#I’ll be in RTDs walls

[davidtennan-t]

I’m so excited to see the dynamic between these two I so desperately want the Doctor to channel ‘protective space godfather’ energy because she is his best friends daughter and no harm will come to her on his watch thank you very much

[demigodofhoolemere]

Collecting all of my thoughts on the 60th specials now that they’re over and there’s a cohesive overall picture, because I had many and I want to de-clutter them in my head for my own sake. Not in any particular order of significance, just stream of consciousness as I rewatch.

Be warned that while there were definitely things I enjoyed, there’s going to be a good bit of negativity in here, so if you understandably don’t want to see critiques of something you really liked, please do yourself the favor and don’t read this. I know what it’s like to see very negative takes on something you loved a lot and I know how bad it can feel as it sits with you in your stomach for a while if you’re particularly sensitive to it. Enter at your own risk. Also, I’m not looking to be argued with so if you read any of this and disagree with me on things, please just keep scrolling. This is just me throwing my thoughts at the wall.

And obviously, massive spoiler warnings here. I’ll be talking freely about all the things.

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THE STAR BEAST

- I’ve seen people make fun of the opening but I don’t find anything wrong with it in particular. The Doctor standing there like he was cut and pasted is a little silly but it’s not laughably bad either. I get the feeling they realized after they’d already shot the specials that they needed a recap and threw it together pretty quickly but it’s not terrible.

- The new credits are GORGEOUS and the music makes me very happy.

- I have issues with it that I’ll get into but despite myself it’s nice to see Tennant again. He was my first Doctor and his era is very nostalgic for me so it would be hard to be totally unhappy to have him around.

- That said, now with the context that the return of this face somehow has nothing to do with the Toymaker, I’m baffled and not a fan of bringing him back just for the sake of it. I really thought there was going to be SOME kind of interference by the Toymaker that would be delved into a bit when he eventually turned up, something to justify this, but no. Which means that he really is just back because that particular regeneration needed closure or something, and yeah, Ten had issues and not the happiest sendoff, but in my personal opinion it just feels more like favoritism from RTD. For 57 years, regeneration has meant letting go, and it comes across like RTD can’t do that if he has to make up non-interference-related reasons for bringing an old face back and thereby altering regeneration mythos (which he does again in an even worse way later…) by suddenly saying it’s possible for a past life to come back. I know there’s technically precedence for old faces returning, in the form of the Curator, but that was done so quickly and vaguely that it’s not invasive. This is asking us to go along with old faces coming back for *checks notes* reasons, and to give a whole new number, altering our numbering system forever, to who is essentially just Ten again. I’m sorry, but I am never calling him Fourteen. I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll have to refer to Ncuti as Fifteen and so on from there, but that’s just Ten. The only difference is that he’s got three more lives in his head that make very slight differences to his personality. Very, very slight. But it’s bugging the crud out of me that Tennant is apparently so special that it’s fine to randomly have him become himself again, that he gets two numbers, and is now being made to appear twice on every poster that has the full lineup. I am never going to acknowledge him as a whole new regeneration between Jodie and Ncuti, I’m sorry. I adore Tennant, he’s my first and I’m legally obligated to mention that I do love him extremely dearly, but if none of this had anything to do with the Toymaker torturing him and playing with his emotions or something by making him look like his old self who had so much baggage, then this whole thing is immediately silly and self-indulgent on RTD’s part.

- I know that the Doctor and Donna were brought together again because the two of them combined as the DoctorDonna could save London, but it happens so fast and without emotion. Their paths just sort of happen to cross, immediately. It’s done very quickly and in a way that doesn’t let me feel the full weight of him reacting to seeing her again.

- However I love seeing Donna again. She’s very much the same Donna I’ve always loved and it’s great to see her.

- I do like bringing back the recurring joke of Donna missing out on obvious alien attacks, lol.

- Nice that this stuff takes place in Camden seeing as Bill Hartnell partly grew up there.

- I appreciate moments like the psychic paper saying “Grand Mistress” instead of “Grand Master” as acknowledgment of Thirteen’s existence. I was worried she’d be entirely swept under the rug.

- Allons-y! 💙 That does my inner 2012 self’s heart good.

- Shaun Temple is a sweetheart and a delight.

- Gotta love throwing in one last reference to Nerys, lol.

- Donna, I’m proud of you for being such a good person that you want to give away your money to people in need, but keep at least SOME of it, girl! You’ve got a family!

- Shirley Anne Bingham is awesome and she can stay as long as she likes.

- Oh boy��� pretty much everything to do with Rose feels very ham-fisted and clumsy to me. You can have a trans character without going about it like this. If the point is supposed to be to normalize portraying it in media, then it should be natural, not be about making a point. Shoving it down the audience’s throat every minute is naturally going to make people dislike the writing, even people who fully agree with the intent. I’ve already seen a fair number of LGBT+ viewers discuss this being poorly done. It doesn’t feel well-written to me and I don’t think it’s going to age particularly well either. More on this later as the worst of it crops up.

- I love Sylvia trying so hard to protect Donna by completely denying anything alien and acting like everything is normal. This poor woman is doing everything she can. I never thought I’d like her so much.

- Sad to hear Donna talk about feeling like she’s lost something but never knowing what it is.

- The Meep and the Wrarth Warriors all look incredible.

- Not a fan of the sonic basically being a magic wand. There’s a reason they ended up ditching it in the Classic series, because it was getting so that the Doctor relied too much on it, and that was before it had anywhere near the convenient powers it’s had throughout the modern series. This is a big step even further than they’ve ever taken it before and it really took me out of it. The sonic shouldn’t be able to create Iron Man HUD screens or Green Lantern hard light shields. I’m hoping they don’t do that again as the show continues.

- Murray Gold’s music is beautiful and it’s great to have it back. It does have a tendency to get too loud, though. I like to hear what people are saying.

- I do quite like the interactions between the Doctor and Shirley. She’s got a good personality to bounce off of him. I especially like them waving at each other as he sneaks off onto the UNIT truck.

- That pretty purple light coming from the ship was more exciting when I thought it was the Toymaker’s power coming to control them. Oh well.

- Love Donna’s reaction to the Meep.

- Poor Sylvia at her wit’s end. Someone help that woman.

- While it’s fitting that the Doctor has now been slapped by the trifecta of mothers from the RTD era, I’m not sure that we should still be doing gags like that where it’s apparently okay and funny to slap someone if they’re a man. The reverse would go down very differently. At least in context it makes perfect sense for Sylvia to be angry that he’s shown up and to want to get rid of him, but I hope that kind of humor doesn’t stay.

- Shaun walking in on all of this chaos like

- Nice to see the Doctor get emotional over Wilf. Same, dude.

- ^ I also really like that Kate took it upon herself to get him into a nice care home practically for free. I appreciate that she gets in touch with so many of the companions and that she’d go out of her way to help him have what he needs. I could see her dad doing that, too. I’d like to think that Yates is in the same care home (considering Richard Franklin is in real life at this point) and he and Wilf can share stories.

- Gaaahh at, “You’re assuming ‘he’ as a pronoun?” Nobody talks like this.

- Not sure the Doctor should be talking so freely about aliens and two hearts right in front of Donna and risk her remembering. He even casually hands her the sonic for a moment and shortly after starts explaining what it is. Probably not the best idea. Bit careless, mate.

- Part of me feels like the barrister wig bit is a little too silly, but then again:

- Anyone who had any awareness of the original comic was already waiting for the Meep’s turn, but knowing didn’t make it any less of a good reveal. I liked the very sudden shift.

- Shirley having weapons in her wheelchair, heck yeah. Reminds me of the Brig’s concealed gun in his cane in SJA.

- I like Donna feeling compelled to help even if she can’t remember having ever done anything like this. I also like Sylvia’s chilled realization that Donna called him “Doctor” without having ever been told.

- Lol at the kid watching the destruction from the window and not running or looking freaked out in the slightest. Boy has no self-preservation instincts.

- There is definitely some good emotion going on with the Doctor’s conflict in having to reactivate Donna’s memories, and it’s extremely well acted, but for whatever reason I don’t feel as much weight here as I should. It’s not just that I’m too disconnected from their original run at this point, because I rewatched The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End as well as The End of Time in the lead-up to this airing and I was severely emotionally impacted like I’d been thrown back 10 years in time, so I have no idea why I just don’t feel as much as I wish I did. It’s definitely not about their acting. Maybe it’s just too quick? Because I feel like the pacing of this episode in general goes by so fast that there hasn’t been enough time to really drive home the drama of what remembering will do to her, or the full extent of their relationship. Everything just sort of happens. The conflict of having to choose to restore her memories is great but the actual regaining of those memories just feels… sudden? Unearned? I don’t know.

- Don’t know how to feel about Donna having straight up Winter Soldier trigger words to unlock her memories.

- I really feel like her getting her memories back should have been a much more emotional moment between the two of them. She has no reaction to suddenly having it all back — it’s just undercut with the humor of yelling about having given away all of her lottery money, and being mad at him that there was a subconscious part of her that had his influence that drove her to do that. Honestly, I believe Donna would do it anyway, you don’t need to make some explanation for his soft heart still sticking around in her head like she wouldn’t have done that on her own. After a decade of wishing Donna could one day have her memories restored, this isn’t what I wanted out of it.

- It’s better a minute later when she realizes she only has 55 seconds left before her brain fries but she’s okay with it because it’s the best 55 seconds of her life to now be fully herself again. It’s also sweet when the Doctor is holding her as she begins to fade away, even if it’s undercut a moment later by her suddenly waking again.

- I’m not sure why the metacrisis energy in her head would split off and have half go into Rose in the womb. I suppose you could come up with a way that makes it make sense but it’s pretty convenient.

- Doctor: “We are binary.”

Donna: “She’s not. Because the Doctor’s —”

Doctor: “Male.”

Donna: “And female.”

Rose: “And neither. And more.”

… Huh??? Are they trying to say that Rose is trans because the Doctor is capable of being either male or female and the metacrisis somehow passed this on?

- I like the quick moment between the Doctor and Sylvia. Didn’t know I wanted more of them.

- The Meep’s ominous allusion to “the boss” doesn’t seem to have been about the Toymaker, so… what gives? Not that that’s a bad thing that it wasn’t, I wasn’t sure what to think of him having people working for him anyway, but I’m curious if that thread will ever get picked up.

- Donna: “Yes, we know.”

Rose: “We know everything, thanks.”

Donna: “And you know nothing. It’s a shame you’re not a woman anymore. ‘Cause she’d have understood.”

Rose: “We’ve got all that power, but there is a way to get rid of it. Something a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand.”

Okay, first off, why the attitude with the Doctor? Geez. Second, Thirteen never let go of anything in her life lol, no she wouldn’t have understood. Third, did they not just say that the Doctor is ‘male and female and neither and more’? Now a few minutes later the Doctor is suddenly just a dumb man who could never understand because he doesn’t have a woman’s perspective? One minute we’re saying gender doesn’t matter because he’s both and none, the next we’re using the standard binary against him to act like the women are so much smarter than him? There’s no need to pick on him like that, and please, just pick one, you can’t have it both ways. Also, oh my word, ‘male-presenting Time Lord’? Russell, can I have a word with you about writing sentences that sound like they would actually come out of someone’s mouth?

- ^ Additionally, the solution to the metacrisis is to just… let go of it. They literally just choose to make the energy leave them. Easy as that. That feels so incredibly unearned and completely undermines the stakes involved. For 15 years Donna was at risk of having her head explode. Her ending was an absolute tragedy with very serious consequences. And now they just go, ‘Well, they can let go of the metacrisis though’. All of the drama of her circumstances feels horribly undermined by the easiness and convenience of that. I don’t think they should have fixed everything in just the first episode of this anyway, let alone that lazily.

- I am quite a fan of the new TARDIS interior. It’s a bit big, hopefully we’ll get some furniture in there over time or something, but it’s a very neat design. I’m very pleased to have the Classic white back, but that the lights can also change colors if they feel like adding a bit more mood or character to a scene. I’m also assuming that its wheelchair accessibility means we’ll get Shirley in there at some point, which I look forward to.

- Aw at the Doctor remembering how Donna takes her coffee.

- “I really do remember, though. Every second with you. I’m so glad you’re back, ‘cause it killed me, Donna. It killed me, it killed me, it killed me.” Aw 💗

- “I said so!” Poor Sylvia, lol.

