(January 2, 2022) The Season 13 holiday special, Eve of the Daleks, included a scene where Yaz was openly declaring her attraction to The Doctor, and crying over the unrequitedness. My belief is that Doctor Who is being diminished by such talk.
(December 8, 2021) During Season 12, we were told that The Doctor is The Timeless Child, a previously unknown being from whom The Time Lords developed Regeneration and perhaps other knowledge. During Season 13, the whole season was about conflicts left over from those hidden memories. The season ended with The Doctor receiving a "Fob Watch" containing the whole story, and then The Doctor deciding to not open the watch but leave it for another day.
(December 6, 2021) We were sold The Flux as an awesome story, spanning a whole season, that would be full of excitement. Such a story should result in a stunning dramatic conclusion. There was sure a lot which happened in The Vanquishers, and the whole of Season 13, but why do I feel so disappointed and underwhelmed? Some stories, especially The Village of Angels, were excellent, but the season as a whole was scattershot, too many ideas, too much going on, too much jammed into the space, simply too much. It should have been three seasons or more, and instead it was one truncated half season.
(November 29, 2021) The episodes of Season 13, The Flux, have named a few specific dates, which happened to be the date of transmission. There doesn't seem to be a special significance to those dates. But, because October 31, November 21, and December 5, were written into the scripts, the BBC knew the transmission dates months in advance. In November 2020, when the BBC announced the shortened season, it knew the exact dates, because those dates were inscribed in the episodes that began filming at the same time.
(November 29, 2021) What's missing from The Flux story is The Master. At the heart of this story is The Doctor's history as The Timeless Child, a tidbit uncovered by The Master who told this to The Doctor. So, that makes The Master part of this story, but where is The Master? How could there be a cockamamie universe-ending plot without The Master being involved?
(November 29, 2021) In Survivors of The Flux, we're treated in passing to new information about the origin of UNIT. A General is in charge, who turns to Prentiss (a.k.a. The Great Serpent) for advice. The person we'd always identified as being in charge, Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, is nowhere to be seen in any form. Nicholas Courtney, who played Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, is credited as an off-screen voice, but described as a "Corporal" rather than a "Colonel". What's going on?
(November 29, 2021) It takes a certain perseverance to watch a tense cliff-hanger that's waved away like a puff of smoke at the beginning of the next episode. What was all that build-up for, if there was no payoff in the story? The Doctor becomes a Weeping Angel? Yaz about to be disintegrated by a time storm? Instead this gave us a story with the astonishing revelation that The Master told the truth for once.
(November 28, 2021) I really do not like this Timeless Child idea that Chibnall is foisting on us. While I'm loving the Season 13 episodes about The Flux, and find them to be excellent Doctor Who episodes, it's clear that the story is leading directly to some more nonsense about The Timeless Child. In this weeks Doctor Who Podcast, one of the commenters had a kooky theory of the week that what Chibnall has in mind is a Great Reset of Doctor Who.
(November 27, 2021) In Survivors of the Flux, it's fairly certain that Kate Stewart and UNIT is returning to Doctor Who. At the same time, Big Finish issued a teaser video announcing UNIT audios featuring a team including Ingrid Oliver, Harry Sullivan, with Kate Stewart as the leader.
(November 27, 2021) With last weeks Next Time Trailer, we were treated to the return of Kate Stewart to Doctor Who, and therefore it's likely to be the return of UNIT. Today, the BBC posted a YouTube video with a bunch of UNIT highlights. That's a big clue that UNIT is returning. I can only surmise that this highlights video, 30 minutes of rehashing favorite scenes with UNIT, was posted today because tomorrow UNIT is returning.
(November 23, 2021) The death of UNIT due to BREXIT was unwarranted and untimely and short sighted of the British Government. Don't they understand how often UNIT has prevented major catastrophe? The NEXT TIME trailer for Season 13, episode 5, Survivors of the Flux, contains a surprise appearance of Jemma Redgrave -- indicating a return of Kate Stewart?
(November 18, 2021) It's been announced that Jodi Whittaker's final episode is in the Fall of 2022, and Russell T. Davies first episode is the 60th Anniversary in November 2023. If there is to be a holiday special on January 1, 2023, there is an extremely unlikely way to handle this which would be extremely interesting.
