Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor

Well, as with the rest of this particular administration’s efforts, that was a bit of an overclocked mess. Albeit a largely fun mess if you could kind of check your brain at the door. It was nothing so much as a big going away party for the show, and a celebration of the original series that writer Chris Chibnall grew up a fan of. So I can’t actually say that it was good, but I can cop to the fact that it was good enough, and probably more pound-for-pound entertaining than most other episodes in this run.

It’s interesting, in that I feel like the real weakness of the Chris Chibnall era is the fact that the show so often botches the emotional beats. One of the things that was true about DOCTOR WHO since its return in 2005 is that it was an emotional series first and an action-adventure series second. That’s the secret key that made it all work, that returning showrunner Russell T. Davies put into place to make the series connect with modern audiences and that Steven Moffat heightened as he took the series global. But Chibnall’s work hearkens back to an earlier time, a point when the show was primarily about plot and didn’t often touch even in a cursorial fashion. on what the characters were feeling. Emotionality was frowned upon by the fandom of that period, as represented most concretely buy the outrage about “No kissing in the TARDIS” when the 1996 television movie aired. More than anything else, I feel as though that’s been the disconnect between the Chibnall era and the fans who came to the series under its former two showrunners: on the surface, it looks the same, but there’s an entirely different engine at work under the hood, and it has different goals in mind.

This may begin to explain why all of the emotional beats in the series in general and in tonight’s episode in particular never quite land as well as they ought to. For one thing, the episode is dedicated to careening ahead at a breakneck pace at all times, to the point where even trying to keep the plot straight takes a ton of mental brainpower. (I will confess, I was still wondering about the child stolen by the Cybermen by the end of the episode, having zipped past the line that revealed that she was just the glowing tendril-power source in concealment.) That speed of storytelling is perhaps meant to encapsulate this Doctor’s approach to every problem: barrel ahead, don’t explain anything to anybody, never slow down. But it makes it seriously difficult to digest what’s going on and extremely difficult to connect with emotionally. I wish it would be more deliberate in its storytelling. Also, I’ve spoken about this in the past, but once again, the sound mix on the episode seemed to be off, with the music track often threatening to drown out the dialogue being spoken. Maybe that’s a deliberate stylistic choice, but it was annoying just the same. Hopefully, things get back to normal in this regard once the new/old guys take the helm once again.

The show was also a bit overcrowded, with characters being brought back into the mix for really no good reason at all. It felt as though Chibnall was trying to realize every remaining idea he had in his idea bucket, with the result that a number of really solid ideas wind up seriously underdeveloped and pretty well wasted. I was happy to see Graham, but his sudden appearance inside the Dalek volcano base is barely explained at all, and he doesn’t really add anything to the proceedings. Similarly, Vinder’s part could have been excised entirely, as just as in The Flux his scenes ate up screen time but never really materially contributed to the plot. Sure, he shoots the Master, but Yaz certainly could have done that (and frankly it probably would have been better for her character development if she had been the one to do that.) And any story that includes both the Daleks and the Cybermen is going to wind up short-changing at least one, if not both. More successful was the brief appearance of the hologram of the Jo Martin Doctor, who was on point once again and who really showed in no space at all that she would have been a fabulous lead for the program.

The best moments throughout were the smaller bits. While it was a hair truncated (give your scenes some space to breathe, guys!), Dan’s departure following the throw-away pre-title sequence romp was effective and a fine sign-off for the character. It also meant that finally, we were at a point where this Doctor was working with only a single companion–and while Yaz still got underserved by the plot a little bit, that construction worked so much better all around. Likewise, while they didn’t entirely land solidly, completely sidestepping the revelations concerning Yaz’s feelings for the Doctor from the prior episode, that extended bit of the Doctor and Yaz sitting atop the TARDIS eating ice cream in space was really nice. I don’t know that I truly buy Yaz going off to let the Doctor die/regenerate on her own–even if she says that’s what she needs to do, you love this person, don’t you, Yaz? You fight to stay, right? But I get that this would have caused problems for the incoming production team. (The same reason that the extended cast of guest-stars is shuffled out of the TARDIS between scenes, when you can’t imagine a one of them leaving before they know that the Doctor has actually recovered.)

And I recognize that it was nothing more than weaponized nostalgia, but it was pretty lovely to see all of those Old Who characters and actors back again, even if the reasons for having them were a bit spurious and even nakedly manipulative. Because I was a part of the generation that watched those characters and their stories in real time, mostly, and so seeing Ace and Tegan again was nice (as was their momentary reunions with their different past incarnations of the Doctor.) Likewise, the other Doctors (including David Bradley, who really has become the First Doctor to this generation far more than William Harnell ever could, being consigned to dusty black and white reruns.) And in the final somewhat-gratuitous round table of former Who companions, I was delighted to see William Russell momentarily reprise his role as Ian Chesterton from the earliest episodes–his exclusion from the 50th Anniversary story was one of my minor complaints about it. Having been a part of the show since its earliest days, it is fitting to see him take to the stage once more, even if the role is only a momentary one.

The Regeneration scene itself was quite nice. I’m very fond of Jodie’s final words to her successor being “Tag. You’re it.” The death itself seemed somehow unearned, especially after having done and undone the Master’s forced regeneration of her form just moments ago, and the fact that she lay there unconscious for what must have been hours if not days before finally committing to the deed–the better to get Yaz and everybody else out of the picture and leave Russell a clean slate coming in. But at this point, I suppose every regeneration is a bit perfunctory, as we know that’s what’s coming before the episode even starts. It does seem as though lots of people were surprised by David Tennant’s reappearance as the brand-new Fourteenth Doctor at the end of the show. that surprise had seemingly been so spoiled by reports and images of the filming making their way across the internet that it seemed unlikely that anybody wouldn’t know that it was coming. Either way, David stepped back in seamlessly (though I was a hair troubled by the fact that somehow Jodie’s clothes transform into his as well. A minor thing to call fault with, but one that violated the established way-of-things even from earlier in the same episode.) Tennant’s return was also perhaps a bit blunted by just how many old faces were brought back in this episode, whereas if he’d been the only one, it might have been a bigger deal rather than just the cherry on top.

Still and all, this was a decent enough way for the Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker era to draw to a close. I thought she was a fine Doctor who often wasn’t well-served by the quality of the writing. And now, it’s time to settle in for the year-long wait for the first of the three Specials that will begin the new Russell era in 2023.