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So Long, and Thanks for All the Dish

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With the dawning of a new era in Doctor Who comes the end of Confessions of a Neowhovian.

I will admit that the preceding sentence makes me a little verklempt. I’ve been writing this blog continuously for thirteen years—the first five of them weekly—and it has become a part of my identity. But as I explained elsewhere when asked why I was planning to retire the blog, I am Le Tired.

It takes a lot of mental energy to decide on a topic and write a blog post, and as the years drag on, I feel like I have less and less of interest (or at least new) to say. I find myself most interested, and seem to get the most engagement from readers here, when I can talk about a new episode that has just dropped, but especially these last few years, those have been relatively few and far between.

And I’ve covered all the (surviving) Classic episodes now, in one capacity or another. The only episodes I haven’t touched on are parts of Tennant’s Tenth Doctor era (notably, all of Martha’s run in Series Three; that’s rather an oversight on my part). I could keep limping along another year, finally doing Martha some justice and covering Ncuti Gatwa’s first series, but… it’s all become more of a chore than a joy.

So it’s time for me to stop.

There are other creative pursuits I’d like to give more of my attention (notably, my fiction writing; if you’re interested, I do have one published short (flash) story in Nature: Futures, under my pen name). As I’m sure you can imagine, fiction writing also takes a lot of mental energy. There were times this last year when I would’ve liked to spend what few spell slots I had working on my latest novel instead of on blogging, but I made a commitment to myself and my potential readers thirteen years ago, and I wasn’t going to break that commitment.

As my personal life evolves in 2024, with aging parents needing more care and maturing offspring heading off to college in the fall, I hope that my love for Doctor Who will also continue to evolve and grow. I look forward to continuing to share ideas and opinions with other fans, both in person (I will continue to attend Gallifrey One!) and online (I’ll leave the blog’s Facebook page open, at least for now). I’ll miss this space, where I could dish my own favorite little tidbits of fan theory, but the moment has been prepared for.

Thank you for joining me on this amazing journey over the last thirteen years.

Marcia Franklin
The Neowhovian

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Follow the Ruby Church Road

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Review of The Church on Ruby Road
Warning: This review may contain episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Welcome to the Ncuti Gatwa era proper! In case you haven’t actually watched The Church on Ruby Road before reading this (admittedly unlikely), let me just start with a Content Warning for child endangerment. If “‘Rule #1: Don’t lose the baby.’ Hijinks ensue” is your jam, you’ll probably enjoy that aspect of the episode. However, if that kind of thing cranks up your anxiety (which, until I was watching, I didn’t realize it did for me), it might be nice to know going in.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2023 BBC

Aside from the unexpected maternal alarm the episode gave me, though, it was great fun to have a proper Christmas special again. We haven’t had one since Capaldi’s regeneration in 2017’s Twice Upon a Time—though we did have four episodes on New Year’s Day, after the twelve Christmas episodes that opened the modern era. (Anyone else feeling old now that I mention that “new” Who launched nearly nineteen years ago?)

Most of the holiday specials we’ve had over the years have been standalones neither tying off loose ends of a story nor launching a new, series-long plot arc, though there are obviously exceptions. But I think we will likely find in the long run that there is more in The Church on Ruby Road to set the stage for the upcoming series than is immediately obvious.

Perhaps highest on the list of statistically likely elements is the question of Ruby’s parentage. On first viewing, we may think that she simply won’t ever know anything about her birth mother (or at least the woman who left her at the eponymous church, who may or may not be related to her, let’s be honest). But if you go back and listen carefully to that pre-credits voiceover, you’ll hear the Doctor say that “No one ever knew her name until that night a time traveller came to call.” In other words, the Doctor knows her name.

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Sheer Glee

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Review of The Giggle
Warning: This review may contain episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I’m not sure I’ve ever come out of a Doctor Who episode feeling simultaneously so shocked and so delighted. I’m not entirely sure how he managed, it but RTD has broken everything we thought we knew about regeneration and made us love it. He has every right to feel smug about doing something unexpected.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2023 BBC

In case it’s not clear, I loved this episode. Probably my biggest point of contention with it is the title (which sounds ridiculous). It makes me feel almost apologetic to my readers, because I don’t think I’m going to be able to be even the slightest bit objective this time.

