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Confession #113: I Like In-Doctor-nating Newbs

When I started writing this blog several years ago, I still considered myself a new fan. The original concept of the blog was to talk about the show—particularly the Classic/pre-Hiatus era—from the perspective of someone who’d only “discovered” it ~2.5 years before. It was also less common at that time to see women blogging about Who, so it seemed like a nice little niche I could carve out for myself in fandom writing.

Somewhere along the way, I seem to have morphed into something more akin to Old Guard. I’ll certainly never have the same kind of cred as fans who grew up with the show in the UK, or even those here in the US who had to scramble for access via many-times-copied VHS tapes. (Along those lines, I’m really looking forward to the release of Red White and Who: The Story of Doctor Who in America by Steven Warren Hill et al., due out in less than two weeks.) However, I’ve noticed that as the show evolves and gains new young viewers, I have more in common with those long-term fans than the new.

I think that commonality has much to do with the fact that I am of an age with the fans who grew up with the show. As such, I relate to television in much the same way. Having been raised on 70’s and 80’s television, I don’t find those periods of Doctor Who as foreign or off-putting as many fans of younger generations do. Nor does 60’s Who seem as far out of my norm.

These are things I have to keep in mind when I want to introduce new people to our show. Depending on the kind of television the individual in question is used to, I might have to make different selections or give a different set of preparatory comments.

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Reader Poll Roundup: Series Ten Edition

Every year when I examine the readers’ reactions to the series’s episodes, I have more data from previous years (S7, S8, S9) to compare and contrast, thus giving context to the current year’s ratings. Because I eliminated the zero-star option in all of the Reader Polls this year, I won’t be able to do an “apples to apples” analysis, but will do what I can with what I’ve got.

I’ll begin, as usual, with the average (mean) ratings. For each episode, I multiplied any given star rating (e.g., 5 stars) by the number of votes it got, added the results, and divided that sum by the total number of votes. The relatively even-keeled results are below:

Although the separation between best and worst scores are not as extreme, this year there’s a slightly wider spread in the middle half of the data than last year. The six middle-ranking episodes span a bit more than half a star (0.58), as opposed to S9’s three-tenths of a star. S7’s middle seven episodes were separated by 0.46 stars; S8’s middle half by 0.44. For ease of visualization, here are the S10 ratings from best to worst (note that different colors have been assigned to the episodes between the above and below charts; I couldn’t help that):

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Confession #112: I’m Psyched for Thirteen

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As I scrolled through my news digest from The Washington Post on Sunday around noon, I came across a headline saying that Roger Federer had won an unprecedented eighth time at Wimbledon. “What?” I screeched. “The men’s final is over?”

I scrambled for a new browser tab so I could search for the announcement. If I’d been clever, I’d have gone right to the BBC’s Doctor Who page so I could watch the announcement trailer myself, but I was in too much of a rush. And then—there it was, in picture after picture splashed across my Google results page: the Thirteenth Doctor will be played by a woman. Chibnall actually had the ovaries to break with tradition and cast a woman.

I’m not even sure what sort of noise I emitted; it was enough to make my 11-year-old daughters ask what was up. When I told them they’d announced who would play the next Doctor, they scrambled to look over my shoulder—and started screaming. They jumped up and down. They made their own set of incoherent excitement noises (driving their poor father from the room in a desperate act of self-preservation). I had almost managed to calm them enough to save my own ears when it dawned on them that she’d be number Thirteen—their favorite number(!)—and they went hypersonic again.

Needless to say, our household is on the pro-change side of the equation.

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The Doctor Stands

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Review of The Doctor Falls
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

The fact that I came out of this episode without a bad taste in my mouth pretty much makes it the best Moffat finale ever, as far as I’m concerned. Not to say that it was an over-the-top awesome episode—it was very good, though not great—but it didn’t have the characteristic “tripped at the finish line” feeling I usually get from a Moffat two-part finale.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

Coming off last week’s gut-punch, I was truly worried about how Bill’s story would be resolved. I honestly expected either full-on tragedy (as implied by the end of World Enough and Time) or something out of left field that left me squinting in puzzlement at the screen.

