramatic possibilities. Vinay Patel is one of that influx of new writers who excelled himself by turning in arguably two of the Whittaker era’s best-regarded episodes. ‘Demons of the Punjab’ (pictured above) shone a light on a part of post-colonial history never before illuminated by Doctor Who, and did so with heart and conviction. ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ proved that Patel could handle a more whacky, twisty-turny, lore-filled story.

Patel started as a corporate film-maker, but wasn’t satisfied with his lot, so poured his talents into an MA in writing for stage and broadcast media, an inspired choice that led him to the theatre, and then on to the BAFTA-nominated drama Murdered by My Father. His writing is intensely personal and political, barbed but with heart, intersecting notions of power, family, history and belonging.  

Whether or not Vinay Patel has a realistic shot at the top spot – he’s still relatively untested in TV (but then so was Kate Herron before Loki) – it’s a shame that a show so committed to representation on-screen has so few prospective showrunners from a BAME background. Wherever Patel’s talents are next channelled, though, it’s obvious he has a blindingly bright future ahead of him.

Reece Shearsmith & Steve Pemberton

An unlikely prospect, we’re forced to admit, but a delicious one. The pair are, of course, no strangers to the Whoniverse. Steve Pemberton played Strackman Lux in the fan-favourite Tennant-two-parter ‘Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead’. Reece Shearsmith featured in Season 9 episode ‘Sleep No More‘, written by Shearsmith’s old friend and fellow League of Gentlemen star and co-creator Mark Gatiss. Shearsmith also portrayed Patrick Troughton and the Second Doctor in ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’.

However, it’s Shearsmith and Pemberton’s astonishing work on the raven-black comedy-drama anthology series Inside No. 9 (pictured above) that makes them such a tantalising prospect for the top spot. They’ve proven that they can play around with places, times, and tones like true artists, offering up silent, screwball comedy one week, then cruelly funny farce the next, followed by something so truly beautiful and heart-breaking it’ll make your soul flat-line the next. They’d be wildcards, certainly, but quite possibly a cross between a game-changer and a Godsend for Doctor Who.  

Sally Wainwright

Sally Wainwright, like many of the candidates on this list, began her career writing for a soap opera, in her case the long-running and much-beloved BBC Radio 4 show The Archers. She was soon poached by the bosses of UK TV soap Emmerdale, but swiftly sacked when she said in a newspaper interview that Emmerdale“was shit, because the script editors re-wrote everything” and went on to Coronation Street.

Sci-fi fans can be sniffy about soap operas, as if sci-fi writers emerge from a cocoon fully-fledged and ready to write about far-off galaxies and alien races, but that’s tosh. If it weren’t for soaps, Paul Abbott, Jimmy McGovern, Sarah Phelps and countless other of the UK’s best screenwriters wouldn’t have had their starts. Step forward Sally Wainwright, who now stands as a behemoth in the UK TV landscape, having helmed arguably two of the most important and popular shows of recent years, Last Tango in Halifax and the astonishing Happy Valley. Her talent has now gone global. She’s currently in charge of HBO-BBC co-production Gentleman Jack, and is working with Sandra Bullock on a new TV series.

Sally Wainwright’s output and vision is supreme; her writing is raw and electric, real and illuminating, her characters so lived-in and realised that you could take them from the screen and put them in your living room and mistake them for your own family. Wainwright is probably too busy to take on the job of showrunner, but what a boon for Doctor Who her helmship would be.

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Doctor Who Series 13 will air on BBC One and BBC America this autumn.

The post Who Will Be Doctor Who’s Next Showrunner? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[raywritesthings]

