#please please please bring back carole ann ford while you still can

[billpottsismygf]

The Devil's Chord! This was my most highly anticipated episode of the series because of The Beatles - who I'm very nostalgic for, sue me - but they had a much smaller part than I expected. That may be for the best, as the actors don't look anything like the real deal, but they did an admirable job considering the circumstances.

I love the idea behind this one. I'm a musician myself and love things about music. Music being important, music being holy, I love it all. Everything from Maestro playing us into the theme tune, to the way it aligns with the characters' established personalities (the Doctor's jukebox and Ruby's band), made me very happy. The music battle was especially cool. Very The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Out there, but I liked it a lot.

Maestro was also a lot. I liked them, though. Great costumes, great performance. A campy villain in the best way. They're the Toymaker's child, which is interesting in itself, and I like that the rules around fair play seemed to extend to them as well.

There was a lot of series arc stuff here. So, Ruby has Carol of the Bells deeply ingrained within her. There was some important figure (another of the Pantheon, presumably) at her birth - is Ruby herself a child of the Pantheon? More snow, as well. There's also the One Who Waits coming up again. It all feels a little too self-conscious and crammed in - "remember, there's pay-off coming for these random mysteries that you have no context for!". I know we live in an era of heavily serialised media, in large part because of streaming and the binge model, and obviously Doctor Who has been semi-serialised since the revival, but it just seems like a lot. Maybe even too much, especially since the first episode was quite heavy with it too.

Although, I did wonder if this one was meant to be later in the series. First Ruby saying "you never hide" and then "you always know what to do" signaled a far longer association with the Doctor than she has had, but then it was especially jarring when she said it was hard to keep track of when her time is and it could be June or July... That sounds like someone who's been travelling with the Doctor for a while, not like someone who's on their second trip. And it was Christmas for her only last episode. Obviously there can be off-screen trips, but usually for the first couple of episodes we want to feel that this is the start of their journey as the audience gets to know them. Did this get plucked from later in the series and dropped into the episode 2 slot? Because it seems a bit of a shame, if so.

There was a lot of fourth wall breaking in this one as well. There was a wink to camera each from Maestro and the Doctor, as well as the Doctor's comment about thinking the music was non-diegetic (a nice little moment that probably a lot of people will miss). I do quite like a meta moment, and particularly loved the Twelfth Doctor's partaking in them, but I wonder if these serve a particular purpose, because we also had Mrs Flood talking to camera at the end of the Christmas special. Since RTD seems to be going with a theme that the rules of the universe have changed and become a bit more magical, I wouldn't be surprised if the meta elements tied in somehow.

Then, this is less meta and more fully surreal, but that whole ending musical number was... odd. I don't know what I think about it yet. The Doctor with his wink and "there's always a twist at the end" seemed to signal that we were leaving the normal reality of the show, but then... Did that musical number literally happen? How about the Abbey Road zebra crossing acting like a piano? It's part of my specific brand of autism that I struggle with surreal things when it's not clear how/whether they relate to the more realistic things going on, so maybe other people love it. It just made me feel confused, though, and slightly annoyed. I expected a musical number because the trailers showing this made that fairly clear, but I'd assumed it would be explicitly connected to the strange happenings of the episode. Instead it's just plonked at the end after everything has been fixed.

A lot of this latter stuff sounds quite negative, but overall I really liked this one! As I said before, the music stuff speaks to me personally very much, and I'll withhold final judgement about the serialisation stuff and even the meta/surreal stuff, as it may well pay off yet.

Small things

Love their outfits so much, and obviously we've known about them for a while, but it was funny they were worried about blending in when both of them (especially Ruby) were wearing pretty 60s adjacent outfits at the start. The Doctor was more 70s, but I don't think many people would have looked askance.

Ahhhh, Fifteen mentioning that One was in the junkyard made me exceedingly happy! The speculation about what happened to Susan also has me hoping beyond hope that this might be set-up for a Susan return.

I loved that extended instrumental scene where Ruby just played on the rooftop and people listened. It was quite moving!

Love hearing the word "lesbians" on Doctor Who <3 - I don't think even Bill explicitly got to use that word!

Just the general queerness is really nice. Ruby writing a song for her friend's gay break up. Maestro being they/them and it not really being a thing beyond their introduction. Ruby's mum having a "girlfriend" who was a Beatles fan that makes me wonder if that's in the platonic or gay sense.

I want to know the behind the scenes details of how they chose the music they did, especially when it comes to the chords that both summon and banish Maestro.

Henry the child is real and alive at the end! (Though it's during the musical number, so I guess real is dubious.) When he vanished into nothingness (and his music teacher didn't seem to care), I had thought he wasn't real. Does he have his own world-ending powers?

The Doctor referring to bigeneration as having had his soul "torn in half". Hmm, don't like that! I won't rehash my feelings on bigeneration here, but this implies that there is not continuity between the end of Fourteen and the start of Fifteen, which mucks up one of the only ways I could hold onto being just about okay with it.

[incomingalbatross]

Doctor Who companion concepts I would use (though not all at once, obviously), if I ever got a shot at contributing to Canon:

Prince In Exile—a teenage boy from another world (future, probably human), whose territory was invaded/family was overthrown by evil people. At the end of the first story his only chance of survival was to run into the TARDIS with the Doctor & team; now he’s taking his adventures and time in the TARDIS as opportunities to learn how to take care of his people, until the time comes that he can get home and save them for real.

