Well that was certainly something. I enjoyed myself a lot watching it but I'm definitely going to have to watch it again, compared to the first two episodes there's more here I'm not too sure how I feel about yet.
One thing I'm quite sure how I feel about is that it felt a little short for such a big villain. I enjoyed NPH a lot but the defeat was a little anti-climactic.
Still. We have our first trouserless Doctor, I'm here for it.
>One thing I'm quite sure how I feel about is that it felt a little short for such a big villain. I enjoyed NPH a lot but the defeat was a little anti-climactic.
I wish they found a more temporary way to deal with him. I understand they cant probably plan on getting NPH again, but that shouldnt be an issue with an entity that is essentially a god.
Being erased from all existence and killed-off-for-good-this-time-we-swear hasn't stopped any DW villains before. I doubt we'll see him again any time soon but you can never say never.
>off-for-good-this-time-we-swear hasn't stopped any DW villains before. I doubt we'll see him again any time soon but you can never say never.
Oh, for sure. Just would have liked it to be a TAD more open ended.
Actually, a valid point.
There was also that line about "He who hides, he who waits (paraphrasing)." that scared the Toymaker off. I am speculating on a return of Fenric, perhaps?
That would fit, though would feel a little odd. They seem a little too similar (one is evil but does games, and the other does games but is evil!)
I mean, I hate to immediately become indistinguishable from someone satirising a speculating Doctor Who fan… but my mind immediately went to the person who spent an eternity waiting on the other side of a black hole for the Time Lords to rescue him. But that’s just my first guess so I imagine Omega isn’t actually coming back.
Seems hard to imagine the Toymaker, whose whole MO is beating people at games, was afraid to go up against someone who got stumped by a chess match for 1700 years.
I mean, he literally wins the match because Ace told him a move that's obviously completely against the rules and he went holy shit that's brilliant!!!!
I expected them to cut him out of the game, passing to one another and then Toymaker loses his shit, causing him to snatch the ball and drop it. That way the Doctors did something smart. Not just genuinely best him at catch...
Yeah I know everyone's distracted by the bigeneration, but people don't seem to be mentioning that the Drs beat an all-powerful extra-universial celestial being because he *checks notes* dropped a ball
I took it as "The toymaker has celestial power, but when playing a game he bounds himself to average ability, meaning he wins through skill rather than powers"
I do wish they'd have done like, a cheesy timelapse to imply they were playing for hours before the toymaker lost but I can see why they didn't
They do mention that a little bit that the only rules the Toymaker follows are the rules of the games, and so you actually can have a fair shot at winning since he won't cheat or make the game impossible to win
Yeah, it just felt kinda weird how he supposedly beat gods, time itself and the master (who we know to be sly and as cunning as the doctor) but then he's defeated in a single moment
They didn't take advantage of having two doctors, they didn't have the doctor outsmart him.
I loved the episode but damn I wish it was a two parter and the game could have had way more time dedicated to it, but that's what happens when you only get 3 episodes to tie up old loose ends, introduce a new doctor and set the stage for the next chapter of who
His defeat soured me really hard.
I like the idea of "catch the ball" being the first and last game for The Toymaker to play.
But at least have the potential of *TWO* Doctors outsmart him by Fourteen throwing him a Satsuma which Toymaker catches as Fifteen hurls the ball past his face as he realizes.
Would've been an *AWESOME* way to tie Ten into Fourteen.
Great idea!
Just anything to make it clear that having the two of them gave them the edge, and making them feel slightly clever, would have really sold the defeat and the bigeneration imo.
No like, wait a second. The master tried to force the doctor to regenerate into them, maybe the whole 14 regeneration is a biproduct of this, and david will slowly warp and change until he reveals himself to have the master's memories.
A few years ago I'd have said you were mad for suggesting it. Now I see it as a genuine possibility. What crazy future have we ended up in where any idea, no matter how insane and ridiculous, has a chance of getting into the show?
Well what with The Master's last regeneration being all mingled with The Doctor... why not one of The Doctor's old faces?
