#the difference between rtd era who and torchwood is:

[darkwood-hollows]

also i'm watching torchwood for the first time and it is deliciously messy.

[lady-murderess]

At the end of the day, there is a reason 10's face came back, and that is literally just to say goodbye to NuWho. The 15th Doctor is a complete reboot, RTD has said it himself. But coming from a character standpoint, there was reasoning for it. 14 still had all of 10's qualities. Now, he wasn't as cold as 10, he was more open and not afraid to be affectionate, but even then he still carried the same amount of shame on his shoulders and tortured himself with his trauma. To be honest, 14 seemed tired.

Bumbling about the internet, I have seen people bring up the Metacrisis Doctor when it comes to this finale, but the difference between this bi-generation and the metacrisis was the fact that the metacrisis was a two way thing. Donna became a Time Lord and the version of him that came from both Donna and 10's hand is completely human with quite a bit of her personality in him, and the bi-generation is literally just two of the exact same Time Lords. And that's it.

And to be honest, in some ways 10 wanted to have his cake and eat it. A part of him wanted to settle down and also be a Time Lord, because let's face it, he'd never be able to say goodbye to that life he's lived for all those many years, he even said that when Donna and 15 told him to let go and he was scared. And more proof of that was in series 2's School Reunion episode (which is one of my all time favourites) when Rose confronted him on why he never mentioned Sarah Jane, and then later on in the series finale of 4 where he and DoctorDonna leave the Metacrisis Doctor behind with Rose. He loved Rose, always had, but he knew it would break his heart to see her grow old and die, so really the Metacrisis Doctor got to have his happy end because he was human.

I think 15 was the part of the Doctor that still had the urge to keep going and wanted to be finally free from the pain of the past. Every Doctor has their own personalities and ways of coping with things, and I think 15 just wants to be carefree and happy and that's just what I get from the trailer for Christmas special where he is literally in a club dancing so freely... something we've never seen from the Doctor before.

I won't lie though, I don't understand the issue with it being Donna he gets to have that happy end with. He couldn't have it with Martha, she has Mickey and her family, Sarah Jane has been dead for a long time, he never got to truly know the Bannerman Road Gang, and Jack is out there doing things with Torchwood, so he couldn't have gone with any of them either, and the rest of the companions in NuWho are pretty much dead. So, why not Donna?

It's said by quite a few characters during the 10th Doctor era that he never stays, and he'll even admit multiple times he'll keep on running. And after losing Rose, we all saw how he just ran faster and grew darker. Martha gave him a phone so she could keep in contact with him, and what did he do? He denied the fact that he even had a phone when it rang and Donna asked questions about it. And let's face it, if the universe hadn't pulled him and Donna together for them to meet again, he would never have seen her again after the Racnoss. She offered him Christmas dinner with her and her family and he just didn't.

Overall, every companion of 10's all have their happy ends except for her. Yes, Donna has a family and she loves them dearly, but for those 15 years she felt that something was missing. So, she didn't really get a happy end because she had no closure and it plagued her and her family. But now here she is and 14 here is, happy because they both have closure. So, I don't know... It just seems rather fitting to me.

At the end of the day, this whole thing was just finally letting this face of the Doctor, this version of himself who's most damaged and tired, just be happy.

[variousqueerthings]

I feel like I need to make a little rundown of everything UNIT and Kate Stewart has done since being re-introduced in s7, but I also want to finish watching classic!who so I can make that comparison more effectively. certainly in pertwee-era of doctor who there was some critique and analysis of UNIT's methods as a military group and that the doctor kind of had to work with them to begin with because he didn't have a working tardis (+ already knew the brigadier and UNIT from troughton-era)

liz shaw and jo grant both start with UNIT and both leave UNIT, partially after narratives where they're at odds with what the institution represents and how easy it is for it to abuse power and/or simply make bad choices to begin with (liz taking the doctor's side several times and eventually quitting, although with that slightly lazy--pseudo-feminist "she didn't want to fetch the teas" explanation given post-leaving when there was definitely a lot more going on for her than that, but I think that was the way the actress was feeling so I can see the meta reasonings in it, and jo figuring out that she believes in different ways of protecting the earth joining a radical group and yeah ok straight up getting engaged to that welsh guy after two days, but she was considering leaving before then anyway), and sarah-jane just enters spaces and acts like she belongs there and nobody knows how to tell her to leave, but she's frequently not on UNIT's side so much as the side of Truth (I say, we now enter fourth doctor era so we'll see)

but yeah, the brigadier was there from the beginning, and there's yates and whatshisface, so there's the humanising faces depicting UNIT as essentially for good from the get-go, despite episodes where they're definitely antagonists. but then reintroduced in nu!who s4 as... not quite comfortable to the doctor/partly as that season's narrative of how the doctor affects their companions for worse and inspires them to become soldiers. so they're not the bad guys in the same way torchwood of s2 were, but they aren't comfortable allies either

so now I'm on s9 and... dunno. they're not quite what they were at the beginning, and they're not what they were in s4. more than anything they feel like a get-out-of-jail free card for whatever writer needs to do something that would be easier to solve with a big handy institution with guns, but don't want to analyse the idea of a big handy institution with guns, so we're told that UNIT is "good" but I keep waiting for someone -- osgood and/or bingham -- to become that next liz shaw, and for kate stewart to be confirmed an antagonist based on said rundown I haven't made of her actions, which at best are often ineffectual and at worst some near-villain shit

rtd in the new specials continues writing UNIT the way it has been since s7 -- the same issues and questions about it are at the forefront, with a couple of new ones thrown in (an institution that's very diverse does not make it any less a paramilitary institution and in fact makes one highly suspicious of its propaganda campaign), but I hope he remembers some of the ways they caused problems during three's era, or the way his own original run at least complicated the doctor's feelings about them and I hope he ends up reintroducing those complications with fifteen but x 1000

and. kate stewart needs to become an antagonist. in my opinion. she'd make a very good antagonist, considering how much history there is between her and the doctor. that's another post though, but I want to make a list of every time KS has tried to deal with a situation with extra-judicial violence, because it is practically every episode she's in (if not every episode she's in)

I can buy the doctor feeling some kinda way, because UNIT was the brigadier, was liz, was jo, was yates and whatshisface (sorry I have forgotten his name), was a time where they were stuck and in need of help and UNIT did help them, and then it was also martha and now mel... the doctor built real personal connections with UNIT, but as a structure it is hiiiighly dubious At Best and fully just no-good the majority of the time

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who 10 for 10 Part 10/10: Series 10 (900th Post Special)

2016, my final year of high school, was a wilderness year for both BBC Doctor Who and my personal project, though there were a lot of things going on behind the scenes. While Steven Moffat was working in full gear to prepare to wind down and hand things over to Chris Chibnall, I was putting my ideas together to relaunch my personal project after a two-year hiatus, adapting the three series of the Capaldi era while creating spinoffs to retell the past, connect the present and forge the future; a bit of a broad strokes reboot, if you will, considering the conflicting continuities of past writers and ideas. At the same time, Moffat created Series 10 as a bit of a reboot (at least for the first five episodes) to help bring in new fans in an attempt to end his tenure on a high note.

2017, my first year of university, was the year of peak internet drama for me, but it was also the year when my personal project reboot took off. Although my interests were beginning to shift from Doctor Who to tokusatsu and I was beginning to grow distant from the friends who I wanted to be with and the friends who were happy to be with me, my drive to tell new stories kept me slowly powering through as my personal project continued for 6 long years. It was that same drive (and other antics) that led me to win an award for “The Next Doctor Who” at my Year 12 formal (even though I was already the Doctor), an award that I look back with pride amidst the cringiness.

My era of Doctor Who was about to end, but my true era of Doctor Who was about to start. Let’s jump into the retrospective for Series 10 and send off a series that I promised for two years and finally got around to doing this year.

Also, before I go on, I'd like to point out that this is my 900th Post Special. It would have been really fitting for this post to be the 1000th Post Special, but sometimes things just line up differently. Anyway, onto the retrospective.

1. The handover

As work on Series 9 went on, Steven Moffat was prepared to finish his tenure on Doctor Who with the 2015 Christmas Special, The Husbands of River Song, which was originally planned to be his final episode. Chris Chibnall was coming out as a likely successor and there was no equivalent for Moffat in his era like in the RTD era (Moffat wrote 6 episodes in the RTD era before becoming showrunner); the non-showrunner writer who wrote the most episodes in the Moffat era was Mark Gatiss with 7 (2 more in the RTD era), but he was close with Moffat and so he would likely decline the offer to become showrunner. The next best choice, therefore, as the non-showrunner writer who wrote the second-most episodes in the series, would be Toby Whithouse with 6 (1 more in the RTD era). Chris Chibnall tied with Peter Harness and Jamie Mathieson as fourth-most with 4 each (including co-writer credits), but Chibnall wrote one more episode in the RTD era and he was the head writer for Torchwood, writing 8 of the 26 episodes in the first two series, so it’s reasonable that Chibnall would be the likely successor for Moffat.

Sometime in August 2015, Moffat met with Chibnall to formally offer him the showrunner position on Doctor Who. However, when he learnt that Chibnall was deeply immersed in developing the third series of Broadchurch, Moffat elected to stay for another series so as to give Chibnall time to work on it. As such, that meant that he would write the 2016 Christmas Special as well. The news of Moffat’s departure was announced at the start of 2016. Peter Capaldi was offered by Chibnall to stay on for Series 11, but he decided to resign with Steven Moffat as well. Production of Series 10 was delayed to the summer of 2016 for a spring 2017 broadcast, leaving fans with a full year between the 2015 and 2016 Christmas Specials, the longest on record for the revived series until the two year gap between Series 12 and 13 (Flux) in 2020-21. This gap was apparently to allow Chibnall to form his own production team, though other elements, such as Moffat’s commitments to the production of Sherlock and sporting events like the Euros or the 2016 Rio Olympics, could have been contributing factors.

Just before Capaldi’s departure was announced in January 2017, Moffat learnt that Chibnall didn’t want to start his tenure as showrunner with a Christmas Special and that he wanted to launch the Thirteenth Doctor with a full series. With no guarantee that the Thirteenth Doctor would be cast before production on Series 10 was finished and a fear of Doctor Who losing its place in the festive season schedule, Moffat and Capaldi committed to work on the 2017 Christmas Special and for better or worse, all was well until Chibnall decided to move the Christmas Specials to New Year’s Day.

2. #WhoviansAU

Back from 2005 to 2011, once you finished watching a new episode of Doctor Who in the UK on BBC One, you would turn over to BBC Three to watch Doctor Who Confidential. In Australia, we had something like that; the episode would be available on ABC iView on Sunday morning, right after it premiered in the UK, then it would be broadcast on ABC1 that night and then after that, a talk show called Whovians would be broadcast on ABC2 (later renamed ABC Comedy and now ABC TV Plus).

