Doctor Who Capsule Reviews: Season 18

(UPDATE: In terribly sad news, some hours after I published this post the news came out that Christopher Bidmead, script editor for Season 18 of Doctor Who, has passed away. Consider the following a tribute to him. Rest easy, sir: you had one hell of a vision.)

It certainly is shaping up to be a summer of interesting views for me, with plenty of things for me to talk to you about, because they moved me. Naturally, instead of doing that I'm here talking about Doctor Who again. But in like, a fun way that's got a lot of me just being totally extra. Let me introduce you to a fun summer ritual I came up with last year. Even though I'm up here in Canada, it still gets what I would call hot in the summer. Temps past 20 degrees Celsius with lots of humidity. It's not fun, and so I like to think of ways to cool off. A good way of doing that tends to be retreating down into my basement where things are a lot cooler since it's all underground and stuff. That's nice and all, but I need something to do down there. 

Enter, then, a mainstay of my absolutely going extra nonsense. A Playstation 3 using the AV cables of a Playstation 2 to plug into my VCR and display content on a boxy old CRT from about the turn of the millennium. I use this to record either Blu-Rays or digital media files onto VHS in an increasing chase of aesthetic, but as it turns out you can just watch the Blu-Rays on that thing. So that's what I did last summer, and what I chose to go through was my classic Doctor Who Blu-Rays. I'd pick a set, and watch a story a night from that season, splitting six-parters up over two nights. This led to some interesting results and whatnot, particularly my viewing of Season 15 with Tom Baker; I fell asleep during Underworld and nearly went fucking mad with how off the rails the last two parts of The Invasion Of Time went. Amidst that, though, I also rewatched what is not just my favorite season of Tom's, but perhaps my favorite of Classic Who as a whole: Season 18.

It being warm again, I have restarted this tradition. Having just finished Season 8 with Jon Pertwee (it was fine), I get to pick another... and I'm feeling my old favorite again. Then an idea struck me. Why don't I talk about it for the blog? So, here it is then. Over the next week or so, I will be watching a serial a night from Season 18 and writing about it in this little document the next day. When it's all done, you get my retrospective on why I think this season rules. As a special challenge to myself and an attempt at brevity, I'm imposing a limit on myself: 500 words per serial. That may not sound like a lot, but there's seven of the things. Pair that with the intro I just done, and the overall summation, and that's easily 4 to 5k in words. Not bad. Well, let's get on with it. I'll set the scene for you. It's half past eight on a weekday, the sun is just about to set over the hills to the westward, directly facing me, and I am down here cooling off. I have my drink, my snacks, and on this old console hooked up to a slightly older TV, we're going to watch the finale to the most popular of the Doctor Whos before that David Tennant chap came along. 

Welcome, dear friends, to a chill summer evening. Welcome... to Season 18.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 8 (The Reality War)

Goodness, we have a lot to talk about here, don't we? Well, let's roll up our sleeves and fucking get in there.

The Reality War is not just the end of New Doctor Who Season 2, but the end of Ncuti Gatwa's time as Doctor Who. It could even be The Last Doctor Who Episode Ever. I do not usually engage in such doomposting, and baseless speculation on any potential mess behind the scenes is not my jam. I'm here to give you the vibes, to tell you how the episode made me feel, and whether or not it succeeded. It must be said, however, that the end result of an episode here feels messy. You can feel a sense of a production fraying at the edges, one that has 66 minutes to do its thing but still feels like it's rushing. A production juggling about its Ruby Sunday, its Belinda Chandra, and its huge UNIT supporting cast with wildly disparate results. A production where it feels like our Doctor Who could have gone on for longer, but has burned out like a star twice as bright and is now replaced with... Well, whatever's going on with that regeneration. It's a messy finale. Here's the thing, though: I can appreciate a messy Doctor Who finale. I did so with the Empire Of Death last year. I did so in 2011 with The Wedding Of River Song. I do this here, with The Reality War. I enjoyed this episode. Many did not, and we can try and bring up how they feel as we go, but I had a lot of fun. Let's give the 15th Doctor Who a sendoff that he no doubt would love. For our last go round with Ncuti Gatwa, let's have a fucking jam.

Let us begin with the big shit that RTD chucks in the bin after the first half: the Ranis and Omega. The Rani's scheme is at last revealed here, and it's a Time Lord superiority complex. Also we're doing some absolutely wild shit with Time Lord sterilization that recontextualizes the Dhawan Master's destruction of the Time Lords again as this thing that comes dangerously close to being Looms lore again. RTD's vibe is that of a cackling madman, flying close to the sun with his alchemy and threatening to lorebomb us all. He might bring Susan back! He might use Poppy to explain it! He might canonize the looms or finally explain UNIT dating or bring back Omega as Peter Davison like in Arc Of Infinity! It's daring, it's dangerous, it pisses more than a few people off, and I find it fascinating. The reveal of Omega as a decayed and corrupt myth given sentience, just this massive piece of sentient LORE that wants to consume all? It could be a powerful salve of anti-nostalgia, a lesson to be learned to not hang all of your hopes on sci-fi baddies from the 1970s. A sentiment to touch grass and to focus on the human drama of the back half, and not the idea of lore bombs exploding into canonized confetti all around us. I do not know if I entirely buy this reading, given the extremely nostalgic read of Gatwa's successor... But lord is it a more interesting explanation than just "Old man's brain is broken and stuck on obscure 70's villains". So Omega is a big skull boy, one Rani gets eaten and the other escapes to get you next time, Gadget, next tiiiime. Least interesting part of the episode for me. Let's jam with other shit.

Ruby Sunday fascinates me in this. I have continued to threaten to do a Ruby Sunday Arc Post, in line with my passionate defense of why the Silence Arc from Matt Smith's time is brilliant. I don't want to give too much away for that, and I can't really since I only have the broad strokes of what I want to say in my head. Plus I've not rewatched New Doctor Who Season 1 yet for it, I was waiting for this to finish first. Good thing I did. Anyway, Ruby and Conrad. For all that Ruby would be well within her rights to punch this doofus in the back of the head (and for how satisfying it would be), I like that in the end she takes pity on him. Pity is not the same as forgiveness, mind. Conrad, this Conrad, is nasty. Consider the horrific fact that what I said about Wish World and the trans people was proven right this episode, when Rose Noble appeared back into existence. (To give a fair bit of critique, I do wish Yasmin Finney was actually in the episode past the halfway point, in a bigger role.) As cathartic as it would be for him to become an Omega snack... I am okay with this. Our Ruby Sunday makes better things possible with a wish, a wish for a boy she did kind of love. A complex figure who contained equal parts sweetness and malice in his heart, given another shot at life. Freedom from the hate in his heart. Ruby does that in this episode, and it's sweet. Then she does it again.