(November 18, 2021) In September, it was announced Russell T. Davies would be returning to Doctor Who as the Show Runner, and that both Chris Chibnall and Jodi Whittaker were leaving Doctor Who, with RTD taking over for the 60th Anniversary special. Reading between the lines told us it was likely the last Chibnall/Whittaker episode would be in the Fall of 2022. Today, the BBC made an announcement about this.
(November 18, 2021) One issue from the Timeless Child storyline is - where did Jo Martin's Doctor, a.k.a. The Fugitive Doctor, fit into The Doctor's story. It was clear the Fugitive was a previously unknown Doctor incarnation, but was it from the future, the distant past, or from an alternate universe? Some clues were strung into Once Upon a Time that we can now identify where The Fugitive Doctor fits.
(November 16, 2021) Why did Chibnall wait until becoming a reviled show runner before producing stories like this? This episode may be up there with some of the most intriguing of all of Doctor Who, such as Warriors Gate. Or maybe it's too straight-forward to rank with Warriors Gate, I'm not sure. Regardless, there is a lot to unpack in this, the third episode of the six-part story which is season 13 of Doctor Who.
(November 12, 2021) I didn't know about this secret yearning to see a Sontaran on horse-back. But, now that I've seen it, Sontarans are similar to old-school Knights in Armor, yes? Well, okay, not really, but these Sontarans are sure an improvement over Moffatts comedy Sontarans. As much as we loved Strax, these are Sontarans.
(November 2, 2021) What a relief! Chris Chibnall has finally produced an episode that's not boring, and is instead rather interesting. The Season 13 opener is the first of a six-part story, and it does an excellent job of setting up the problem, while keeping us in the dark about many important things.
(October 15, 2021) There is now an official trailer for Doctor Who Season 13, and we have verified show dates, we have the names of the directors and writers, and some clues about the storyline. But we do not know show titles. And, why oh why did Chris Chibnall write every single episode?
(October 9, 2021) Russell T Davies has barely begun his time as the future show runner for Doctor Who, and he's gotten into a political row with Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary under Boris Johnson. Ms. Dorries apparently slammed the BBC for its “very left wing, often hypocritical and frequently patronising views.” Of course, Russell T Davies obviously carries an agenda about acceptance of certain lifestyle choices, and of course Doctor Who has throughout its history aired stories making fun of people like Ms. Dorries.
(October 9, 2021) We now know when Season 13 starts, but do not know show titles, or the schedule. Just that it involves a 'Flux' and a coming wave of Sontarans, Weeping Angels, Ravagers, and who knows what else. Oh, and there's a guy with a Liverpool accent named Dan.
(October 7, 2021) The time to start Doctor Who Season 13 (and finish it by the end of the year) is upon us. The BBC has pulled a marketing stunt, projecting the image of a Sontaran spaceship over the skies of Liverpool. Obviously this is how The Doctor meets up with Dan, the new companion to be played by John Bishop.
(September 26, 2021) Who among us expected Russell T. Davies to return to Doctor Who? But, that's what is happening, with Friday's announcement that RTD would make an explosive return to Doctor Who with the 60th anniversary show and beyond. Now that the initial excitement has worn off, let's ponder what this will mean.
(September 24, 2021) Chris Chibnall has proved that even a Doctor Who uber-fan can screw up at producing Doctor Who episodes. The BBC has announced that Russell T Davies, the guy who started modern Doctor Who will be returning as Show Runner starting with the 60th anniversary episode, and "beyond". We are probably meant to take that he will be the Show Runner starting with the 60th Anniversary blow-out, and that the 60th Anniversary show will be something big.
(April 19, 2021) Christopher Eccleston is returning to the role of The Doctor, by dint of an audio production with Big Finish. With the release coming up in May 2021, they have published a video with Eccleston answering fan questions about his return.
(April 19, 2021) At the end of Revolution of the Daleks it was revealed that two of The Doctor's companions were leaving the show, and that a new Companion would join it. That new companion, Dan, will be played by British comedian John Bishop. Apparently Bishop is not willing to develop the ability to act in other accents than his native Liverpool accent, and you'd think revealing that his character in Doctor Who will be based in Liverpool would not be controversial. But, that would be underestimating the BBC's ability to not be amused.
(March 26, 2021) Christopher Eccleston gave a huge gift to Doctor Who fandom by performing the first Doctor after the hiatus, but that came at a personal cost (reportedly he hated that time). It's thought Eccleston felt a huge betrayal by the BBC, and as a result did not participate in the 50th anniversary multi-Doctor show that instead saw John Hurt appear as The War Doctor. So, it is with huge interest and pleasure to learn that Eccleston has returned to play The Doctor via a set of audio adventures on Big Finish, the first boxed set being called Ravagers.
