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Gallifrey One: Thirty-Second to Midnight — Day Three

Thankfully Sunday got off to a smoother start, and I didn’t feel even slightly rushed as I had on Saturday. As is often the case, with extras like autographs out of the way, my final day of Gally was slated to be a day of panels, spent mostly in Program A.

We began with “Remembering Elisabeth Sladen,” where moderator Steven Schapansky interviewed guests Gary Russell, Sadie Miller (Lis Sladen’s daughter), and Tommy Knight. I figured beforehand that I was going to cry a lot in this one, but it never really drifted into the maudlin at all. At worst, there was a vague sense of sadness at the thought that she’d never really believed she deserved to have the success she’d had as Sarah Jane. It is simultaneously encouraging and heartbreaking to realize that even those we look up to suffer from the kind of imposter syndrome that plagues all of us.

Speaking of imposter syndrome, the next thing on my agenda was the panel about the Master, which I moderated. I swear when I first looked at “You Will Obey Me!” there were five panelists and I was not the mod, so I’m really glad I decided to look over the schedule and make some panel notes on Thursday morning! At any rate, there were three of us on the day, and I feel like I did a serviceable job. The audience seemed to enjoy it, and nothing ever went completely off the rails. Maybe I’ll put my name in the hat to moderate again another year.

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Gallifrey One: Thirty-Second to Midnight — Day Two

Saturday got off to a bit of a rough start, as I slept about two hours later than I had anticipated. Things worked out in the end, though, as (aside from getting my blog post up on time), I still managed to do everything I’d hoped to do before I needed to be anywhere in particular.

Before I was quite ready to move on my own, though, ConBuddy texted to say he’d already gotten in the autograph line we’d agreed to meet at, because it got long really fast. So I saddled up and headed down to the patio to wait together.

In fact, waiting in autograph lines took up pretty much the entire morning. Things thankfully ran more smoothly than they had on Friday morning (I think the con staff was finally up to speed on what did and didn’t work well), but there were still just a lot of folks who wanted these big-name autographs. There were a couple of panels I’d considered going to, but neither was compelling enough that I felt sad to miss them in order to get the autographs I really, really wanted.

Similarly, there was an early afternoon panel I’d been considering, but lunch ran well into that time slot, and I wasn’t feeling any urgency to get to the panel. So my friend group decided to have a little down time before meeting up again later.

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Gallifrey One: Thirty-Second to Midnight — Day One

After two years of essentially holing up inside my house, it feels weird to travel, and I’m suffering some serious cognitive dissonance on this trip. On the one hand, it’s a freaky step outside my COVID comfort zone (people? setting foot in buildings that aren’t my house for more than a couple of hours? madness!). On the other, it feels familiar and joyous.

From waiting at the gate to get on my outbound plane, where I came across a local(ish) Doctor Who friend, it’s felt almost like a regular Gally. The roommate situation is a little sparser than usual, but after I arrived on Wednesday, I got in my visit with my SoCal-based friend whom I only ever get to see when I come for Gally, and the Lobby already had that good ol’ LobbyCon feel.

Thursday my primary ConBuddy arrived, and as he is one of only two close friends who are attending this year (the other didn’t arrive until Friday), and there are no official con events until the opening social on Thursday evening, it was a pretty low-key day of hanging with ConBuddy in between stretches of chilling in my hotel room. We even managed the now-traditional visit to Aliki’s Greek Taverna! Then it was time for the Social.

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Confession #151: I’m Going for It

It’s February again, which means it’s the season for Gallifrey One. When I last blogged about the possibility of going to Gally this year, I don’t think anyone had even heard of the omicron variant yet, but I was still nervous and dubious about the advisability of going to an in-person con by February. I think I was equal parts hoping that things would be vastly better by now and that force majeure would kick in and the con would get canceled again.

But here we are beginning the downward slope of the omicron surge, no force majeure in sight, and just about as much uncertainty about the further spread (and mutation) of COVID as ever. The decision about how to proceed has plagued me for weeks, with some of my best friends deciding definitely to go, and others deciding definitely to stay home. In the end, I’ve decided to go for it.

