WRITTEN BY RUSSEL T. DAVIES and DIRECTED BY RACHEL TALALAY and BASED ON A COMIC BY THE PAT MILLS and THE DAVE GIBBONS
You’re never going to get an unbiased opinion on Doctor Who from me. I’ve been in the ‘Having Opinions on Doctor Who’ game since 1993 at 10 Years Old and I’m not stopping now. You’re never going to get an unbiased opinion on Doctor Who from any fan, it is short for fanatic after all.
There’s always going to be Bad Doctor Who. Has been since the 60s (looking at you ‘The Keys of Marinus’)
There’s always going to be Good Doctor Who. (Looking at you ‘The Reign of Terror.’)
And to the fans, someone’s favourite episode of Doctor Who is going to be someone’s worst… and both sides will let you know it.
Just in the same way that someone’s least favourite Doctor is going to be someone’s favourite and they will let you know it, this is where I’m probably going to lost a good chunk of people reading this review with the next sentence.
David Tennant is my least favourite of the modern Doctor Who’s. That’s not a slight against the man as an actor, the man’s a great actor and he’s beloved as the Doctor for a reason. It’s just, his version of the character was fun, but never clicked with me in the way that Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi did when they were in the role, a good chunk of that is when they realised how much David Tennant could do ‘Really sad,’ they went to town on it, almost to, again in my opinion, the detriment of the character.
But, I’m also a fan of Doctor Who, so I will endure a lot for the sake of my beloved show (I have Timelash on both DVD and in Target book form) and I own the worst of the Virgin New Adventure novels- ‘The Pit’ so me and quality control don’t have such a great relationship. Okay, look, in my defense, Paul Darrow is in Timelash and it’s great to see Avon, the most cynical bastard in all of British Science Fiction essentially be fawning stooge, but this isn’t a Timelash blog post, this a ‘The Star Beast’ blog post. I have found things in ‘Flux,’ that I enjoy, I will find a bright spark in everything. So sure, when we were told he was coming back for the three 60th Anniversary specials, my reaction was ‘I’m not a fan of this choice, but I’m sure than within ten minutes of watching this, I’ll stop caring and I’ll be having fun.’
My main points about Tennant and RTD coming back are both nothing to do with the story, so I’ll get to them once I’ve finished talking about the story.
Ten minutes, I said, to fall back in love with David Tennant as the Doctor.
I’ll be honest, I was wrong, it didn’t even take five minutes.
It took one.
After we got the quick version to sum up why the Doctor can never see Donna Noble again, we’re right back into there’s not beating around the bush, we run straight into Donna in Camden Lock market. David Tennant was always at his best alongside Catherine Tate and it’s just as true in 2023 as it was in 2008. Catherine Tate owns the episode, but then, she always did. While she’s the same Donna as before, time has passed, the character is older, she talks down about herself less and while she’s, for the most part, happy, there is a melancholy about her. She has a husband and a daughter, but she feels the missing void in herself. I think RTD manages to avoid the trap that we’ve gotten in a lot of big reboots over the last few years, that the characters we loved haven’t moved from that spot in fifteen years and they’re still that same person at 50 as they were at 35. I think that’s one of the people’s problems with the Star Wars sequels, the heroes got older, they didn’t remain the action figures in our toy boxes.
I’m not the same person I was at 40 as I was at 25.
The universe has been too cruel for that.
And David Tennant isn’t the same at 14 as he was at 10 and more the better of it. A lot of the energetic exuberance has gone, the face and the character is showing the age both inside and out, seems all those police dramas were good for something. I think that main that’s missing from this incarnation is, quite honestly, the Man-Pain of the Tenth Doctor, his incarnation of the Doctor came about in the prime post 9-11 era of the term ‘Manpain’ and he carried that weight all up to the end and I love that we get to see a version of him who, I think has gone through the experiences of his last few lives to find some sense of closure and we see a less reserved Doctor, one who isn’t as bombastic, but still has the madcap joy. It’s also great to see Jacqueline King return as Sylvia Noble (I’m not ready for Bernard Cribbins’ swansong as Wilf, I’m not, I’m not.) and while I feel that Yasmin Finney isn’t given as much to do as Rose Noble in the second half of the episode before the conclusion, she’s great in the first part and it’s a shame we know she’s only here for the Specials, because I think she would be great alongside Ncuti Gatwa. Miriam Margoyle manages to steal the show as the Meep and that’s a testament to both actress and the effects team. Again, Marvel and DC, if the BBC are showing you how to do this shit, you have no excuse.
Overall, I honestly enjoyed that on a story level.
It’s a good adaptation of the original comic (although it streamlines a few things for time and pacing) and I admit I prefer the Meep looking like a an aggressive ball of fuzz than the ‘pet who fell into a bath and is still wet’ look that we got in the Special, of course, that’s very much a change made to look better on live-TV than the printed page (and the physical creature effects for the Meep looks incredible, all the physical effects look incredible for the Special look great from Meeps to the Wrarth Warriors.) and very importantly to anyone who is a comic book fan and knows of the bullshit that comic book professionals suffer from, Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons got credited right there on screen right below ‘Written by Russel T. Davies’ and were given a nice little fee from the BBC according to Mills (although Panini who also got a fee since they own the various comic rights did not give a fair share to creatives)
Look, Marvel, if the BBC can do it, you lot have no excuse.