Frankly, I found a combination thereof most likely, e.g., a Frankenstein’s monster replacement body in the same style that Nardole seems to have accumulated parts over his adventures (h/t to Verity! podcast for that thought). You can imagine my unease, then, when the first character we follow in the pre-credits sequence is a young Black girl; my first, disturbing thought was that she would end up providing the body that Bill’s mind would eventually occupy. I cannot fully express my relief that such was not the case.

Given how focused I initially was on Bill, it’s a testament to the execution of this plot that I didn’t feel that everything else—and there was so much else!—was a mere distraction. With five main cast members, there was a lot to cover to keep them all relevant, and damned if Moffat didn’t manage it.

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Science Enough and Horror

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Review of World Enough and Time
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I have got to learn to stop watching the “Next Time” trailers.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

I don’t know who is in charge of deciding what parts of any given episode get put into those trailers, but they come across as if the party responsible has become drunk with power. “Look at all the cool shit that happens this time ’round,” I imagine this person crowing. “Put a little of THAT in there, and watch them come running!”

The trouble is, all that cool shit is the stuff that brings tension to the story—specifically, not knowing that it’s coming is the source of tension. So despite having had publicity about both appearances well before the series started, reminding us in that trailer that we had yet to see either the promised Mondasian Cybermen or Simm Master really ruined the mystery of the episode.

That said, there was a different, truly horrifying sense of tension if one remembered even only the former was involved. And, to be fair, the script telegraphed it pretty hard for anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Cybermen of any era. (I’ll be interested to see what my daughters make of it, when they see it. I refuse to subject them to this without its conclusion at the ready, though.)

For those with a deeper familiarity, other things stand out. All series long we’ve seen parallels to old episodes. This time, I was strongly reminded of Earthshock—not for the plot, but for the fact that the Cybermen are indirectly responsible for the death of someone close to the Doctor (of course, this time the death is a bit more drawn out…). Given that the Fifth Doctor rather glossed over that death, it will be interesting to see how he copes with this one.

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The Breathers of Fresh Air

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Review of The Eaters of Light
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

We’re rapidly winding down the time we have left with what has become one of my favorite TARDIS teams of all time, so I really want to love every episode. We’re also hurtling towards a Moffat series finale. You may be able to spot my dilemma…


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

Aside from the TARDIS-interior scene tacked onto the end of the episode, The Eaters of Light could reasonably have come at pretty much any point in Twelve and Bill’s adventures after she’s come to trust him; e.g., starting from about her fourth episode. (Yes, I know Nardole is part of this crew, but he takes up a Harry Sullivan-shaped slot in my mind. While I’ve come to like him fairly well, and he even has some sort of role to play in the adventure, he remains an afterthought for me (“oh, yeah—him!”) when I envision who is in the TARDIS.) Perhaps that unanchored sense—and, again barring the final scene, the ability mostly to pretend we aren’t charging inexorably toward this Regeneration’s doom—is what helped me enjoy it more than I have the last several.

Right off the bat, we have the lovely sense of an ongoing friendly disagreement coming to a head. In fact, it felt very like a graduate student holding her own against her advisor in an academic argument about her thesis topic/area of expertise. I cannot say enough about how much I adore this dynamic between the Doctor and his Companion. (Come to think of it, as the other TARDIS team vying for first in my personal rankings is Seven and Ace, there may be a trend.) More, I love that there is a very particular reason that the TARDIS has come to this specific time and place.

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The Empire on Mars

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Review of Empress of Mars
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I heard a lot of positive chatter about The Empress of Mars online even before I had the chance to watch it myself. “Gatiss’s best episode ever!” “Another great episode—S10’s going to be hard to beat!” “The writing has been so good this year!” That always makes me nervous, because then there are certain expectations going in that can be difficult for an episode to live up to.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

As someone who’s not a big fan of either Gatiss or the Ice Warriors, I didn’t have very high hopes to begin with. I was therefore not so much disappointed as resigned. The more I watched, though, the angrier I got.

Now I want to be clear that I don’t dislike either creatures or writer. I liked Cold War well enough, and I loved the Easter egg references to The Curse of Peladon here. But setting a story on Mars and then adding in some Victorian soldiers ended up muddying things so much that I was constantly cringing.

One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Doctor Who is the way that—when it’s at its best—it challenges us to stretch outside our usual point of view and consider other ways of looking at even mundane situations. That is, in fact, one of the things I like best about The Unquiet Dead. Unfortunately, although it’s clear Gatiss is trying to do more of that here, he falls horribly short.

