#the three in question being missy clara and river

[menlove]

the twelfth doctor's story is just one butch dealing with no less than 3 batshit femmes who love him very much and would kill someone with varying degrees of hesitation and then 1 lesbian who is neither and would NOT kill anyone but would still die for him in a very Platonic way

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically 25

I know I know, haven't done this in a while. Check the tag for past instalments

But it's 1905! One year on from all that Flux stuff, and while Jodie Whittaker is back as the Doctor and Yaz is here again we nonetheless have Graham and Ryan back too and no Dan, so who knows when all that's getting resolved. Meanwhile we're in New York meeting Nicola Tesla, who is played by Damien Moreau.

This is a painfully average episode. On the one hand it's fun and features space scorpions. On the other the companions do pretty much nothing this episode, so it's yet another example of "Why are these people here". Yaz comes closest to being relevant by convincing Tesla not to give into a scorpion queen while they're on her ship, but honestly, you could replace all three with sexy lamps and nothing would change about the plot.

Not a lot of plot happens really, and it doesn't happen for 45 minutes. Turns out Tesla has received a signal from Mars, which of course is currently full of Ice Warriors evicting the British Empire, so maybe that's what he picked up? Except everyone thinks he's mad, which is strange, since Britain literally colonised Mars to steal gemstones like two episodes ago. Honestly, it's almost like these episodes were filmed several series apart with completely different production teams.

Anyway Tesla signalled back, but it was asshole space scorpions, and now they want to kidnap him to make him upgrade their weapons or something. They have a queen who is fully humanoid and also played by Rani from the Sarah Jane Adventures. The rest of them literally just look like scorpions. This is a very Legend of Zelda approach to character design.

The episode is mostly a philosophical treatise about dreaming engineers who want to save the world being hamstrung by capitalism, so that's great, but tbh it's thin on character-work. There's a dreary bit where the Doctor phones the scorpion queen and says they aren't handing over Tesla so the scorpions should leave or else, and the scorpion queen says they'll kill the planet in that case, and the Doctor looks flabbergasted even though that was very literally what the scorpions had already said they'd do. I honestly do not understand the shocked reactions at this point. Then Tesla says he has to sacrifice himself in that case, and we get a more toothless rehashing of the Percy Bysshe Shelley vs billions of people debate that we had like ten episodes ago, and once again, lads, once again, I must stress that this is a STUPID way to watch this show.

Eventually they blow up the scorpion ship with the queen on board. How like a Tesla.

Very little in the way of meaningful events! There's a bit where the scorpion queen asks the Doctor if she's ever seen a dead planet and the Doctor says yes and looks a bit haunted. That's about it though. No answers to any of our hanging plot threads, but also no new questions, so we're Winning

Hanging plot thread list:

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest.)

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (unless she’s Missy)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole (And Nardole was “reassembled???”)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

What has happened to all these companions and where are the new ones coming from?

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

What’s With The Silence?

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Who is Captain Jack Harkness? (Is he the one who gave the companions a warning about the lone cyberman?)

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window?

What’s with the Doctor’s future involving getting shot by an astronaut?

Is Amy pregnant and why is it inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

Who did the Doctor lose to Cyber Conversion?

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What’s with the Weeping Angel statues, and why can’t you blink at them?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi.)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

What happened with Amy’s pregnancy?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory?

Is Rory plastic or not?

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras?

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

[riversofmars]

Would you look at that, finally another update! :D Sorry about the delay guys, I'm going through a really stressful time at work at the moment and my mental capacity is a bit more limited than usual lol. But here we are!

Chapter 14: Deceit

“Well done.“ The Emperor slow clapped as he stepped out of the TARDIS and Missy whirled around.

“How did you…“ She didn’t know what to say. She had refused to share her secret, the only secret worth keeping she had, the location of Gallifrey, and it had all been for nothing. Here he was, his heavy boots falling onto the sand.

“Well, I knew I would get my answer either way. I thought you would take the easier way, I really did, I thought you would tell me where it is but this works too.“ He explained, savouring the moment and the expression of devastation on her face. She had failed to stop him from finding their home.

“You put a tracker on me.“ Missy realised.

“I knew eventually you would return to Gallifrey.“ He shrugged.

“Leave. You’re one man. How are you going to take on the Gallifreyan military.“ Missy looked around to the capital in the distance. They would notice their arrival soon enough if they hadn’t already. She could only hope the Council would realise what they were dealing with.

“Don’t underestimate me, so many have.“ The Emperor chuckled. “And I’m not alone, am I.“ Missy’s anxiety increased as she watched River, Rory and Amy step out of the TARDIS behind him.

“Missy, how’s life? How were the last four and a half billion years? You’ll excuse us for taking a short cut.“ River smirked as she looped her arm around her husband’s.

“This is great, nothing but dust and blazing sunlight.“ Amy huffed sarcastically as she looked around, Gallifrey wasn’t exactly the marvellous thing of beauty she had expected.

“Not sure you’ve met my in-laws?“ The Emperor took great pleasure in Missy’s obvious discomfort. “But wait, there is one more.“ He looked around as Clara stepped out of the TARDIS and Missy visibly tensed. She squared her jaw, forcing herself to appear unfazed. “What? No cheerful reunion?“ The Emperor joked as they just looked at each other.

“Here they come.“ Rory interrupted and pointed towards the capital.

“They will kill you.“ Missy said as she looked around to find a ship approaching.

“Let them try.“ The Emperor smirked.

“You’re trespassing, you are not welcome here.“ A metallic voice sounded when the shuttle got close, hovering in front of them.

“Is that really how you welcome home a son of Gallifrey? A war hero?“ The Emperor called back.

“You’re not welcome here, Doctor. You’re not a hero, you’re a war criminal.“ The electronically amplified voice shot back. Missy looked to the Emperor, who didn’t even react to the usage of his old name.

“Who defeated the Daleks and saved Gallifrey? Did you? Did any of you?“ He retorted. “I’m walking into that city, whether you like it or not. Come along.“ He looked to his companions.

“We will open fire.“ The warning came promptly.

“Well go on then!“ The Emperor took a step forward and to Missy’s surprise and horror the patrol followed through without hesitation. They opened fire. Three rounds of heavy artillery. When the dust cleared, the Emperor and his friends stood unscathed and amused, only Missy had cowered down. “You really think I would stand here without ample protection?“ The Emperor called up to the ship. There was no response. Then, suddenly, heavy shells pounded into the ship. The explosions blinded them, the noise was deafening. Missy looked around to see Amy having retrieved a sort of rocket launcher from inside the TARDIS, firing at the shuttle. Within seconds, the ship exploded and debris crashed to the ground. They remained save within the TARDIS’s shield, all Missy could do was look on in horror.

“Told you it was worth bringing the big guns.“ Amy grinned dropping the rocket launcher, it’s shells spent.

“Let’s go before they send reinforcements.“ The Emperor decided. “Come along, Missy.“

“You don’t need me.“ Missy remained rooted to the spot as the others set off.

“I don’t but I want you to see me tear the city apart.“ He retorted.

“Why are you doing this?“ Missy didn’t understand. All this destruction and for what?

“They cast me out. They could have had it all but they were scared. So instead of standing with me, they hid at the end of time like the cowards they are, I’m going to make them pay.“ The Emperor answered as they stopped to wait for her to come along. “You of all people should understand, they left you behind too!“

“I don’t understand you, I never have…“ Missy shook her head. “Why won’t you leave me behind? Or kill me? If this is the end of time, I haven’t got anywhere to go anyway.“ She had had to get away from him. If she wanted any chance of stopping him destroying Gallifrey or indeed surviving herself, she had to get away. He had to have some idea of how he could go about conquering Gallifrey. He couldn’t go into its past like he usually did when destroying a planet and surely he didn’t have the man power to stand against the Gallifreyan military. But the Emperor wouldn’t come here without a plan, would he?

“Oh no, Missy, you’re coming with me. From now on, I wish my enemies long and healthy lives so they can witness my many victories. And this will be the biggest.“ The Emperor grinned. “Gallifrey is the last stand.“ The paused for a moment as something caught his attention and he listened out. “Can you hear that?“ He asked as the distant ringing of bells carried across the plains ahead of them.

“The Cloister Bells.“ Missy realised.

“How’s that significant?“ Amy asked and River answered:

“They toll when disaster is drawing near.“

“It’s not drawing near, it’s here.“ The Emperor smirked.

——

“This is nice, I could see myself living like this.“ River took her time looking around. The grandeur of the place was certainly to her taste.

“What… how…“ The other River stared at her in shock. Was she hallucinating? It was a lot to take in but she realised this had to be possible. There was no reason why there should be a mirror version of her wife and not herself. Apart from the fact that the Doctor had admitted to her wife being dead? She shook her head to clear it, she had to find out what was happening. The Cloister Bells ringing for the first time in years and this River’s appearance couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Oh come on, you’ve met my wife, you know of me.“ River gave a little wave as she circled around the room surveying everything. She took her time too, which made it all the more unnerving.

“How did you get here?“ The Emperor’s wife demanded to know as she regained her composure.

“Same way as my wife?“ River retorted in an off hand sort of way. “Not sure actually. But aren’t you missing the more important question?“ She turned back to her twin and found herself staring down a gun.

“Why are you here?“ The other River demanded to know.

“Oh okay, this is gonna be fun.“ River tilted her head with a sly smile and pulled a gun on her in turn. “How long has it been for you since you shot a gun?“ She asked with a smirk. “Aren’t you getting a bit rusty living in this comfort? Me, I’ve just been chased by deadly shadows only a little while ago, my instincts are as sharp as they come.“ The bells tolled again.

“How come you died then.“ The Emperor’s wife shot back gipping the hilt of her gun more tightly.

“Oh I’m sure you can guess. How do you think you will die?“ River deflected.

“Not here.“ The other River retorted promptly.

“Well, neither one of us has to die, that’s not why I’m here.“ The Doctor’s wife shrugged. “Come on, ask me again.“ She smirked, she was enjoying this more than she probably should.

“Why are you here?“ The Emperor’s wife repeated exasperated. “You could have killed me already, which means you’re here because you want something.“

“I’m here because I agreed to kill you and your wife. You’re not dead because I thought I’d offer you something instead.“ River answered.

“Which is?“ The other River raised her eyebrows surprised. She didn’t, however, lower her gun.

“I don’t trust Clara, I don’t know her, not in my universe or yours.“ River revealed. “You, however, have a very trustworthy face.“ When the other River didn’t react to her joke she carried on to explain: “I listened in on the conversation the three of you were having and, boy, was it informative.“

“You have no idea what…“ The Emperor’s wife tried to interrupt but she wouldn’t let her.

“Shush, I’m talking.“ River shot her down playfully as another bell tolled. “You want to get rid of her. To do that, you need prove she’s plotting against you.“

“We already know she is.“ The other River huffed unimpressed.

“Maybe, but can you prove it? And have you figured out how to overpower her when it comes to it? She won’t go quietly and she does have the Quantum Shade under her control… how will you get to her without getting yourself or other’s killed.“ River asked. “I can help with that and I can get Clara to confess to plotting to kill the Emperor. You can get rid of her at last. Or you can let her carry out her little ploy for which she has enlisted my help and secured the cooperation of my wife. And believe we, we will make sure she succeeds if it’s our best way to get out of here… Or we can work together and we both win. You get rid of Clara and you will have us out of your hair.“

——

“Who’s there?“ Yaz called into the Cloisters convinced there was more than the wraiths moving in the shadows. “Fan out.“ She instructed raising her gun as she slowly moved forward. Her troops of men obeyed, splitting up as they advanced into the Cloisters. “We know you’re down here. Come out come out wherever you are!“ Yaz hummed as the bells rang. The sound was deafening down here.

“They’re blocking the exit…“ Missy observed glancing past the pillar for a moment.

“They don’t belong down here…“ The Doctor mumbled catching a glimpse as well, so far they hadn’t been noticed but they wouldn’t be able to keep hidden for long.

“They must have come because of the bells…“ Missy retorted and the Doctor shook her head.

“That’s not what I mean.“ She replied as she looked again to assess where the different soldiers were headed.

“Oh you mean because…“ Realisation dawned on Missy and the Doctor nodded:

“The wraiths protect the Matrix, the Matrix is Timelord technology, everything else that invades the Cloisters is a foreign body, a virus, and they are the fire wall. They will protect the Cloister. We are Timelords. The guards don’t seem to be.“ The Doctor explained. “We need to draw them further in…“ The soldiers were advancing slowly, spread out evenly. They would spot them soon if they didn’t move.

“They won’t be stupid enough to venture too far, surely…“ Missy couldn’t imagine that they weren’t aware of the risks.

“You know sometimes I have really brilliant ideas…“ The Doctor grinned as she turned her head to look at Missy and feeling slightly better already, Missy asked:

“Yes?“

“This is not one of them.“ The Doctor smiled apologetically and jumped out from behind the pillar. “Over here!“ She called.

