The Doctor Has Landed

14 October 2018

It's a week now since Jodie Whittaker made her proper debut as the Thirteenth-ish Doctor.  I was ready, with my edible ball bearing cakes, for a teatime treat.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode, though I was sad about Ryan's Nan.  I would have liked to see more of her.  The new style seemed to fit into Sunday evening viewing so well, that at one point I did wonder whether I was still watching The Bodyguard.

I do have a few queries though:

1. The Doctor fell out of her TARDIS in flight, through the roof of a train and was all right afterwards?  The Fourth Doctor regenerated after falling of a radar array which was nowhere near as high.  The Tenth Doctor fell through a roof in The End of Time Part Two and sort of survived for a bit, (at least until Wilf accidentally irradiated him), but at least he looked damaged.  OK - I know she was still in her regeneration cycle, when minor injuries such as losing a hand or being gunned down by the Gestapo aren't fatal, but even so.

2. If Ryan gave 'consent' for the hunting ritual when he touched the shape in the air, how come the quarry had already been lined up with enough time for 'Tim Shaw' to rig up his cheating device?  He came through almost immediately afterwards.

3. Why was Ryan trying to learn to ride a bike on uneven, muddy ground? Wouldn't an empty car park have been easier - and have they never heard of stabilisers?

4. Is it just me, or did the new Doctor's sonic screwdriver look like it might have another function?

Looking forward to finding out how the new crew cope on a different planet.

Deletion

Saturday 6 October 2018

Cyberman

Only one day to go until Jodie Whittaker is properly introduced as the new Doctor.  I have been so busy lately that I haven't really had time to get excited yet, but I'm definitely working up to it now.

I recently blogged about the feminisation of the audience for Doctor Who.  There was another good example of that at work this week.  It was at the start of a meeting of a university committee that approves new degree programmes, and someone mentioned that an obsolete programme was going to be deleted.  'That sounds like something the Cybermen would do' said the chair (another lady of a certain age like myself, who looks absolutely nothing like the traditional image of a Who fan.)  She then went on to mention that an old friend of hers had been in a Cybermen episode. From the description of the character I immediately identified  Mrs Moore from Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel played by Helen Griffin. By this time one or two of our (male) colleagues on the other side of the table were looking bemused, but that did not stop the chair from adding that another friend used to run a shop where they did occasional Who-related signings and once arranged for Tom Baker to phone her at work.

I didn't have the heart to ask whether she was sure it wasn't Jon Culshaw.

Musings

9 June 2018

Life has been very busy lately: doing two jobs, working on two books (medieval bastards and a guidebook to the Chilterns) and selling my mother's bungalow, so not much time for blogging, or for Doctor Who.

I did read the Target novelisation of The Day of the Doctor, which was excellent, in a very Steven Moffat way.  Naturally he had to tell the story from multiple viewpoints and include a running gag about Chapter Nine. On the subject of Moffat, we also re-watched Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead recently.  They are still great stories, and what struck me particularly was how well River Song's first appearance stands up even when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. The Doctor's face when someone accuses him and River of bickering like 'an old married couple' is priceless. I still want to know why Audrey Niffenegger didn't sue, though.

There are rumours that Captain Jack will return to our screens to meet Doctor 13.  These seem largely fuelled by the fact that Chris Chibnall was the showrunner for Torchwood. Whilst I would love to see the Captain back on our screens, the TARDIS is already going to be quite crowded.  I hope Jodie Whittaker has enough space to be the Doctor, and doesn't get crowed out as Peter Davison did at times.

Oh well, all will be revealed in due course.

Still not Ginger!

Monday 17 July 2017

So the new Doctor is going  to be Jodie Whittaker, with whom the incoming showrunner has worked extensively on Broadchurch.  She is white, thirty-something and not ginger.  I may have been just a tiny bit wrong about the gender*, but apart from being female the casting seems completely in the usual pattern and therefore unremarkable.

So, leaving aside the competing and equally blinkered views of 'finally, a woman!' and 'it's ruined and I'm never watching again', what are we to make of the casting?

Firstly, Jodie Whittaker is an excellent actor. Her role in Broadchurch mainly involved a lot of emotional angst as a grieving mother, so it will be interesting to see how she deals with the more quirky aspects of the Doctor's personality.

Secondly, the publicity photos remind me quite a lot of Romana 2. (I mentioned this to my German colleague at work, but he had never heard of the Time Lady in question.  I am disappointed in him.) Will the Thirteenth Doctor actually turn out to be rather like Romana?   And if so, can we have a K9 substitute?  An electric parrot or a talking cabbage would be good.

Thirdly, will we now get a new male companion?  The last two series have ended with a female companion of the Doctor flying off to explore the universe along with another female character (Clara and Ashildr/Me last year and Bill and Heather this year), so two women flying around the space time continuum has been done. Perhaps Chris Chibnall could find a way of reintroducing Rory? It is important to have some sort of gender balance in the TARDIS.  If all else fails, Captain Jack will do nicely.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Christmas.

*I'm open-minded about this.  I don't see any need for the Doctor to change gender, but don't mind as  long as it has been done in order to take the series in new directions and explore new stories, rather than as a gimmick or to appease the feminist lobby.