#but chibnall really did make me work for it

[turbro]

In the rearview, Chibnall's era of Doctor Who had a lot of problems that are partly his fault and partly the network.

His plots are overstuffed and hamfisted, he has too many characters and plot threads running at once so it never feels like anything is escalating, de-escalating, resolved, or deepened. I don't personally mind what he's done with The Lore but I know a lot of people are mad about it (just wait 10 years, it'll get retconned again, it always does).

The explicit denial of the lesbian kiss I'll chalk up to BBC, he worked on Torchwood after all. The asinine scheduling was COVID partly and Network mostly, meaning I'm having trouble keeping these overstuffed plots in mind long enough to care about the next episode (a YEAR between two episodes after 5 months between them prior to that is fucking insane)

But damn, the cylinders the show is firing on are great.

Once the characters got some screen time and breathing room they became more likable than anyone from Moffat era (except maybe Gomez-Master [i refuse to call her mistress] and Bill), it was nice to have a Doctor who actually gave a shit about the people around her again, outside of their Place in the Puzzle. The CG and costume design is really fun to look at, and I appreciate the rough, old, re-re-re-used look of all the Doctor's tech as opposed to the very Sleek And New look that Capaldi had which always rubbed me wrong.

When Chibnall is forced to introduce and wrap up something in one episode he's great at it, but he didn't really get to do that too much and it shows.

[txttletale]

(Other than the really weird bit about "Male presenting Doctor") what were your thoughts about the specials?

pretty mixed bag, pretty messy, but good overall. i think they were very obviously a nostalgia trip for people around my age lol and it worked! i loved seeing tennant and tate back onscreen together, their chemistry hasn't aged a bit, and honestly just watching doctor who that wasn't written by chris chibnall was a breath of fresh air. they weren't boring, like seasons 11 and 12 were, and they didn't go too far off the other end into nonsense like flux did. characters want things again! the show can let itself just be silly! i was literally cheering out loud when donna and the doctor were just saying random scifi gobbledegook at each other for like a solid several minutes during the star beast.

the structure of the specials kind of baffles me. i love wild blue yonder--i think it's definitively the best of the specials as a standalone, it's absolutely fantastic, creepy and atmospheric and bringing things around to RTD's strength, which is well-written characters interacting with each other and letting good actors just act. but at the same time i dont understand why it exists? it feels like...idk. imagine if you watched the star wars original trilogy but instead of the empire strikes back the middle film was just a feature length film about luke and han surviving on an ice planet with no reference to anything that happens in the last film except the two characters' relationship. and then the next film was still return of the jedi, unchanged. it felt like that

i liked all the weird campy silliness of the star beast and the giggle, and they were both very fun! neil patrick harris gave a fantastic performance, there are a lot of very memorable sequences from the giggle, but it's very very all over the place. so many threads get kind of picked up and go nowhere. the toymaker's haunted house dimension goes nowhere. RTD's eyerolling social media commetnary goes nowhere (thank god tbh but yknow im illustrating something here). even the toymaker kind of goes nowhere, after ncuti gatwa shows up he's bascially an afterthought who loses by dropping a ball. obvious parallels to david tennant's first episode with that ball scene could be made, but just... aren't. it feels like load-bearing sectikons of the plot and themes were cut out to make room for a backdoor pilot for the stupid fucking UNIT spinoff

oh and it goes without saying i fucking hate all the UNIT wank in the star beast and the giggle. i hope space nine eleven 2 happens to their stupid fucking avengers tower i cannot stand kate stewart who is constantly a murderous bonehead (in the giggle alone she gets two pepole killed by not listening to the doctor and assuming that this teleporting godlike entity could be restrainted by Two Guys) who is both in and out of universe just a boring nepo baby with no merit of her own

um. i still dont know what happened with the regeneration. i think the implication is that when david tennant dies hell time travel back to become ncuti gatwa inside himself--at least the rehab dialogue seems to make that implication. but it's not really explained or explored? baffling. i do think that fourteen getting to settle down and live a peaceful life with his friends is cute.

oh yeah and the ask said other than that but goddd there was some good stuff in the star beast and honestly with the state of the UK media i will take any perspective on trans people that includes baseline human erespect but some of those lines made me cringe so bad. anyway overall i am cautiously optimistic for the future of the show--oh ncuti was fucking great did i mention that i instantly bnought him as the doctor he owned the scene, the moment he was there it was clear he was the protagonist, and i liked the church on ruby road well enough too--i am cautiously optimistic but i worry that a big UNIT-shaped tumor will devour huge chunks of it and it'll be annoying. also russel t davies is like 60 and i just dont want to hear what he has to say about twitter so im not looking forward to dot and bubble

[nipuni]

Some various lighthearted life updates 🏃‍♀️

It's been a very busy last few months! in a good way mostly. We had a friend visiting us from overseas so we showed him around the city and took him to all our favourite places. We also met new people and were invited to a bunch of events so it's been very fun! We are all out of social battery tho so now we are slowing down a bit and getting back to work. Nicolas is on a short work trip to Berlin and I'm back to painting. We also started running! aaand we are also back to watching a bunch of shows and to me talking about it here to like five people 😌

Under the cut cause it's a lot as usual!

We finished watching S13 of Doctor Who! (we still have the specials to go but after that we are all caught up!) I haven't updated in ages so here are lot of opinions!

We really did not enjoy S11 😞 I was aware it wasn't very popular but we were hoping it was for all the wrong reasons, sadly we found many to be valid. Some of the episodes were baffling, Rosa? Kerblam?! the writing of the whole season in general felt like a rushed school assignment. The first part of Spyfall was a strong start for the next season but that ending in the second part was really not it. We did love Sacha Dhawan's Master tho!! and we really love Jodie too, 13th is adorable and reminded us of Ten at times! Jodie is such a fantastic actress that it makes the quality of the writing and everything else around her even more frustrating 😫 S12 was an improvement in general. In the last few episodes It felt like the writing team suddenly remembered the companions could have a personality and agency lmao. Highlights for us were Spyfall one, Fugitive of the Judoon and Haunting of villa Diodati, tho we did also enjoy most other episodes of the season despite their issues.

The timeless child plot reveal felt a bit underwhelming? The idea on itself has potential but it felt mishandled (and it had a bit of a Moffat flavour to it? and not in a good way). I think it was meant to add more depth to the Doctor's lore but in a way it ends up having the opposite effect. Then the flux was just a complete mess. It read like a Marvel sort of plot, very comic book like which is alright I suppose if that is something you enjoy but it felt out of place. But mostly it was just way too much, it got out of hand. Anyway we still have the specials to watch! and I think the Master is in them so we are looking forward to it 🥰

We also watched Broadchurch!! and we LOVED it. We ended up binging all three seasons. Chibnall's writing on this is surprisingly great and Jodie's acting is spectacular she really shines here. Olivia and David are always brilliant!! honestly everyone's acting was amazing. This series had us both tearing up every five scenes. The direction and the music are outstanding. I could watch Hardy and Miller solve crimes forever I really love their chemistry and dynamic. We went into it expecting the usual detective fiction but it ended up being a whole study on grief with such a focus on family and community and trauma and a ton of touching interconnected character arcs, just really really good!!

Then we also watched Taking over the Asylum!! MAN we were not expecting to have our hearts wrung out like laundry by this!! We thought it was a lighthearted show!! GOD we are still not over it, what the fuck!! It was so good we loved it!! but we were not prepared lmao what do you mean 'the end'?? we'll be thinking of this for months, I was expecting an extra scene after the credits or something. Excellent characters, refreshing depictions of mental illness and trauma and so crushingly realistic. Every character is so loveable I really wish this was longer 😭

And our quest to watch everything with David Tennant on it continues. We watched Decoy Bride on Valentines day too and it was terrible but such a hilarious fever dream kind of bad that it was fun, it has David on it and he never disappoints. I feel so lucky that Nicolas and I are both in love with him, get yourself a man who shares your celebrity crushes lmao it's so fun!! We feel like teens again chatting about him and drawing little hearts next to his pictures haha 🥰 We watched the BAFTAs just for him and speaking of the baftas!! I was not expecting that last drawing of his outfits to get that much attention oh my god 😭 thank you!! you are all insane and I appreciate it so much!! and thank you for all the support in general, about my art and photos and just everything. I feel very lucky and grateful 😭 anyway I'll end this before I get sappy, that is all for now! I hope this week is kind to you all, I'll be sharing some more art soon 😊

[timeagainreviews]

Witnessing Greatness

Thinking about the most recent episode of Doctor Who, I find myself reminded of Roger Corman, who died last month. Corman was a producer and director of b-movies and television. He was also beloved by industry titans due to his work ethic and ingenuity as a filmmaker. What made Corman so unique is how he dealt with limitations. If an aspect of one of his films was lacking, he made up for it in other departments. If the effects were bad, the script had to be great. If the acting was hammy, he’d make sure the music gave it strength. Instead of spreading everything thin, he knew that giving a little bit more attention to individual elements would make for an overall better experience. If you’re not firing on all cylinders, make sure the ones that do are firing brightly.

