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Thursday, November 03, 2022

The Power Of The Doctor - oh, wow!

 So, the other night I watched The Power Of The Doctor, Jodie Whittaker’s last episode, in which she regenerated. I have to say I will miss her, to the extent that I am going right back to the beginning and watch the episodes I own.


I have to explain that I have been a fan since William Hartnell, the first Doctor, who was on when I was in primary school. I have loved all of them, but he was my Doctor. 


There is not much in the way of spoilers for this as we already know, through social media and reviews, that her immediate successor is not Ncuti Gatwa but David Tennant. We do have to wait to find out why, though. 


And by the way, you may or may not know that unless you live in the UK, you will no longer be able to watch it on free to air TV but will have to subscribe to Disney+. As it happens, I do subscribe to the House Of Mouse, which has all the Star Wars and Marvel films and TV shows, plus a lot of my favourite films, such as Chariots Of Fire and Ladyhawke, but not everybody does, or can afford it, so I’m not crazy about this. I did hear it may have been about getting bigger budgets, though personally I think they must have a decent budget as it is. No more wobbly sets or monsters with a zipper in their costume. I remember on the DVD extras for The Aztecs(William Hartnell) a memory shared was of hiring art students to paint Aztec pottery. The art budget was about £250. No more of that either. 


Anyway, we all got to see Jodie’s last episode and oh, my, what a story! There must have been quite a budget for it, with all the special effects and the guest actors. Exploding volcanoes. A spaceship battle - right at the beginning and no real connection with the story apart from frilly cybermen and companion Dan deciding he was nearly killed and time to move on.


Interesting that most of the action was done by women. Not only the Doctor, but Yaz finally gets to show what she can do and save the day, the Ruth Doctor, Kate Lethbridge Stewart and two classic era Companions, Ace and Tegan. And all these women kick ass! They don’t just show up for a five minute cameo, they participate in saving the world. Ace even gets out some of her famous Nitro 9 explosive. 


And then we meet Graham, one of this Doctor’s first companions, who turns up in a volcano, of all things, no idea how or even why! By the end of the show he has organised a meeting for ex Doctor’s companions, including the delicious Ian Chesterton(William Russell), on whom I had a huge crush as a child. He only gets one line, surprised to learn that the Doctor is now a woman - actually, Ian, as one of the first Doctor’s first three companions, left before regeneration was a thing at all. He has aged, but still has that beautiful voice I fell in love with as a child.


There were several classic era Doctors, which was nice. David Bradley was back as the first Doctor, but the others were the original actors. 


It was great fun, and who would have expected the Master to dance around to the tune of Rasputin? And was he actually Rasputin or did he take over from Rasputin?  Anyway, I expect we will see the Master again - he seems unkillable, he even came back once after he refused to regenerate. In the Doctor Who movie he came back from ashes, for goodness sake! 


Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, unlike Doctor #12, was calm about regeneration, even sitting on top of the TARDIS with Yaz, eating an ice cream as they gazed out at Earth before dropping Yaz off and flying away to regenerate alone.

This is a story for fans, for people who love the show.


You just have to watch it to fully appreciate what I’m talking about, but it’s well worth the bother. I didn’t watch it till I could watch the episode all at once, a couple of days after it was shown. 

 

Excuse me, I’m off to get some popcorn and binge on favourite episodes.



 


8 comments:

  1. Wow, sounds like they pulled out all the stops for this one! It's getting so Disney owns EVERYTHING.

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  2. Hi Debra! Well, they do own quite a lot, anyway. The thought that you will have to PAY to watch this amazing show from now on doesn’t make me happy, even if I am a Disney+ subscriber. And is it only from now on or will they also be taking over the older episodes? I think you can watch them on Britbox now, which is also a paying site, but still…

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  3. I adored the companions' support group at the end -- I would happily watch them all sitting around reminiscing about their time in the Tardis and swapping stories and comparing traumas. In fact (whisper it) I might actually enjoy this more than watching proper Who...

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  4. Hi Kate! It might indeed be fun to watch that companions’ meeting, though to have those stories they share you need proper Who! 😉

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  5. Who was Rasputin in this programme? In real life he was a bizarre Russian monk and not a pleasant person to model a character on.

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  6. In the show, you first see a messenger arriving at his door to ask him to come to help the young prince, as he did in history. When you next see him, he is the Master, posing as Rasputin. He advises the royal family to go on holiday immediately, which they do, so he can confront the Doctor when she arrives. And yes, he is quite, quite mad! And dances around the room to the song by Boney M…

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  7. I remember being terrified by the first Dr Who episode I ever watched (plants were taking over a house is the memory in my head, and the Daleks made an appearance) - it terrified me. Needless to say, that 6 year old me's memory kept me from the series until Matt Smith which is when Heckle discovered the series. He loved every episode and everything about the world until Matt Smith left, and then wasn't fussed with what came after.

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  8. Hi Anita! Well, the Daleks terrified kids in the 1960s. They loved them anyway. I think the episode you mention might have been a Tom Baker one, though I can’t recall Daleks in it.

    I do recommend New Who! I loved all the new Doctors except maybe Matt Smith, though I am going back and discovering some very fine episodes, but Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker are great, and if your son’s first Doctor was at Smith, you have missed the amazing David Tennant!

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