“Stop right there!“ Yaz shouted and the Doctor waved her arms catching the attention of the other guards as well. Another bell toll shook them to the bone.

“You have to catch me first!“ She started running, drawing them away from Missy who was watching in horror as the guards chased after her.

The Doctor didn’t keep running for long, she quickly found herself in a corner and face to face with Yasmin Kahn.

“You’re surrounded, Doctor.“ The captain of the guard informed her.

“Hello again, Captain.“ The Doctor looked around. Indeed, she was surrounded by four guards and Yaz who was approaching with a smug smirk on her face as she lowered her gun.

“Surrender now, Doctor.“ She said as she looked her up and down. “No-one is going to fall for that disguise.“ She huffed.

“We will see about that.“ The Doctor retorted with a smile, over Yaz’s shoulder she watched Missy sneak towards the exit. “You really don’t know me every well yet, Yaz, such a shame, otherwise you wouldn’t have made this mistake.“ She focused her attention back on Yaz when she was sure Missy had made it to the door. They were so focused on her that they didn’t even notice Missy or, in fact, how far into the Cloisters they had come and what might be lurking in the shadows.

“What mistake is that.“ The captain huffed slightly amused. She raised her gun again for good measure. “You’re backed into a corner, you’re trapped.“

“There is one thing you never put in a trap.“ The Doctor took a step towards her and away from the shadows. “If you’re smart. If you value your continued existence, if you have any plans of seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never ever put in a trap.“ She smirked pushing her hands into her pockets. She looked past Yaz to where she knew her eyes needed to be for just a moment longer.

“Yeah? What’s that.“ Yaz asked tilting her head as the bells rang again.

“Me.“ The Doctor answered and pulled her sonic from her pocket. Before anyone could react she pointed it at the ceiling lights and everything went dark. And then, there was movement in the dark, she could feel it, even if she couldn’t see it. The guards could feel it too and opened fire. The Doctor quickly dove for cover as energy blasts flew overhead. With every flash of light, she saw the Weeping Angels had moved, grabbing hold of the soldiers, their weapons. They screamed. The angels were part of the firewall, protecting the Matrix against aliens. It was high time she got out of here before the angels decided she was an intruder as well. The Doctor ducked under the arms of an angel and bolted for the door that Missy was holding open.

——

When there was a knock on her door, Clara was reluctant to open. The tolling of the Cloister Bells put her on edge, like everyone else in the palace presumably. There was no way of knowing whose disaster they were announcing. She was prepared for all sorts when she opened up, but to find River back so soon was what she had least expected.

“That was…“ She looked at her perplexed but River didn’t pay much attention, she just walked past her.

“Quick, I know, surprising what you can accomplish with the right incentive.“ She retorted.

“So it’s…“ Clara closed the door behind her after checking up and down the corridor. No-one had seen her come in.

“Done? Of course it is, I don’t make empty promises.“ River chuckled and Clara was genuinely stunned.

“I’m gonna need some sort of proof.“ She managed to say at last, trying to take in the news.

“How’s this for proof? Bottle of the Emperor’s finest, straight from her drinks cabinet I might add.“ River presented a bottle of champagne that she had been carrying. “How else do you think did I get my hands on that?“

“I could do with a drink…“ Clara took the bottle with shaky hands.

“Then there is this…“  River held out her hand to Clara who took a moment to understand what she was referring to.

“Is that…“ Clara’s eyes fell on the ring River was presenting to her, she hadn’t worn it before.

“Thought I might keep it, as a memento you know… fits perfectly after all.“ River chuckled as she dropped her hand with the wedding ring and made her way to a cabinet to retrieve some champagne flutes. “A toast then?“ She carried the glasses over to Clara as the bells rang again.

“Quite right.“ Clara found herself smiling now as the news sunk in. They’d done it. The worst was over. Everything else was just technicalities. River had kept up her end of the bargain. Clara popped the cork on the bottle with a grin and River laughed as the champagne sprayed before she could get to the glasses with it.

“This is what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it.“ River said when they had succeeded in filling their glasses.

“It was never what I wanted…“ Clara retorted as she sat down the bottle. “But it’s what she deserved. She should have just chosen me. Why couldn’t she see that we would have been so happy…“ If only for a moment, a wave of sadness swept over her. “I can’t believe she’s dead.“ She mumbled and took a sip of the champagne in an attempt to calm herself.

“Are you regretting it?“ River asked tilting her head.

“No.“ Clara said after a moment of brief consideration as she sorted through her emotions. She looked back up to River and smiled. “I actually feel so… relieved. It’s like a spell is finally lifting. I should have done this so long ago.“ She raised her glass to a toast. “To new beginnings.“ She grinned and River toasted her.

“So what happens now?“ River asked as she watched Clara drink.

“Now we…“ Clara started to answer when suddenly, a wave of sickness came over her. She steadied herself against the table. “Now we…“ She tried again but broke off when she started feeling dizzy. She looked to River and realised her mistake as she watched her tipping out her own glass. She hadn’t taken as much as a sip. This time, the tolling of the bells sounded like a rousing chorus as Clara’s senses slipped out of her control.

“Now you’re going to pay for your deceit, Clara dear.“ River smirked and Clara collapsed.

——

“River?“ The Emperor called out as she returned to her quarters. She was on edge. Although it was the middle of the night, the whole palace was awake. The ringing of the Cloister Bells kept them up and shook the foundations of her reign. Questions where being shot at her from every direction, even on her way back to her quarters. The bells had been quiet for so long, everyone knew something was happening and the Emperor didn’t have any answer yet. She had to find out what was going on but no reports had come in so far. All she could do was wait. “River?“ She repeated when she didn’t get an response. As the bells tolled again in the distance, she felt a wave of worry. She shouldn’t have left River here by herself. Quickly she walked into the adjoining room and called for her again. The wheezing and groaning of the TARDIS sounded, drawing her attention. “River, what are you…“ The Emperor pulled the box’s door open and to find River fiddling with the console.

“Oh, welcome home, Sweetie.“ River looked around with a smile.

“What…“ The Emperor hoovered in the doorway, something was off, why was River in here and what was she doing? The TARDIS hummed in response to her unspoken question.

“Now, now, that’s not fair, telling on me.“ River sighed shooting a look at the large crystal in the centre. The Emperor pulled a knife from her belt.

“What is going on here?“ She growled. The TARDIS was right, this was not her wife.

“That’s disappointing, I was so curious to find out if I could fool her but you just had to ruin the fun, didn’t you.“ She shook her head at the TARDIS which responded with a threatening buzz, very unlike the TARDIS River knew.

“Where is my wife? How did you get in here?“ The Emperor demanded to know and took a threatening step towards her. The resemblance was remarkable, down to the same dress her wife had worn when she had left her here not long ago. One thing was missing though, that gave her away straight away: her wedding ring. The Emperor tried her best to prioritise her thoughts. This was the Doctor’s wife, she had to be. While part of her was intrigued, curious as to how she had got here and wondering, how she could use her, the other part was overcome by deep worry for the wellbeing of her River.

“Don’t worry, your wife is fine, just off to have a little chat with Clara.“ River gave a wave of her hand as she stepped closer. She also marvelled at the resemblance between the Emperor and her own wife. She eyed the knife in her hand with curiosity. The Doctor hated the use of weapons.

“Why would she be doing that?“ The Emperor shot back.

“Because I suggested it? Because the other option would have been me killing her and none of us want that, do we.“

“You? Kill her? Oh, darling, if you’re anything like that pathetic excuse of a wife of yours, I would love to see you try.“ The Emperor huffed condescendingly.

“I like your fire.“ River smirked, she couldn’t deny that the assertiveness and confidence was quite attractive on her but it wouldn’t distract her from why she was here. “You haven’t got the first idea what I’m capable of. Or my wife for that matter. But I have a feeling you will find out soon enough.“ In the distance, the Cloister Bells tolled again.

“What is going on here? What are you planning?“ The Emperor shot back.

“Well, I did tell Clara I’d kill you but then I thought better of it, don’t really want to be picking sides in your game of thrones.“ River answered. “Now, really, I’m just waiting to see what my dear wife has come up with.“

“She’s on her way here for you, isn’t she?“ The Emperor concluded.

“Perhaps.“ River shrugged. “I don’t actually know. It’s all terribly exciting, isn’t it.“ She grinned. “Now I think I best get going.“

“You really think you can walk out of here? I bet the Doctor would move heaven and hearth to keep you safe, seeing as she let you die once already. Perhaps she can finally be persuaded to share her secrets if your life is on the line. So really, it’s terribly thoughtful of you to pop in.“ The Emperor smirked. This River was the leverage over the Doctor she had been missing. And she had walked right into her arms. No matter how confidently she acted, they both knew there was only one way out of the TARDIS and that was through the Emperor.

[ssaalexblake]

I finished 11! I was never super into him during his run, i didn’t dislike him but i didn’t care much either, but during rewatch i actually came to like him a lot? I think hindsight is helpful here, because i could see the building blocks being laid that take the doctor further away from ten’s more toxic traits and actions, because for being Wildly irresponsible, 11 was actually making a concerted effort to Try to be better even if he rarely in practice succeeds. 

He tries to do right by Amy and Rory, and like i said, he may not always succeed and he may say stupid things but he honestly tried to make it so they’d have a healthy relationship with him. A town called mercy showed us shades of the doctor’s realisation that their actions have consequences, he even calls himself out for how ten acted around the master, which will bring us into s8 with Missy and 12. 

His relationship with Clara is also less *side eye* if only because now i Know full well where they go and it wasn’t happy go lucky masquerading as reasonable as much as it was the prelude to some meaty and self aware character plots to come with clara and 12. 

I can’t necessarily pick out things i’d say ‘wow i love that’ about it, but a vast majority of it was very watchable and i’m not actually looking for peak brilliance in dw, so i call this a win actually. Some episodes i Do really love, even if i actually don’t love the vincent one as much as everybody else? I find tthe fact that they kill the creature that’s just scared and disabled pretty... not great. But??? The Doctor’s Wife is my favourite, still. The vampires of venice was a totally forgotten jem, i Loved the ‘you should be in a museum... or mausoleum’ scrap of dialogue, McCrory killed that performance. 

Also liked Amy and Rory more as people this time, i actually think they’re easier to relate to now i’ve almost lived their age through? Didn’t really Get them back when i was in my early 20′s, couldn’t really place amy’s early 20′’s immaturity and the tension between her and rory because of it. Now it’s vastly clear that as we meet amy for the first time as an adult, their problem was that Rory had been made mature more quickly Probably due to his career choices and the gulf was wide until amy caught him up, which moved her from 11 to rory and so on. 

Though, I do believe the low point was either A) how he treats river, B) the use of the whole mystical pregnancy trope or C) that time 11 did a genocide but used humans as the weapons in it and forced murder upon like... everyone on earth. I’m still not sure if the narrative even realised either of those things were bad. I know 12′s resolution with River has him realise the damage he did to her, but it’s a bit Vague to the point that i know the doctor is Aware their behaviour was bad but depending on what the writers at the time may have thought was bad or not in their writing,still may not really be calling out everything that was a problem? 

11′s last few eps were deeply questionable from a writing standpoint, tbh, his very last episode was Much better than the three previous but they kind of spoilt it for me with the whole unnecessary and uncomfortably sexual nakedness thing that had like... No baring on the plot and just made what would have been normal, sweet scenes just creepy. They were so close on this one. 

The name of the doctor was a fine episode if i ignore any and all feminist ideals i possess and conveniently ignore that the plot of the episode isn’t Actually resolved at all and honestly, the 50th anniversary was kind of fun as well, except they used the zygon plot as a vehicle for the emotional story surrounding the doctors and their choice to destroy gallifrey and then... Totally abandon That plot as well when they don’t want it anymore. 

and that’s a shame, genuinely, because they really pulled him down at the uh... eleventh hour. Bad plot resolutions are better than No plot resolutions and they weren’t even giving us Anything. 

But all in all, i found very few episodes hard to get through and while it was a nightmare in terms of casual offensiveness increasingly as time went on, the episode morals themselves were rarely questionable if at times badly executed to the point it mangled the moral. The River Amy thing is a whole can of worms on its own, which would involve a detailed take down of the mystical pregnancy trope and it’s late so no, but it’s awful and should never exist and it did here. 

idk, i didn’t hate it, and i kind of did by the end of 11′s run back in the day, but my criticisms are more founded in actual critical thinking now and are ironically probably more scathing for the emotional detachment. I’m left with that frustrated feeling of ‘the bones are good but if it could just be Tweaked i’d properly like it’ mostly, i think. idk.

i rambled but that’s fine who needs sleep anyway 

[timeagainreviews]

My Series 10 Rewatch: The Pilot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[girl-in-the-library]

Rambling about Doctor Who? In this economy?

I’m in the process of catching up with Doctor Who. I had stopped a while ago most of the way through Capaldi’s second season, after having stopped for a long time before watching his first season and a half.