“Rogue,” is an episode with many bright shining points, lighting up the sky of Regency Era Britain. But lost within that light are a few flickering bulbs that could stand to be turned a bit tighter. However, it’s not as though we’re poking around in the dark. Without a doubt, the brightest star in the Whoniverse at the moment is Ncuti Gatwa. In a stand-out performance from a series of stand-out performances, Gatwa has really outdone himself this week and I can’t wait to talk about it. The folks at Bad Wolf Studios have refused to spread things thin, but no story is perfect. For as much as I enjoyed this week’s episode, I didn’t have to reach far to find problems. But when I’m smiling this much, it’s harder to care.

It’s funny how a week ago I said I didn’t like fan theories and then promptly made one. Just as promptly, I am now abandoning that theory. After the trailer for next week’s episode, I no longer think Susan Twist is the Rani. I officially don’t know what I think. I kind of love that. I have seen the rumours of Susan Twist being Sutekh. Maybe the Doctor is in the Land of Fiction. The name S Triad is an anagram of the word TARDIS. Perhaps she’s the original owner of the TARDIS coming to retrieve it. The point is, she could be anyone, and I am not all that worried about it. Why that feels important is that I was often full of dread waiting for Chibnall’s next big reveal. I didn’t look forward to the ways in which he might next waste a concept by not properly exploring it. So being in a place where I am game for whatever feels zen.

Having two new writers this week was a major draw for me. I’ve seen what both Davies and Moffat can do, the good and the bad. This is the first time all season where I felt like we were truly wandering into the unknown. I did watch Loki season one, so I was familiar with Kate Herron’s work, but not as a writer. I was even less familiar with Briony Redman. But like I said, I’m game for whatever. The pair bring a metatextual reading to the Regency Era drama that fits Doctor Who’s brand of camp. I was reminded of Kate Beaton’s satirical comics from her “Hark! A Vagrant” series. “Rogue,” acts as a sort of love-letter to Jane Austen, so it’s only appropriate that they treat it with a playful touch. The Doctor and Ruby aren’t just visiting Bath in 1813, they’re cosplaying Bridgerton. But they’re not the only anachronistic party goers. This bash is about to go to the birds.

Leading up to this episode, an article in Doctor Who Magazine had given us random lines of dialogue from each story, including this one. However, the line “Psychic earrings. Choreography beamed into your motor system. Tap twice to choose your moves. It's like instant Strictly!” left me a bit nervous. We were fresh off of “The Devil’s Chord,” and part of me was wondering if they weren’t suddenly turning Doctor Who into a variety show. I’m joking a little, but I was rather relieved when the line turned out to be about dancing at the Duchess’ ball. The Doctor and Ruby are dressed to the nines in their period appropriate clothing. I love the idea of the Doctor wearing more from his wardrobe as it’s always been fun in the past. Tom Baker’s tartan tam o’ shanter in “Terror of the Zygons,” is one of his most iconic costumes. Ncuti said in an interview that he wanted his costume to make him look like he owned land. It’s a brilliant image to depict when you consider the Regency Era was merely four years away from the abolition of slavery in Britain.

The Regency Era also brought with it a change in men’s attire. Dandies like Beau Brummell popularised a look of comfort and wealth while simultaneously streamlining much of the frills from 18th century fashion. It’s funny to look at the ruffles of a dandy’s attire and consider it anything other than flamboyant, but it was a considerable shift toward more conservative styles. While women’s fashion continued to evolve, men’s fashion stagnated a bit. A standard had been established and you can still see its influence today with the basic suit and tie combo. No wonder the Doctors often dress like variations on Edwardian fashion.

The opulence of the period led to a lot of scandalising and gossip, which has given us centuries of great drama. While I’ve never read “Emma,” I have seen “Clueless.” I’ve never watched Bridgerton, but I can still get into the costuming and pomp. Basically you don’t need to be a fan of the genre to know the tropes. It was a nice change of pace that it was Ruby’s love for a tv show that puts things into motion. The Doctor and Ruby are tourists as much as the Chuldur, but with far less deadly consequences. Both groups are there to experience the emotional highs of the time, but the Chuldur don’t care who they hurt in order to do it. This of course is why Rogue, a bounty hunter, has also crashed the party.

You’ll be pleased to know I actually remembered to watch “Doctor Who Unleashed,” this week. Partly because I had some questions, but mostly because I wanted to hear them talk about the costumes and make-up effects. Davies mentioned that the season hadn’t yet had its baddie in a mask trying to take over the world, which I love that he considers. If you read my review of “The Witchfinders,” you may recall how much I appreciated the Morax being scenery chewing people in latex makeup. There’s something essentially Doctor Who about bug eyed monsters (sorry Sydney) and there’s something very RTD when those monsters have animal heads. Davies is now confirmed as a furry, I’m calling it.

The Chuldur share their appearance with birds, something we don’t often see in Doctor Who. I’m trying to recall bird villains from the show and I am coming up a bit short. There were the Shansheeth in the Sarah Jane Adventures, those bird people on Varos, that heavenly chicken from “The Time Monster,” and the Black Guardian’s hat. Considering all of the reptiles we get, I’m surprised we’ve gotten so few birds. If you also watched the Unleashed episode, you may have noticed that they digitally changed the bird version of Emily’s beak from black to orange. It’s the Vinvocci’s green faces from “The End of Time,” all over again! What’s funny is that this change in Emily’s beak gives her something of a penguin appearance. It’s not exactly the shapeshifting penguin I was hoping for, but I digress.

Speaking of shapeshifting, I rather enjoyed the Chuldur’s unique method of doing so. If you recall, when the Duchess spots her servant out in the garden, the bird form of the servant is played by the same actor as the servant. It’s not until she takes the form of the Duchess that her bird form also takes on the resemblance of Indira Varma. You don’t usually see that and I admire them for making two versions of the same makeup, if nothing else. Doctor Who has had its share of shapeshifters, so it’s nice to see them changing up the formula a bit. Unfortunately for the Duchess, this isn’t a Zygon type of body snatching where you have to keep the person you’re copying alive.

Ruby’s psychic earrings are doing a treat until they begin picking up interference from Rogue’s tech. A lot of people have mentioned that this episode seems to borrow a lot from “An Empty Child,” and so it’s only appropriate that the Doctor does a scan for alien tech. The source of the interference directs the Doctor toward the balcony where Rogue stands brooding. Meanwhile, the Chuldur version of Lord Barton has taken a liking to Ruby. The Duchess, still human at this point, attempts to introduce them, but Ruby is not impressed by the pompous dandy, referring to him as Lord Stilton. As Ruby strops away she notices a painting of Susan Twist’s character as an old matron. The Duchess refers to her as “the Duke’s late mother,” whose eyes still follow her around the room in judgement.

The Duchess takes her leave to the garden where she meets her fate with the Chuldur masquerading as her servant. We get a bit more of a look at what exactly the Chuldur do when they take over your body. What’s left of the duchess is little more than a desiccated husk. Meanwhile, in the study, Ruby has stumbled upon a rather intimate moment between Lord Barton and Emily. The bookcase obscuring her from the two frames them like a television screen. Ruby is unable to look away from the real life Bridgerton scene playing out in front of her. The Lord tells Emily that he will not marry her which would leave her ruined, but he is compelled by her nonetheless. However, before they can kiss, Ruby knocks a pile of books onto her head causing a disturbance. I rather loved this moment for Millie Gibson. It’s rare that women get to be portrayed as clumsy and that book definitely bonked her on the head. A great bit of physical comedy.

The Lord storms out of the room leaving Emily and Ruby to talk. Removed from the framing of the bookshelf, Ruby finds her compassion once more and comforts Emily. After all, Lord Barton was being a bit of an ass toward her. Emily is amused by Ruby’s modern sensibilities and lack of finery. You could tell this scene was written by two women as they actually take the time to let them have this moment. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Rogue take a stroll through the garden in order to size one another up. There’s a flirtatious energy between the two but a wary tension underlies the conversation. The Doctor muses about the stars, but on a terrestrial level. It’s not until he finds the Duchess’ shoe and then the rest of her that he gives away that he is not of this world. Rogue sees the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and begins to suspect the Doctor is a Chuldur in disguise. The two confront one another as the culprit, but Rogue has the bigger gun.

