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

Thirteen Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Power Of The Doctor

That was Doctor Who: The Power Of The Doctor, as aired a couple of hours ago on BBC One. It will have been widely spoiled all over the shop by now, but here are a few thoughts regarding what went down. Get ready for an extra-length Thirteen Thoughts for an extra-length episode…

1. The Fans Have Been Serviced

Okay, so Chris Chibnall has received plenty of criticism from Doctor Who fans over the last year for his run on the show. But hardly any of them can be complaining about tonight's episode. I mean, I hate to go and check on Twitter; please don't make me. But Chibnall basically put everything in the run that people liked, and everything from everyone else's run that people liked that he was able to get his little mitts off. And a budget to pretty much pulls this off. And some moments among the ninety minutes will last as long as this silly kid's television show does. Next month is its 59th birthday—about the same time as my 50th. And I've been watching for 46 of those years…

2. The First Regeneration Of The Night

We start as we mean to go on. There are going to be a lot of these. And it just so happens to be one of the Cyber Masters, corpses of Time Lords that have been cyberized and serve the Master—and having a heist on a space train. So, yes, Chibnall is using his stuff, but noticeably, there will be no mention of the Timeless Child or the Timeless Children. And yes, I thought the child on the train might be the Doctor from those years, but it seems not.

3. The Mortality Of The Companion

We'll get a mention of Adric later. But for now, Dan comes rather close to his own death. And that's a reason for him to leave and just after he has given the train announcement of a lifetime. There's a job for him on the London Underground; you need to be able to keep your cool under pressure. But it's time for Dan to say goodbye right in the middle. However, the Doctor won't be at a loss for companions.

4. The Ones She Left Behind

So we meet Tegan and Ace at the new look UNIT, who have already been briefed that the Doctor is a woman, especially to Ace's delight, who still calls her Professor, and Tegan gets to be annoyed that the Doctor is younger than her. They also get up close with the Master, as they have their histories with that particular psychopath involving shrunken aunts and cat DNA. He even gets in a shot at Kate over her dad as well…

5. Pick Up The Gun

Yaz picking up the gun, using her armed police training, and doing what the Doctor says despite her doubts is a turning point for them. This is the moment they actually say goodbye; they have moved on from where they were. Despite all the action, pizazz, fanservice, and scenery-eating scenes, this is the moment that will stay with me. Note that the Master's escape plan draws on the Dalek army's arrival in Rose's final episode, Doomsday.

6. The Death Of A Traitor

There's a lot of death in this episode. But the death of the Traitor Dalek may have been the one that got me the most. And just as one of Chibnall's finest cliffhangers was the Doctor turned into a Weeping Angel, so the Dalek getting grabbed by the insides of a Dalek reminded me of the Dalek Manhattan episode, but carried off with greater skill.

7. Ra-Ra-Rasputin

Sacha Dhawan shines as the Master and relishes in the idea of being captured and jailed by UNIT, just like in the old days. Of course, he has a plan. I mean, okay, the plan may not have been a good one and may have gotten lost somewhere amongst planets, volcanoes, Masters, Daleks, and glowing children, but it was in there somewhere. But plans, schplans, the Master moment of the night will have been back in 1916 Petersburg. It was Russell T Davies who gave us the Master who likes to play pop music while his big plans play out. And so Chibnall revisits that, with The Master revealed to have been Rasputin – and then gives us the Boney M version while his big plan plays out around him. It is also notable that Peter Harness, who co-wrote The Zygon Inversion/Invasion with Steven Moffat, pitched a story that would have had Matt Berry play the Time Lord character, The Meddling Monk, who averted the Russian Revolution by playing Boney M's track repeatedly to Rasputin as if that was his entire legacy. Now we have Rasputin playing it to himself.

8. He's The Doctor, But Maybe Not The One You Were Expecting

And so the Doctor's regeneration came much sooner than we expected. And we get to meet the Fourteenth Doctor, played by… Sacha Dhawan,

Because the Master is now the Doctor, or the Doctor is now the Master. He wears her clothes – and her earring – and then manages to wear all the other Doctor's clothes as well. The TARDIS must have a handy wardrobe with all the old clobber. Notably, this is a Forced Regeneration, as happened to the Second Doctor.