Whovians was a comedy talk show hosted by “Doctor Who superfan” Rove McManus along with a panel of Australian comedians. During its first season they also had interviews with some of the cast and crew from the series. They even had an interview with former Australian politician George Christensen, and regardless of what you think about his opinions on lockdowns or vaccine mandates/passports (or anything else, really), he did a pretty badass thing and that was presenting a motion in Parliament to encourage the BBC to film an episode in Australia to celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who in Australia (the first episode was broadcast on different days in each state from 12 January - 11 June 1965). There was a small scene and a brief shot of Sydney inserted into Series 10, but the scene was filmed in Cardiff with a greenscreen backdrop to give the illusion of the Sydney Opera House, which was an okay compromise, I suppose.

Before filming each episode of Whovians, the hosts and the audience would watch the original episode subject matter before they filmed the talk show episode itself. Sometimes they would even get an early copy of an episode, which is kind of baffling since if, as panellist Adam Richard claims, they filmed on a Sunday afternoon for broadcast that night (with little editing), then the episodes would have been up on iView already, though I suppose given that the next two series would have their first TV airings on Monday or Thursday nights, it’s kind of understandable.

The series continued to run alongside Series 11 and 12 (without the Festive Specials even though they did do an episode for the 2017 Christmas Special), but no series was produced for Series 13 (Flux) presumably due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, the Newcastle local division of the Doctor Who Club of Australia organised their version of Whovians on Zoom on Monday nights after each episode aired on ABC (TV Plus). Currently, the future of this series is unknown after the ABC lost the rights for future episodes to Disney+ and all the episodes are no longer available on iView, making this a lost series until someone makes it available. To me honestly, I’m not too fussed. The show was okay, but fans or not, I just wasn’t a fan of watching a bunch of nobodies giving their half-boiled opinions on a show like Doctor Who. I don’t think I continued following the series after the first one.

Feel free to check out Crispy Pro’s video on Whovians for more information on this talk show.

3. The Nardole Saga (and companion introductions)

Series 10 as a whole, along with the 2015-2017 Christmas Specials, form what I would like to collectively call “The Nardole Saga”, which is how I packaged Series 12 of Doctor Who for my personal project. This is of course, because of the involvement of Matt Lucas, who played the character of Nardole, originally working for River Song before having his head incorporated into King Hydroflax’s robotic body, then having it extracted and given a new body from spare parts, some cybernetic and some cheap, like his lungs, then becoming the Doctor’s companion, or rather, assistant, some time after.

Another notable thing to note is that Matt Lucas is a gay man, making for a more progressive TARDIS team when they were joined by Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts for Series 10; her character would be portrayed as an openly gay companion (like Jack Harkness wasn’t “openly gay” when he was introduced, oh but I guess being pansexual doesn’t count, but then again I think Moffat has some contempt for Torchwood) before Mackie came out as bisexual in 2020.

Lucas had enjoyed his time filming The Husbands of River Song and expressed an interest in returning. Since Moffat wanted a second supporting character for his reboot setting, he decided to reintroduce Nardole in a handful of cameo appearances, but when Moffat learned that Lucas was willing to commit more time to the series than he expected, he gave Nardole more appearances and even decided to reintroduce him in the 2016 Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio.

I don’t have a lot to say about The Return of Doctor Mysterio. It’s about a boy who becomes a Superman-ripoff superhero known as The Ghost when a young Grant Gordon swallowed a gem the Doctor wanted him to hold while he tried to solve the time distortions in New York. It’s amusing to me that the characters of Lucy Fletcher and Mr Brock were played by UK actors who resembled Brittany Anne Pirtle and Najee De-Tiege, who played Emily and Kevin in Power Rangers Samurai, but I suppose it would have cost them more to cover flights and work visas. Also, Justin Chadwick and/or Brittany Anne Pirtle Charity Wakefield should have been credited in the opening credits. I swear, Peter Capaldi’s name holds for a couple of seconds, then there’s nothing else for a bit and then Matt Lucas’ name comes up after the Doctor’s face. I know the 2016 Christmas Special was produced as part of Series 10, but that’s no excuse. Then again, the production team were never consistent with their presentation of the Capaldi era title sequence anyway.

When Pearl Mackie’s casting was announced on 23 April 2016, the production team released a minisode on YouTube based on one of the audition pieces called Friend from the Future. Moffat wrote Bill’s debut episode, The Pilot, to make the minisode fit into the series, then most of the minisode’s dialogue was cut either for pacing or unimportance; he would later claim on The Fan Show that he ultimately deleted the scene because the audience was already introduced to Bill and so he didn’t need her to be introduced again in the episode itself. However, I honestly think the scene should have been included in the episode because not all new audiences will go out of their way to watch the minisode before watching The Pilot and as I’ve implied before, there’s no reason why such deleted-scene minisodes should have been deleted from their respective episodes in the first place.

4. Diversity, inclusion and whiny SJWs

OK, we need to address one of the big talking points about Series 10. Many critics of the Chibnall/Whittaker era who say that the series became woke with their era cite the roots of this to Series 10, though defenders may cite this to way back in 2005 or even 1963 as a rebuttal. In my opinion, the revived series has done politics more subtly before gradually becoming less subtle and more in-your-face over the years to the point where the Chibnall era lectures the audience about current-year politics to the point that they forgot to make the surrounding story entertaining.

When casting for the Doctor’s new companion, it was apparently agreed that only actresses of colour would be considered in an attempt to follow the BBC’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, which from 2016 to 2020, involved an on-screen portrayal target of 50% women, 8% disabled people, 8% LGBT and 15% ethnic minorities. Critics of such diversity quotas may argue that (white) men are becoming disenfranchised by such pandering measures, particularly when certain women and ethnic minorities push political correctness by way of accountability and compensation for past systemic injustices during a time when the world has never been more equal than ever before. Another argument used by critics is that such measures focus on identity rather than talent, apparently undermining the principles of a meritocracy, though I have to wonder how people can see talent beyond identity if they only focus on identity and not talent. It’s probably how we got such a mediocre cast in the Chibnall era and how RTD picked Ncuti Gatwa as the new Doctor when he already had someone else in mind.

It’s been said that Steven Moffat has received criticism during his time as showrunner for being sexist, racist, homophobic, everything that SJWs can think of under the sun and that he had to learn how to be woke in order to appease those critics. If you don’t believe me then I’ll leave a bunch of links below. By the way, a little disclaimer - the following links were compiled by Burrunjor, who has written super-long blog posts about the state of Doctor Who if you care to read through them. I don’t endorse his opinions nor do I agree with much of them.

Article 1: Why Third Wave Feminism and Social Justice Warriors Have Ruined Doctor Who

Article 2: What I Would Have Liked To Have Seen In The Peter Capaldi Era

I know the same can be said of the so-called NMDs in the Chibnall era (not that the above feminists and SJWs weren’t the NMDs of the Moffat era) but when I see stuff like this I just think, “God, can’t we all just enjoy something without expecting the production team to pander to whiny niche corners of the audience?” As I said in my concluding post for the Thirteenth Doctor Reviews:

RTD is someone who has been woke from the beginning, yet knows how to subtly incorporate politics in a way that still makes the episode entertaining; Steven Moffat is someone who had to learn how to be woke judging from the reception of Series 10; while Chris Chibnall is the r/FellowKids version of woke.

It might look like I’m siding with anti-SJWs with what I’ve written so far about the wokeification of Doctor Who in Series 10 (maybe also in the Thirteenth Doctor Reviews), but I’m more of a centrist who tries to get things from both sides in order to help the other side understand why they feel that way (and in some cases why they’re wrong).

Another point of contention is that Bill Potts’ homosexuality was “shoved down our throats”. Now, I didn’t really notice it or mind it while I was watching the series, but I wanted to see the extent of this for myself. Two users on Reddit’s /r/Gallifrey board have done separate studies on the sexuality of the revived series companions, but I wanted to do my own independent study because neither of them have provided detailed evidence of what was said in which episode to emphasise a companion’s sexuality. Going through the transcripts for Series 10, here are the references and inclusions of Bill Potts’ sexuality:

The Pilot: Bill is introduced from the outset to be a lesbian. At the start she talks about giving a girl extra chips because she fancied her. This scene: Moira: “You need to keep your eye on men.” Bill: “Men aren’t where I keep my eye, actually.”

Smile: N/A

Thin Ice: “So the Tardis has dresses and likes a bit of trouble? Yeah, I think I’m low-key in love with her.”

Knock Knock: This scene: Paul: “Bill, if you get scared in the night, you know where I am, yeah?” Bill: “What?” Paul: “Just if you need any er, of my help, or my whatever, you know?” Bill: “Yeah. Er, I get that you’re into me, but, um, sorry, you’re not my type. It’s just, er I tend to go for girls, usually, so…” Paul: “Oh. Oh, right! I was never in with a chance. Awesome!”

Oxygen: N/A

Extremis: In the Shadow World, Bill is shown on a date with Penny before they are interrupted by the Pope at the former’s home.

The Pyramid at the End of the World: On the Doctor’s suggestion, Bill goes on a date with Penny. They are back at Bill’s home when they are interrupted by the Secretary General of the United Nations and his soldiers.

The Lie of the Land: N/A

Empress of Mars: N/A

The Eaters of Light: This scene: Bill: “Ah. Lucius, er. Right, listen. There’s um… something I should explain.” Lucius: “What?” Bill: “This is probably just a really difficult idea. I don’t like men… that way.” Lucius: “What, not ever?” Bill: “Nah. Not ever. Only women.” Lucius: “Oh. Alright. Yeah, I got it. You’re like Vitus, then.” Bill: “What?” Lucius: “He only likes men.” Vitus: “Some men. Better looking men than you, Lucius.” Lucius: “I don’t think it’s narrow-minded. I think it’s fine. You know what you like.” Bill: “And you like both?” Lucius: “I’m just ordinary. You know, I like men and women.” Bill: “Ha! Well, isn’t this all very… modern.” Lucius: “Hey, not everyone has to be modern. I think it’s really sweet that you’re so… restricted.” Bill: “Cheers.” Lucius: “We can be friends, though. I did save your life. That means we’re friends forever.” Bill: (laughs) “Yeah. I can deal with that.”

World Enough and Time: N/A

The Doctor Falls: This scene, just before the final battle: Doctor: “So, if there’s anything we ought to be saying?” Bill: “I can’t think of anything. Can you?” Doctor: (thinks) “No.” Bill: “But, hey, um… you know how I’m usually all about women and… and… kind of people my own age?” Doctor: “Yeah?” Bill: “Glad you knew that.” Later, at the end of the battle, Heather returns to turn Bill into a sentient oil creature like herself before they bring the Doctor to the TARDIS and leave.