Still comparing sizes, the Doctor and Rogue compare ships like they were Ten and Eleven comparing sonic screwdrivers. Speaking of sonic screwdrivers, it feels appropriate that the Doctor’s sonic would match his outfit. That’s so Fifteen. He’s a fashionable Doctor, so of course he would accessorise. It’s like they made his wardrobe and accessories with cosplay in mind. Rogue’s costume is also noteworthy. People have drawn comparisons between Rogue and Jack Harkness and it’s not difficult to understand. His long coat draws parallels to that of Jacks and he even mentions assembling cabinets in regards to the sonic. But what’s equally interesting is how Rogue’s gun resembles the type of handgun you would see in a Regency Era duel. Its barrel resembles that of a blunderbuss. He’s either deep undercover, or he’s got a thing for cosplay himself.

Rogue doesn’t get a lot of time for character development, but they do give him a few little moments, mostly through environmental storytelling. He has a striking birdlike ship fit for a heroic rogue, but inside it’s dirty and depressing. Possibly most telling on Rogue’s ship are the set of orange dice on his table. Rogue gets his name from Dungeons and Dragons, but beyond being a geek, these dice could tell us more about his personality. We learn that Rogue has lost someone, perhaps these dice belonged to them. Perhaps he is unable to move the dice from that spot because he didn’t leave them there. We also learn later that Rogue isn’t a very strong roleplayer. He’s quieter and more thoughtful in his improvisation. Perhaps his staged tryst was the first time anyone has asked him to roleplay since losing his partner. Either way, Jonathan Groff plays it with a vulnerable subtlety, and I loved it.

Speaking of loved it, we have now reached the portion of this article where I gush over Ncuti Gatwa. Now, I need to preface this by reminding you all that I have always been pro-Ncuti. I adored his portrayal of Eric Effiong in Sex Education. I never doubted for a second that he could pull it off. However, it wasn’t until this episode that his Doctor finally crystalised for me. We’ve seen that his Doctor could be flirtatious and fun, but we hadn’t yet seen the way in which he could use that to do Doctory things. We’ve had hot Doctors, but we’ve never had a Doctor who was so effortlessly hot. He’s hot in the same way the Second Doctor was bumbling, as in it’s almost a distraction from what he’s actually doing. It actually makes him slightly terrifying.

Even as his Doctor is standing in a trap, he’s able to use his charm to buy time. Also, once again the Doctor is stepping onto things that can kill him. An odd recurring theme. He maintains an air of authority even in the face of danger and that is so the Doctor. When the Doctor finds Rogue’s music playlist I think I may have melted. How could anyone incinerate such a beautiful person? How could you not want to dance right along with him? As much as I loved this scene and the meta reference to Astrid Perth, it does also buckle a bit under itself. First of all, wouldn’t the Doctor knowing an Earth song like “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” make you question whether he was a Chuldur? Sure, they know Bridgerton, but it would be enough to give me pause. Furthermore, I’m not sure how seeing the Doctor’s many faces would cause you to not think he’s a shapeshifter. Kind of odd that one other face means shapeshifter but eighteen other faces don’t. Wait, did I say eighteen?

When I had first watched this episode, I didn’t immediately recognise Richard E Grant as the mysterious extra face in the lineup of past Doctors. We now have three extra faces in the form of Jodie Whittaker, Jo Martin, and David Tennant (again), but this extra Doctor wasn’t registering for me. At first I thought he was the Valeyard, and then I thought he looked a bit like Jim Broadbent, which is ironic considering “The Curse of Fatal Death.” It wasn’t until I got online afterward and saw people saying Richard E Grant that I could see it. I wasn’t even 100% convinced it was him, but I’ve heard they actually took new footage of Grant for that scene, so I guess it’s him. The more interesting question is which him is he? Is this the Shalka Doctor or the Fatal Death Doctor? Maybe he’s both. Maybe he’s neither. This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve given us retroactive Doctors. Moffat gave us the War Doctor to great effect. But despite a strong performance from Jo Martin, Chibnall did a piss poor job of establishing the Fugitive Doctor as a character. I’d love to get excited for this mystery incarnation, but I’m taking a Tim Gunn stance in the meantime- “Make it work.”

With Rogue now on his side, the Doctor takes him to his TARDIS so they can recalibrate his triform transporter to be non-lethal. Recently in an interview, Ncuti Gatwa mentioned he had gotten onto his agent about playing someone like the Doctor or Willy Wonka. It felt a bit like wish fulfilment for his Doctor to sing “Pure Imagination,” to Rogue as they entered the TARDIS. I really loved Jonathan Groff’s slow growing infatuation with the Doctor. I’m a big fan of “Mindhunter,” but it’s a very heavy show, so it was fun to see him in a more playful role. In many ways, Rogue feels like a bit of River Song and a bit of Jack Harkness. He’s something of a reboot and remix at the same time. I don’t doubt we will see him again, which would be a nice chance to give him some much needed character development, but for the time being, we’ve been given enough to work with.

The Doctor and Rogue’s plan is to draw the Chuldur to them by exploiting their love for drama and scandal. What better way to whip people into a frenzy in 1813 Britain than for two men to share a passionate dance together? Besties, I’ll be real, I was grinning from ear to ear. Watching Gatwa and Groff dance was very exciting. I’ve seen people complain that the Doctor and Rogue’s romance felt rushed compared to the “slow burn,” of Yaz and Thirteen. Slow burn is a funny way of saying “non-existent for two seasons.” And I would much rather see two men share a passionate kiss than two women share a passionate ice cream. What’s wild is that I’m not usually the kind of person who likes the Doctor to have romantic relationships. They managed without them for 26 seasons. However, due to Ncuti’s emotional availability, it works for me. I can buy that his time with Donna might have left him more open to romance. Furthermore, this is the antithesis of queerbaiting. Ice cream is not a payoff.

The Doctor ends the dance by staging an argument with Rogue and calling him a cad. But Rogue doesn’t respond in turn with the same volatile energy. There’s a hesitation on his end that feels personal. As I mentioned before, perhaps this is him working up the courage to roleplay again. Perhaps his lost partner was more the avid roleplayer between the two of them. Or perhaps Rogue simply has a softer approach. What I loved is that his marriage proposal felt equally as shocking, but in a more emotional manner. It even feels like it takes the Doctor by surprise. There’s a moment where it actually feels like a real proposal. The Doctor says he can’t and you almost believe he considered it. Or maybe the Doctor can’t even pretend to say yes because of his marriage with River song. If he undoes their wedding maybe it can revert us back to hot air balloon cars, Winston Churchill, and pterodactyls.

Not to be left out, Millie Gibson has gotten a lot of time to shine in this story as well. She does a fair bit of choreography, but there is one bit of her choreography of which I was a bit disappointed. After learning that Ruby is from the future, Emily reveals herself to be a Chuldur, and she wants to cosplay as Ruby next. However, Ruby’s psychic earrings come with a battle mode, which complicates things for the feathered fiend. My disappointment however, stems from the fact that they kind of phone in the fight choreography. They went through the trouble of hiring Bridgerton’s choreographer, Jack Murphy, for the dance sequences, but the fighting felt like a second thought. It could have been really cute to see Ruby do some “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,” moves, but instead she clobbers her with a book. A bit underwhelming. Still a fun idea, though.

The Doctor and Rogue abscond to the garden where they are pursued by the Chuldur who reveal their numbers to be greater than anticipated. As baddies go, the Chuldur were little more than hand wringing monsters foaming at the mouth for a bit of mayhem, but I liked that about them. The way they speak to one another reminded me a lot of the Slitheen. The last time we saw Indira Varma in the Whoniverse, she was playing Suzie Costello, the best part of Torchwood. Here she chews scenery with a zest befitting her brilliant makeup. The only time that I felt they went a bit too far with the Chuldur is when they call what they’re doing “cosplaying,” as it felt a bit too on the nose. Otherwise, I loved the idea of evil birds going around and messing up planets all too satiate a dangerous appetite for excitement.

The Doctor sees Ruby acting as though a Chuldur has taken her form and it brings out the fury of the Time Lord. I wouldn’t be the first and I won’t be the last to point out the parallels between this and “The Family of Blood,” wherein the Doctor has some long term punishment in mind for the bad guys. Unfortunately, it also feels like a case of writers giving the Doctor weird morality again. Rogue wants to send the Chuldur to the incinerator, but the Doctor wants to send them to a dimension where they can live out the rest of their lives somewhere where they can’t hurt anyone. How is that any different from what the Weeping Angels do? It’s “Arachnids in the UK,” all over again. When the Doctor expresses happiness that the Chuldur will suffer for a long time, it begs the question- as compared to what? I’m fine with the Doctor losing his temper and going too far, but what about his plan actually changed other than his attitude about it? He was always planning on sending them into a dimension where they would suffer for 600 odd years. A line of dialogue or two could have fixed that.

