14.1: The Star Beast

In which Doctor Who is back, baby!

Broadcast/Watched: November 2023

“I would burn down the world for you, darling.”

Although, “Under my jurisdiction there will be no violence until I deem it fit and proper” feels like a pretty great summary of the Doctor’s character

A perfectly normal thing about me is that I often feel weirdly nervous the first time I watch some new Who. Especially the start of a new era, I want it to be good so much that I end up not enjoying it even when it is. (I didn’t think The Eleventh Hour was good the first time, and that’s pretty near perfect.)

Anyway, I wasn’t sure, but once I’d watched it a second time – also perfectly normal – this time knowing the *shape*, I really liked it. It has a sort of movie vibe to it, like, I dunno, Voyage of the Damned – and absolutely not like Legends of the Sea Devils – all Broad Strokes, Big Moments and Soaring Music, but crammed into an hour. Structurally it’s also sort of Rose isn’t it? That was using the plot of Spearhead.. as a framework, leaving RTD free to focus on the new companion plot… This is using the 1980 comic as a framework for the old companion plot.

It is also a very weird 2008 throwback, feeling like an extra episode from the late RTD era and clearly aimed at finishing a story from 15 years ago that RTD now regrets. It’s not a jumping on point, it’s a jumping back in point. I do wonder whether the pre-credits, with the Doctor and Donna talking directly to camera to remind everyone what happened, was added later when someone realised they were assuming too much knowledge. 

It really doesn’t mess about: without that pre-credits, literally the first thing that happens is that the TARDIS lands and the Doctor walks into Donna. I love that her family is now set up as just uncomplicatedly loving and caring – that Sylvia is very clearly still Sylvia, but has mellowed, that she worries about doing right by her trans granddaughter. (Also that Donna would obviously kill for her Rose.)

I’d sort of forgotten how RTD doesn’t bother with huge swathes of plot, it’s just emotional logic plus technobabble. How the goodies win matters less than the emotional journey they go on to do it. That also annoyed me a bit the first viewing: on the second, I was entirely won over by Tate’s delivery on, “But it will kill you.” “Okay.” 

I was momentarily annoyed by Tennant’s delivery of, “Why does it have to be this!”, until I realised he’s probably deliberately channelling “It’s not fair!” from The End of the Time. Tennant screaming with a companion on the other side of some perspex is also, now I think about it, clearly a deliberate reference.

The resolution of the DoctorDonna thing... I’m not sure mine is the voice anyone needs to hear on whether it was a clever and helpful comment on what it means to be trans or not. But 

a) The idea that it simply wouldn’t have occurred to a male-presenting Time Lord that you can just give up the magical powers feels mildly gender essentialist which, hmm. But it is also a sort of mea culpa that maybe RTD messed up the end of his best season by writing a story in which the Doctor removed the agency from not one but *two* of his companions; and

b) RTD going absolutely all in on using the show to fight bigotry is great.

My favourite moment was when the Meep just says “Meeeeeeeeeeeep” in a sinister growling fashion, like John Finnemore playing the ugly duckling that grew up to be an ugly duck (“Quaaaaaaaaaack”).

Other things:

• I enjoyed seeing Matt Green, who I knew from my failed attempt to make a name for myself in the Cambridge Footlights, as the TV reporter who gets bundled into a van.

• If you want your house to stay in good nick, don't become a Doctor Who companion. Although the first time I'd missed the bit where the Doctor announces that UNIT's insurance policy is covering the damage – OOOH he's fixing what happened to Dan in Flux too, isn't he! Wonder if he'll fix, y'know, the rest of the universe.

• Talking of UNIT, its land rovers are “defenders”. Cool. (Pals pointed out that “jeeps”, as I originally put, are an entirely different thing.)

• Talking of RTD's patented plot logic: the Sonic being able to make forcefields now is going to be a very useful cheat code. Although, “This is a sonic screwdriver, and if it's good at one thing, it’s.... resonating concrete” feels weirdly like it was meant to sound iconic rather than a gag.

• Also, the self-repairing lava canyons that almost destroy London are fucking hilarious.

• Sylvia says something nice to the Doctor!

• The UNIT building is on the site of Lloyds of London. I spent ages working this out so you need to know, too.

• There is clearly more to come on the “why did this face come back” thing. Also it’s implied that the Meep is working for the Toymaker? Maybe there will be Meep toys for Christmas after all.