(January 5, 2021) The typical Doctor Who pattern is that after a Departure of Companions, it's very likely The Doctor will depart shortly afterward. At the end of Revolution of the Daleks it was shown that not only had two of the Companions left the show, but a new Companion was joining. Two days ago (3-4 days after the airing of Revolution of the Daleks), the Mirror ran a rumor that Whittaker was leaving Doctor Who at the end of Season 13.
(January 2, 2021) It's been 10 months since the last televised Doctor Who episode, and a True Fan is counting the hours (approximately 7200 hours). To make it worse, we've been told the 2021 season will be shortened to eight episodes, when the recent seasons had already shrank to 10 episodes from 12 or more episodes in previous seasons. And, in Revolution of the Daleks we see The Fam (the Companions in other words) waiting around for 10 months, and then when The Doctor finally arrives -- in the company of what looks like a new Companion -- Yaz got angry and shoved The Doctor. How many of us are feeling the same?
(January 2, 2021) It was known that Bradley Walsh (Graham O'Brien) and Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair) were likely to leave the TARDIS after the 2021 New Years special. That special was aired, and as Companion Departures go this one was as sleepy as Graham and Ryans characters. They are to be replaced by John Bishop, who is apparently a big-name comedian in Great Britain. He'll be playing Dan, and all we know is that discussions have been underway for a long time, and that the character was built around John's uniqueness.
(November 11, 2020) Modern Doctor Who seasons are already way too short. Some fans may have trouble remembering what Doctor Who is by the time time the next season rolls around. In any case, the Doctor Who show runner Chris Chibnall confirmed that Season 13 will be 8 episodes, or three shorter than Season 12 was. The culprit? COVID-19 and the resulting health restrictions. Maybe we should be happy to simply have new Doctor Who on the horizon. But the reality is that we've been shortchanged on Doctor Who seasons since 2015ish.
(October 11, 2020) Two new Doctor Who games, The Edge of Reality, and The Lonely Assassins are slated for release in the Spring of 2021, and gives us a new chance to experience Ingrid Oliver playing Dr. Petronella Osgood.
(May 27, 2020) David Tenant, Tom Baker, two of the best Doctor's ever, are uniting in a Big Finish audio due to be released in August 2020. The series, that is called Out of Time, will spread over three releases and will feature other Doctor pairings. The synopsis discusses an enigmatic Cathedral that exists "out of time" where The Doctor goes for rest and relaxation, where the Tenant and Baker Doctor's meet by happenstance, and then there's a Dalek invasion they must drive off, of course.
(May 25, 2020) Big Finish, the producers of audio adventures for Doctor Who and other television shows, announced today a complete revamp of its lineup to be launched in January 2022. The revamp includes an end to the Monthly Main Range story line, and a focus on 12 ranges for each incarnation of The Doctor.
(May 23, 2020) As a young member of The Doctor Who Appreciation Society, Chris Chibnall appeared on TV as part of a panel being interviewed about the controversial Trial of a Time Lord season. That season, and the 6th Doctor's run in general, likely set in motion the changes resulting in the cancellation of Doctor Who at the end of the 7th Doctor's run. What Chibnall said in his chance TV appearance as a 16-year-old Doctor Who fan has interesting parallels to what happened to Doctor Who under his tenure as Doctor Who Show Runner.
(April 6, 2020) In the finale of Doctor Who (2005) Season 12, The Timeless Children, we were told a story about the origin of The Time Lords that is not only enraging the fans, but is silly nonsense. That episode would have us believe that what made The Time Lords so powerful was their ability to regenerate. Actually, what made the Time Lords so powerful was the energy source available to them, and their abilities to fiddle with time streams. Without access to nearly limitless energy, The Time Lords would have simply been a curious race of people on an obscure planet who happened to be able to regenerate upon death. Which gets us to a little scene in the Seventh Doctor story The Remembrance of the Daleks.
(March 11, 2020) For Doctor Who Season 12, the show runners promised us a story that would change everything we know about Doctor Who. Instead we were shown a child that was a gift from heaven, that was tortured with repeated deaths to find the secret of eternal life.