The Chuldur’s big finale is a wedding between Barton and Ruby followed by a light bit of mass murder, but the Doctor has other plans. The Doctor’s objection to the marriage reminded me a lot of Tom Baker. I could easily hear Tom saying that line about it being hard to hear things through those heavy doors. Gatwa has that bizarre alien charm that feels correct. However, neither the Chuldur or the Doctor know the entire story as neither side knows Ruby is still Ruby. So when the Doctor traps the Chuldur in the triform transporter, he’s also dooming Ruby to the same fate.

I’ve seen some confusion as to how the transporter actually works, but I think I can piece together enough to understand it. They had calibrated the transporter to trap up to six humanoids. When Ruby is first trapped, there are five humanoids in the trap. Rogue throws Emily into the trap bringing the count up to six. We’ve established that the Doctor was able to throw his psychic paper from inside the trap, so things can leave its field. My thinking is that as Rogue pushes Ruby out from the field, he overloads it with seven humanoids giving Ruby just enough give to fall out of the trap. What got a bit confusing is why didn’t Ruby just step out of her shoes? If you can throw psychic paper, then it’s not trapped by the field. Therefore, her shoes would be the only thing molecularly bonded to the field. They could even say the shapeshifters can’t step out of their shoes because they’re actually part of their bodies. But then we couldn't get the big sacrifice at the end.

The aspect of this that I found harder to follow was why Rogue would sacrifice himself in the first place. Sure he and the Doctor have chemistry and there could be a romance brewing, but he barely knows the guy. Perhaps he couldn’t stomach the idea of watching what happened to him happen to someone else. It was a chance to stop the sort of thing he was previously powerless to prevent. I could buy that well enough, but it barely felt earned. However, it fits the tone of the rest of the episode which was one of over the top romance and drama, so I digress. Around here, fun is king and fun I had. It didn’t matter that I didn’t fully understand people’s motivations. There’s plenty of time for that in the future.

The episode ends with the Doctor sending Rogues ship to orbit the moon until it can be retrieved again (or until the moon hatches like an egg, whichever comes first). He wants to move on, but Ruby won't let him until he takes a moment to feel his feelings. This is classic Doctor/companion stuff. The Doctor has always benefited from having humans around and I am glad they took a moment to reestablish that. The Doctor pulls out Rogue's ring from the proposal and slides it onto his pinky finger. Fans of Amy and Rory will recall that rings can be used to find lost lovers, so there's a seed of hope there. It was a fitting end to an emotional and exciting episode. I got to watch the Doctor and Ruby do Regency Era dances to covers of Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish. I got to see Indira Varma hunt people while dressed as a bird. This wasn’t just my favourite episode of the season, it may be one of my favourite episodes ever.

________________________________________

Before I go, I wanted to apologise for how long this article took me to write. I’ve been dealing with some pretty heavy depression as of late, and it’s been hard to write these last couple of reviews. Even though I enjoyed both episodes quite a bit, it’s been a struggle. Despite episodes dropping at midnight on Saturday now, I don’t usually get around to writing until Sunday or Monday. But I didn’t get any good work done on this article until Monday evening. These articles are actually very therapeutic for me. It feels like a lifeline to the outside world. You may not think it, but I read every comment and every hashtag. I appreciate them all. Thank you for taking the time to read my stuff. It means a lot.

[seaweedstarshine]

Late to the game as I’ve kinda been kinda non-here for a minute but I scrolled through the Dot and Bubble tag, and thought I wanted to write this post into existence.

There's this part in Doctor Who Unleashed where RTD says this:

“What we can’t tell is how many people will have worked that out before the ending. Because they’ve seen white person after white person after white person, and television these days is very diverse. I wonder, will you be ten minutes into it, will you be fifteen, will you be twenty, before you start to think, everyone in this community is white. And if you don’t think that — why didn’t you? So, that’s gonna be interesting. I hope it’s one of those pieces of television you see, and always remember.”

And I'm like. Yeah. But the reason this works even as well as it does is largely thanks to the work of the previous showrunner with the previous creative team, which was notably the first era to have any writers of color (amongst other firsts in terms of inclusivity in directors, composer, actors). While Chibnall fumbled whenever he tried to write about race himself, he did have the self-awareness to have Black and South Asian writers writing the episodes where race is the focus (and a female writer for the episode where sexism is a focus; my point is, he seemed to know his shortcomings).

I wonder what the current creative team looks like? (not really, but I wasn't 100% sure for all of them)

To quote RTD:

“...before you start to think, everyone in this community is white.”

This is pretty non-self-aware, right? It's pretty “It is said, and I understand this, there was a history of racism with the original Toymaker, the Celestial Toymaker, who had ‘celestial,’ and I did not know this, but ‘celestial’ can mean of Chinese origin, but in a derogatory way,” right? (from The Giggle Unleashed) It's pretty “and I had problems with that, and a lot of us on the production team had problems with that: associating disability with evil,” right? (from Destination Skaro Unleashed)

—none of which are issues that should be overlooked, but think how much exponentially better they might’ve been addressed if he’d consulted with Chinese writers and wheelchair-using writers before going straight to giving the Toymaker weird fake accents and making Davros walk?

How many Black or non-white people do we think saw the Dot and Bubble script before it landed in Ncuti’s hands?

And this just keeps happening.

And like, from some of the shocked responses I've seen from white viewers to the ending of Dot and Bubble, maybe the episode's unsubtlety was needed? From the way RTD talks about it in Unleashed, the episode was written with a white audience in mind, Baby's First Microaggressions (where of course the microaggressions come from people who are pretty self-admittedly white supremacists). Ricky September, a more seemingly normal depiction of someone in the racist bubble of Finetime, seemed like an interesting element, up until the way he died.

The ending worked for me, because I do think the Doctor's reaction is true to how the Doctor would react. I just keep thinking of how much better the core themes could've been handled by someone with actual lived experience on the subject matter.

[gayleviticus]

assorted empire of death general thoughts:

one of the sloppiest rtd deus ex machina endings in a long while - 'bring death to death' is a cool concept (and rather christpilled) but the mechanics just dont make any sense. and im not one to complain that it doesnt adhere to rigid rules but the logic just is inconsistent. sutekh becomes a god by entering the time vortex and then proceeds to be killed by same time vortex. blowing dust on people kills them but sutekh seeing all of time and space again revives them.

even as much as i hate the journey's end meta crisis deus ex machina, the mechanics of it do make sense.

normally rtd deus ex machinas are justifiable by the character work going on, but this honestly felt rather hollow. like. nothing is going on in this episode outside of beating sutekh until the ending which tacks on Ruby's arc at the end.

lassoo-ing sutekh into the vortex felt a bit like an asspull and inconsistent w the prior vibe. like. it felt like they set it up as if sutekh was possessing the TARDIS; treating it so grossly physically feels like an exorcist story where the priest gets the victim to sneeze the demon out.

the meta-angle of playing on the mystery of Ruby's mother being overblown is a bit interesting and does inject some genuine emotion back into a story that would otherwise have been engulfed by dramatic god confrontations etc. but it's also like. a total retread of clara and the leaf, hell bent etc. we've seen this trope in DW before, and I think this usage lacked both the novelty and emotional/thematic depth it had before. 'bait and switch mystery box' is starting to be actually more formulaic than a straightforward reveal.

it's also a shame given how many interesting theories fans had developed about tv show theory, ruby as the perfect companion etc that we did basically get Clara and the Leaf 2.0.

Mel continues to honestly have no point in even being here. 3 episodes that wouldn't change in the slightest if she wasn't around.

it is getting a bit comical how quick Kate is to recruit every single person in the universe to UNIT

overall s14 thoughts:

for me i think this season, while not bad, sits above only the chibnall era, and a bit above series 7. the inidividual episodes are much better, and 15 and ruby have better chemistry, but it cribs a lot of its overall arc from being largely a retread of s7s. Ruby is more charming than s7 clara, who has a tendency to get written by everyone other than moffat as Generic Companion #47, but this series feels like it's significantly lacking the emotional depth every other rtd and moffat series has had.

i think it's also a bit similar to series 10, which didn't really have a strong emotional arc for Bill in favour of just a fun dynamic, but the s10 finale knocks anything in s14 out of the park. s10 was also just a lot funnier.

[13thdoctorposts]

Reading that people were complaining about 13 era Who in the Women in Doctor Who panel at Dragon Con is very telling. 

