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Tag: Ten

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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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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Mixed Memories

Review of The Doctor’s Daughter / The Unicorn and the Wasp

There are only two episodes in this month’s segment of my Series Four re-watch, and they make for an interesting contrast. While my pre-viewing memories of one were fairly clear and complete, the other episode was much muddier in my mind than I’d realized.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2008 BBC

If you had asked me a few months ago, before I started thinking about Series Four again for this review series, I would have told you that The Doctor’s Daughter included the Tenth Doctor, Jenny—someone grown nearly instantly from a genetic sample from the Doctor—and Martha. I don’t think I would even have remembered that Donna is in the episode.

I can’t pinpoint exactly why Donna’s role had so thoroughly slipped my mind. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, really, because her contribution is huge. But somehow my mind fixated on Martha’s relationship with the Hath soldier instead. [Spoiler alert] The death of Peg obviously struck me hard on first viewing, because along with all the images of Jenny tumbling through a laser field and of human and Hath soldiers fighting each other for “generations,” that is probably the single biggest detail that sticks in my mind from The Doctor’s Daughter.

It’s unfortunate that a quick moment of pathos overshadowed everything else, because Donna is—as usual—f’ing brilliant here. Her big human heart helps thaw the Doctor’s, showing him some of his own prejudices and getting him to open up a little bit about the pain of his various losses. Thanks to Donna, he eventually comes to accept Jenny, just in time to lose her.

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Friends and Families

Review of Planet of the Ood / The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky

As I continue my re-watch of Series Four, I’ve reached our first two-parter. First, though, we revisit what at the time was still a quite new alien species, seen only once before (in Series Two) and glossed over as a “slave race” (so much side-eye): the Ood. At least it only took the production team two years to think better of that characterization and revisit the background of the species.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2008 BBC

Somehow, despite my overall poor recollections of Series Four, I seem to have retained Planet of the Ood pretty well; my pre-viewing notes seem to hit all the major points. Among the farthest-reaching of those details was “the Doctor Donna,” which, as we’ll see, comes back at the end of the series.

Although there are certainly parts of this episode that are difficult to watch, not only from a creepiness (or poorly-aged CGI) point of view, but from a humanitarian one, the fact that our heroes start off from the very beginning siding with the clearly mistreated Ood makes it bearable. And as someone who holds a lot of societal privilege myself, I have always really identified with Donna as she listens to the Ood song. It’s haunting and horrifying and she wants to do right by the Ood by listening, but she doesn’t have the fortitude to continue.

Donna (like me, like many of us) has the option to step away from the pain instead of to live it every moment like the Ood do. She can stop listening to the song, but to her credit, she doesn’t ignore what the Ood are going through. Maybe she’s not doing everything right, or taking every step she possibly can, but as she and the Doctor uncover new atrocities, she makes a concerted effort to help.

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A Look Back on Looking Forward

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Review of The Runaway Bride / Partners in Crime / The Fires of Pompeii

It wasn’t until I sat down and started rewatching The Runaway Bride (which, if memory serves, I didn’t much like the very first time I saw it) that I realized how very much I’d missed Donna. And it wasn’t until Donna saw Rose’s jacket and accused the Doctor of abducting other women that I realized how very much I hadn’t missed this mopey Doctor.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2006 BBC

I will own up to my roots: I was a hardcore Doctor/Rose shipper (though I didn’t even know that was a term at the time) when I first started watching Doctor Who. After all, my first episode was “Rose,” and I binge-watched the Ninth Doctor and Rose falling for each other (it’s a perfectly valid reading, hush). It’s honestly part of what drew me into the show.

But this long after the fact, I don’t feel the same kind of emotional impact. Mostly, I feel annoyed at how much that one Companion/Doctor relationship influenced the two that followed immediately after it. And while I’ve come to appreciate Martha Jones more now than I did at that time, I have always appreciated Donna’s straightforward, no-nonsense approach to her adventures with the Doctor.

Well, almost always.

As I said above, I found her really abrasive at first. The way she was so outwardly selfish (witness the way she and her groom Lance got together, especially as misleadingly retold to the Doctor) really put me off. She was really unlikeable.

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Confession #164: I Need Novelty

I’ve long since stopped browsing most social media for Doctor Who news, so I really can’t even say for sure how many crumbs the production team has put out there to keep fans interested. Given the fact that almost nothing has filtered down to my corner of the internet, though, there can’t have been anything really big. Sadly, that makes it super hard for me to stay engaged with the franchise.

