Who Lives In a House Like This?

Does new Doctor Who companion Belinda Chandra live in old Doctor Who companion Donna Noble's house? It certainly looks like it!

This is Donna's house from 2023's "The Star Beast":

This is Belinda's house from 2025's "The Robot Revolution":

So no, it's not the same house. I've seen some fans speculating that it's the same set, redressed, which is possible.

It does have a very similar layout though, right down to the same "alien back door".

Going Over to Sutekh's House

Oh, I didn't write any more about the 2024 series of Doctor Who after all. Oops.

Oh well. I enjoyed it anyway.

I thought the finale, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday"/"Empire of Death", was very good, and there was lots to love. Bonnie Langford's Mel almost stole the episode, and confirmed how wasted she was in her original episodes. Sutekh himself came across very well and I quite liked the "controversial" cgi jackal form, which did much better "acting" than you tend to get in cgi monsters, even more so at this sort of budget level.

It was a bit disappointing that the Doctor defeated Sutekh in basically the same way he did it in the original story, even though that didn't work, as the episode explains, but I'll probably be long dead and unable to complain the next time the villain appears so I'll allow it. I did chuckle when he was defeated with a lead and a whistle. Jackals aren't quite dogs, but close enough for the pun to work.

It was also a bit naff that Sutekh's attack was more or less the Blip from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which was not helped by the turning-into-sand visual effect, or by the episodes being broadcast on Disney+, but I can let that pass. Let's call it an homage.

(Although one difference was an almost throwaway line that suggested Sutekh's victims remained conscious after being "dusted" which is nice and creepy... but alas not at all explored.)

I have seen a lot of claims about the Doctor's solution to the not-Blip also undoing the Flux, bringing Gallifrey back, and so on. I don't think there's direct evidence of that, and all that was undone was Sutekh's Sands of Death™ attack, but there's enough ambiguity there that I could see it being used as a mechanic to bring back any dead characters or locations in future stories.

My only real problem with the finale is that everything builds up to the Doctor going to find his granddaughter Susan at long last -- it's even explored in the dialogue! -- and then he... doesn't. It's a very odd creative decision, that.

I do have one final observation. If Sutekh has been hiding inside the TARDIS since 1975, then...

Yoo Hoo New Who

The BBC released the first two episodes of the new series of Doctor Who on Saturday and I very much enjoyed both, although I'm not blind to their faults. It's a bold and confident new start and the series seems to have regained some of its wild energy.

Ncuti Gatwa is great, but then all the best Doctors are Scottish. I'm much less convinced by Millie Gibson's Ruby, but it's clear that she's carrying the big mystery of this series, so let's see where the character goes.

Here are some disorganised thoughts. Not quite reviews, not quite analysis, and I don't know if I'll do more, but I'm enthused enough about the new series to write this, so we'll see.

There will be some SPOILERS, so beware.

• "Space Babies" was a bit weird and a lot stupid, and a lot of fun, although it went a bit flat in the scenes without the babies.
• There's some crashingly unsubtle but glorious social commentary. Russell T Davies is angrier than he was in 2005.
• The Doctor was scared! This was explained with some technobabble, but it is still unusual to see the Doctor openly frightened.
• There's a fair bit of 2005's "The End of the World" in here. The viewing window scene. The converted mobile phone. I get it. It's a soft reboot, so we're going to get some repetition.
• There's a lovely Doctorish moment as he decides to save the Bogeyman from an Alien death.
• Nanny seems to suggest that she's never seen the Bogeyman before, but later on reports that it turned up six years ago. Is that a script error? Or something significant?