- Watching this the first time under the assumption that the Toymaker was pulling strings throughout the first two specials, I really thought they ended up at the end of the universe because he hijacked the TARDIS, and the coffee was a coincidence. Nope. Turns out the TARDIS really just broke down that bad over one spilled cup of coffee. It really should be more resilient than that!

~~~~~

OVERVIEW

I liked more than I realized, there is some good in here (Sylvia was the unexpected MVP), but for me the bad just outweighs it too much. The things I do like are generally small moments and the things I don’t are generally quite big ones, which is a problem. I’ve got a number of issues with the writing, and that’s just if the episode were standalone, let alone the fact that this is supposed to be for a big anniversary. In the context of the entirety of the specials it’s got even more problems. This doesn’t feel like it’s celebrating anything, except perhaps the original comic which is nice at least, but apart from that, it’s just… an episode. A poorer one at that, imo. The pacing is rushed and the writing is often either forced or lazy or both. It doesn’t have anything to do with the next two specials and it doesn’t set up anything that it should. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected that it would, but I find it bizarre that it doesn’t.

I really wanted to like this and I went into it expecting that I would, but even beyond the writing problems, I just couldn’t connect. I don’t know if it’s the pacing or what but I don’t feel nearly as much as I want to and feel I should. Ten and Donna are being very much themselves and they’ve got stuff here that should make me emotional, and to a degree it does, but… something is just off. I don’t feel the weight of it, and that’s a recurring problem throughout all of these specials. For whatever reason the episodes just don’t emotionally resonate with me for the most part, even if I’m pleased to be watching Ten and Donna and should therefore be more excited about it and care more about the fact that they’re back on my screen. I really, really want to care more about seeing them again. I do care, but it’s just… off. The rushed resolution to Donna’s problem doesn’t help, either. I don’t feel the emotional payoff. Part of me feels like if they were going to undermine the impact of Journey’s End by solving everything with such ease and casualness, then maybe they shouldn’t have done this at all. And I love Donna, I do, I’ve always wanted her to remember eventually, but I really feel there needed to be more to it than this. This doesn’t feel earned. I’ve got little to no emotional catharsis out of it. I would wonder if it was just a me problem if not for the fact that my sister came away from it feeling the same. Tales of the TARDIS handled this better for Jamie and Zoe in just 5 minutes — they didn’t have stakes for remembering like Donna did, it was just a cruel thing done to them, so it doesn’t feel like it’s undercutting anything to have their memories restored just as easily as they were taken, and there’s a whole ton of emotion packed into that 5 minutes that feels real, earned, and gets to me every time I’ve watched it. Why I don’t feel the same about Donna is beyond me.

I’m really struggling to understand why after just this first episode so many people were rejoicing that RTD has saved the show. Granted, I didn’t hate the Chibnall era, just select parts of it in the same way that I would have problems here and there with RTD and Moffat, so I’m not coming from a place of having felt like the show I loved was dead, but I really don’t see how The Star Beast is any better than most given episodes of the preceding era. I didn’t feel some magical shift. If anything, I liked most Chibnall era episodes more than this. I don’t know what everyone is talking about.

Thankfully the next special is a vast improvement imo.

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WILD BLUE YONDER

- The opening with Isaac Newton just feels completely unnecessary to me. I feel like Russell just wanted to make a joke about changing the word “gravity” to “mavity” and decided to create that opening scene. I believe I also saw that the actor is a friend of his so this also could have spawned from him trying to create a bit part for him. Whatever the origin is, I’m not a fan of it. I really hope the mavity joke doesn’t continue past these specials, because I find it very annoying for reasons I can’t even quite place. Just gets on my nerves. And let’s forget the fact that the word gravity existed before Isaac Newton anyway.

- The TARDIS blaring the military song at the beginning and later near the end is another thing I would have sworn was the Toymaker having a laugh. Nope. No clue why it’s doing that, then. They do say something about the TARDIS playing them a war song, I guess they mean to imply it was some kind of warning of what they were getting into? But it kind of just happens. I feel like RTD keeps doing things without explanation just for fun. And there’s definitely a time and place for that, but in these specials it keeps being stuff that really should have elaboration and then they just don’t.

- I really like the massive spaceship and its design. Feels like something my brain would make up as I’m listening to a Big Finish story. The moving pieces are awesome as well.

- This is just me being someone who primarily prefers the Classic series a lot of the time, but I’m kind of done with New Who making a point of people’s attractiveness. I don’t need commentary on how hot the characters think anyone they’ve run into is, let alone a historical figure. New Who has a strange obsession with sexualization. RTD and Moffat are the worst offenders with this. Can’t call to mind times where that happened in the Chibnall era but I could be missing something. In any case I really want them to grow up a bit.

- Hey, that’s the first reference to the Doctor snapping his fingers to control the TARDIS in who even knows how long! Not that I was even a fan of that concept but it’s interesting to hear about it again.

- I like that Ten quickly stops himself from placing any blame on Donna and apologizes.

- The Doctor kissing her hand and holding it to his chest when she starts panicking is very sweet. 💗

- Woohoo, bringing back the HADS! Troughton fans unite!

- I love the robot. That is a great robot.

- I totally thought that the void outside was the Toymaker’s realm. That’s what I get for listening to Solitaire I guess.

- ^ I was also waiting for the glass that the Doctor was pressing against to completely disappear and he would fall into the Toymaker’s realm. Would make a good fic though.

- With all of the shots of Ten and Donna being watched from behind I kept expecting the forms of old companions like Susan or Steven to show up to mess with the Doctor. Never mind.

- I knew he was going to lick the strange gooey substance. Same old Ten.

- Poor Donna wondering what her family would do if she never returned.

- I thought it was abrupt that the Doctor had finished his job and already come back to Donna, but the moment where we cut back to the Doctor fiddling around immediately made it click that Donna was NOT talking to the real one, which is terrifyingly creepy.

- ^ I assumed at first that the Toymaker was faking being the Doctor to get information out of Donna. Then when the fake Donna turned up I thought they were both just his puppets he’d sent. Even when it was revealed what they really were I still imagined the Toymaker had something to do with sending them after them. Still jarred that these first two specials had absolutely no set-up for the big bad they were teasing in promotions for ages. But this particular instance is still very good without having anything to do with him. The Not-Things are chillingly creepy and I was constantly on edge.

- I like how Donna has absolutely no reaction to, “My arms are too long,” as if the Doctor would just say that lol.

- The long arms are so freakish in the best kind of freakish way.

- I seriously thought for a minute that they were turning into giant marionettes. There’s a bit of music during the reveal that sounded a bit circus-y for a moment as well. I could not stop seeing the Toymaker around every corner lol.

- David and Catherine kill it as the Not-Things. It’s fascinating to see them play against themselves in such a dark way.

- The way they look when they’re growing enormous and are appearing more and more freakish really feels like something my brain would concoct while listening to Big Finish if they did a story like this.

- I really enjoy the darkness going on here generally. They didn’t shy away from being absolutely twisted and terrifying and disturbing. It’s good to have a bit of that sometimes.

- This is seriously David and Catherine at some of their best. This special has the best stuff for the Doctor and Donna as a duo and their relationship, as well as having to play everything twice. They’re so good at making the Not-Things convincing that I was genuinely having a hard time figuring out which ones were real for a while.

- I hate the Timeless Child lore but it’s used here to good effect. Same with the Flux. I actually quite enjoyed the Flux arc but the fact that it did permanently wipe out half the universe without getting reversed or fixed and we just don’t talk about it is ridiculous. While I wish they would fix the situation, similarly to the Timeless Child it’s used well here.

- That contorted crab walk thing is incredibly disturbing even if it does look stupid lol.

- Really, how can they use a line like, “To play your vicious games and win,” and not have me think the Toymaker was involved somewhere in here?

- The Doctor not being able to stop thinking is very relatable lol. I would fail so badly in this scenario.

- I really like the design of the old captain of the ship. I’d love to see what that species looks like when they’re not just skeletal remains. Unless they actually do just look like bone anyway like Thestrals, in which case that would be even cooler.

- Everything about the climax is very well-executed. The drama, the pacing, the stakes. Very strong stuff.

- Poor Donna being left behind. But do you know what I was expecting? Naturally, for the Toymaker to pluck her out before the ship exploded so that he could keep her alive to force to play games. These specials did not go anything like I expected lol.

- Sweet Ten and Donna just sitting there reeling for a minute.

- Not sure what invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe is supposed to do with the return of the Toymaker in the next ep. He says it’s because the walls of reality are thin and all things are possible, but that doesn’t mean that pouring some salt on the ground magically has something to do with him specifically. Feels like a very weird reason to give when the logical thing to do would just be to say that the Toymaker has been plotting to get him back for a long time and finally showed up now.

- Wilf broke me. This was the one thing in any of these specials to get me truly, legitimately emotional. Shed a tear over him and his sweet face. It’s a shame they weren’t able to film any more scenes with him but I’m so glad they got that one in.

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OVERVIEW

By far the best of the specials. I quite enjoyed the sheer darkness and madness of this one, and David and Catherine absolutely knock it out of the park. The writing is largely very good and it’s very effective in its scare factor, as well as in showcasing the relationship between the Doctor and Donna. This is the best stuff they have in any of these specials and I felt a little more connected to them here than in the other two. That doesn’t say as much as I’d like it to, but I’ll take it.

It stands up very well on its own, which in one way is great and the mark of a wonderful episode, but in another way also speaks to one of my overall problems with these episodes which is that they’re not connected to each other. This is a fantastic story and extremely well done, but once again it doesn’t feel like it’s celebrating anything and I truly don’t understand why these specials weren’t written to be a lot more connected than they are. At the end of the day it’s just a collection of random episodes that fill a gap before Ncuti takes the reins. That said, I’m not complaining about this one, this really was very interesting. Definitely the standout episode out of the three.

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THE GIGGLE

- Getting this out of the way right from the start lest I comment on it during every scene of his: NPH steals the show. He acts his heart out here. On the one hand it’s a very different approach to and portrayal of the Toymaker, which would otherwise bother me, but I can buy it as a Toymaker who has had centuries and centuries since the original serial to grow madder and madder and madder (and though he doesn’t regenerate like a Time Lord, I’d still be willing to believe that pieces of his personality might shift with different faces). On the other hand, there is still very much an element of Michael Gough in his darker, more intense moments. Glints that you can see in his eyes and his wicked grin. Very different but very the same. I really wish more of the episode had focused on him, and even further that he had been involved in all three of these specials.

- I appreciate the different accents he puts on throughout, as it proves me right that he just copies things from all manner of cultures he has no connection to. Vindication.

- Genuinely creepy in the opening scene the way he talks about the doll family as if buying the one doll would be separating it from its family and make them sad. You get the impression he’s not kidding. Even creepier when he says the hair on the doll was from a woman who won’t be missing it and won’t miss anything ever again. This one scene sets up right from the off that he is deeply unsettling and has done truly horrifying things to the victims of his games.

- I keep looking for Easter eggs in the toy shop and keep finding nothing lol. Wasted opportunity to have a Trilogic game or something hidden in the background.

- There’s some very dark music that plays frequently which seems to be the Toymaker’s theme. I really like it.

- Very unsettling that the Doctor’s first interaction with the Toymaker is unbeknownst to him. I like that he just stays in the background for a minute before messing with him while he still doesn’t know it’s him.

- I don’t like that the new UNIT building is essentially Stark Tower. That’s much too ostentatious for an organization that’s supposed to keep a low profile. Their building in The Power of the Doctor was already way too big. I don’t know why they seem to have gone very public now.

- I like that Kate is so scared by all of this that the first thing she does is to just grab the Doctor in a hug. Also, nice shoutout to Kate having fought Yetis.

- Mel! 💗 It's so nice to have her here. I haven't seen her Classic stuff yet but I've always adored her from afar, she's so precious. I'm always here for bringing back old friends as long as it's done well. The Doctor's reaction to her is so sweet.

- Sorry to disappoint, Mel, but you’re not the first redhead lol.

- Cool little robot guy. I'd ask why they have him working for them but they also had an alien as their scientific advisor for years, so whatever.

- Very interesting to demonstrate what happens to people's minds by turning Kate's protective armband off. Her tirade over nothing is both funny and frightening.

- The return of newscaster Trinity Wells! Nice to see you, girl. Though I have no idea how UNIT not only created but has already been trying to mass produce and give to the world these Zeedex bands within 2 days for this to even be on the news. Apparently they were an invention of the robotic character the Vlinx but that’s still a bit fast lol.

- I like that Donna was able to figure out the music scale from a perfectly ordinary experience. And lol at having Bonnie Langford sing the arpeggio.

- Considering the implication that having traveled in the TARDIS prevents the effects of this on an individual, I now want fic of every companion who's living in modern day Earth reacting to all of their neighbors and family suddenly losing their crap. Ian and Barbara watching their friends pick loud fights in the streets, Jo seeing every member of her family go mad. Not to mention the characters who either never set foot in the TARDIS at all or not long enough for it to protect them. Poor Liz Shaw somewhere, and Benton and Yates. All of the SJA kids except for Sky since she's an alien, and she'd have to deal with all of them being terrible.

- I like that they have Mel doing some technical stuff since she was supposed to be a computer programmer.

- Glad they gave a reason for why and how Mel is back on Earth lol. Nice shoutout to Glitz while they were at it as well.

- Kate really seems to like offering everybody a job lol.

- Subtle bit of creepiness to the Toymaker that no matter how many of his juggling balls he throws, he's still juggling the same amount of balls.

- I'm glad they had him already know Donna's name. I imagined he would have to but you never know what writers are gonna do. I'm also very pleased that it's immediately acknowledged that the Toymaker is an extreme threat by having the Doctor tell Donna to go back to the TARDIS the second he's realized who it is.

