Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, david tennant, doctor who, Ncuti Gatwa

Doctor Who: My Ten Thoughts on "The Giggle": When One Becomes Two

Some thoughts on this weekend's Doctor Who: The Giggle starring David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Neil Patrick Harris, and Ncuti Gatwa.

I have just watched this weekend's Doctor Who: The Giggle, starring David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Neil Patrick Harris, and Ncuti Gatwa. And I have ten thoughts… or at least thoughts I can cram into ten bullet points. So here we go…

1. Making Yourself Bulletproof from Internet Criticism

Are you screaming on the internet about tonight's episode of Doctor Who? Then you, yourself, are infected with The Giggle. If you think you are right about Doctor Who, without any element of doubt, then you are infected with the Giggle. And you are just a puppet of the grifters who make the real money from such hatred. Just in case you wanted to know what it's episode of Doctor Who was really about. Note the Giggle-infected Kate Stewart's challenge of Shirley Anne Bingham's need to use the wheelchair; you literally had people online saying that about her after The Star Beast. Eerily prescient considering when both were recorded.

2. An Empty Bench In Soho Square

What is it with Soho these days? It's where I write Bleeding Cool from during the week (currently at 21 Soho after the closure of Blacks). But in the last couple of years, it's where so much geekdom is landing: Last Night In Soho from Edgar Wright, of course, then the whole second season of Good Omens from Neil Gaiman and John Finnemore, and now the Celestial Toymaker's place intended to infect the world with John Logie Baird's puppet. Note that John Mackay, who played John Logie Baird, also played him in Russell T Davies' ITV drama, Nolly. And yes, absolutely, that was a real thing; television was made in Britain and infected the world. Sorry about that. Say, do you think the puppet fought with The Silence after the moon landing? With the streets that informed Diagon Alley round the corner, with Gosh Comics in its centre, clearly, this is the geek Mecca right now. Let's all listen to Kirsty McColl's song – she has a bench there now. Anyway, if anyone wants to join me for a pint and a bagel this week. let me know.

Doctor Who has a budget now; they spent it on a great looking twenties Soho, a UNIT tower in the Avengers-style, a big new TARDIS, and American guest stars, but… the entire world going mad was restricted to one corner of London, and a politician and a newsreader. But this entire episode was mostly restricted to one expanding shop and one UNIT room. But… that's probably all you need. And we got our favourite American newsreader to prove that all these folks are also infected with the Giggle. But didn't Twenties Soho look great? Frith Street has an excellent Portuguese custard tart shop these days.

3. What The Hell Is The Vlinx?

Is this the sister Poopy Butthole of Doctor Who? A character who just turns up as if everyone is meant to know who he is, but no one does? An AI working for UNIT given humanoid-ish form? Alien? Other dimensional? Invented by a bunch of kids as some kind of prize to be in Doctor Who? Voiced by Nicholas Briggs, though… obviously he will be back in some fashion and maybe we'll know more.

4. Running Up That Hill

Donna is already running. She has a role; she knows that role, and she plays that role. She has been here before. Talking of roles, Kate gets to make UNIT everything it could be, and finally, thirty-seven years after she was introduced as a computer expert, Mel Bush gets to use a computer. Introduced to the series in 1986 in The Trial Of A Timelord, we saw a future adventure of the Doctor with Mel introduced as evidence in the Doctor's trial, only for Mel to jump from that future into the Doctor's present, which meant they never actually met for the first time.  And while we were told that she was a computer expert, from the 20th century from Sussex, we never got to see any of that. And she never actually got to use a computer in the show. This time, they make up for it; she is tapping away at speed, taking down an orbiting satellite. Though not as fast as Donna Noble, who got to use her temp skills again as well. And yes, companion does sound like looking after a very, very old person who… okay, actually, that tracks. They made a deal with God…

5. Talking About Bi-Generation

So, earlier today, Bleeding Cool published a piece about speculation that Doctor Who would leave us with Two Doctors as well as giving us a multi-Doctor episode for the 60th Anniversary to follow The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, and The Day Of The Doctor. You may also recall a question Donna asked of the Doctor after the first Meta Crisis when another Doctor grew out of his own severed hand, asking if Time Lords were like earthworms. Was that the Doctor-Donna looking into the Doctor's past and future for this moment? Either way, it's always fun when Doctor Who does something new while also looking a bit like Douglas Adams' Zaphod Beeblebrox. This is confirmation that the Doctor is Bi, right?