Bill Potts appreciation day snuck up on me, and I feel bad because I was gonna write a fic, but at this point if I start now it's gonna come out very cliche and rushed and Bill deserves better than that. So instead, I've decided to write a little something about what Bill means to me. For a while there, my excitement for Doctor Who had been dwindling. And no, I'm not one of those "Moffat sucks" people, so please do not turn my post into that discourse. A combination of factors came together to make my lack of enthusiasm for a show I once loved happen. A lot of my irl friends who first got me into the show had left the fandom; I'd missed a lot of s8-9 episodes due to my work hours and thus wasn't as connected to the current story; and the hiatus between s9 and 10 was kind of a buzzkill as far as hype for the show went. I was still enjoying what was coming out for the most part (specifically, The Husbands of River Song), but I wasn't sure whether to continue keeping up because I didn't want the show to become like some kind of chore for me. Nevertheless, I was curious when the new companion was announced, so I watched the preview clip that is now part of The Pilot. And... I loved it. Bill was fun, inquisitive. She played off the Doctor in a wholly unique and entertaining way, and if I was upset about anything it was that she wasn't going to be in the upcoming Christmas special and they were making us wait so long for her. This, by the way, was before anyone knew anything about her orientation. And while that is a hugely important part of Bill, I think it's important to note that she is so much more than the Lesbian Companion. She's a delightful person who happens, delightfully, to be a lesbian. And then that announcement about her sexuality came out. Honestly, that was huge. Like, Clara's bisexuality smacks anyone who's looking for it in the face, and River mentioned a wife two Christmases ago, but with Bill the first thing they wanted you to know was that she was gay. I was just as excited as I was fearful because it was representation like main Doctor Who (put down the pitchforks, Torchwood fans) had never really had and she was not only queer but black and queer which was even huger - but would it be good representation? Bill, and Pearl's performance, answered that for me in the very first scene. She was funny, she was sweet, and she was unapologetically gay. She was allowed to show interest in two women over the course of the episode without being shamed or - as has admittedly happened on the show pretty frequently - being automatically hyper-sexualized. The show also grounded her in reality in regards to her situation via the micro-aggressions of her step-mum in a way no other New Who queer character really has been. While the show did not revel in Gay Angst, it did acknowledge that sometimes it sucks to be gay or anything queer in the 21st century with it's heteronormative view, which is something that's largely been ignored in past seasons. Simply put, Bill felt like someone real and someone I wanted to get to know. For the first time in years, I made the effort to try and catch every episode either when or immediately after it aired. And because of Bill, I got to enjoy so much more along with her. Peter Capaldi's performance, Michelle Gomez as a semi-regular treat, the Mondasian Cybermen who I hadn't seen since starting my Classic Who watch! I also got back into writing for Doctor Who, and I honestly forgot why I ever stopped, because while this fandom like any undoubtedly has issues or points of contention, it's so large and limitless and fun. Bill reminded me of that. Bill inspired me. Her friendship with the Doctor highlighted everything I love about that alien. Her dates with Penny, conversations with Romans, and kiss with Heather on prime time tv gave me hope that things can get better for all of us, for the marginalized. Her circumventing death to become immortal was a giant up yours to every show that has ever killed off queer women, women of color, and those who are both. I am overjoyed we will get an encore of Pearl's magnificence in the Christmas special, sad as I am to see her go. But I am also excited to see what comes next on Doctor Who, because it is always only a matter of time when the show manages - out of seven billion people - to find someone like Bill Potts. Thank you, Bill.

[youremyonlyhope]

Thin Ice

I missed the original airing at 9 so now it’s midnight. I was doing so good for the first two episodes, catching them right when they aired. Looks like I’m back to missing the initial airings again.

I also missed the first minute or so. Did I hear correctly that Bill pointed out her melanin? I was talking to my dad during that part and then I saw her point to her skin and say something that sounded like melanin. Aaaaaaannnnndddd THAT’S AN EYE. I just said “Ooooooh.... noooooo......” out loud when I saw the life form that was detected NOPE. (Also I appreciate the Old Who reference there with them walking away from the screen basically saying “DANGER. DOCTOR YOU IDIOT STAY INSIDE.”) Ok so Bill talks about racism and then mentions the butterfly effect. Why are they basically recreating Martha’s first visit to the past? Yeah, racism needed to be addressed, but not nearly word for word for what Martha said... “Just time travel. Don’t overthink it.” If there’s anything that’s worth overthinking, it’s time travel. I need to take a second to say that when I saw the set pictures from this episode, I was OVERJOYED by her hair. Amazing. Natural hair in a period style? Yes. I love it. I’m so happy Bill is not only natural but they are styling her hair too. “I hope you realize I’m gonna try everything. EVERYTHING.” She’s adorable. “Regency England. A bit more black than they show in the movies.” “So was Jesus...” I was too busy gasping loudly in happiness to hear the last half of his sentence. “Are there side effects to time travel? Like physical symptoms?” Yes. Your antibodies change and then strange men want to experiment on you with an alien drug that makes your body basically reset itself but in the process you grow a larva in your stomach that eventually will burst out but the time travel altered antibodies make you last longer than any other test subject but then you need to be saved by an adorable froggy medical officer using a tool he won’t ever get to work properly until the moment it works on you. Or maybe not. Bill, just don’t join Torchwood. Um... how... did he... just go down... without the ice breaking... Yeah running through acrobats is a good obstacle. “How is it sonic?” “It makes sound.” DOCTOR. THIS IS WHERE CLARA’S POLITENESS CARDS WOULD COME IN HANDY. A BOY JUST GOT PULLED UNDER. “If you care so much, tell me how many people you’ve seen die.” Ha. Haha. That was probably the saddest laugh I’ve ever laughed. “How many did you see before you lost count?” She’s asking the right questions. “I’ve never had the time for the luxury of outrage.” Ok, but you get mad a lot Doctor. Doctor, you stole a lot of pies. AHHHHHHH I JUST CAN’T TAKE THE DOCTOR WITH CHILDREN. MY HEART CAN’T HANDLE IT. I was gonna say earlier that they’re probably just those fish that have lights on them, and didn’t write it down, and look at that it’s those fish with lights on them and I should have written it down. Annnnnnnnd there’s the eye again. BILL, GIRL, WHY WOULD YOU WALK CLOSER? “You’re a cheat! I love your work!” Oh Doctor.