In particular, I’m talking about how once the Empress has awoken and the stakes have ramped up, the Doctor tries to talk peace. “The last thing I’m going to do is takes sides,” he says, and then promptly proceeds to do so.

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Even the Kitchen Sink

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Review of The Lie of the Land
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

For an episode that wrapped up a three-part arc, The Lie of the Land was awfully short on denouement. In fact, the first time I watched I was shocked by the “resolution.” In barely longer than two minutes, the Monks bailed, we cut to the Doctor and Bill on campus cheerfully slipping in back into their tutor/student roles, then to a weeping Missy, and BAM!—it’s the “Next Time” trailer. My head spun.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

It’s not just that it was quick, either. While my internal narrative timer was sent waaaay off kilter by the wrap-up pacing, I also got startled by its onset. I suppose we can put a tick in the positive column as I was clearly involved enough to have lost track of time, such that the conclusion seemed to arrive all of a sudden. However, the fact that I didn’t feel like I’d been led to a natural endpoint and was instead quite confused that there wasn’t any more to it doesn’t strike me as a win for either the writing or the execution.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the rushed ending really put me off an episode that already had me giving it a bit of side-eye. It’s kind of a shame, really, as there were some really nice elements, too—but they suffer by association.

As usual, I have nothing but praise for Pearl Mackie’s Bill. Her expressions and reactions to the various extremes of emotion throughout were perfection. My only complaint—which was actually a problem with the writing/editing rather than with either the actor or character—was that after threatening to “beat the sh—” out of Nardole, she let go of that well-deserved anger and sense of betrayal too readily.

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The Story at the Beginning of the Arc

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Review of The Pyramid at the End of the World
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I would be really interested in knowing how the writing work was split between Peter Harness and Stephen Moffat on The Pyramid at the End of the World (TPatEotW), because while it didn’t feel completely Moffat-y, there were some distinctly Moffat qualities to the episode. Specifically, on first viewing, we get to the end and feel like we’ve been on a heckuva ride, but it’s not until we step back and reflect that we realize there were things that didn’t make sense along the way.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

This is one of the features of Moffat’s writing that has consistently frustrated me. It’s wonderful on an immediate, gut level; the audience is easily swept up in the breadth of emotion as the story barrels along. Yet it is only that rapid-fire inevitability of plot development that keeps us from saying, “Hang on—that makes no sense.” We have no time to process the bits that don’t quite jibe, and thus they get swept away in the current of the story and we forget about them until we have clambered back out of the river and notice them swirling in an eddy downstream. Then they keep bobbing around, catching our eyes in a way we simply can’t ignore them any longer.

There were two issues that I specifically felt detracted from the episode in that I-can-ignore-the-niggling-feeling-until-after-the-fact manner. The first was the safety protocols at Agrofuel Research Operations. While I loved watching events at the lab unfold, knowing as I watched that they were what was going to “end” the world (even if I didn’t know for much of the episode precisely how), there were also several moments that left me shaking my head in disbelief.

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In Veritas, Cavum

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Review of Extremis
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

When Extremis came on my screen, I had no way to know what kind of a roller coaster ride I was in for—though probably not in the way you would assume upon reading that sentence.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

Both on the micro and macro scales, my experience of the episode was full of shifting reactions. Outside of the content, I came in with a high level of excitement because for the first time ever, I was watching new Doctor Who fresh out of the box *with my daughters*.

It’s only in the last couple of weeks that I’ve convinced them to give the show a try. They’ve seen it on the screen as I watched, alone or with the Ladies, in years past, but with the exception of a few minutes of (I believe) a Tom Baker serial, neither of them has ever sat down to watch with me. It had been summarily dismissed as “too scary.”

Given that a number of years has passed since then, and that they have both read and watched plenty of scary content in the meantime, they finally agreed to give it a go with me. After The Pilot, they were champing at the proverbial bit for more. (We’ve also watched some of The Sarah Jane Adventures, and there are summer plans for further consumption of both pre- and post-Hiatus episodes.) So when they’d caught up and had the chance to watch the story unfold in “real time” with me, all three of us were excited.

By the time the episode ended, though, we all sat on the couch bemused.

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