The sheer gobsmacked horror of Ruby realizing that the Doctor's efforts failed, that baby Poppy has ceased to be and everyone's laughing and joking and having a good time as if this horrible thing hasn't happened, hit like a ton of bricks. That, along with everyone insisting that no, Ruby, all is well and right with the world, what are you on about? is a culmination point for her. Ruby, the forgotten foundling who herself ceased to be for a moment there. Ruby, the girl touched by fae and cursed to have her deepest fears of abandonment made manifest for the rest of her days, in a timeline that once was. Ruby, betrayed by the man she loved and forced to live in a world of his making. This is her line in the sand, her Doctorish moment. No more. If the price paid for this world is the abandonment of baby Poppy, then this world must be broken. Because she was real. Everything about not just Ruby Sunday, but the metafictional concepts being played with for all this era, coalesce into this one moment of drama. She was a construct of that other world, yes, but Conrad's narrow thinking should not condemn her to nonexistence. Ruby Sunday, in her last moments on this show, stands up for the baby who is much like her. She stands up for the lost forgotten child, and in those moments becomes almost Doctorish in her defiance of the status quo. Like an impossible girl before her, Ruby Sunday stands up to Doctor Who, and Doctor Who blinks.

There's a satisfying sense of emotional throughline here for the Doctor as well. All season he has been mirrored by shitty toxic men: Alan, Conrad, the Barber, Kid. There has been a foreboding sense, wondering if our party Doctor has a meaner streak to him. Here we see that challenged and refuted. This Doctor gives his life because a child no longer exists, despite their efforts to try and save her. It is a selfless act, one without hope or witness or reward, other than the satisfaction of having done the right thing before giving up this face for good. Better things are possible, and redemptions can come from anywhere... as demonstrated when Jodie Whitaker wanders back onto the show for a moment. You know how the Chibnall era wounded me. This era wounded many just as badly, if not worse. Not me, though. That mad alchemy of healing and redemption does one hell of a magic trick here. It almost heals the wound of Thasmin. It has the 13th Doctor admit she never said that to Yaz, but she should have. Better things are possible, and while Yaz deserved more... This is nice. It's genuinely nice to have that track for a companion who was... shall we say, underappreciated by the writing.

Which brings us to Belinda, the big sore point of this episode. I understand her motherly instinct here towards Poppy, I really do, but the companion being locked in a box while the grand finale happens is... a bit much, shall we say. We can go full Pepe Silvia and compare to Ruby, who gets to confront Conrad in tandem with the Doctor confronting Omega. We can weave a web of conspiracy around Millie Gibson leaving last year, and whether or not Varada Sethu was a Hasty Replacement, and all this other stuff. I don't want to do that. The biggest debate against this episode is Belinda and the new timeline where she becomes a single mother raising a human Poppy. There has been all sorts of critique in front of my eyes over this. Is it validating the traditional family values the Wish World was built upon, those which we decried last time? Is it giving the independent and prickly Belinda a smoothing-over at the expense of her agency? I don't know. It helps, for me, that Belinda wants to save Poppy and recognizes her realness even after Wish World is done away with. It helps that we had Poppy appear in The Story And The Engine, a vision which suggests that the new timeline is the original and that what we saw all season was a fractured one. More of the focus is on the Doctor's sadness, over him not being able to have a family and be a parent in the traditional way. A lot could be said about focusing on how sad the man is while the woman is just left aside to play mommy. Look, I don't have a valuable take on it. I'm not appalled, nor am I in love with it. If it's a dealbreaker for you, I get it.

The end of Gatwa, then, and the rise of... who's next. I do love the callback to Joy (furthered by Anita showing up to bail the Doctor out of the cliffhanger... even if her job thereafter is holding open a door.) and this Doctor's last words being about joy. That's what he was, in the end. A joyous soul set loose from the frazzled veteran 14th, to allow that man to retire and find his own joy in quiet therapy. A joyous, imperiously queer Doctor who rocked a skirt, who kissed men, who saved the world with an infectious energy and used his last breaths to ensure the happiness of one child. He was a fun Doctor, his era was just plain fun, and I will miss him. Cut, then, to who's next. Billie Piper is... the 16th Doctor Who? Okay, look. Billie Piper is not credited as The Doctor at the end, which suggests that shenanigans could potentially occur in a followup and we have yet to see the true 16th Doctor. I don't know any of that for sure, so until it happens I'm just going to call her the 16th Doctor? Okay. Okay. So, the 16th Doctor is an actress who played a past companion. Wild. I would have killed for Jenna Coleman in this role, but Billie. I'll take it. Is there a nostalgic cynicism behind this stunt casting, a desperation to remind people of the olden days when the show was good (and a sentiment which cuts against that Omega reading from earlier)? Maybe. The funny thing is, I didn't feel it this time. Somehow, I had killed that reflexive cringe in my mind without knowing. Have I gone soft in my middle age? Would I give the likes of Ready Player One or Enterprise Season 4 a pass now if I were coming to them for the first time today?

Probably not. Let's not say things we can't take back here, Frez. I don't know! I'm excited for a Girl Doctor Who, okay? Just like I was last time in 2017 when they cast Jodie Whitaker! This time they might even have better writing, and I'm excited for that too! There'll probably be an explanation in-universe for why it's Rose's face as 16, but if Capaldi can do it so can she! We could have a cool and good Girl Doctor Who! I don't give a shit if it's trying to make me remember 2006 when the show was good, if it makes the show good in 2026 then fuck it! Give it to me! There are a lot of exclamation points in this paragraph, but I am excited for this. I really hope she is Sweet 16 proper and not just some placeholder cooked up for a year of specials to be going away at the end. Time will tell. It always does. Time also leaves this, the Gatwa era, behind. Thanks for everything, Ncuti. You were indeed a great Doctor Whomst. May you go on to better and brighter things in your future. May there be a bright and shining future ahead for this dumb phone box show I love, now with a cool blonde girl as our mysterious physician. 