Well, I just watched Capaldi regenerate into Jodi Whittaker and I have some things to say. This is primarily focusing on the end of Clara’s run as a companion and Bill’s story, because it’s been a while since I watched that first part of Capaldi and Clara, and even longer since I watched anything before that. I came back to catch up because I’d been seeing gifsets of Nine and Ten, and I miss them so, so much. But I decided I wanted to catch up before going back and doing an entire rewatch of New Who (I have no idea anything about Classic Who, honestly...and there’s so much that’s missing and I have no idea where to get the rest of it anyway).

Point is. I have feelings. Some good. Some bad. And they’re going under the cut.

First things First: I hate Steven Moffat.

All his episodes are the worst! Whenever his name would come up as the main writer credit, the episode was trash! Of course, some were more trash than others, and some were good ideas, but they all got the Doctor so, so wrong.

Two egregious examples that I hated, both from Moffat written episodes:

In “The Husbands of River Song,” River gives this whole big speech about how she’s the woman who loves the Doctor, but he will never love her, because that’s like looking at a sunset and asking it to love you back...or something like that. The Doctor would never come for her, because she wasn’t important enough.

That’s wrong on two big levels. 1! The Doctor is the Doctor because he loves. Nine was broken because he was so hurt, and he had forgotten how to love. Rose taught him to love again, and brought him back from the brink of self-destruction. I dislike the idea of the Doctor and River being a couple because I think Steven Moffat wrote it very, very badly (just like...a random woman comes out of nowhere and claims to be the Doctor’s wife! And then she is...because she is?) However, she is, in fact, the Doctor’s wife, as written, and he /does/ love her. She /is/ important to him. And the fact that she doesn’t think so just proves a misunderstanding in character and out of character. The second point? That she’s not important enough? She’s obviously important enough for the Doctor...but the other point is that that shouldn’t matter.

Nine once said that he had never met anybody who wasn’t important. But later on in the episode about the Monks that had taken over, Bill asks why the Doctor puts up with humans if he finds them so ridiculous. And the Doctor says something about “every so often I meet one like you [Bill]” and that makes up for putting up with the rest. No! The Doctor loves humanity! AND EVERYONE IS IMPORTANT TO HIM.

The thing about the Doctors that Moffat has written...both Eleven and Twelve (and the War Doctor, I guess too) is that specific people are important to those Doctors, and the Doctor would do anything for them. Anything for Amy, for Rory, for River. For Clara. For Bill. And they fail, but they fail doing things to save these specific people, not necessarily for their sakes, but for his own. And then they would die, and he would be sad, but there would be no consequences for his actions. 

Nine and Ten loved Rose, but Ten left her behind /twice/ because he needed to. Martha got herself out. And Ten erased Donna’s memories to save her life. He lost them, in the end. And it hurt him. And he continued on, learning because of it. He died and regenerated twice because of his love for people. But there were still consequences for everyone around him, as well as himself. Sad things happened.

But Amy, Rory, River, Clara, and Bill? He hung on to them until they were burned away, but they were all fine in the end. Amy and Rory were there for a long time, but then the weeping angels sent them back, and the Doctor couldn’t see them anymore, but they were totally fine and grew old together. River died the first time the Doctor met her, but he clung to her for centuries (without proper character development, I tell you!) until she eventually died, but her whole life was centered around the Doctor. Clara he did everything he could to save, including break the laws of time. And he still lost her but also she was totally fine at the same time, traveling across time and space with Asheildr/Me in their Diner TARDIS. And Bill? Bill literally was turned into a Cyberman because of the Doctor’s hubris. He couldn’t save her. But she ended up okay anyway.Why? Because after she died as a human, then died as a Cyberman, she lived as something else, along with Heather, and got some sort of happily ever after (until she ultimately died again, but that’s off screen, we see her memories.) And then the Doctor got HIS memories of Clara back! So there were no consequences!

The Doctor as Moffat wrote them had no regard for life. They loved specific people, and specific conditions, except when Humanity was in Danger, and then he was The Big Damn Action Hero. But he also turned all of humanity into murderers when he basically brainwashed them into killing the Silence on sight, because otherwise they wouldn’t remember seeing them (this happened in Amy and Rory’s time, but it’s relevant).

In one episode, he tells the executioners to look up the Doctor under cause of death, and they flee out of fear for just how many people wound up dead because of him. In the next, he berates Missy for just how many people has she killed? It’s inconsistent.

The Doctor is a Perfect Hero, when he needs to be, and a Perfect Killer, also when he needs to be. “The Doctor of War” - as the glass memory people call him (I can’t even remember what they were called even though I just watched the episode) - isn’t who the Doctor is...but it’s who Moffat made him. 

And of course, almost every major plotline ends up with Moffat’s favorite trope: The Big Friendly Reset Button. Because what does it matter if things happen? There’s time travel and everything will be okay for Earth in general and the people we care about, even if it’s not actually okay.

I hate Steven Moffat. I do think he has some good ideas! The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances were some of my favorite episodes! I just think he can’t be allowed to be in charge.

I also hate Clara’s Magic Tears that make the Doctor do something he wasn’t going to do (that it would have made sense for him to do) just because she cried. Like...in the 50th. When she cried and told the Doctor that pushing the button wouldn’t be like him. That he couldn’t do that to his entire civilization. But the thing is...he already did. His character development was based on that. And it changed him. But then, Clara cried, and he didn’t. And it was like the Time War never happened. (What I think would have been great would have been if the three Doctors decided to push the button together. They had made the decision in the past as Eight/the War Doctor. Now, together, as the War Doctor, Ten, and Eleven...knowing everything they had been through and everything the universe had been through...they pushed the button to make the decision they knew needed to be made. But they didn’t do that. Clara cried and they didn’t do that. And then it wasn’t like the War even mattered anyway, because literally nothing changed). But I digress. There was another time or two that Clara cried and the Doctor did something stupid, but I forget the specifics right now.

Now, from the bad to the questions.

Why are the Time Lords? Where are the Time Lords? If they’re back, how come they’re not interfering more, especially as they were looking for the Doctor? If they’re not back, then why are they there?

What was with the orphanage thing on Gallifrey? Is that where the Doctor grew up? Is this a question that was answered in Classic Who, or earlier New Who that I just don’t remember, or did Moffat just shove in a confusing backstory then not answer questions about it?

Why was Missy being executed? And speaking of Missy, why couldn’t she still call herself the Master, just because she was female? 

Who was that child in the picture on the Doctor’s desk in the office at the university? The one in the frame next to River’s frame? I feel like this is something I just don’t know...not something that wasn’t explained.

How old is the Doctor? That’s been all over the place for a long time now. 

How did Bill survive the mind-thing with the monks?

I had more questions but I forgot them.

And from the questions to the good.

I liked Bill! I liked Bill a lot! I feel like I never got the sense that she developed any sort of relationship with the Doctor, that it was just like...she was a student and then suddenly they were super important to each other, but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes.

I actually really loved Capaldi! I thought he could be a great Doctor if he wasn’t hindered by the writing. But I definitely enjoyed this run and will miss him, which is honestly more than I can say for Matt Smith. Not that I don’t think Smith did a good job. I like Smith well enough, but not enough to miss him as the Doctor when he left.

The episode Hell Bent was really, really good.

And overall, I just enjoyed it.

I know I listed a lot of problems up there, and not a lot of good stuff down here...but I was having fun watching Doctor Who again! I was just taken out of it sometimes by the Moffat garbage fire.

But I cried when Bill died. I cried when the Doctor died. I cried when he said, “What about me? Don’t I get to rest?” I cried when he regenerated, though his speech to himself was stupid.

I liked Bill better than Clara, but Clara still had a lot of good moments!

I am /happy/ that I got back into Doctor Who. And I can’t wait to see what comes next.

[flappydolphin]

Finally finished watching the latest season of Doctor Who and here are some thoughts/questions (please bear in mind that I have not seen the Classic Who, and thus the following is based only on New Who)

Where in the Master timeline does Dhawan’s Master fit in? Is he after Missy? Why is there no explanation for how the Master’s back?

On a similar note, why is the Doctor not more surprised or even more reactive at the Master being back?

Both the Spyfalls and the finale lacked the usual tension between the Master and the Doctor. Lacked the complexity of their relationship, because every other time, the Doctor has tried to save the Master, to redeem him/her, but this Doctor seems very okay with the Master’s “death”

On a similar note, this regeneration in general seems very okay with death – in Orphan 55, how is the Doctor reacting so passively to humans dying?

Am I supposed to believe that the Doctor, who would sacrifice their self to save a human in a heartbeat, is okay with Ko Sharmus killing himself? It would do well to remember that Nine died to save one person, Ten died to save one person, Eleven was ready to die to save the universe – and with all this I’m just supposed to believe that the Doctor would not put his life on the line if it meant saving someone else’s?

Am I supposed to believe that the Doctor, who carried the guilt of the Time War, and then who got a chance to save Gallifrey (Day of the Doctor), is ready to destroy Gallifrey all over again without much thought?

In general, I think destroying Gallifrey again just undoes the years of character development after the 50th anniversary special. Hell, it even makes the anniversary special and Hell Bent On the companions’ passivity: did it really take them an entire season to actually ask the Doctor questions about where they come from and why they’re travelling? – questions that we have seen earlier companions ask the Doctor in pretty much the first two/three episodes: Martha did so in Gridlock, Clara never stopped asking, nor did Amy and Rory; hell, even Wilf asked – and he was a companion only for two/three episodes.

Even the Doctor largely feels like a very flat character, and this I’d blame entirely on the writing. There is no complexity, no conflict, no moral crises that mark the Doctor. We rarely see the Doctor being forced to choose from an array of bad options, we rarely see the Doctor being forced to weigh lives, we rarely even see the Doctor for who they really are: a 2,000+ year old creature with that many years’ worth guilt and tiredness.

The thing with there being no difficult choices bothered me the most, because for me that’s been the hallmark of Doctor Who: the Doctor being made to constantly question if they are actually a good person, and trying so hard, always, to do the right thing. Compare this to Twelve in Under the Lake, in Into the Dalek – and in so many others.

Where is the frustration about how the Doctor has done so much for the universe, has lost so much, but they still can’t win? (to be fair, we saw a bit of it in the Haunting of Villa Diodati, but it was all lost because Chibnall never built up the Doctor as the complex character it is). Compare this to Eleven’s frustration in Rings of Akhaten, Ten’s reaction to the Daleks in the Manhattan episode, Twelve’s frustration at not being able to save the entire village in The Girl Who Died.

Why are the companions such flat, one-dimensional characters?

I’m missing the conflict between the companions and the Doctor – these companions don’t seem to remind the Doctor why humans are important; they don’t seem to ‘soften’ her. All three of them are also very okay with death

To go back to the point about companions – none of them in this ‘Team TARDIS’ seem to question the Doctor’s choices. Compare this to Donna in Fires of Pompeii, to Martha in general, to Rose and Nine’s dynamic in Dalek, to Bill’s reaction after the death of a person in The Thin Ice. To be fair to the companions, this has to do with the lack of difficult choices in general.

We don’t see the companions’ characters developing except at moments when it is not furthering the plot. We don’t even see the companions having important lives outside of the Doctor.

Peripheral characters like the humans/aliens on whatever planet or place the ‘fam’ is at don’t feel like people with actual choices either, particularly so in the last episode. 

Now to the Doctor being the Timeless Child. This is an entire separate thing for me, but here are the highlights.

I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it either. I think it fundamentally changes the nature of the show, of the Doctor being this ordinary Time Lord. Instead it makes the Doctor inherently special, which was never the point. It undoes the character development we have seen right from William Hartnell’s Doctor to Peter Capaldi (I say this because I haven’t seen the Doctor’s character develop under Thirteen at all). To be clear, I don’t have an issue with the showrunners changing things, as long as these changes add value to the story and as long as these changes don’t fundamentally alter the character of the show - and I don’t think the Timeless Child twist does either. It just feels like it’s there purely for shock value. This plot twist changes everything, but it also doesn’t change much: because even after Thirteen learns who the Doctor is, we don’t see her reacting to the information, or responding to its implications. Furthermore, this trope just gives the Doctor an origin story without answering a ton of questions about the Doctor that we’ve had over these 50-odd years: like the Doctor’s family, or their name, or what the deal with the Hybrid is.To put it very simply, it asks more questions to answer questions. 

If by being the Timeless Child, it essentially means that the Doctor has infinite regenerations, then it also lowers the stakes in the show, because now the Doctor can sacrifice themselves at any time and it’ll all be okay because they can’t really die. This also makes all the sacrifices others have made for him – Rose, Donna, River, Clara, Bill – meaningless because really the Doctor could’ve saved themselves at any of these times.

In general, both season 11 and 12, although fairly enjoyable, haven’t added anything of value to the larger story that’s been developing for so many years now, and that just sucks, because there is so much they could’ve done.

