10.30: Time Crash

In which the Doctor meets his Doctor.

Broadcast: November 2007

Watched: September 2021

A quick one while she’s away.

Lovely. Loads of great jokes: the decorative vegetable bit, the desktop theme, Belgium (why is it always Belgium in sketches? Oh wait John Finnemore answered that ages ago never mind), the “Does he still have that rubbish beard?” “No! Well, a wife.”

I like the way it sort of turns meta, that you really have to squint to find a reading of the 10th Doctor’s last speech that works within the fiction. Love that the twist is the Doctor can remember meeting himself (which makes this feel like a sort of dumb show version of Day of the Doctor). LOVE that, this being Moffat, he has to make clear that this is the early season 20 Doctor.

One weird thing about it is that the fifth Doctor isn’t quite right. Some of his lines, about how marvellous he is, the fans, etc, sound very not like him. And while he was incredibly grumpy, he was never shouty. The Doctor we get here feels like a sort of remix of 20th century Doctors. Oh wait! That’s more dumb show Day…, isn’t it? Cool.

It’s great. And, like School Reunion and Utopia before it, it’s a step on the road to reintegrating the old series into the new.