As for me, I know where I'm going next. You'll see. Probably.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 7 (Wish World)

Once again, we find ourselves haunted by those two little words: Temporal flux...

It's an easy enough term to reintroduce. Temporal flux is that specific state that extends out, in this case, from May 24th to May 31st of 2025. The week-long gap between part 1 and part 2 of a Doctor Who finale, in which we only have half a story to ruminate on. The gap in which opinions and takes are fully up in the air, uncertainty hailing in this madcap realm where anything could happen in the back half to change your mind on things. It is a hellish place to be in, especially when done poorly. In recent memory, there was Chibnall's Ascension Of The Cybermen and last year's The Legend Of Ruby Sunday, both episodes feeling to me like 45 minutes of wheel spinning, of keeping things Just So until a cliffhanger Big Reveal, of being glorified teaser trailers for the Next Exciting Episode. Wish World threatens to be that again, and has been critiqued as such by some. The Rani's (oh god, I do have to talk about her at some point in this, huh?) scheme of making Doctor Who doubt this false reality so that it cracks like an egg and lets her see down into the void where Omega lurks? Why did she do it at 40 minutes in and not minute 1? Why don't the characters have more agency in setting themselves free from the delusion of this fake world? I am somewhat sympathetic to these concerns and readings of the episode... but I'm not going to bash Wish World on those terms. No, let's take a different approach. Let's unflatten our way of thinking from the mode of narrative contrivance critique, and look at Wish World with a different eye. Yes, Wish World is part 1 of 2 and setting up some dominoes for The Reality War... but it is not sitting in place for all of that time. It's doing some shit I found interesting, so let's talk about that instead.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 6 (The Interstellar Song Contest)

Oh Christ this is going to be a hard one to write.

Listen to my song...

I say that, but I do have a comparison and throughline with which to tackle some coverage of the episode. This episode, this Interstellar Song Contest, is a mess. That may sound like a pejorative, but I promise it's not. What I mean is that it is a tangled and complex thing, a Schrodinger's episode which is constantly shifting between quantum states of being tonedeaf centrist horseshit and an inspiring story about oppression and song. The reaction to it online has been all over the place, and now my dumb ass has to try and plant a flag somewheres. I haven't felt this politically confused about an episode since The Zygon Inversion, over a decade ago. Back then I did plant a flag somewhere, and since then I constantly waffle back and forth on whether I was wrong or not: whether that famous Capaldi speech is a passionate plea against thoughtless revolutionary revenge, or an infantalizing reduction of someone's legitimate grievance with the status quo. I don't know, y'all! I still don't know, and to that point I do not know about this fucking Space Eurovision episode! I'm going to do what I can, though, tough as it may be. Let us begin.

The big detractors of this episode are taking the plight of the Hellions as a 1:1 allegory for Palestinians, and taking great offense in how they get portrayed in this light. On the most extreme ends of things you have folks who were already soured on this new era going apopletic, calling RTD and Juno Dawson Zionist propagandists and declaring that they Quit Doctor Who Forever over this neoliberal horseshit. Even more reasonable people who aren't screaming to the high heavens in rage are still down on the show, citing that this is about the worst time to make the worst point. Now I have to critique that. Oh God help me. We'll start upfront with a statement that should not be controversial, but sadly is: Free Palestine. Unequivocally. Even if I get it wrong and defend this dumbass episode too much for your liking, I want you to know that I believe in and support that statement. With that out of the way, the question remains. Are the Hellions, displaced from their home planet by maximalist capitalist greed, with two of them becoming violent revolutionaries planning the deaths of trillions in revenge, a perfect 1:1 allegory for Palestine? I don't think so. I will admit that things are not helped by this happening in the space Eurovision episode; I am across the pond and know little about Eurovision, but I know that Israel's involvement in it has sparked its fair share of controversy recently. Yes, the episode was written before October 7th, but it's not like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a new thing. Seen one way, this Schrodinger's episode has some unfortunate connotations that really ought to have been polished somewhere along the way in production to prevent things from being such a mess.

On the other hand, Cora. As my BFF Lena Mactire (see, I can do it too!) pointed out, or will point out whenever her coverage of the episode goes out, there are other readings to apply to the Hellions. The scene where Cora reveals how she had to cut off her horns to hide her Hellion nature, and her coworker or manager or whatever reacts with revulsion, a HOW YOU COULD HIDE THIS HORRIBLE SECRET FROM ME I NO LONGER TRUST YOU moment? That's trans shit. It's hard not to read that as extremely trans, given that a trans woman wrote this. The prejudice against the Hellions is ingrained into this episode, and it feels frankly ridiculous. Just like transphobia. The shit with the little person in the control room when her Hellion coworker reveals she's part of the evil scheme, for instance. I TOOK A CHANCE ON YOU! I HIRED YOU, A HELLION! YOU SHOULD BE GROVELING AT MY FEET FOR THE JOB! Gross shit. We are dealing with a fucked up society here. This anti-Hellion bigotry is deep-seated, and it's awful. What has been done to Hellia is a war crime, their home destroyed to bring back the goddamn honey and sell it back to the people. Fuck capitalism. It should be burned to the ground... ah, but then we get to Kid, and shit gets messy once again.

We're really doing that trope again, aren't we? The one where the revolutionary leftist is using violence, and has to be stopped, and we don't interrogate further any of the points being made? I watched a video essay about this trope the other day, but I won't cite that: what kinda dumbass amateur would just cite the most recent video essay they saw about a thing to defend mid Doctor Who? All that being said, we just did this kind of thing two weeks ago in Lucky Day. It's a risible trope, it makes the blood boil when it gets included in capeshit, and it should do the same here. Kid isn't trying to change the world, though. It has been noted that, practically, his plan makes no goddamn sense. If the capitalist Corporation razed Hellia to ashes and your solution to this is "mass murder", surely you kill them and not just 3 trillion dorks who want to watch aliens sing pop songs? Look, Schrodinger, the episode shifts again. There's a twisted sense of mirroring happening here in Kid's mind to justify this act as poetic justice. The Corporation committed a terrible crime and then demonized the Hellions to the point that what's left of their species is seen as monstrous. Kid, then, is trying to use the weapon of the enemy against them. Commit a terrible crime and then pin it on the capitalist bastards, so they are demonized. So they know how it feels. This has a similarity to the antagonist's plot in, God help me, Kerblam, but I don't think Kid is trying to change the world for Hellia's sake. It's a cycle of violence. Hurt people hurt people, and there's none more hurt than a disenfranchised minority. 