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #14: Dealing with changing Doctors

The main incarnation of the Doctor in my project is the Fifth Doctor, who is largely based on the BBC Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors. After Steven Moffat and Peter Capaldi announced that they were resigning from the series, I decided that it would be time to begin planning the endgame to my project. This also meant that I would not be adapting the BBC Thirteenth Doctor.

Since my project relied on the BBC episodes, I had to find ways to transition the Doctor into a different character without regenerating him. Take a look at how I got around the regeneration storylines for my project.

For context, the picture at the top is meant to show the Fifth Doctor’s appearance in the Moushouden Series, which is essentially Matt Smith’s face on Peter Capaldi’s costume. I remember someone posted something like this on Facebook years ago. Saving it never occurred to me and by the time I wanted to find it, it was either lost or deleted, so that’s why I decided to recreate it myself. I may not be an artist, but I know a thing or two about putting transparent PNGs on other backgrounds.

Eleventh to Twelfth

The Next Gen Series largely takes place between The Day of the Doctor and The Time of the Doctor, but without Clara. Clara was dropped off at home just after Hiroki and Akari’s wedding and she would not return until Series 10.

So how did I deal with The Time of the Doctor? The Siege of Trenzalore happened concurrently to the events of the Series 9 finale, which was a lot shorter than the 900 years as shown in the original episode.  Like in the original episode, the Daleks ended up being the only aliens fighting against the Doctor and the Silence; the downscaling of the timeline makes the other aliens look like absolute jokes. Hiroki would have interactions with the Doctor in between his involvement in the Battle of Sekigahara and the Ōsaka Campaign.

At the same time that Hiroki and his comrades are attacking Honnōji and Nijō Castle, the Daleks are unleashing an all-out attack on Trenzalore. A Dalek confronts the Doctor at the top of the clock tower and accidentally taps into his hatred for the Daleks after scanning him, leading the Dalek to begin exterminating some Daleks before being exterminated himself. Handles dies when a Dalek shoots him.

The Daleks only retreated from Trenzalore after Hiroki enters an Osterhagen Station some distance away from Honnōji. The Time Lords also close up the crack in the wall as well. The Doctor heads back to Earth as it is destroyed and restored by God in a literal deus ex machina. He goes back to Earth to find Hiroki and the story continues from there.

That was the first part of the transition which I did in 2014. The second part of the transition took place in 2017 with the first episode of Series 10, The Advent of the Doctor, which was partially inspired by Deep Breath. Clara rejoined the Doctor when she answered an ad in a newspaper (that was placed by Missy). When Hiroki and Akari were firing cannons at each other, the Doctor threw his coat in the way, causing it to be destroyed. His new costume debuts at the end of the episode.

The regeneration scene in the TARDIS did not go to waste as I used it in an alternate telling of Hiroki’s regeneration into his final incarnation. In the original version, I used the War Doctor’s regeneration to show Momoka’s regeneration into Hiroki, but in the alternate version, the regeneration reset Momoka into her previous incarnation before he went back home to say goodbye to Akari.

Twelfth to Thirteenth

This was a bit more complicated to plan out, but the execution is less complicated because unlike the last section, it doesn’t involve a lot of things happening at the same time. I also aimed to answer a question that was raised with The Name of the Doctor – if the history of the Siege of Trenzalore was changed, how could the Clara echoes have existed?

The background to this stems from the fact that the Fifth Doctor’s incarnation is the final one. With the Doctor being born from Hiroki, a pocket of regeneration energy remained in the latter, which he would use to regenerate into his various incarnations and prototypes (using up portions of that pocket in the process). When the First Doctor was forced to exile, he was forced to regenerate even though his subsequent incarnation was still considered the same as his previous one. Additionally, as stated in #2, timeline splits caused Doctor Whooves, the Pony Doctor and Jee Gun to be spawned from the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration into the Fifth. They were given a pocket of regeneration energy each, which would allow them to regenerate once (the Pony Doctor gave his to Doctor Whooves, so he could regenerate twice). As a result, the Doctor was only able to regenerate six times (including the War Doctor’s regeneration), though he had enough regeneration energy to spare, which he used to heal River Song’s hand and give strength to Antoni (who would attempt to steal it to give to the Daleks).

In order to set up the transition, we need to go back to the Series 11 (BBC Series 9) finale, Hell Bent. In that episode, the Doctor had Rassilon and the High Council banished from Gallifrey. They ended up on Earth in 2003 just in time to bear witness to the start of the Last Great Time War on Earth. While three members of the High Council stayed in Hong Kong to observe the Time War, Rassilon and the remaining members inserted themselves into higher positions at UNIT Central Control in Geneva. They ensured that the authorities would turn a blind eye to the chaos going on as a result of the Time War (because children fighting in wars is an issue in other countries but not in my project).

We then move to the third Space Squad movie, which takes place following the end of Gokaiger. In 2018, Rassilon became obsessed with getting his revenge on the Doctor for banishing him from Gallifrey and allied with Fūmakūdō, the villain group of the Space Squad movies (Fūmakūdō is the project’s counterpart of Genmaku and the name is derived from the villain groups of the three Space Sherriff series, namely Makuu, Madou and Fuuma). He goes to UNIT HQ and tells them that they are decommissioning the Superhero Project. At the same time, he has the Doctor’s TARDIS taken from the UNIT hangar (as he was on the GokaiGalleon for the duration of the series) before he brings it into the Makū Dimension.

Rassilon then uses the TARDIS’ Eye of Harmony to power up the Axis Converter, causing the console to explode and expose the heart of the TARDIS as the Makū Dimension expands throughout time and space, opening up portals everywhere. Later, Rassilon confronts the Doctor in Trenzalore. Before the Doctor can morph, however, Rassilon uses his gauntlet to freeze him in place before fast-forwarding time around him. The alien fleets attack Trenzalore and the TARDIS becomes the tombstone the Doctor saw when he first arrived on Trenzalore. Rassilon lets go of time and disappears.

The Doctor goes into his TARDIS and discovers that its history has been damaged along with the console. He decides to merge himself with the exposed heart of the TARDIS, causing the centre column to become a direct link into his timestream. At the same time, he also discovers that the TARDIS’ timestream has been split in two between himself and Hiroki, allowing Hiroki’s version of The Name of the Doctor to happen alongside the original version.

Being inside the heart of the TARDIS for too long is no better than looking into the Time Vortex. The Doctor plans to use his regenerative energy to repair the TARDIS and the timelines, but he is forced to stop when the events of the episode happen. The Great Intelligence damages the Doctor’s timeline, but Clara undoes the damage. When the past Doctor goes in to save Clara, the present Doctor uses his strength to maintain the stability of his timeline. The Doctor’s timeline has been fixed, but there is still a little damage that the Clara echoes forgot to fix, specifically around the start of his current incarnation’s life.

It is then that Ritsu Tainaka learns of her alternate self’s status in 1968 New York as an echo of herself. By the time everyone meets at the damaged TARDIS on Trenzalore, the Doctor’s past self has already left. She goes into the Doctor’s timestream and sends an echo of herself to patch the last of the damage. With his timeline repaired, the Doctor repairs the TARDIS and brings Ritsu out of the heart as they join with their comrades to defeat Rassilon for good.

Following the Monk invasion (which Australia managed to fend off for six months), UNIT summons the Doctor as they need the TARDIS to process the physical checkups of all Rangers and Riders. They discover that the Doctor is in his final incarnation and that he had built up a resistance to severe injury through fighting as GokaiRed. He passed on his powers to Kai following Rassilon’s defeat, meaning that he has now lost that resistance over the seventy years he spent guarding the Vault.

The events of the Series 12 (BBC Series 10) finale happened and the Doctor regenerated, but his appearance didn’t change. Upon crashing into the Barrier Base’s core (without damaging the Base itself), he is met by Hiroki, Akari and Brigadier Cheng Xieyun. The Doctor is taken to the sickbay, but when three generals from UNIT Central Control (namely the three members of the High Council) take over, they have the Doctor teleported to Geneva.

During a fight with the High Council, who were working with Madame Kovarian of the Silence, the Doctor is shocked by a group of Silents before being finished off by Kovarian. The Doctor is killed, but he comes back to life, now knowing what happened to him and why he didn’t change his appearance when he regenerated. When the Doctor merged himself with the TARDIS to repair it, it knew the Doctor had no regenerations left and so, gave him energy from the Time Vortex to repair both itself and the Doctor, but the full potential of his abilities wouldn’t be awakened until his regeneration, of which an extra one was gifted to him by the TARDIS.

As a result, the Doctor and his TARDIS are now one with each other. The Doctor is immortal as long as the TARDIS isn’t destroyed, although the same can’t really be said for the opposite because it would be too overkill. The chameleon circuit has been repaired so that the TARDIS can change its internal or external appearance at will. At the same time, the Doctor has also become a part of the chameleon circuit, meaning that he can also change appearance at will. However, the Doctor can decide to keep his and the TARDIS’ current appearances for the sake of familiarity.

Following this bout of exposition, the High Council are defeated and Madame Kovarian was taken to the Papal Mainframe, where she was tried for her crimes before Mother Superious Tasha Lem. The Doctor rejoins the Gokaigers and alternates between the TARDIS and GokaiGalleon. Technically, this new incarnation is known as the Infinity Doctor, but for all intents and purposes, he will continue to be known as the Fifth Doctor.

This has been my way of getting around the Doctor’s regeneration storylines for the sake of my project along with an alternate interpretation of what happened to the Doctor after Twice Upon a Time. Timeless Child, eat your heart out. I’d take this over that confusing storyline about the Doctor’s ascension and descension from absolute godhood.

[vampiremonday]

TV series ask meme: Doctor Who

send me a tv series and I’ll tell you:

my all-time ultimate fave character: I’m not sure I have a favorite, but I have clung to Clara harder than any of the others. I like all the companions I’ve seen much of, some more than others, but she was the one who makes me think the most. I also really love Martha and Rose. I guess those three are my favorites, but it depends on what we’re talking about.

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: River Song. I understand some of the criticisms of her, but she grew on me to the point that I would say I like her.

a character I used to like but now don’t: I never liked her to begin with, but the original portrayal of Cassandra in 1x02 makes my skin crawl a bit because of the transphobia involved now that I understand it, which I probably didn’t in my early years as a fan. I appreciate that the second and final portrayal of her involved showing her some empathy, which I guess was a slight rebound on that, but still. Bad taste in my mouth.

a character I’m indifferent about: Thirteen, so far, because I haven’t seen her or her companions??? And I guess that I was just kind of put off by the very hamfisted pop-feminist marketing angle they went for. Like, the fact that the Doctor wouldn’t be opposed to regenerating as a woman had been foreshadowed since Eleven, so I don’t really think that we needed Simm!Master being made even more arbitrarily sexist than he already was (which was enough and made some kind of sense character-wise) and Twelve and co being all ~the future is female~ in the text of the show. I mean, I guess hedging your bets against idiot dudebros who can’t read the writing on the wall. But yeah, I hope to… one day enjoy some Thirteen but for various reasons including the way the marketing just made me feel blank about something I thought I would otherwise be intrigued by, I haven’t gotten around to it.

a character who deserved better: Martha Jones the mostest. Also, Danny Pink. Ianto Jones (Torchwood). Also Owen and Tosh but especially Tosh. Probably a bunch of other episodic characters, including that Family of Blood whom the Doctor went full wrathful-Eldritch-god on. Oh, and Donna Noble.

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: Doctor/Donna as a romantic thing. There are others I’ve seen that I’m indifferent to or put off by, but that one is one that I can sympathize with the urge to ship but just… can’t.

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: Honestly since I’ve liked Doctor Who for over a decade, this is a hard question to answer. Doctor/Rose was one of my first ships as a teenager that I really understood in a fannish way, but over time the fire about it has cooled somewhat for me. I like it still, but I feel like over time I stopped being as OTP~ about it. So Doctor/Rose is a mainstream ship that I really like when presented in certain ways. Clara/Danny broke my heart. I liked Amy/Rory as they matured, and “together or not at all” made me really happy even if I was iffy about the early execution. I still tear up a little at the musical piece from that scene. And… uh… I am forever transfixed by Doctor/Master | Missy and Doctor (especially Twelve) & Clara and might be persuaded to ship it under certain circumstances. See, I can’t choose, but I guess if I had to it would be one of the last two. Oh, and it’s pretty much bits and pieces except on the Torchwood side, but one of my favorite rarepairs in the world is Jack Harkness/Martha Jones and I would’ve endgamed it so hard had Torchwood S3 ever existed.

a cute, low-key ship: Jenny/Vastra? I’m mostly pretty “oooh I can’t decide” about choosing ships and favorites, but in this case I was pretty, like, on-board with it. I wrote a fic one time which is more than I can say for even ships I’ve been more into. Doctor/River wavers between “I accept it” and being low-key to very occasional bursts of Strong Feelings that would put it in the above-category.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: Jack Harkness/Martha Jones.

