new-nu-Who: RTD2 (Doctor Who on telly 2023-?)

Great critique tho I'm not sure I was feeling more than 'It was good, I liked it' myself, certainly if the trade-off was for greater spectacle than what 'Midnight' offered.

the gusto and delight that tate and tennant take in each other is so great

Me too!

― JimD

nah the spoiler tag only spoils one paragraph, for spoilers longer than one para you have to do a new tag for each para :(

or put a space on the empty lines between paragraphs

oooh i'ma try that and see if it works

OK. I've slept on it. I'm going to try and reflect back what I saw and heard yesterday.

The Doctor and Donna arrive on a spaceship. There's nobody else there. They're in danger. That's all they know. That's all we know.

My favorite parts of classic Who were the first episodes. Classic Who had a tendency to be... glacially paced. Often the Doctor and his companions wouldn't even meet or get involved with any of the other characters in the first episode. In some cases, like "The Edge of Destruction" or "The Ark in Space", there wouldn't be any other characters at all in the episode. Those were my favorites. I didn't really care about whatever drama was happening on some alien planet to some boring humans. I liked _not knowing_ what was going to happen any more than the TARDIS crew did. I liked the sense of uncertainty and unease.

When I was in my 20s I worked for a while in a warehouse. 12 hour shifts, three days in a row. I was the only one there. I was there in case there was an emergency and somebody called and needed something from the warehouse. Nobody ever did. I thought it would be a perfect job for me. I was an introvert and didn't get along with other people.

It was not a perfect job for me. In that empty, silent, cavernous, brightly lit (the lights turned on automatically wherever I went) place with nothing to do - I wasn't allowed to bring in anything from outside because it might be a "security risk" - I started to feel like I wasn't alone. Like there was something else there.

Time and again in Doctor Who, the Doctor would come up against a doppelganger of himself. Maybe it was an evil Time Lord with a goatee who listened to King Crimson. Maybe it was an imperious prosecutor in the ridiculous robes that passed for "gravitas" among his people. Maybe it was a cynical snarker with a ridiculous bowtie who called himself the "Dream Lord".

I can't remember Donna ever coming up against a doppelganger of herself.

One of the things most associated with Doctor Who, next to cheap special effects, is corridors. Endless corridors. Whenever they needed to pad out the episode, they'd just run through some corridors. Well, the same corridor, shot from different angles. Over and over again. In liminal spaces, all corridors are the same. The studios where the show was shot weren't nearly as spacious as the places they depicted. The titular "Ark in Space" seemed to be a vast, empty ship. The set was bigger than the show's usual studio sets, but a lot of it was the brilliant set design of Roger Murray-Leach, who did things like using mirrors to make it look as though the pods full of people in suspended animation extended up hundreds of feet.

I've had a great deal of opportunity to think about body horror and what it means to me. For me, it has a lot to do with mirrors. It's not about who we are. It's how we _see ourselves_. My arms are too long. My hands are too small. I can't get the jaw right. I have the brow ridge of a caveman. Sometimes we look at ourselves and see these distorted, grotesque _monsters_.

When I think of monsters out of shape, out of proportion, I think of "Flatline". The Doctor has become tiny, Clara is normal-size, and they're running through tunnels trying to talk to _communicate_ with these creatures, _talk_ to these creatures, who aren't _like_ us. Who exist only in two dimensions. And they try the best they can to communicate with the creatures, to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the creatures keep trying to hurt them. The creatures never communicate back. Never say why they're doing it. So when the Doctor is back to normal size, when he's come back through the looking-glass, he gives the creatures a monster's name and he destroys them.

The Doctor and Donna's shadow selves tell the Doctor and Donna where they came from and what they're doing. They're traumagenic. The war, the suffering, and the pain made them who they are. The love letters, they say, didn't reach them.

But they know what a love letter is, don't they?

The Doctor and Donna are on one side of a bulkhead. Their shadows are on the other. They shadows are learning. The Doctor (or Donna - the two are more alike than they are different, here) observes that an hour ago, they would have smashed through the bulkhead. They've become more like the Doctor and Donna.

I _know_ these monsters. I've lived with my own version of this monster for decades. There's this creature that knows everything I know, can do everything I can do. My equal in every respect. And it hates me. It wants me dead. The only way I can destroy it is to destroy myself.

I can relate pretty strongly to what the Doctor and Donna are experiencing at this point. Their thoughts are racing. They're spiraling. The faster they think, the stronger the shadows become. Slow down, the Doctor says. Slow down your thinking. Don't think of anything at all. Not even Mister Meringue.

At this point I'm yelling at the screen for them to use their TIPP skills. Literally I'm shouting "PAIRED MUSCLE RELAXATION!" like I'm watching a horror movie and the killer's behind the door. It does seem that sometimes the Doctor forgets things between incarnations. The Third Doctor had lots of practice in Buddhist meditation. He was a lot more able to slow himself down.