Twice Upon a Time: The following exchange between the Captain, Bill and the First Doctor: Captain: “So basically, we’re trying to track the Glass Lady, yes?” Bill: “Basically.” Captain: “A striking looking creature. Quite beautiful, really, isn’t she?” Bill: “Yeah, if you like ladies made of glass.” First Doctor: “Well, aren’t all ladies made of glass, in a way?” (laughs) Captain: (laughs) “Very good, sir, very good.” Bill: “Are we now?” First Doctor: “Oh, my dear. I hope it doesn’t offend you to know that I have some experience of the er, fairer sex.” Bill: “Me too.” Captain: “Good Lord.”

Now, from the above list, we can see that Bill being lesbian is only mentioned once or twice in some and depictions in a couple others doesn’t take up a good chunk of the episode, except maybe for The Pilot but that’s because the plot called for it. Not all episodes in the series have such depictions or references to Bill’s sexuality, though I might have missed some while writing this. As such, having references to Bill’s sexuality in almost every episode might be on-the-nose, but I don’t think it counts as being “shoved down our throats”.

However, Bill being a bit of a woke progressive and possibly an SJW, however, I can sort of get behind because she’s young, black, lesbian and she works at a university; my position would be strengthened if she were actually a student there. Again, I’m going to list some references from each episode of Bill being progressive, though keep in mind that some of them are more general:

The Pilot: I’m a bit meh on this, but… Heather: “There’s a puddle over there, but it hasn’t rained for a week.” Bill: “Yeah, but, well, you know, half the students here are blokes.”

Smile: “Is there going to be food sexism even in the future? Is this bloke utopia?”

Thin Ice: From the start of the episode: Bill: “Wait, you want to go out there?” Doctor: “You don’t?” Bill: “It’s 1814.” (points to her face) “Melanin?” Doctor: “Yes?” Bill: “Slavery is still totally a thing.” Doctor: “Yes, so it is.” This one’s more general and sign-of-the-times, but… Sutcliffe: “Who, who let this creature in here? On your feet, girl, in the presence of your betters!” Doctor: (punches Sutcliffe) “He’s human. Thirty one years of age. Low on iron.” Bill: “Yeah, that was pretty convincing racism for an extraterrestrial.” Doctor: “My thoughts exactly.” Same with this one: Doctor: “Er, you, boy! Remind me, what’s your name?” Perry: (mouth full) “Perry.” Kittie: “Perry. His name’s Perry. Why?” Bill: “Apparently, Lord Sutcliffe’s long-lost heir can’t be a girl.”

Knock Knock: N/A

Oxygen: Bill gets called a racist when she is startled by Dahh-Ren’s appearance. “Look, for the record, I’m not prejudiced. I’m usually on the receiving end.”

Extremis: Bill tries to walk in front of Nardole. Nardole stops Bill from doing so, but she says, “Yeah, totally not happening” before Nardole tells her that just as he is officially authorised to “kick the Doctor’s arse,” he will happily do the same to her if she doesn’t follow his instructions. Bill doesn’t react negatively to Nardole’s comment, but she asks him if he is “secretly a badass”.

The Pyramid at the End of the World: The Secretary General tells Bill that he wants to speak to the President, referring to the Doctor as the appointed President of Earth. Bill does not know this and thinks that he is talking about Donald Trump, to which she says, “I don’t know the President. How would I know the President? I mean, I wouldn’t even have voted for him. He’s… orange.”

The Lie of the Land: N/A

Empress of Mars: Colonel Godsacre laughs at Bill when she tells him that she and the Doctor are “sort of police”. Bill says, “Listen, yeah? I’m going to make allowances for your Victorian attitudes because, well, you actually are Victorian.”

The Eaters of Light: N/A

World Enough and Time: N/A

The Doctor Falls: N/A

Twice Upon a Time: Upon meeting Bill, the Captain initially believed that her life was being offered in exchange for his own and offered it to the glass woman, but Bill said that it was “totally not happening”. The aforementioned exchange between the Captain, Bill and the First Doctor. This: Bill: “You’re an arse. Do you know that? You- you- you- you’re a stupid bloody arse.” Doctor: “As I have always respected you.” First Doctor: (opens TARDIS door) “If I hear any more language like that from you, young lady, you’re in for a jolly good smacked bottom.” (goes back inside) Doctor: (shocked) “Can we just pretend that that never happened?” Bill: “I’m a broad-minded girl. I mean, I know we have this whole professor-student thing going on…” Doctor: “Can we just never, ever talk about this again?” Bill: “Yeah, I hope we talk about it loads. (chuckle) I hope we spend years laughing about it.” Bill offers to look after the Captain in the First Doctor’s TARDIS: Bill: “I’ll look after him.” First Doctor: “Good girl, quite right. Now, young lady, I don’t want to have to repeat myself.” Bill: “I don’t think any of us want that.” First Doctor: “I’ll see you both presently.”

Once again, I might have missed some references there, but an important thing to note is that Bill wasn’t the only character saying progressive things in Series 10; the Doctor had his fair share as well and there might have been other characters doing the same.

If we combine the references and depictions of Bill’s sexuality with the references of Bill being progressive, a few gaps are covered but there are still episodes where neither Bill’s sexuality or progressiveness were referenced. As such, the claim that Bill’s sexuality alone was shoved down our throats is a bit exaggerated, but if you want to combine that with her progressiveness and say that Bill’s progressiveness was shoved down our throats, by all means go for it. Some might see it as a negative thing, but that wasn’t really my line of thinking when I was watching the series as it aired. It might feel like Moffat wrote Bill the way he did because of the criticism he received about his era and it’s quite understandable, but I can’t help but think that it contributed to the declining quality of the series in the Chibnall era. Also, holy shit, this one point is 5 pages long when I drafted it in Google Docs. My rant about Hong Kong in the last instalment only took up 3.

5. The Vault

The main mystery for the first half of the series revolved around the Vault and the mysterious inhabitant within. Speculation was rife as to who was actually in the Vault; I remember someone on Whovians speculating that it might have been a past or future incarnation of the Doctor, unknown or otherwise, and Moffat had considered Davros being in it, however he ultimately decided to use Missy, and her character development would be the focus of the second half of the series. Series 10 gave quite a bit of focus on Missy which made up for her lack of appearances after the Series 9 opener.

Following his date with River Song on Darillium, the Doctor was called to a planet where Missy had been tried and sentenced to death, and the Doctor was to act as her executioner, after which Missy’s body would be placed into a Quantum Fold Chamber for a thousand years under constant guard. A priest interrupts the execution and a brief pause for divine intervention is approved, during which the Doctor learns that Nardole had followed him from Darillium to deliver a message of disapproval from River. As such, the Doctor swears to look after Missy’s body for a thousand years before proceeding to execute her anyway, but when the other executioners find that she is still alive, the Doctor reveals that he fiddled with the machine because Missy was his friend. When the chief executioner voices his outrage, the Doctor has him look up himself in the Fatality Index under “cause of death”; the ensuing results scare the executioners away and the Doctor and Nardole place Missy into the Quantum Fold Chamber, eventually going on to settle at St Luke’s University in Bristol, guarding what would now be known as the Vault for at least 70 years.

Nardole took up the responsibility of holding the Doctor accountable to his oath and would be dismayed, even outraged, when the Doctor went off-world with Bill, even to another time. The Doctor even gave Missy things like a piano, much to Nardole’s dismay. Eventually, the Doctor had no other choice but to enter the vault and consult Missy about the Monks. Following this, Nardole had to seek Missy’s help at one point when the TARDIS went back to Earth and he couldn’t get it back to the Doctor. Later, the Doctor would let Missy in the TARDIS but would essentially trap her in it while preventing her from operating it as well. I know Nardole may have had good intentions but the whole thing just made him a bit annoying in my eyes.

6. Truth

The highlight of Series 10 for me was the Monks three-parter, jointly written by Steven Moffat, Peter Harness and Toby Whithouse. It was highly inspired by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and his conquests against “fake news”, something that ironically rang true when he was elected late that year. However, given the state of current affairs in the years after Series 10 aired, this could ironically apply to Joe Biden and the left as well. This is what I feel is the problem with implementing current year politics in media; even if there are people who might like or not like the politics being shown, those politics might not age well in the years to come. Refer to my rant from the last instalment about the Zygon two-parter.

The background of this arc begins in Oxygen when the Doctor is rendered blind after he exposed himself to the vacuum of space to save Bill and get her to safety. Nardole is apparently able to restore the Doctor’s eyes at the end, but as he berates him, the Doctor reveals that he is still blind.

In Extremis, a shadow version of the Doctor gives the Doctor a message through his sonic sunglasses. In that world, there is a book known as Veritas that contains a truth so true that anyone who ever read or translated it committed suicide. The Pope brings the Doctor to the Vatican so he can read it for himself. Bill and Nardole discover a room with doors of light leading to locations of international importance, such as the Pentagon, the Vatican, CERN and the White House. Bill and Nardole learn about the shadow test from the people at CERN while the Doctor manages to listen to the Veritas despite being pursued by the Monks.

The Veritas is a story of a demon who wants to conquer the world, but because he needs to learn about it first, he creates a shadow world with people who think they are real. The shadow test involves people bringing up any number in any particular order and the results will always be the same because they are all in the same simulation. It works kind of like a predetermined algorithm in programming as in coding, there is really no such thing as a “random number”. The people committing suicide as a result of learning this is like people trying to break the cycle and rebelling against the programming.

Moving onto The Pyramid at the End of the World, the Doctor is summoned to Turmezistan (from Series 9) to investigate a pyramid that has appeared in the middle of a war zone between the Americans, Russians and the Chinese. They try to attack it from the air and from the water, but they prevent the attacks and rescue the soldiers. The Doctor learns that the Monks have simulated various scenarios of Earth’s future, detected a catastrophe in one and offered to stop it from happening, but the Monks must have pure consent out of love without fear, strategy or agenda; as such, the UN Secretary General and the American, Russian and Chinese soldiers fail to provide the right consent and are disintegrated.

Somehow, the Doctor manages to find a lab which is the accident the Monks have been waiting to happen; a misplaced decimal point created a bacteria that turns any living thing it touches into gunk. He sends Nardole back to the TARDIS while he creates a bomb to blow up the lab before it vents the bacteria out into the air. However, once he sets the timer on the bomb, the Doctor is unable to get out because the door uses a combination lock with no raised numbers or braille, the sonic screwdriver can’t manipulate the lock, it can only be opened from the inside due to the emergency protocol (because the lab person clearly messed up the numbers after she went through, the fucking dick) and Nardole is incapacitated due to the effect of the bacteria on his cheap lungs. The Doctor finally reveals to Bill that he has been blind all along and despite his protests, Bill gives her consent to the Monks in exchange for the Doctor’s sight, allowing him to escape.