If you cant have a Woman in Doctor Who panel without people complaining about 13 era Who I almost don’t even know what to say. 

The era that had the first female Doctor, the first South Asian companion who was also female, it highlighted numerous female historical figures including Rosa Parks, Ada Lovelace, Noor Inayat Khan, Mary Shelly, Mary Seacole and Madam Ching. Plus it had more female writers in 3 series, then the rest of Who… there is so much positive you could talk about with 13 era Who on the topic of Women in Doctor Who even if the writing wasn’t for you.. It was a good time to be a Woman in Doctor Who. 

So if a panel on that topic cant see that, if a large part of an audience at a panel can’t and would prefer to complain about 13 era Who and make the environment feel hostile to 13 era fans please don’t tell me its just ‘bad writing’ and not misogyny. If you personally feel like you aren’t a misogynist and it is just ‘bad writing’ good for you but you are still in bed with the misogyny that runs rife in this fandom.

Also when it comes to 13 era Who the way the women are written is actually far more respectful and not sexualised unlike the previous eras so unless you think all female character should be sexualised in Who you cant really complain about 13 era Who on that writing front.

Also I feel sorry for the fact that you had to spend each episode working out what people were going to hate about it instead of just enjoying it before going online because you knew if you ever had a positive opinion the fandom would eat you alive for that opinion. Who knows maybe it wasn’t Chibnall or the other 9 writers who were supposedly so terrible at their jobs that made you hate the show sooo much maybe it was the fact you knew you couldn’t go online and ever say you loved something without getting piled on so instead you had to find everything wrong with it so you could be in with the in crowd. Maybe the fandom conditioned you to hate the show more so than the writing. 

If you put the same over analytical glasses on and watched the RTD and Moffatt eras you could find just as many things to hate about the writing, but they didn’t have a female Doctor did they? So all their short comings are irrelevant. Theres so much to love in all the eras I’m sorry you were conditioned not to see the good in this era and could only see the bad.

[dalesramblingsblog]

In honour of an episode that seems consciously about the construction of narratives around fundamentally meaningless aspects of the universe, a Twitter conversation with one of my last remaining mutuals to survive the Muskening, lightly repurposed to serve as a singular, narrativised Tumblr post in a way it was never designed for.

Who says art is dead?

73 Yards was strange and haunting and not entirely comprehensible in a way that Doctor Who seldom manages.

I suspect it's one where personal tolerance for that sort of thing will make or break the episode, but I certainly think that, knowing this was Gibson's first filmed episode, she did a phenomenal job.

It was also, for me at least, a more generally successful invocation of the kind of eldritch horror implied by the Toymaker or the Maestro, largely by virtue of it giving itself room to be ambiguous.

I've seen the complaints about stuff like the PM being a blank slate, but I do rather feel like that might be the point. It's an episode all about perception and projection and narrativisation of a universe that can be cold and hostile and incomprehensible.

(And frankly, I'm starting to suspect that the whole of RTD2 might be about that on some level. "We see something incomprehensible and invent the rules to make it work" and all that. It's audacious and bold in a way that Doctor Who hasn't been in half a decade.)

And as someone for whom those themes really hit home a lot of the time, yeah, I loved it. I know I probably sound like a broken record but I am genuinely just having a blast with this latest series.

The worst thing Doctor Who can ever feel like for me is an obligation that I only keep up with out of a need to stay relatively current in writing about it, and that was what the Chibnall Era often boiled down to for me.

Part of the reason, in hindsight, I poured so much of myself into my book reviews was that the show itself was simply failing to excite me with the level of regularity necessary to keep me engaged.

Knowing that I can put on Doctor Who on a Saturday night and be reasonably well-entertained and intrigued is, frankly, enough for me, but I do think there are enough aspects of genuine quality that I'm not just blindly worshipping at the altar of a false idol or w/e.

I dunno, I think at the end of the day I'm just a big sucker for TV that makes sense to me on an emotional rather than logical level. It's why I'm a big fan of Twin Peaks, or the second season of Millennium, or hell even Masks over on TNG.

The episode had the general feel of one that will be quite important to the overall themes of the season, so I can't imagine it will linger in *complete* ambiguity forever (though honestly if it did I would kind of love that).

Like I wouldn't be surprised if we're building up to a similar time loop reveal wrt Ruby's general existence. The fact that we've now got at least three instances of her timeline being haunted by mysterious old women cannot possibly be coincidence.

(Well, it can be, but that way lies goblins, as we know.)

IDK, there's a strangeness to Davies' acknowledgments of mediality here that goes even beyond Moffat's usual tricks. Casting a recurring actress by the name of Susan Twist while conspicuously mentioning Susan for the first time in forever feels so on the nose that while I initially suspected we might be building to the return of Susan, I now feel like we're instead headed for something much weirder.

There is so much going on and so much to unpack and frankly I don't have any idea how it could possibly tie together but I'm fascinated.

And again, the fact that this episode was almost explicitly about the process of fans theorising as to what the hell is going on with the season makes me further suspect a rebuttal of theory-focused cult fandom is in the offing.

When I first watched Once, Upon Time in 2021, I commented that it felt like Chris Chibnall's attempt to do a big, bold, incomprehensible piece of television, something almost in the vein of Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 but for Doctor Who.

But it's revealing that the only thing he could really think to do was dump a bunch of Doctor Who lore and simply edit things out. He's a mystery writer in the most tediously literal sense of the phrase, creating gaps that feel like they were made with a hacksaw rather than feeling like any sort of deliberate lacuna.

And I'm sorry Chibnall fans, there are some Thirteen episodes that I do like, but when I look at an episode like 73 Yards... whatever its faults may be, and I'm pretty confident I don't actually believe it to be perfect, it is bolder and weirder than anything Chibnall ever wrote. This is the kind of television I want to watch, and I make no apologies for that.

It's a rare piece of Doctor Who which comes close to capturing that sheer, terrible splendour I felt watching a slow zoom into an atom bomb explosion while being serenaded by the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. And sure, it's still very far out from being quite that strange, but it retains a curious power nevertheless.

What a show.

[galiifreyrose]

god I am just having such a great fucking time I've missed being an active part of the DW fandom I really have

rambling flailing-my-arms thoughts for anyone who wants them about Wild Blue Yonder below

HIGH. BUDGET. MIDNIGHT. WHAT THE FUCk. OH MY GOD I LOVE WHEN DOCTOR WHO DOES FUCKED UP COSMIC HORROR.

I forgot how terrifying the Miss Evangelista Face Warp Effect could truly be

I FUCKING LOVE EPISODES THAT JUST. GIVE REALLY GREAT ACTORS SOME REALLY GREAT CHARACTER WORK I AM ETERNALLY A SUCKER FOR THE "IM PLAYING TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME BODY AT THE SAME TIME" SHIT IT'S SUCH. GOOD. TV. JADFLKSDLFKJSDFLASDKFLSD;JF

They have got to fucking explain what's going on with Mavity, they wouldn't just. Write that whole sequence with Newton and Gravity being named something different. It's gotta Mean Something.

To be meta about some of the writing, it's soooooo smart to have Everyone's Fave David Tennant up there doing all the Queer Shit like acknowledging Newton is hot bc it's suchhhh a good way to grease the skids for what is, inevitably, going to be SUCH a queer era of DW with Ncuti. And by putting this all up front, it really does weed out the bad earlier than later so it can't be pinned on Fifteen specifically. Bc I really don't want to see that happen

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW TEN DONNA WAS IN THE SEQUENCE WHERE THEY GOT UPSET WITH EACH OTHER. The way she chastised the DOCTOR for wandering off. And the little Sniff of Indignation. It's SO FUckinG fascinating to see Post-Metacrisis Donna bc her character is Inevitably Somewhat Changed and it's SOOOO COOOL

THE PRACTICAL. FUCKING. EFFECTS. I CANNOT GET OVER IT. THE BEHIND THE SCENES WAS SO COOL I HATE THOSE FUCKING ARMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think one post really recapped it well, I'll have to reblog it - it just makes my blood boil all over again for Jodie is that like. I got more emotional catharsis out of Fourteen working through the Flux conversation with Not Donna than I did out of the end of Jodie's run. I'm realizing it's not even that I didn't like a lot of Chibnall's ideas - I DO! It's the lack of emotional follow through! LET THIRTEEN EMOTE AND EMOTE HEAVILY.