This applies to the Doctor too, in that really spiky scene where he zaps Kid over and over as a sense of cathartic justice. This is what set off at least one person to quit forever, the idea of DOCTOR WHO TORTURING A GENOCIDE SURVIVOR, and... Hmm. This is not meant to be a good thing. As Doctor Who notes, there's ice in his heart now because of what Kid did to the crowd and what he's planning to do. The debate will ever rage on over whether or not having Doctor Who be a bastard is a good idea, and it continues to rage here. The fact that he does this because he's raging over the memory of the Time Lords all being killed, the fact that he excuses it to Belinda as being triggered... There's an edge here. I genuinely cannot pin down if it is a good idea or not. Certainly I do agree that there should be more consequences, more distance between the Doctor and Belinda over this. The idea of Susan (oh hey, they got Carole Ann Ford back and put her in the show, WILD) being his conscience is an interesting one. Point is, it's an odd beat. Hurt people hurt people, and we want our beloved icon Doctor Who to be better. Valid.

Let's jam a little, then. Let's talk about that ending, in which Cora sings the beautiful song of her people while we see footage of Hellia burning, the poppies continuing to grow (which I took on first watch as, they still grow despite the razing, Hellia and her Hellions will survive this), and using the platform of the biggest song stage in the galaxy to call attention to the plight of her people, before we get silence and then slow claps until everyone claps. It's RTD as fuck, maximalist twee emotional resonance in which The Power Of Space Eurovision brings us all together. People are not happy about this. They point out, realistically, that this should not work. You can't really break prejudices with one sad song, you can't solve the plight of an oppressed people by platforming them on an event sponsored by the product that they were oppressed to profit from. The real Eurovision doesn't work this way, why should the space one? Fair enough. Absolutely fair enough. There is a limit to how much material social progress we can expect from our mass media sci-fi entertainment, and I can understand not being swayed by such twee hugboxing. Sometimes, you have to be practical. Let me give you one last alternate perspective in our little Schrodinger's episode, though.

Let me talk to you about Symphogear. OH GOD HERE FREZNO GOES AGAIN--

Symphogear, my favorite Japanese cartoon ever, is all about song and the power it has to help people gain a deeper understanding of one another. How it can transcend language, connecting hearts and minds in beautiful utopic harmony. Horrific things happen in Symphogear, just as they do in this episode. Both Symphogear Episode 1 and The Interstellar Song Contest have concert massacres within their opening minutes. In later seasons we delve into the perspectives of oppressed peoples, violent revolutionaries, and people willing to kill for their ideals. Always, without fail, a hand is extended. The idea of mutual understanding, that we don't have to fight, don't have to hold hate in our hearts. That we can connect and understand each other, and that this power can manifest in the form of a song. I believe in that wholeheartedly. So, when I sit down for my Doctor Who and I see a disenfranchised person of a demonized minority take the stage and sing the song of her people, in the hopes that it will get them all to understand, to open their eyes and see that the Hellions and their plight matter? I want to believe in that idealism. I want to believe that this society can take the first steps to grow and change for the better. Notably, the one who first starts the slow clap is not the Doctor or Belinda. It's Gary, the ISC's biggest fan in the episode. A member of this society, this world which has villified Hellions, who begins to see. It's fitting that he's the first to get it: He's a huge fan of the contest, so connected to the songs and performances, so attuned with the power of music. I can be miffed that nothing is really done against the capitalist hellscape here, but also come away from this episode thinking that change has begun in this world thanks to that song. 

No, it's not realistic at all. Yes, it's naive and idealistic. But, if I may? There's no point in living with total cynicism in this world. Our media can't be a total reactive force that brings about societal change, but it can be a start. It can imagine a better tomorrow, and then it's up to us to transmute that imagining into real and material social progress. That's my takeaway from this mess. Not adding to the fuel of hate, taking things as poorly as possible and railing against the sins of the production team. Not Quitting Doctor Who Forever. My Symphogear-addled brain saw, just for a moment, a true connection occur. As messy and as tangled as this episode is, there was a spark of something that resonated. It's up to us to take that spark and do something with it, to make this world just a little bit better. So, yes. Trans rights are human rights, and free Palestine. What a weirdo episode. As much as I have a distance towards it, it gave me that little spark, and for that I have to give it a solemn little nod. Okay.

Oh yeah, and the fucking Rani or something? I'm too tired for fanbrain. We'll deal with that in Wish World.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 5 (The Story And The Engine)

Buckle up, friends. We've got a lot to tackle with this one.

The Story And The Engine is the best debut Who script from a writer we've had since... god, Sarah Dollard with Face The Raven? There have been some highlights since in the Chibnall years like Vinay Patel or Ed Hime or Nina Metevier, but those are mired in that trouble of an era. This? This radiates with a confidence rarely seen on this show. Inua Ellems has crafted pure gold here, and I want to luxuriate in that space and sing the episode's praises. It's handily my favorite of New Doctor Who Season 2 so far, finally dethroning Lux. It pulses with the heartbeat of other cultures, other people, other stories than the ones we've seen on Doctor Who thus far. It does this with immaculate fucking beauty, delivering some of the most potent vibes ever given to me from the phone box show. There's a power to stories, all stories, and this story is glowing with it. Let us take care, and examine it for what it is and why I love it.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 4 (Lucky Day)

Well, I'll say this: It was better than I was expecting.

Conrad Clark does not get a screencap on my blog.