I think one of the turning points was reading something about how one end of the American political spectrum tends to underestimate the risks involved in the COVID pandemic, and the other tends to overestimate them. As I’m clearly in the latter political camp, that statement made me sit back and think, “Am I being overcautious?”

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Now With More Terror

Review of The Macra Terror (#34)
DVD Release Date: 12 Nov 19
Original Air Date: 11 Mar – 01 Apr 1967
Doctors/Companions: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills
Preceding Story: The Moonbase (Two, Jamie, Ben, Polly)
Succeeding Story: The Faceless Ones (Two, Jamie, Ben, Polly)

Welcome to the first DVD review of 2022! Before I get into the actual review, I’d like to talk about themes.

For the past several years, I’ve had an overarching theme of sorts for these monthly reviews (Highs & Lows, Hidden Gems, Bad Reputation…), and so I wanted another such theme for this year. As I looked over my list of remaining stories to review, though, I realized two key things: (1) there are 17 adventures left for me to review from the Classic era (an awkward prime number at best), and (2) there is no real underlying connection among them.

My eventual conclusion was that my theme could be nothing but a catch-all. Like the final room of a museum from a favorite childhood book, I would label them “Everything Else.” And since they don’t fit nicely into a whole number of years, I’ll simply keep going until they run out.

That takes us midway through 2023. I’ve said before that I don’t know how much longer I’m likely to continue blogging here; Confessions of a Neowhovian is getting pretty long in the tooth as it begins its twelfth year. But with Classic stories still to cover through mid-2023, and a 60th anniversary special to come that November, I think I can safely commit to continuing the blog through its 13th year.

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Countdown to the End Game

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Review of Eve of the Daleks
Warning: This review may contain episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Welcome to year 12 of the blog! I’m not sure how much longer I’ll continue to update (at least through the middle of 2023, but more on that in my second January post), but for now I’m looking forward to continuing to share the journey with you.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2022 BBC

During the Thirteenth Doctor’s tenure, the tradition of a Christmas special has shifted to that of a New Year’s special. This year is no different, though we also get a special countdown to New Year’s in the deal.

In a shocking turn of events, at least on first viewing, the pre-credits sequence shows the Doctor and her friends bolting from the TARDIS as it does a self-reset, only to be confronted by Daleks—and summarily exterminated.

But we all know the Doctor can’t die here and now—she can’t even regenerate, since we know she’s got two more specials to go before that, and her replacement hasn’t been announced—so it’s not a complete surprise when the TARDIS team, not to mention their soon-to-be new acquaintances Sarah and Nick, are back. It’s a little surprising that everyone remembers having been exterminated, but that, of course, makes things all the more interesting.

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Could’ve Been Worse

Review of Arc of Infinity (#124)

DVD Release Date: 06 Nov 07
Original Air Date: 03 – 12 Jan 1983
Doctors/Companions: Five, Nyssa of Traken, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Time-Flight (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Snakedance (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)

The entries for this year’s theme of Highs & Lows end with Arc of Infinity, which is one I never know how to rank. It seems not to have left a strong impression on me one way or the other, aside from the slowly decaying “Doctor” at the end. I guess that makes it more of a personal “Meh” than either a High or a Low.

So I kind of went into my re-watch this time with an open mind. Would it be better than I thought? Worse than I thought? Who knew; I would leave myself open to any possibility.

In the end, I think I came out in roughly the same place as Charlie Jane Anders in her rankings on io9 back in 2015, where she placed Arc of Infinity at #205 of 254 entries, or roughly the 20th percentile. It wasn’t so horrific that I would flinch at the idea of watching it again, but neither did it have much to recommend it.

Primarily, I found that the plot—wherein the Doctor is forcibly recalled to Gallifrey because some as-yet-unidentified extra-dimensional entity has tried to cross dimensions by bonding with the Doctor’s physical form, and the High Council wants to prevent the entity from doing so at any cost—relied so heavily on arcane sci fi elements of Time Lord technology that it was difficult to follow.