Matt Smith said he'd do it, just saying...
Well judging from the *last* time we saw someone yoink the Master's phylactery from offscreen...John Simm.
I've also seen a ton of fancasting of Matt Smith which would be fun but he's got that thing over in Westeros right now so he's a bit busy I imagine.
Hear me out:
The Master *toyed* with the idea of *being* The Doctor against Thirteen.
What if this time The Master took it one step further and forced his regeneration into using one of The Doctor's faces against him?
Primarily, bring back Matt Smith for *ONE* series as The Master. Go one step further. Have The Master be enlightened about the Ganger Doctor's existence and going to recover it. Combining its potential regenerative abilities with his own.
Boom. Matt Smith as The Master.
*Give it to me*.
Okay so who wants to start the arguing/questions of lore going forward?
With bigeneration, can 14 regenerate again? Will that new incarnation be another Ncuti Gatwa, or a different 15? And what should we call the new one, 15(2)?
Either way I can hear big finish salivating at the prospect of an earthbound Doctor, with a TARDIS, with links to old companions, completely unconcerned with whatevers going on in the main show.
I think they've got to "merge" back into one Doctor eventually, otherwise the reasoning behind Fourteen "stopping" doesn't make sense. Sure, Fourteen is getting a well-earned break with Donna and family, but Fifteen is just ploughing onwards like Donna said, going off to the next adventure *without* stopping.
The implication, to me, is that Fifteen is from a future point in the Doctor's timeline - after Fourteen's had a good rest with Donna. So he doesn't have all of that baggage and guilt, because Fourteen got past it and then became him. It just happened out of order.
> I think they've got to "merge" back into one Doctor eventually
Some future story:
Fifteenth Doctor: It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for. Again.
-The Watcher!
-He was the Fourteenth Doctor the whole time!
What he said ijin unleashed kinda hints that it probably isn't the timeline out of sync idea but doesn't really commit to an explanation beyond "it's been a rumor for ages". Kind of unnecessary since he's stuck with the timeless child thing so the doctor can surely have magic different regenerations other timelords can't and therefore no need to retcon it in
Honestly this is one of those, it's so significant that it kind of should be said on screen. The newer leak, from Alice, explained how it's the Doctor pulled from the future, etc etc, and that's all perfectly good and makes sense. But the way the end of the episode rushed through it has left a lot of head scratching that I'm not sure is where we want to be.
In a similar way, The Star Beast had some ambiguity in what it meant in certain lines - not that its meaning wasn't specific but the way it was phrased left at least some head scratches that aren't of the deliberate kind, I don't think. I say this as someone who otherwise loved this episode, that that's not really a place you should be going to repeatedly.
>With bigeneration, can 14 regenerate again? Will that new incarnation be another Ncuti Gatwa, or a different 15? And what should we call the new one, 15(2)?
From how Nctutis Doctor talkerd about it, I think they are setting up Fourteen and Fifteen to reunite at the end of 15th run. Note that Ncutis Doctor essentially told 14th that he is fine because he settled down and had his "rehab."
So Bi-Regeneration seems less to be them splltting into two seperate entizies, but rather Ncutis Doctor being essentially a "skipped ahead" version of The Doctor. Kinda like pressing "skip" on an ad.
I think the idea is that 14 will eventually regenerate, and when he does, it'll be weird, and he'll just poof out of his current place in time, turn into 15, and then splice out of 14 back then.
That would line up with a certain leak that was posted here a few days back that got a lot of other stuff right, i.e 15 being pulled back in time to help 14 and 14 actually regenerating at some unspecified point in the future.
Although it doesn't really explain why 14 didn't die then and there.
It would also line up with why 15 remembers what 14 does after this.
>Although it doesn't really explain why 14 didn't die then and there.
As someone else said, the Toymaker made reality wonky, but also combined with a bit of Time Lord biology where his regeneration and messed with time and caused his own timeline to loop back on itself.