The Doctor and Donna's minds are racing so fast that... it doesn't seem like they've had the opportunity to take in the implications of what's happening, in its fullest sense. Their shadows, these creatures shut out, cut off from all light, all warmth, all hope, see what is happening where the Doctor and Donna are and they are filled with hate. They want to destroy it. They want to destroy all of it. Everything the Doctor and Donna love.

At the same time, they are becoming more and more like the Doctor and Donna. And the Doctor and Donna do, in fact, love. It can be easy for them to forget that. Easy for them to define themselves by some of the things they have done. Tennant's Doctor, for instance, showed the Family of Blood the fury of the Time Lord. You know what he did to the girl, right? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror.

She let the girl out later. Most people probably don't know that. The girl didn't apologize. The girl said she had nothing to apologize for. I guess I agree. The girl was a child. She was doing what she'd been taught to do. Guilt or blame have nothing to do with what she did. So the Doctor smashed the mirror and let the girl out. Even though the girl sneered at her, even though the girl told her she would do all sorts of horrible things if the Doctor let her out, and it would all be the Doctor's fault. She let the girl out anyway, and took the girl home, and the girl wanted to eat the Doctor's face but didn't. That didn't happen on TV, but it happened. The Doctor would probably remember it happened, if he gave himself the time. If he gave himself permission.

All over the universe, people are afraid of the Doctor. They say the Doctor brings death and destruction and ruin in her wake. He is a bad omen. And Donna? Well, the Family of Blood did not fear the Doctor. Similarly, humans who are cruel as the Family of Blood is cruel do not fear Donna. Because they are foolish. Donna said it herself. She would burn down the world to protect her child.

The Doctor and Donna's shadows, the traumagenic shadows, they're twisted reflections of those desires. Of that fury, that hatred. The Doctor and Donna look at those shadows and they believe. The shadows would do this, if they were to get free, because they believe this about themselves. The Doctor and Donna believe that they would destroy everything they loved. So the shadows cannot be. They must be destroyed. Slow down? No. They will speed up. They will put themselves at risk, in mortal peril, to destroy these monsters. Before it's too late.

Ah, but what if they had slowed down? What might they have discovered? The shadows know what love letters are. Did they know what love letters are a year ago? Two? These shadows know everything the Doctor and Donna know. Feel everything the Doctor and Donna feel.

The Doctor talks about a paradox within Donna, where she thinks she's stupid but at the same time thinks of herself as being frightfully intelligent. I know this paradox. I've lived this paradox. In me, I don't think it's a paradox at all. The heart of the paradox is believing that I exist in a state of _exception_. If I'm better than everyone else, then I don't deserve the kindness and grace that other people do. I'm better, and therefore what's good enough for others isn't good enough for me. If I'm worse than everyone else, than I don't deserve kindness at all - I am rotten, foul, detestable. Whichever direction the exception is made in, the result is the same.

Donna hates herself. The Doctor hates himself. That's what I saw when I watched the show. I don't know if that's true, but that's what I saw.

The Doctor and Donna love each other. Last episode Doctor said Donna was his best friend in the whole wide universe. He talks like that now. And that's important because the shadows aren't the only mirrors in the episode. The Doctor and Donna are mirrors to each other. So many times people have said to me, "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you." They _could have_. If they'd waited. If they'd slowed down. They fucking _could have_. When the shadows truly became like the Doctor and Donna they _wouldn't_ have destroyed everything the Doctor and Donna loved. They would have _loved_ what the Doctor and Donna love, the _way_ the Doctor and Donna love it. That's what it _means_ to become.

There is no DoctorDonna. Donna let that go. There is the Doctor, and there is Donna, and they see each other, they love each other. With that love, that love and time, they would - not could, _would_ - learn to love themselves.

But instead they sped things up so they could blow up the monsters. It didn't work. Of course it didn't work, though it looked nice on TV. You can't blow up your shadow, any more than you can run from it. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor muses. He lied to them. He lied to them, because it would stop them. It didn't stop them. They _learned_. He wonders if maybe he made a mistake. And when he takes Donna back to earth, he finds a world where we have all become monsters. Where we all destroy each other.

I don't think it's that he lied to them. I don't think it's anything to do with him personally at all, really. The lie that really matters, the lie that causes the most pain, is the one he tells himself.

