BBC America Doctor Who spoilers indicate season 12 came to an end on March 1st. It was an up-and-down kinda year, one that was marginally better than the last. Sadly, it didn’t redeem itself in the end. Actually, it seemed to more or less mess with the history of the show in an obvious attempt to make one’s one mark of the franchise. But is this killing the show? Let’s take a look at the episode.
BBC America Doctor Who Spoilers: The meh
First, let’s say that we haven’t hated Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor. Actually, she’s been pretty amusing at times. Before she took over, we saw a lot of talk about how Peter Capaldi, the former Doctor, had bad writing to deal with that gave him almost nothing to work with. We’d venture that Whittaker is the one who’s had little to go on, and we think that’s a shame. If they’d made her a little less Ten-like (David Tennant) and didn’t give her so many speeches, she might have been a lot better.
However, Doctor Who Spoilers reveal she did have at least a couple of moments while The Master (Sacha Dhawan) was torturing her with the truth to show she’s got a lot of potential. Sadly, they messed that up by ending it with a very Ten-ish gloating session where she lets the Master know she’s better than him. And she’s so much more, thanks to what she’s learned. We’ll get to that in a bit.
BBC America Doctor Who Spoilers: The huh?
There were a couple of weird things here. First off, there’s something toward the end of the episode. After all is dealt with, The Doctor is sitting in her TARDIS when the Judoon enter and take her captive, saying they’re a cold case unit. She’s been sentenced to life in prison. Now, we can see why she’d be considered a fugitive and criminal, given the episode’s events. She did basically help the Cybermen nearly take over, and was close to wiping them all out, along with any biological life left on the planet. But how did the Judoon get in? The TARDIS isn’t supposed to be compromised like that. It’s almost like they threw out what we knew about the ship, much like she’s usually unable to call the TARDIS to her anymore.
Secondly, we wonder about this particular Doctor’s habit of letting her “fam” basically take care of things for her while she deals with something else. Usually, it’s the companions that decide to take off and do their own thing against his/her wishes. The closest we came to this before was Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman), who took a more independent approach and fell into a bit of arrogance. She, at times, was so enamored of the whole gig, so “in charge”, she almost looked at herself as a Doctor and paid for it. If the regeneration into 12 gave her those memories back, she should be more cautious. If they didn’t, The Doctor should technically be working as normal. As in, a more controlled experience for the companions.
BBC America Doctor Who Spoilers: The answers… sort of
They had a bit of a mystery in this Ruth version of The Doctor (Jo Martin). We were left to wonder how a being that knows all of time and space couldn’t remember their own self. The Finale offered us a (sort of) answer—apparently, it was a Time Lord-related program where memories are wiped out. But what does this mean for the show? Personally, we think this is a bit of a betrayal of the series. Originally, there was only to be one Doctor—William Hartnell. Health issues and a desire to keep the show going led to the regeneration concept. But ever since that time, it was always understood that version of the Doctor was the first. It’s the one that was portrayed (as a child) during Capaldi’s run. To suddenly have a bunch of other versions of this character running around as the “real” and “original” ones is a bit of a slap in the face to the originator of the part, as well as those that created it.
As is the idea that The Doctor isn’t native to Gallifrey. It just blows apart too much, in our opinion. And it seems the viewers are not liking where the show’s gone in the past couple of years. Ratings are going way down, and that’s never good for the survival of the show. And from the reception this episode got, it’ll only get worse if they don’t get back on track. Fast.
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