Tennant really is still the actor ever, you can so easily see 11, 12, 13 and a touch of something new in all of his performance and it's FABULOUS it's so obviously Not Ten and I know everyone is saying it but it's so reassuring (this take stolen from @peanutbutter-nutella bc of course we were flail-texting <3)

WHAT ABOUT THE SALT SUPERSTITION WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS

God. God. Anyway. So far, RTD2 is really forcing me to reckon with my own biases and hypocrisies too, because I find myself going "fuck yeah more of THAT" and then realizing it's functionally the same as something from (gestures at everything from Eleven to Thirteen). And frankly it's making me fall back in love with more of the show all over again. And appreciating each piece for what it is, and where it falls short, and how that can still... be okay. I just really, REALLY love this silly show

[being-of-rain]

I wasn’t really a big fan of The Giggle by the time I finished watching it, and I liked it less the more that I thought about it. Which is a real shame, because I think it was full of a lot of great ideas that were squandered with poor execution. I didn’t really want to just post pages of negativity, so I’ll quickly skim through a list of things I think could’ve been done better, and maybe I’ll expand on some of them later or if I’m asked about them. Still, this is your warning for negativity.

The whole 'screens are evil and making everyone think they're right' felt so shallow and cheap, especially because it was set up as the main obstacle and then largely ignored. A lot of the characters at UNIT really didn't do much (I totally forgot about The Vlinx after my first watchthrough) but I think that didn't bother me much while watching because I was used to Chibnall regularly ignoring characters like that. It was nice to see Mel again, but she didn’t really serve much purpose.

RTD’s take on the Toymaker is quite similar to his take on the Master, which was sometimes fun and sometimes annoying (specifically the German accent, which lost its appeal pretty quickly for me). But he felt pretty hollow and full of wasted potential beyond that, feeling like he was there just to give the episode a villain. Although speaking of the Master, his brief inclusion was hilarious and an easy way to write him back into the show later, nicely done.

The last third of the episode had some many intriguing and potentially awesome ideas behind it. The new Doctor turning up partway through a story? Cool! The Doctor defeating his final villain alongside the next star of the show? Fun! The Doctor getting self-care and words of wisdom from his next self? So heartwarming! One Doctor retiring to be happy while his next incarnation travels off to continue the adventures? A fun use of the show's format!

But for me these ideas just didn’t work or didn’t fulfill their potential, and it’s mostly because there’s no narrative justification for them. No cause and effect. There’s no given reason for the Doctor to bigenerate, it just happens. There’s no particular reason that it was the Doctors rather than the Toymaker who won the game of catch to save the world, it just happens. Without any narrative reason the third act feels so unsatisfying, like spectacle for the sake of spectacle, and (I don’t say this lightly) incredibly lazily written.

That lack of story reason also undermines the ending, clearly the thing RTD was most interested in, by making it feel unearned. Like a first draft script that worked backwards to make it happen. The retirement ending itself I have mixed feelings about, which I’m not sure I can fully articulate. One thing I love to see is that RTD can actually do a genuinely happy ending rather than making every ending a tragedy. But said happy ending feels a little too ‘married-with-kids-and-a-white-picket-fence’ to me – though obviously I can’t stress enough how relieved I am that romance didn’t factor into it. It just felt like it wasn’t set up well enough. I’d probably like it a lot more if they made clear if Tennant’s Doctor was going to turn into Gatwa’s Doctor or if they’re just separate people now. It was sweet of RTD to try and bring a conclusion to the ‘Doctor is traumatised’ thing that he introduced to the show 18 years ago, but he did it poorly. At least it offers interesting new possibilities for the show going forward!

With all that said, in the end The Giggle felt to me like RTD retreading some of his biggest flaws as a writer, and throwing in a few borrowed from other showrunners for good measure. It was a disappointment both because of the good ideas just below the surface, and because it came after a very fun first episode and an incredible follow-up.

But like I said, I’m excited to see what the show does next! I saw talk that there’ll be lots of mythical and unnatural creatures turn up due to the Doctor’s salt thing, which is super cool. And obviously I’m excited for more Gatwa! I haven’t really felt a lot of reason to be excited about Ruby yet, but as always I’m ready to fall in love with the new companion quickly!

[doctor-who-binge]

Disability Representation Win!!!

RTD went fearlessly with represention so far, he clearly has no fear of backlash. And the disability representation as a wheelchair user I was fucking ecstatic. Even more so than my excitement because I'm an enby, trans representation is amazing especially being Donna's daughter and a trans actor. But a wheelchair user character? We are always forgotten about. Also she's played by an actor who is a wheelchair user!!! I'm so happy. And they didn't shy away from making her an authority figure who should not be pitied.

Because fucking Chibnall's wheelchair representation was Yazmin's grandma feeling sorry for herself because "I was the first woman married in Pakistan , now look at me, in a wheelchair with shop bought cake" and it really fucking hurt. I remember how much that line in that episode hurt.

Credit where credit is due Chibnall did have disability representation. However, I feel like Ryan's dyspraxia was kind of shoe horned in as "see representation!" but it felt like he had dyspraxia when it was convenient to mention it and didn't have it in many other instances AND importantly the actor himself did not have dyspraxia, which cheapens it a little in my eyes. I also enjoyed that Diane not having an arm wasn't a huge plot point at all, she just doesn't have a lower arm, no biggie and it was a reflection of the actor who does not have a lower arm. Representation using actual members of the minority group ftw.

I don't remember if Moffat had any, he probably did? But not memorable I suppose.

I'll admit Shirley Anne Bingham having darts and explosives on her wheelchair was cool as fuck and makes sense since she works for a military-intelligence agency. The fact that it was a custom ultra light weight wheelchair not some annoying hospital one was also amazing, showing actual life of us wheelchair users (which make sense since the actor is one!)

[casmybelovedass]

I hate how New Who's problem is fundamentally the writing, cuz then people can just decide to ignore it and blame the actors to win the best doctor war.

Chris had fantastic writing g for a test season, and he was a great Doctor. He really embodied the whimsical of it all while still showing the darkness of an ancient being who had lost it all and was ready to make it rain Hell. Unfortunately he only lasted one season for us to enjoy, but canonically he'd had a century of being himself.

He's skippable.

David had some BRILLIAN writing and some really fucking MEH writing, but he did portrait the figure of someone trying so hard to run from their past while still being haunted by it in a poisonous way. BUT he was also trying to paint this image of himself as dashing merry-go-lucky but tragic hero, which inevitably brought him to his downfall. Water of Mars, while being a kinda MEH episode, contains the most important lesson of them all for him. He is not a human, nor a God, and he was trying to be both at the same time. And he is especially tragic because in canon he only got to live about 6-7 years. Fuck.

He's a crybaby.

Matt. Was. It. He WAS whimsical itself in that "I am clearly not a human and I do not care in the slightest 😀" way. WHILE being the one to actually almost succeed in leaving everything behind. The man who forgets. Fucking beautiful. BUT fucking Moffat had to go and create all these beautiful and interesting storylines to just... kinda fuck them up. Sometimes there really is a feeling of missed closure that makes me visibly shake. Oh well. But for real, I'm a hardcore 10girl (gn) and even I say that Matt's Doctor was the PERFECT combination of friendly and scary. 11/10

He's not Tennant.

PETER. WAS. IT. I will never rest until he gets recognised as one of the fucking best doctors. He was done. SO fucking done with it all. And while 9 was anaesthetised, 10 was PTSD-ed, and 11 was TIRED™️, 12 is 💯 done. Him finally getting back to Gallifrey only to fuck off in his childhood shed as people keep trying to talk to him? His fucking look when Rassilon interrupts him from eating his soup? AND THEN STRAIGHT UP LEAVING?!?!! Iconic. He is done playing young Prince Charming. He is Done trying to be human. He is letting all his years hit him like a truck and being incredibly autistic about it. SO fucking real. BUT his writing was shit. Same thing happened with Matt, he was given shit material to work with but CONSTANTLY like I can count on almost two hands the number of episodes I for real FOR REAL enjoyed. And unfortunately most of them would be because Missy or River were there. That was a mastodontical fucking loss. Fuck.

He's old and tasteless.

And Jodie. Poor fucking Jodie. She got caught in the Chibnall hurricane and suffered massively for it. The writing? Shit. The storylines? Shit. Motives? Shit. Characterisation? Sometimes really fucking shitty. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE TIMELESS CHILD BULLSHIT my god help me lord I am going to be sick. She did an amazing job being 🦄The Doctor🧚‍♂️, BUT her writing for the Oncoming Storm was so shit she couldn't do anything with it. They made her a tasteless Tennant and then blamed her for it. They really treated her as the "Yeah you got your female Doctor now shut up" Doctor, and gave her nothing else to be remembered for, unless you count the having the most fucking absurd writing Doctor. And to make her leave after having broadcasted to the moon and back that David was reprising the role, and that a non-british actor of colour was coming next, really took her moment away. Fucking awful.