Six months later in The Lie of the Land, Earth is under full control of the Monks, with transmissions and broadcasts being used to maintain their retconning of history to the population. As Bill talks to an imaginary fabrication of her mum as a coping mechanism, there is something I should point out. Bill’s mum died when she was just a baby and there is no mention of her dad (starting the hate on single fathers early, eh, Moffat?); Moira brought her up for presumably as long as she could remember. Bill’s mum apparently hated having her picture taken (how would she know this if she died when she was a baby, keep in mind that no other family members are mentioned) and when she brought this up to the Doctor after he failed to give her something for Christmas, the Doctor went back in time, took some pictures of Bill’s mum and left them as a present for Bill, which led her to form the imaginary fabrication of her mum. This plays a role for Bill in the finale and looking back, I think it might seem a bit less contrived if Bill had photos of her mum since she was a baby and what the Doctor actually took was videos of her to give Bill some voice samples. But then again, given my parents, you know what they say about meeting your heroes.

Nardole, having been incapacitated for six weeks, manages to find Bill and they set out to find the Doctor together, having spent the rest of the time “finding” him. They find the Doctor on a prison ship, but he has apparently joined the Monks. During the ensuing confrontation, Bill takes a gun and shoots the Doctor. The Doctor proceeds to regenerate, but he was actually faking it as he reveals that the bullets were blanks; the Doctor spent six months deprogramming people and exchanging their ammo, that is, with the exception of Dave.

Anyway, the Doctor and Bill briefly go back to the university and visit Missy in the Vault to discuss the Monks. The Monks take on the forms of a populace to get someone to consent to their help, then they create a psychic link with the person that makes them the anchor to keep them in power, making them the lynchpin. But since the brainwaves of that person wouldn’t be enough to cover the entire planet, they put up statues of themselves as transmitters to boost the signal. The lynchpin goes on through the person’s bloodline for generations until it stops somehow. Missy’s solution is to kill the lynchpin, which she learns is Bill, but since it would take ages, her other solution is to make Bill into a braindead vegetable so that her residual brainwaves blot out the false memories.

Opting for another solution, the Doctor and his group head for the pyramid which had been moved to London. They make it to the broadcast chamber, with the exception of Alan whose deprogramming failed due to an accident caused in a skirmish with the Monks and had to be knocked out with a Tarovian neck pinch from Nardole. Confronting the Giant Monk at the centre of the fake news, the Doctor tries linking into its mind to override the transmission, but he is unsuccessful. Bill decides to link into the Giant Monk’s mind herself, despite the Doctor’s protests, and she uses the image of her mum to open the minds of everyone in the world, causing them to rebel and the Monks to flee. So that’s how we defeat the Monks then, transmit the image of an imaginary friend (who happens to be a beautiful woman) across the world. Wouldn’t it have been creepy if that image was of someone’s crush and it got transmitted across the world? Ahahaha I’m fucking brain damaged lmao.

All in all, the Monk trilogy was pretty good, despite criticism that the third part fell off. It might have been better had Moffat actually co-written the third part like he did the second, or better yet, if all three episodes were an actual joint collaborative effort, but Steven Moffat’s mother was in hospital while he was writing his parts of the trilogy; he ended up having to type up the final draft of the second part at his mother’s bedside because there were only days left before the two episodes were to begin filming and production couldn’t be pushed back to later.

To highlight the parallels to Donald Trump, the Monks were villains who had good intentions, but they used underhanded techniques to maintain power over the populace such as using memory police to arrest people if they began to realise that they had only come to power recently instead of being there since the beginning of Earth. What other powers the Monks had is unknown since we never really see them in use. Speaking of which, how different would the world have been if the Monks had stayed in power, other than a retconned history and memory police?

In spite of this, Australia was largely protected from the Monks’ fake news thanks to the efforts of UNIT, the Power Rangers, the Kamen Riders, the Ultramen and the Space Sheriffs, but that’s more of a personal project thing.

7. Doctor Gatekeeper

Before I go on to talk about the finale, I want to talk a little bit about the state of the fandom since the airing of Series 10.

There’s been quite a bit of gatekeeping happening in various fandoms over the years, with people being told they’re not a (true) fan of something of they like or don’t like a certain thing, or if they express opinions about something which are apparently bigoted, then they’re not a (true) fan as it were. Let’s face it, I hate people who do this because they don’t know to what extent the other person is a fan of the thing. My bottom line is that a fan is a fan if they say, claim or believe themselves to be one. Though I believe there should be a certain expectation of knowledge as to what the source material is, the kind of fans it attracts and the culture that they thrive in, gatekeeping people from a fandom is detrimental to the tenets of fandom, which is people sharing their interests and passions with other people who have similar interests and passions.

At the 2017 BFI & Radio Times Television Festival, there was a Doctor Who panel with Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin, Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie. A fan revealed that they had been the victim of cyberbullying after being on set with Capaldi in the TARDIS some weeks prior and asked “the Doctor” what he felt about bullying and how he would fight it. After a kind comment from Moffat, Capaldi had this to say:

The essence of Doctor Who is kindness, you know, that is what really is underneath all of this; it’s that this is a person who moves through time and space and history, and all kinds of situations, and reacts to them, ultimately - despite the different way, the different versions of him may appear - he reacts with kindness. And that is how everyone who is involved with Doctor Who should be and how everyone who is a fan of it should be. If they’re not kind, they’re not receiving the show in the proper way and they’re not really a fan of it.

You can watch the panel, timestamped to the question being asked here.

In the Doctor Who fandom, people tend to point to comments like this as a justification for gatekeeping “bullies”, but in the end, this is just Capaldi’s own opinion. Maybe we can agree that the bullies are missing the point of the morals the show teaches the audience about, but we live in an age where it’s difficult to distinguish well-intentioned people from bullies, particularly with politics as polarised as it is to the point where both sides may not be right about some things, but they might not be wrong about other things either, hence my opinion on why gatekeeping is bad.

8. A perfunctory Time Team

This is more of a Chibnall era thing, but I just wanted to touch on how attempts from the production companies or their affiliates to participate in a show’s fandom can sometimes come off as out of touch.

In Doctor Who Magazine, there is a feature known as The Time Team. Three iterations of this team were featured over the years; the first team reviewed the classic series and TV movie from 1999 to 2009, then a second team reviewed the revived series up to The Almost People from 2011 to 2017. Following this, a third team, with more members than the last two teams, would make their debut in 2018, but instead of continuing to review the revived series episodes in order, they would review episodes based on a particular theme. Their run ended in 2019 and with it, the Time Team segment as a whole.

When they were announced, the Time Team were criticised for being diverse in everything but age, with the average age of the whole group being 22. They were also criticised for being biased as one of their members, Claudia Boleyn, was an outspoken feminist (she would leave after six issues due to “differences” with editor Benjamin Cook, though some speculate that it might be because Cook didn’t like her criticisms of Moffat’s writing), while another member, Christel Dee, was previously the host of The Fan Show and at the time, the digital marketing manager for BBC Studios, focusing on the marketing for Doctor Who Series 11, putting a bit of nepotism into the mix.

Finally, and this may be a bit subjective, but some members of the Time Team were also criticised for not respecting the classic series, with Miles and Luke saying that it relied heavily on cliffhangers and they were “cheap tricks” as a result, while Christel stated that she watches the classic series at 1.5 speed. Honestly, I don’t find the classic series interesting to watch because the presentation of the episodes wasn’t as vibrant and/or coherent than the revived series episodes (due to the production standards and broadcasting systems of the time), but I’m not going to slag it off because of that and if I really had to watch the episodes, I’d put some subtitles on because maybe then I’d find the stories easier to follow, not watch it at 1.5 speed.

Did you follow the Time Team and their commentary and if so, what did you think of it? Feel free to let me know.

9. The Fall of the Doctor

A couple of weeks before the series started, John Simm was announced to be returning as the Master. Some people say that the announcement spoiled his return when he was revealed in the series finale, but who cares, the Master was back and we would finally get an explanation for the Harold Saxon Master’s regeneration into Missy.

Following a teaser of the Doctor’s regeneration, World Enough and Time (a strange title for an episode) begins with the TARDIS on a colony ship reversing from a black hole. The Doctor sends Missy with Bill and Nardole in an effort to test her rehabilitation to the good side. An alien named Jorj comes out with a gun, saying that “they” are coming up because of Bill’s presence as a human. The Doctor comes out as well and during the ensuing confrontation, Bill is shot through the abdomen. As a group of Patients take Bill’s body away into the lower levels of the ship, the Doctor, Missy and Nardole try to get a hold of the situation with Jorj; originally, there was a skeleton crew of 50 people alongside Jorj, but when it was being drawn into a black hole, 20 engineers were sent to reverse the rear thrusters. Soon after, the Patients arrived and took the rest of the humans away, leaving Jorj behind as he broadcast a distress signal. It became evident that in the space of two days on Floor 0000, centuries had passed on Floor 1056. By the time the Doctor and Nardole got to Bill over two hours after their arrival, ten years had passed for Bill and she had been converted into a Mondasian Cyberman as the first subject of Operation Exodus thanks to the machinations of a man called Razor, who was actually a disguise for the Master, who had encountered his future self as well.

The story continues in The Doctor Falls and I can’t believe they missed the chance to call it The Fall of the Doctor. Whatever, I’ve corrected that for my personal project.

The Doctor is tied up while the Master and Missy taunt him, but unbeknownst to them, the Doctor reconfigured the Cybermen programming to target Time Lords as well. As Nardole finds an escape ship, Missy knocks her past self out and the Doctor is electrocuted by a Cyberman, though they eventually manage to escape to Floor 507 with Bill.

On Floor 507, the humans have been defending themselves from the Patients, or prototype Cybermen, even putting some of them up as scarecrows. Although Bill has been converted into a Cyberman, she has been able to retain her sense of humanity following the six months living under the Monks. Nardole helps the humans fortify their defences while the Doctor, the Master, Missy and Bill find some lifts so they can evacuate the humans. Missy summons the lift and a weapons-grade Cyberman comes out, which they quickly kill. Since Floor 1056 has had many years to build up an army of Cybermen, they can only go up a few floors as the attack phase of Operation Exodus begins.

Missy learns from her past self that after the Time Lords cured the drumming in his head and mutually kicked him out of Gallifrey, he landed his TARDIS on Level 1056, too close to the black home, and blew out his dematerialisation circuit going too fast before a scary lady made him promise to always carry a spare dematerialisation circuit, which turns out to happen as Missy gives the spare circuit to his past self. The Master and Missy decide to leave, but as Missy brings her past self to the lift, she gives him a hug and fatally wounds him, giving him enough time to get back to his TARDIS before regenerating. As Missy says that it’s time to stand with the Doctor, the Master denies this and gives her the full blast of his laser screwdriver, rendering her unable to regenerate before the Master descends back to Floor 1056. At the time I was okay with seeing the Master dead for good, which led me to be bewildered when Sacha Dhawan became the Master in Series 12. After thinking it over, I realised that the Master would never rob himself of chances to spite the Doctor, plus, now that he knew that he and his future self would end up killing each other, he would somehow be able to put a contingency plan in place that would allow him to survive past his Missy incarnation. Also, I think it’s good that we never actually see the Saxon Master regenerate because in my personal project, I have two other incarnations of the Master that came between him and Missy and actually seeing him regenerate would have really screwed things up.

