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It makes me so mad how excited I was for Belinda. To see a companion who didn't buy into the hype and the mystique that often surrounds The Doctor, who didn't see him as this infallible hero but as this flawed and potentially dangerous man, who never fell in line or at his feet but stood in front and asserted herself as an equal, who isn't in the TARDIS by choice and has a life of her own as a single woman in a high-pressured job that she still wants to get back to despite the time travel and the adventure, because she too gets to save lives every day even back on Earth and she doesn't need a Time Lord to do that - it was so incredibly refreshing.

And the issue is, while Belinda continued to call the shots for at least the first five episodes of the series, they dropped the ball with her characterisation as early as the second episode. For her to be so critical of The Doctor at the end of episode one, and so immediately perceptive of his ability to endanger those around him for the sake of his own pursuit of adventure, and yet for her to already abandon that notion and trust him entirely by the end of the next episode, to the extent that by the end of the series she is completely unfazed when on several occasions her instincts were proven to be correct, is not only a massive change in characterisation, but also a colossal waste of such a compelling premise.

And then for her character to be reduced not only to being the mother of The Doctor's child, but ultimately completely rewritten so that they were brought together so that she could be Poppy's mother - and choose to leave on that premise also - is so unbelievably insulting and disappointing. Varada is wonderful. Belinda is wonderful. The dynamic between the actors and the characters is one of my favourites in a long time.

Belinda and Varada aren't the only ones who deserve better after this series (I could write entire essays about Ruby and Fifteen), but I really thought we were onto something and while Belinda will always have a place in my heart, I'm just gutted the series and the character ended on this note.

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Varada Sethu as BELINDA CHANDRA in Doctor Who (Season 15)

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Ten years since Hell Bent, where the companion is elevated to equal mythic status with the Doctor as she flies off into the stars in an infinite magic box, we get to see how far the companion role has come in The Reality War as the companion is literally shut inside a box for the whole episode and given the most sexist ending to a companion in the modern era. Fuck me.

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O’ captain,

My captain

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"In a time of slavery and deep suffering, the slaves who broke their chains and escaped would return to try to free others. Slaves were not allowed to carry paper. They were always stopped and searched. But the women were very clever. They could make their hair into many shapes and patterns. And in one style, hair could be braided to the scalp, bending and curling like roads or paths. So the women would weave maps into their hair and pass it on - mothers to daughters, slave to slave, plantation to plantation.

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Doctor Who (2023) | Ruby Sunday + collecting mums (2.04 Lucky Day)

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NCUTI GATWA poses with the new Doctor Who x Barbie Doll

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Doctor Who The Well | Midnight

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This is how the scene went, right?

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And I will sing. I will do the singing.

DOCTOR WHO | 2.03: THE WELL

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We’ve returned from the time winds to share a brief project update. Fear not, we still plan on releasing in the coming months, we’ve just needed to push things back a little.⏳

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TAISSA TURNER Yellowjackets • Season 3

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#she signifies the arrival of the snow

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PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE | PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU (2019) dir. Céline Sciamma

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DOCTOR WHO Lux

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The scene where Jackie hauls Shauna away from Van inside the burning plane wreckage is one of the most under-discussed relative to its impact, and gives us so much insight into the characters and wider themes of Yellowjackets.

In some respects, it was the first act of violence in the wilderness. Now, by violence I don’t mean something done with the intent to harm. Jackie was placed in an extremely stressful adrenaline-fuelled situation where she had to make a choice with seconds to spare. Practically speaking, it was also a logical choice: the fire was rapidly encroaching and there was every chance that freeing Van in time was impossible, so Shauna would be fruitlessly throwing her life away. After all, the rear of the plane does explode soon after they get out.

But that doesn’t change the fact that it was callous and violent in its impact. It was Jackie, in that moment of intense danger, choosing to leave Van to burn alive - and actively prevent her from receiving help - because there was a chance that she might lose Shauna too. “For the record, I was trying to save you.” True character is revealed under pressure, and this scene is the show’s way of signalling to the audience what Jackie values most, the thing that will cause her to abandon all other principles: Shauna.

This is enforced by her later saving Van from the plane propellor: it’s an act of atonement, but also a way to convey the hierarchy of Jackie’s priorities. She loves her teammates and would trade her life for theirs without hesitation, but she would trade any of their lives for Shauna’s if it came to it (it also speaks to how little Jackie values her own life and is further evidence of her suicidal ideation).

One of the things that strikes me most about the scene is how similar it is to when Javi drowns in the second season. In both cases, Van and Javi are in severe environmental peril and desperately cry out for help. Shauna and Nat respectively attempt to save them at great personal risk, but they’re pulled away by Jackie and Misty, who have determined that it’s better to sacrifice one if it means saving the other.

While the contexts are different, the theme is the same: “It chooses.” And ‘It’ is all of them. ‘It’ is all of us. When driven to the brink and placed in the most dire of extremes, any person, no matter how virtuous, can behave in base ways. It’s always baffled me that Jackie is often framed as an exception to this by the fandom when we’re presented with such a clear example through her character on day one, long before anyone had descended into savagery. I’ve no doubt that if she’d survived and mended her relationship with Shauna she would have gone to great lengths to keep her (and the baby) alive, even if it meant compromising her strongly held morals.

In spite of everything, Van did escape the wreckage, which means that she could have been saved. And she was left with deep trauma that lingers into the third season. However much we might be able to justify Jackie’s decision, it still came at Van’s expense. This isn’t to say that I think Jackie is deep down a cruel or violent person; she’s patently not, quite the opposite. But it’s compelling to explore what moves someone to act in ways counter to their nature, their moral pressure points, and how they account for their actions. It does a disservice to Jackie to downplay her complexities and flaws, just as it does a disservice to Shauna to regard her as an inherently sadistic person when her first instinct was to risk her life to help.

Then there’s how the scene informs Van’s character. Van is an optimist who is moulded by hardship into a pragmatist, and these two forces are constantly battling within her. Being left on the plane establishes this conflict: from her perspective, her life was easily discarded by someone she trusted. Van is confronted with the harshest of truths: that her survival is not guaranteed, nor is the support of her peers. It’s something hard fought for, and something she must fight for herself.

Her relationship with Tai mirrors the codependent bond of Jackie and Shauna. Their devotion to each other leads them to sentence Ben to death despite both holding doubts over his guilt. They rig the cards to protect each other from being chosen for the hunt, in doing so condemning someone else. Van comes to understand something of what drove Jackie to do what she did, because above all else, she cannot lose the person she holds most dear.

Once any real chance of rescue is out the window, Van fully internalises this survivalist mindset. She holds onto faith and narrativises their situation to imbue it all with some sort of meaning. But it’s ultimately a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the horror she knows they can’t escape. This is why the moment a glimmer of hope reappears in the form of the scientists, she sheds it. She doesn’t truly want it, she never did. Her final act is a culmination of that; she can’t find it in herself to kill for her own gain. ‘It’ chooses, and Van chose. As did Melissa.

What are we willing to do to survive? To protect ourselves and those we love? What are we willing to lose? How much of ourselves can we give up before the cost becomes too great? These are some of the thematic questions Yellowjackets poses, and this short scene is a fascinating microcosm of that.

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COURTNEY EATON as LOTTIE MATTHEWS Season 3, Episode 9: "How the Story Ends"