Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, Review, TV | Tagged: bbc, children in need, chris chibnall, dalek, david tennant, Destination: Skaro, doctor who, Julian Bleach, Mawaan Rizwan, steven moffat

Doctor Who/BBC Children in Need Scene: A Fun Sign of Things to Come

The Doctor Who/BBC Children in Need sketch "Destination: Skaro" is a hilarious sign of things to come when the show officially returns.

It's here, "Destination: Skaro," the Doctor Who/BBC Children in Need sketch (or mini-episode) that marks the first television appearance of David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor since the regeneration in 2022's "The Power of the Doctor," and it's a hilarious harbinger of things to come under Russell T. Davies' reign as returning showrunner. Why, it's as if he and Tennant never left. Or rather, perhaps they needed to leave to come back for another hurrah.

It's only a five-minute episode or comedy sketch, yet it shows what we've missed for nearly five years: consistently surprising and hilarious Doctor Who, despite Chris Chibnall's best efforts to keep the show on course. Comedian Mawaan Rizwan sells it as a hapless junior scientist Space Nazi working on the next Kelad death machine with his idol Davros. And yes, that's Julian Bleach, the last actor to play Davros during Steven Moffat's run on the series, here playing a younger, still in-one-piece version without all the prosthetic makeup. David Tennant is very much his Doctor again, goofy, manic, and insane because he's an immortal time traveler whose brains have been endlessly scrambled for hundreds of years, here trying to think and talk his way out of a sticky, embarrassing, and potentially deadly situation. That's Doctor Who in a nutshell. We don't need to recap the story for you. You can just watch it right now and agree or disagree with this review! That's how the digital age has changed the nature of reviewing.

It's not a masterpiece of television so much as it's a masterclass in storytelling and comedy acting. Every line is a joke, a zinger, or an opportunity for a reaction from three funny actors. Davies could write a sitcom if he wanted, but he's always wanted to fry bigger fish. Of course, the jokes about names are silly. Rizwan's character's name sums up his whole story: "Castavillian" stops short of "cast a villain," so it's no wonder the guy is so mediocre – as Nazis are – that he doesn't even have the wit to find a good name for his boss' new creation. And it's no accident that Young Davros has an air of Elon-esque megalomania about him, played with impeccable deadpan comic timing by Bleach who knows, Davros can be funny because he has absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever. The dwindling split-seconds he takes to seriously consider Castavillian's terrible suggestions are brilliant comic acting. Doctor Who has always had a satirical streak. In an era when a streaming series will take over a whole hour just to reveal just one second's worth of a plot point, "Destination: Skaro" deserves massive kudos for telling a complete story in five minutes! If you're learning scriptwriting, you could do a lot worse than studying this short.

Some hardcore fans are complaining that "Destination: Skaro" is funny. Well, it's a sketch for Children in Need, not Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. This is Doctor Who, which has always walked a tightrope between Serious and Snarky, the latter more pronounced in the modern post-2005 era. You don't need to treat it as series canon if you don't want to, but it doesn't contradict it. Just have a laugh and wait for the 60th Anniversary Specials.

Doctor Who: "Destination: Skaro"

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Review by Adi Tantimedh

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10/10

A perfect five-minute taster for what to expect when Doctor Who returns for the 60th Anniversary Specials and then a regular TV series. With Russell T. Davies back as writer and showrunner, "Destination: Skaro" is consistently hilarious and surprising with David Tennant back as manic, goofy and borderline-insane as ever, with comedian Mawaan Rizwan and Julian Bleach matching him in comedy acting, in a bit that doesn't break the show's canon even if humourless fans think it shouldn't be. The most perfect five minutes of anything you'll ever get.

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