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: The sexist, dehumanizing elements of the episodic romance in Love and Monsters have aged really badly. At first, I didn’t really fully understand why so many people hated it so much, but I get it now, even though I liked the underlying concept for that episode a lot. I also have a lot of discourse-y opinions about why, while I enjoyed some of it and rooted for Ianto and Jack both to be happier, together or apart, that I really don’t like Jack/Ianto endgame and/or it being treated like this Epic Romance when it really only became Epic because Ianto died horribly. I would just prefer to ignore CoE (I have never watched it) and endgame ship them with other people. But this is a sin to people who are major Janto shippers, and I support you! I just… don’t personally… jive with it. It felt like Ianto settling for me and then getting killed for it.

my favourite storyline/moment: The whole narrative throughline involving the Doctor, Clara, and Missy in S8 and S9. It really played with the whole “the bad guy is right” and “who is the bad guy” in a way that never became so nihilistic I couldn’t stomach it, and in fact led to Missy’s redemption, which is hitting all of my happy buttons.

a storyline that never should have been written: The ending of Love & Monsters (the stupid kids-show-write-in-monster resulting in a woman being a tile that performs oral sex for the rest of her lifespan is bad but didn’t have to be like that). I’m really bitter about The Girl in the Fireplace even though there are parts of it that I have grown to be at peace with. I still would probably be happier if the episode mysteriously vanished from memory. That bizarre thing with the Daleks in business suits and something about pigs? I hate The God Complex, like, a lot. I only ever watched it once and am afraid to try and stomach it again. And there are others I’m just indifferent about or have mixed feelings about, but those are my axes to grind. Interesting how, at this point, most of my gripes happened in the RTD era, though The Girl in the Fireplace was entirely the result of then-Moffat’s textual criticism on how stupid it would be for the Doctor to fall in love with a common girl. Probably my favorite episodes in S1 are actually the ones that involve the Slitheen, but I hate the fatphobia and fart-joke-heavy aspects of those as aliens. Would tweak the actual threat, though the writing of the overall story feels like some of the best in early Doctor Who revival to me?

my first thoughts on the show: The first episode I ever saw was The Idiot’s Lantern, and I really understood nothing about it except that it was science fiction, a revival, and something a British friend watched every Saturday. I was perplexed, but intrigued. Then I caught random smatterings of episodes over the rest of my Christmas break, and by the time I saw The Christmas Invasion on Christmas, I was in love and given a new lease on hope. I had just gone through a personal trauma, and it really helped me to feel something about anything again, and S3 and Simm!Master’s role really helped me grapple with what I’d been through and feel empowered enough to survive.

my thoughts now: I always tell people that I’m kind of indebted to Doctor Who for my life. And I feel like that’s true. My emotional involvement with it varies a lot, depending on when you’re talking to me, but it’s a comfort-attachment for sure. There are certain lines or scenes from it that form some of the foundation of my personality, when I manage to have one. I think it is at its best when it is showing love for what it is: healing, restorative, and revolutionary, but on the other side of the coin, cruel, dangerous, and destructive. I think its engagement with questions about the nature of love and responsibility toward one’s fellow-living-things is when it is the most fun. I haven’t really interacted with it as much since Clara left. I have seen about half of Bill’s episodes, the missing chunk being the middle of S10, and I’ve seen nothing after that. I will one day, probably.

[annakie]

It took three and a half months, but I’ve finished my Doctor Who Rewatch.

It’s time to talk about seasons 10, 11, overall wrapup thoughts and some best/worst lists.  Very long post below.

I started doing this back at the end of August as more of a joke when I was going back and cleaning the terrible cringe stuff off the first few months of my blog, then ended up taking that project from when I started the blog in May, 2011 until late 2016.  I realized that I had too much going on IRL right now to revisit my life at the end of 2016 when things took a sharp turn the wrong way, so I haven’t picked that back up again.  I still might at some point.

After the start of the nostalgia tour I:

Cried about Doomsday

Still hated the Manhattan episodes but renewed my love for one of my favorite characters of all time.

Reflected about Martha Jones and being an overly-zealous defender of a fictional character

Cried a lot over meeting and losing River Song in the span of an hour and a half.

Made my way through Season 4 and found myself still mostly loving the show.

Finished Season 4 and was starting to tire of Ten but knew I had more content to get through.

Didn’t post again til I was done with Amy and Rory.  Loved Amy, Rory and River even more, especially Rory.

Watched an episode I remembered I didn’t like just because of the guest actors.  Only marginally helped the episode.

Disliked the second half of season 7 even more than I used to.  Felt meh about Clara.

Warmed to Clara more in seasons 8 and 9.  Still, was ready to see her go.  Loved Twelve, though the first half of season 8 continued to be rough.  Adored the Husbands of River Song for the 6th+ time.

 Took a brief moment to love Bill.

Full disclosure on the rewatch: I skipped most of Fear Her except the first and last few minutes, and actually haven’t gotten back to Waters of Mars or the one 11 Christmas Special with the kids who’s father dies.  I may or may not pick those up in the next week or two.

So tonight I finished rewatching all of Thirteen’s episodes and wanted to talk a bit more about Bill, and then a lot about Thirteen, and some general thoughts about the whole rewatch.

Bill Potts is too good for this world.  I remembered loving her during her season but was blown away on the rewatch with how much I loved her, and almost all of her season.  Her energy, her story, her smile, it’s infectious.  It’s infuriating that so many people didn’t watch Bill because wow she deserved a lot more attention that I feel like she got, and also I feel like the show itself turned a real corner that season.  Season 9, yes, definitely better than 8 and 7.5.  But It’s like Moffat or the writers in general kinda grocked into several important things and made the show more progressive and less cringe?  

There wasn’t an episode I thought was bad, even the more filler episodes like the one in space with the air being a commodity was tense and fun.  I’m not sure I’d skip a single episode.

And then Bill, I think, ends up getting an even shittier deal than Martha in her season.  Left alone for ten years in a shithole mopping up floors, only to be turned into a cyberman and get left extremely traumatized, and sacrifice herself.  A very good story.  A very sad and frustrating ending.  Except that she does get to “transform” and travel the universe with Heather.

Maybe she did eventually go back home and finish living her life from not long after she left in the TARDIS the last time -- it’s entirely possible.  The Memory-Bill in Twice Upon a Time (the Twelve & One crossover) remembered traveling with Heather, which means her memory was taken from some point AFTER.  So maybe she got to be an ethereal being for a long time, and then eventually went home to Earth.  Or maybe she’s still out there traveling the stars with Heather.  Either way, she deserves a good life, and a good ending, even if we never know the true ending.

Twelve -- I love him.  Again, he had a really rough start but Capaldi is an amazing actor and he owned the role. I don’t think it’s actually possible to rank my favorite doctors from the new Who era, they’re all different, all great.  And Missy -- such an amazing villain.  Paired with Simms-Master was so, extremely fun, but even on her own, I think she’s now my favorite incarnation of The Master.  (I’ve only seen a few episodes of Old-Who with Delgado, and I really love Delgado’s Master as well.)  

Nardole was also a fun addition to the season.  I know technically he was considered a full companion and enjoyed him when he was there, but tbh, to me it was all about Bill.

But hey, when Twelve left, it was a good time for him to go -- I really think three seasons is the sweet spot for length of a Doctor.  I was so ready for Thirteen and The Fam.

I remembered loving Thirteen when her episodes were airing and, I was right to.  Jodie Whittaker is so good -- I never doubt for a second that she’s The Doctor.  The show one again feels very different with a new doctor / companions / showrunner.  I honestly loved the lack of Doctor-Angst in the season.  Thirteen is so much more brightness and sunshine and I think it was a good way to swing the Doctor after Twelve.  I also liked that there were a few comments about changing genders, a little bit of frustration from noticing how people treated her differently, but it was neither an earthshattering thing that made EVERYTHING DIFFERENT nor was it a non-event.  I really think they handled it well.

I will say that I think some of the critics were right, that the season itself could have used a bit more of an arc.  Not a heavy arc, like seasons five and six had, but a bit more than Tim Shaw showing up in the first and last episodes of the season.  It looks like next season is going to have that.

The arc that was there though really came from Graham and Ryan’s grief about Grace and their relationship growing.  Honestly, I remember when we learned that one of the new companions was going to be a 60-ish year old dude I wasn’t looking forward to that at all, but honestly, I love Graham.  He’s an actual good guy, he loves deeply, he’s allowed to show his emotions, he handles things WELL.  He’s not perfect but also I felt like they wrote his character so well, he wasn’t an arrogant guy expecting everyone to follow his orders, he cares deeply for Ryan and even had some great scenes with Yaz.  

Ryan and Yaz are both also just so fantastic.  I loved getting to spend time with Yaz’s family both current and past.  I actually learned a little history in the episode that took place in Pakistan (and loved having a benevolent alien storyline there, love that episode so much).  I also loved that they allowed Ryan to show grief and sadness, and vulnerability too.  

I was definitely feeling the 13/Yaz vibes on the rewatch, and although I wouldn’t say I’d be upset if they did end up doing a Ryan/Yaz storyline, I also wouldn’t be upset if they didn’t do any romance storylines at all.  I didn’t miss it this season, and 13/Yaz seemed more likely than anything.

I also loved that they took on racism in a couple of big ways this series.  I felt like the only big swing-and-miss episode was Ker-Blam! where they were so close to really hammering down a good message in the episode and then it felt like Jeff Bezos himself came in and rewrote the last 10 minutes.

TBH there were a couple of episodes that I had COMPLETELY forgotten about, especially the one with Chris North and the big spiders.  Like while I was watching it I had a vague memory of seeing it before, but not up until then.  I’d also forgotten about the New Year’s episode last year with Ryan’s dad.  I only remembered to watch it because after the final episode I was like “Wait, wasn’t Ryan’s dad supposed to be in this season?” and so I went to hunt for the episode.

SO... that’s it.  I was actually a little shocked last night when I finished up the New Year’s episode and realized... I was DONE.  I made it back through eleven seasons and... it was worth it.  

Some final thoughts... and I’m just picking a few things out here off the top of my head, I wasn’t keeping a list all the way through so I’m sure I’m going to think of other things after hitting Post, but here we go.

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COMPANION RANKINGS: God Tier: Martha Jones

Faves: Bill Potts, Rory Williams, River Song

I love you so much: Donna Noble, Amy Pond, The Fam (All together!), Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Wilfred Mott

Very very Good: Rose Tyler, Nardole

I Still Like You: Clara Oswald

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FAVE SEASON: I mean, it’s still gonna be Martha’s season with an honorable mention of the second half of 4.

If you take Martha Jones out of the equation, it’d probably be either 6 through 7.0, or Bill’s season.

LEAST FAVORITE:  The second half of 7, for sure, and the first half of 8 is kinda rough.  It’d be easy to say season 1, as well, but I don’t think that’s entirely fair, as I think the age of the show really shows there and there was a lot of getting-on-their feet they had to do.  There’s still a lot of good there, you just have to look for it harder.

---------

Favorite Specials: 

The Husbands of River Song, #1 favorite no question

The Day of the Doctor a close second. 

Honorable mention to the Night of The Doctor for the canonical return of Eight.  Seriously, the first time I saw that it may have been the single most joyous moment of New Who for me.

Least Favorite:

I mean, I haven’t rewatched two of them yet since I remember not liking them.  

Also Voyage of the Damned was just even worse than I remembered it.

I Cried The Hardest:

Amy and Rory’s leaving in The Angels Take Manhattan

River’s death in the Library

The end of Doomsday

Danny’s death

The end of Vincent and the Doctor

Prem’s death in Demons of the Punjab, maybe the only single-episode character death that hit me that hard.

Happiest Tears: 

Martha leaves the Doctor

The group in the TARDIS towing Earth home in Journey’s End

Twelve and River get 24 years together

Ryan calls Graham “Grandad”

Jackie and Alt-Pete meet/”reunite”

Heather shows up and... “saves” Bill, they go off on adventures.

Best Twists: 

John Simms Return at the end of season ten.  

YANA is the Master

Oswin is actually a Dalek

Heaven is run by Missy, and the Cybermen. (Damn I really love twists concerning the Master don’t I?)

Bill discovers she IS a Cyberman

Loudest cheers: 

Mickey showing up in Doomsday

Martha laughs at the Master

Rory’s speech at the beginning of A Good Man Goes to War

The Doctor punches a racist who insulted Bill

Best dramatic moments: 

Jack and the Doctor talk about Rose in Utopia

Twelve takes several billion years to punch through a wall

Just This Once, Everybody Lives!

Turn Left

The Doctor says goodbye Idris in The Doctor’s Wife

Missy and the Master’s mutually assured destruction.

Biggest Laughs for a good reason: 

The entire poison scene in the Unicorn and the Wasp

Basically everything about the Doctor attempting to be normal in The Lodger.

Right, putting Hitler in the Cupboard.

Doctor, when I’m on a date, do not put the Pope in my bedroom.