I think that Davies usually treated the ‘Plot’ of his episodes as very much the set dressing to the character work, his strongest episodes always really favoured the drama over the story and sometimes, that was to the detriment of some stories, but I think the man knows his strengths, but God, after the last few years where it feels like both stories and characters didn’t get any real time to breathe, it’s fantastic how much I missed those scenes when watching this. I have very few real complaints, beyond that age-old ‘I think so much is going on that at times, it feels a bit stuffed,’ while I loved Karl Collins’ Shaun Temple, especially in his scene with the Doctor in the taxi where he gushes about his two lovely girls while we do see a hint of his frustrations, there’s no resentment or his coming home to find utter madness, he does just, alongside Sylvia just fade into the background for most of the resolution, but, concerning Doctor Who and issues I have with it, I’ll take that over some of what we’ve been given.
When it comes to the ‘pinches the bridge of my nose and gives out a long, drawn out sigh,’ complaints from ‘certain’ people in the audience. The truth is, the story elements concerning Rose being transgender and scenes about pronouns are of course blown out of all proportion and the scenes feel very real. Rose’s deadnaming by some random bullies helps illustrate the differences between Donna (who is out for blood) and Rose (who is just used to it and doesn’t want to make a bit deal about it) and then followed up by the scene where Sylvia and Donna both admit that they struggle to each-other, but that they also quite clearly care for Rose. This was the realest scene for me, I admit that I have been both Sylvia and Donna in that moment throughout my life as friends who I’ve known for long times and have loved dearly have started to transition and it’s sometimes felt like a challenge. But it’s a challenge where you mess up, you admit it, you don’t make a huge deal and you keep moving forward. My God, treating people with the goddamn respect and freedom of choice that they deserve, when did that become such a fucking struggle in our so-called ‘enlightened and forward thinking Western Democracies?’
(Also, people complaining about the scene where Rose calls out the Doctor on presuming The Meep’s pronouns are missing an important fact that it helps illustrate that maybe The Meep, by saying that it uses the definitive article ‘The’ as it’s pronoun of choice might not in fact be as innocent and helpless a creature as you might presume. See, that’s called storytelling.’)
As negatives go, there isn’t much. It felt like the sort of Doctor Who we were getting way back in 2008. The effects have changed (oh my God, they’re using that Disney money) and sensibilities have changed and times have changed and RTD has changed to those times, but it’s like his vision of Doctor Who never went away.
And that, from an outside prospective, from a sense of Doctor Who not as a story, but as a TV Show is where my biggest negative is.
The Jodie Whittaker era wasn’t perfect, we got some fantastic stories, but they were very much outweighed by the clunkers.
And those clunkers CLUNKED.
None of that is on Whittaker, but in audience eyes, she got the blame. Just like with Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy and even their talents couldn’t save some parts of their era, Doctor Who fans, it seems, will never learn from our history. While Chibnall does deserve some blame, (he was the Captain of the ship after all) I think it’s also completely fair to credit him for doing his best when it came to making the show in the Post-Covid lockdown, TV Production isn’t easy at the best of times, there’s a reason why Moffat had clearly burnt out while making both Doctor Who and Sherlock at the same time. Especially when the BBC isn’t giving the show the budget and resources and episode counts that you think it should, cuts get made, compromises get made, you have to work with what you got.
But the public don’t care how the sausage gets made, but the public will definitely care when the sausage isn’t made cooked how they like it. While I’m glad that RTD is back and that we’re getting a new Doctor (and that RTD doesn’t seem to care who he pisses off these days after both ‘Years and Years’ and ‘It’s a Sin’ have brought in some much deserved cred, that both both RTD and Tennant came back at the same time, sends a message.
And it isn’t a great one.
I don’t know if it’s an intentional one, I really want to believe that all intentions were for the best and that it was to give the production crew time to get their ducks in a row for the next Doctor and go with a familiar face to get the ball rolling, but there is that cynical part of me which feels otherwise, that this was a small stunt to get back the audience lost over the years when Tennant wasn’t the Doctor anymore (look, streaming has essentially decimated ratings, we need to accept that) and, unfortunately, if a lot of the mainstream TV reviews are anything to go by, I might be proven right.
When the show got put on hiatus during Colin Baker’s run, the show eventually moved forward to McCoy and after a rough start became the show at it’s writing best in a long time.
We didn’t go back to Tom Baker.
For a show as long lived as Doctor Who, for a show with all the potential as Doctor Who, sometimes the most dangerous thing might not be to try something new.
It might be to play it safe.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an audiobook recording of the Timelash novelisation to listen to.
It’s read by Colin Baker.
He used to be people’s least favourite Doctor Who too.
NOTES
1- Of course the Doctor set in a failsafe to bring back the DoctorDonna, that feels like such a Virgin New Adventures Shit move that the Seventh Doctor would do.
2- Psychedelic Sun and Solar Psychadelia are the Hawkwind tracks we never got.
3- I hope we see more of Ruth Madelay’s Shirley Bingham in future episodes with her tricked out wheelchair. “I’m going to get a bonus just for meeting you.” Although this isn’t her first time in Doctor Who (she played disabled companion Hebe Harrison in a Big Finish Sixth Doctor audio set), I like whenever we see UNIT as more than just armoured soldier boys in Modern Incarnation of the show.
4- The Doctor’s little forcefield trick with the Sonic Screwdriver… was Rusty playing some Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild during quarantine? He strikes me as more an Animal Crossing fan if he played computer games. I actually think I would love to see him either play a cosy narrative driven indie game like Stardew Valley or something like Death Stranding where emotional resolution trumps narrative plot logic.
5- LOVE the new TARDIS console room.
- The Adventure Continues…
Currently Watching: Just finished ‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’ and ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.’ In terms of my Classic Doctor Who Rewatch (more on that coming soon), I’m in a holding pattern over the second half of ‘The Romans.’
Currently Playing: Red Dead Redemption II and Final Fantasy VII Remake
-Miles
The Endless Bookshelf 