6. When One Becomes Two

Blame the Master in the Toymaker's gold tooth for the musical Spice Girls sequence. Clearly, the metal must have seeped into the Toymaker's bloodstream to spice up his life. It was very much Here Comes The Drums with the death to match. And, as always, a woman's hand with red nails is there to pick up the remnants of him. It should be the Rani, but it never is.

7. A Very Big Canon Pointing At Everyone

So we get so much here, a colourised glimpse of the Celestial Toymaker and the First Doctor, and the plot of that deleted story as a major plot point in this, thanks to "one all." But then everything comes rushing in as the Toymaker shows the death and destruction in the lives of companions, Amy, Clara, and Bill, and half the universe in Flux, with a meme-worthy "oh, well, that's alright then." I'm going to use that as a go-to every time one of my kids tries to explain away some horror they have inflicted on the other. But then we even get mentions of loving Sarah Jane, and Adric that comes straight from Tales Of The TARDIS as well. Which could be used as a way to say that every Doctor bi-generates? We shall see. Hey, we even got a mention of Sabalom Glitz having died, just as the actor who played him, Tony Selby did.

Russell T Davies is now saying that this means that every Doctor regeneration bi-generated, the beam affected his entire past, so that there is a whole Doctorverse running around. Does that include all the Timeless Children, Russell? What about the Valeyard?

And yes, a change to the Celestial Toymaker may be an attempt to evade the dodgy "orientalism" of the original, but then we career into a reference to Mavic Chen from The Dalek Masterplan back in 1966. Go on, do a Google Images search. Be warned…

Not just Doctor Who getting the references, Neil Patrick Harris gave us Fred Astaire opposite the Gingers. Did you catch Gatwa's shirt and underwear as a visual reference to Tom Cruise's dance in Risky Business? NPH and the rose petals from American Beauty? The TARDIS hammer from Acme Inc.? Russell T Davies is playing with us as much as the Toymaker. Shame it came down to hacky-sack. I guess Squid Game beat Doctor Who to do everything, coming down to a game of rock, paper, scissors.

8. Something Nasty In The Woodshed

The Meep has a Big Boss interested in people with two hearts. The vampires at the edge of space had somewhere they wanted to go. And there is someone the Toymaker does not dare face. And it's not the Master. Looks like the Fifteenth Doctor has someone new to go up against. It should be the Rani, but it never is. But the Toymaker also has a legion coming… I mean, given the recursive bi-generation, it could be the Valeyard…

9. He Didn't Have To Go.

Do you want a quibble? Here's one. Regeneration doesn't just introduce you to a new Doctor; it forces you to say goodbye to one. Russell calls it a tragedy, I think it's a learning experience. It's an emotional and cathartic moment for the show and the audience that you can relive and film reaction videos of for YouTube. It's all about change, saying goodbye to one actor and being forced to say hello to another, and the necessity of such. The Ninth Doctor apologised. The Tenth Doctor didn't want to go. The Eleventh Doctor wouldn't forget a single day. The Twelfth Doctor let himself go. The Thirteenth Doctor played a game, tagged him, and said you're it. This time… bi-generation. No one has to say goodbye; no one has to face death; no one has to grow up. For once, nobody dies, everyone's happy, it's the Peter Pan solution, it's chocolate Frosties for breakfast, it's infantalisation. Do we care? Maybe, maybe not. But going forward, for Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor… will he count? What with the Fourteenth Doctor hanging around with Mel, Donna, and the rest of the family. This time, he didn't have to go, but maybe he should? Will Russell T Davies leave this on such a saccharine note? Or will he – or another – return and show us the price that the universe had to pay for Two Doctors? I'll give them Wilf shooting at moles for infinity, though. And hey, with Donna working for UNIT on 120K, maybe this retired Doctor might become a Great Curator now that he has revisited an old face.

10. Lights, Camera, Action Action Action!

Maybe that's the movie. Doctor Who, starring David Tennant, coming to a cinema near you in 2026. But first of all, for Christmas, we get a Doctor Who scene ripped out of RTD's breakout hit Queer As Folk. And did they blur out what Gatwa's sonic screwdriver looks like in the Christmas trailer? Come on now… only two weeks to go, and we get a Christmas Ghosts finale and Call The Midwife on the same day as well!

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