- Heck yes to the brief Hartnell and Gough flashes! It's not only lovely to see them in general but I love the weight that it adds, that they know each other from so long ago, and that those people are still who they both are inside the different faces. You can see Michael Gough's eyes in NPH right here in particular and for a moment I feel I can even see Bill's eyes in David.

- Shoutout to the hidden Joeys in a couple of different places. They're not nearly as visible in the episode as the set pics made it seem but I know he's there.

- Love that he means Hartnell when he says, “When I was young.”

- I like the unnervingness of the endless hallway and all of the doors just leading you nowhere. I can imagine that kind of a trick in the original serial. (In fact I now really want to see that be something they'd have to deal with. I can just hear Steven's huffy, 'Oh, no,' when they realize they're never getting anywhere lol.) The two of them ending up separated is also good stuff.

- I still don't see what invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe has to do with bringing the Toymaker in. It's a really weird and nonsensical reason to give when the only reason you need is that he's finally coming for his rematch.

- Very creepy stuff with the poor man being made into a marionette, as well as the Doctor seeing himself as one. That’s the kind of disturbing factor I was hoping for with this special. There isn't a ton of this kind of thing here and I'd have gone quite a bit darker myself for this whole episode but I appreciate what we have.

- The Toymaker looming above, looking down as he holds the puppet strings is some really good imagery.

- Donna vs the rest of the doll family is very freakish, but I also feel bad for them because there's no way those weren't real people at one point. Particularly disturbing to have Donna rip Sue's head off and kick it across the room, considering. I know she doesn’t know these were people, and even if she did she does have to protect herself somehow, but yikes.

- I love the painted stage backdrops in the middle of absolute black nothingness. I was hoping they'd have this sort of thing, since much of the original is in this sort of broad, void-feeling space.

- I really like this bit where the Toymaker is showing what happened to the previous companions that have been on the show since Donna left. Very chilling to see him be well aware of all of the particulars of these events and I’m glad they went for it in torturing the Doctor with personal pain. It wasn’t as much or as dark as I’d hoped but I like it, and I always like seeing a Doctor acknowledge companions he was with when he had different faces. Very nice to see Ten’s face talk about Amy, Clara, and Bill. Also, nice recap for those who may have stopped after Tennant originally left, and wow, the Moffat era really had a ton of tragic departures. I keep thinking what must have been going through Neil’s head reading about a character who was killed by a bird, and the various insane-sounding reasons from the Doctor as to why these characters are somehow okay despite what happened to them, considering he apparently didn’t know about Doctor Who whatsoever prior to being approached for the role!

- Oh, the shift in the Toymaker’s face when the Doctor challenges him to a game. Stuff just got real.

- It’s so good to see them playing at a table again.

- “I made a jigsaw out of your history. Did you like it?” Not sure what that means unless they’re trying to indicate that he’s somehow responsible for the Timeless Child mythos, or at least for various inconsistencies in the Doctor’s life. I doubt they’d hand-wave away the whole TC arc like that when Russell said he wouldn’t undermine his friend’s work, so I don’t know what to make of this. But if we can ignore that from here on out then that rocks.

- Poor Master, lol. I can only imagine bedraggled and broken Dhawan being offered a chance to live if he played a game, taking the offer, and promptly losing. I want to know how that went down. Apparently very badly, if the price was being trapped inside the Toymaker’s gold tooth. Also, is he aware of what’s going on or is he just sort of in stasis in there? It would be awful for him if he were conscious of everything, but awful results are how the Toymaker operates, so I wouldn’t be surprised. Imagine the Master trying and failing to scream to the Doctor to do whatever he has to to get away.

- Okay, who on earth is this person the Toymaker supposedly didn’t dare play? They’re claiming that he played and defeated God but there’s somehow someone even more powerful that the Toymaker of all people is scared of? “The one who waits”? Jokingly headcanon-ing that it’s Rory until we get anything further on that, lol.

- I mean, the Toymaker ain’t wrong about the issues of the human race in the 21st century 🤷‍♀️ VERY weird to hear him say the word ‘cancel’ though. That originated here on tumblr to my knowledge. Things like that have gotta stop breaking containment, now they’re spreading so far that a character from 1966 is saying them.

- Love the Toymaker’s aghast reaction to Donna saying he’ll just cheat. Though they make it sound like he’s forced to always play by the rules by some sort of cosmic force that binds him. In the original you get the impression that it’s just a matter of principle to him, which I prefer.

- I like that the king on the playing card looks like it could either be Michael Gough or NPH, or perhaps a blurred line between them to represent both.

- Part of me feels like the dancing scene is a bit too far in terms of silliness for circumstances that should be very serious, but it’s also too enjoyable for me to not get a kick out of. They also managed to make it quite dark and threatening, having him appear all over the place, forcing Kate and then Mel to dance, turning the two UNIT men into bouncing balls that still retain the images of their screaming faces and the Doctor telling Kate that they’re dead, and making all of the bullets turn into rose petals therefore showing them all that they’re helpless against him. For something that should come across as ridiculous, it’s actually surprisingly effective. Though I don’t know what it is with RTD and having his big bads dance to girl group songs lol.

- When Kate asks where the guards and staff have gone and the Toymaker just goes, “I think they’re still falling.” Eek.

- Ten really has a thing for offering bad guys to travel with him instead of wreaking havoc lol. But I love that they had him say that the two of them together could be ‘celestial’. Thank you for the little reference and for proving me right again that that’s the context in which we’re supposed to take his title. Also, interesting little moment there where the Toymaker very nearly almost seemed tempted.

- This scene is very quickly ruined, but I like Donna and Mel going to the Doctor’s side to be with him as he regenerates. Very sweet to see two past companions who still love him very much and are willing to put themselves in the line of fire just to make sure he’s not alone. And when the Toymaker comments, “Handmaidens,” it reminds me of the original serial when he comments on Steven’s “adolescent expressions of loyalty”.

- Nice detail that Mel seems a lot more prepared and okay with the realities of regeneration, just comforting him with a smile and not seeming terribly worried whether he’s going to be okay because she knows he will be, she’s seen him in the aftermath of a regeneration before and loved both Doctors she was with. Of course she and Donna are both emotional, but Mel definitely strikes me as more ready to deal with what comes next.

- I’m really mad that this moment is all about to get undermined, because having Ten 2.0’s last words be, “Allons-y,” aka, ‘let’s go’, is incredibly fitting and poignant in contrast to the original, “I don’t want to go.” Why’d they have to go and ruin what could have been a nice, touching regeneration?

- Aaaand here’s the moment that ruins the entire rest of the story for me. Rather than regenerating like normal, the Doctor “bigenerates”, splitting into two of himself so we have both Tennant and Gatwa together. It’s hand-waved with, ‘oh there’s this thing called bigeneration that’s supposed to be a myth but apparently not!’ and then not discussed any further. Russell, you just got back, did you seriously have to already bring a massively disruptive lore change with you? We just had one. I seem to be in the minority, at least on tumblr, but I am not on board with having two Doctors existing simultaneously. It feels more like the Doctor split off a twin. You can’t copy a soul and have two of that soul at the same time. That is not how people work. I keep having to focus on Mel being adorable in the background because the rest of this is aggravating.

- I feel it robs Ncuti of a proper entrance as well. He doesn’t get the same process that every Doctor before him since Troughton has gotten. He’s relegated to splitting off of the fan favorite rather than taking his place as is kinda his right, which could also easily cause people to forever view him as an offshoot and not the proper Doctor. Not to mention the fact that their split also divided articles of clothing between the two of them, meaning Fifteen is left running around in underwear for the entire remainder of the episode. A lot of people seem fine with this but I really think it’s an undignified entrance for the poor guy, and I’m not sure it’s going to age very well either. It would be humiliating enough for any Doctor to start out that way but I can already see people in the future looking back on it as a very degrading introduction for the first black Doctor. My mind also often goes to considering whether certain things would come across the same if it were a woman, and boy, that would not be received well if the new Doctor were a woman having to run around in her underwear as an intro, which means it isn’t really great for a man either.

- I wish I could enjoy the two Doctors excitedly interacting, but that’s the kind of thing that’s only fun or interesting in the usual context of multiple incarnations meeting up from different time periods. This stuff would otherwise be cute, but in the context it’s in, I’m just too uncomfortable to enjoy any of it.

- “Do you come in a range of colors?” is another line that I’m not sure is gonna age well. I’m not sure I like the sound of it now as it is.

- The Toymaker claims he played against the “guardians of time and space” and shrunk them into voodoo dolls. Are we talking Fifth Doctor era Guardians? Poor guys.

- Part of me feels the “ball game” final fight is cool looking (or at least, it’s well-shot to distract me from the fact that it’s not that good; I can’t decide), but the ultimate result is disappointing. It’s pretty unsatisfying to have the Toymaker’s defeat be that he happened to not catch a ball. It makes him look unskilled to just have it graze past his hand when he easily could have stretched slightly further and gotten it. I know people say that his original defeat in the old serial was anticlimactic, but he was defeated because the Doctor was clever. It wasn’t that the Toymaker did anything that would lead to his own loss, it’s not that he wasn’t as clever, it’s just that the Doctor had a good idea and succeeded with it. It was very evenly matched, but somebody has to win even in a very tight game and it was the Doctor. Here, the Toymaker loses because he was unlucky. It wasn’t a victory on the Doctor’s part, the Toymaker just messed up. That doesn’t feel like a satisfying defeat at all because it’s not even a defeat. Everything hinges on the Toymaker somehow not catching a ball.

- Don’t know if that’s the last we’ll see of the Toymaker. It may be the last of NPH playing him at least. I wouldn’t be shocked if they brought the character back for another round some decades down the line, just get him out of the box and dust him off on the rare occasion.

- He says his “legions” are coming, and I believe RTD has said that Fifteen is going to keep facing them. Curious who those will be. I don’t exactly see the Toymaker having armies in reserve somewhere.

- Good for the poor man that he gets to not be a marionette anymore!

- Fifteen: “You can’t save everyone.”

Ten: “Why not?”

Because you go Time Lord Victorious when you start asking that question. Have a Snickers.

- Again, I wish I could enjoy the two Doctors. Fifteen comforting Ten should be a very sweet thing, but this whole thing just feels so wrong to me.

- Well, cue endless speculation on whose hand picked up that gold tooth with the Master in it. That should keep the fandom going for a while.

- ^ Also, ahhh, the various Master laughs when it focuses in on that! I think I hear my beloved Delgado!

- I greatly appreciate all of the Classic references when they’re talking about all of the things they’ve gone through and never stopped to rest after, and all of the people lost.

- Fifteen: “Sarah Jane has gone, can you even believe that for a second?”

Ten: “I loved her.”

Fifteen: “I loved her.”

Owww, official confirmation in TV canon that Sarah Jane is gone by now. I’d appreciated that they had never explicitly said anything like they did with the Brigadier. I loved her, too. 😢

- ^ Also mentioning loving Rose, ahhh. The Doctor has never actually said those words to or about her because he was always an idiot thinking it didn’t need to be said. Finally, a Doctor says onscreen that he loved Rose! 2012 me is pleased.

- Mavic Chen! RTD said he’d be mentioned at some point, but still, there’s a deep cut of a reference! Heck yeah, Hartnell enthusiasts rise.

- “I’m fine because you fix yourself. We’re Time Lords, we’re doing rehab out of order.” Okay, this particular line would seem to imply that at some point when Ten 2.0 eventually regenerates, it will be to Fifteen? That he’s thrown back into the timeline and bigenerates out of himself as Fifteen, thus meaning there’s still just the one Doctor and the timeline aligns itself? Nothing else in this episode indicates that whatsoever, but if that’s what I’m meant to take out of it then it would fix a lot.

- So… they’re seriously saying that he became Ten again for the emotional catharsis of sitting back and living with Donna’s family for a while. Messing up regeneration lore to enable past lives to come back, ignoring that the point of regeneration since its inception is to move forwards, for what is essentially RTD’s fix-it AU fic for his own characters. This continues to feel like it’s RTD’s celebration of his own stuff rather than an overall 60th anniversary celebration. I really want to be happier about having my Ten back, and that Donna gets to remember everything, but so much of the way this has been done leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

- Aaand oh boy. Here’s the bit where they duplicate the TARDIS. For the sake of argument, say that Fifteen really did come after Ten 2.0 living his life with the Nobles and he’s just thrown backwards in the timeline. If that’s supposed to be the same with the TARDIS, that he’s just bringing it into this time somehow from where it last was with Ten 2.0 prior to his regeneration, then that would be fine. But there is absolutely nothing that indicates this. The takeaway I get is that the TARDIS has been copied. Tennant is going to stay at the Nobles’ and have the original TARDIS on hand so he can still leave sometimes. Gatwa takes off in the copied TARDIS. The Doctor that we’re supposed to be following from here on out is no longer traveling in the very same TARDIS as he always has. If that’s seriously the case, then that’s a GIGANTIC heck no from me. Absolutely not.

- Oh, how I wish I could more properly enjoy this final scene of Ten with the Nobles. On paper it’s absolutely adorable. If they confirm that Fifteen is the regeneration after and not an awkward offshoot, then retroactively I could enjoy this a lot more, but until that potentially happens, I’m still uncomfortable with the two separate Doctors at the same time and therefore uncomfortable with the context of him being here because there was a second Doctor who can keep going instead.

- Would have sworn that the Doctor’s eyebrow story was going to be about Delphon but then he says another name. Oh well.

- I do really like that Mel gets to join in on the Noble family gatherings. Lovely to keep her until the end and that she gets to have sort of a family. “Mad Aunty Mel” 💗

- ^ Also sweet that the Doctor took her to New York in the Gilded Age for a nice little trip at some point in the time skip before this. Mel deserves nice things.

- Why are we saying that Wilf is shooting the moles in the garden? Unless there’s something I’m forgetting where he’s done something like that before, I don’t feel like Wilf would hurt a fly let alone moles. With how hard it was for him to take out his gun after so many years in The End of Time I’m not sure I buy him being okay with shooting anything. Weird note to end on for him.

- Having the Doctor spend most of his time living with the Nobles and resting presents a bit of a Steve-stays-in-the-past-in-Endgame problem in that there’s no way he wouldn’t always be trying to right wrongs around him. Just like Steve would have to ignore every horrible thing he could do something about, including rescuing Bucky who is being tortured out there, any time this Doctor isn’t there when something is going terribly wrong nearby, it means he’s ignoring it while he lounges. That doesn’t sound like him at all.

- And off Fifteen goes, getting ready to go into the Christmas special. I’m worried about it but hopefully it’s better than I think it will be…?