Someone predicted earlier that this episode might be about the whale from the episode of Torchwood with the giant whale that was constantly growing and having its meat taken from it. God... that episode was messed up and broke my heart... And I think it really might be the same species of whale since the sound it makes is so heartbreaking... But it’s really long... Way longer than the Meat whale was... so maybe not?... Could the Meat whale have grown that long? If it hadn’t been mutilated for its meat constantly? These poor space whales. How does something so huge always end up in captivity? ALSO, IS THIS THEIR WAY OF ACKNOWLEDGING THAT CAPALDI WAS IN TORCHWOOD? BECAUSE I WANT A REFERENCE TO FROBISHER, NOT TORCHWOOD IN GENERAL. BUT THIS IS A START.

So people becomes fuel? “It even burns underwater.” “No sh-” OH MY GOD The Doctor has a point; Bill has a temper and cares too much and that could become a bad combination. DID HE JUST CALL HER A CREATURE? EXC - Never mind. The Doctor punched him before I could even finish saying “excuse me”. I literally said “EXC - oh, yeah ok.” out loud in reaction to that scene. This Sutcliffe guy might legitimately be the most evil person in this entire show ever. Racist and hold a giant alien whale thing hostage in chains and killing people to make fuel? “No time for an outrage.” Bill has a point. Well. He saved his sonic again. Oh, people. We just do what other people do. It’s working in humanity’s favor for once. YES DOCTOR. YES. DOCTOR I LOVE YOU. I almost wish that Sutcliffe had had a more painful death. So it’s not a whale. I had a feeling it wasn’t, then the sound it made happened. I guess I just REALLY want Doctor Who to acknowledge Torchwood while Capaldi is still here. “Don’t stare when the lady talks peculiar. It’s rude.” I’m dead that’s hilarious. Oh Nardole. I want to know more about what happened to the kids after they left though. WHAT. IS. IN. THAT. VAULT? Is it Missy? Has she changed her knocking pattern from 4 to 3?

I watched the promo for the next episode. What the hell? Also, did the spoilers lie to me when they said Bill lived in the Blink house? Because now it doesn’t look like it as much... hmm...

[youremyonlyhope]

Twice Upon a Time

For the first time in 5 years, I am watching the Christmas Special as it airs.

Ft. My dad. Who got sucked in by the opening scene of the Doctors meeting and decided to stay and watch the rest.

Ahhhhh 709 episodes ago! Amazing He did this before???? Oh Capaldi how I’ll miss you. Oh god if One doesn’t regenerate then... everything’s a paradox. Why is time frozen for him too? AND WHAT IS THAT GHOST THING? AND WHAT DO THEY MEAN BY TIME LINE ERROR. OH NO. “World War One? What do you mean, ‘one?’” God. That moment got me in the promo scenes and it’s still getting me. I have a weak point for WWI for some reason. “My nurse.” OH DOCTOR HOW I ALWAYS LOVE YOU. Ok but not the “It seems weird that he’s a man.” part. That’s a no.

My dad is watching with me. He’s enjoying the two Doctors interacting.

They’re being taken by a giant Sim’s diamond plumbob thing. Ok. Chamber of the dead? “The Doctor of war.” Oh god no.  BILL! OK yeah but is it the real Bill? Sunglasses! I LOVE THE SONIC SUNGLASSES. Wait, they harvest from the dying? What? What do they harvest? And how does this fit into the Nethersphere and the Duroc death nothingness of Torchwood? The Whoniverse has introduced so many different forms and theories of the afterlife in the last 10 years. This one at least can fit in with the other two, just time pausing before their death to take memories, then they die and go to the Nethersphere/Torchwood nothingness. Why would the Doctor have to trade the Captain for BIll? BIll’s immortal last time I checked.

Just did a general background of season 10 and the puddles to my dad because he was like “Did she say she’s a puddle?” And I was like I’ll explain later.

Also my dad and I got into a huge argument about Doctor Who and theology and god and death and heaven and hell so I might have missed some stuff.

