Dr Who (60th anniversary specials)

I am reviewing all three episodes of the Dr Who specials in one piece, because they are presented that way. However, they’re quite distinct stories, beyond 14 and Donna running through them. Part one has aliens running around on Earth with a switch on who the bad guy alien is. It’s based on a classic story from Dr Who Magazine, which I’m both old enough and nerdy enough to remember reading. Despite knowing the outline of the story, I enjoyed the episode. At least part of that pleasure was Rose, Donna's daughter, who was trans, played by a trans actor, and stirred up the man babies. Good solid story and a great piece of presenting trans people as part of everyday life. Much better than many of the other ways we’re meant to think about them. (There’s a little niggle about the gender language at one point, but overall it’s good.) The second story is a bottle episode on the edge of space that leans heavily into body horror. Doppelgängers of The Doctor and Donna who can’t quite control their bodies at first chase them around on an abandoned and old spaceship. The doppelgängers are from outside the universe and want to invade, The Doctor, Donna and the now dead captain of the spaceship conspire to defeat them. I’m still niggled by the failure to “inform, educate and entertain” with the silly mavity joke, which does the opposite of informing us. The third episode brings us The Doctor vs The Toymaker. The Toymaker is a classic (first Doctor, black and white TV) era villain, who was originally done in yellow face. Acceptable at the time, totally unacceptable now. They went down the route of making him white but making him racist in various small ways, as a nod to his troubled past, but having him speak in a cod-German accent still feels a bit lazy? His racism was directly challenged this time as well. I felt uncomfortable with this at the time, and it’s lingered. It could certainly have been worse, but it didn’t feel right. Lots of the rest of this episode worked really well, Neil Patrick Harris as The Toymaker was a delight. Then RTD pulled a canon-breaking move from somewhere. Bi-regeneration and two doctors. I tend to iconoclasm, but in stories I feel you either need to build up to it, or have a great piece of storytelling that emerges from it. Seeing 10/14 and Donna sitting down and enjoying afternoon tea didn’t tick either of those boxes for me. Even if I only look at NuWho they’re not my favourite Doctor and companion. Over all Who, 4 and Romana or Sarah-Jane win hands down. So, while I appreciate all those Tennant-Tate shippers lost their minds, it was just “oh, ok” as far as I was concerned. And that was a shame, because it was the last 10 minutes of an otherwise almost faultless episode. It was meant to also be the time for The Doctor to relax and heal after all the drama in their recent history, but their history has always been hectic and then had gaps between seasons and specials for example, when they don’t have a companion, or holidays that they just refer to. It was a confection of RTD that didn’t have to be there, and that annoys me the more I think about it. These specials had a lot of good, niggles notwithstanding, even the biregeneration could have worked. But confected to give them a meh through line and an uninspiring ending left me feeling a little deflated. Bring back Douglas Adams! Bechdel Test: Pass. It’s not only Donna, except in episode two, but there are always multiple conversations between named female characters. Some of them, maybe many of them are about The Doctor, who is certainly male presenting now, but there are always conversations about other things than men that pass. Ko Test: Fail. That bottle episode costs it. Rose allows the other two episodes to pass. Russo Test: Pass. Clearly Rose. In the bottle episode The Doctor talks about how hot Issac Newton is, and then reinforces the moment by talking about how he’s now the kind of person that talks about those kinds of things. You can interpret it how you like (Chibnal, how could you miss Yaz and Thirteen?) but I’m reading that as 14 was pan.