Gryphonic

From a high level, it looks to be fairly simple – and I’m reviewing both episodes as the one story here: The Rani is back, and she wants to resurrect Omega to obtain Time Lord DNA in order to rebuild Gallifrey (surely not the whole planet?) and Time Lord society.  In order to do this, she’s got a scheme where she is going to use the fact that the Doctor had ‘awoken’ the Pantheon, find a child that can bring wishes to life, and then – as if the world is a giant rubber band stretched to it’s limit – twang it a few times with ‘doubt’ so that it eventually snaps so that she can find Omega hidden in the Underverse. She needs to make use of the Doctor and use his doubt to help with this ‘twanging’ (really, I tried to think of a better word here) because as a Time Lord (or something) he’d be the most efficient with it perhaps.

One of the personal head-canons that I’ve got about the show is that while Time Lords can jump forward and backward in time however they want, they still encounter each other in a single progressing time line. I’m sure that this has been blown to bits in novels, audio plays, and the like, but at least within the realm of the TV show (and the Sacred Timeline – wait, that’s Marvel… One True Timeline?) this has generally been an unwritten rule… because of how time actually works in the real world where Folks Like What Us Live.

What I’m getting at here is that the Rani could not started this plan anywhere before the 14th Doctor ‘open the door’ to the Pantheon in Wild Blue Yonder.

Right, so that’s the setup. How was the execution of this?

Absolutely messy, fast moving, and yet fraught with questions that were either unanswered completely or unsatisfactorily.

The Rani doesn’t have a TARDIS. Apparently the Doctor has the only TARDIS in the universe. Instead she has a Time Ring. We saw the 4th Doctor with one of these along with Sarah and Harry at the end of Genesis of the Daleks, and it appeared to be a somewhat limited bit of Time Lord technology. Yet somehow the Rani was able to use this to get to specific points in time – as Mrs. Flood to be the neighbours of Ruby Sunday and Belinda Chandra, as well as heading back to Bavaria to pick up the Baby Desidirium. Not just that, but somehow she managed to collect a bunch of the ‘Daft Punk’ type robots from Harmony Station, as well as the Seekers to populate the Bone Palace with. Not just that, but she managed to pick up technology to give her that little flying scooter as well as a transmat device. That’s a lot of heavy lifting for that device.

For the Baby Desidirium, there’s a bunch of questions there too. Such as how did the Rani know where to find him? How did she know how to ‘use’ him? For that matter, how did anyone automatically know how to ‘use’ him, since Ruby and the Doctor both knew. Perhaps holding him and being close enough was enough to somehow let people know, I suppose.

Let’s touch for a moment too on how some members of the cast were totally underused this story.

Belinda: For most of the first episode she’s stuck at home being the “Good little wife” and “Good little mother”, and then once arrested really doesn’t know what’s happening. Then in the second episode she’s just, “I can’t leave my daughter”, then “Hurrah, my daughter is safe” whiplashing into “What daughter, let’s go to Neptune!” and finally, “I’m back to the daughter I was originally trying to get back to always. Don’t you remember? I kept telling you about her.” — aside from the fact that no, you never did say anything or even implied it about having a daughter.  Wasn’t Varada Sethu meant to be the companion here in this season? Didn’t feel like it for this story; she was very much pushed to the side and Ruby given the heavy lifting.

Mel: All Mel was there for was just to give a little exposition on the Rani and how she faced her before. That was it. She contributed nothing else.

Rogue: Just there to tell the Doctor that “tables don’t do that” and “find me”. That’s it. Nothing else. Who knows if the Doctor ever will at this point.

Rosie, Donna’s daughter: Other than some brief tech stuff with Ruby, which could have been done by someone else, there was no point to her even being there.

Susan: A blink and you miss it pop up on one of the screens, and that’s IT. Not even a line for Carol Ann Ford this story. RTD is probably giggling madly that he made fans think that Susan would be coming back this story.