Mom Friend—this is a lot more general in nature, but I just think we need a mom friend. The Doctor can fill the “dad” and/or “child” slots quite well, depending on the regeneration, but you can always use a mom in a TARDIS ensemble. Maybe a woman from the past? We can always use more of those too... (Though obviously I’d want strict oversight, to keep her from being either Stridently Anachronistic or a strawman figure of Historical Womanhood.)

Sibling Duo—a brother and sister on the TARDIS together! We’ve never had siblings on a TARDIS Team (not canonically, anyway) and there’s so much potential there. You’d already have the strong bond between them, which is great, and... honestly, sibling relationships just have so much story fuel. You could give them an age gap! Difficult history or a close relationship (or, let’s be honest, both)! Save the world by using Sibling In-Jokes as a code! And you’d be foregrounding a platonic relationship, which is great.

Legacy Companion—someone who, though it’s not a huge part of their story, is a child or grandchild of a past companion. Look, this would just be fun. There are lots of options—a Chesterton kid/grandkid? A Jackson? One of Jo’s massive family? these are just the obvious possibilities—and it wouldn’t even be hard! Have the Doctor meet and befriend them on their own account, but then throw in a discovery (probably early on) that this new friend is related to an old friend. If you did it right, it could really build this companion’s character and relationship with the Doctor (and Classic fans’ attachment to this companion) while still keeping their story accessible to new viewers. (Have to avoid the angst/drama pitfalls, though, of course—the Doctor would get to hear that his old friends are happy and healthy, and the companion would have a good relationship with them.) It might even be possible, depending on the choice of characters, to bring the original actor(s) back for a reunion!

SUSAN. Look. Just. I know we don’t know where she is or how she is or anything, really, except that the Doctor seems not to know that either, but PLEASE. Let the Doctor find his granddaughter again! Let her be okay!! Carole Ann Ford would be up for this!! And (since Carole Ann Ford is mostly-retired, and only if she approved) Susan could regenerate at the end of that story, and rejoin her grandfather in a new body, having new adventures. PLEASE.

(Addendum: Any of the SJA kids would also be great and wonderful additions to the TARDIS. I just... feel like they’ve already got such well-developed lives that it would be harder to mesh them into the main show without sacrificing something? Luke especially would need so much CONTEXT, and also I don’t want to take any of them away from Sarah or London. So I don’t think I’d even try for them without just the right setup in place—they’re more an EU/fic possibility. Had to give them a shoutout, though, because I love them.)

[moombamastar]

Things I want from Season 12,

An actual character arc for the Doctor. Jodie’s great and 13′s lovable as heck, but this entire season felt like nothing but an introduction to her personality and values, and I feel like there was room for more than just that. The Doctor never really felt like she was challenged, or like she was learning/changing/growing. The closest we got was in the Tsuranga Conundrum, where she was forced to acknowledge that she wasn’t always in the right or didn’t always know better than everyone else. I loved that. Especially after so many years of the Doctor being so, so self important. So for Season 12 let’s just take that and spin it into a whole proper character arc.

A character arc.. OR SOMETHING for Yaz. Everything between Ryan and Graham this season was great, I’d even say it was the highlight of the season. But Yaz meanwhile didn’t really seem to get much of anything to do. Even Demons of the Punjab was more her grandmother’s story than hers. We know that Yaz is is capable, and brave, and kind, but I still feel like we barely know who she is. So for Season 12, let’s give her a character arc with the same quality as Ryan and Graham’s. It can have to do with her family, or her job, or... anything. Just... ANYTHING. Please.

Better LGBT representation, I mean honestly. The representation in this season has been really groundbreaking for Doctor Who, but not so much when it comes to the portrayal of queer people. We got a woman with a dead wife. King James showing unreciprocated interest in Ryan while simultaneously being a huge piece of shit. And then to top it off, a guy who gets murdered literally seconds after he mentions having a boyfriend. That. Sucked. And I’m going to be side-eying Chibnall for a very long time because of that. I mean my god, how simple would it have been to just make Mitch a woman or Lin a man and have them keep their romantic interest in each other? It’s so easy to do better than this... So do better.

Time Lords, give’me Time Lordsssss.I don’t necessarily share a lot of people’s disappointment over the lack of familiar DW lore or aliens this season. I think the longer you keep a dalek or cyberman offscreen, the bigger of a deal it feels when one shows up. But I am so ready to see the Time Lords make a proper return. Moffat brought them back for better or worse, the Doctor knows how to find them, they know how to find the Doctor... so let’s just get to it. I really want to see how they fit into the universe and the Doctor’s life after everything that’s happened, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them reimagined in much the same way daleks were in Resolution.

Susan.This isn’t really something I specifically wanted from Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who, it’s just something I’ve been wanting for a long time. Carole Ann Ford is still alive, and to not take advantage of that to bring Susan back and finally give the character some proper explanation and closure, seems so bizarre to me. But idk, maybe they’re already working on that. Maybe Susan is this mysterious “Timeless Child” that was hinted at. Who knows?

And lastly, let 13 reunite with River Song. This isn’t really a serious desire or expectation on my part, it’s just something that would make me supremely happy.