• "The Devil's Chord" was even more over the top and odd. Very bold and gutsy, although a little similar to "The Giggle", for perhaps obvious reasons.
• The Doctor is scared again. Again, there's an explanation, and this one's better -- the Toymaker did kill him, after all -- but it's still a bit weird twice in a row.
• Jinkx Monsoon is really good as the Maestro.There are some effective scenes in here, really leaning into the over-the-top campiness of the character, but there's also some successful horror too, like the hiding-in-the-cellar sequence.
• The fourth wall breaks were lovely. I'm intrigued by this idea that the Doctor has broken the universe and allowed fantasy and magic to creep in. It's a big idea and I hope RTD and crew can pull it off.
• There's not much of an actual plot, but it's done with such confidence and energy it almost doesn't matter.
• There are some odd performance choices. Why does the Doctor have a chuckle just after saying that his grand-daughter Susan may have been destroyed at a cellular level?
• The reference to Susan was itself a surprise. I'm pretty sure she's been referenced in the new series, but never by name. is that significant?
• This is the second episode in a row in which the resolution is revealed via voiceover flashback, which feels a bit lazy. I've never liked this device, so maybe I'm overly sensitive to it.
• Chris Waites and the Carrollers is an existing reference, but coming right after a line referring to "The One Who Waits" seems a bit suspicious.
• The Maestro has been killing/eating music since the 1920s, so does defeating them reset everything, going back 40 years? I assume the rules of magic and storytelling are in place and everything goes back in its box -- literally in this case -- otherwise the Doctor is being a bit negligent by going off on his next adventure and leaving behind four decades of the "wrong" timeline.

In terms of recurring mysteries, why are the Doctor's memories of Ruby's "birth" changing? Who is the cloaked figure who was there that day? Why does Maestro recognise them? Is that the One Who Waits? Is the One Who Waits someone else? What's going on with the recurring appearances by the actor Susan Twist? Will the universe get fixed so it's no longer operating on fairy tale rules?

I'm looking forward to finding out.

"Whoniverse" Is Probably the Pun I Would Have Gone For Anyway

The Whoniverse launched today. It's the BBC's term for the larger Doctor Who "cinematic" universe, which has (almost) all been added to the iPlayer service, to celebrate the programme's 60th anniversary year. And it has an ident!



Hang on...



Wait a minute...



Hmmmm...

I wonder, does this go even earlier than 2016?

(Mis)adventures in Space and Time

Humble Bundle is doing a, um, bundle of the Doctor Who role-playing game from Cubicle 7! As ever with these Humble deals, what you get is a bargain, and it helps a good cause too!

I don't think I've said it on here, but Doctor Who is my favourite television programme. I'm also quite fond of rpgs, which I think I have mentioned now and then. I've heard good things about the C7 Who rpg. You'd think I'd be all over this.

And yet.

AND YET.

I've always been a bit put off trying it. I find the idea of playing a Doctor Who game a bit weird, for a few reasons:

• Playing the Doctor seems weird. From a practical perspective you could have one person play the Doctor and everyone else play their companions, and then switch that around for the next adventure, sort of like Ars Magica with spaceships. But playing a character as well-defined as the Doctor seems a bit limiting, even with 15+ incarnations from which to choose. It seems odd to go into a role-playing game and playing such a specific character; it feels more like acting than a game at that point.
• Playing another, non-Doctor, Time Lord is also a bit weird. Why is this Time Lord solving problems instead of the Doctor? Where is the Doctor? One of the unique things about the Doctor is that they care about the "little people" of the universe in a way that the Time Lords in general do not. If you have other Time Lords running about saving the day then you're upending the entire premise to a certain extent.
• Playing without Time Lords at all also seems a bit weird. If you play as a bunch of "normals" then how do they get around? Do they have a TARDIS? You've got the same questions as the Time Lord Campaign above, except you've also got to work out what the Time Lords are doing, if they even exist at all.

None are insurmountable problems, but they all niggle at my mind as a sort of drifting from the central premise and then I begin to question whether it's worth playing a specific Doctor Who rpg at all.