In fact, I can totally imagine both The Vast Toffee (MN) and RTD cackling madly in whatever room they wrote scripts in thinking, “Ooh, I’m so clever! Hee hee! This will make the fans lose their minds. Oh, and what a clever story I wrote! All these things that I can call back to!”

Honestly, Moffett did a far better job of that in his finales than RTD has recently. You could go back and rewatch an episode to see something that was called back to by the finale hiding in plain sight. I rather get the feeling that RTD tried to do that here, but actually didn’t hide anything.

Specifically with the whole Poppy storyline. First she’s the Doctor and Belinda’s daughter, who apparently came out of Conrad’s Wish. This is tried to be explained by ’scraps of memories’ being used by the Doctor (seeing Poppy in Space Babies) and Belinda… presumably seeing her in Lagos. Except no-one else saw her there. It was a mystery as to why she had been seen and only Belinda. Also, why would Belinda see the exact same child? Then all of this gets that big retcon I mentioned earlier about Poppy now being the daughter that Belinda always had (yet never mentioned, or even hinted to).  If there had been breadcrumbs about this through the course of these season, then I could have accepted it. Yet there were none and that’s why I think that this retconning is just so sloppy.

Stepping back slightly to before that point, we get the Doctor going off on his mission to “fix the universe and restore one person”. To be honest here, up until that point – which was pretty much edging up to the 50 minute mark of the 2nd episode – it looked like this was going to be a wonderful cliffhanger that might have led us into a third season with Ncuti. From this point where he got back into the TARDIS to go off and do that, the whole episode made an absolute hard turn tonally, and it felt like this was something else bolted on. There’s been much speculation as to what was going to happen with Ncuti after this season; whether he’d stay or go. The way that the back 20 minutes ended up, it felt like it was a hefty re-write to handle a regeneration.

Sure, it was wonderful to see a completely unexpected return of Jodie here. I miss her portrayal of the Doctor so much, and still feel that she was never given enough to shine with. Even this brief bit made me want more of her.

Regeneration used to be something special. Something rare. Something we only got when it was time to say “good bye” to one Doctor and “hello” to a new one. Yet recently it’s felt like whenever there’s a problem that needs a bunch of power to fix, let’s use regeneration. After all, now that the Doctor is the Timeless Child we have infinite amounts of regeneration to play with. This Doctor used it to defeat Lux, and now it’s suddenly this all powerful force to “shift reality by one degree”. It’s now more of a magic “Get Out of a Plot Hole Free” card than the Sonic Screwdriver!

Not just that, but “stunt regenerations”. While we were pleased to see Tennant back as the 14th Doctor (presumably, “The Other Guy” that 15 referred to 13 about), that had the hallmarks of “stunt” casting; bring a lead actor back that resonated with a large part of the fan base that grew up with the 2005 revival, along with the returning showrunner who a large number of people felt that it would help “right the ship”, we now have 15 regenerating into something that is wearing Billie Piper’s appearance. I’m saying ’something’ because it’s been very deliberate for the show not to call her the Doctor. There was no announcement welcoming Billie as the new Doctor from official BBC channels, and the credits just said “Introducing Billie Piper”, without the “as the Doctor” that every new Doctor has had since the 2005 revival.  Shenanigans are afoot, most assuredly. Yet we have no idea when (hopefully when, not if) we’ll get answers to that.

*sigh* I’m sorry, this has turned into another long ranty post again. I’ll start to finish up with some closing, unanswered questions:

1. Why did the Rani name the baby Sturn-und-Drang (Storm and Stress, this translates to). Why not just name him Desidirium then and there?

2. What did the Rani wish for at the end of the scene in Bavaria?

3. How did Rogue manage to contact the Doctor from that Hell dimension?

4. How come Anita’s master key open doors in mid-air? That pretty much went away from everything we understood about the Time Hotel setup, where a door on the other side was needed.