With the Doctor now determining that the Cybermen will plan a bigger assault now that they know that they are a military target, he sends Nardole away with the other humans to Floor 502 while he and Bill make their last stand against the Cybermen. As the Doctor is continually blasted by a Mondasian Cyberman, he detonates the whole Floor 507, destroying most of the Cybermen for the time being. When Bill finds the unconscious Doctor and weeps over him, Heather arrives and turns Bill into a sentient oil creature like her. As they take the Doctor into the TARDIS and set it in flight, Heather reveals to Bill that she could make her human again, or they could travel the universe together. So once again, another companion’s death is undone like Clara’s was in Series 9. Bill and Nardole would make an appearance in a Doctor Who: Lockdown! short in 2020 for the tweetalong of the two-parter (set during the pandemic with a reference to Black Lives Matter, no doubt), plus the novelisation of the 2017 Christmas Special reveals that Bill decided to become human again, living with Heather before dying of old age, essentially rendering her previous death redundant.

The Series 10 finale was the start of a great send-off to the Moffat era and the revived series so far following all the returning characters and references in Series 9. It featured the return of the original Cyberman design alongside the Cybusmen after having very few returning elements from the classic series, though other Cybermen designs from the classic series did not make an appearance, making it less of a tribute to the Cybermen than Asylum of the Daleks and The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar was to the Daleks. However, it did acknowledge the differing origins of the Cybermen and explain it off as parallel evolution. We also get some archival shots of the revived series companions as well.

The TARDIS landed on the South Pole and the Doctor began to regenerate but he stopped himself from doing so, saying that he doesn’t want to change because he can’t keep on being somebody else. It is then that the Doctor encounters a distant yet familiar figure, namely his original incarnation, the First Doctor…

10. An extra epilogue

The 2017 Christmas Special, Twice Upon a Time, is a crossover with the First Doctor’s era, featuring David Bradley as he actually played the First Doctor instead of the actor who played him, William Hartnell, as shown in An Adventure in Space and Time. The story takes place towards the end of the First Doctor’s final story, The Tenth Planet, with about a minute’s worth of reconstructed scenes filmed as much of the story’s fourth episode remains missing, though much of it did not end up being used in the end.

As the Twelfth Doctor converses with the First Doctor, time suddenly stops as the two of them are met by an army captain (played by Mark Gatiss no less), who was about to die in Ypres 1914 when time stopped for him and he was transported to an unknown ship, only to end up on the South Pole as well when a timeline error occurred. The three of them enter the Twelfth Doctor’s TARDIS and it gets transported into the spaceship, where the First Doctor tries to speak to whoever took the Captain before the Twelfth Doctor reunites with Bill, who he suspects to be a duplicate. Upon learning that a glass woman is the one behind the recent happenings, the Doctors escape the ship with Bill and the Captain and they head to the First Doctor’s TARDIS.

The Twelfth Doctor begins to track the identity behind the glass woman and heads to the weapon forges of Villengard at the centre of the universe, where he meets with Rusty the Dalek (from Into the Dalek) and learns from the Dalek Pathweb that the glass woman is modelled on Professor Helen Clay of New Earth University, founder of the Testimony Foundation that travels through time and extracts people who are near the point of their deaths to extract their memories before putting them back without any memory of the process. Those memories would then be used in glass avatars so other people can interact with them. As such, the glass woman is actually a misunderstood villain because the intentions of her and her foundation were not malicious. Bill is also revealed to be one of those glass avatars as time stops again and the Doctors are told that the Captain needs to go back to his place in time to die.

The Twelfth Doctor requests that he and the First Doctor take the Captain back because it was their fault that he ended up at the South Pole due to them trying to die twice. The Captain is taken back to Ypres 1914 and he requests to the Doctor that he look in on his family, at which point they learn that he is Captain Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart. As the Captain’s memories of his encounter with the Doctors are erased and time restarts, there is singing from both the British and German sides; it turns out that the Doctor made a slight adjustment by a couple of hours because it was Christmas and both the British and German soldiers decided to stop fighting and celebrate.

As the armistice ends, the First Doctor leaves as he prepares to regenerate while the Twelfth Doctor takes a walk with Bill. The Doctor continues to doubt that Bill is real, which leads her to kiss him as she returns his memories of Clara, who also briefly returns to greet him. Nardole also appears as well and the Doctor gives the glass avatars of his companions the proper goodbye he never got to give. He heads back to the TARDIS and accepts that regenerating again wouldn’t hurt the universe before he regenerates (with a different effect to the one used previously). The Thirteenth Doctor emerges and the TARDIS begins malfunctioning, disappearing in an explosion as she falls over Yorkshire.

Twice Upon a Time was a pretty heartfelt episode and some decent filler, but amidst all the progressive references being carried over from the rest of Series 10, there was one thing that didn’t sit right with fans and that was the characterisation of the First Doctor, as he seemingly acted somewhat misogynistic and more in line with men from the 60’s. Even the version of the First Doctor in The Five Doctors, played by Richard Hurndall, wasn’t that obnoxiously repetitive in his misogyny to the point that he can be written off as just acting like a demanding old man. It’s like Moffat deliberately wrote him that way to show everyone how progressive he and Bill are. In the novelisation, which was written by Paul Cornell instead of Moffat, the First Doctor’s misogyny was played off as him purposefully pissing off the Twelfth Doctor (like what happens in other multi-Doctor stories), which frankly, is an absolute cope given how Cornell’s in the same ilk as Moffat and RTD.

Despite the clear shift in current year progressiveness compared to previous series, Series 10 was a rather decent series for something that essentially had to be thrown together. It also served as a great farewell to the Moffat and Capaldi eras and also, ironically, the quality of the revived series as a whole.

With Moffat’s departure, the nepotism of the Fitzroy crowd, represented by many writers of the Doctor Who fan club who met at the Fitzroy pub like Moffat, RTD, Gatiss and Cornell et al, had ended. However, the series would continue to be headed by another one of their ilk, Chibnall, alongside an actress hired out of diversity and nepotism, Jodie Whittaker (who worked alongside Chibnall on Broadchurch) and a new team of amateurish writers that would see the series falling to mediocrity and later, utter disrespect. Though the series would see another peak due to the prospect of a female Doctor, audiences gradually became disinterested as shown by the ratings. Eventually, RTD decided to make his return and possibly Moffat as well, showing how much the Fitzroy crowd nepotism was better to the fanbase given what we had seen in the Chibnall era.

If I had to compare the showrunners of the revived era to main writers and producers in tokusatsu, RTD would be like Naruhisa Arakawa and Yasuko Kobayashi with Naomi Takebe, Moffat would be like Gen Urobuchi (the Japanese Moffat) and Yūya Takahashi with Takahito Ōmori, while Chibnall would be like Toshiki Inoue and Shōji Yonemura with Shinichirō Shirakura. Neither era is perfect (some more than others), but in the end, the fandom’s collective appreciation of the series is what continues to bring us together (or rather should).

Doctor Who 10 for 10 has reached its end. I would like to thank everyone who liked the posts and read through this series that clearly got longer and longer with each instalment. For a couple of years, I wasn’t sure when I’d finally be able to get around to starting this series, but now I’m glad to have finally finished it, even if it took longer to write than I originally thought. If you want to read about my thoughts on the Chibnall era as it progressed, check out my Thirteenth Doctor Reviews. I also cover the details of my personal project in the Kisekae Insights series, so please feel free to check that out along with the other content I have to offer. Otherwise, I’ll be back to review Doctor Who with the 60th Anniversary Specials and Series 14, so I’ll see you all then.

[oodlyenough]

I saw a FIVE HOUR youtube video with a thumbnail of jodie whittaker called "the downfall of doctor who" or something like that and I have ZERO energy to watch that but if they are saying the fucking downfall of dw was due to chibnall's era I have Things to say. I don't want to get caught back up in this fandom but HERE WE ARE

Lmao I've actually seen that video (not... all in one sitting) and it's really well done. She thoroughly explains all her arguments and none of them are like "grr woman bad... why people of colour in this show". I felt like it was criticisms I would agree with had I see more of the Chibnall era, or that it was putting a finer point on the vague senses of boredom and disappointment I did have in the episodes I did watch.

I don't have strong opinions on the Chibnall era myself because I stopped watching the show regularly under Moffat's last season, and when I tried to get back into it with each Chibnall series he was never able to grab me. I don't think they have the same problems as writers but they are like two ends of a spectrum where neither grabs me. I didn't like Chibnall's writing on Torchwood or for DW under RTD and Moffat, so it's no surprise I don't like his writing as showrunner either.

I also think the reality is that Moffat's era by and large was quite popular. The same can't really be said for the show in its current state. You can pass the blame around for that to different reasons -- maybe the audience is burnt out on the show in general after 14+ years, maybe removing it from streaming sites was a terrible idea (IT WAS), maybe it's marketing, maybe it's the writing, maybe it's the giant hiatuses between seasons -- but you still wind up back at the same place, which is the show struggling right now to grab, excite and expand its audience.

[francesderwent]

okay I know the RTD vs Moffat debates were over years ago, but I have thoughts.  

yes, RTD companions started out more “ordinary”: worked in a shop, doctor-in-training, temp, all of whom meet the doctor in the middle of an adventure and endear themselves to him just by virtue of who they are.  versus, yes, the sometimes wild origins of Moffat companions: the girl who didn’t make sense because she grew up with a crack in space and time in her wall, the impossible girl twice dead - without even getting into the whole River issue.  

but if you just say that - RTD era was about regular people being amazing, not super-special people - then you’re judging everything based on the beginning of the stories rather than the arcs as wholes.  and all of RTD’s companions have trajectories that go from ordinary to special: Rose joins Torchwood in the parallel world and eventually ends up with the metacrisis half-human-half-time-lord Doctor.  Martha joins UNIT and then becomes a freelance alien fighter with Mickey.  Donna becomes the other half of the metacrisis event, and then only returns home because her memory is tragically erased - and Wilf hints that she’s very sad, even if she can’t remember why, that she was better with the Doctor than she is without him.

but Moffat does something different, and something I think deeper in his era!  the beginnings are extraordinary!  but the ends are special and happy just by virtue of being ordinarily human.  Amy and Rory learn to live without all of time and space, and embrace the adventure of being married, and if we go by the deleted scenes, they adopt a child as well.  all of Clara’s mad adventures are a prelude to learning how to die.  even River! whose relationship with the Doctor was the wackiest and super-special-est of all, ends by spending twenty-four years with him - practically settling down.  

look at the contrast between “Love & Monsters” and “Blink” as well - both episodes are about the experience of someone who only encounters the Doctor peripherally.  but the RTD-written one ends by saying that "they tell you life is all grow up get a job get married get a house have a kid and that’s it, but the truth is the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker, so much madder, and so much better.”, whereas the Moffat-written one allows Sally Sparrow to stop obsessing over this one dark, mad thing that happened to her and find happiness where she is.  

each of the eras has its strong points and its weak points, but I don’t think it’s fair to say Moffat is dismissive of ordinary humanity - on the contrary, I think he affirms it more literally “dramatically” than RTD does, in the course of a whole story rather than as a jumping off point.  