She's a woman and tasteless.

Shameful.

[denimbex1986]

'Well gosh, that was nice, wasn’t it?

More than anything, I’m just delighted that Davies bothered. Like, the three specials structure could have been all big ones. This slot could have been a big scary Cybermen one or something, and the Fourteenth Doctor era would still feel complete and varied across the three. By most reckonings that would have even been the better idea. But no, instead he decided that this should actually feel like a season of Doctor Who and have a weird one in the middle. There’s something absolutely decadent about spending a third of your big Tennant-Tate reunion trilogy doing something that feels as though it’s overtly striving to be described as “proper Doctor Who.”

I remember, way back on the Forest of the Dead podcast commentary, which is legitimately one of the best forty-five minutes it is possible to spend on being terminally That Sort of Fan, Davies, Tennant, and Moffat enthusing about the first episode of The Ark in Space and how you could just shoot it with no changes to the script and it would still sparkle. And now here we are, with Davies doing an episode that begs for comparisons to Heaven Sent and Listen in its “a cheap one proving I can still write” ostentation—a weird spooky two-hander on a spaceship.

Well. “Cheap.” Obviously this continues to luxuriate in the stupidity of its budget from the moment they step out into that corridor set, which of course looks fantastic. The CGI body horror is genuinely startling. You suspect it still did come out cheaper than The Star Beast, but it’s still being ostentatious in its quality across the board. There’s ambition and confidence in every shot of this, and like Isaac Newton it’s frankly sexy as fuck.

What shines for me is the character work. The parallel scenes of the Doctor and Donna trying to figure out who the fake is (and note the very sly decision to do a deceptive shot-match so that the fake Donna comes out of a green corridor like the one we just saw Donna in) in which Donna gets it and the Doctor doesn’t, which sets up the subsequent beat of the Doctor IDing the fake Donna based on the fact that she volunteers to insult her own intelligence. Or even just the ways in which the not-things (as the subtitles charmingly call them) work—the grinning sadism with which Tennant delivers “when something is gone it keeps existing” is beautifully chilling. Davies has always been strong when he lets his nihilistic streak shine, and he uses it here—along with two phenomenal leads—to make cosmic horrors feel at once convincing and charismatic.

It feels significant, then, that it’s the not-thing version of Donna that relates so emphatically to the devastation Flux. And I don’t mean that as snark about Chibnall. For all that I deadpanned “yeah man, I felt that way about the Chibnall era too” during the Doctor’s frustrated tantrum, the thing that’s really striking about Davies astonishingly gracious salvage job on the emotional desolation of his predecessor’s tenure is the not-thing’s awed “you have owned it” and the way it sells the horrified tumult of this new version of Tennant, reeling from a trauma to rival the Time War. It works, right down to giving the Doctor a reason to seek the comfort of returning to this face. And it’s a point that’s clearly going to carry through into The Giggle given the precise structure of the cliffhanger, the TARDIS landing just in time to get the Doctor out of talking more about it. You can just about see the precise contours of the line that’s being drawn under all of this. More to the point, the ones that aren’t quite clear yet feel terribly compelling.

Which brings us back to the sense of relief that Davies is actually trying. The thing about the late career Moffat stories this is trying to edge out in the 2033 Doctor Who Magazine poll is that they’re the creative renaissance of a man who’s decided that he has something to prove. And frankly, that remains the only reason any of this would be worthwhile. For all that I’m insistent that Doctor Who should be forward-looking, that’s never only meant new voices, and it’s never precluded skilled veterans. I mean, for heavens’ sake, that kind of thinking would have meant no Caves of Androzani. Fifteen years is more than enough time to become a new person with new ideas on a topic. I’m certainly not the same person I was when I started writing about this show, and that wasn’t even thirteen years ago. Once the hazy bliss of novelty fades away and it’s not enough to just have competence again, what this is going to come down to is whether or not Davies is still hungry for it. And frankly, this isn’t the episode you make if you’re here to fuck around. If Davies is willing to push himself this hard during the big frothy nostalgia tour—the part of his return that’s aimed at a BBC One audience that fondly, if vaguely, remembers Journey’s End (where it’s a smash hit, btw, with overnight ratings on The Star Beast rival the +7s for Power of the Doctor)—then one shudders to imagine what he’s going to do when he’s aiming for a Disney+.

* If you’re not one of my Patreon backers, the bonus podcast on The Star Beast has gone up for them. This one’s got Sean Dillon and Ritesh Babu, and is a good time. We manage to get off topic and into Phineas and Ferb so early on that it might be in the five minute preview. Next time I’ll be joined by Christine and Jack, who should be a grand old time for this one.

* Obviously the “superstition at the edge of the universe” thing is about letting the Toymaker in, which will also surely hinge on the fact that Rose makes toys. And I assume they’re going to pay off the otherwise inscrutable “Wild Blue Yonder” thing. But I honestly can’t tell whether “mavity” is supposed to be setup for something or is just Davies shitposting, nor can I decide which one I hope.

* I can’t say I’m especially persuaded that a non-white Isaac Newton is meaningful or productive representation, but it’s hard not to enjoy the trolling. And I suspect that making “Doctor Who is woke now” old news before Gatwa shows up is a savvy approach.

* Speaking of the promotion of the show, interesting that this is the episode where Davies adopted a sharp no-spoiler policy—something I’m on record as not usually being a fan of. In one sense there wasn’t actually anything to hide, and there’s surely a chunk of jilted fans upset that we didn’t get Matt Smith or whatever. (Which, of course we didn’t—David Tennant is the past Doctor here.) But there wasn’t anything to promote either—none of the headlines are here. Knowing it’s a two-hander with evil doppelgangers wasn’t going to bring anyone new to their television. More to the point, this is an episode about exploration of a mysterious place—one where real effort has been expended on the procedural aspects of the Doctor and Donna figuring it out. It invites the viewer to play along—to see when they notice that something’s wrong with the Doctor that’s just come in to talk to Donna, or that the Doctor’s real plan is to get the TARDIS back. That’s one of the things that actually does benefit from secrecy. The opening sequences would be robbed of something if the entire audience knew that the thing peering at the Doctor and Donna through the grate is a shapeshifter from outside the universe. Which is to say, hats off to Davies for writing something that was actually worth avoiding spoilers for.

* I quite liked the way the episode follows the by now cliche “no sonic screwdriver this time” as a way of flagging “the Doctor and Donna are on their own with nothing but their wits” with taking the TARDIS translation away too.

* Hats off to Chrissie at chakoteya.net—a resource I have used countless times for countless things—who is going to have an absolute time of it getting the transcript of this together tonight.

* Delightful to see that, however poorly he may have been faring, Cribbins was still clearly sharp and able to play his character to a tee. It sounds like this is all we get of him, alas, but it’s a solid use of him—a comforting delight that goes eerily wrong, nicely setting up next week. * Which… so, we’re the Toymaker. I note that we’ve dropped “Celestial” from his name in all the promotion, along with the Mandarin trappings. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious what Davies is doing with him. And, for that matter, if I said “evil clown played by Neil Patrick Harris” wasn’t a compelling option. But more on that next week.

* We all knew Davies was adapting “The Star Beast,” but who saw “Tlotney Throws a Shape” coming?

Rankings

1. Wild Blue Yonder

2. The Star Beast'

[ssaalexblake]

I mean this in the nicest way as it's possible to mean something objectively kind of dickish, but at some point, the absolute cynical Need to assume that the people in charge of the media you consume are just bumbling fools never knowing what they're doing only makes the people assuming that look, uh, not super smart, and has absolutely zero bearing on the creators. That this happens on meta posts that Literally Explain what's going on and people still fail to comprehend that the work of a few different people all pitching in and agreeing on it would have been necessary for it to happen, doesn't help. And yes, it's a thing that's happened a whole bunch of times on my posts alone, let alone on random ones.

Me: hey look how theyre showing that 13's messed up!

Person: lol I doubt the showrunner knows that!

Sure, Jan. The 89 times he wrote 13 being as messed up as all the other doctors were just flukes for his blonde fairy-princess of good mental health and goodness regeneration 🤷

Well buddy, that's Your problem. It's one thing to see a messy as hell narrative with no clear ending or moral to it (think of the new star wars trilogy) and clock it was totally on the fly and that anything profound was likely to be an accident (I use this example cuz they admit this is what happened). It's another to look at a complete narrative that includes foreshadowing from the very beginning that tracks all the way to the end, written by a guy who is open about having planned it for a while, who has said that he has A story to tell and then he was done and left, and then go 'yeah he has no idea what he was doing'.

