Cons:
Last week's special was about as perfect an episode as I could have imagined, so some of my complaints about this one are just in how it compares with the last one. I thought the tension and threat to Donna and the Doctor was so expertly portrayed in the last episode, that in this one, when once again there's a beat where the bad guy separates them to subject them to separate psychological tortures, it felt like a less-good retread of what we saw last time.
In general, I think this episode might have been served better with an entirely original bad guy instead of a callback to old-school Doctor Who. Maybe that's not very in keeping with the spirit of things, I know this is a show with a long history and it's fun to do callbacks, but the episode had to sit there and explain why we should be afraid of the Toymaker, and that felt like it undercut the threat. I shouldn't need to have exposition explain to me that this bad guy is super bad, more bad than most of the badness we have to face. I should just be able to feel that. And I did, with the concept of the creepy doll with the arpeggio laugh. It's almost like the episode would have worked without a puppet master behind it at all?
The moment where I was especially like... "huh" was when the Doctor, fairly early on in the episode, is like "what am I without all the gadgets and confidence..." it felt so unearned, since we don't have this longstanding history with him and the Toymaker to understand why he's so shaken by this.
I liked the little recap that the Toymaker did of the things that the Doctor has been through since the last time he was with Donna, but I was also pretty irritated by it for a couple reasons. One, you can't just cut Rory out and only mention Amy, that's fuckin' rude. And two, the emphasis of the pattern here, that the Doctor meets a young woman and then something tragic happens to her and he's forced to move on, just made me angry at Moffat all over again? It felt pointed and strange that the Thirteenth Doctor's companions, all of whom went on to live full and happy lives after knowing her, don't get mentioned. I get why the Toymaker wouldn't mention them, because he's making a point about all the loss the Doctor has suffered. But why don't they get a mention later on? Why doesn't the Doctor tell Donna: not every goodbye has been an abjectly miserable one, some of them have been a gentler sort of sadness? It felt strange not to give everyone their due, if you're going to mention so many of the companions in a row like that.
I don't mind the bi-generation thing, I have a lot of positive things to say about our new Doctor and his first moments on screen, but I think being able to duplicate the TARDIS felt a little... cheap to me. Kind of a "have your cake and eat it too" situation. I know it would have been repetitive to have a David Tennant Doctor retire with a companion after losing all his Doctor-ness, like what happened with TenToo, but something a little more similar to that would have made more sense? Like, maybe he's still the Doctor but he doesn't have his time machine, and that's sad, but there's the potential that future Doctors might come by and visit. As it is, even in the little epilogue moment we see that he's romping around having adventures again, and it undercuts the retirement idea just a lil bit.
I don't know where to put this so I guess it's going in "cons", but Mel being in the story didn't really seem to add anything? I liked the one moment where Donna was like "you never talk about her, is that what you do, you just keep moving on and on and on and never talking about the past?" but it felt like it could have been accomplished without bringing in an old companion. Again, this is just a modern-Who-watcher's perspective, I'm sure it was a lot of fun for people who had familiarity with that character. I didn't have a problem with her being there precisely, it just didn't really add a ton!
Pros:
I really liked the basic conceit of the threat in this one. Basically an ear worm that gets into all of humanity that makes them belligerent, makes them believe that their opinions are the truth and that nobody else's input matters. This is a little on the nose, not the most complex of messages, but this is a family show, and I think the lesson is an apt one. The internet allows people to be anonymous, and also allows for immediate, reactive connection all across the world. There are huge gifts that this offers, but also huge problems. I really liked the moment when Kate Stewart is taken over by the effect briefly and ends up being really ableist to Shirley, basically accusing her of faking her disability because "I've seen her stand up before!!" It's so important and so rare to see a character on TV who is using a mobility aid but isn't fully paralyzed; that's true of most people using mobility aids, actually, and there's a fundamental misunderstanding about this. When under the effects of the giggle, Kate's mind takes her to the most uncharitable possible explanation, turning something that she probably just doesn't understand or hasn't been taught, into fear and mistrust. That's a really important thing for people to be on the lookout for!
On that note, it was fun to see Shirley again, and Kate, and just be there with the UNIT team. I love any time that the Doctor has to grapple with his... organizational authority, if that makes sense? When he's on Earth, he has this position of command with UNIT that he would never truly choose for himself but that he is in fact very good at, in a way that's almost sinister. That beat where he gives them permission to take down a foreign satellite is chilling, because the Doctor is in fact a literal alien from another planet who has authority over a group of humans who have the capacity to cause international incidents if they want or need to. I felt like this episode did a lot with a little, in honoring the gravity of that.
I would also be remiss not to point out that Neil Patrick Harris did seem to be having a TON of fun as the Toymaker and despite my problems thematically with this character's inclusion, I still had a blast watching him. The imagery of him with the marionette strings, the creepy puppets that Donna had to fight, the repeated echo of "oh, well that's alright then," when the Doctor insisted that his companions were not technically dead, or that their deaths were bearable for some reason... I loved all of that. Also the petulance of the ending, his insistence on trying to wiggle around his own rules... all very fun and over the top. The creepy puppets in general just added a ton to this episode.
