Warning: This article accommodates full spoilers for Doctor Who Season 14.
The first season of showrunner Russell T. Davies’ second tenure on Doctor Who is now wrapped up. After a season finale with loads of sci-fi wackiness and emotional payoffs for the fifteenth Doctor and his companion Ruby Sunday, we will lastly look again at how the general season compares to its predecessors. Doctor Who, in fact, has been a British cultural staple since 1963, however gained extra of a worldwide viewers with the 2005 relaunch, additionally spearheaded by Davies. After so many ups and downs over the previous 20 years, how is the present faring in its newest iteration?
Quite effectively, all issues thought-about. After the frankly dreadful period overseen by producer Chris Chibnall, which preceded Davies’ return, and the haphazardly assembled remaining season underneath Steven Moffat earlier than that, Season 14 has been a large step up in high quality. It’s not excellent, and we’ll look at the place it may enhance a bit of later, however Ncuti Gatwa’s first season because the Doctor is the primary time in years that Doctor Who has felt prefer it has a purposeful route.
Unlucky Number 13
It’s not a lot of a sizzling take to say that earlier than RTD returned for this second time as showrunner, Doctor Who was caught in one thing of a tough spot. Moffat’s tenure as showrunner is divisive amongst followers, however the fan-favorite installment “Heaven Sent,” which was a part of the wrap-up of the twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Clara Oswald’s (Jenna Coleman) relationship in Season 9, was the final time the present delivered a really wonderful episode. Moffat originally believed the 2015 Christmas particular “The Husbands of River Song” could be his farewell to the present, and that particular nonetheless appears like probably the most applicable sequence finale Doctor Who will seemingly ever have, tying off each unfastened finish and giving the Doctor and his spouse River (Alex Kingston) a contented ending. But Moffat stayed for another season, and every thing went downhill from there.
Not that Season 10 didn’t have its charms, like Pearl Mackie’s efficiency as Bill or the primary time a number of variations of the Master shared the display, however Moffat had clearly exhausted all of his large concepts in earlier seasons. Chibnall taking up solely made every thing worse, with three seasons virtually fully bereft of the standard we’d seen in earlier eras. Pretty a lot the one good factor on this run was Jodie Whittaker’s efficiency because the Doctor, with the Broadchurch alum doing every thing in her energy to wrestle one thing workable out of the dire scripts she was given. Many followers had been blissful to see a girl lastly tackle the long-lasting position after so a few years, however sadly, the thirteenth Doctor’s period is without doubt one of the weakest within the present’s historical past.
From an array of flat and uninteresting companions, incomprehensible plotting, dialogue pushed way more by exposition than character, the Doctor changing into a conservative-minded particular person who defends the established order, and large, unneeded retcons to the sequence mythology, the Chibnall period would seemingly have killed every other present. But Doctor Who is just too large to ever meaningfully go away, and with Disney+ swooping in to take over worldwide distribution, a revamp of the sequence was all however assured. Thankfully, Doctor Who is already exhibiting vital indicators of enchancment, and all of it begins with giving the brand new period a stable basis.
Ready, Set, Relaunch
As with all the very best eras of recent Doctor Who, Season 14 hones in on principally episodic plots centered across the Doctor and a single companion. This type of storytelling has all the time been the present’s sturdy swimsuit, with the dynamics between the ninth Doctor and Rose, the tenth Doctor and Donna, and the twelfth Doctor and Clara standing out as the very best examples. It’s too early to inform but if the fifteenth Doctor and Ruby will enter that esteemed group, since there’s a decrease episode depend today and Millie Gibson nonetheless has at least another season of taking part in the character. But for now, the “again to fundamentals” method appears to be working. Out of the season’s eight episodes, the one two that stand out as not fairly making the grade are “Space Babies” for being too juvenile to get invested in, and “Dot and Bubble” for fighting jarring tonal shifts.