Still, if I put those reservations aside, I can think of a few fun ideas for campaigns in a Whoish setting. Perhaps an alternate universe where the Doctor doesn't exist, or has been eliminated, and other Time Lords take up their mission. Maybe we play with a hypothetical 15th Doctor -- or one of the "minus" Doctors -- and sidestep the whole problem of playing a pre-defined character, letting the players define them as they do the Ars Magica shuffle. Or perhaps the premise of the campaign is that the Doctor is missing, the players have their TARDIS, and the goal is to find the renegade Time Lord before some cataclysm occurs. Or maybe you would just play a ground-level campaign with the players as some sort of UNIT, Torchwood, or Paternoster Gang equivalent. Or perhaps the Doctor's most recent regeneration went wrong and they split into multiple beings, a sort of meta-meta-crisis.

Hang on, I quite like that last one...

Twelve(ish)

A very wonky Twelfth Doctor. I don't think I've done him justice.

Cool

Hello Sweetie

He's back and it's about time!

(Sorry.)

Dr Who and The Master of Evil

Remember the third Peter Cushing Dr Who film, the one with Christopher Lee as The Master?

No?

Just me then.

(I did try to not do another Doctor Who picture, but it just popped in there, like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.)

Seven of X

I promise that I'm not just going to draw thirty-one Doctor Who pictures, honest.

This one came about because my brother liked yesterday's one but requested a picture of "the best" Doctor.

The Tenth Planet

I'm going to give Inktober a try for the first time this year. Let's see how I get on.

I wasn't sure what to do for my first entry, but then I watched The Tenth Planet. Sorted.

I think I'm supposed to hashtag this too, so er, #inktober and #inktober2017 I suppose.

It's About Time

When I was around seven or eight I would play Doctor Who in the playground at school. I would play the Doctor and my friend Louise Griffiths would play Mel. We'd make up adventures in which we'd run away from imaginary alien monsters and pretend to fall off cliffs. I'd like to think I was being clever and wise beyond my years but I can't manage that now, so I doubt I did it when I was seven.

The programme was more or less cancelled a year or so after that and didn't reappear until 2005 by which time I was twenty-five so I sort of missed that window in which I could have told the careers adviser that I wanted to be an actor, director, or writer so that I could work on Doctor Who.

I mean that; if the programme existed during those formative years I probably would have tried to get involved in it somehow. Oh well.

That's not a problem the youth of today have. Children watching it when it came back in 2005 are now going to be making their way in the world as young adults and I'm sure there are a few who have decided to become actors or writers or props people or composers because of their love of the programme, and that's brilliant.

What's not so brilliant is that the girls and young women who love Doctor Who and want to be actors because of it will never get to play the main role.

Oh, hang on.

I think the only thing I've seen Jodie Whittaker in is Attack the Block and I remember thinking she was good in that. Well, everyone and everything is good in that; it's ace, but that's beside the point.

I'm sure she'll be good in the role and I'm keen to see what this new Doctor Who will be like, but it doesn't matter what I think. What matters is that now is that a door has opened and non-male fans of the programme know that they can not only write for it, or direct it, or act in it, but they can also play the lead part.

That is, as the Ninth Doctor used to say, fantastic.

Bow Ties Are Cool

It's the Seventh Doctor dressed as the Eleventh!



(Alas, it is a promotional shot from a BBC Three series called Crims, but close enough.)

Love Hurts

My theory is that Hurt is the Ninth Doctor, the one who ended the Time War, and because of his actions the others would like to forget about him and count Eccleston's incarnation as the Ninth. Sort of like Pope John XX only with time travel.

Who Else is River Song? (SPOILERS)

There's a trailer below for the second half of this year's Doctor Who series.

Madame Vastra, Consulting Detective

A very quick sketch of Madame Vastra, a Victorian sword-wielding lizard detective, introduced in the Doctor Who episode "A Good Man Goes to War". She's a fantastic character with a great deal of potential, and if there's not a spinoff forthwith, I shall be disappointed indeed.

Who's Going On?

I can't wait to see what Rol says about last night's Doctor Who; he's made his dislike of Neil Gaiman's work very obvious in the past, but I had very few complaints -- and those minor -- about the episode. In fact, my only real complaint was that the "old" console room was just the previous one, as I would have liked to have seen one of the proper old consoles make a one-off return.