Is this when the Tardis starts constantly messing up and taking the Doctor where he needs to be not where he wants to be? Bill is not having this sexism. Thank god. FIRST DOCTOR OH MY GOD. SMACK BOTTOM WHAT?!?!?!?!?!! WAS THE FIRST DOCTOR REALLY THIS SEXIST ALL THE TIME? I’VE ONLY SEEN A FEW FIRST DOCTOR STORIES BUT HE WASN’T LIKE THIS! OR I DON’T REMEMBER. The Doctor has had some MAJOR character development over the last 50 (or 1500) years. OH how I am going to miss Bill and Twelve. My dad also really liked the scene and how they interacted. OH NO IT ISN’T BILL. Do they harvest their memories? Or maybe their souls? Something like that. Because it seems like Bill. Is it a Dalek shooting? IT IS A DALEK!! RUSTY!? I THINK I REMEMBER RUSTY! Oh if they mention “Good man” one more time I will either cry or I’ll scream because they still won’t acknowledge Frobisher. Ooooooh an older Doctor Who theme is playing. I KNEW IT WAS MEMORY. I CALLED IT. OK at least it’s Bill. Kind of. Basically Bill. HEY. THAT’S BETH FROM TORCHWOOD. SLEEPER. YES GIRL. “Well I don’t really know what to do if it isn’t a evil plan.” Amazing. Both me and my dad died of laughter.

“OH she’s even cuter off the show! You think they make her cute for the show, but just interviewing her she’s even cuter!” - My dad on Pearl Mackie during the little behind-the-scenes bit in the commercial break.

My dad’s been analyzing this episode theologically. He thinks this is some sort of Holy Trinity, the First Doctor, The Twelfth Doctor, and the Thirteenth Doctor (or maybe glass Bill is the Holy Ghost). And I googled “1 12 13″ and it gave me John 1:12-13 and I read it to him and he thinks it applies. I don’t. But whatever.

He’s gonna be related to someone. He’s gonna end up being related to someone we already know. OH MY GOD LETHBRIDGE STEWART!!!??!?!?!??? OH MY GOD. I SQUEALED. I HIT MY HEAD ON THE BACK OF MY COUCH BECAUSE I THREW MY HEAD BACK. I KNEW IT. OH MY GOD. THEY’RE SINGING SILENT NIGHT. I JUST HELD MY DAD’S HAND. THIS IS A TRUE STORY. HE’S TOLD ME THIS STORY MANY TIMES. I’m not crying you’re crying. Oh this is an older theme too playing why the First Doctor regenerates.

Oh, we could not have asked for a better send off for Capaldi. My dad just was like “Oh this must have been a great Christmas special for fans” after the old footage of his regeneration finished. And Capaldi’s loved Doctor Who since the beginning. So they really could not have had better end for him.

Oh, he’s gonna regenerate in the next 10 minutes. Noooo Capaldi stay a little longer. CLARA. Oh my god he forgot Clara AND HE REMEMBERS HER. I LITERALLY FORGOT UP UNTIL THIS MOMENT THAT THE DOCTOR FORGOT CLARA. I literally was like “...is it Clara? It’s Clara! Clara - b-but hE FORGOT CLARA.” out loud since I realized it mid-sentence and my dad was like “What?” BUT BILL GAVE BACK THE MEMORIES. OH ALL THE PAST DOCTOR REFERENCES. AND THERE SHE IS!!!!!! WHITTAKER! OH NO. HER FIRST ADVENTURE IS GONNA BE FINDING THE TARDIS. GREAT.

Ok. I swear. The first person that I see say something along the lines of “See, the Doctor can’t drive the TARDIS anymore since she’s a woman” I will personally murder them. PERSONALLY. Because I know someone out there will make that joke. And they will be found dead in the morning. And you will know who did it.

Oh I miss Capaldi already.

Watching the End of an Era look back at Capaldi’s run now.

OH. Oh how I love Capaldi.  I’d forgotten about him telling Strax “Shush” immediately when he opened the TARDIS doors. Me and Dad laughed so hard just now. I love Capaldi. Capaldi is definitely nearly tied with Nine in my heart. Twelve is officially above Ten and Eleven. It’s official. Sorry Tennant and Smith, I love you, but I love Capaldi more than you two. Moffat has had a very important impact on Doctor Who, no matter what his devoted haters think. (Me, I have my issues with him, but I don’t hate him. I appreciate him for what he’s done.) My dad’s saying he loves Vincent and the Doctor the best out of the episodes shown from Moffat’s era. “We always hope we can make people cry on Christmas Day.” YEAH OK. THANKS. PROOF THAT DOCTOR WHO HAS NO CLUE WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT. Oh god I’m gonna miss Capaldi.

I loved this episode. And I loved David Bradley coming back to be the First Doctor. And I loved Capaldi’s everything.

I think the only thing I’m iffy about the episode was the remembering Clara part. I liked that the Doctor forgot her, even though I love Clara and it broke my heart. I don’t like that they reversed all that 2 years later. BUT THAT’S LITERALLY MY ONLY COMPLAINT. SO YAY.