~~~~~

OVERVIEW

Oh, massive mixed bag.

I really like the Toymaker parts of the episode. He wasn’t in nearly as much of it as he should have been and his downfall is disappointing, but the overall writing for him and performance by NPH was fantastic. There’s some very good dark and twisted stuff in here and I’m glad they went for it, even if I would have done even more with it. He is far and away the main highlight of the episode and much of my enjoyment of it is down to him. Mel also plays a considerable role in that, just because I’m thrilled any time an old companion turns up, but I also felt more connected to her, whose stories I haven’t even seen yet, than Ten or Donna somehow. Honorable mention to Kate and Shirley who were also great.

As has been true of all of these, I still just can’t fully emotionally connect with Ten and Donna. I desperately wanted to, and there’s a part of me that did in a way, but nowhere near how it should have been. I feel like I’m insane because on paper there’s nothing even wrong with them and it sure as heck ain’t the performances. But going from a few of their episodes in series 4 in the lead-up and feeling all sorts of strong emotions, that somehow just didn’t carry over to this and I don’t get why. Pacing? Trapped in the poor writing around them? I seriously can’t figure this out, but it doesn’t feel the same as it used to at all. Something is wrong and I don’t know what the heck it is.

And there’s the matter of Ten coming back because apparently that specific incarnation needed a happy ending. I really feel the need to emphasize that I LOVE TEN, but being nostalgic and sentimental isn’t a good enough reason to mess with the regeneration cycle and skip backwards a few lives. Literally the reason they give is that this particular face needed rest (they do say that the Doctor needs rest generally, but they didn’t have to go back to this face to do that — Donna indicates that this face came back so that he could ‘come home’ and be happy.) It feels way too much like favoritism to single this incarnation out in such a big way, and honestly? Ten needed to go when he did. He was becoming someone he wasn’t and it was his time. Of all of the Doctors, his was the one that actually really needed to regenerate, for the sake of his own soul. It was certainly distressing but it was a solid end for him. I don’t feel he needs this do-over to go back and get a happy ending. No one Doctor deserves that over another (though if they did, it would be poor Two whose life was cut short by execution courtesy of his own kind.) I love Ten so dearly but it feels wrong to act like he’s so important that he specifically has earned any of this treatment. I’m beginning to appreciate Tom Baker’s approach of not making multiple comebacks precisely because of his popularity.

For a good chunk of this ep, the writing was pretty good, especially where the Toymaker himself was concerned. But once the bigeneration happened, it was so downhill that it makes me struggle to want to rewatch this even for the good parts. I’m really, really hoping that I’m right and Fifteen is meant to come after Ten 2.0 has already had his lifetime, ditto his TARDIS, because it would largely save this episode for me and because the alternative is completely appalling and I can’t be okay with it. To make matters worse, Russell has claimed that he believes the bigeneration echoed back into all previous regenerations and causing each Doctor to split off from the last so they all get to go on with their own life, that they’re ALL out there in some kind of “Doctorverse”, which is absolutely insane. It defeats the purpose of regeneration: “Times change and so must I,” and, “Life defends on change and renewal.” This completely flies in the face of a critical aspect of the show, that one has to move on eventually. There’s a time for each of these incarnations, but they can’t last forever. It weakens all of these deaths, a good number of which were sacrifices, to claim that they all actually get to live on, and the very idea of it also supports my fear that there’s seriously just supposed to be two Doctors now and we’re supposed to be okay with that. According to Russell there’s a whole ton of Doctors existing simultaneously and that’s supposed to be okay. It’s the definition of bonkers is what it is. I really feel the opposite of all of the ‘RTD saved the show!’ sentiments; it feels like he’s gotten too big for his britches and has returned with a bizarre god complex where he’s wielding way too much power and plans to use all of it however he wishes. He’s single-handedly making me nervous for this entire next era.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BIG PICTURE

Though there are definitely things I liked, particularly the Toymaker and Wild Blue Yonder, there was far too much that I don’t feel good about for me to be able to say I really loved these specials. I probably won’t reblog much of it beyond what I already have and I’m not particularly motivated to rewatch these except in a full-scale series rewatch because I’m not the sort of person who can let myself skip stuff.

I really feel like these should have been either Jodie’s or Ncuti’s. Ten didn’t need to be here, much as I love him. It could have either been a very dramatic ending for Thirteen (though I enjoyed The Power of the Doctor for that) or a very interesting beginning for Fifteen. It would be interesting to see a brand new Doctor have to navigate such intense stuff. And if it had been Thirteen, I honestly feel I may have emotionally connected better because she’s who we’ve been with.

In my perfect world, these would have all had to do with the Toymaker. Have him be woven throughout the first episode (and give that first ep a very different plot than what we got) and then a cliffhanger that reveals him as having been behind it all, leading into two full episodes of fighting against his power. Either keep Wild Blue Yonder, because it’s pretty darn good, and just have it so that my initial thoughts regarding involvement from the Toymaker were correct, or alter it entirely and focus on really delving into who he is and how much danger they’re in. Make them play deadly games. Get some incredibly dark and disturbing visuals and emotional torture in there; show past companions as puppets and dolls (whether it’s really them or not), have them come to life and taunt the Doctor if they’re fake or hauntingly beg him to save them if they’re real, make him face choosing between saving Donna vs other friends, really dig in as deeply and darkly as is possible without permanent consequences like death. Make episode 3 a long battle of wits with lots of intimate time between the Doctor and the Toymaker, with extremely severe personal stakes. Go all out. If you’re going to use the Toymaker again you really should be taking advantage of just how far you can go with a character like this, and the dynamic between him and the Doctor. Give NPH a boatload of screen time and a big, twisted sandbox to play in. Loads of emotionally, mentally, conceptually, and visually dark and disturbing things. They had some very good stuff but there should have been more of it, and even more unsettling, or at least on par with the marionette man and the soldiers turned to balls. If we keep Tennant for this, make the regaining of his face a plot point that was influenced by the Toymaker, something to torture him because Ten was one of the most emotionally volatile and damaged. When regenerating into Fifteen, let it be a normal regeneration, preferably caused by the Doctor needing to sacrifice himself to defeat the Toymaker because he can’t get away like he did before — this time, he really does have to face going down with the Toymaker to succeed. Keep Donna because she’s a prime resource for hitting Ten where it hurts, but have their reunion be orchestrated and the regaining of her memories be more complicated. It shouldn’t be as easy as it was. Have ample time to give full acknowledgment to the stakes involved. If she regains them in the first episode and it feels too easy, make it so that the Toymaker has only made it seem that way, but she’s in serious trouble the longer she goes on with her memory intact. Either tragically make her forget again in the end to save her life and to not completely undo Journey’s End, or make it far more complicated to ensure that she can safely retain the memories. It should only be in the final episode when they’ve fought for it and come out victorious that they can confirm that she’s safe and is able to go on this way. Definitely keep Mel somewhere in here, as well as having other old friends appear in some way or another. In the VERY least, just reference Steven and Dodo, because they didn’t, dang it all, and I ask for so little.

There’s so much that I wish these specials had done, that I wish they’d been. And largely, they just didn’t. For all the good that there was, there was a heck of a lot that ultimately makes it fail as a collective whole, at least for me. I had to put on a Classic story as a palate cleanser after going through all of that again.

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who 10 for 10 Part 5/10: Series 5

And so we come to my era of Doctor Who, and I say “my” for different reasons. I first got into Doctor Who with the Matt Smith era around 2011 or 2012, watching the episodes on ABC iView then gradually branching back to the older episodes of the modern era, even watching a few from the classic era. It was also around this time that I started integrating Doctor Who into my personal project, realising it by essentially making my own version of the series. At first, I just put out ideas for episodes without writing them, then I started writing some episodes; some were adaptations or ripoffs of other episodes or media and some were original, with a lot of collaborations, throwbacks and crazy ideas to boot. Gradually, it came to the point where I was essentially compelled to write whole series of episodes and the rabbit hole just continued from there.

But that’s not what this series is about. I’ll think about elaborating on my personal project in the Kisekae Insights series, but for now, let’s jump into the retrospective for Series 5.

1. Changes

When RTD and David Tennant announced their departures from the series, Steven Moffat seemingly had his work cut out for him as he essentially had to start on a fresh slate, however fans were confident that the show was in safe hands, given how he had written episodes for each of the RTD era series. Additionally, before the revival of the series in 2005, Steven Moffat wrote a non-canonical(?) episode known as The Curse of Fatal Death, broadcast in segments during Red Nose Day in 1999.

Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor was revealed to the public in a special episode of Doctor Who Confidential on 3 January 2009, having been cast for at least 3 months by that point. This was a year before the Tenth Doctor’s regeneration aired on New Year’s Day 2010. The special episode of Confidential was commissioned three weeks before it was due to air, so the team only had a few days to work on it. Series 5 began filming in July 2009 and the series premiered in April 2010.

Doctor Who had only switched to HD with the production of the 2009 Specials; the RTD era didn’t start filming in HD presumably because it hadn’t taken off in the UK at the time. Torchwood was filmed in HD and RTD apparently had a bad time with it because there was a lack of training; also, the TARDIS would have to be rebuilt and it would have taken a lot of money and time, hence RTD held off on moving the series to HD until towards the end of his run. HD episodes of Doctor Who were simulcast on BBC HD during the 2009 Specials and Series 5 before moving to the newly-launched BBC One HD from the 2010 Christmas Special onwards.

With the change in production team also came more radical changes to the series, including the sonic screwdriver, the TARDIS, the logo, the title sequence and the theme music. The theme music was made faster and “a bit reckless” according to composer Murray Gold, which apparently received complaints from viewers. Personally, it’s a theme that’s stuck in my memories and it sounds a bit subdued compared to the 2008 theme.

2. The Girl Who Waited

Karen Gillan was cast as the Doctor’s companion, Amy Pond, however her backstory would be more complicated compared to previous companions and her involvement would not end at the conclusion of the series. Arthur Darvill was cast as Amy’s boyfriend and later, husband, Rory Williams, however he would not be credited in the opening credits until Series 6.

In The Eleventh Hour, a young Amelia Pond was praying to Santa Claus about the crack in her bedroom wall when the newly-regenerated Doctor crashed in her backyard. After climbing out of the swimming pool in the library and having something to eat (fish fingers and custard), the Doctor investigates the crack in Amelia’s room, he learns that someone called Prisoner Zero has escaped, but just as he suspects something suspicious in the corridor, out the corner of his eye, the TARDIS Cloister Bell rings as the engines are phasing out of existence.

The Doctor attempted to shift forward five minutes in time, but as he would later learn, he had gone forward twelve years in time and Amelia now called herself Amy. She began to believe in “the Raggedy Doctor”, with everyone in Leadworth believing that it was a thing. Amy was sent to four psychiatrists, which she apparently kept biting because they said that “the Raggedy Doctor” wasn’t real. The Atraxi, who were guarding Prisoner Zero and were on the hunt for him, followed the Doctor to twelve years in the future and were prepared to incinerate the planet if Prisoner Zero did not surrender itself to them. Without his TARDIS and his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor managed to corner Prisoner Zero and even trick it into showing its true form, allowing the Atraxi to recapture it.

Although the Atraxi had achieved their objective, the Doctor tracked them down and called them back for a talking-to, during which he decided to change out of his raggedy clothes and put on a new outfit, including a bowtie, which would be the signature element of the Eleventh Doctor’s outfit and one of a few things that he would find “cool”. After the Doctor gave the Atraxi a badass speech to introduce himself and tell them to run, the TARDIS had finished rebuilding itself and the Doctor flew away to the moon before coming back, accidentally arriving two years later. He invited Amy to travel with him in the TARDIS and thus, she officially became the Doctor’s new companion.

The Eleventh Hour is a powerful and fast-paced introduction to the Moffat era that introduces new elements to the series while still maintaining the spirit of what came before. During the RTD era, images of the previous Doctors were shown in Human Nature and The Next Doctor; this episode not only features images of previous Doctors, but also some monsters from the RTD era with even some from the classic era. As we get closer to the 50th Anniversary, I feel like the Moffat era included more throwbacks to older episodes in preparation for the special occasion.

3. The New Dalek Paradigm

Victory of the Daleks saw the return of the Daleks in the Moffat era, with the last surviving Daleks from Davros’ Dalek Empire making way for the New Dalek Paradigm during World War II. After the episode premiered, the design of the New Dalek Paradigm was not well-received by fans, with criticisms such as the extended back making them hunched and the colour-codedness making them parodies of the Power Rangers. The New Dalek Paradigm would be slowly phased out after Series 5, with Asylum of the Daleks reintroducing the bronze Daleks of the RTD era, making them the soldiers while the Paradigm would be an officer class. By The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar, the New Paradigm Daleks were pretty much phased out and kept with the Peter Cushing era Daleks, which is honestly quite sad.

Unpopular opinion, but I didn’t think the New Dalek Paradigm was that bad and I thought that a lot of potential was squandered with the way they were phased out. In my personal project, I had a little subplot at one stage featuring a civil war between the bronze Daleks and the New Dalek Paradigm, so I feel like if we actually had that in the series, they could truly “exterminate” the New Dalek Paradigm, as it were, and provide an in-universe explanation for them being phased out. But sadly, that has seemingly been relegated to the extended media. Personally, if the backs weren’t extended or the heads were made bigger so as to not look hunched, I think the New Dalek Paradigm may have had a bit of a chance.

4. Angels vs. Time

The Weeping Angels were a Moffat creation introduced during the RTD era in Series 3’s Blink, so Moffat becoming the new showrunner allowed the opportunity for a monster he created to truly shine. In The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone, a Weeping Angel had sabotaged the Byzantium and crashed it into Alfava Metraxis, where hundreds of Weeping Angels were laying dormant in the moratorium of the Aplans, using the radiation of the Byzantium to revive themselves. Joined by River and soldiers from what would later be known as the Church of the Papal Mainframe, the Doctor managed to board the Byzantium, only to discover that a crack, similar to the one in young Amelia’s room, has opened onboard. This particular crack, however, was leaking time energy that would erase from history anyone or anything it came into contact with. On top of this, Amy had looked into the eyes of an image of a Weeping Angel and an Angel was created in her mind, which began making her count down as the Angel slowly started to take over, but the Doctor made Amy close her eyes, which held off the Angel for the time being.

While the Doctor and River headed to the primary flight deck, Amy remained in the ship’s forest with the Clerics. As the Clerics were being erased from history one by one, the Doctor realised what the time energy was capable of and tried getting her to the primary flight deck. The Angels managed to close in on Amy during this, but River managed to teleport her to the primary flight deck. Because the Angels were absorbing the energy from the Byzantium, the gravity controls began to fail, so the Doctor had River and Amy hold on as the Angels fell into the crack, erasing them from history and the Angel in Amy’s mind with them.

This two-parter reveals more abilities of the Weeping Angels than from what we learnt in Blink; an image of an Angel is in itself an Angel, an Angel can be created in someone’s mind by staring into its eyes and Angels can snap people’s necks and steal their consciousness to communicate with others. Some people say that this is where the Weeping Angels become overpowered, but I didn’t really think so as I watched the series, probably because I wasn’t really involved in the discourse back then.

5. A new extension to the universe

It was during Series 5 that Doctor Who made its foray into video games. Well, there was the Top Trumps game released in 2008, but there were more PC and console games released during the Matt Smith era before Doctor Who returned to the medium during the Jodie Whittaker era.