RTD’s era is in some sense about escaping the mundane, and Moffat’s era - especially with Amy and Rory - is about learning to appreciate the ordinary.

[ibroughtyoumybullets-ningy]

which is better? dr who, torchwood, or ace attorney?

i have no idea who asked this, but now we're gonna break some shit down.

doctor who

is it good?

eh, sometimes. it depends on your definition of 'good'. the show is problematic in a million different ways (especially if you're watching Classic) but it's also campy as ALL hell and yes that's a good thing.

doctor who will always hold a special place in my heart for a variety of reasons. Rose was a very important character to me growing up, and the show was where i saw my first queer character. alongside all that, the show's themes of how anyone has the power to stand up and be the hero, how everyone has that one thing that seems completely useless but is the key to saving the day, and to never stop exploring and asking "why?".

the show is more than just a mixed bag. it's thirty different mixed bags all tied together with some rainbow yarn masquerading as the same bag. there are very few people who will enjoy everything the show has to offer (heck, i don't enjoy everything the show has to offer) but there are very few people who won't enjoy at least some of it.

torchwood

is it good?

hahahahahahaha no. 💚. i say this with so much love for this stupid franchise. it's shit 💚. but, at the same time, it drew me in. beyond the first season and it's bizarre, dated nonsense, there's a surprising level of depth to be found here. torchwood connected with me in ways i really never expected it to, especially given its first season. it's deeply 2000s for better or for worse, but it managed to craft several character arcs and even just individual scenes that are going to stay with me for a long time.

on a different note, i also really appreciate (most of) how they handled the show's queer representation. having an all bisexual main cast is something unheard of from that era of entertainment. and, adding onto that, they don't make a big deal out of it. until the third season, there are no big coming out scenes or drama over characters being in same sex relationships. everyone's bi and it's treated as a normal thing.

don't get me wrong, this whole franchise is hit or miss. the episodes themselves range wildly in quality, the novels are (for the most part) pure garbage, but a lot of the audio dramas have ended up redeeming the franchise and helping it capitalize on that idea of 'doctor who but for Grown Ups™️' not with pointless sex and gore but with darker storylines and ambiguous moral implications the original series couldn't or wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. is it for everyone? no. but it is for 2000s kids who like rtd doctor who.

ace attorney

is it good?

well. as a game, the gameplay loop can become very repetitive and exhausting after going at it for 10 hours straight (and yes, i've been there). and as a story it has a tendency to not only jump sharks, but organize an annual shark jumping and feeding festival. of course, no murders will happen at the shark jumping and feeding festival. why, such a thing would be completely unheard of! and i, Shar K. Bait, can guarantee no one has ever been fed to our sharks.

in all seriousness, i went into these games expecting complete bullshit. we've all seen the memes. so then i started Turnabout Goodbyes and it ruined my life.

i don't know how long the series will be able to hold my attention when i'm done with all the games (i still need to finish aa3, i have the Chronicles, aai should be here in a few days, and when all those are done i can play Apollo Justice, no clue yet where i'll play aa5/6 since i don't have a 3ds), but so far i'm interested. the writing and gameplay being intertwined the way they are is a nice balance, neither feels like it's overtaking the other and by shifting back and forth between courtroom battles and visual novel content neither outstays its welcome.

as far as this series of me rambling is concerned, ace attorney is probably the best constructed overall. but, it's a different medium (video game) so its production works much differently than that of television.

i didn't expect to get as invested into the series as i did. particularly, i really enjoy miles edgeworth's arc (part of the reason i was willing to fork over so much for aai cough cough) and i'm curious to see how his character is handled in later installments, since i've heard some of the writing goes downhill in the later games.

so which of these is better?

well, my dear anon, not to be a wishy washy bitch, but none of them. i can appreciate them all for different reasons and recognize that some have strengths the others don't. yes, doctor who is technically one of my oldest hyperfixations, but also i dropped the franchise for almost a decade because of a certain writer (who will not be named) completely killing my interest. i've only had torchwood for just over a year and ace attorney for a couple months, so it's hard to say if they'll slot themselves into a permanent hyperfixation slot in my mind.

but i can't truly call one 'better' than the other, as i go to them for different reasons and expect different things from them. i hope you enjoyed my breakdown on why. 💚💚

tl;dr - you're comparing apples to bobbins, they serve different functions in my life though i love them both

[captainjackspoilers]

The best companions are the ones who need to be with the Doctor rather than want to be there. Rose, Donna and Amy are good examples of that in action. The Doctor always needs a companion to provide support and to stop them from crossing the line, but it works better if the companion needs them too. It's why Clara works best in series 9- before then she wanted to be with the doctor, seeing him as a fun escape from life, but after Danny died she needed him and made him her life (for better and worse).

And that was the dynamic with the fam- Ryan and Graham want to be with the Doctor but Yaz needs to be. We keep seeing this- when we first met her, she yearned for action and responsibility at work, and we learn about her struggles with mental health. She tries to be the Doctor when they're apart, and she's the one who can't bear the thought of letting her go time and again.

And then there's the act of devotion- a grand act of sacrifice performed without regard for her own life out of love for the Doctor. For Rose, it was her willingness to sacrifice her family in Doomsday, for Clara it was clinging to the outside of the TARDIS in Time of the Doctor and for Yaz, it was waiting for the Doctor for ten months, living in the TARDIS trying to save her, giving up everything from her job to her family.

The difference between Yaz and the others I've mentioned is writers. RTD and Moff both developed their characters and critiqued their dependence on the Doctor at length. The problem with Chibbs is his insistence on huge ensemble cast. For the past 2 series, you've had three companions fighting not only each other for screen time, but also big guest casts who also have stories that need to be complete. His scripts and the way he showruns doesn't leave time for intimate moments- he can't write episodes like Heaven Sent or Turn Left because he writes for big casts with equal development (which ends up being shallow). While ensemble casts can work in plot heavy sci-fi, it takes real finesse that he doesn't seem to have. It works perfectly in Torchwood because it's more realistic because it's on earth and it's a formulaic crime of the week show. Doctor Who, on the other hand, is constantly jumping through genres, settings and characters and that takes up a lot of establishing time, taking away from character time. And Yaz is usually the one who falls to the wayside (see Demon of Punjab- a Yaz episode where Yaz ends up with little to do).

Those acts of devotion? They're moments of realisation for the Doctor- he made himself too important to Rose and Clara, they would do more than die for him. But 13? She doesn't even know what Yaz did, because Yaz got sent off with Jack, and the Doctor didn't ask.

Yaz has everything to make a really interesting Doctor/companion relationship. But she needs actual screen time to develop- there's a reason why Mickey and Danny weren't full time permanent companions while Rose and Clara were travelling with the Doctor (aside from romance) and it's because a third person distracts and takes away from the chemistry and narrative of the doctor and companion. Which is why adding a new companion for series 13 is so baffling.

Regardless of your stance on Thasmin (big fan but I don't think they would ever actually go there), it just feels weird to have an established relationship which was already in need of development and take away from it for the sake of new character. And its especially disappointing if the rumours about Jodie leaving are true- all the ingredients for a perfect Doctor companion relationship.

I genuinely like a lot of the broad strokes of chibbs' era- the lone cyberman, the timeless child, the master and gallifrey were all great. The problem is that he is the weak link of Doctor Who right now for me- his scripts are to full and cluttered to get satisfying development. Everything I love about Yaz either comes from mandip's performance or were just never developed. So I'll be pretty annoyed if Yaz ends up taking a backseat again in series 13 if I'm honest

[thelittlesttimelord]

I had so, so many questions for DW Universe question game. Sorry if I trouble you. Number 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17, 18, 21, 24, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 40, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 56, 61, 64, 68, 70, 72, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, 84, 88, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 100.

Well, here we go!

3. First DW episode you ever saw? 

I can’t actually remember. I know I kept seeing pictures of “Let’s Kill Hitler” on Pinterest and memes from series 6, so I just started watching. I started with Nine, so I’m pretty sure the first one was “Rose”.

6. Monster(s) that scared you most as a child? 

THE FUCKING SCARECROWS from “Family of Blood/Human Nature”. I fucking hate those things. The mannequins from “Rose” and the Snowmen are a close second though.

7. Joke/story you didn’t get as a kid? 

I didn’t really understand River’s story the first time around. I still don’t really, but it makes a bit more sense thanks to YouTube videos.

9. Who introduced you to DW? 

Like I said, I kept seeing things on Pinterest and started watching because of that.

11. Who is your Doctor? 

ELEVEN. But is anyone really surprised?

17. Best multi-Doctor story? 

50th Anniversary, but only because it’s the only one I’ve seen.

18. Best Doctor monologue? 

Shit. That’s a hard one. It’s a tie between Eleven’s final speech and Twelve’s angry one during the Zygone two-parter.

21. Favourite companion? 

Unlike most people, I really like Clara. I also love Bill. I wish she’d had more than one series.

24. Best TARDIS Team? 

Eleven, River, Amy, and Rory. I love their little space family.

28. Who should have been a companion but wasn’t? 

Oooo. I don’t know. So I’ll answer it this way, I would’ve liked to see some companions from RTD era meet Eleven.

30. Who did you not used to like, but really like now? 

Twelve. I stopped watching Doctor Who when Eleven regenerated, because I didn’t like what I saw in “Deep Breath” clips. When I went back and rewatched, I slowly fell in love with him.

31. Favourite episode ever? 

The Doctor’s Wife. I love seeing Eleven and his TARDIS interact. So many good one liners!

34. Best two-parter? 

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Mostly because of River and the Doctor’s interactions. It also hits a lot differently now that we know River’s whole story.

36. Episode that will always make you smile? 

Vincent and the Doctor. I struggle with depression and anxiety, so I connect a lot with the story. I also live by the quote about life being a pile of good things and bad things.