By distinction, the season accommodates some exemplary episodes the likes of which haven’t been seen from the present in years. “Boom” is one other nice instance of the excessive idea self-contained episode writing Moffat is finest at (he got here again to script that phase); “73 Yards” provides Ruby a full Doctor-lite horror story that goes in sudden instructions, and the two-part finale with “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” and “Empire of Death” brings the throughline established within the 14th Doctor Specials in regards to the Pantheon of Discord, a group of evil gods, to an explosive conclusion with the ultimate confrontation with Sutekh. The teases associated to this subplot are higher dealt with than earlier makes an attempt within the present’s historical past at story arcs, particularly as a result of members of the Pantheon had been truly used as villains of particular episodes with the Toymaker in “The Giggle” and Maestro in “The Devil’s Chord.” And though the subject is contentious, I felt that the reveal of Ruby’s mom as a standard human as an alternative of a cosmic being or lengthy misplaced determine from Who lore to be a poignant selection, and Ruby reuniting together with her mom to be one of many season’s most emotional scenes.
Long-form tales have by no means been Doctor Who’s energy underneath any showrunner, with the present’s largest stumbles occurring after they tried to power one. An egregious instance could be Season 13, which grew to become a very convoluted mess of characters and factions that not often left the viewers with a hard and fast level of reference. Here, every episode will get to face by itself phrases, and each the plotting and stakes are straightforward to know. It’s a welcome reprieve after the extraordinarily messy storytelling of the previous season, and an acknowledgement that Doctor Who’s 60 years of historical past can typically be formidable to wrap your mind round. Luckily, we’ve an ideal new tackle the Doctor to information us all by it.
Doctor Whomst?!
The most persistently sturdy side of Doctor Who is that each incarnation of the Doctor has had a gifted performer take up the position. Favorites might fluctuate (Matt Smith heads unite), however even when the writing wasn’t the very best, followers all the time had a stable lead actor to latch on to. That pattern continues with Ncuti Gatwa because the fifteenth Doctor, who brings great power and an easygoing swagger to the half that was obvious even from solely being within the final 10 minutes or so of his debut outing, “The Giggle.” Yet maybe probably the most attention-grabbing side of his tackle the Doctor that has revealed itself over the course of the season is how a lot of that efficiency is, effectively, a efficiency on the Doctor’s half, as a result of deep down, 15 is a sizzling mess.
While he initially believed that letting the 14th Doctor have a contented ending together with his finest good friend Donna would let him be calm and picked up within the subsequent part of his life, 15 has not healed in any respect. His over-the-top mannerisms and pleasant demeanor attempt to current in any other case, however his psyche is held collectively by duct tape and prayers, his feelings effervescent over on the slightest battle. The subliminal self-loathing he struggles with and blaming himself for every thing dangerous that’s ever occurred within the universe involves a head in “Empire of Death,” when he screams into the void upon seeing a dull universe. Accepting that the world doesn’t revolve round him and that evil beings making evil decisions is just not his fault simply because he’s tangentially related to them (as with Sutekh clinging to the TARDIS to enact his grasp plan) is what makes his rebuke of Sutekh and declaring himself the one who brings life to the universe a robust second.
Every most important Doctor within the fashionable period has a vital flaw that offers them dimension. The ninth has his crassness, the tenth his rage, the eleventh his conceitedness, the twelfth his self-doubt, and the thirteenth her authoritarianism. The 14th Doctor wasn’t round lengthy sufficient to ascertain what makes him so totally different from the others, since he solely had three specials as an alternative of a full season. 15 has his emotional fragility, and seeing the Doctor who was alleged to be probably the most suave and composed truly be one of the vital susceptible underneath the floor leaves many potentialities for character-driven tales in future seasons. Sure, a few of Davies’ weaker tendencies have nonetheless appeared on this new season, akin to wonky world-building or rushed resolutions, and hopefully these are lastly addressed subsequent time round. But after how a lot of a slog the previous couple of seasons may very well be, leaping again into Doctor Who that feels recent, centered, and most of all enjoyable once more has been lengthy overdue.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can observe his fixations on Twitter.