From June to December 2010, four games were released under The Adventure Games banner through the BBC Doctor Who website. A second series of four games was commissioned for release in 2011, but only the first game, The Gunpowder Plot, was released before the rest of the series was cancelled as the BBC wanted to focus on console games such as The Eternity Clock, which was released in 2012. The Eternity Clock was planned to be the first of a three-parter of games, but the other two parts were cancelled.

The Adventure Games were only made available to residents of the UK thanks to a geo-blocking system that was embedded into the installer that communicated to a BBC server before it was shut down. The games were made available on Steam in 2014, but they were removed in 2017 as the licence of the publisher, Legacy Games, was expiring. The BBC downloadables were made available on the Internet Archive; there is a way to get past the geo-blocking system by unpacking the installers and modifying a byte in a specific position of the executable file using a hex editor.

Evacuation Earth and Return to Earth were also games that were released for the Nintendo DS and Wii respectively in 2010. They received negative reviews. The Mazes of Time for iOS and Android along with Worlds in Time, a Flash MMORPG, were also made, but they were eventually discontinued.

Finally, one Doctor Who game that I fondly remember is Legacy, which was released on iOS and Android in November 2013 for the 50th Anniversary. It was a Puzzle & Dragons-style game where you collect characters and match gems to attack enemies. The game was updated regularly during the Peter Capaldi era and it also contained content from the Big Finish audios and Titan Comics releases. Another similar game, Infinity, was released in 2018 and actors from the series reprised their roles for it, however both games were ultimately discontinued due to expiring licences with the publisher, Tiny Rebel Games.

6. Apes and lizards

After Series 3’s 42 and the first two series of Torchwood, The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood was Chris Chibnall’s contribution to Series 5. The two-parter marked the return of the Silurians, a lesser-known monster that had only appeared in two stories during the classic series. The new Silurians were of a different caste to the old ones, particularly as the former used prosthetics (under masks) instead of suits to make them more humanoid. Neve McIntosh, who played Alaya and Restac in the two-parter, became the series’ resident Silurian actress, just as Dan Starkey became the resident Sontaran actor. McIntosh would play Vastra and Starkey would play Strax from Series 6 onwards.

Rory joined the Doctor and Amy following the events of Flesh and Stone, picking him up after Amy tried to kiss him in an effort to keep her and Rory together. The TARDIS arrives in 2020 Cwmtaff instead of Rio de Janeiro, where after Amy and Rory briefly wave at their future selves, the Doctor notices something strange in the grass and eventually discovers an entire city of Silurians underground. Amidst a growing crisis between the humans and Silurians, the Silurian leader, Eldane, decided to have his kind go back into stasis while the Doctor and the humans escaped back up.

Just as the Doctor, Amy and Rory reach the TARDIS, they notice a crack in time opening and the Doctor reaches in to pull a piece of shrapnel out. A dying Restac finds the Doctor and shoots at him, but Rory takes the shot for him and he dies. The Doctor notices time energy coming into contact with Rory and drags Amy back into the TARDIS, leaving Rory to be removed from history. Due to him being tied to her personal history, Amy ends up forgetting Rory and she waves goodbye to her future self, now without Rory.

Before the Doctor leaves, he examines the piece of shrapnel he pulled out and discovers that it is a part of the TARDIS.

7. Future legacy

Vincent and the Doctor is another powerful episode in Series 5, but in a different way to how The Eleventh Hour was powerful. In Victory of the Daleks, we met Winston Churchill and in this story, we meet Vincent Van Gogh, a painter who was ridiculed in his time but revered years after. His mental health is also the focus of the episode, which was a given how Van Gogh was in history.

The Doctor and Amy visit the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, but they decide to head back in time to 1890 when the Doctor finds something strange in one of Van Gogh’s paintings. They eventually find a monster known as the Krafayis, invisible to others but visible to Van Gogh. While confronting the monster, the Doctor realised that it was abandoned by the rest of its pack because it was blind. It was accidentally killed by Van Gogh, who told the Doctor that it was scared.

Following this, the Doctor and Amy took Van Gogh to the Musée d’Orsay in 2010, where he heard Doctor Black talking about him as the greatest man who ever lived. This moved Van Gogh to tears and left him with a new outlook on life, but despite this, he still committed suicide, showing that despite best efforts, some moments of history are fixed. However, the Krafayis no longer appears in Van Gogh’s painting and he dedicated another one of his paintings to Amy.

One of the things that made the ending of the episode so powerful was the song used in it - Chances by Athlete, an indie rock band that Matt Smith was a fan of. Another song I know from Doctor Who is Angels Calling by Rooster, which was used in the Doctor Who Greatest Moments documentary series. Both songs are quite powerful in and of themselves.

Doctor Black was played by Bill Nighy, a high-profile actor who was cast because the producers wanted the audience to listen to him talking about Van Gogh. Nighy agreed to appear on the condition that he was uncredited, no publicity photos were taken of him and no interviews were to be given.

8. They made him famous

Since the previous year’s Christmas Special was already produced by the RTD-era crew and the current year’s Christmas Special would be filmed as part of the next series, there was no need to double-bank an episode, though Moffat did consider it if delays happened in the production schedule. When budget issues forced Neil Gaiman’s The Doctor’s Wife to be moved to the next series, Gareth Roberts’ The Lodger was chosen to take its place, being a cheap enough candidate for a companion-lite bottle episode. It was originally pitched as a comic strip where the Tenth Doctor was forced to live with Mickey when the TARDIS accidentally jumped forward in time with Rose in it, so the characters and setting had to be changed to fit Series 5. When it was clear the double-banking would not be required, some more material with Amy was added, making the companion-lite episode a companion-different episode.

The Lodger featured Craig Owens, played by guest star James Corden, who would be more known in the US as the host of The Late Late Show. When a rogue timeship caused the TARDIS to go in a materialisation loop without the Doctor in it, the Doctor was guided to Craig’s flat and rented a room there in order to investigate. The timeship lured in humans who wanted to escape or explore, but they ended up being burnt due to them not being compatible. When Craig’s other flatmate, Sophie, was lured into the timeship, the Doctor and Craig went up to save her, but the ship’s autopilot deemed the Doctor compatible despite him being too much for it. Craig was never lured in because he never had a desire to leave out of his unspoken love for Sophie, so when he willingly touched the panel, he caused the ship to shut down and implode. The TARDIS stabilised itself and the Doctor was able to leave, but not before having Amy leave a note for his past self about the flat.

The Lodger shows off the Doctor’s more alien side and how it affects his interactions with other humans, particularly when Craig tries to kick the Doctor out because the former felt that the latter was stealing his thunder. It’s a nice and down-to-earth episode. Gareth Roberts originally intended to bring Meglos back from the classic series, but decided not to when the Vinvocci appeared in The End of Time.

9. Cracks in time, time, time

In case you haven’t realised it by now, the cracks in time are the main story arc of Series 5. “Silence will fall” is also a saying that was coined in this series and would be the focus of the next one. The Pandorica was also mentioned in two episodes of this series, but it would be fully addressed in the series finale, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang.

Before Van Gogh died, he drew something that a woman noted was worse than his usual work. The painting made its way to Winston Churchill and he attempted to call the Doctor, but the call got redirected to River in Stormcage. River broke out and went to steal Van Gogh’s painting from the Royal Collection; after acquiring a vortex manipulator from Dorium Maldovar, River met the Doctor and Amy in 102 AD Britain. The painting is revealed to be the TARDIS exploding and titled “The Pandorica Opens”. Following the coordinates on the painting, the three arrive at Stonehenge, where they discover the Pandorica underground and beginning to open.

As the Pandorica opened, Stonehenge began transmitting signals through time and space, summoning numerous alien races to it. While River summons Roman soldiers for help, the Doctor and Amy are pursued by a broken Cyberman before the Roman soldiers arrive, a resurrected Rory with them. The Doctor tells River to bring the TARDIS to him, but she is brought to Amy’s house on 26 June 2010, where she discovers that aliens have been there and that the Roman soldiers were all part of a book that Amy had. The Doctor tells River to get away, but she discovers that something else is controlling the TARDIS. The Roman soldiers, revealed to be Autons, capture the Doctor and place him in the Pandorica with all the other aliens in witness. Outside, Rory’s Auton programming activates and he inadvertently shoots Amy dead. The TARDIS explodes and every star is erased from the universe.

Rory is sulking over the loss of Amy when the Doctor arrives from the future, giving him his sonic screwdriver and telling him to get his past self out of the Pandorica. Once he does so, the Doctor puts Amy in his place and prepares to head to 1996 using River’s vortex manipulator, but Rory decides to stay and guard Amy.

The Doctor arrives at the National Museum in 1996 to find Amy and her younger self, Amelia, being pursued by a Dalek that had been revived from the light of the Pandorica. Rory arrives and manages to blind the Dalek before finally reuniting with Amy. As the four of them hide from the recovering Dalek, the Doctor sets up the events that freed himself in the past and brought Amelia to the National Museum in the present. Upon encountering another version of himself from the future, the Doctor realises that he only has 12 minutes to live. He heads outside and discovers that the sun is actually his exploding TARDIS, leading him to save River from it. Eventually, the Dalek catches up with the Doctor and shoots him, which leads him to escape to 12 minutes prior. Amy, Rory and River discover the Doctor working in the Pandorica; because it contained atoms from the previous universe, it could be used to extract the entire universe from it. With the TARDIS exploding at every point in history, flying the Pandorica into it would restore the entire universe. However, the Doctor would end up trapped on the other side of the cracks, resulting in him being erased from history. Before setting off, the Doctor tells Amy that the crack in her bedroom was pouring the entire universe into her head, so if she remembers her family when she wakes up, she could bring her family back. The Doctor follows his plan to restart the universe and finds himself going backwards through his own timeline, saying goodbye to Amelia before skipping the rest of the rewind.

Amy wakes up on the morning of her wedding day with her parents and Rory restored. Amy senses that there is something missing until River’s diary leads her to remember the Doctor, who arrives for her wedding reception. After the dancing, River leaves and so do the Doctor, Amy and Rory in the TARDIS.

The Series 5 finale was pretty good. It resolves one story arc and leaves another to be addressed in the next series, though I must admit that given what we see, the payoff doesn’t feel as good. How the TARDIS exploded isn’t really elaborated into, but I think they felt that it wasn’t an important thing to focus on.

10. A Christmas Carol

The 2010 Christmas Special, A Christmas Carol, was produced and released as part of Series 6, just as previous Christmas Specials (with the exception of The End of Time) were produced as part of the following series. However, for the Moffat era, I honestly think that the Christmas Specials should have been considered a part of the series that broadcast this year (Series 5 being 2010) so that every series has a Christmas Special. This will become more apparent in Series 7, 9 and 10 because those series have more than one Christmas Special on their DVDs and Blu-rays whereas Series 5 and 8 don’t have one.

In this special, Amy and Rory are on a starliner trapped in a cloud belt and potentially about to crash. Amy calls the Doctor for help as Kazran Sardick refuses to allow the starliner to land. As a result, the Doctor decides to influence Sardick by changing his past, becoming the Ghost of Christmas Past. He even unfroze Abigail Pettigrew and had adventures with her and the young Sardick every year on Christmas Eve. At some point, Abigail told Sardick about her illness and Sardick decided to end his travels with the Doctor. As a result, Sardick still grew up to become the same man he was when he met the Doctor, albeit changed from heartless to heartbroken, reluctant to choose what day would be his last with Abigail.

Acting as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Amy visited Sardick and showed him the situation on the starship. When Sardick still refused to let the starliner land, the Doctor returned to Sardick, acting as the Ghost of Christmas Future to show his younger self if he wanted to become like his father. Sardick’s refusal to strike his younger self finally convinced him to open the cloud belt, but when he tried to do so, they wouldn’t work because the Doctor had changed Sardick too much to the point where the isomorphic controls wouldn’t recognise him anymore.

Sardick, however, had kept a half of the sonic screwdriver, the other half which had been eaten by a sky shark. The Doctor gets the idea to set up a resonation pattern between the two halves, but the only thing that they know works is Abigail’s singing since it resonates with the cloud belt. As the starliner is successfully able to land, it begins to snow in the town and the Doctor takes the younger Sardick back to his time before rejoining with Amy and Rory.

A Christmas Carol is the first time since The Christmas Invasion where the current companions were involved in the story (due to the Moffat era not following the RTD era’s single-series companion formula), however the formatting of it makes it a bit companion-lite like The Lodger. It’s a unique take on the Charles Dickens classic, with the setting maintaining the feel of the Victorian era despite it being set in the distant future.

Series 5 of Doctor Who has got to be the best series for me, if I may say. Steven Moffat traded the deeper character development and domestic relationships for deeper plotlines, something which has admittedly influenced my personal project. The chaoticness of the Eleventh Doctor really appealed to me particularly a decade ago when I was more of a guarded lone wolf at high school and I suppose his character did rub off on me a bit as I hung out in my own little world.

The Matt Smith era started during a time when I wasn’t even invested in Doctor Who, but as the era went on, my fascination turned into an investment and my investment turned into an obsession. Stay tuned for Part 6 as I give my 10 takes on Series 6.

[hobgoblinns]

time crash lyrics that go hard

inhuman, INHUMAN, YOU’VE CHOSEN YOUR OWN DOOM AND—

the ginger supertemp is here to stay

we are the found ones

“GOODBYE LEADWORTH!” she is so out of here!

dying’s never easy, not the first or tenth time

goddamnit RTD

it’s true, there are some who despise me / someday they’ll all moisturise me

i who am about to die salute you

i awake to silver walls and single digit centigrade / a sheet over my body and a tag upon my toe

a new man will take my place, now he’s waiting in the sidelines, but i dont want to go

why did you TRUST ME / im SORRY / i should have known i couldn’t ask you to TRUST ME / im JUST ME

seven hundred trips under the knife / such is the cost of eternal life

oh john, if your romantic sensibilities distract you, that’s alright, that’s only human nature

you just might see a planet growing warm and friendly green :)

i’ll believe whatever you say cause i was literally born yesterday

welcome traveller! meet our home, his name is house

[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.