Lucky Day sees the return of Pete McTighe to televised Doctor Who, which is a bit of cursed knowledge that gave me pause. McTighe, of course, debuted during the Chibnall era with Kerblam, an episode which took me on a bit of a critical roller coaster ride in the fall of 2017. I remember watching it with the friend I was visiting, and enjoying it quite a bit. It had an energy and a drive to it that the Chibnall episodes up to that point had been lacking. It really felt like some solid Doctor Who. It really didn't sink in, what it was doing (and I confess to a naivety on my part back then, but I was on vacation and riding on high vibes then, give me a bit of a pass) until I read some more critical reviews and gave it a think myself. Ah. Oh dear. It completely upended itself into centrist neoliberal horseshit in the last ten minutes, famously stating that the problems with its world weren't the rampant unchecked excesses of hypercapitalism and space Amazon, but the revolutionary leftist trying to Do A Bad To Change The Status Quo. Bad. Very bad, but we will circle back to this unfortunate sentiment when we get to the climax of Lucky Day, and see just what's changed. This is an improvement from McTighe, but in some ways it's much of the same. For better or worse, McTighe has his distinct style and vision, and it bristles against my tastes somewhat.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 3 (The Well)

Oh yeah, second episode in a row with a big
MIRROR ALERT. And mercury, too. Based.

 I guess you could say... Well well well, another banger from New Doctor Who Season 2. Look, I'm not a dad but I'm middle-aged, what do you want from me? A Doctor Who first impression, probably, but lucky for you my fingers are currently crafting one for your eyeballs to scan. Ain't that a bit of serendipity? The Well is an odd one, in that it is once again one of those cowritten episodes, and the usual pitfalls and cautions apply. You can't just blindly speculate which parts of this script are newcomer Sharma Angel-Walfall and which are RTD. This was a problem back in the Chibnall years as well, where it was tempting to look at every cowritten episode and delineate who wrote which part based on if you liked it or not. I have a guess as to what happened here, with a prior episode to cite as evidence, but if the actual basic concept here was all Angel-Walfall? Keep her the fuck on, she gets it.

I say that, of course, while liking but not loving The Well. My podcast pals, whom I could not join for reasons of being in a basement hundreds of miles away, really loved this one. It is a strong episode and I will have much praise for it, but it is very much a sci-fi horror Gun story. There's more than a bit of Aliens in it, and that's all done very well, but it's not my absolute favorite mold of Doctor Who, y'know? At least it's better than Earthshock, but that's damning with faint praise so we will try a different tact. Let's talk about Aliss Fenly. I fucking love her. It should not have taken Doctor Who another literal decade to get some good deaf representation, but they did it and she's miles ahead of that girl from Toby Whithouse's Flood two-parter. I just wanted this poor girl to get out of it safe, and she did. Arguably, but we'll get to that. I love how her deafness is used in the story to add to the world and the plot, from the holographic screens that translate speech to her fears about people turning their back on her: both because she can't lipread and know what's being said, and because of that thing on her back.

Yes, we'll get to what that thing is supposed to be, but let me continue to jam and praise the everything around it that isn't that. As far as horror/monster concepts go, this thing is fucking genius. I love that we get these brief jumpscare glimpses of a something, and I forbid myself from going back and checking the screencaps to get a closer look. The concept of this thing latched onto the back that kills you if it is perceived is so damn effective, and I love the shot where the metaphor of the clock face is brought up and you then see the aerial shot of the huge circular room the action plays out in. The massacre in the second act is so goddamn macabre while still remaining safe enough for an all-ages sci-fi show that's doing a spooky one this week, and less is more in this case. Just like the mysterious monster on Aliss's back, not seeing shit often adds to the tension and scare. The fear of the unknown, and all... Ah, but then we do get a little of the known with this being. Yes, let's rip the bandaid off and talk about that, hmm?

So. This is Midnight 2. This is a sequel story to an old David Tennant tale from 2008. Now, there's a lot to be said about that from all sides. You have people who were floored by this, and excited at how this accentuates a really spooky David Tennant classic. You have people who are lamenting the fact that we're pissing away one of our precious Doctor Who slots on a sequel to a story that came out when current high school graduates were born, and worrying what this means for the rumours that Doctor Who Is Dead Forever #RIPDoctorWho. I'll be honest with you. If this were four years ago, I'd be in the latter camp. Go search through this blog for anything to do with Season 4 of Enterprise and you will find a version of me frothing at the mouth about this kind of shit. That version of me would rail and scream and shout about the lack of creativity at play, and wondering why this just couldn't be its own fucking thing instead of tying in to Midnight to light up a fan's brain. This is all true. That version of me is also six years in the past. I'm several critical regenerations ahead of that, so what do I think now?

I'm on the fence about it. I can see the arguments for how this choice enhances the episode, and how it also detracts. Eh. It does nothing for me. It sparks no particular joy to make the episode better, tying it to a Tennant classic, but it also doesn't fuck it all up for me like 2019 me would be screaming about. Settle down, you old dork. What we have here is a very strong original idea that gets a tie to Midnight, and this is my best guess as to how the thing was constructed. I could be wrong, but perception is everything. I think Sharma Angel-Walfall came up with this amazing horror monster concept, a thing on the back that kills if someone gets between it and other people like a clock face. I also think RTD went something like "Oh, that's rather like that episode Midnight I did" and then made the connection with his cowriting credit. It's not the first time he's done something like this: Cast your mind back to The Giggle, where RTD came up with that creepy puppet thing at the dawn of television, thought up a puppet master for it, and then went "Hey, doesn't Doctor Who have an evil gamesmaster weirdo in its canon already?" before dredging up the Toymaker. I think that's what happened. I could be wrong. Point is, I'm much more mellowed out and this doesn't help nor hinder things for me.

I will dock RTD a little for the ending, though. It is a strong ending, and really could have had a fun ambiguous horror vibe to it. Are they paranoid, or did the monster really escape? That ambiguity could fit really well with the idea of this being a sequel to Midnight, that episode being all about how paranoia and mistrust turns ordinary people into mob mentality monsters. Then he has to have that shot of the airlock occupancy. Prominently. If it had been a background detail for someone to notice and speculate on, great! The fact that it's right there is a bit much for me. It's the same as RTD actually trying to give an explanation to 73 Yards. Take a page from David Lynch, buddy, and don't go saying the answers. Let us come up with them! That being said, there is still plenty of speculation about that ending, so I guess things aren't all doom and gloom. The Well, then. A very strong Doctor Who episode that isn't hurt by its flirtations with the past, but not my favorite mode of the show. Lux remains my favorite of the season thus far, but this is a close second. Not bad at all. 