I have no idea when cynicism became the suave fandom thing in Any situation even if none is warranted, but it doesn't actually make people look cool and unaffected if that's what you're all going for, it just makes it look like you're incapable of making separate judgements on a case by case basis. I am cynical as hell over certain things because I actually thought about them and decided I was. I am not like this for everything bc not everything deserves cynicism. Sometimes, it doesn't actually matter what was or what was not intentional to start with. Anybody who has created anything, ever, has unintentionally started something and it turned out to be something they pursued. It just works like that sometimes! It's not a problem!

But if you can Honestly look at 13 doing all that messed up crap she did with no introspection over it and think it was the writer not realising she was being messed up because they didn't hold your hand and point it out every single time like they do in peppa pig, despite the fact that the character is Always to some degree messed up and this tracks with the show outside the era, and Fail entirely to consider that her lack of repentance in 13 was an actual consistent character trait and that you should use your brain to actually analyze what that means for the story and for the person... You should have paid more attention in English classes. You are supposed to think about what that means. I know it's a kids show, but it's not preschool.

The problem is not the material not having the depth to analyse, it is the audience's inability to objectively parse it. It does not matter if you love it or hate it! but people are merely displaying they lack the skills to even decide if they do or not by refusing to look for narrative reasons for things and instead just looking behind the scenes to say Obviously it was all just an accidental written by the clueless to justify not bothering. And then going on to make that fact very public.

And you know what, I don't care if you bother or not, you don't have to justify not wanting to think about it! but when people make it my problem I get sick of the crap.

Like why? Really? If you dislike it why are you blogging about it? And if you like it but feel like you're honour bound to act like chibnall is a moron every time his work is brought to your attention just to Make Sure Nobody Will Think You Like It, I mostly think you need to take a step back and smell some grass (or your own regional equivalent of an outside smellable thing).

[nvzblgrrl]

Every time I see Moffat and Chibnall hate that goes on about 'pointless characters without an arc only there for a joke', 'only knows how to write one kind of woman', 'kills off characters for shock value', 'uses Ex Deus Machinas to resolve their poorly thought out plots', 'did their best at ruining the show', and other shit like that rooted in 'well, I didn't watch it but someone else told me it was like that' and 'I just watched enough to make a bad faith reading', I would like everyone to be reminded that, unlike all of the other Revival Showrunners, RTD did all of that and more for real.

(Beneath the cut: complaining, specific examples, talk of sexual misconduct, talk of non-sexual misconduct)

Ah, like how Jack Harkness's main thing is 'hits on everyone'. How Mickey's entire presence in any given story is mostly there to make the Doctor look better or be the chew toy for any given joke/misfortune.

Or how there's actually exactly two flavors of women - 'young one that's unhappy with her boring Earth life which only the Doctor can fix because Not Loving The Doctor Means You're Wrong' and 'Horrible Mother Who Hates Everything You Do'.

Or maybe it's the fact that Rose had a fake-out death (dead but not really), Donna had a 'well might as well be death' memory wipe (character development dead), and only a schedule conflict with Freema kept Martha from getting actually killed off in Torchwood. 'Well that wasn't Proper Death so it doesn't count' (misinformative, found out over half a year after this post and had believed it for almost 2 years before disproven) - you see me pointing at Clara and Bill then? Or even Amy and Rory, who literally had full lives off-screen. As for Ex Deus Machinas, let's see... literally Bad Wolf, literally Tinker Belle Jesus Doctor, magic revival ritual to bring the Master back when he was needed again for drama, weird prophecy thing between the Doctor and the Master that was only relevant for like half an episode... And let's not forget moments like 'hey we're about to hand off to the next Doctor, let's make Ten's last line infinitely wankable to the point where every Doctor after has to make an acceptance of Death speech/story because the fandom behaved Just That Badly over four words.' (and then y'all have the audacity to complain about the speeches.)

Oh and this is before we even get to the real life behind the scenes stuff. Like how all the sex misconduct tied to the revival only seem to have manifested around people who were on the RTD 1.0 run. I mean, seriously, I see people passing around some of John Barrowman's 'adventures in workplace sexual harassment' as cute little things instead of creeptacular behavior that should have been addressed first off instead of 'eh, so what? It's just a surprise penis, he thinks it's funny'. Not to mention that Noel Clark was also doing the same things and made a point of trying to ruin one of his victims' career after she refused his advances.

And I doubt that this covers other accounts of mistreatment of workers behind the camera. Or was it not supposed to be telling that, of all the Doctors that won't come back for whatever reason, Christopher Eccleston is the only one that has cited the work environment and three people - not one, not two, THREE - at the top of said-environment as the reason rather than more mundane concerns like other career opportunities or not distracting from other Doctors?

Or that after he decided not to continue as the Doctor, a false quote from him was presented as part of a press release, claiming that he was 'afraid of being typecast' and 'tired from the grueling filming schedule', which they then had to retract because of, y'know, being lies that would have definitely impacted Chris's career if they'd gone unaddressed.

And then somebody had the brilliant idea to make one of 10's first actions as the Doctor being ruining someone's career by asking someone if she looked tired. Yeah, definitely the actions of a Good And Saintly Showrunner That Can Do No Wrong. 'But,' you might say, 'it's been years since then! Maybe RTD made some mistakes, but he'll do better now -'

Are you sure about that? Are you absolutely sure? Because I at least have evidence here, unlike to the self-propagating, bad-faith reading sustained Moffat/Chibnall Hate Parades.

[picnokinesis]

hello!! :D I asked for a spoilerless preview of 13s seasons a while back on anon, and your answer really got me excited to finish my rewatch!! took me a while because uni doesn't allow for binging the way high school used to, but I just finished season 12 the other day! I've enjoyed chibnall's era more and more the further I got (season 11 still definitely isn't anywhere near my favorite, but liked it a LOT more than I did on my first watch, knowing the foundations it was laying), and I LOVED the first episode of season 13! SO much! I haven't gotten further but I really wanted you to know haha, it's fun, it's exciting, it's got awesome new characters -- I so wish chibnall had gotten into the groove a little sooner, because this is exactly what I hoped his era to be! imagine if we could have gotten 3 full seasons on the same level... ahhhh I'm super excited to watch the rest! especially since several of the episodes you mentioned were your favorites are from season 13 -- and the first episode isn't even one of them!

Ahhhh oh my days hi hi hi!! I am SO so happy that you've enjoyed s12 so much! I think s12 honestly might be one of my favourite seasons of doctor who (although there are a lot of excellent contenders), simply because it just inspired me so much. There's so much to dig into. And yesss I think s11 works a lot better in context of the rest of it, which is super interesting. Actually, honestly, it all works SO nicely as a whole unit, which is super satisfying - to me, at least - but I suppose that hampered it when everything first aired, because we didn't have the whole picture (but also, that is how tv works sometimes ksksk - there were and are a LOT of bad faith viewings of this era, and it makes me so sad because I know that the moment you dig into it you start to realise just how rich this era has been). But yknow, what you say about s11 is interesting, because I do know a lot of people who really love it exactly as it is and always have - there are quite a number of people who got into Doctor Who because of s11, so I think, whilst there are things I don't like about it, I reckon Chibnall did approach it in a particular way with a particular intent - and it worked for some people, but less for others. And like, in a similar vein, I've actually found myself defending Moffatt of all people lately, despite the fact that I really don't enjoy like, two of his seasons, as well as a lot of things that he tends to do. But it's because I think like....hm, I guess I've lately found it really helpful to remember that all the writers are just humans who are putting stories and art out into the world that they want to create, and are sharing it with us - it's never going to be perfect, despite how much we want it to be. And there's always something of value in each era, right? Each of the main showrunners we've had since 2005 have had strengths and weaknesses, and there's something about each era that I absolutely adore. That said, there's definitely value in expecting better in certain degrees - but then you get people making hour long videos about how the show sucks now and I get so tired skskks

BUT YEAH sorry for rambling, your ask just got me thinking thoughts - much more importantly, you've got THE REST OF FLUX TO WATCH ahhhHHH have FUN!! War of the Sontarans is next and oh my daaaaays i love that episode SO much (I literally said as much earlier today and my coworker was like 'yes taka i know you love that episode' SKKSKSKSKSK SO. YKNOW) but honestly I just adore Flux. It's got such classic who vibes - I've started watching some classic lately and it's so funny seeing what inspired a lot of the structure/style of Flux (like the STUPID CLIFFHANGERS oh my days we need MORE of those). So I really hope you enjoy the rest - and the specials too!! Eve of the Daleks and The Power of the Doctor are soooooo much fun :D Please feel free to let me know what you think when you've watched it all, if you'd like to! I'd love to hear your thoughts/what your favourite episodes of thirteen's era as a whole have been! <3