[moonraccoon-exe]

I constantly struggle to accurately express how thankful I am for your tags because I am always struck beyond words 🙈 But the words have to come out somehow and they’ll still never be enough to fully express my gratitude 🤧 thank you always for your wall text of sweet words! I am always happy to know that you have RTd some of my works because that means i get to read every single tag and they make my day💖 I can never say thank you enough ✨❤️

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASPS

KIRAKANJO SENPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*INSTANTLY EXPLODES INTO A HUNDRED SNOWFLAKES*

*SHORT CIRCUITS WITH NO CONTROL AND STARTS COMBUSTING*

ZOMG IT’S KIRAKANJO SENPAI IN MY INBOX, ZOMGA,LSD DKLGJ AKLDFJADG, WHAT YOU DOING IN MY GARBAGE LAND, HNHFGHNFJFG, FROM ALL  UNEXPECTED THINGS, AH, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

*HYPERVENTILATES*

Lemme- lemme- ashdjnh- lemme add a keep reading here real quick real nice hhngnfgh

*LOUD INHALE*

KIRAKANJO SNEPAI

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

HOLY SACRED MOOGLES ABOVE IN THE CRYSTAL REALM, KIRAKANJO SENPAI, IT U!!! IT U IN MY INBOX ZOMG I AM UNWORTHY OF THE PRESENCE OF SUCH A SKILLED ARTIST AKLSDJDAKLGJ AKLDJDA, I AM- SO HONORED AND SO HAPPY AND SO HNHFGHFG READING YOU ZOMG YOU HAVE MADE MY ENTIRE WEEK, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO REPLY TO YOU, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO CONTROL MY FEELINGS, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY OR DO AND I’M SITTING HERE LIKE AN ABSOLUTE IDIOT BEING SPEECHLESS AND FANGASMING AND ASHDDNKGA HNGHNG OMH IT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*eXPLODES*

WHERE DO I EVEN START THANKING YOU, OH MY GAWD

HNHG- GHGNHGN-G I NEED- A MINUTE ASJDALKGJ AFKLGAJ

Okay, okay, I’ve calmed down and I’ll try to not remember it u to not freak out again HNGFDJKNHDFGFOKAY, SOAS LDKJGA KLDJADL

First of all, I’m sorry it took me a couple days to reply to you, I’m SO sorry ;w; You took the time and troubles to come say something so beautiful into this peasant’s inbox and here I am being the ungrateful little shit not replying OTL

But yeh, it’s been a busy time for me, so I’m sorry for not replying earlier, and thank you immensely for waiting and also thanks because I think you’ll understand… ;w;

Don’t worry about struggling with expressing gratitude!! I understand sooooooooooooo well the pain of not knowing how to say thanks enough ahaha ;w; So don’t worry about that. I also lack the words to express how insanely beautiful your art is, so if I can’t put into words that, it’s only fair you don’t know how to say thanks either

U so popular and known and stuff and your art is brilliant, and you could be content just reading my tags silently and never say thanks, but just taking the time to even check my reblog, that’s fantastic enough; but to also take the time to write to me, and such a beautiful ask, it says all the thank you you think you can’t express!! I treasure and appreciate SO MUCH your time and your words, like WOWEE, OMG, YOU COULD JUST LET ME CRY AT YOUR FEET BUT YOU TOOK THE TIME TO SAYS UCH BEAUTIFUL THINGS KALSJDLAKDGJADGK AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, that is SO MUCHH to me and it says everything!!! Thank you, thank you!!!

Thanks a lot to you for taking the time to read my wall text of comments. A lot of times, the tags go to the void, so thanks a lot for giving my comments some sense because, what are words without a reader, right? So thanks a lot to you too :’) Thanks as well for being patient with me. I remember the art I reblogged more recently from you, I said in the tags to please give me some hours (or days) to add the tags, and you actually DID come back to check them!!! Omg you have no idea how many reblogs I’ve added with the “please give me x time, but are you reading this?” and I havne’t been answered… ;A;

But you did. You saw my tags and I SURELY took much longer than I said I would to add the tags, but you still went back to check them. Honestly, that’s so, so very kind of you. Thank you so much for having read my tags, and thank you for understanding, and thank you even more for coming back to check them out later. It really…means a loT TO ME KLASJDDAKLGJADKL AAAHHH ;w;

HNHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG LKJFDALKJ KLDFJAKLDGDAJFLKSJ ZOMG AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, AH, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, I COULD GO ON FOR PAGES ABOUT HOW EXCITED AND HAPPY AND ABSOLUTELY OUT OF MY HEAD I AM ABOUT- LIKE- ZOMG.- YOU READ EVERY OF MY TAGS EVERY TIME!?!??! AND I DIDN’T KNOW THAT AND IT MAKES ME S O HA PPY AND IT’S MADE MY WEEK SO BRIGHT AND HAPPY LIKE OMG YOU READ THEM EVERY TIME!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*UNCONTROLLABLY BOUNCES ACROSS THE ROOM*

There’s NO WAY I can put into words how absolutely HAPPY that makes me!!! Omg, thank you so much, I- I- I think I knew you read the tags here and there but I didn’t know you read them every time, and even less did I think that they made you happy!!!! ;A; Omg, knowing this really makes me SO HAPPY, and asdndkjfnsf, aaahhhh, now it’s me who can’t say thank you enough!!! ;w;

Thank you so, so, so much, Kirakanjo senpai!! I’m absolutely hyped about this all, knowing you read my tags and that you hold them in such a positive view

Thank you for everything, Kirakanjo sama. Seriously. Thank you, more than I can say. I’m so happy about everything you told me (happy about just you being in my inbox!), you have no idea

BUT ANYWAYS, not gona bore you with more of my talking! Haha

Just- thank you lots seriously for not letting my tags go to the void, and thank you for that immense sweetness you radiate. Keep being you :3

Thanks a lot for dropping by, and I hope you’re having a MOST SPLENDID and phenomenal day!!! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ

[poisonbat]

Un-Fantastic: My problem with Nine

hi-ho! this is a post i’ve wanted to make for a while, but i’ve taken time to stew on it because i want my feelings to be communicated clearly and have my points hopefully make sense to people who disagree with how i feel but will at least understand where i’m coming from. Also, friends such as moot and penny-ana have made me pause and think about some of my criticisms which i’ve had to stew on to make sure i really hone on in what i think doesnt work for me and not being hypocritical

i’ll start out with saying that a this doesn’t really have much to do with Chris at all, i don’t have a problem with him, and i respect him a lot as a person especially for standing up for his beliefs in how things should go even if it got him blacklisted for a while, as well as wanting to make amends for past bullying and wanting that to change for people at large.

being a fan of the sixth doctor and the war doctor, that made me pause, so another thing i originally thought was a problem was feeling like people so attached to 9 weren’t ready for “real DW” and thats BS given the fact that three spent so much time stuck on earth and around it, as well as the fact that the autons appear in both their premieres, as well as like, hearing the issues moot and penny have with 3 and that era made me have to look deeper, which is how i really singled in on what i think my biggest problems are: My issues with nine comes from a lot of the things built up around him by super big early RTD fans, as well as the refusal of EU/other writers to really expand on much material outside of what was on the show as well as the refusal for people making content or doing anything to really criticize the time on the show for the fallacy of “short lived = good because theres not a lot to judge”

add in the fact that there are very few doctors who i take to immediately, usually taking a series and a half for me to be on board, 9 is stuck with 10 tv stories of average to eeeeeh quality in my opinion (I wouldnt’ really watch any of them again, except maybe the finale)

Nine never really stood out to me or made a lasting impression on me in the entirety of series 1, so not being able to understand all the hype has always frustrated and upset me. Fun fact: I was actually first exposed to doctor who via Dalek and the empty child two parter via a stream between friends when i was younger, but it never convinced me to watch it, nor did 10 later, only by series 7 was i interested and i jumped all in by 2013. After seeing those eps i was more interested in DWM 8 comics and izzy and destrii lmao

so by the time i was pretty into this, i started taking in all the extra material i could, including comics and audio and everything, and this is another wall with 9: People refuse to touch it because of how tightly bound rose is to him, refusing to touch on his pre-rose post-war doctor days and also people seem to not want to touch him until chris agrees to play him again, so i’m left again with less chances to redeem or find ways to like him like i did with 10, although my favorite ninth doctor story AND favorite slitheen story (yes) Doctormania was made by titan comics, but i wish there was more of that kind of thing with him that wasn’t cut short again, as well as the fact that, i haven’t finished that series of stories because of the bad way they treated martha in the next story, so much so i haven’t finished it because it frustrated me so much.

specifically on the fanbase: having a healthy love for your favorite portion of the franchise that is doctor who is fine! but sometimes nine fans can be so weird and pushy and dismissive of everything else it can be frustrating. I’ve seen some people hijack posts specifically wanting opinions about stuff OTHER than series 1 and they completely ignored him and started just filling it with that instead of what the user asked, also like just in general not being respectful of others tastes and just like, trying to convert people who just don’t gel.

I WANT to like nine, but the weird shielding of him from criticism as well as the lack of expansion on his character and the fanbase which can be kind of offputting, I can’t do much for that right now. I really hope that some day we can get the “FIRST” Ninth doctor adventure, post war doctor regeneration, and maybe stories to fill out his pre-rose time and some stuff inbetween. I don’t mind rose at all, and i like how she’s used in Doctormania which makes me wish we had more stories not afraid to have diff characters despite the limitations set by the shortlived incarnation here. I’ll always be the first one willing to try and reassess things whenever we get more. I may not feel the same way a lot of people do, but i try to appreciate every one of the doctors in some way even if i don’t enjoy them as much as my favorites.

[the-desolated-quill]

Dark Water - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

We’re finally coming to the end of another series and I for one will be glad to see the back of Series 8. The only thing that elevates this series slightly above the dire Series 7 is Peter Capaldi, who I found to be far more tolerable than Matt Smith was. Apart from that, this really hasn’t been a very good series, and now Moffat is here to finish it off.

I occasionally glance at what the so called ‘professional’ critics had to say just out of morbid curiosity, and I was amazed by the number of people praising the opening few scenes for being shocking and emotional. I personally thought it was a load of utter twoddle. Clara is trying to tell Danny something, and there are loads of post-it notes on the wall for some reason, when suddenly Danny gets run over by a car. Shocking? Tragic? No, not really. I think I’ve made it perfectly clear by this point how much I dislike Danny, so I didn’t even so much as feel a slight twinge when he got turned into roadkill. But what really undermines the supposed tragedy of it all for me is just how utterly random it is. The Moffat fans may love to keep kissing their precious auteur’s feet and proclaim how much of a genius he is, but the truth is he’s never been very good at plotting his bullshit series arcs. Just look at how Amy’s pregnancy and River Song were handled in Series 6. It’s as though Moffat is just making this shit up as he goes along, and this couldn’t be any more obvious here in Dark Water. In order for the Doctor and Clara to start paying attention to all the Promised Land bollocks, Danny needs to die now. So he just dies. He might as well have had a grand piano fall on top of him or something.

And then we come to one of the most insulting scenes I’ve ever seen in New Who. Clara threatening the Doctor. Again, loads of people praised the fuck out of this scene to the point where I’m beginning to question their sanity. This whole volcano scene is really emblematic of just how rubbish a writer Moffat really is. Rather than having the Doctor and Clara actually talk this out, relying on the emotions of the characters and the performances of the actors to carry the scene, Moffat has to resort to stupid, over the top tactics in a desperate bid to wrong foot the audience. Not only does it strip away any potential emotional impact Danny’s death could have had on their relationship, it also makes Clara come across like an arrogant brat. I could be more forgiving if Clara was driven to do this out of desperation because the Doctor wouldn’t listen to her, but no. She goes in there with the intent to threaten the Doctor. There’s no buildup or anything. She just immediately goes for the most extreme method. She doesn’t come across like an actual human being who’s grieving and in pain. She’s more like a spoilt child having a temper tantrum because she’s not getting her way. Then it’s all made utterly pointless thanks to the Doctor’s powers of plot convenience, revealing that the whole volcano sequence was just a dream state, which just underlines the fact that Moffat is more concerned with pathetically proving to everyone how clever he thinks he is rather than getting us to emotionally connect with Clara. Seriously, what does the volcano sequence do that a simple conversation between the two characters couldn’t?

Plus it’s hard to believe that Clara would go to such lengths for Danny considering the way their relationship has been portrayed over the course of this series. Moffat is desperately trying to convince us that this is a love for the ages and that the two can’t survive without each other, even going so far as to imply that Clara has some kind of death wish, except it’s hard to take it seriously because, due to Moffat’s own incompetence as a writer, this has got to be one of the most dysfunctional relationships I think I’ve ever seen. Danny is a controlling, insecure arsehole who thinks anywhere outside of London is too dangerously exciting, and Clara is a spoilt, arrogant thrill seeker who constantly lies to him for virtually no reason. These two have virtually nothing in common, and their relationship has been so toxic and so unhealthy that it’s hard to really be invested in it at all. I’m not saying Clara shouldn’t be sad that Danny is dead. I just don’t buy for a second that she would be prepared to die for him if she can’t get him back.

So the Doctor and Clara are off to find Heaven. And very briefly, can I just ask, can you imagine any other Doctor doing something like this? The Doctor may be open minded, but he’s a man of science first and foremost. Scientific evidence simply does not support the existence of an afterlife, and considering how dismissive the Tenth Doctor was towards the idea of God or the Devil in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, it’s hard to imagine that Twelve would be willing to try and find Heaven just to save one person. Why hasn’t the Doctor tried to find it sooner? It’s like Listen all over again. Clara is Moffat’s very special creation and everything has to revolve around her even if it means bending the Doctor’s character completely out of shape.