Okay, what's next-- OH FOR FUCK'S SAKES PETE MCTIGHE AGAIN? GOD WHY COULDN'T WE GET VINAY PATEL BACK I HATE THIS--

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 2 (Lux)

(With thanks to Lena Mactíre for some magical consultations)

I got you, moonlight, you're my starlight...

I'll echo what I said a year and a half ago, in a brief 5-star review of Wild Blue Yonder: RTD, holy fuck. With Lux, we have something we've not had in a long time: an episode I really love which other people actually agree with me on. It was a harsh period there where I thought the pervasive toxic stink of fandom was poisoning this show to death in the public opinion. I almost wrote a hit piece about how the true Empire Of Death were the fans who were convinced this shit was going away forever. I did not do that, but I have a very different piece simmering in my mind. A piece about the new RTD era, and about how its more magical elements let not just gods and goblins into the world of Doctor Who, but open holes in the fourth wall for our own perceptions and assumptions to seep in and affect the program. Boy howdy am I glad I waited until this season concluded to write that, because RTD just fucking goes for it here. Let me gush about Lux for an amount of words, and give my praises as the magic returns to Doctor Who (not that it left, but it did for a lot of nerds!). 

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 1 (The Robot Revolution)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOORB

God damn it, I went and did it again. Two solid damn months of procrastinating on writing anything. I had this really neat show that fascinated me I was going to write about, and after than an anime, and then after that another anime for the summer. Now look at me, in goddamn April with five months of time left before the double fall whammy of Screams marathon and Non-Specific November Writing Month take up all my spoons. Frezno Inferno, you dingus. Well, at least I played some good computer games. Oh yeah, and also time has forced me to get back into the writing mode because there's a new season of Doctor Who, so let's talk about the opener to that for a while like we do. I have taken to joking around whenever this season comes up, calling it The Last Ever Season Of Doctor Who because of all the doomscrollers and naysayers who didn't like Empire Of Death and are thus convinced that that big dumb Welshman RTD has run this time travel show into the ground, that Gatwa is leaving at the end of this, that we're not renewed into 2030 so the show is clearly cancelled forever, and that we'll all have to go back to reading Wilderness 2 era books and hearing Big Finish plays while yelling loudly that Doctor fucking Who has been worse than it's ever fucking been. DON'T YOU JUST FUCKING LOVE MODERN FANDOMS? I fled to Quantum Leap to get away from shit like this, Christ.

New Doctor Who First Impressions: 2024 Christmas Special (Joy To The World)

Doctor Who totally knows what's in Marsellus
Wallace's briefcase.

You know, I straight up forgot I had to do this. Seriously, I was awaiting Christmas and all that, and knew that there was a special and I watched it, but it was not until laying in bed this morning that I was like "Oh fuck me, I write about new Doctor Who, don't I?". So here I am, in a basement hundreds of miles from home, banging this one out on a laptop. Funny, I did much the same for Empire Of Death but it was upstairs and it was hot out. Now it's downstairs and cool, so let's discuss Joy To The World. It's fine. Yeah, it's a perfectly adequate holiday offering from our old pal Steven Moffat. It is not terrible, but neither is it the best Christmas special he's ever written. I still have nice things to say about it, so let us do that now, as we so often do.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 8 (Empire Of Death)

Death, but not for you, gunslinger.

 I find myself in an interesting position for this. Not just in the sense of getting catharsis for temporal grace, or having the mysterious mysteries be answered (some of them anyway), but in my literal position. I'm on vacation right now, in an upstairs bedroom that's not my own, banging this fucker out on a laptop. It's quite a new sensation for me, but there's a fun sense of mirroring to it: I was here, 7 months ago, for The Star Beast. I was here for the beginning, and I am here for the end. A bit like 2011's Doctor Who being bookended by trips I took when the premiere and finale aired. It's 22 degrees Celsius out, I just had a spicy chicken sandwich, so let's talk about the end of all things in Empire Of Death.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 7 (The Legend Of Ruby Sunday)

Oh good lord. I did not want to be back here again, but here we are. After a string of absolute bangers from Boom to Rogue, I am sad to report that The Legend Of Ruby Sunday is the first real dud from Doctor Who for me since Chibnall left. I did not care for this one, and the reasons for it are so innately tied to it being June the 16th of 2024 as I write these words. We are once again in the ballpark of what I coined as "temporal grace", where we as viewers are sitting in the wake of part 1 of a two-part season finale trying to wonder where the hell the back half is going to take us. Sometimes that leads to intense anticipation, but sometimes it also leads to a sense that the proceedings were lacking. The Legend Of Ruby Sunday unfortunately fell in that latter camp for me. It might improve in six days when I get to see Empire of Death, but here on June 16th this is a massive letdown. Allow me to tell you why.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 6 (Rogue)

Heated drama between men.

 So far with the first season of the New Doctor Who (or Series 14 if you wanna be like that) there has been this renewed freshness to the proceedings. Some of it has been re-introducing old concepts to the new folks jumping on board, like Space Babies was. Much more of it introducing new ideas and concepts to the show, as 73 Yards was. Thus far, however, we have had no returning villains or anything like that. The closest recoccuring element has been Kate, and I guess Mel is back next week as well. It reminds me a lot of the 13th Doctor's first season, and I will forever stand behind the idea of having all-new shit in that season (until Resolution anyway) being a good one. The writing was less good that season, but at least there was that freshness. We've seen what happens when that quality of writing gets paired with the opening of the continuity floodgates, and it's bad. Rogue, on the other hand, is quite good. It's fresh but familiar, and it paves the way forward for a new vision of Doctor Who.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 5 (Dot And Bubble)

Good Christ, the bangers just keep on coming. I genuinely am not used to this level of consistent quality from Doctor Who after that fugue state of the Chibnall era. I don't just bring up that old bugbear to pick at an old scab for the thousandth time, however. There are genuine comparisons you can make between certain aspects of it and Dot And Bubble. There's a very big one coming at the end when we get to the ending and how it makes one read the episode, but there's a more obvious one at play when you get into the swing of things at first. Digging into that will help uncover just what I think RTD is doing with this particular story, and where its strengths really lie.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 4 (73 Yards)

I want to apologize to Steven Moffat right now for thinking that the reaction to Boom was divisive, because Jesus.