37. Episode that will always make you cry? 

It’s a toss up between Doomsday and The Time of the Doctor. Doomsday because of that final scene between Ten and Rose and Time of the Doctor because of Eleven’s regeneration.

40. Favourite Christmas special? 

A Christmas Carol. It’s so bittersweet and I love the song at the end. Although I also kinda like Last Christmas because Twelve is such a mood.

42. Favourite series? 

I really love series 4, because of the shit Donna and Ten get up to. They have the best dynamic out of the Doctor/Companion relationships.

45. Favourite series opening? 

Eleventh Hour. It’s a perfect opener for Eleven. It shows off his personality and how much he will come to care for Amy.

46. Favourite series finale? 

I really like The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang.

47. Best series arc? 

I have to say “Bad Wolf” because none of us saw that coming. It was subtle and it was really clever.

48. Thoughts on series 11/12? 

Looks okay. I haven’t really watched it. I’ve seen clips and Thirteen seems like a sweetheart and Graham is a straight up MOOD.

49. How much of Classic Who have you seen? 

Absolutely none. I’ve seen clips here and there in YouTube videos and I know some storylines, but other than that I know nothing.

51. Favourite monster/villain? 

Probably the Daleks. But only because they’re so stupid sometimes. Like in Victory of the Daleks...HOW THE FUCK IS A DALEK GONNA MAKE TEA?!?!?!

53. Monster(s) that scares you most?

Weeping Angels.

56. Monster you want to return? 

I’d love to see the Doctor face off with the Midnight entity. Maybe she’d handle it a bit differently...

61. Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures? 

Torchwood. I’ve never seen it, but I feel like I’m too grown up for the Sarah Jane Adventures.

64. Do you rewatch COE or MD?

I think given the choice, I’d probably rewatch Miracle Day because I know what happens in Children of Earth and it breaks my heart(s).

68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish? 

I want to read some of the comics, but they’re hard to find in physical form. I have read some of the novels and I listen to Big Finish. I will take my Doctor Who in whatever form I can get it.

70. Do you like DW analysis (video essays, fan theories, etc)? 

Oh yes. Those are my favorite kinds of videos.

72. Favourite piece of Murray Gold music? 

Either Eleven or Clara’s theme music. Eleven’s theme is so epic, while Clara’s is flighty and whimsical.

75. Favourite Doctor outfit? 

I’m a sucker for Eleven’s classic tweed and red bow-tie, but i also like Twelve’s look in series 9 (the old rocker look).

77. Best show runner? 

I feel like if I answer this, I’ll be shot so I’ll say each show runner has brought something different to the show (whether that be good or bad). They’ve left their mark in a unique way.

78. Best writer? 

Neil Gaiman, hands down. Or maybe Mark Gatiss. I love every one of their episodes.

79. Best opening titles?

Series 5. I hate the voiceover Amy has in series 6.

81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor? 

Chicago in the 20′s. I’d wanna meet mobsters like Al Capone.

84. Companion you’d most like to travel with? 

Donna or Martha. I feel like we’d get along pretty well.

88. Historical figure you’d like to meet? 

Anne Boleyn. I admire her so much.

91. Historical event would you like to see in DW? 

Maybe the French Revolution. Don’t know why. I just think it’d be cool.

92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW? 

Maybe more about sexuality. We have Jack, who is Pansexual and Bill, who is a lesbian. But they kinda just go “this is this character’s sexuality and that’s that.” I’d like to see them go into it a bit more and maybe have companions with different sexualities. Like maybe an Ace companion. Or have a Transgender companion. I guess just more diversity really.

94. One unanswered DW question you’d love to know the answer to? 

HOW DOES JACK BECOME THE FACE OF BOE. I need to know this before I die.

95.  Actor/actress you’d like to see play the Doctor? 

Tom Hiddleston. Because if he kept his natural hair color, the Doctor would finally be ginger.

96. Actor/actress you’d like to see play a companion?

I’d like to see another American companion (besides Jack), but I’d never really thought about it.

100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do? 

Well Gallifrey “stands” now right (disregarding what the Master did in series 12)? I’d like to see the Doctor go back to Gallifrey and maybe find his family. I’d like to see his Timelord wife and maybe his children because they’re not dead now. I really just want the Doctor to be happy. Is that too much to ask for?

[beccaland]

What are your opinions on the RTD era's companions' relationship with the Doctor? 'Cos personally, they bother me a little sometimes, and I was curious what your opinion was.

Yeah, they bother me a little too. I’m actually going to share some thoughts about the characters themselves, as well as their respective relationships to the Doctor. Partly, I want to do that because not to do so would be an injustice to the characters. So, here goes.

Rose (and Mickey a bit, because you can’t really separate an analysis of their characters and he’s a companion too):

Rose is a charismatic character, and I think just right for relaunching the series. She’s young and displays many of the flaws of young people, yet in other ways is more mature than other adults, including her own mum–indeed Rose is often seen taking on a role of parenting her parent. While Jackie seems content to live off the dole, Rose has a job. It’s not a particularly good job, but she seems to be given a fair bit of trust and responsibility, probably above what her official position warrants, which suggests that she’s earned the admiration and reliance of her boss–and given her home life, that’s not surprising. Rose is clearly used to having to be more responsible than her peers. She’s vibrant, curious, compassionate, and brave.

She also takes advantage of Mickey’s affection for her, perhaps without realizing it (at least at first). She’s pretty judgy generally, and she’s not above using the Doctor as well. This suggests that despite (perhaps in part because of) being brought up by an emotionally immature parent and having to take on a lot of responsibility before she was really old enough to bear it, Rose is quite selfish.

Now, as to her relationship to the Doctor, meeting him does two things for her: it gives her an apparently easy escape from a life she feels trapped in, and it gives her the opportunity to develop a relationship with someone unlike anyone she’s ever known, who seems to see potential in her far beyond what any other person in her life has ever shown (especially Jackie and Mickey), and who is both willing and able to protect her and to care about what she feels and wants. Am I saying the Doctor started out as more of a parent-substitute than a boyfriend? Yes I am. Is that kind of creepy? I think so. But not necessarily more creepy than him being her boyfriend, given the age gap.

OK, so Rose gives Mickey a kiss and obliquely tells him “thanks for nothing” before swanning off with the Doctor. By the time she comes back, a year has passed for everyone she knows but just one day for her. This causes ENORMOUS problems for Jackie and Mickey in particular, and she does seem genuinely sorry (well, sorry to Jackie–she seems mostly annoyed with Mickey’s anger AT BEING SUSPECTED OF MURDERING HER. BECAUSE SHE RAN OFF WITH AN ALIEN). This gets swiftly brushed aside by alien shenanigans, and Rose swans off again–leaving Mickey apparently in some doubt as to their relationship status. The nature of her relationship to the Doctor is also left ambiguous at this point, but she’s clearly not thinking of him as “substitute for parental acknowledgement and affection” anymore. She flirts like crazy with Jack who flirts like crazy with both her and the Doctor and both she and the Doctor seem vaguely jealous of the other’s attention to Jack. Back to Mickey meeting them in Wales, who apparently STILL DOESN’T KNOW that Rose has basically dumped him, and does she make that clear? No, but the Doctor is acting more and more like a jealous boyfriend (and really doesn’t stop treating Mickey like garbage until the poor guy saves them and stays behind in Pete’s World, thus earning his respect, I guess, and also removing the threat), and none of this is Mickey’s fault. He’s astute enough to see, at least, that the Doctor and Rose’s relationship is destructive to others.

After the Doctor regenerates, they’re 100% in couple mode, with Rose referring to the events of S1E2 as their “first date” and the Doctor happily assenting to this characterization (has Rose actually broken up with Mickey yet? Honestly can’t remember, but I don’t think Mickey knew it if she had). The Doctor and Rose have a deeply codependent relationship. We might attribute this to her dysfunctional relationship with Jackie and the Doctor’s recent PTSD. They latch onto each other like needy puppies, and this isn’t a criticism, because there are really people who fit these profiles, and they are not bad people, and it does make for interesting characters and good storytelling, but it’s by no means a healthy depiction of a relationship.

Consider, for instance, that the Doctor tries to send her away (no doubt he felt he was making a noble sacrifice, but he did this against her clear and repeatedly expressed wishes, and with the complicity of Pete). Rose ignores the Doctor’s clearly expressed wishes and comes back, which, fair enough I guess, but it all ends in tragedy anyway. So what does he do? HE BURNS UP AN ENTIRE SUN just so he can say goodbye. I mean, I’m sure he verified it was not an inhabited solar system, but seriously. In that goodbye chat, he specifically tells her that they cannot get across the barrier between universes because “the whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse.”

Does Rose accept the judgment of the person who is unquestionably the foremost person in either universe able to evaluate the risk of such an attempt? No she doesn’t. We learn in series 4 that even before the stars started going out, she was having Torchwood build a DIMENSION CANNON to P U N C H. A. H O L E. IN THE UNIVERSES!!! like presumably as many as it took for her to find the right one. Just so she could get back to him. AFTER HE MADE IT CLEAR THAT IS NOT WHAT HE WANTED. BECAUSE IT WOULD DESTROY THEM. This is portrayed as romantic rather than horrific. Seriously. And then he dumps his problematic clone on her and goes back to his own universe. SO ROMANTIC. Sorry, I try not to be rude about Rose’s relationship with the Doctor. I think it’s actually an interesting dynamic that makes sense in context, but it really bugs me that so many people view it unproblematically, and it bugs me even more that people don’t imagine both Rose and the Doctor growing out of it. Like, I can’t lie: I think that’s wacked and super unhealthy, in much the same way (though to a lesser degree) as the Twilight series and its fans are, except Doctor Who is still better-written and far more interesting.

That said, I’d be willing to read a well-written fix-it fic that depicts them growing out of their unhealthy codependent dynamic while staying together romantically. TBH I’d be more interested if it were Rose and Tentoo because then it would be canon-compliant, but I’m not too picky on that point. I AM picky about it not even remotely disrespecting the relationship the Doctor had with any other companion though. And it would have to have a whole “you were so obsessed with me that you were willing to destroy an unspecified number of universes, INCLUDING THE ONE YOUR FAMILY AND BEST FRIEND WERE IN, just to see me again for a brief period of time before this universe also collapsed WITH US IN IT and honey, that’s actually CREEPY AND GROSS even though I thought it was super sweet at the time, but in my defense the universe was already ending at that point anyway and you don’t have that excuse because in your case it was PREMEDITATED” conversation because otherwise I won’t believe they’ve actually grown as people. Also it’d be nice if it were funny more than angsty (but lbr you can’t write what I’m talking about without a fair amount of angst). So, y'know, if anyone has actually written that fic lmk.

Meanwhile, there’s MARTHA.