5. Why could we not leave the Vlinx boxed up?

6. Why did Mel drive her scooter on to the UNIT ‘bridge’? Why could she not have just parked it before taking the elevator?

7. If Mel was a housewife, who was she married to?

8. Not a question, but the idea of having a ship’s wheel on the UNIT ‘bridge’ to turn the top half of the building was just dumb.

9. Speaking of dumb, the fire trails that Shirley’s wheelchair made was also stupid.

10. How did the Doctor know that the Rani had that hover cycle?

11. Why did taking the hover cycle through the Chronic Beam deactivate the Threshold?

12. Why was Ruby’s memory different from everyone else’s? Not even the Doctor seemed to know that!

13. Who is ’The Boss’ that Anita was referring to?

14. Finally, if now there are various changes to this world given that everything has been ‘reset’ from the Wish World, does that finally mean that “Mavity” is no longer a thing? (I really hope so)

Okay, I think that will do it. I’ve certainly got more things about this story that bothered me, but I’m done for now.

After what probably seemed like a fair bit of whiny-ass (sorry, whiny-arse) complaints about the first two episodes, I was most pleasantly surprised by The Well.  I’ve taken a leaf out of El Presidente’s book of late, and have been doing my best to avoid teasers, trailers, and news articles relating to any upcoming episodes for this season, and unlike a fair few people out there, I did not know that this was going to be a sequel to Midnight. Being able to make the connection a few seconds before the Doctor did was so worth it to have avoided being spoiled beforehand.

Midnight was such a wonderful episode by itself, and trying to do a sequel to it could have gone badly. After all, there was much that we (or even the Doctor) just didn’t know at the end of that episode; if this offering had gone as far as allowing us to see far more or understand what this entity was all about, it could have really cheapened things.

Thankfully it didn’t. Yes, we saw glimpses of something moving, but it really was  “if you blink you miss it”, and I had to skip back a few seconds just to rewatch those bits just to even slightly notice it. Though even those moments were fleeting and the entity itself was never completed revealed. While we did find out a smidgen more about it, there is still so much left to the mystery of it.

Much like in Midnight where we had a small number of people in the ‘rover’, much of the main action took place in that single space where Aliss was being held, and with that many military types and unsettling things happening, you just knew that things were soon going to boil over, and indeed they did.

Though, as Aliss was turning around to follow Callo, I’m sure that there were moments when someone was directly behind her, with their eyes open, who didn’t end up deaded. That aside, I loved this episode… apart from the Mrs. Flood bit at the end. I really am getting a Deja vu feeling here about the Earth being completely destroyed at some point in the past. It rather is starting to feel like retreading paths that have already been walked since the shows revival.

But my goodness… what a lot of Aliens references in this episode! Right from the ‘drop ship’ (well, HALO jump) to be followed by a base which has gone communications silent, through to the ‘nuke it from orbit’ line. I wonder if it was known that this was going to be released on ‘Aliens Day’ – that is 4/26 (as dates are written in North America), for LV 426 in Aliens.

One final point about this episode; the outfits that the Doctor and Belinda chose just happened to be the exact kind of space suit gear that everyone else had. Now we know that that TARDIS takes the Doctor where he’s needed, but is it also now ensuring that he (and his companion) have the right kind of attire they need too? It could have ended rather badly had they chosen something different.

Now on to Lucky Day – another one that I mostly enjoyed.

Very much a “Doctor-lite” episode, and indeed a “Belinda-lite” one as well. With the rather large exception of The Sarah Jane Adventures, this is a style of episode that we really have not gotten from Doctor Who very much. I think probably Love and Monsters was the only other episode that we’ve had that solely focused on the lives of people ‘touched’ by the Doctor without really involving the Doctor in the story.