From the Doctor having a “team” again to the return of a Hartnell-era villain to That Plot Twist, I was an eager rider on this roller coaster. While several things settled into the back of my mind for further inspection, none of it spoiled my enjoyment.

Perhaps foremost in my mind is the presence of the Vlinx, the random alien working with UNIT. Everyone takes the Vlinx in stride—including the Doctor—and doesn’t bother to question the Zeedex that the Vlinx has provided to UNIT to combat the titular threat. Even when Kate Stewart rages against the Doctor’s alienness under the influence of “the spike,” no one bats an eyelash at the presence of the Vlinx. I can’t believe that won’t come back at some point in the upcoming series.

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Divisive Doubles

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Review of Wild Blue Yonder
Warning: This review may contain episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Perhaps even more than usual, the second of RTD’s three 60th Anniversary Specials polarized the audience. Fan reactions I’ve seen online seem to be either effusive in their praise or full of vitriol. Little ground appears in between.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2023 BBC

I can certainly see why the detractors didn’t like Wild Blue Yonder—among other things, I suspect it didn’t meet some extremely high expectations in one or another particular way. But I found it to be interesting and entertaining, with no more than the usual flaws that make me grit my teeth and plug my metaphorical ears, singing, “La la la! I can’t heeeeear yooooou!” to drown out the objections my astronomer’s brain raises (which I’ll share later anyway, so you can suffer along with me).

One of the things that I found most intriguing, enjoyable, and downright impressive, really, was the fact that with the exception of an introduction and an epilogue, the entire episode was just Tennant and Tate. Much like Capaldi demonstrated his acting chops in Heaven Sent, when he put in a frankly stunning solo performance, our two leads carry the episode between them with their fantastic chemistry and considerable skill.

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Starting Sweet, But a Bitter Finish

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Review of The Star Beast
Warning: This review may contain episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Going into this run of 60th Anniversary Specials, it had been a full thirteen months since the last new episode of Doctor Who aired. Such a gap is enough to whet any fan’s appetite, but add in the return of a hugely popular lead actor to the role of the Doctor, a well-regarded but hard-done-by Companion, and the first modern-era showrunner, and you have a recipe for ratings records.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2023 BBC

But was the episode really that great? As always, it’s a matter of opinion. But for my money (and yes, this time that’s literal, since I had to overcome my four-year resistance to giving The Mouse any of my money for streaming), there was a lot more in the positive column than the negative. I’m calling it a win.

The biggest element of this special is having a Tennant Doctor and Donna Noble back together. On one hand, that’s great—I adore Donna and was really crossing my fingers they’d finally do right by her after the terrible, awful, no good, very bad way they ended her time on the TARDIS. (More on that later.) On the other hand…

Okay. Time for an unscheduled (though not new) Confession: I’m one of those fans who doesn’t care for the idea of Tennant returning as the Doctor outside of a multi-Doctor scenario. To me it smacks of pandering in a way that bringing back former Companions or creatures or what-have-you does not. I suppose my reaction stems in part from the sense that fans from one of those No One Will Ever Be As Good As My Doctor camps are being appeased, such that future objections to some new “not right” Doctor will be all the louder. “They brought Tennant back; why not My Doctor?”

We don’t know yet why the Doctor’s old face has returned—that’s the story-arc mystery that will presumably be revealed before Ncuti Gatwa finally makes his entrance—so I guess we can’t answer that hypothetical future Entitled Fan’s question. And I continue to reserve judgement on Tennant’s lead actor status until I learn the in-universe reason. (I recently learned that the production reason was that Gatwa’s shooting schedule didn’t allow him to begin in time for the 60th, and so this was the stop-gap. Somehow I’m more willing to accept it all, knowing that.)