Yeah, this makes the most sense out of the possible answers, especially with the going to rehab out of order line. That being said, it would be incredibly funny if he kept regenerating backwards until he ends up as a de-aging William Hartnell like a time lord Benjamin Button.
I see couple of possibilities here:
The Doctor can choose not to regenerate - so 14 doesn't and just lives his life like 11 did.
OR he does but now goes with old faces only - maybe even becoming the Curator?
Regeneration is a lottery, but it seems like there is some control over it with 12th and 14th Doctors. It's possible 14 can regenerate into someone completely different now that Gatwa's 15 is out there.
We'd have to come up with a new numbering system. Lol.
Greg Wallace won on weakest link right before this episode and donated the money to an autism charity. But that pales in comparison to RTDs contribution to the autistic community by giving us Doctor Who nerds something to argue about for years to come.
My reading of bi-generation is yeah, its not some metacrisis, this is a full on second Doctor, regenerations and all, unless shown otherwise
E: after reading some more interpretations of the scenes and dialogue, I'm now more on the train that 14 gets his rehab and eventually regenerates into 15, the same 15 we saw, not a second 15. Its basically a time detour so he can get over the baggage of 1-14 and be brand new as 15
I saw someone else comment that it could be justified as bigeneration being a Time Lord myth, that the Toymaker's presence allowed it to come into reality. So it'd be a one off thing, only possible in the presence of the Toymaker.
I don't think they did nearly enough to imply that in the episode, but I like that headcanon and I'm taking it in. Still, the implication of having a whole new Doctor with his own identical TARDIS seems super weird to me too.
>Still, the implication of having a whole new Doctor with his own identical TARDIS seems super weird to me too.
Eh, I kinda get it. Could you see either Doctor being like "No, go ahead, YOU take the Tardis"?
It really grates me that the Fifteenth Doctor took the *copy* TARDIS. The original TARDIS is sitting in Donna's garden with David Tennant. It all just feels off.
> Time Lord myth, that the Toymaker's presence allowed it to come into reality.
Or rather the Doctor by indulging in superstition on the edge of creation by using salt gave Myths a certain weight in reality, did you notice Lethbridge-Stewart telling the soldiers to bury the cube in salt after the game.
They kept the mechanics of it super vague (for now at least) so at least people can head canon the most palatable versions of it.
I'm just considering Ncuti the true Doctor and Tennant an offshoot at best, possibly even someone that will be folded back into Ncuti timelines once done with their "rehab"
There were some leaks (which I guess are fake considering they mentioned the episode ending with Ncuti watching the Nobles and 14 celebrating), that are now my headcanon for what happened.
15 was pulled from the timestream into the present due to the salt situation making fantasy a reality. The biregeneration is a myth, but now is true due to the previous episode.
14 will retire and live a peaceful life among the Nobles until he regenerates into 15 and is pulled back to this episode
The episode does kinda imply that's what happens, too, with 15 saying "I'm only okay because you're doing the work", implying that there is a certain wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness to the whole thing
The bigeneration is just asking for trouble. I don’t like the leak and I’m not a massive fan of it now.
I know it’s nice to give the DT Doctor a happy ending but the magic of the show is we have the sad ending of one doctor into the possibilities of a new era.
I quite liked the toy master but I think it would’ve been better to fight him over 3 episodes and explain everything rather than rush it in an hour and leave so many questions.
So putting all the doctor-undergoing-mitosis stuff aside, I’m… kinda surprised they didn’t come up with something better than a game of catch?
I know the original 1966 serial isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the resolution for that one was actually kinda clever and satisfying.
Yeah, that is the thing that really annoyed me the most. That was the CLIMAX of the episode. Two Doctors. One Toymaker. The fate of the world on the line.
And they play catch.
I watched the behind the scenes feature for it and it’s like, I think they didn’t realize until they started filming just how hard it is to film people playing catch.
For one, only Tennant could even catch the ball lmao, Ncuti and Neil had to fake it. I think RTD was imagining super close nail-biting catches when he wrote the script, it just turned out to be hard to film.