Considering how largely secular the Doctor Who fanbase is, I imagine I can’t have been the only person with raised eyebrows the moment we arrived at 3W. But it’s not just that. Did anyone honestly believe this was the actual afterlife? Again, reading the reviews, I was surprised by the amount of controversy surrounding the ‘don’t cremate me’ scene. Not only did I think that was just plain goofy, the fact that this is a Moffat script does unfortunately undermine the credibility of all of this. Have any of these people ever actually watched a Moffat story before? He’s basically the televisual equivalent of M Night Shyamalan. The man is so desperate to surprise the audience and show off how much of a genius he is that he’s prepared to shove any random bullshit twist into his stories even if it comes at the cost of the characters, the integrity of the narrative, or the audience’s trust in the show. And that’s the problem with trying to constantly pull the rug out from under us. Do it too many times and eventually people will wise up and stop giving a shit about what’s happening. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me constantly and I’ll never trust anything you say to me ever again. So rather than be intrigued by the 3W facility and the prospect of an actual afterlife, I’m just impatiently drumming my fingers on the arm of my chair, waiting for Moffat to get the fuck on with it and tell us the big twist.

And what a treat we’re in for this episode. Turns out there’s not one bullshit twist, but TWO bullshit twists. We’ll start with the most painfully obvious twist. Missy is the Master.

I mean who the fuck else could she have been?

Yes the Master is back and, even with a sex change, the character is still just as rubbish as before. The Master has always had about as much depth and complexity as a pantomime villain, and Michelle Gomez seems to be going the same route John Simm went down by portraying the character as boringly insane (a gimmick so old now, it’s practically been fossilised. Not even the Joker can get away with that motive anymore). But it gets even worse when you factor the sex change into the equation. You’d think I’d be all in favour of a female Master considering how long I’ve been campaigning for a female Doctor, but unfortunately Missy is a Moffat written woman, which means she ends up falling into the same sassy, kooky dominatrix role that every single one of his female characters fall into. (even with a non-romantic Doctor, New Who can’t resist shoving in a pointless snogging scene. It’s pathetic). Moffat constantly boasts about how he paved the way for a female Doctor, but I honestly think Missy is more likely to put people off the idea than encourage it. At this point Moffat just comes across as a clueless, sexist bastard who doesn’t have a single original thought whizzing around in his peanut of a brain.

Also, Missy? Fucking Missy?! Why Missy? Why can’t she just call herself the Master? What, does this mean Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is going to have to call herself Nursie?

‘But Quill, women can be doctors too.’

MY POINT PRECISELY!

Doctor and Master. As in a doctorate and a masters degree. Get it? Moffat doesn’t seriously think that Master actually means... Sigh. Of course he does. The moron.

And then there’s the Master’s sexuality. You may have occasionally heard the odd fan theory floating around that the Doctor and the Master were... well... more than just good friends. A fan theory not entirely without weight. There are some very discreet hints in the classic series if you look hard enough (whether they’re intentional or not is another matter altogether), and RTD didn’t exactly downplay the homoerotic subtext during his tenure. Series 8 is really the show’s first official confirmation of this. In Deep Breath, Missy refers to the Doctor as her boyfriend and in this very episode she says the Doctor’s hearts belong to her. All very progressive... except the Master is a woman now. So when they’re both men, any mention of the dreaded gay must be kept to a minimum, but now one of them is a woman, suddenly they can be as overt and explicit as they want? Not only is the homophobia blatantly obvious, it also adds to the regressive sexism of Missy’s character, implying a male Master has more self control but a female Master is overcome with lust and can’t help but throw herself at the Doctor. It’s like I’ve always said. Moffat is more concerned with looking progressive rather than putting in the effort to actually be progressive. To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement and a fucking half.

The second twist I actually didn’t see coming, but only because of how fucking stupid the idea is. It’s the Cybermen. But that doesn’t make sense. Cybermen convert living people. They’re not zombies. They can’t convert the dead. It’s been previously established multiple times that they have no use for the dead. And part of their motive is to save people from death. Converting the dead directly completely contradicts their motivation. Also how do the Cybermen manage to convert people like the soldiers from Into The Dalek or the policeman from The Caretaker? Weren’t they disintegrated? What is there left to convert? And why wait for people to die in the first place? Why not just convert living people like they usually do? It just doesn’t gel with what we know about the Cybermen. And that bloody Nethersphere is just beyond daft. Before the Cybermen would just remove your emotions whether you want them to or not. Now they politely wait for you to give permission first. (Just when you think Danny couldn’t get anymore pathetic. Is he seriously considering erasing his emotions just because his girlfriend effectively dumped him? Isn’t he supposed to be a grown man? Get a grip, you spineless bell-end).

Well that was utter rubbish. But don’t worry. I’m sure Part 2 will put things right. After all, Moffat always writes satisfying conclusions to his series arcs, right?

[tomhortons]

I was tagged by @definitelytenrose and @pillie-biper10​, thanks peeps :D

Rules: Tag 20 people you want to know better

Name: Louise Nicknames: Lou, Louby, dude, bruh  Star sign: Aries Height: Between 5″4 and 5″5 Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff! Favourite colour: Blue/Purple Favourite animal: Any type of bird (but I have a thing for toucans atm) Average hours of sleep: 6-ish Favourite fictional character: It will probably be Caliban soon b/c I don’t think the Logan movie will ever losen its grip on my sanity Number of blankets I sleep with: 1 Favourite singers/bands: Don’t really have a fave, but I have been listening to a lot of deadmau5 recently Dream trip: London or Europe Dream job: Anything in animation When was this blog created: Sometime in 2012 Current number of followers: 1030 When did your blog reach it’s peak: When I started posting my art! Why I created this blog: Because a certain fluffy nerd prince of mine wouldn’t stop being cute so I needed a place to scream about him Time right now: 8:06 pm Last thing googled: Not sure, it was probably something about birds tho lol Song stuck in your head: Ghosts and stuff by deadmau5 Last movie watched: Wall-E (we watched it in layout class :’D) Last TV show you watched: I re-watched some RTD Doctor Who and it did not disappoint ;) What are you wearing right now: Weird leggings and a terry sweater What kind of stuff do you post: Ahahaha my blogs a mess rn please forgive Multifandom stuff, memes and my drawings Do you have any other blogs: My art blog, but I don’t update it anymore cause I’m lazy. I do have a few other URLs saved, but none of them are actual active blogs. Do you get asks regularly: Not really. Why did you choose your URL: I like Doctor Who and the letter v what of it bruh Gender: Genderfluid (probably) but I go by female pronouns, I guess Pokemon team: If I played it, probably Mystic.  Lucky number: Never found out Favourite Character(s): 10th and 12th Doctor, Martha Jones, Clara Oswald, Sherlock and John, Alec Hardy, Lapis and Peridot, etc, etc.

I’ll tag @randomcreativitybursts @psychoticshipper @whatisthepointofyouhardy @doctortenny and @pipertennant, you don’t have to do this if you don’t wanna :D

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Why the Doctor saved Clara and not Adric

With Series 10 just around the corner, a number of people on forums, news site comment areas, etc., are revving up their “let’s bash Moffat” engines for another year. And since we’re also getting a new companion some of the criticism is turned towards how the character of Clara Oswald was handled.

One chestnut I see popping up is how Moffat supposedly broke continuity by undoing the death of Clara. Well that’s an error to start with - he didn’t undo anything, the Doctor simply delayed the inevitable by pulling her out of time (not that he didn’t try, mark you). Just like he delayed the inevitable by “saving” a data ghost representation of River Song in CAL.

What continuity are they talking about? “You can’t change history - not one line,” as the First Doctor said back in The Aztecs in 1964. The Doctor isn’t supposed to do what he did with Clara because his earlier self said he couldn’t, they say. Father’s Day more recently showed he couldn’t, either.

But the complaint I see most often is “Well, the Fifth Doctor didn’t save Adric. What made Clara so special?”

I’m not making that one up. I actually saw that actual question posted to a forum. Presumably by somebody who stopped watching Doctor Who at the end of The Angels Take Manhattan and resumed watching with Hell Bent and missed the answer to that question in-between. (Even if one takes the view that Clara and the Doctor were no more than buddies a la Donna and Ten, Clara’s actions and contributions and sacrifices alone answer the question as to why she was “so special”.)

After the break, I’ll answer the question (at least in my opinion) of why Adric was not saved.

First, the Fifth Doctor was still (relatively) young when Adric snuffed it, less than 900 years old based on the on-screen age given by the Sixth Doctor a couple of seasons later (we’ll save the debate over why Nine claimed the same age for another day). He wasn’t even halfway through his prescribed regeneration cycle yet. So that means he was much closer to the days when he told Barbara “You can’t change history - not one line”. Watch the opening of the story that followed Adric’s death in Earthshock, Time-Flight, and Five basically says the same thing. In his opinion, he could not do a damn thing to save Adric. Possibly because ...

Second, Adric’s death was part of a fixed point in time. This is a concept RTD and Moffat have hammered home time and again since 2005 (the Classic Era touched on it, but only occasionally). The concept is that, despite what the First Doctor said, elements of time can be rewritten, but certain events cannot without causing paradoxes that could destroy everything. “I know when I can, I know when I can’t,” Twelve later tells Clara when she demands he prevent Danny’s death. The fact Earthshock indicates that Adric’s death was a prime factor in the extinction of the dinosaurs, which changed the course of Earth’s history, I think qualifies as a pretty big fixed point in time, don’t you? Even if the Doctor wanted to, he could not do it. Remember again that Clara still died on trap street - the Class spin-off has given us on-screen canonical proof of this - so her death remained fixed. 

Third, the Fifth Doctor had yet to experience the Time War, a period of loss and “do evil unto evil” that completely changed the Doctor’s worldview, even as he tried to suppress his memories of the War Doctor. He might have become more apt to take risks (though once again, Father’s Day took place during Nine’s era, so there are some risks he wasn’t yet prepared to take, at that point in his life which - by the show’s current dating standards - was more than 1,000 years (or 4.5 billion) before Hell Bent from the Doctor’s perspective.

Fourth, the Doctor was not in love with Adric. I know naysayers and haters roll their eyes at this one, but I call it as I see it. The Doctor falling in love with somebody is bloody dangerous. I’ve written about this before. The Doctor blew up a star just to say goodbye to Rose. The Doctor appeared to be prepared to change history by taking Madame de Pompadour away with him in the TARDIS rather than see her meet her prescribed end. And a real biggie: he put off saying goodbye to River to the point where the entirety of creation would have been destroyed had he died on Trenzalore and Clara hadn’t convinced the Time Lords to save him. And then we know what he tried to do with Clara. (Also, though I do not ship the Doctor and Missy, one could make the case that his allowing Missy to continually escape rather than killing her or doing something else to stop her for good puts the universe in jeopardy, too. Note the only time he seriously gave thought to ending her was, basically, for Clara.)

The Doctor in love is dangerous and so saving Clara is completely in keeping with the character as he has evolved over the last decade. And we have no real point of comparison with the Classic Era because with the possible exception of Peri, none of his companions that he might have had feelings for were ever killed - or otherwise made forever inaccessible. And of course with Peri, the Doctor learned within hours (from his perspective) that she hadn’t really died, so he had no need to pursue the matter.

Adric’s death was a watershed moment for the Classic Era, and it served to provide a rather divisive character with some eleventh-hour respect. But there is no way the Doctor could have or would have done anything to undo it, no matter how much Tegan and Nyssa begged him, any more so than he could have undone the deaths of the others under his care, like Sara Kingdom and Katarina and some of the audio companions. And again, he never undid the deaths of either River or Clara - yes, he tried, but he did not succeed. Nardole confirming River’s death in Return of Doctor Mysterio and Twelve seeing Clara’s name on the memorial wall in For Tonight We May Die (plus the very fact the Whoniverse still exists) proves this. Sad as it may be, River and Clara are as dead as Adric. Only difference is Moffat created outs for both to come back postmortem, such is the wonder of this show. River’s had her turn, so now hopefully Clara will be next.

[ejcsquash]

English Junior Champions crowned in Hull

Donna Helmer reports

The country's brightest young prospects battled for national glory at the Dunlop English Junior Championships (EJC) on an extraordinary finals day which saw four top seeds overpowered.

Yorkshire’s Nick Wall [2] overcame Boys Under 19 top seed Top Walsh (Sussex) in a scintillating final which saw the two-time British National junior champion secure his maiden EJC title.

Wall raced out to a one-nil lead, only for Walsh, the 2017 British National Under 19 champion, to reply and take the second.But a determined Wall regained his composure and upped the ante to take the third and a tight fourth winning 3-1: 11-8, 6-11, 11-6, 12-10 (53m).

Meanwhile, Girls Under 19 top seed, Elise Lazarus (Essex) saw off a spirited challenge from Lincolnshire’s Katie Wells to claim a record fifth national title.

Lazarus, the World No. 89 burst out winning the first game at a furious pace 11-3. But the 17-year-old was made to work hard to claim the second and the third, and edge her opponent: 11-3, 12-10, 11-9 (21m).

"I’m so happy to win my fifth English Junior title!” said Lazarus.

“It felt like I lost my focus during the middle of the match, but I’m so happy to have pulled through and won in three.”

Meanwhile, Lincolnshire’s Ben Smith claimed the Boys Under 17 title after his opponent, Max Forster (N’bria) was forced to retire due to injury in the third: 11-6, 11-3 rtd (16m).

Both Forster and Smith had sensationally knocked out top seeds [1] Lewis Anderson and [2] Benjamin Sockett respectively on their way to the finals.

In perhaps the most thrilling final of the day, 14-year-old Katie Malliff (Bucks) overpowered top seed Alice Green to clinch the Girls Under 17 crown.

Two-time EJC champion, Green started off the brighter of the two, claiming the first two before [2] Malliff, who was playing up an age group, soon found her rhythm to level.

In a nail-biting decider, it was Malliff who kept her cool at 9-9 to power to a two-point victory: 5-11, 3-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-9 (45m).

“It isn’t great going two games down but I’ve won from there a few times so I wasn’t too worried,” said Malliff, the British Junior Open 2018 semi-finalist.