(March 11, 2020) For Doctor Who Season 12, the show runners promised us a story that would change everything we know about Doctor Who. Rolling out a trope like that is possibly a sign of desperation. In any case, what the BBC did to The Doctor was nearly as bad as what they portrayed Tecteun having done to develop Regeneration. The BBC gave us a story of a demigod fallen from the sky, who was tortured by mortals seeking to learn the secret of regeneration, and having stolen that secret built a society of pompous universe-shaping Time Lords. WTF?
(March 6, 2020) In the Season 12 finale The Timeless Children the BBC gave us a story that rewrote the lore of Doctor Who in a big way. While there are plenty of folks cheering the rewrite, some of us (obviously like myself) see it differently. The question we should be asking is - Who is The Doctor? That is what The Timeless Children challenges us to ask.
(March 5, 2020) In Doctor Who Season 12, the season finale is proving to be controversial in some quarters. One controversy is whether The Master had sufficient proof that The Doctor was indeed The Timeless Child. A YouTuber commentator walks us through the claims, and sure enough The Master did not show in the episode a clear line of connection between the two. We know that The Master is a liar and a manipulator, so did he lie and manipulate in this case? Is the narrative shown during The Timeless Children truth, or is it another lie uttered by The Master?
(March 3, 2020) The Doctor Who Season 12, season finale was an excellent rollicking good crazy-ass scheme invented by The Master. In his review of that episode, Chip Suterth claimed the episode gave us an Everyman Doctor. "The Doctor could have been anyone all along"? "A RETCON that doesn't invalidate a single televised story"? No, Chip, most of the time you're right on, but this time you got it completely backward.
(March 2, 2020) In The Timeless Children we got the reveal promised throughout Doctor Who Season 12. And yes it rewrote Time Lord history from the beginning. But not only did the episode fail on several levels, it is simply a continuation of the over-hype'd role The Doctor has in the universe. The Doctor is supposed to just be a guy, living in a box, carrying a screwdriver, passing through from place to place, and helping out where he (or she) can. But the BBC seems it can't help itself, and has built a bunch of hype about The Doctor. Let's go over the history of that hype bubble.
(March 2, 2020) The Doctor Who Season 12, season finale was an excellent rollicking good crazy-ass scheme invented by The Master, but the episode was marred by the primary selling point - that we'd learn about The Timeless Child and the lie of the Timeless Child and all this earth-shattering stuff about the real history of Gallifrey. What we were given was not a useful clarification of some gap in Time Lord Lore - but instead it was an abomination that ruins the whole purpose of Doctor Who.
(February 29, 2020) In Doctor Who Season 12, the season-long topic is the lie of the timeless child, and that the origin of The Time Lords was fake. The finale promises to have The Master present The Truth to The Doctor - as if The Master would ever tell the truth. The attached video makes the case that originally the BBC presented The Doctor as a brilliant HUMAN from the future, rather than an alien from another planet, and that the established lore of Gallifrey began with The Third Doctor.
(February 25, 2020) In The Ascension of the Cybermen we see The Last Cyberman waking up an army of Cybermen. In the process he has some kind of gun-thing, and the Cybermen are screaming. Since it was asked in the show, what kind of Cyberman can make other Cybermen scream?
(February 24, 2020) The finale of Season 12 is fast approaching, and the BBC has released both a Next Time trailer and a Preview trailer; since we already covered the first let's go over the second. Going by the Preview, the action will be split between Gallifrey and the Cyber Troop Carrier ship.
(February 23, 2020) In Skyfall 2, The Master was surely forever trapped in that alternate universe. Anybody who believes that for a minute has not watched very much Doctor Who. The Master always survives and always comes back no matter how certain a death he'd endured. And The Master always has a cockamamie scheme.
(February 23, 2020) In Ascension Of The Cybermen one of the story lines concerns Officer Brendan, a found (abandoned) child apparently in remote Ireland, who becomes a police officer, who curiously survives a fall off a cliff, and who undergoes a strange mind-wipe procedure. It's all very curious, but includes signature bits related to Capt. Jack Harkness.
(February 19, 2020) In The Haunting of Villa Diodati, we were promised a rollicking ghost story when The Doctor visited with Mary Shelley and Doctor Polidori on the evening that both created the core of two significant horror genres - Frankenstein and Vampires. Instead we got a Base Under Siege story where some folks The Doctor said were significant historical figures were threatened with death, and therefore The Doctor got really uptight about preserving history. But The Doctor did not preserve history - probably.