I don't know if that's what happened or not. That's just what I saw.

ratingswatch for Star Beast: 7-day fourscreen at 7.61m (220k on other devices), making Dr Who 10th-most-watched episode of the week (Bake Off at 11), the third-most-watched programme (after four episodes of I'm A Celebrity My Name Is Nigel Farage, two of Strictly Cumdancing, and three more of I'm A Celebrity) of the week, and the third-most-watched scripted series of 2023. 4th-largest timeshift for Who ever. BBC3 linear repeat not counted, but Doctor Who Confidential Unleashed got 468k on Three and c. 650k on One.

ratingswatch for Wild Blue Yonder: only dropped 250k on overnights from week before, AI of 83, was 11th overall and top scripted show for the week on overnights, had a 34.2% live share (peaked at 41% and 6.3m), was 1.6m more than the BBC slot average, Unleashed had 5x the BBC3 slot average.

I think this could be my favourite console room design of all time. Just breathtaking.

Fun again. NPH excellent.

Felt the Toymaker was dealt with too quickly in the scramble to get to the super feels of the last 15.

I would've maybe had the gold tooth fall off the building and be picked up off the ground by someone we could see as that bit was so knowingly a nod to Last Of The Time Lords as to be groanworthy. Be cool if it was Missy rescuing herself tho.

Amazing, 10/10, peak RTD (that spice girls scene my god!) and I loved it.

https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-features/part-missing-adventure-the-celestial-toymaker-to-be-completed-with-new-animation

I don’t know whether this is really what’s happened but I love the idea that until now there’s been a sense of “well it’d be nice to do an animated version of this story but, you know, we can’t because it’s just too fkn racist” and that RTD has now come along and said “hold on, I can fix that! Let’s make the toymaker himself racist! And then that’ll explain all the racism in the original story and make it safe to release again!”. It doesn’t quite make sense but it makes enough sense, it’s just an endearingly audacious retcon, and clearly comes from such a place of love that it’d feel super churlish to start picking holes in it.

And in that context, again, the spice girls scene! Because yes OF COURSE this version of the toymaker would be drawn THAT specific spice girls song!

yeah that pretty much ruled

<3

all the bits about salt and superstition in this and the last episode was a nice reminder that RTD is a massive fan of Supernatural lol

ncuti is such a joy on screen

bigeneration for the bi generation

so the first black doctor gets relegated to being only half of the current drs

not half - same doctor, different time. It’s implied that when 14 finally goes, after all the healing he gets with Donna and family, he’ll still end up regenerating into 15 in 2023 (“doing rehab out of order”) . I thought it was a convenient way to get past all the emoness of the previous seasons so that the new era can start fresh.

but yeah, i can see how it’s nagl to be doing it here, and the thought they will always be keeping Tennant around somehow

I did side eye Donna’s “do you come in a range of colours?” though… like she has a black husband and daughter, wtf RTD

What a surprisingly fun set of episodes. Enjoyed Tennant a lot more as 14 than 10, and was pleased he’s been given an excuse to stick around.

It ain’t feel to me like the new one is a “half-doctor”, more like he’s a new number one.

Enjoyed the completely uncommented upon lack of trousers.

*it didn’t

by far the best of the three tho share the view that the celestial toymaker matter, which was beautifully set up, was squandered somewhat, and resolved weakly.

still, loved ncuti gatwa’s freshness, poise and intent - his fairly brusque dismissal of dr and d and wanting to get on with things was perfect.

The fake accents were a nice way of getting around the racism of the 60s character.

I think it's a good thing that doctor who has largely avoided this type of god-character -- but one special episode in 20 years is a nice change of pace.

At some point I said “are they going to let him put on some pants?” and my partner said “ I hope not”

i love that it went unaddressed the whole time

Well, he was wearing British pants!

i love that it went unaddressed the whole time

they each had half the clothes, nothing to address!

Pleasing that he kept his Scottish accent.

they each had half the clothes, nothing to address

Wait so Tennant was commando?

cmon we were all thinking it

Fifteenth got the raw deal there.

lmao

The weird thing is Neil Patrick Harris has already played the Emcee in Cabaret (because of course he has), so I didn't understand why we got an audition-roll for it.

Actually the weird thing is that at no point during this story setting up a spare Tennant Who free to live their life, does anyone mention that they already already have one? Particularly Donna! she was there, it'll be the last thing she remembers.

I agree Ncuti Gatwa started off strong, established himself well - from "I have bigenerated - there's no such thing" onwards I thought he's got the stuff - more direct than Tennent, who would have stuck in "uh, the thing is" in there.

Hard not to view the new-series companion and the old-series companion literally pulling Doctor Who apart as some kind of metaphor, but - for what?

The "He's present in every screen" reminded me of the position about Doctor Who being fantasy in sci-fi clothes - the sonic screwdriver never not a magic wand.

Noticed that rtd is following the first season in episode order: present day britain, then far future, then haunted house. Although this one also borrowed the s2 gatiss episode with the killer tvs.

Wonder where they're going with mavity and the cab replacement word.

Nitpicks: the "everyone thinks they're right nowadays!" virus and the Doctor's speech about how us humans are always doing a cancel culture, the eyes they rolled. Thankfully this subtext was quickly ignored for the rest of the ep.