It’s only been since the revival of the show – starting with School Reunion – that it’s started to touch upon what lives are like for companions once they’ve left the TARDIS. One thread that’s pretty much run through everyone we’ve revisited is that while they enjoyed their time traveling, they return back to the mundane with a lot of trauma that takes years – if not a lifetime – to unpack, and that’s where Ruby Sunday is right now. While she’s back with her two mums and gran, we get the idea that it’s been pretty hard for her to just do what every other person on the Earth does. Her finding Conrad, and finding out that there’s a small connection that they share, might likely feel like a lifeline that she eagerly grabs. I’m sure that we all started rooting for her and Conrad as they were becoming a couple.

So when there’s the sudden and inevitable betrayal from him, we – the audience – absolutely feel for her.

The next half of the episode is all the fall out from this, becoming heavily focused on the infiltration of London’s version of the Avengers tower… I mean, UNIT HQ. Though here’s where the problems with the story start to become apparent. Another great setup, but not being able to quite stick the landing.

It’s certainly nice to see Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and the gang back (except maybe the Vlinx), though apparently Mel is dealing with something in Sydney Harbour. I’m sure that UNIT’s standing after all this will in no way affect what’s to come in the spinoff we’re to get.

But let’s unpack what we got here.

I really don’t understand Conrad’s motivations for trying to expose the ‘lie of UNIT’, especially because he was witness to the TARDIS first materializing in 2007. Not sure if that was the start or end of 2007, but both were book-ended by aliens of London in the form of the Sycorax and Racnoss respectively, unless those got completely unwritten by the many times the universe has ended since then. Though he also witnessed Ruby and the Doctor in 2024 when they first encountered the Shreek. It’s all good to say that alien invasions were elaborate special effects put on to convince people, but in both cases there was no-one else to witness these events except him. We’ve had other people – such as Clive, as well as Elton and his Scooby Gang – who encountered or had heard of the Doctor that never fell down this path of conspiracy theories, but somehow Conrad did? I’m just not sure I see what pushed him to tread that path.

Given Conrad’s only brief glimpses of the Shreek in his 2024 encounter, I’m quite surprised he remembered enough to get convincing costumes of those critters made, not to mention his friends managing to recreate certain mannerisms the critters had. Aside to that, kind of weird to see guys in rubber (more likely silicone) suits actually being guys in rubber suits! (Now where did he get those made, I wonder? Because those were cool costumes)  Also, while they might have been able to affect the electrics in the pub, I’m not quite sure how they did the same with the bus signs and so on.

It also would be remiss not to talk about Kate’s actions here, as she unleashed a Shreek upon Conrad – while it was being livestreamed! If you’re trying to convince people that you’re working on their behalf, maybe setting a monster to go eat someone on a live stream is quite a questionable choice. I was really hoping that she had some trick up her sleeve where it wouldn’t go as far as it did, but nope – seems like she was willing to go that far. The Brigadier had his moments (blowing up a Silurian base) but I’m not quite remembering where he was willing to make a human sacrifice like this.

We also have our standard appearance of Susan Twist… I mean, Anita Dobson… Really, I mean Mrs Flood at the end of the episode, and this seems to mark the first time where she actively seems to have recruited someone to work against the Doctor.

Anyway, I think that out of the four episodes we’ve had so far, I’d rank this 2nd, with The Well being 1st.

But come on, RTD, the way you’re patterning this season is pretty much the same as the last one.

Episode 1 was kind of goofy and set in space (Space Babies and The Robot Revolution)

Episode 2 was campy, set in the past on Earth, featuring a member of the Pantheon (The Devil’s Chord and Lux)

Episode 3 was future, darker in tone, featuring a returning villain in some way (Boom with Villengard, and The Well with the creature from Midnight)

Now episode 4, Doctor-lite, featuring UNIT and Kate, pub scene where someone is playing a prank on the companion (73 Yards and Lucky Day)

And all the way through, a mysterious figure that keeps popping up in  vague yet menacing manner.

Is this “Second verse, same as the first” here?

The strength of Doctor Who’s format has been that it’s possible to do so many different kinds of story, but lately it really seems that it’s falling into a very samey rut.