Biggest Cringe: 

Penis-head half-human Dalek

Concrete blowjobs

Anytime a lady slapped/hit a guy not in self-defense

Old goblin Ten / Jesus Ten in Last of the Time Lords

Most of The End of Time part 1

Eleven forces a kiss on Jenny in The Crimson Horror (THAT deserved the slap.)

There’s a lot of things I could point out in season 1 but I’m grading season 1 on a curve.

Favorite non-companion recurring characters: 

Danny Pink

Brian Williams

Jackie Tyler

Worst Villians: 

“Love And Monsters”

“Fear Her” 

The eye-crud sleep monster with Twelve

I kinda wanna say the Daleks are so overdone it’s hard to get excited about them anymore, though I did kinda like what they did in “Resolution” (13′s New Years episode last year.)

OK I honestly don’t know if I want to put “A sentient universe who is in the form of a large frog and just wants a BFF” in best or worst but I feel it belongs SOMEWHERE.

Best Villians:

Missy

Whatever the fuck that thing is in Midnight

House

Got a Raw Deal award:

Adam (Seriously, he was told nothing and did nothing wrong via what he’d been told?!

Donna

Bill (Seriously, TEN YEARS SCRUBBING FLOORS? only to not be saved by 2 hours and then turned into a cyberman and killed again?)

Most Bothersome Lack of Continuity:

The rules for meeting yourself / interfering in the past.

Uh so who was the Not-Danny astronaut in “Listen” anyway?

Most Improved on a Rewatch:

The Fires of Pompeii because... ten and twelve?  It used to be one of my least favorite eps of season 4.

the Daleks in Manahattan episodes I guess just because I liked them more this time though they’re still not great. 

Seeing all of River’s timeline in such a short period of time

Gotta say I enjoyed Planet of the Dead a normal amount when before I used to really dislike it.

Best Premiere of a Doctor:  The Eleventh Hour Roughest Premiere of a Doctor: Deep Breath, since I’m grading season 1 on a curve. Best Exit of a Doctor: Honestly?  I’m gonna give this one to Nine.  He sacrificed himself to save Rose, and he died too soon.  It seemed a fitting end, if too quick.

Roughest Exit of a Doctor: I’m going to go with Eleven here.  It came at the end of what I felt was the worst period of New Who.  The episode itself was... I kind of felt like it was overwraught and didn’t pack quite the same punch as the other three.  Say what you will about the “I Don’t Wanna Go” line with Ten and Twelve needing to be convinced to regenerate at all.  Matt Smith did the best with what he was given, but he wasn’t given much in the entire last run of his episodes after having some of the BEST episodes the previous two and a half seasons.

Best Premiere of a Major Companion: Honestly?  Still gotta go with The Eleventh Hour, for both Amy and Rory and the great way they were both set up and the mysteries of the season.

Worst Premiere of a Major Companion: If you don’t count Asylum of the Daleks (which I thought was great) as Clara’s premiere, then it was definitely Clara’s “The Bells of Saint John”.  No contest.  I don’t think ANY of the rest of them were done poorly, TBH.  I guess I’d have to go with “Rose”, because the Autons themselves are pretty meh and the plastic wasn’t great.

Best (Main) Exit of a Major Companion: This one is more difficult. Doomsday deserves a nod.  Martha Jones walked the world and ended on her own terms.  Journey’s End saw the end of an entire era of companions we loved.  River showed up and died on the same day, but her final appearance is one of my favorite episodes ever.  The Angles Take Manhattan was SO GOOD.  But The Doctor Falls was exciting and tense and tragic.  Hell, even Clara’s final episodes were great.

Honestly, this shouldn’t even be a question.  I can’t choose.  I can’t think of a single one I didn’t love.

Anyway, thanks for reading this, if you got this far!  Know what?  Doctor Who is still a great show, even if it’s not an obsession anymore.  I can see myself doing this rewatch again in a few years, and I’m super looking forward to the next season starting in a couple of weeks!

[smallblueandloud]

TV Show Meme

pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. don’t cheat. tag 10 (or however many) peeps.

i was tagged by @everythinghappens-love just now and @asthewheelwills several weeks ago (i’m very sorry, it’s been... busy).

(also, i was going to do emmys edition, but i’ve seen at least one full episode of a grand total of... two emmy-nominated shows, so uh. not gonna happen, lol.)

1. Doctor Who

2. Agents of SHIELD

3. The West Wing

4. Frasier

5. The Good Place

1. Who is your favorite character in 2?

oof. i mean, i’ll pretend this is a hard question, but daisy. hands down. i mean, not only is she gorgeous, she’s really unconventionally smart, super powerful, and full of longing to have a family.

(also, she’s ridiculously easy to write)

2. Who is your least favorite character in 1?

um. i mean, if we’re talking about davies!who, i don’t really... have a least favorite character? i love them all a lot, and they’re all super nuanced and it’s just... really wonderful

if we’re talking all of nuwho, either missy or river song. nothing against them personally, their writing was just. really horrible.

3. What is your favorite episode of 4?

the inkeepers. it’s hands down the funniest episode in the whole show.

i hunted for a gif of any moment and couldn’t find one, so i’ll leave you with a quote:

Frasier: All right, stop it! Get a grip. You're not being asked to do anything that none of us hasn't done before in our own kitchens in our own homes! Now quick, Niles, kill five eels!

Niles: Wait, wait! What?

Frasier: I'm serious! Every restaurant critic in Seattle is out there and they all want anguille, so start killing eels!

Niles: Wait, wait. How do you suggest I do that?

Frasier: How do I know? You're the chef. Throw a toaster in the damn tank for all I care!

[a few minutes later]

Frasier: Not to worry, Gil, the eels are on their way.

Gil: Our mouths are watering, Frasier.

Frasier: Our chef is in the process of...  

The lights flicker, a humming sound is heard from the kitchen.

Frasier: ...frying them now.

4. What is your favorite season of 5?

probably season 2. i don’t know why, but the idea of the six of them being a team in the afterlife when there’s no one else to help them is... i don’t know. i really like it, can’t tell you why lol. (oh, and the montage of the different attempts is my favorite scene in any tv show, ever.)

5. Who is your favorite couple in 3?

josh/donna, obviously :D

6. Who is your favorite couple in 2?

i’m gonna cheat and put my favorite ship from aos, which is, as all of y’all know, fitzskimmons.

i have nothing to say except that i love my babies

7. What’s your favorite episode of 1?

turn left! definitely, for sure, always and forever.

god, it’s like someone wrote, combined, and filmed the dhr and donna fics of my dreams.

8. What is your favorite episode of 5?

it’s a tie between 2x10 (best self) and 3x07 (the worst possible use of free will). i turn on the former whenever i’m feeling down/bored/sick, and the latter... look, i’m cheleanor trash, okay? moving on.

(no gifs because i’m starting to feel guilty for the length of this post)

9. What is your favorite season of 2?

s3, because it has the most clips of normal team life (from what i remember, haven’t gotten there in the rewatch i’m doing for the fsk rewrite yet lol). also, the storylines were interesting and they actually put time into developing the friendships, which i’m missing a lot these days.

10. How long have you watched 1?

HA. huh. uh. four-ish years, i think? yeah. it was around the time that i discovered queen, and i would play bohemian rhapsody on repeat as i read fanfic (which means that now, sometimes, i hear a certain queen song and am hit with a very strong, very specific urge to read 10rose fic for the next 72 hours.)

11. How did you become interested in 3?

my mom made me watch it at first, and i was hooked by the first episode. it’s just... so smart, and so fast, and i love it very much.

12. Who is your favorite actor in 4?

is this even a question? david hyde pierce. obviously.

13. Which you prefer, 1, 2 or 5?

wow, you really just... went for my three favorite shows, huh? i guess as a measure of overall quality, the good place. for characters, agents of shield. and for plot, definitely doctor who.

14. Which show have you seen more episodes, 1 or 3?

doctor who! although-

as it turns out, i have watched 100 doctor who episodes, exactly. (go me!) on the other hand, i’ve watched 68 episodes of the west wing. so that answer’ll change pretty soon, lol.

15. If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?

frasier? frasier? you want me to become someone from frasier?? uh... okay, uh...

niles, i guess? just because his apartment is... truly magnificent, lol. also he gets to marry daphne

16. Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work?

surprisingly, yes? i think this is the best combination on the list, actually. frasier knows... uh... i don’t know, sam? he went to school in *googles frantically* new jersey, so that could work?

honestly, i have no idea, but i need toby ‘i am a know-it-all’ zeigler and frasier ‘i am a pompous ass’ crane to be in a room together. it would be hilarious.

17. Pair two characters in 1 who would make unlikely but strangely okay couple.

clara/yaz. i will not be taking questions at this time.

18. Overall, which show has the best storyline, 3 or 5?

oh, oh man. you had to choose the two shows with the most cohesive storylines?

sorry, tww, but i’m gonna have to give it to the good place. the storyline and pacing are *chef’s kiss* divine.

19. Which has a better theme music, 2 or 4?

uh? i don’t even think that’s a choice, since frasier barely has any theme music and anyway, i hate letting frasier crane win at anything (lol). agents of shield!

i’m tagging @paperairplanesopenwindows, @aethersea, @florchis, @skyler10fic, @cassiesinsanity, and *flounders* @nereb-and-dungalef, just based on who i’ve been talking to recently. feel free to ignore this, or, conversely, if i didn’t tag you, feel free to pretend i did!

[grassangel]

I’ve been remiss in documenting what’s been happening in the BBC fan panel, but this one is the first Doctor Who one for ages (there was one asking about the new logo, but it was mixed in with a general questionnaire)

But this marks a return to the real reason why I document these surveys: complaining about questions because they're poorly written/designed. Because this one was terrible. One question should not have 34 options and a limit of three to select.

Given the timing of this one, with 7 months of series 11 filming done (accounting for filming breaks and holidays) and presumably most of the way through the series, these questions are probably going to shape series 12 and the stories, writers and actors that Chibnall wants for it. Which has me really excited given some of the questions. (Somewhat)

(There is supposed to be a cut here, but mobile sucks and this is a long post)

So first was a question about favourite monster! Didn’t ask for elaboration, but I did answer The Veil.

But then it did ask me to rate the following monsters out of ten: Daleks, Slitheen, Ice Warriors, Ood, Sontarans, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, Silurians.

Weeping Angels topped my ranking, followed by Daleks, Silurians and Cybermen.

Then there was a long list of other monsters (16) and which 5 of them I liked. The list was: The Mara, Mister Sweet, Sil and the Mentors, Cybermats, Saturnynes, Quantum Shades, Krafayis, The Silence, Macra, Autons, Sea Devils, The Great Intelligence, The Yeti, Ogrons, Pig Slaves, Kantrofarri/The Dream Crabs.

Plus options for none and not familiar with them. Which... given I wasn't familiar with half the list, was tempting. But instead I chose Cybermats, Quantum Shades, the Silence, Autons and the Dream Crabs.

There was a question who my favourite companion was. It's Bill.

Next question was about recent companions. Unfairly perhaps, given the way the survey was being rather retrospective and including plenty of Classic Who characters. Anyway I was asked to rate them out of ten. (The inclusion of some did make me happy though.) The list was: Bill Potts, Mickey Smith, Clara Oswald, Captain Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Rose Tyler, Wilfred Mott, Amy Pond and Rory Williams.

Bill Potts and Donna Noble topped the list for me, following by Captain Jack, Martha and Rory. (Honestly, most of them I ranked fairly highly: Mickey, Wilf and Amy came in very close behind.)

Then, and this is the vastly unfair and very ill-written question, 'which three of these characters do you like best?' The list is 34 items long. It has three different options for the Master. There's an option that's simply 'other Time Lords' which could also include the Master as well as others mentioned by name in the list, but probably means Drax and Romana etc. And while it should be noted the question isn't 'who would you like to see more of?', I, and probably everyone else, is going to read it like that.

*takes deep breath* The list of other characters was: Sally Sparrow, Winston Churchill, Madame Vastra, Professor Bracewell, The Face of Boe, Captain Henry Avery, Other Time Lords, Craig Owens, Missy, The Meddling Monk, Cassandra, River Song, Jenny Flint, Madame Kovarian, Davros, The Castellan, Kate Stewart, Petronella Osgood, Professor Travers, Dorium Maldovar, Malohkeh, Lytton, Novice Hame, The Master (new series), Nardole, Sophie (The Lodger), The Rani, Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart, Liz Ten, The Master (Classic series), Sabalom Glitz, Commander Strax, Danny Pink, Harriet Jones, and 'other'. (Plus 'I don't like any of these' and 'I'm not familiar with these')

I chose other Time Lords, Missy (seeing as she's the most recent incarnation of the Master, and also my favourite), and River Song. If I were given more choices, like the five given to monsters, I'd probably have chosen Kate Stewart and either Nardole or Madame Vastra.

Last was the comments/'is there anything else you'd like to tell us about the Doctor Who characters and monsters' question. Which is where I complain about there being three options for the Master and sideways complained about not having enough selections available to me.