9. Revisiting One Or Two Faces…

We get a new waiting place for the regenerations of the Doctor. The closest the Doctor will get to an afterlife. Okay, so from start to finish, we get so much back. We knew about The Master, Kate, Vinder, Tegan, and Ace. But then get the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Fugitive Doctors too? And more to come as well. It was noted that they were mostly missing, aside from The Great Curator in the fiftieth-anniversary episode, having to resort to being Red Button extras.

And the Doctor gets to keep the multi-Doctor look for a bit. Now there was no Tom Baker, whose health has deteriorated of late, but the Five-Ish Doctors all made it to the BBC 100th anniversary episode. And everyone just loves it.

10. No Kissing, We're British

The Master had their revenge before their own death. And the Doctor was forced to regenerate for real this time. But not before she gets a chance to say goodbye to Yaz. Yaz, who fell in love with her Doctor but knows it is time for her to leave, as her Doctor is going away. She can pilot the TARDIS now, even if she takes everyone to Croydon by mistake. Just like the Doctor failed to do with Sarah Jane. But also, no kiss? Rose, Amy, and River got to kiss their Doctors – why not Yaz?

11. …But Just The Old Favourites, Eh?

And then there was everyone else. Graeme. And then the sit down that people have been clamouring for years, a support group for companions of the Doctor, with Mel, Jo, and… Ian. Okay, so yes, that got me.

The companion from the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, Ian Chesterton, the teacher who got whisked away with Barbara and Susan–as played by Ian Chesterton, who turned 97 four days ago. I'm only halfway to that…

12. New Suit, That's Weird

Tonight's regeneration was different from any other, and not for the reasons you think. They are usually those from death, destruction, fear, panic, and escape. This was one of celebration, living in the moment, and of the many coming moments. Finally, a regeneration that the Doctor actually embraced then had to endure.

The Doctor usually keeps their clothes when regenerating, as we saw with Sacha. But this time, the Doctor's clothing also joins in the game for the first time, currently unexplained. The first words he said when he was the Tenth Doctor were, "new teeth, that's weird." And now we have a new take on that, he knows these teeth, and that's still weird… and the return of the classic what, what, what?

The idea of an interim Doctor between regenerations was first demonstrated in the final Fourth Doctor episode from 1981 in Logopolis, with a character called The Watcher, and again a few years later in Trial Of A Timelord with the Valeyard believed to be a version of the Doctor between their twelfth and thirteenth regenerations. And as for reusing an old face, that was teased nine years ago in The Day Of The Doctor, where we met a far-future version of the Doctor, known as the Great Curator, played by Tom Baker, who told the Eleventh Doctor that in the future, they might find themselves revisiting a few faces from the past – "but only the old favourites, eh?" David Tennant is certainly one of those now. But not Boris Johnson, who announced he was no longer standing for Prime Minister in the middle of the show.

13. What The Hell Is Going On Here?

We have The Doctor. We have The Toymaker. We have Donna. And we have… The Fourteenth… Sorry, Fifteenth…. Sorry, Sixteenth Doctor too; somehow, the first look at his new clobber as well and his general attitude.

So it's all going down… Oh, and yes, apparently, he is actually to be The Fifteenth Doctor. David Tennant to be the Tenth and Fourteenth. And Sacha to be… The Master Doctor? Let's go with that. Someone tell him what the hell is going on here.

Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor is currently available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer and in the US on BBC America.
In this feature-length special to mark her last adventure, Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor must fight for her very existence against her deadliest enemies: the Daleks, the Cybermen, and her arch-nemesis, the Master. Who is attacking a speeding bullet train on the edges of a distant galaxy? Why are seismologists going missing from 21st-century Earth? Who is defacing some of history's most iconic paintings? Why is a Dalek trying to make contact with the Doctor? And just what hold does the mesmeric Rasputin have over Tsar Nicholas II in 1916 Russia? The Doctor faces multiple threats – and a battle to the death. 23 October 2022 1 hour, 27 minutes

The Doctor: Jodie Whittaker
Yasmin Khan: Mandip Gill
Dan Lewis: John Bishop
The Master: Sacha Dhawan
Ace: Sophie Aldred
Tegan: Janet Fielding
Kate Stewart: Jemma Redgrave
Voice of the Daleks and the Cybermen: Nicholas Briggs
Director: Jamie Magnus Stone
Writer: Chris Chibnall
Executive Producer: Chris Chibnall
Executive Producer: Matt Strevens
Executive Producer: Nikki Wilson

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