So... here's the thing. I've seen the bi-generation aspect, the fact that Ncuti Gatwa's regeneration went down the way it did, getting a lot of negative feedback from people. I want to leave room for that very legitimate negative feedback. I totally see the argument. This regeneration into the Fifteenth Doctor breaks the pattern in all sorts of ways. He has to share the screen with the Doctor he's supposed to be taking over from, he has to spend his first few minutes as the character not as the sole focus. He doesn't get the traditional alone-on-screen celebration/freak-out as he tries to figure out who he's going to be next. I could definitely see someone feeling really irritated that this new Doctor's first major character beat is comforting the other Doctor on screen, instead of getting to take the stage on his own, so to speak.
I get it, I do. I even said above that I wish the two Doctors thing had been a little less of a copout, with Fourteen getting to keep the TARDIS and all that. But, that being said... I want to offer a counterargument. Yes, Gatwa's first scenes as the Doctor break the tradition of other regenerations, but they break the traditions in such a way that we actually get to know him a little bit at the end of the previous Doctor's goodbye? This is smart for two reasons. One, we already did the big sad sendoff of David Tennant's Doctor and I can still hear his sad little "I don't wanna go" echoing in my heart when I go to sleep at night, thank you so much. So we don't actually need to watch this man's face turn into someone else's again. Breaking the pattern was a welcome idea. And two...
This man is about to be the Doctor for hopefully a fair few seasons of television, and let me tell you, I'm already SO excited about it. I love his energy, I love the way he calls people pet names, I love his confidence and I love his compassion. This episode isn't for him, it's for the Fourteenth Doctor. Same way every other regeneration episode has been about saying goodbye to the current iteration and giving a teasing cameo of the new. Right? So the fact that we get to see what we do of Fifteen, and the one big character moment we're given for him is him turning to Fourteen, turning to himself, and pulling him into a big, comforting hug?
Do you understand what a sigh of relief I let out? After Capaldi and Whittaker and then Tennant (Round 2), we've had a lot of very angry and/or traumatized Doctors on our screen. This character has been through the wringer lately, and I know that will always be a part of his journey, absolutely. But this exuberance, this joy, and most importantly, this compassion for the self, is such a glorious, much-needed element in the story right now. We have this neat trick where because the Doctor is going to retire with Donna now, his grieving and processing will get to happen. We honor the need for this person to get some rest and try and figure out next steps. And at the same time, we now know that we have a Doctor who is not filled with self-loathing, who can honor his grief but also continue on and have adventures and meet new people and continue on the legacy of this show. It's a wonderful introduction to Gatwa's version of the Doctor. It gives me so much more to go on than the typical one minute long cameo we get at the end of a regeneration episode.
So like, I get the complaint, I understand that maybe it feels like it's undercutting Ncuti Gatwa's big introductory moment. But honestly, I think in breaking the mold and doing something totally different, I'm going to be remembering his first few minutes as the Doctor WAY more than I remember anybody else's. I don't remember the first things that Matt Smith's or Peter Capaldi's Doctors got up to, honestly. But here, we have our new Doctor immediately connecting with/playing off of characters we're already emotionally invested in. It works remarkably well and felt like a much more solid bridge between the current iteration and the next! I get sad when one version of the Doctor leaves and a new one shows up, because even if I like the new iteration, it feels like a show has ended and a new one has started. That's both a good and a bad thing when it comes to the legacy and longevity of this show. This felt more like the Eccleston to Tennant regeneration, where the show's continuity carried straight on in a seamless line. And I for one was a fan of it!
It's objectively very funny that Russell T. Davies is so in love with his own characters that he gets too sad about separating them and therefore hands out David Tennants to them just to make it all okay... like, Rose has TenToo and now Donna gets to keep the Doctor, ostensibly for the rest of her life? She gets the thing that no companion before her has ever gotten, to stay the dear and constant friend of the Doctor and not have to look back wistfully on the years of adventure that are now over? Donna, Donna, the companion who got THE most tragic ending of any companion in all of contemporary Doctor Who, and she gets to have this? I don't care if it's cheesy, and despite my earlier complaints that maybe it's a little too neat and tidy, I'm honestly floating on cloud nine about it over here. What a beautiful story.
That final scene of the Doctor surrounded by family, getting to be a part of Donna's family, getting to rest, sneaking his niece off on fun (safe) adventures, it's so healing. This is a fun show, about wacky adventures, but the trauma of the Doctor's nature, his immortality, the constant fluctuations in his identity and personality while his memory carries on, it adds a dark element that can never be totally erased. So to give us the continuation of the fun adventures with our brand new Doctor, who we'll all be excited to meet more fully in the Christmas Special, while also saying: hey, some heavy stuff has gone down. It's okay to rest. To process. And to show the Doctor, not bored or restless or dissatisfied with a quieter life, but happy? Genuinely, no holds barred, happy, with his best friend in the whole world?
Anyway I'm getting weepy just thinking about it.
This wasn't my favorite of the three specials, that has to be last week's astonishing outing. But as a farewell for David Tennant and Donna, and an intro for our Fifteenth Doctor, I'm honestly overwhelmingly pleased! Sometimes it's okay to give the characters on your family sci-fi adventure show a soft epilogue. They've suffered so much, and they deserve it.
8/10
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