Whovember - 2017 to 2020

Two days left, and three years apiece, we’ve in the home stretch!  We’re into the Chibnall years, and before I carry on, I will say that I like Jodie’s era overall, there’s plenty to love in here.  I can get the writing not being to everyone’s taste, but I won’t say it’s better or worse than parts of the Davies or Moffat eras, just different.  Besides, if you want to see bad Who writing, go watch the depths of Eric Saward’s time as script editor.  Anyway, besides the point, let’s get into these choices…

Year 55: 2017 to 2018 - The Witchfinders

Series 11 is hugely underrated; yeah the finale is a bit “meh”, but there are some cracking episodes in here.  The Woman Who Fell To Earth is a strong debut for all the characters, Jodie embracing the role from the word “Go”.  With Rosa and Demons of the Punjab, we get a proper attempt at trying to revive the old “Historicals” format, but still with a very Who SF element, and both doing a good job of looking at the past with nostalgic glasses not just off but thrown into a bin.  (Also, I am so glad that with Rosa they didn’t do that thing that new series historicals have done of “the Doctor teaches this historical celebrity their inner awesome”, making it clear that Rosa’s stand was all her own idea.)   And as for Resolution, it's really helps to make the Daleks feel like a threat again, after a bit of villain decay in the Moffat years.  But in the end, I’m going with this story, not least because of all the tales this season, it by far feels the most “Doctor Who”.

There’s a lot to love about this one; firstly, I am a sucker for folk horror, and this has very much that feel to it, almost a Sunday teatime answer to Blood on Satan’s Claw.  It’s often said that in good folk horror the landscape is a character in the story; well this one almost literalises that with its alien menace!  Then there’s the way that this is the first story of Jodie’s run that really deals with the idea of the Doctor now being a woman is an extra complication in certain times and places, a witch-trial storyline being the perfect place to make that point.  It also does a nice have its cake and eat it aspect of the storyline by having there be a true supernatural/alien threat on the loose, but the ones leading these witch hunts are still firmly in the wrong.  A mistake a lot of stories dealing with this subject matter often make is that, if in your stories there really are witches, doesn’t that imply the murderous puritans were in the right?  (The Shakespeare Code for example blunders right into this!).  The Witchfinders sidesteps that issue gracefully, and making clear the point that those who start the hunts are the real causes of danger.  But the cherry on the cake of this one; Alan Cummings as James I, he gives a great, arch performance that certainly fits what we know about James; his attempts at flirting with Ryan are just pitch perfect from what we know about him from the history.  Great horror pastiche, fine performances, cool monsters, what’s not to like about this episode?

Year 56: 2018 to 2019 - Daughter of the Gods

Time for some more Big Finish methinks; this is from the Early Adventures range, a set of stories set in the time of the First and Second Doctors, which have a bit of additional narration, to give them more the feel of the Missing Episode soundtrack releases.  If you’re wondering who plays the Doctor in these, the Companions are pulling double duty; Peter Purves has a great take on Hartnell’s Doctor, getting his mannerisms down very well, whereas Frazer Hines is utterly uncanny in recreating Troughton’s voice, right down to clearing his throat!  This one is a crossover between the First and Second Doctors, imagining what we would have gotten if we had a Five Year Anniversary special.  So from that time period, we have the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe, after a mishap with the TARDIS, bumping into the First Doctor, Steven, and… Katarina?  Wait a moment… something has gone very wrong with the Doctor’s timeline.

So what becomes clear is that with a divergence of timelines, the First Doctor never went to Kembel, where he became entangled in events that lead to Katarina’s death.  But as a result, that means they never stopped the Daleks completing their Masterplan, and now they are on the warpath with a fully operational temporal weapon!  Things go from bad to worse very quickly, the Second Doctor is aware of what must be done to put things right… and what the cost of that would be.  This story is not just a fun mash up of two different eras, a good way of pointing out how much things had changed in not that much time in the show, but it also properly deals with the death of Katarina.  When it happened in the Daleks’ Masterplan, it was a big shock, especially since we were only introduced to her not that long before; it has been a moment that has left a shadow over things for ages, effectively fridging a companion just as we were getting to know her.  Here, we get to see a version of her and the Doctor’s relationship where they do get a bit more time together, we get a glimpse of how things could have gone.  There’s a lovely scene between her and the Second Doctor, where he talks through with her his dilemma, wishing that there was a way to put things back on track, stopping the Daleks, and yet still have her safe.  I have to give a special shout out to Ajjaz Awad who takes over the role of Katarina in this, she does a great job, and recently she’s been doing fine work as a different character in Big Finish’s War Doctor Begins range.  

This is an excellent story, with the regulars on top form, a strong emotional heart, and the Daleks at their most intimidating, I urge you to give it a go if you’re at all fond of the Black & White era.  There are plenty more good stories in the Early Adventures range too; I particularly recommend another story from this one’s writer David K. Barnes, The Dalek Occupation of Winter.  That one manages to do something very different with a Dalek story, whilst feeling very in keeping with sixties Who storytelling.  

Year 57: 2019 to 2020 - Doctor Who Lockdown

Got to admit, this was another tough choice, as we had Series 12 in here, and what moments to pick from.  From Spyfall’s “Or should I say Spy… Master”, to Doctor Ruth, to much of The Haunting of the Villa Diodati, to the Timeless Child reveal.  Whilst I’m here, about that last one, I don’t care what anyone says, I still like it; I think it clears up quite a few loose ends in the continuity, it adds a lot of new possibilities for future stories, acts as a potent allegory, it makes the Time Lords look like even bigger gits than they did already (which at this point, I’m amazed is even possible!), and it means we never have to get bogged down in “how many regenerations does the Doctor have left?” again.  However, keep in mind, this was 2020, a tough time for all of us.  In a way, we were lucky that the pandemic happened in the internet age; can you imagine how we’d have all coped in a pre-streaming, Zoom-less era?  It would have been a case of “well, finished that pile of VHSs… guess I’ll start from the first one again”. (Of course, on the flip side, the spread of dangerous BS about the pandemic would have been a lot slower).  It’s remarkable how quickly we adjusted to this new world, and how we did our best to connect at long distance.

Part of that, for us Who fans, were the watch-alongs arranged online by Emily Cook from Doctor Who Magazine; starting off in March with a simultaneous watch of The Day of the Doctor, followed by several more as the weeks went on, most of us joining in on Twitter with the appropriate hashtag.  What’s more, the creators of some of the episodes decided to make little extra short fiction, videos and such to tie in with these, giving us some solid bits of expansion of the stories, starting with RTD doing a short story suggesting that at least one notable face during the Covid crisis was an Auton all along.  It was a great way to feel a little less alone during that time, and it did have its knock on effects, including one VERY big effect.  See, after a festive rewatch of The Runaway Bride, with Catherine Tate and RTD joining in on Twitter, her and David got talking about how fun it would be to do some episodes again… and that is literally how the specials happening at the moment came about!  Funny how these things connect together, isn’t it?  2020 was a tough time in a lot of ways; one watch-along, of World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls, was cancelled because, given the Black Lives Matter protests, a story about one of the Doctor’s black companions going through… well, all of that, would be a bit tasteless then (though they did do a little video tie in that does reflect that in a respectful way).  This did help some of us through, making us feel a little less lonely during those Interesting Times.

Last day tomorrow, yay!  For my final selection, I will be looking at easily the best episode of Flux (though it does have some competition there), a season finale, but probably not the one you’re expecting, and then… spoilers Sweetie!