If ever there was an episode of this show that split opinion between realists and formalists, this is the one. From a realist sense, 73 Yards is an absolute dealbreaker of a nonsense episode. A bunch of mysterious and horrible shit happens to Ruby over these 45 minutes, and none of it is given any explicit explanation. You do not get a succinct piece of technobabble where Ncuti Gatwa says OH RUBY A QUANTUM LIMITATION BUBBLE WAS AROUND YOU breathlessly with great charm to soothe your queries. You do not even get any sort of handwave that says "Oh wow, it was magic, really shouldn't have done that salt thing huh?". Shit happens, it all gets cancelled out at the end due to some sort of loop, and we move on without ever knowing the specifics of what or why. From a realist stance, it's an absolute dealbreaker. Things must happen in the television program for good and clearly defined reasons, the logistics of which all make enough sense in the end to cohere. There can be a wiggle room of ambiguity, but there must be at least an attempt at definition. As an example, think of the episode Midnight. The antagonistic force in that story is never truly defined or explained, but there are enough rules and logic in play for us to understand how this creature possesses and takes over, and how its mirroring works when it latches on to a new target.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 3 (Boom)

Let's get it out of the way immediately: There can be no measure of "objectivity" when it comes to this first impression. This is the return of Steven Moffat to the show after 6 1/2 years, and that is absolutely monumental to my sense of self and my internal landscape. Moffat's run was peak Doctor Who for me, particularly during the Peter Capaldi years. Not only that, but it was both reading and writing critique and analysis of it that I honed myself into the me you're reading right now. Suffice to say, I would not be who I was without the words and thoughts of Steven Moffat on this time travel show. The significance of this to me cannot be understated, and it bolds and underlines anything I have to say about Boom before a single word gets typed. With all that being said, Boom is (pun unintended) an absolute banger of an episode, and I don't want to wait any longer so let me launch right into it.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 2 (The Devil's Chord)

So! The shoe's on the other foot now, as we got a double header over the weekend for the new Doctor Who. 90 minutes of time and space adventure, and it's good to boot. Amazing, right? Having made sure that all the gen alphas and people with Disney+ subscriptions curiously clicking understand what this whole Doctor Who thing is all about, the show can now go absolutely wild again. Make no mistake, The Devil's Chord is completely wild and barmy in all the right ways. I absolutely want to launch into it and get out of this introductory paragraph, but I am once again stalling for time just long enough to give the opener some body. It's one of my reliable gimmicks from my writing bag of tricks, and it worked because we're here now. Let's talk about this shit.

New Doctor Who Season 1 First Impressions: Episode 1 (Space Babies)

We're back, folks. We are so back. But then, we already knew that. It's hard to recall the hazy memories of late 2023, when Doctor Who returned in its 60th blitz and was actually pretty damn good. It was, though. Then Christmas happened, I had a bunch of chocolate, and I got to watch Ncuti Gatwa embrace fantasy and magic with a smile. It was also pretty damn good. Well, here we are. It's May and we have begun the first series of the New Doctor Who. Call it whatever you like. Season 14, Season 40 for all I care, but I'm going to call it New Doctor Who Season 1. It's back, it's airing, and we even get a double treat as we got two at once. Isn't that nice? Sure, it means a little extra work for me, but the hell with it. I'll enjoy myself. We can talk about that second one tomorrow, but for now let's plunge into this new refreshed era with some good old fashioned critique. Let's talk about Space Babies.

Doctor Who First Impressions: 2023 Christmas Special (The Church On Ruby Road)

Well, here we are. I have been patiently (and not so patiently) awaiting this moment for over two years now. After going through 2022 and the final drips of the Chibnall era, and then surviving the roller coaster of emotions and horrors that was David Tennant coming back (the specials were good, as you've hopefully seen me discuss), here we are. Something different. Something new. The 15th Doctor Who era has begun, and what a Christmas party it was. There hasn't been a Doctor Who at Christmas since Twice Upon A Time (which I watch every year, and which never fails to make me weep when Doctor Who remembers Clara), but here we are. Ncuti Gatwa, the new Doctor Who, that charming fellow who ran around in his pants for the last like 15 minutes of televised time travel phone box show. I'm not sure quite how this writeup is going to go, but I'm going to just flow along with it and let it take me to the opinionated truth laying at the end of the river of my subconscious. Christ, that was poetic. Talk about the blue box show, Frezno.

Doctor Who First Impressions: 60th Anniversary Specials Episode 3: The Giggle

Russell just had to throw a curveball on that last one and make my hobby a little harder, huh? Alright, fine, that mild grumble has gotten my foot in the door and now I'm here in my notepad typing about The Giggle, so mission accomplished there. Trying to quantify how I feel about the episode has been difficult. It's gotten near universal praise from all the critics I respect, and yet I didn't come out from the end of the show hooting and hollering about having seen the greatest new piece of Doctor Who ever. I've had to grapple with it and really let my thoughts marinate, and honestly they could marinate for another week before I could have a solid take on the episode. Still, timeliness is timeliness and this is supposed to be a First Impression, so let's get to it. I did like the episode, but not as much as Wild Blue Yonder. It does some neat things, but many of the bold things it does left me conflicted and wanting, really having to mull over if I thought they were good ideas or not. Let me see if I can dig into that confliction and find the nuance of truth within them.

We may as well start with him. the guy, the thing which I kept dreading for all this time until it finally got confirmed. "Beloved" 60's Doctor Who villain, the Toymaker, is back. I don't like that on paper. I do admit, a lot of that stems from El Sandifer being a formative critical voice and her old post on the original Toymaker story pretty solidly cementing my opinion that the repeated re-use of this nostalgic old villain is not a very good idea. Since that post, there's been endless debate and blog post and massive Twitter threads that dig into production notes and scripts and all of that, and even Sandifer herself is just like "I wrote this 12 years ago, leave me alone". I don't want to get into that. I'm not here to do that. Before the bile really builds in me, let's just leave it at "my opinion is that the Toymaker is a bad idea". That being said, at least I understand RTD's thought process here. He came up with the creepy puppet television origin thing, realized he needed a puppet master, and saw a piece of Doctor Who lore that fit what he was doing and pulled it out of the toy box and polished it up for the modern day. That's a better thought process than starting with "I WANT TO USE THE WEIRD GOD MAN FROM 1966", in my opinion.