(February 16, 2020) In Fugitive of the Judoon, the BBC in its infinite wisdom thrust upon us a new incarnation of The Doctor which is presented as an impossibility. Being Doctor Who fans we're examining minutae to figure out how this could be, and one of the theories is that The Ruth-Doctor was a pre-William Hartnell incarnation of The Doctor. But the biggest problem with that theory isn't what most of us are talking about.
(February 15, 2020) Fans of Big Finish audios were probably on the edge of their seats during Fugitive of the Judoon to see if The Celestial Intervention Agency would be named. Instead, in the episode Gat was only identified as working for The Division. But since it's obvious that The Time Lords would have a secret agent agency, let's talk about that.
(February 15, 2020) The theories about The Ruth-Doctor point to a regeneration gap between Troughton's and Pertwee's Doctor, and therefore The Ruth-Doctor has to fit in that gap. However there is another gap that everyone is missing. The Ruth-Doctor could have fit into this other gap.
(February 15, 2020) In Doctor Who Season 12, fandom is being rocked by The Master claiming something about the lie of the Timeless Child, and then the revelation of an incarnation of The Doctor that basically cannot exist, but obviously does exist. Putting two and two together to get 50 is what Doctor Who fans do all the time, so of course someone has suggested there was a Doctor regeneration stuck between the Troughton and Pertwee Doctor's, and that during that regeneration The Doctor worked for a secretive Time Lord agency trusted with guarding the secret of The Timeless Child.
(February 12, 2020) Can You Hear Me was a rollicking good adventure in time and space that made a surprising reference back to shows from early Doctor Who. Old Who wasn't always about fighting the monster or villain of the week. Sometimes Doctor Who covered the immortal beings that lived beyond time and space, for whom these little universes we live in are mere playthings. The protagonists in this weeks episode, Zellin and his partner Rakaya, are two of those immortal beings, and Zellin named off several with whom The Doctor has had encounters over the centuries.
(February 8, 2020) When Capt. Jack told us about a single remaining Cyberman, and The Master told us about the Lie of the Timeless Child, and we saw Gallifrey destroyed, and we met a previously unknown Doctor incarnation, we knew that season 12 would be a game changer. As is usual for Doctor Who, what any of this means is extremely inscrutable until we see it aired on television, and of course even that will leave lots of unfilled details. For now, we have episode titles for the rest of Season 12, and most of the synopses, so let the guessing games begin.
(February 8, 2020) In Fugitive of the Judoon, we were treated to a previously unknown and nearly impossible incarnation of The Doctor. In the show they made it very clear that The Ruth-Doctor was The Doctor. But unlike every other multi-Doctor story, the two Doctor's did not recognize each other. It leaves us fans wondering what the ____ is going on. I found an interesting video on YouTube with a number of interesting theories, so here's what I think about those theories.
(February 4, 2020) I found this question on an answers website and I guess there really is this conversation still going on about the legitimacy of Jodi Whittaker as The Doctor. Please, people, The 13th Doctor is an incarnation of The Doctor, and Jodi Whittaker has already proved herself. But, it's a worthy enough question to ponder for today. Why did the BBC take so long to place a woman in the position of The Doctor?
(February 3, 2020) The episode Praxeus was rollicking good fun, with scary bits, funny bits, and an intriguing puzzle to solve. But at least twice The Doctor turned to the audience to deliver a lecture about Plastics. That wouldn't be so bad, but that's happened in nearly every episode so far this season, and it's beginning to get on my nerves.
(February 2, 2020) You want your own Dalek to grace your front porch and let everyone in the neighborhood know who you are and that you mean business. But you're on a student budget and cannot afford fancy schmancy materials to make a Dalek, especially given the price of Dalektanium these days. It's gotten ridiculous now that The Doctor destroyed Skaro. We're left instead to using cardboard and plywood and old CD's to make a thing that looks like a Dalek, and doesn't kill the planet, and saves a lot of money.
(February 2, 2020) The Doctor Who show runners launched us into a serious rewrite of Doctor Who Canon with Season 12. First we had a new Master who told us everything we knew about Gallifrey was a lie, so he destroyed Gallifrey. Then we met a whole new incarnation of The Doctor that flatly doesn't fit the known timeline of THe Doctor. At the end of Fugitive of the Judoon, The Doctor said time is swirling around her, indicating there is some serious flux going on. And we have to remind ourselves that what's kept Doctor Who alive all these decades is its ability to reinvent itself from time to time.