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Solid, If Not Perfect

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

I didn’t hate it! I know that sounds like I’m damning The Vanquishers with faint praise, but for the final installment of a multi-parter—especially a series finale—in modern Who, that’s actually a pretty glowing endorsement on my part.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2021 BBC

To use a gymnastics metaphor, this series was attempting a high-difficulty routine with lots of twists, flips, and unexpected combinations. It’s been looking pretty good in the air, but the question we’ve all had on our mind is whether or not it could stick the landing.

I don’t think I can honestly say it felt like a stuck landing to me, but neither did it miss and fall on its ass. There was a little hop there, worth a deduction to the final score, but I’m a little surprised to discover I don’t think it’s worth more than about one tenth of a point.

To analyze how this final installment performed, we need to look at the series as a whole. Way back in the first episode, we got a ton of seemingly disparate story threads thrown at us: Yaz and the Doctor, Karvanista, Williamson, Dan and Diane, Swarm, Azure, Claire and the Angels, Vinder, the Sontarans. Later we added Bel, the Grand Serpent, Jericho, Tecteun (as incarnation of Division), an Ood, and Kate Stewart to the mix. It seemed nigh impossible to tie them all together in a coherent and satisfying way, especially in the context of the overall threat of the Flux.

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Surviving “Flux”

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

I’m starting to wonder whether or not I will be among the survivors of Flux. I really thought the story was rolling along well, going in an interesting direction last week, but this week… Well, at least all the major threads are finally coming together.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2021 BBC

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure last series how I felt about rewriting the Doctor’s history so thoroughly. I like the idea of shaking things up and throwing a spanner in the works, so to speak, but making it so Everything Is About the Doctor™ is less interesting to me. And Chibnall is definitely doubling down on that angle with this year’s Flux storyline.

I haven’t quite put my finger on what changed between part four, where I was all in, and part five, which left me feeling somewhat flat. Perhaps it was the assertion/confirmation of how over-the-top “special” the Doctor is in Chibnall’s version of the show: the entire universe is under attack because of her, and she may or may not even be from our universe!

At least Chibnall has been consistent in switching up the style of each episode. That part I still like. This time we’re flipping from plot thread to plot thread with notations for the various time zones (which, in the case of Yaz and Dan (and Jericho), includes various locations). We come in mid-adventure for Yaz, who is taking on a very Doctor-y role, with Dan and Jericho effectively acting as her Companions. It’s a bit reminiscent of Clara in her later days (somewhat worrying, when I think about it like that…).

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A Much-Needed Breather

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Review of Flux: Village of the Angels
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I have to admit I’m impressed. It can’t be easy to create the stylistic variety from episode to episode that we’re being offered while still telling a singular story. Yet Chibnall (with help this week from co-writer Maxine Alderton) continues to deliver.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2021 BBC

In fact, they delivered not just an extremely atmospheric, gothic, “something’s wrong in a sleepy English village” episode, they also provided us space to breathe. The pace of the first half of this short series has been so break-neck we’ve barely had a chance to look around, let alone speculate freely about what it all means. (Not that we’ve had no time—just not much.)

And there’s something comfortingly familiar about the village of Medderton in 1967, narratively speaking. Whether in Hide or in Amy’s Choice or in The Daemons, we’ve seen this kind of just-a-bit-off village many times before. It’s because of that familiarity that this episode is both relaxing and so effectively frightening.

Now I’ve said before that Doctor Who has never actually scared me, but it definitely provides varying levels of tension, depending on the episode. This one ranked pretty high on my tension scale, with the Angels feeling more threatening to me than they had in a very long time. Perhaps it was because the Angels’ original tendency to make their victims “live to death” (with the new information that “nobody survives it twice”) was combined with the idea that “that which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel”—which they leaned into hard. Whatever made it work so well, Chibnall and Alderton really made the most of the antagonists this time.

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