Millie Gibson – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

Doctor Who: Season 2/15/41, Episode 8 – The Reality War

“Mr Smith is gone. I am the Doctor!”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Well, that’s it for another season – and, it’s looking like, another era of Doctor Who. If you’re one of those unhappy at what has become known as the RTD2 era, there was really no need to be. In many ways, what we got here was a typical Russell T Davies season finale, with all the strengths and weaknesses he’s shown in writing the show since 2005 – great characterisation and dialogue, with plenty of spectacle, undermined by gaping plot holes that were seemingly papered over by fast-paced set pieces.

Doctor Who: Season 2/15/41, Episode 7 – Wish World

“Doubt is such a beautiful thing. If you question hard enough, then doubt can crack open the world!”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

“Is any of this making sense?”

Well… if I’m honest, not much, no. To be fair to Russell T Davies, this is the first half of a two-part story, so perhaps everything will click into place next week. For now, though, what we had here seemed like a bit of a jumble; there were some brilliant ideas, and some striking images, but it didn’t seem to cohere into any kind of logical story. Not yet, anyway.

Doctor Who: Season 2/15/41, Episode 4 – Lucky Day

“I don’t accept your reality.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Ah, the “Doctor-light” episode is here. These first started in 2007 (surely no coincidence that we saw the TARDIS landing there in the prologue) with the ever-divisive Love and Monsters (personal disclosure – I actually really like that one). I wonder whether LINDA clocked that TARDIS arrival?

Doctor Who: Season 14, Episode 7 – The Legend of Ruby Sunday

“You’ve seen my life. I bring disaster, Kate, disaster.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It seems like the new season of Doctor Who has barely started, but we’re already into the endgame with this jaw-dropping penultimate episode, the first of a big two-parter. A run of eight episodes is, sadly, pretty short to flesh out a new Doctor, particularly when he’s been virtually absent for two of those eight episodes – but Ncuti Gatwa has been as superb as I always knew he would be. This episode showed us more of that irrepressible joie de vivre, but coupled with the melancholy we’ve seen in the past, drawn from centuries of bad experiences which, rightly or wrongly, the Doctor considers himself responsible for.

Doctor Who: Season 14, Episode 5 – Dot and Bubble

“Bubble down, Dot off.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

We’ve all seen them. Perhaps you even are one. Those people walking along the street, headphones on, heads down, immersed in their smartphones, utterly oblivious to what’s happening around them – in both a literal and a wider sense. Where I live, in central Barcelona, I often find myself having to dodge them as I walk along, as otherwise they would just walk right into me before they noticed I was there.

Doctor Who: Season 14, Episode 4 – 73 Yards

“It’s taken me all this time to realise what I’m here to do.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m gonna save the world.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Well, that was a weird one. As if on a mission to demonstrate just how flexible a show Doctor Who can be, this week Russell T Davies veered away from cutesy babies, musical numbers and earnest anti-war polemic to deliver a genuinely creepy, off-kilter ghost story that deserves a place in the show’s long history of nightmare fuel for its child viewers.

Doctor Who: Season 14, Episode 3 – Boom

“War is business. And business is booming.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Old school Who fans who were (perhaps understandably) concerned that last week’s brightly coloured deluge of space babies, farting space stations and musical numbers signalled a show more in the style of CBeebies will have been reassured by the massive tonal shift in the show this week, courtesy of returning alumnus Steven Moffat.

Doctor Who: Season 14, Episodes 1 & 2 – Space Babies / The Devil’s Chord

“I don’t have a people, I don’t have a home – but I don’t have a job either. I don’t have a boss, or taxes, or rent or bills to pay. I don’t have a purpose, or a cause, or a mission, but I have… freedom. That’s what keeps me going. To see the next thing. And the next, and the next.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

So, it’s back, the show I started to write this blog about – and it’s confusing. Not so much the plot – though we’ll get to that later – but as to what exactly the numbering should be. It’s the 14^th full season since the show’s return in 2005. I always thought it was justifiable to refer to the 2005 season as “Series 1”, given the 16 year gap since the end of the original run’s “Season 26”.

Doctor Who Christmas Special 2023: The Church on Ruby Road

“It isn’t magic – it’s a different kind of physics.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Nice to see the Doctor back on Christmas Day again! For all that Russell T Davies is keeping to the continuity established by his predecessor, it seems one thing he was set on was abandoning Chris Chibnall’s setting of the “Christmas” special on New Year’s Day, and returning the show to the Day itself.