You see, one of the side effects of the initial COVID lockdown in our household was that we realized, one by one, that we are all ADHD here. Half of us have formal diagnoses, and the other half don’t (including me), but there are enough clues to be certain. For example, I’m led to understand that neurotypical people don’t simply forget to eat sometimes. (Sounds fake to me, but apparently it’s real.)

One thing about being ADHD is that without constant stimulation, I lose focus. I start to care less, even about things that once interested me deeply. Unless something is some combination of interesting, challenging, novel, or urgent, it’s unlikely to keep my attention. So when Doctor Who goes off the air for :checks calendar: thirteen months, it’s only natural that my brains skips off into the sunset to follow other pursuits. (That helps to explain why it’s been increasingly more difficult to maintain the blog, too.)

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Confession #162: I Barely Remember Series Four

My kids’ birthday is coming up. Birthdays often make me think of the old game where Whovians gauge each others’ age by what episode aired the week they were born (mine was in the Pertwee era, but my kids had Tennant’s Doctor). Then I got to thinking about what modern era stories aired “this week in history.”

As I looked through the Wikipedia article listing episodes, I had lots of “Oh yeah, that one!” moments. It was like a rusty old door opening in the architecture of my memory. Sadly, I think that door only opens partway now.

There was a time when I could just rattle off the episodes in any given “new Who” series—in order—with barely any pause for thought. That time has long since passed. If I hadn’t had the page open in front of me, as I looked over the dates and associated them with episode titles, I wouldn’t have been sure what position in the series any of those episodes held.

I found that oddly distressing, in particular for Series Four. That series has been on my mind a fair bit lately (more so than other RTD-era series, for sure), with the impending return of Donna and a Tennant Doctor. (I am going to be fighting calling that one the “Fourteenth Doctor” for a long time, I can tell.)

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Welcome to Year Thirteen

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Triskaidekaphobes may not care for the idea that I’m highlighting this as the thirteenth year of the blog, but in my household thirteen is actually one of our favorite numbers. Further, we’ve just ended the Thirteenth Doctor’s era, and I can look forward to meeting Jodie Whittaker herself at Gallifrey One next month. I’d say Year Thirteen is worth celebrating.

This year will, as I’ve hinted before, be the last for the blog. Now that I’ve finally sold some fiction (you can find my first published story here, if you’re interested; I use a pen name), I want to focus more of my time and energy on that kind of writing. There are also several other personal stressors that have ramped up recently, and I simply have less energy to dedicate to blogging.

That’s not to say this year will be lax. I hope to be able to announce my part in that project to which I alluded a couple of years ago. I’ll be reporting on my experiences at Gally as usual, with the bonus of having one of my kiddos with me to provide fresh eyes. And I will finish up my Everything Else series of reviews of the Classic adventures.

Given that there are only five of those left, the blog schedule gets a bit loose around mid-year. But here is the schedule for those final five stories:

  • Jan 25: The Dalek Invasion of Earth
  • Feb 08: Enlightenment
  • Mar 22: The Invasion of Time
  • Apr 26: Frontier in Space
  • May 24: The Pirate Planet
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Confession #155: I Am Behind on Casting News

I had hardly finished posting the last casting news when more casting news hit the streets. I’m basically a month behind on the news of David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s return, and Yasmin Finney’s debut in Doctor Who, but since Tennant’s rumored return was a hot topic a few months ago, I figured I go ahead and add my 2¢ anyway.

For the most part, my feelings are the same as they were before we knew Ncuti Gatwa would be the new Doctor: I’ll be excited to see Tennant back for the 60th anniversary, but I don’t want him for more. RTD has been very cagey about the whole thing, as he is wont to do, so I don’t believe we’ve had any solid indications of whether Gatwa will actually be portraying the Whittaker Doctor’s immediate successor (rumors to the contrary are rife). Although I will be extremely disappointed if he’s not, I will wait to see what RTD has up his sleeve with Tennant and Tate before making any final judgements.

The fact that they’ve also announced Finney, a Black trans woman who shot to popularity for her role as Elle in the Netflix adaptation of Alice Oseman’s webcomic Heartstopper, and told us her character’s name is Rose, means that (a) RTD is committed to continuing the trend toward more inclusive casting (which I applaud heartily) and (b) he’s totally trolling us. I am over-the-moon excited to see Finney in Doctor Who, and utterly suspicious about how her character will fit into the overall Whoniverse, because there’s no way we’re going to have any real idea until the show actually airs.

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