At one point I did double-take on whether Logie-Baird was actually Gatiss again in his beloved prosthetics.

I loved the 'Spice Up Your Life' bit but curious that RTD went with such a golden oldie given previous forays into this kind of thing used something more contemporary (Rogue Traders, Scissor Sisters). Not that I could proffer a worthy equivalent from recent years myself.

bit on the nose but Dua Lipa’s Hallucinate obvs (bonus points if it’s the BBC remix)

can i be the voice of opposition about the musical number shoe-horned into the episode? thanks. the lip sync wasn't even good (plus he was singing all the parts himself...)

(he said in the after show thing that he wasn't familiar with it, being American and all)

I enjoyed the song! I enjoy all the classic "RTD annoys Ian Levine" moves.

Note: If you're going to build a really big gun, don't build it to TURN BACK ON YOUR OWN BUILDING

lol let's say The Toymaker just manipulated it so it could

was it an in joke for fans that Mel the computer programmer was there and they needed a computer program... and so Donna coded it up?

Donna was the hyper-typer so that made sense in the moment.

I also laughed every time Tennant said "the vlinx" with total sincerity, it was very cute

In general I like this pivot (finally!) away from Watchmen-style "how would this be if it really happened, it would probably be DARK" to "fuck it let's have fun with it"

Chibnall and Nathan-Turner were probably the worst offenders with this approach, although I guess Nathan-Turner did a lot of "fuck it let's have fun", just very badly

RTD1 and Moffat tend to be better measured episode-by-episode because they're so gleefully all over the map

One thing about The Toymaster in this is that he seemed wholly uninterested in playing games unless someone forced him to; I thought his whole thing was about putting people into games that could/would kill them nit, not goofily torturing people until they forced him into a game.

That said, the goofy torture was very fun to watch

lol that was a bit myxlplytkian, like he’s this all powerful reality shifter with one extremely well known method of just forcing him into a situation where he holds no advantage

presumably he's off the leash in this new universe, compared to his own realm (and he cites mind games as a particularly human thing)

(plus he was singing all the parts himself...)

note that they carefully excluded one particular line, even though this version of the Toymaker was extensively calibrated to contextualise the racist elements of the first serial

so the first black doctor gets relegated to being only half of the current drs

tbf the previous black doctor was also only half of the current doctors (and the very first white-passing one was so relegated that they brought in an extra fake white one to reduce him to only one quarter of them in the anniversary special). also in both the first and second regeneration stories ever, future incarnations of regenerating timelords ran around interacting with their current selves. and this is the third time that there has been a bonus David Tennant doctor sharing the timeline with a current doctor.

ratingswatch: dropped less than 250k from WBY on overnights, tied for highest AI in the last decade*, this run of specials has the highest average AI since Series 7B.

*with Mummy, Flatline, Dark Water and WEAT.

7-day for Wild Blue Yonder projected to be 7.1M on TVs, again around 200k on devices.

Yeah but he isn’t playing mind games, he’s just killing people like a superpowered version of The Joker

in order to FUCK PPL UP MAN (including you, pwned by the NPHmaker)

Star Beast ratingswatch: two days RTD said it was up to 8.7 million, and today on instagram said 9.0. That puts it, on 19 days, higher than the +28 for anything since Rosa (Chibnall's third episode, October 2018).

(Chibnall's debut, on 11.46, was the highest consolidated since +28 started being recorded with Last Christmas.)

7-day for Wild Blue Yonder projected to be 7.1M on TVs, again around 200k on devices.

7.142M - beaten by I'm A Celebrity stripped and Saturday Strictly; beat the Sunday Strictly and the Bake Off final. 9th most watched episode, 3rd most watched programme for the week. TV-only details: 2.752M live, 2.118 catchup same night, 1.992 same week and a 41% share.

Star Beast is the 9th (behind all of Happy Valley, and two of Death In Paradise), and WBY the 22nd, most watched episode of drama on +7 for 2023, and Star Beast's 28 only expires at the Christmas weekend, so we might see timeshift on the other two leap up after Xmas special tx.

Is +28 the ratings in the first 4 weeks?

maybe i should have paid more attention since i didn't understand half of this episode. i guess it's using the crack in time to do its version of it's a wonderful life? but the character never regretted their life so it just seems odd.

Yeah the goblin storyline seemed very poorly thought through - RTD spent all his narrative logic on the specials.

Ncuti is top though.

I liked all three of the Tennant episodes, but found something off about this one, the goblin song was really bad, just sounded very generic and unimaginative. Ncuti was great throughout, yes.

Christmas specials have always been so-so? The first ever Tennant one is the only I can remember liking that much.

Most of Moffat’s were great, a few were big flops. (Chibnall of course didn’t do any.) Rusty’s were usually an excuse to make even less joined-up sense than usual.