I'm also a fan of the monsters/antagonists that are more concepts, ideologies or technologies than distinct characters or aliens. Also, I selected 'other Time Lords' as I do enjoy them all, even the ones that were available as other options. The Doctor interacting with other Time Lords is always an interesting dynamic. (And, uh, why was the Master listed three times? While Missy is definitely one of my favorite incarnations of the Master, but I don't see why the distinction was needed.)

As I said in the beginning, it does seem like these are questions to shape series 12. The inclusion of the companion question does make me wonder if the team TARDIS make-up will change by the end of series 11, since unless your name is Steven Moffat and you're writing Bill Potts, the companions are very carefully constructed.

And while that favourite other characters list wasn't 'who do you want to see more of', people are going to read it that way, even if the question is supposed to get an idea of what qualities people like best in characters. Like... this is the fan panel. Put someone like the Rani or the Meddling Monk on it and people will read it as 'who do you want to see'.

(I don't know what the responses are like to questions they've asked about how enjoyable continuity is (Classic references/characters etc) but I find them fun, because the people who make the show find them fun and enjoy making them, and that sense of fun does come across. Yasmin could be a journalist, and people new to Who might not understand the history the Doctor has with that profession but obviously they're quite fond of the job, but fans who get the reference will be !!! over the oblique reference to Sarah Jane.

They could even have another Time Lord arrive in plain capsule and say they're the Doctor's brother and I'd still be !!! despite knowing very little about Brax aside from he also does illegal things, but the illegal thing is a museum. Because new thing! That has history and depth! That the production team obviously cares about a lot to include!)

But yes, that last question was terrible. Partly due to length and low amount available to be selected but also, like with the monsters, it is also weighted a little to newer characters. Which seems terrible if you want to construct a new character or monster. At least separate out the lists so that bias could be removed.

[alphacentauriiswatchingyou-blog]

Steven Moffat Appreciation Day 2017: DWM Production Notes

With the end of the Moffat-era we are not just losing Steven’s writing talent on the screen, but also in the monthly DWM column in which he answers questions from readers of the magazine, sometimes serious, sometimes less so. Here are some of my favourites: 

Is the Doctor's accent innate or part of the TARDIS' translation system? While people and lizards from Earth hear the Doctor speak with a Scottish accent, would beings from other planets hear him speak with a totally different accent?

The Scottish accent is prevalent throughout the universe because it is so sexy. That's one hell of an evolutionary advantage.

How do you think the other Masters would react to Missy if they ever met?

Oh, I've given it thought! Surely there's fan fiction already? There must be - to your work, if not! The impossible one, of course, is the Delgado/Gomez simmer-fest - but oh, imagine! Hooded gazes at dawn! Sneers like sword slashes! Sexy prowls, cat-like circling! In no time flat, a country cottage, three kids and a Volvo.

One summer evening, as they both puff away in the cigar gazebo, watching the children (identical girl triplets, dead white and levitating) rebuilding the lawn mower into a nuclear reactor using Master Plan Q, the question inevitably arises...

THE MASTER: My dear, you've never exactly told me who you are.

MISSY: You're always so busy, trying to drain the world's oceans, or rob banks with dinosaurs - 

THE MASTER: I just want the kids to have a future. 

MISSY: Then why do you keep trying to blow up the planet? 

THE MASTER  Must we always take this attitude to my work? 

MISSY: Or freeze the polar ice caps. 

THE MASTER: That was a simple administrative error. 

MISSY: Don't you think there might be a clue in my name? 

THE MASTER: Missy? 

MISSY: Tiny bit of a clue? 

THE MASTER: I have long suspected there was some cunning word play involved. Some abtruse hint as to your true identity, of some fiendish complexity and subtlety that it eludes even my mighty Time Lord brain. Is it short for Mistress, though? 

MISSY: Yep. 

IN THE GARDEN, THE TRIPLETS OBSERVE THE TWO CIGAR TIPS GLOWING MORE BRIGHTLY FOR A MOMENT IN THE SHADOWS OF THE GARDEN. 

THE MASTER: My dear, do you think the triplets ever get lonely?

AND FROM THE HAPPY HOME, THE REST IS SILENCE. EXCEPT FOR THE NIGHTLY SING-A-LONG OF THE ADDAMS FAMILY.

In Kill the Moon Clara is very upset at the prospect of killing a big chicken. Yet in The Time of the Doctor she is seen gleefully roasting a turkey! How can she care so much for one type of poultry and so little for another?

Oh, for God's sake! It's not a turkey inside the moon, is it? It's a giant, pregnant space dragon and some spiders. Have you no grasp of physics?! Has Doctor Who taught you nothing?!

RUSSELL T DAVIES asks: I love your list in DWM 482 of the Doctor's many wives. Did you ever think we'd be having that conversation, 10 years ago? But... what's this? His marriage to Queen Elizabeth the First was unconsummated? But, but, but... in The End of Time Part One, the Tenth Doctor arrives on the Ood-Sphere to greet his old friend Ood Sigma with the words, "Got married. That was a mistake. Good Queen Bess. And let me tell you, her nickname is no longer... ahem." So, what does that mean, boss? What can it possibly mean?? Steven, what does it MEAN??? Thank you.

Oh for God's sake. PAY ATTENTION. You've gone soft up there in Manchester. Practically tofu, I'd say. Probably all that lazing about, never writing any episodes for me, even though I wrote six for you. Yes, SIX. Actually, no, SEVEN. Time Crashcounts too - and it was for charity. But never mind, oh no, I'll just type on and on and neglect my children, that's fine.

Okay, the facts. I said the marriage was unconsummated - and so it was. You saw for yourself in The Day of the Doctor - he ran straight off after the ceremony. Would we have put that on television if it wasn't true? But I never said - not once, not ever - that the relationship was unconsummated!

Yes, Russell! I went there. Even as you gasp and clutch the furniture for support, I am writing in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine about pre-marital shenanigans! I realise you've probably never heard of such unsanctified naughtiness - glancing at your resume, I see you write mainly about fruit and veg for Channel 4 - but it does go on, you know. Well, outside of Manchester.

So there you are. You may sleep again. The Doctor's boast in The End of Time (oh, and thanks for that title, just before I took over) and my statement that his marriage to Elizabeth was unconsummated are in no way contradictory. True fact! Accept my True Face. Back away in shame at your wrongness.

Actually, write me a story, and we'll say no more about it.

I read an article that said there was a TARDIS flooding scene in an episode of the 2012 series that was cancelled due to Karen Gillan being unable to swim. Could you elaborate on that further, please?

We decided not to drown Karen. There was a meeting. We voted.

Do you have any plans in store for the Cyber-Brigadier? Or will he just be left in limbo, protecting Kate wherever she goes?

Oh God, can you imagine. It's the spin-off: "My Dad's A Cyberman!"

KATE: Dad, please don't sit in my office. CYBERBRIG: Just sorting out a few things for you... KATE: Really, we're fine. CYBERBRIG: You've got far too many people. All you need is a Sergeant, maybe an occasional Captain, and a nice family car for you all to drive around in. Keeps the Earth perfectly safe! KATE: It's changed days, Dad. CYBERBRIG: And why don't have a big sign outside - UNIT HQ, with your name on it? Does you good to see your name on a big sign. KATE: Well, we are supposed to be a top secret organisation. CYBERBRIG: Yes, yes - you put 'Top Secret' on the sign. Have I taught you nothing about security?! And for goodness' sake, why do you have all these women about the place? How much tea do you need? KATE: They're scientists. CYBERBRIG: Scientists?! Have we been infiltrated? Evacuate the building, I'll lure them into a nuclear reactor. KATE: They work here. CYBERBRIG: They what?! You only need one scientist, Kate. A funny one, with silly clothes, that's the ticket. Give him a tiny little office and a table, he'll be perfectly happy. KATE: I'm a scientist. Science leads, that's what you taught me. CYBERBRIG: Exactly! Science leads! But only if you let it. Round them all up, put them in booths, waterboard any trouble-makers - KATE: Dad, you're getting excited again! Your moustache has slipped. CYBERBRIG: Oh, no, has it? It's this face, it's a bit slippery - like all aliens. I say, Kate - do you think people know my moustache isn't real? KATE: I think they always did.

Since the earliest days, whenever we viewers follow the Doctor into the TARDIS, he seems to take quite some time getting to the console before the TARDIS takes off. But when we stay outside, the door barely has time to close before dematerialisation occurs. What's your in-universe explanation for this quirk?

Oh, you and me both! I've worried about that for years. And in fact, decades before I got anywhere near Doctor Who, I came up with an answer. It's not in the show - it is not canonical - but I offer it up.

The TARDIS knows the future. Or rather, the TARDIS makes no distinction between past, present and future - for any time machine, time is all one long event stream, hanging there in causality, unmoving and unchanging. In other words the TARDIS already knows when its connection to real time and space will no longer be necessary, in any given part of the event stream. So as the Doctor and friends move towards the console, in the world outside the doors, the TARDIS has already fast-forwarded to the take-off the Doctor is about to perform.

Any good? Got something better? All head canons are equal!

How come the Doctor allowed River Song to go freely with her vortex manipulator but he kept disabling Jack's?

Every time he grabs River's wrist, it all goes very wrong.

[In Heaven Sent] who put the chalk marks around the missing paving slab, and who buried the slab in the ground? Was it whoever created the trap?

Oh, this is... wrong somehow. I figured out, in detail, how the Doctor's first few trips round the castle worked, but I deliberately buried it. I wanted atmosphere and mystery: for us to be trapped in the Doctor's nightmare, never sure what to trust. And I particularly liked (and still like) the idea that everyone would have a different theory about the logic. Peter Capaldi has one version, Rachel Talalay has another, and in a moment you'll have mine. But mystery and discussion is better, I swear.

So. What follows is not canonical. It's just the best I could work with from what the Doctor told me. Frankly, and with all my heart, you're better off not reading what comes next. Never trust answers - they're the opposite of conversation.

Okay...

The first time round the castle, the Doctor is there for many years - because there is no clue leading him to room 12. He's ancient by the time he understands that room 12 is important. It's a very old man who starts punching the wall...

After a few thousand years of this, he realises he's going too slowly. He needs to get the next version of himself into room 12 faster. But how to leave a message in a recycling puzzle box that a man like him would ever trust?

One ancient version of the Doctor doesn't punch the wall. He totters back out of the chamber before the veiled creature can arrive, and scratches the words 'I AM IN 12' in every nook and cranny he can find. He chooses that message because it sounds a little like a cry for help, and that always appeals to him. The next Doctor might even be fooled into thinking it's Clara. Oh, the cruelty of the Doctor to himself!

He knows that some of those hidden messages might just survive, because he knows the castle reset isn't perfect - the dust in the teleport room, the skulls in the water, the way the portrait of Clara he painted (of course it was him, the soppy old fool) has aged. Suspecting that objects moved from rooms, or added to them, sometimes can resist the reset, he pulls a scratched-on flagstone from the kitchen floor and buries it in the garden (later Doctors add the details of the arrows and the spade). It's this message - one of only two that manage to survive - that he always finds. The loop shrinks, the Doctor is younger as he punches the wall, and the Time Lords tremble as the storm grows closer.

The other message that survived? In my head - and I suppose, only there - 'I AM IN 12' is also written on the back of Clara's portrait. The trouble is, the Doctor draws too much strength from her smile ever to turn her face to the wall...

There are many more and I recommend to read them all. You can find a lot of them on reddit or on here. I really hope old chibs keeps this up, but I know it will never be as glorious as the answers of Steven “Master Selfcest Fanfic Writer” Moffat.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Possible Clara-return scenarios

With Series 10 soon to end and filming to begin very soon on the Christmas special, for some of us the question remains if there are any plans for Jenna Coleman to make one final appearance as Clara before Peter Capaldi (and Steven Moffat) passes the torch. There are Clara haters and there are River Song haters in fandom, but on this we are united: once Chris Chibnall arrives, the odds of us hearing from either character again drops to about the same odds as Brian Blessed being cast as the next James Bond. It would be cool if it happened, but it’s pretty unlikely.

This past weekend, Jenna Coleman gave an old-fashioned “non-denial denial” when asked at a convention if she was coming back, which some took as confirmation, but it really doesn’t mean a thing. Same goes for David Bradley’s comments, by the way. I remember seeing Benedict Cumberbatch give an identical non-denial denial about being in The Force Awakens and of course we all remember the role he didn’t play in that film.

But I remain an optimist. Even as Series 10 has had some surprising lost opportunities, we know a major reference was filmed for The Pilot but cut, and they even included a reference in Class. So I’m hoping that with Capaldi’s final episode, Moffat will do the right thing.

As I see it there are a few scenarios that could happen. This is all speculative, no spoilers here. But I get wordy, as usual, so a page break first.

Possibility 1: Jenna filmed her scene sometime during Series 9 production, probably during Hell Bent, and it’ll be inserted into the Christmas special.

Precedent: Moffat had Matt Smith do this for Deep Breath.

