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Month: December 2023

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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