There wasn't much of the metaplot this episode, beyond an obvious reference to River Song, but there were some loose ends and notes that may yet prove significant.

I'm still convinced that the Future Doctor is from a rotten timeline and it's our Doctor who kills him off in order to stop the rot spreading to other realities. I also think that Phill may be on to something with his theory about parallel universes, and not only because it ties in neatly with my own.

Speaking of The Rubbish Pirate Episode, in that story a character went missing between scenes; the general opinion at the time was that this was bad writing, bad editing, and further evidence of Steven Moffat's destruction of the Who franchise. In Gaiman's episode, another -- more prominent this time -- character disappears, and there's a bit of handwaving to explain his absence, so I'm beginning to wonder if there's something going on there. Probably not -- I suspect I'm being something of an apologist -- but watch out for disappearing characters in future episodes.

Do You Take This Police Box

Much of the preview material for "The Doctor's Wife" features a prominent female guest star, and it's clear that the BBC want us to believe that she is the titular spouse. This is going to be a bluff, and the wife referred to in the title will be the TARDIS.

The Doctor's time machine is often referred to with female pronouns, and the TARDIS is the only companion constant enough to be considered a "wife". The message from the other Time Lord is a fake, intended to draw the Doctor to a specific location so that some force can steal his vessel, and I suspect that Amy and Rory will be trapped inside, resulting in a long-awaited explore-the-TARDIS episode.

That's my guess anyway.

More Moon

"You will bring the silence."

That's what the Silence said to -- a possibly pregnant -- Amy Pond in "Day of the Moon". What did they mean? Is her potential child something to do with them?

Moon River (Song)

Well, it's clear that this year's Doctor Who is going to be all about hints and mysteries. "Day of the Moon" answered some questions, but posed a lot more.

There is certainly a strong suggestion that the Girl in the Spacesuit -- and why did the Doctor decide it wasn't worth chasing after her? I hope this is deliberate, rather than choppy writing, as it was the only duff note in an otherwise strong episode -- is Amy's daughter, if indeed Amy is pregnant, which seems to be uncertain at this stage. The ending of the episode also suggests that the Girl is a Time Lord (!) or at least has a "time head". So, are we to believe that Amy's pregnancy is complicated by the energies of time travel, resulting in a quantum baby and a child with the power to regenerate? Who knows what's going on there.

At one point, Amy refers to Rory "dropping out of the sky" just one episode after River Song uses the exact same words to describe the Doctor. This is probably only to allow Rory to have his comedy misunderstanding regarding Amy's affections, but it's still interesting. Regarding Rory, we had something of an answer this episode to the question of whether he's still an Auton; he certainly remembers his two thousand year vigil outside the Pandorica, which suggests that the Big Cosmic Reset of the previous series did not return him to a fleshy existence.

River seems to have misjudged her relationship with the Doctor, thinking that he should have been intimate with her in his past, when this does not seem to be the case; we might need a flowchart to work this one out.

(On a not-unrelated note, I think I've figured out how River knows the Doctor's secret in "Forest of the Dead"; there's been all sorts of outlandish and elaborate speculation on this point ever since the episode was shown, but I think it may not only be very simple, but also right there in that episode, and it's been overlooked such is its simplicity.)

Speculation will focus on the end of the episode, and the Girl's display of Time Lord abilities, but the most tantalising tidbit for me was the unexpected appearance of a one-eyed woman peering at Amy through what seemed to be some kind of window in reality, and referring to her in the manner of a scientist or doctor. Why is Amy being observed my multidimensional cyclopes, and why do they refer to her as "dreaming"?

My big hope is that Steven Moffat and his writers don't fall into the Lost/X-Files trap and start stringing these mysteries out without a clear plan; from what we've seen from him before, Moffat knows what he's doing, but it's a worry. Still, it was a fun episode, setting up lots of mystery for the coming series, and we've got pirates next!