Odds of happening: Not impossible, especially now the director of Peter’s final episode is the same as the person who directed Hell Bent. If - as I personally believe - an exit strategy for Capaldi was already in place (remember Clara’s exit was planned out a year in advance, too) and Rachel Talalay was already lined up to direct the special, or there was a good reason to suspect she would, it would simplify matters for her to utilize footage she shot herself. Also, it would solve any problems regarding contracts Jenna might have with ITV, her availability, etc. to have footage already in the can (same with Matt’s scene - he wouldn’t have been available to film anything later). Plus since it has already been filmed it might be easier to keep the spoiler contained.

Possibility 2: Full-fledged guest appearance.

Precedent: Donna Noble and Wilf Mott in End of Time, even though Donna’s was more of a glorified cameo.

Bringing Jenna Coleman back as the “big name guest star” would be amazing, and a best-case scenario. But it won’t happen. Not with ITV doing its own Victoria Christmas special. Plus, even though it’s assumed Jenna is due for a mid-series filming break (just as she had for Series 1), it’s doubtful she would be available for the month or so it would take to film. I’d love to see it, but this one won’t happen. The logistics just don’t work.

Possibility 3: No appearance.

Precedent: Appearances by past companions is pretty much a Modern Era thing and really only started with Tennant’s regeneration. It never happened in the original series with the sole exception of Caves of Androzani when they got all of Five’s companions to come back for a hallucination sequence. In Time of the Doctor, Moffat planned for Amy to be accompanied by River and Rory in the regeneration. Alex Kingston and Arthur Darvill were unavailable, so it ended up being just Karen Gillan.

Sadly, this is possible. It may simply not work out to get Jenna Coleman in, or Moffat - who has repeatedly said the regeneration will be handled differently this time, and who has said S10 was an attempt to get back to the Classic Era - may decide not to have past companions come back. We never saw Liz and Jo in Planet of the Spiders (though Jo was referenced); Susan never appeared in The Tenth Planet; Peri didn’t turn up when Six changed at the start of Time and the Rani; Ace was nowhere to be found when Seven changed in the TV movie; and Eight just read off a list of names in Night of the Doctor. Obviously the worst-case scenario that would leave a lot of people dissatisfied.

Possibility 4: Flashback footage.

Precedent: Logopolis. Before Tom Baker changes, we get a montage of the companions he knew, using archival footage. It’s the only time in the Classic Era this was done for a regeneration.

This would certainly be the easiest and simplest and probably least expensive approach ... and could be utilized if the plot at all touches on the Doctor restoring his memories of Clara. Of course if they take this approach they would probably be obligated to have flashbacks of River, Bill and Nardole, too, assuming none of them appear in the special in person.

Possibility 5: A shared appearance.

Precedent: The End of Time, where all of Ten’s companions appeared along with a few other key individuals like Joan Redfern’s granddaughter. Also, as noted above, Time of the Doctor was going to do this.

Much as some of us still think of Clara as the Twelfth Doctor’s primary companion, the show doesn’t work that way. His era is now connected with other companions - Bill Potts, Nardole and, yes, River Song too. Moffat may decide to follow Russell T Davies’ lead and feature appearances by other companions not just Clara (depending on what happens at the end of S10). As the end of his era I wouldn’t put it past Moffat to include other characters too - the Paternoster Gang, Osgood and Kate, and of course Missy. Clara may not have the Doctor all to herself.

Possibility 6: A cameo at the very end, a la Amy in The Time of the Doctor

Precedent: Uh, Amy in The Time of the Doctor

In my opinion this is most likely. A brief cameo appearance would be easy to film during a break in shooting Victoria, and probably could be negotiated with ITV easier than a full-out guest role. There’s a rumour - so far unconfirmed - that a certain Cardiff location has been booked for a couple of days of filming that might suggest something of this nature is planned. Despite what I just wrote in #5, having Clara appear by herself would make sense and be in keeping with the “first face” tradition that was started with Tennant. A lot, I think, will depend on how Episode 12 ends. If Bill, Nardole and Missy’s stories end with full resolutions, then that would in theory leave just one loose character thread hanging. But having said that, Moffat gave River not one but three full stops (her death in Forest of the Dead, the minisode Last Night where Eleven supposedly left for Darillium, and Name of the Doctor which was supposed to be the final goodbye to the character). And then he decided to write The Husbands of River Song. Full stops don’t seem to be Moffat’s thing (which is one reason, for any skeptics out there, that so many of us are hoping for - and outright expecting - an appearance by Clara before Capaldi leaves).

All speculation. Any of these may happen. None of these may happen. It’s going to be a long 6 months...

[bardqueenofgallifrey]

Doctor Who: The Tag Game

tagged by the beautiful @universe-on-her-shoulders

Tag Game: Doctor Who Edition!!

The rules are simple - answer the questions, then tag other Whovians to get to know each other better/find new people to follow, message, etc. If there are any questions you don’t have an answer for, feel free to skip them!

Doctor you started with: this is tricky because I watched it all over the place, but I think Eleven is the most accurate answer to this

Favourite Doctor: I genuinely love all of them, they are the SAME CHARACTER however if absolutely pressed, Eleven with Twelve as a close second and Eight and Six in solid third equal, and Three behind them

Favourite Companion: from the new series, Bill. overall it’s waaaaaay too hard to pick out of all my darlings, but in particular, all the new series gals as well as Liz, Romana, Leela, Barbara, Charley, Evelyn, Liv and Helen, Jo, and Sarah Jane are just... I just love them so much, okay? how could I ever properly choose out of my wonderful gals? 

Favourite Episode: Oh god. Okay, I adore The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, it’s such a fun/neat story and the Twelve/Clara/Missy dynamic is just the most incredible trio this show has probably ever seen tbh. 

DW OTP: Doctor/River and Best Enemies, don’t make me pick bc I flat out refuse

Favourite line/quote: “The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things.The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”

Favourite Character that isn’t the Doctor or a companion: funnily enough, same answer as @universe-on-her-shoulders, Missy (well, the Master in general but she’s my fave Master) and River, again don’t make me choose

BrOTP: how could I pick just one when they’re what this show is built on?? I’d say Eleven and Amy, Ten and Donna, Twelve and Bill, Six and Evelyn

i’m making this next category up bc as far as I’m concerned it’s Necessary but people don’t have to use it themselves

Queerplatonic/QPP/QTP?: Three/Jo, Eight/Charley, Twelve/Clara

Favourite DW fic (if you have one): I have SO MANY so this is just like, the (completed) ones I’ve read multiple times and will do so again, and/or ones I was sending excerpts from to friends because it was that perfect/funny

Minimum Viable Population by the wonderful @nicolauda - Twissy, a lengthy and Serious oneshot about alien biology, one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever read if not the most 

Nonsense All Impact (The Community Theatre Remix) - Romana/Brax and Leela/Narvin, basically a long Gallifrey community theatre AU oneshot, it’s fucking hysterical and adorable

like turning wolves into lambs by @mygalfriday - Twelve/River, multichap that is kind of a Beauty and the Beast AU, kind of not, but absolutely fucking incredible

once upon a time in nazi-occupied france by @nicolauda - Twissy, an immense, ridiculous, heart wrenching, heartwarming multichap that is astoundingly in character and just... wow

she blows out of nowhere, roman candle of the wild by @mygalfriday - Twelve/River, AU oneshot where Twelve gets stood up on a blind date and River comes in and annoys him until he falls in love, I have no idea why this fic is so good exactly except that it is

The Dread Pirate Missy - Missy and Osgood get stuck in a time loop post-Death In Heaven, it’s mostly gen but a lil bit gay, super funny and just very well done

Favourite DW fanart/blog (if you have one): i’m not 100% on what this question is asking so I’m going with my top DW fanart blogs, lol

@song-of-the-bad-wolf

@wouldntyoulichentoknow

@meloartist

@joscribbles

@halorvic

If you could pick anyone to be the next Doctor, who would it be? (Why, if you feel like explaining): god, at this point, I don’t even know. wait, no, yes, I do. Gwendoline Christie. I’d pick Gwendoline Christie. something about the Doctor being a 6′ 3″ blonde dork with short hair is just... wonderful, and you know she could do the serious/absurd balance so well

If you could pick anyone to be the next companion who would it be? (Why?): I’ve always thought I’d love to see @carriehopefletcher as a companion, preferably playing someone from the 50′s or maybe a cute alien to play against a WOC companion since it’s time we had a Muslim and/or Indian companion, honestly

Favourite fan theory: damn, none come to mind, even though I’m sure there are loads that I love. 

Other fandoms: all the DW spinoffs but especially Class, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Star Wars, Sense8, ATLA/LOK, Carmilla, superhero shit idk

tagging, if they wanna: @resting-meme-face @crystalsoulslayer @mxquill @auroral-melody @doctahpants @fvandomtrvsh @peraltiagoisland @coordinatorromana @scriptscribbles @tillthenexttimedoctor @rtdcolouredglasses

[horizondawn]

For the Doctor Who ask thingy, if that's alright! 7, 13, 19, 23, and 25

It sure is! :D

7. Favourite companion/doctor relationship 

ughhh, this one is hard too! haha This is what happens when I love pretty much everyone literally equally (well in Moffat’s era anyway). Dang it between Amy/Rory/Doctor and Clara/Doctor it’s ridiculous (the only reason Bill isn’t included is ONLY because of the fact that there is only one series to go off of, and she’s with a Doctor who (lol) knows who he is). See, friendships and family mean the entire world to me, so that’s why the Ponds are so important on a personal ground, but Clara is the one who helped the Doctor truly understand and accept who he, or eventually they, are at their core. For those of us who read every little sliver of character development we possibly can, we see who the Doctor is more than ever right now, and that’s all thanks to Clara really, for being there after he lost the Ponds. It blends a lot for me because everything about Eleven and his relationships with his friends is what ultimately lead him to where he is now. And we can’t forget that Missy is the one entirely responsible for bringing Clara and the Doctor together in the first place. It’s all a mess of emotions for me with the Doctor and his companions in the era of the Moff.

13. First story you saw on TV.

If we’re talking about on the actual channel it originally airs on (BBCA for me) than it would be The Magician’s Apprentice. When I got into Doctor Who I lived in South Korea, so there wasn’t a way for me to watch it except for livestreams and streaming sites while series 8 aired. By the time series 9 started I had moved back to America, so I had actual TV again for the first time in over 2 years.

19. Favourite one off monster

I never actually thought about this before. Hmmm… that’s a tough one, but the episode that first popped into my head was the unnamed monster in Midnight. That episode was seriously messed up psychologically, and we didn’t even see the dang thing and don’t know what it’s called. I just have a fear of not being in control of my emotions and actions, and that’s exactly what it strips away from you. And it made everyone else go mad. I’m sure there are other great ones that I’ve forgotten, but this is one that definitely stands out.

23. Least favourite companion (why?)

Okay hopefully this stays in a safe spot because it’s a pretty unpopular opinion for a certain portion of the fandom. And I’m not saying I hate her, but Rose is at the bottom of the list. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE her in series 1. She is fabulous and I absolutely adore her. Once Ten comes in though she becomes this bratty and clingy child who just wants the Doctor to herself. And then her lingering presence makes itself known in not very good ways following her departure that hurt Martha and Donna within the narrative even when she wasn’t there. Not only that, but her actual return was extremely anti-climatic. And in the end she got her Doctor clone. Her character was just a mess after series 1 as a whole, but even then I wouldn’t have had that much of a problem with her if it weren’t for Rose-stans people. She’s good as a whole for the introduction of the show and I will not invalidate her importance to the Doctor with her being his first companion after the Time War, but her character got really sloppy in the end and I felt like she didn’t grow at all really as an individual, again following series 1. But again, that’s just me. People are allowed to love her of course. It’s that certain part of the fandom that has ruined her enjoyment for me to the point I can’t look at her without that bitterness most of the time because you know, Moffat companions are “flat and are only mysteries to solve” apparently to them.

25. Favourite EU companion?

I actually got really excited about this question. And because I talk about the EU so little I’m going to mention my top three. First is the lovely Josephine Day. Holy I love this girl so much. She’s the companion of the eighth Doctor from Titan Comics. She’s smart, has a wonderful personality, she loves art, and she and the eighth Doctor are so in sync and balance one another wonderfully. And there’s a wonderful little twist at the end. It’s only 5 volumes long, so I highly recommend it for a short story but wonderful character (and the art is absolutely lovely as well).

The other two are ironically companions of Eight as well, and sometimes River Song. Yeah, I’m talking about Liv Chenka and Helen Sinclair. TBH I do need to listen to their stories again to remember specific details, but once again I just love their dynamic with the Doctor, and how gay everything becomes when River shows up. It’s not even River’s interactions with the Doctor I get excited about (which isn’t as much as you think since it’s always younger versions), but River with Liv and Helen gives me life. If you can find a way to listen to it, Doom Coalition is astounding, and Liv and Helen are half of the reason it is.