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Confession #169: I Wonder What It’s Like to Be the Doctor

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Regular readers will know that I’m something of a spoilerphobe. Try as I may, though, a few things always slip through the cracks and make their way to me. Usually these things are along the lines of casting news I’ve had preferred to have been surprised by or similar items, though occasionally a bigger spoiler leaks through.

More often than not, the details that filter down to me are not really a big deal; most people would likely consider them fair game, as they almost invariably originate from official Doctor Who publicity channels. I sigh quietly to myself that I’ve not avoided whatever little fact it is, and go on with my day. But sometimes what I stumble across actively delights me.

Case in point: this recent brief article from SFX Magazine in which once-and-future Doctor David Tennant praises the upcoming performance of Ncuti Gatwa. Reading that both gave me warm fuzzy feelings about the apparent camaraderie in the exclusive club of those cast as the Doctor and increased my own anticipation of Ncuti’s turn in the role even more (something I hadn’t realized was possible).

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The Most Important Woman in the Universe

Review of Turn Left / The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End

With this set of three episodes, we have reached the end of our Series Four journey (see what I did there?). While, if I’m being honest, I didn’t remember as many details from them as I thought I might, they are definitely, as a collective whole, the episodes that made the most lasting impression on me from this series.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2008 BBC

In particular, Turn Left, the nominal single episode that leads directly into two-part series finale, stands out to me as one of the best episodes of the entire RTD1 era. Although it still has some flaws, like some regrettable Asian stereotyping (and at least one Chinese character that I’m pretty sure was only half a character, but I had to stop myself from further research to confirm my suspicion after the first fifteen minutes), it is overall a brilliant piece of television.

The whole premise is another take on the butterfly effect, this time focusing on how extremely important Donna is to the universe—or, in fact, the multiverse—as a whole. By changing one tiny decision, Donna alters the fate of all reality.

Before I talk about that cascade of events, I want to mention that one of the things I’d forgotten was how much the fortuneteller got Donna to spill. Without Donna verbally guiding her to the specific inflection point that could prevent her from ever meeting the Doctor, the fortuneteller never could have implemented her plan. (And here we find another flaw: what was the fortuneteller’s motivation? Was she hired by someone? Who?)

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Confession #168: I Have Mixed Feelings About Quitting

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Last week, Gallifrey One announced their first block of guests for next February’s convention. Obviously, the headliners are yet to come, but the fact that they started out with Alex Kingston (aka River Song), Lalla Ward (Romana II), and Whittaker-era composer Segun Akinola bodes well. It’s especially nice that they were finally able to book Kingston again after she had to cancel her 2015 appearance at the last minute.

However, thinking ahead to the next Gally has reminded me of the blog’s planned obsolescence, which is causing me to experience some mixed feelings. I was less than a year into my blogging career when I first heard about Gallifrey One and decided that it sounded like a cool thing to try. When the call for panelists came, and I threw my hat in the ring, I was extremely gratified that my credentials as a blogger were enough to help them decide to let me sit on a panel. I even made ribbons—at my first con!

I have never attended Gally when I wasn’t an active blogger. It has been my habit for over a decade to slip out of my hotel room in the morning (time zones are such a pain in the ass) to sit in the Lobby with my Starbucks breakfast and type out a blog post about the preceding day. It serves as much as a diary for me as it does as a way to share the con experience with my readers, but it’s also kind of a grounding ritual. Sitting quietly and reviewing the awesome things I experienced the previous day helps me stay in the present moment of Gally.

The prospect of a Gally without a blog is… perplexing. On one hand—as I’ve alluded to above—who am I at Gallifrey One if not a blogger, a journal-er, a reporter of my experiences? On the other hand, the prospect of being free from that obligation, of having one less task hanging over my head, buoys my spirit more than I had realized it would. I’m simultaneously sad at the thought of no longer having that record and relieved that I can just relax and enjoy the con.