“I’ve played Alice a few times now and we always have great battles. I always seem to play an age group up, I’m 14 now and I think I’ll go for the U19s next year.”

Meanwhile, Boys Under 15 top seed, Oliver Green (Essex) capitalised on his German Junior Open victory last weekend to edge [2] Hassan Khalil (Warks) and claim his maiden EJC title: 3-11, 11-6, 7-11, 11-3, 11-9 (61m).

Commenting on the thrilling five-setter, 14-year-old Green said, “I like long matches, it makes it tough watching for my parents! It feels great to win a first English Junior title, I came fourth last year and I’ve been third before, so to win in my first final is good.”

Sussex’s Torrie Malik claimed a fourth championship title after overpowering second seed Asia Harris (Yorks) in the Girls Under 15 competition, despite a slow start when she went 0-10 down, to win 3-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-8 (32m).

“I just wasn’t there at the start, it was quite bad,” said the Sussex sensation.

“Once I got going it was ok and I was pleased with how I played in the end. I’ve won the U11 and U13 titles before, so to add the U15 is great.”

Meanwhile, British Junior Open 2018 champion, Jonah Bryant (Sussex) justified his seeding in the Boys Under 13s with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over [¾] Abd-Allah Eissa (Warks): 11-1, 11-8, 11-8 (21m).

Similarly, top seed Amelie Haworth (Hants) put on a clinical display to defeat [2] Amy Campbell-Wynter (Dorset) 3-0: 11-5, 11-5, 11-5 (20m).

It was an all-Kent affair in the Boys Under 11s which saw [2] Jude Gibbins topple top seed Dyan Roberts 3-1: 11-5, 11-9, 6-11, 11-9 (31m).

And nine-year-old Mariam Eissa, the number two seed from Warwickshire, sensationally overpowered top seed Charlie McCrone (Lancs) in the Girls Under 11s with a convincing 3-0 victory: 11-2, 11-4, 11-9 (17m).

Twitter Updates | Finals Photos  

[krystalroser-blog]

RTD: Tomorrow I'll Go To India!!! by mahafromkailash featuring indian wall art ❤ liked on Polyvore

Etro red floral dress, $2,780 / Bella Tu velvet evening coat / FAUSTO PUGLISI platform sandals / Lizzie Fortunato chain strap handbag, $500 / Nautical jewelry / Pottery Barn indian wall art / Indian home decor

[the-desolated-quill]

The Eleventh Hour - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

After two years, I’m finally writing more of these Doctor Who blogs. I must say it feels strange to be diving into these again. I stopped watching the show about halfway through Series 8 because I became so fed up of the constant Moffatisms (that’s a new word I’m coining) that were dragging the quality down. So it’s actually been a while since I’ve seen any of New Who post RTD, having been avoiding the Moffat era like the plague. While I personally think Steven Moffat is a pretentious, sexist egomaniac who couldn’t write a decent script if his life depended on it, I confess I do have fond memories of some of his earlier stuff. One episode I have a particular fondness for is this one. The Eleventh Hour.

The newly regenerated Doctor crash lands in the back garden of someone’s house where a little girl called Amelia Pond has a crack in her bedroom wall. But this is no ordinary crack. It’s a crack in the fabric of space and time itself. A crack that a shapeshifting alien called Prisoner Zero uses to escape from his imprisonment. 12 years later, the Doctor and a now grown up Amy must work together to capture Prisoner Zero before the space police known as the Atraxi incinerate the Earth.

For those of you who don’t know, I usually hate post regeneration episodes. When you see a new Doctor, you want to see what they’re going to be like. Get an idea as to what their personality quirks and morals are going to be. But most of the time post regeneration episodes seem perfectly content with wasting our time, having the Doctor either be unconscious or acting weird for no good reason. The Eleventh Hour thankfully gets to the point. With the exception of that ghastly fish fingers and custard scene at the beginning, there’s no faffing about. They just get on with it. From the get go we know exactly what this new Doctor is going to be like, keeping most of the usual post regeneration bollocks to a minimum. I do so wish all regenerations could be handled like this as though the act of regeneration were as simple and casual as putting on another outfit.

I’ve also gone on record to say that I don’t particularly like Matt Smith’s Doctor, but even I have to admit he’s really good here. I think it’s because, in these early episodes, both Smith and Moffat actually manage to strike the right balance between goofy and serious before the character turned more clown-like further down the line. I think it’s fair to say Matt Smith is what makes this episode so enjoyable to watch. He has good comic timing and a lot of charisma. I love the way he interacts and comforts the young Amy and I also really like how he inspires that guy Geoff to lead all those scientists from his laptop to save the world. He’s light hearted and joyful, but also doesn’t sugarcoat things. When he’s about to open the crack in the wall, he doesn’t beat around the bush. He just flat out tells Amy that this is going to be very dangerous. And I love how he uses his ingenuity and quick wittedness to save the day at the end when his TARDIS and sonic screwdriver fail him.

It’s Matt Smith’s performance that really elevates this episode because his new Doctor is just fascinating and entertaining to watch. And it’s just as well that Matt Smith is exceptionally good here because, without him, The Eleventh Hour is actually pretty weak over all.

So we’ve got this giant snake thing. Don’t know who he is, where he comes from, what crime he’s committed to be locked up in the first place or what kind of threat he poses. Why should we be scared of him again? Let’s be brutally honest here. As Doctor Who villains go, Prisoner Zero is really shit. The whole multi-form thing may seem like a good idea on paper, but in practice it’s just silly. A woman with two children is not intimidating. A man walking his dog is not threatening, and the CGI teeth just makes it unintentionally hilarious. In fact why did Prisoner Zero take the form of a man walking a dog when he first encounters the Doctor and Amy in the house? What’s he going to do? Woof them to death? And another thing. Prisoner Zero often gets confused as to which voice comes out of what mouth. Well... why don’t you just copy one form then? Why take on multiple forms? I know he’s getting all of these disguises from dreams, but why does he feel the need to copy the man and the dog? Just pick one and go with it. No wonder you got caught.

I do like the Atraxi however. I’ll take giant eyeballs in giant snowflakes over rubber latex monsters any day of the week. I just wish we could have learnt a bit more about them.

Finally let’s talk about Amy. Never been a fan, and there are problems right out of the gate. For starters the whole premise is basically exactly the same as The Girl In The Fireplace. A woman’s complicated relationship with a time traveller. Windows/cracks in time etc. Second, Amy doesn’t really have any impact or influence over the story. Most of the previous companions had to in some way prove themselves to the Doctor before travelling with him. Amy is basically just along for the ride really. Apart from introducing the Doctor to her crack (in the wall. Get your minds out of the gutter please), she doesn’t actually do anything if you think about it. And third, she doesn’t really have a character. Don’t get me wrong. Karen Gillan does a decent job. She seems confident and independent, but apart from that, what do we actually know about her? She’s obsessed with the Doctor and she’s sexy. The latter the show is very keen for you to know as the first shot of grown up Amy is a slow pan up her long legs.

Moffat fans: ‘Oh, but the whole kissogram thing is to show she never really grew up because she’s dressing up and playing make believe.’

YYYYYYeah. Sure it is.

One quick side note, when she knocked the Doctor out with a cricket bat and handcuffed her to the radiator, what was her plan exactly? What was she hoping to achieve? How long was she planning to keep the pretence up? Was it to wrong foot the audience? Moffat couldn’t possibly have thought we’d buy into the idea that she’s a real policewoman, could he? No policewoman would be caught dead in a skirt that short.

While incredibly flawed, The Eleventh Hour fares better than most post regeneration episodes by cutting most of the extraneous bullshit to let their new Doctor shine. Let’s see where things go from here, shall we?

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Doctor Who spin-offs that might have succeeded

I’m going to start this by repeating what I’ve said many times: I had high hopes for Class when it was announced in 2015. Any new spin-off is a cause for celebration and the fact it was going to fill the void left by Doctor Who taking a year off, all the better.

The end result was loved by many and hated by many, there’s no doubt. And while I disliked it enough to stop watching after a few episodes, I fully respect those who enjoyed it. I’ve written at length about why I didn’t like the show, and the creative mistakes that were made, and I’m not going to rehash them now as they’re irrelevant to this post.

Unfortunately, now that the first ratings for the BBC One rebroadcasts are in - and low - pretty much unless BBC Three has a very low threshold for renewal or the show becomes a surprise hit on BBC America this spring, it’s unlikely to continue past its first 8 episodes, though fans reportedly have started a change.org petition in support of the show. Hey, it worked for Star Trek TOS, Jericho and fan outcry also allegedly stopped Michael Grade from cancelling DW outright in 1985, so I’m not going to pooh-pooh the idea. Just as I respect the fans, I sympathize with them too. I’d hate to see Doctor Who itself pull awful ratings and be faced with cancellation and I would have felt the same with Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood, too (I never saw K9).

One thing I think doomed Class from the start - and this is fully independent of its quality - is that it was pretty much a spinoff no one was really asking for, nor expecting. Of course just because a show starts out of nowhere with a cast of all-new characters doesn’t mean it can’t be viable (look at the CSI and Law & Order spin-offs, or for that matter Star Trek: The Next Generation which started fully fresh except for McCoy’s cameo - and they even remade a TOS episode its second week), but when the overwhelming response I saw when Class was announced was, “Why?” (something I never heard with Star Trek), that’s not a good place to start with. And when it became clear there would be no “known” franchise characters appearing other than the Doctor’s cameo and Mr Armitage (who ultimately didn’t last long), I saw more than a few people voicing,”Why bother?”

There are plenty of ideas out there for a viable Doctor Who spin-off that might not attract the “Why?” response. After the break, I’ll give a few ideas. The image at top gives a clue to the first one, and it might not be what you expect.

(I’m just focusing on Moffat-created or Moffat-era concepts, not RTD’s. He gave us two popular spinoffs from his work, so he filled the quota.)

CLASS

“What? But you just said you hated Class. Why would Class top the list?”

Because I think Class was a good concept that would have succeeded had it (among other tweaks) featured at least one ongoing character who the audience already had some identification with. Courtney Woods had a recurring presence in Series 8 and even became a short-term companion (she travelled with the Doctor in the TARDIS at least twice - that qualifies her as a companion more than Liz Shaw based on some metrics). The Doctor also hinted at her intriguing future life as a President of the U.S. and she was destined to marry the discoverer of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, a DW buzzword. By having Courtney as the identification point, we could have still had all the Ram and April and Charlie and Matteusz business, Miss Quill could have still done her thing. But there would have been a strong link that a building, a cameo by the Doctor and one minor character who gets offed almost immediately could not provide.

Plus imagine the emotional impact of the memorial wall sequence if Courtney - who knew Clara - was present.

THE CORSAIR

Just the little bit from The Doctor’s Wife, and some stuff Neil Gaiman wrote for one of the Brilliant Books, was enough for me to want more about this Time Lord. I hope Big Finish is considering doing a Corsair series. And if the show had worked out, there could have been some tremendous crossover potential. (Indeed, imagine if it wasn’t the General but the Corsair the Doctor had to deal with in Hell Bent? A fellow Time Lord who likely also loved and lost the way Twelve did with Clara ... and who the Doctor knows is destined to be used for spare parts. Oh the angst!)

RIVER SONG

This one’s pretty obvious. And Big Finish is already doing a series for audio as it is. Maybe her reappearance in the 2015 Christmas special might have been less of an ass-pull if we’d had a series or two of her (mis)adventures leading up.

MISSY

I think Missy works best in limited doses, but I can’t deny a Sherlock-formatted series with her would rock. In fact, if they want an “adults only” spin-off, can’t you imagine a show where they pull out all the stops and let Michelle Gomez run wild? It would make Deadpool look like The Care Bears Movie.

THE PATERNOSTER GANG

I don’t really need to explain this one as this one is quite often cited as a spin-off that should have been (given that every episode they’ve appeared in has felt like a “backdoor pilot”, especially “The Crimson Horror” that was so much like a pilot, it had people back in 2013 expecting a series announcement as part of the 50th anniversary). All three actors have said they were willing. Neve McIntosh didn’t seem to be too concerned about having to wear prosthetics all the time. As an added bonus, we might have been able to get a longer-term examination of the challenges faced by Vastra and Jenny being a married same sex couple in the Victorian era. There’s a haunting moment in the minisode Battle of Demons Run where Vastra says Jenny was cast out by her family because of her being gay. You tell me that wouldn’t have made for some pretty solid and relevant storytelling.

PSI AND SAIBRA

An augmented human with the ability to tap into computers. An augmented human with the ability to morph into anything or anyone. Sounds like the makings of a network action series right there.

UNIT

Just listen to Big Finish’s current audio drama series featuring Kate Stewart and Osgood and you can tell right away this thing needs to be a TV series. With the added bonus of a possible Jenna Coleman guest appearance if they ever decided to bring back Bonnie.

GALLIFREY

Two options: a series set on “modern” Gallifrey focusing on the General and Ohila and perhaps a new regeneration of Rassilon (played by Ian McShane, if you please); or an adaptation of the Big Finish West Wing-inspired audio drama series that starred Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson (preferably with them starring in the TV version as well).

TIME WAR: THE EIGHTH DOCTOR

Big Finish is already doing this, but ever since he popped in on Cass, people have wanted Paul McGann to come back to TV.

I could name more, but you get the picture (feel free to reblog with other candidates). Note I intentionally left out anything to deal with Clara Oswald and Ashildr as - unlike all the above teases - it was well established from the start that there would be no spin-offs or specials with the two characters given Jenna and Maisie’s busy schedules. And anyway, if Clara comes back it should be on Doctor Who.

My biggest concern is that the failure of Class will result in the BBC turning down other spin-off ideas - including John Barrowman’s proposed Torchwood revival. Time will tell if Chris Chibnall - who was responsible for the revival of UNIT, it must be said - comes up with characters worthy of spinoffs or, indeed, conceives of any new shows himself. And who knows, maybe Patrick Ness’ Class will live to fight another day.