Doctor Who TV Show • Page 45

Honestly kind of baffled by the reaction to the season finale. It's a Frankensteined mish mash of an episode, but like... there have been WAY WAY WAY WAY worse episodes. And worse finales! The vitriol just seems disproportionate, especially after a generally well received season.

As for Billie Piper, I think there's a real opportunity to do something very interesting here. I understand the feeling that we're relying too much on nostalgia here, but it's obviously not JUST a Rose return. An actor returning like this is a novel idea, so I'm open to seeing how it plays out. Billie Piper has grown a lot as an actress since her time in Who.

 

it'd be a lot more novel if the exact same gimmick hadn't happened, from the exact same era that's already incredibly oversaturated in the culture, literally 3 years ago

 

While I get your point, I think the Doctor regenerating into an old companion’s face is a pretty different concept and has a lot of potential.

 

I'm not saying there's no potential there but I just don't trust RTD to deliver on any of it at this stage. after all the teases in this era that were absolute wastes of time (why could Mrs Flood break the fourth wall? why could Ruby make it snow? why did Belinda's kid look like a space baby? none of us know because Russell certainly does not) it's clear to me he's just making shit up as he goes and hoping something sticks. the difference in quality from his first era is astonishing

the other thing I think is that if this was ever gonna happen, a) Jenna Coleman should be the one who comes back as the Doctor and b) it should not be happening right now. having the first queer Doctor of colour bookended by two nostalgia stunt casts, after he was already absent from 1/4th of his era, just looks wildly bad and desperate

 

I actually started thinking about how much more I would be excited if a new showrunner took over at this moment. RTD left it in a bit of a mess, that I think it would be entertaining to see how someone might write the show out of this mess and potentially tie up some loose ends in the process.

 

I just don’t really care about getting resolutions on that stuff tbh. There’s enough wiggle room with the fantasy elements of this era that it all mostly works for me. It’s been messy as hell but I’m having fun watching it again after being bored to tears in the Chibnall era.

Clara is my favorite companion ever, so of course I’d love her as the Doctor. But I imagine it would be pretty much the same performance because Clara pretty much was the Doctor by the end of her run. With Billie, I think she can do something exciting and new. But we’ll see!

 

just depressing as hell

 

The current going theory - which I happen to believe since it fits quite well - is that Ruby was meant to be Desiderium, and most likely remain companion for the second season before things changed for unknown reasons.

There's a line in Church on Ruby Road that goblins "feed off coincidence", and Zufall, the surname of the family from whom the Rani takes Desiderium, is "coincidence" in German. It explains why Mrs Flood is Ruby's neighbour before she's met the Doctor (and why she becomes Belinda's neighbour at the start of season 2) - she's keeping an eye on Desiderium as part of the plan.

There's some bonus speculative bits like at one point Alan Budd and Conrad might have been one character, but it makes so much more sense I think it has to be at least partly true.

 

I’m pressing play on the Reality War. Wish me luck.

 

The finale was a mess plot-wise. But the emotional core still kinda worked for me. Ncuti obviously did a lot of that heavy lifting. So I won’t really complain.

That said, I really dislike that David and now Billie have been brought back. It just feels so cheap to me.

Ultimately, I just want a fresh voice at the helm of Doctor Who.