B096 The Fourteenth Doctor Retrospective

Hi again! Let’s start with the positives, shall we?

• Margolyes, Cribbins (albeit clearly frail) and a mention for Sabalom Glitz were the main highlights of each respective story.
• Despite its flaws, The Star Beast still left me giddy after 13 months starved of fresh Who content. Then again, by that point Davies could’ve spent an hour of prime time Saturday night defecating across the screen and I might’ve lapped it up – which is just as well, since that’s essentially what he proceeded to do over the following fortnight.

I guess that’s the cue to move onto the minuses, eh?

• He’s still just Ken, sorry, *Ten* to me! Unlike Yanks with Grover Cleveland, we number office-holders properly in Blighty even when they get two non-consecutive bites at the cherry.
• No in-Whoniverse explanation for the regenerating costume (which would neatly double up as a retroactive one for Hartnell-to-Troughton) so all we have is the behind-the-scenes one that RTD fears a backlash from bigots, even though Tennant played a role in drag on TV before and Jodie’s outfit wasn’t *that* feminine anyway. Yet he features a trans character and includes pronoun talk so he’s like Schrödinger’s trans ally.
• To compound matters, the first thing Tate mentions is the suit! And Gatwa later ended up in his underpants! No complaints about the latter visual but… come on, at least be consistent.
• Imagine if Matt Smith had defeated the Weeping Angels in Flesh and Stone by switching the “mavity” back on. The ending would’ve had a lot less mavitas.
• A bottle episode where the DoctorDonna have a hearts-to-heart might’ve worked as a breather halfway through a full series, but not in the middle of a three-part micro-era. Special effects were ropey too.
• If Night of the Doctor established that Big Finish companions are canonical, then why isn’t Ruth Madeley playing Hebe here? I’m pro-ramp (the story behind it is very sweet) but get the horrid impression she’s either directly or indirectly responsible for the Davros retcon.
• Dougie Howser/Barney Stinson was given diabolical material and unable to raise it into an entertaining performance. He was obviously having fun while most viewers were not. The Toymaker’s not a Time Lord, so he can’t be recast, ergo Michael Gough’s still the only real one.
• So, as a bloke I’m being told to “let things go” by a man who twice has proved himself incapable of letting Tennant go – first the half-human left with Rose [Tyler] in a parallel universe, now the fully Time Lord ‘settled’ one chez Noble that keeps a TARDIS on standby just in case. Oh, nice to know they’ve not done anything to undermine his successor before our Ncuti even gets going then!

Overall: 1.4 Zingo rides

Oli Raven
(IG: @foggydrwho)

P.S. Usual caveat applies that Dr Who content in the 1s is still preferable to most other things on TV!