Maybe that’s natural, though. Change is generally hard for humans, and transitions are particularly difficult for those of us with some kind of neurodivergence. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m finding the prospect of doing something differently at Gally to be challenging. I just have to embrace the novelty, and celebrate a new chapter. Even without my readers.

More than two years ago, I shared that I was to have a part in a project that let me explore a different angle on a Classic story. I’m pleased to announce that Outside In Regenerates, in which I have an essay, is now available for pre-order at ATB Publishing. Fittingly, it is due to be released on 23 November 2023, the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of Doctor Who.

The essay is in no way perfect—among other things, I could probably have gone on longer about the somewhat controversial premise I was arguing if I’d had the space—but I hope that at the least, it gives readers something different to think about. I hope you will consider supporting ATB in both this and its other wonderful publications.

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On Silence and Silencing

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Review of Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead / Midnight

I feel I should reiterate right off the top that I have never been a big River Song fan. From this first time we met her, when I found her foreknowledge of the Doctor off-putting rather than intriguing, through the entirety of her on-screen adventures with the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, she just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. That is not least due to the fact that I have always hated the idea of the Doctor having a spouse, someone who is just so extra special to them, even more so than any of the dear friends they take along on their travels.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2008 BBC

But I have to say, I can see why the Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead two-parter rates so highly with so many fans—especially once the audience can share some of River’s perspective. Everything hits just a little bit differently than it did the first time.

Obviously, when these episodes first aired, it was all a clever conceit, leaning heavily on the idea of “nostalgia for the future.” What if the Good Old Days weren’t really the best ever? What if the Doctor was even more awesome in a future incarnation?

It does make for some interesting character dynamics. While the Doctor still gets to be the cleverest person in the room, he doesn’t have a monopoly on knowing best how to take charge of a dangerous situation or to problem solve, because River is there. And, of course, the fact that River recognizes Donna—but only by name—hints at a departure the effects of which we are still feeling to this day.

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Confession #167: I’m Psyched for a Queer Doctor

A couple of weeks ago, in an interview published by Elle UK, incoming Doctor Ncuti Gatwa referred to himself as queer. Or, to be more precise, referred to someone he met at a Pride event as “another queer Rwandan person.” We already knew that Ncuti was breaking new ground in Doctor Who in terms of racial representation, but this new perspective on what Ncuti brings to the lead role is even more thrilling. We get to have a queer Doctor.

Granted, the character may or may not express that aspect of identity. Obviously, I personally would love to see them do so, but even if they don’t (aside from the non-binary pronouns Ncuti consistently uses when referring to the Doctor), merely having a queer actor in the role will affect how the character is presented. Just as much as every viewer brings their own perspective (and baggage) to a story, so do the artists portraying the various characters bring something of themselves to a performance.

Of course, as always, much of how it all plays out on screen is down to the writers of the various episodes. There is only so much any one artist can do with what they’re given on the page (as we’ve seen often enough in the past, with Elisabeth Sladen and Colin Baker being some of the most prominent examples)—as the old saw in computing goes, “garbage in, garbage out.”

But it’s actually fairly rare that I would consider a modern Doctor Who script be worthy of such an epithet. Further, I am optimistic that the recent overall trend of bringing in more diverse scriptwriters will continue, which in turn will give Ncuti and his fellow artists more to work with. I think there is a very good chance that there are plenty of good stories on their way.

Even so, I need to contain my excitement and temper my expectations. Just as Jodie could not represent every woman out there when she became the Doctor, neither can Ncuti be the “one true” non-white person or the “one true” queer person. We need more stories both created by and about a wider cross-section of humanity for this very reason.

Since we’re used to seeing a wide range of white, heterosexual, cisgender male characters on our screens, we don’t automatically assume that either a lawful-good hero or a chaotic-evil villain (or any type in between) represents the whole of that demographic. How can one character possibly be, or one actor possibly portray, the entirety of any demographic? People are complex, messy creatures, and more than anything I hope that our first queer Doctor continues to be that kind of fabulously complicated, quirky mess of a person. That is, after all, a big part of why we love them.

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