OK so I’m on record about how awesome Martha is. This is already getting long so I won’t belabor Martha’s total awesomeness as a character, but even though I got a bit tired of dysfunctional family relationships in New Who, it was novel to see them have any ongoing family relationships at all, and Martha’s was particularly rich, partly there were so many of them for her to interact with, thus revealing lots of different facets of her character. And despite her fractious relationship with them, she remained fiercely loyal, which was an interesting source of tension between her and the Doctor, and one that diverted attention away from the dental-drill painfulness of the unrequited love subplot.

It’s super gross that the writers made her hung up on the Doctor all the way through series 3. Not because it’s ridiculous for an intelligent, perceptive, professional young woman to be hung up on an emotionally unavailable man. No, that really happens to actual human beings (and again, possibly related to serious parental issues, so it’s not even without narrative justification). Handled with any sensitivity at all, it could have made for a lovely level of complexity. What really bugs me, and I’ve also written about this before, is how the Doctor treats her like GARBAGE, and this is barely addressed as a problem that he is responsible for. In the end Martha realises her mistake in sticking around for so long, but her attempts to call out his bad behavior in the past fell on deaf ears. Martha is the rebound girl but he acts like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Which, IDK, maybe he really doesn’t know? Like for all his 900+ years the Doctor has little previous actual relationship experience and also he’s super blindingly hung up on his high school-esque sweetheart Rose. And it’s not just in regards to Martha’s romantic feelings that he treats her poorly. He also dismisses her VERY VALID CONCERNS about her own safety and well-being when traveling in the past for the sake of his own whims. And he brushes off legitimate questions about how stuff works. Anyway. This is well-trodden ground. As is the fact that RTD later inexplicably fobs Martha off on MICKEY, the only other black companion in the series up to that point, despite having already paired Martha off with a cute, sweet doctor who seemed like a MUCH better fit, and there literally being no narrative reason for them to be a couple in that scene.

Donna! Well, as we all know, Donna is among the best-developed companions ever.

She didn’t start out that way though. She started off as a Deeply Problematic (read: disgustingly misogynistic) Stereotype who was never meant to be more than a one-off, but CT and DT got along so well that they brought the character back full-time, and so we got a lot of deconstruction, exploration, and development of that first impression. And I’ll forever be happy we did. But even in The Runaway Bride, she had moments of surprising depth and pathos. Deep down, Donna was always better than she seemed. The fact that she was the last person (other than her mother) to realize that fact is part of what makes her so compelling.

Her relationship to the Doctor is also the least problematic, because they’re both on the same page about being platonic bffs. To be fair, part of the reason he does make sure this is clear from the outset is because he has finally realized how he hurt Martha (NOT THAT HE EVER APOLOGIZED TO MARTHA FOR THAT–for a guy for whom “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” was basically a second catch phrase, Ten actually sucks at apologising to the people close to him). Unlike Martha, the Doctor doesn’t overlook Donna or brush off her concerns. Unlike Rose, he is not codependent with her. Donna calls him on his BS, and he listens. She helps him to face his emotional vulnerability rather than running from/shutting out potentially scary personal relationships (like with River and Jenny). The Doctor helps Donna to see that she really is brilliant and important, and she grows to believe him.

That’s not to say that Donna’s character was handled perfectly. No, indeed. Even after her first story, we’re repeatedly subjected to jokes about her desperate need for and inability to get a man. Even the Doctor, who is otherwise kind to her, takes these jokes for granted and sometimes participates in them. At the end of series 4, we’re shown that the one person in the universe that Mr. Pansexuality Personified, JACK HARKNESS has no interest in flirting with is Donna Noble, the man-hungry middle-aged slightly overweight loud temp from Chiswick. And then, of course, the Doctor denies her agency and takes away her access to the memories of everything she saw, everything she did, everything she discovered about herself while traveling with him. Just so he wouldn’t have to see her die. It was selfish of him. She made her choice and he ignored it to spare HIMSELF pain. But, y'know, at least the Doctor cheated the lottery to make her rich as a wedding present to a very attractive, kind-looking, and clearly adoring man–right before he regenerated. So she did get a happy ending.

[timeagainreviews]

The Eve of the Thirteenth

Recently I watched "An Unearthly Child," in preparation to write the first official article of Time and Time Again (TATA? Ok, I love that). But then it hit me that it’s a rather auspicious time to talk about the First Doctor’s first episode. With this being the eve of the first female Doctor’s first episode, it seems so appropriate. So I’m going to wait until after "The Woman Who Fell to Earth," drops.  See what I did there?

I know this blog is meant to be about revisiting episodes, but the timing is just too good. Besides, it is my blog. However, this being said, I suppose I should share my hopes and expectations for series eleven. 

Jodie Whittaker as "The Doctor"

Not since maybe Eccleston has anyone had as difficult a regeneration to overcome. While every actor new to the role feels a pressure to keep the show going, I’d say some feel it harder than others. Davison had to follow up an endearing seven-year run from Tom Baker. McGann had the pressure of trying to reestablish the show, as did Eccleston. Many people even said nobody could replace David Tennant. But the one I am reminded of the most is Patrick Troughton. Troughton was really one of those "make it or break it," Doctors. The concept of regeneration was far from established lore, it was rather a gamble.

Jodie Whittaker has a very similar weight on her shoulders. It’s another one of those "make it or break it" moments. The beauty is, I think she knows it. Everyone involved knows it. However, as much as I’ve emphasised on the pressures involved, I’m confident they chose the right woman for the job. She looks like a children’s show presenter in her costume, which is wonderfully coupled with her mad energy. For me, it’s never been about "We need a woman in the TARDIS," we need the right person in the role, and she’s perfect.

Doctor Who is the ideal show to change the gender or race of its lead. On a science fiction level, it makes total sense that the Doctor is able to change these things with ease. It’s almost laughable that it’s taken this long. It’s almost poetic. The Doctor- a man who has experienced thousands of years worth of exploration and change, still has something new to experience- womanhood. It is, as they say, about time.

The Companions

Honestly, I’m not that fussed over these companions. That’s not to say I’m disinterested or even upset with their casting. I feel confident they’ll all shine in their own ways, and live up to the show’s standard of companions. I think it’s cool that the Doctor’s friends this time around, are rather diverse. As a fan of older companions such as Wilf, or Evelyn Smythe, I am rather looking forward to Bradley Walsh as "Graham." Tamsin and Ryan both seem like they’re going to have some cute banter between the two of them. It seems pretty solid.

Many may say "That’s a pretty crowded TARDIS," but I like the bigger TARDIS crews at times, as they can be a nice way to add a new dynamic. The thing that would have actually excited me would have been a companion from the future, or past. Or even an alien companion. Not since Captain Jack, have we had anyone riding in the TARDIS who wasn’t from the present-day UK.  We got teased with it in "Asylum of the Daleks," with Oswin, and again in "The Snowmen," but then we ended up with modern day Clara Oswald. I had even hoped for Bill to be from the 80’s or 90’s. Where are the highlander companions? The Keepers of Traken? I guess Nardol sort of counts, but come on.

Chris Chibnall

Mr Chibnall is probably my biggest worry for the series. As a writer, I’ve never been all that big a fan of his episodes. "The Power of Three," was one I found particularly dreadful. When the Doctor saved the day by pointing his sonic at a screen, I felt cheated. The little cubes amounted to nothing, really. It’s not that he’s a bad writer, he’s just a bit dull. He managed to make “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” less exciting than the name implies. That’s probably impressive on some planets.

Overall, I think he’ll do fine, I’m just worried he’ll be a bit boring. I hadn’t worried much until he said that no old baddies would return in series eleven. Which, is fine I guess, but why not? While the Daleks and Cybermen can be really overdone (especially the Cybermen as of late), there is a wealth of villains to draw from the Doctor’s rogues' gallery. One group I’d like to see her face off against are the Axons. Whittaker’s "Godspell" evoking threads call for retro baddies!

So long as Chibnall doesn’t get too dark like he did with Torchwood (which literally felt like a little boy excited over getting to say the F-word), I’d say he’ll do fine. Parts of Torchwood were a bit "lizard brain," to its credit. Doctor Who should always have a touch of the surreal. The first episode had it. An indestructible police box, bigger on the inside, that travels anywhere in time and space? It seems normal now, but even to this day, there’s nothing quite like it. Keep the energy up, and keep it weird, you’ll do fine, Chris. It’s not like you’ll get the series cancelled again.

The New Writing Staff and Production Crew

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much anything about the writers. I’ve looked them up and read about some of their stuff, but that’s about as far as I’ve taken it. I will say however, it’s nice to see so much new blood. Men, women, people of colour, many perspectives. Doctor Who thrives on being shaken up. I’m all for it.

As for the new production crew, it’s even more of the same- happy to see someone new. I know a few people were growing tired of the whimsical look of much of the Moffat era. And at times, I kind of miss the tacky trash TV look of the RTD era. From what I’ve seen of the series 11 trailer, we’re in for something a little more grounded in reality. The cinematography looks rather simple, the sets seem plausible, if not a little dull. I’m hoping they’re hiding the big knock you on your ass sets and cinematography for the actual episodes. I would not be averse to having a show that looked as colourful as the promotional artwork we’ve been seeing. It’s gorgeous. A feast for the eyes. If the leaked TARDIS console pictures are anything to go off, I’d say they’ve kept some rather exciting secrets from us.

Segun Akinola replacing Murray Gold

Music is such an important part of Doctor Who. The theme song is both haunting and exciting: portentous of the tale about to unfold. The Radiophonic Workshop, with geniuses of sound like Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer, pushed not only the atmosphere of the show to greater heights but music as well. In the same vein as musique concrète, they were pioneers of electronic sound.

Upon the reveal of Akinola’s appointment as music director, I promptly sought out his SoundCloud and spent an entire afternoon listening to his stuff. I was heartened to hear he was both melodic and ambient at different times. His music is minimalist, and percussive as well. One of my biggest criticisms of Murray Gold was that he was too safe a choice. For me, he never really felt strange enough for Doctor Who.

Perhaps I am an odd duck, but I miss the days of the Third Doctor driving his bizarre car to a soundtrack of muddy synthesisers that sounded as if they wanted to murder you. The closest Gold ever came to that level of greatness was the aforementioned "Asylum of the Daleks." The music matched the tone of the episode exquisitely. I had hoped to hear more of that experimentation from him, but he never really did. Akinola seems the kind of guy who just might take us to strange places.

As we all know though, the true test will be in his imagining of the theme tune. I was never a huge fan of the Capaldi era theme. It didn’t really, slap as they say. From what I’ve heard of Akinola’s work, I’m very curious how he’s going to approach it.

Well, friends, that’s it for now. We’ve got nowt to do at this moment but wait. The next time you hear from me, it will have already happened! I hope you’re just as excited as I am! Doctor Who series 11 premieres tomorrow, the 7th of October at 6:45 pm on BBC 1!