Well, it manages to clear the low bar of "best Toymaker story I've ever experienced", but that bar is low to the ground considering his original TV story is wretchedly dull and that I couldn't tell you a goddamn thing that happened in The Nightmare Fair. This certainly is a very competent episode of television about a godlike being obsessed with playing games and doing cultural appropriation. There are standout moments I liked involving him, of course. The spooky moment of the episode with the puppets was quite good. I also was quite amused at the Moffat era puppet show, and have been enjoying the various memes of other companions' untimely fates being shrugged off with an "OH WELL THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN". I am not immune to propaganda, especially if said propaganda is a Clara mention. Then there's the dance, and oh my god. As a child of the 90's who had just a bit of an obsession with the Spice Girls back then, it was absolutely buck wild. Rasputin, hold my fucking beer. There's an anarchic glee and malice to Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker, and it just about makes one see why people love pitting the Doctor against this particular godlike gamesmaster sporadically over 60 years. Just, shame about the original, you know?

His original scheme in this episode, though, is something original and which just about manages to say something about the world. Everyone believes that they're right, and the world descends into chaos because of it. There's a prickly sense of nihilism that pokes out at you while watching this shit unfold, and the RTD who wrote Midnight comes out a little bit here. There's the grim joke of the politician openly stating WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT ANY OF YOU?, and the horrific moment of Kate Stewart letting herself be affected by it and spouting fire at Ruth Madeley's Shirley. That in particular stings because it's far too real, the kind of thing assholes on Twitter were yelling about her just two weeks ago. The Doctor ends it all with a big speech about how, actually, yeah, humanity kind of is the worst, huh? There's a meanness which is unleashed here, a meanness stemming from the Toymaker playing about in this universe. It permeates not just the show, but the world in which it airs. It permeates not just from the Toymaker as a character, but the unfortunate nature of him as a concept from back in 1966. It's enough to break the show in half, and then it does.

There are two ways to look at the bi-regeneration which literally pulls Ncuti Gatwa's new Doctor Who right out of David Tennant. The first, which is what I was falling into when I first saw it, is abject cynicism. This is breaking the show and its rules into little tiny pieces. How the hell can there be two Doctor Whos? Then the realization dawns. We're going to be following the new Doctor Who, and the old Doctor Who gets to retire on Earth. Oh my god. Oh no. Russell, this isn't fair. We had a deal here. 2023 gets to be the Tennant nostalgia year, and then he turns into Gatwa and we move on to something new. If you have him split off and then retire on Earth... the man we've been following for 60 years just sort of gives up and stays in 2023 circa 2008, trapped in amber forever. More than that, you have just created a big shiny red David Tennant button. At any point while the man is still alive (and even beyond with AI, let's be real) the button can be smashed and David Tennant can come back to Doctor Who. The looming threat of remembering 2008 when the show was good is not exorcised with a regeneration. It's left behind, but it will always be there from now on. Forever. Oh dear God.

On the other hand, this is where I need my very own bi-regeneration. Here's the dark truth of it all: I'm mirroring the Tennant Doctor here. My trauma isn't the Flux, or the myriad of people I've lost in thousands of years of time travel. My trauma is the exact thing this episode marinates in. In 2022 I tried to exorcise these horrible feelings of fear and anger from macrocosmic lore bullshit, and now here's The Giggle and it has a mad Toymaker who is himself a continuity reference playing fast and loose and letting the toybox of callbacks spill out. We've got Mel! Trinity Jones! Archangel network reference! The Master's a tooth and a nail polished hand grabs them! Dancing to a funny song! Moffat puppet show and the Flux and Gatwa and Tennant referencing everything together! THE GODDAMN CHEEKY "CELESTIAL" LINE FROM TENNANT TO REFERENCE THE ORIGINAL TOYMAKER STORY! People love this stuff, and chuckle at it. I have my own private little meltdown in my head, and I'm letting a bit of it out on the page for dramatic effect. I have been hurt by this, in my own way. I flinch on reflex at this referential stuff now, thanks to how worn down I've been by all those betrayals of past. All those sci-fi tentpoles which burned me, this show included. Even when it's good now, I'm still wary and hesitant and untrusting. When you're hurt like this, it's hard to trust again.

That's why I envy the Doctor here. I wish another me, free of that trauma, a shining example of me from a future I've not reached yet, could come to me and give me a big hug and say "It's all going to be okay.". All that pain and trauma that the Doctor has felt over those thousands of years is something that he gets to stop running from. He gets to settle down and heal with the people that he loves, in the place that he loves, and every so often he may have another adventure here or there. The Doctor is healed by the Doctor, as symbolic and powerful a healing as Moffat did for him 10 years prior. Maybe Russell learned a thing or two from that special, and took the message to heart. Regardless, there he is. Ncuti Gatwa, the new Doctor Who, imperious and confident and kind, in his TARDIS. Free of trauma, of his anxiety, of the nightmare of losing so many people and the swirl of continuity. Maybe this is the way that we're resetting back to a new Season One. No angst over the Flux, no worries about Adric or Logopolis or the Dalek's Master Plan. No bi-regeneration or Toymaker influence being used as an excuse to bring all the Doctors back and to fully Marvel-ize Doctor Who. 

There's just this guy in a magic box that's bigger on the inside, making the universe a better place one person at a time, and he started with himself. That's lovely, and I wish I could do that for myself. Maybe I will, someday. I've not bi-regenerated, but those two halves of me make this particular whole. There are so many other utopic idealists who have inspired me before, and there will be many others afterwards. Maybe, just maybe, I won't be burned again if I trust this one. Someone once said that hate is always foolish, and love is always kind. So, I'll follow his example. I'll take the hand of that kind man who hugged the Doctor, and look into his eyes and trust him.

Ncuti Gatwa. The new Doctor Who. I want to remember 2024, when the show is new and strange and brilliant.