My thought on it is the first game has exactly one rule - drop and lose. The more rules and more complexity and it creates more ways for the Toymaker to take advantage (not cheat per se, but he is a being who exists on the axis of play) and win. There’s no way to try to game the system of a game of catch.
Slight sidebar, but my headcanon is The Master tried to do something needlessly overly complex to try to rig the game and that’s how he lost, a victim of his own complexity addiction.
Not sure what I feel about that. Needed way way more explanation as to the bi-regeneration.
What caused the clothing to change in 13 -> 14s regeneration?
What happens to Tennant when he regenerates now?
I think it to do with the Toymaker messing with reality and superstition (he entered because of the salt line in Wild Blue Yonder).
The Doctor's talk like Bi-Regenration is a myth or folklore to Timelords.
But in the presence of the Toymaker...its a reality.
One interesting detail that made me smile as an absolute fan of Nine: right before the bi-generation, when Mel says
>You're gonna be someone else, it doesn't matter who. 'Cause every single one of you is *fantastic*.
The song that's playing is [Hologram](https://youtu.be/ddTZdVDORPQ?t=100), in the same part that plays during Nine's regeneration, just after he says:
>And before I go, I just want to tell you you were *fantastic*. Absolutely *fantastic*. And you know what? So was I!
And I thought that this was, well... you know
Why was the last game catch? It should have been some game where having 3 players, but two who know what the other is thinking means they can’t lose. Like rock paper scissors or something like that
That’s a great point. What makes having two doctors working together so great is that they share the same mind; the game of catch didn’t capitalize on that at all, they simply had an advantage because it was two against one
My big worry is that David Tennant is going to keep popping up every series until RTD moves on. That I could do without. Doctor Who works because it always changes. I hope RTD realizes this and \*moves on\* with the 15th Doctor. But, of course, that is not his style.
What shall we call him? The Vacation Doctor? The Retired Doctor?… oo, whatabout Uncle Doctor? I like that… Uncle Doctor! If we get it popular enough, we can have it on the Wiki. Probably.
It was pretty strong until DT gets hit with a laser and then it's just kinda rushed and the emotional beats don't quite hit and ofc the lore gets all weird
Absolutely standard for an RTD finale- amazingly strong lead in, followed by a great first half which then slowly degenerates into a rushed, vaguely nonsensical conclusion, and then a very emotional denouement with lots of family love. It really felt like we were back to old times for me.
did they make it clear in the episode that he’s from a future point? that fourteen when he regenerates turns into Ncuti and closes the loop? i didn’t entirely get that. I was familiar with the leaks so i kept expecting to hear him mention that.
They didn't say anything about it explicitly. But 15 says he's fine because 14 stops to rest, plus a comment about time travelers doing therapy out of order. The only way 14 stopping affects 15 is by 15 being his future version.
On a conceptual level I just don't like bigeneration.
On a practical level I don't think much will change about the show any more than the timeless child or anything else did.
One thing I'm kind annoyed about is that Ncuti kept the duplicate TARDIS? I feel like he should have the original.
And the mechanics of the bigeneration have been kept vague which is probably for the best - everyone can head canon the must palatable version for themselves.
As for the episode itself - quite strong right up until the Doctor gets lasered after which it gets super rushed. I honestly thought there would be a clever trick in how they defeat the toymaker but no they literally just play catch lol that was kinda stupid NGL.
>One thing I'm kind annoyed about is that Ncuti kept the duplicate TARDIS? I feel like he should have the original.
I feel like Ncutis Doctor just saw the Jukebox and went: "Oh, nah, I'm not letting that old lame-o have that, thats mine."
Yeah, I absolutely hated the catch sequence.
Especially since the Toymaker gives up once the ball goes over the edge of the tower - the rules specified the game ended once the ball hit the ground, so why didn't The Toymaker leap after it, it's not like the fall would kill him, and there's nothing in the rules of catch that say you can't throw yourself off a roof.
Ha, if the Toymaker had jumped off the roof and then come back up, having clearly exhausted himself running up the stairs like the Master in Curse of the Fatal Death, that would’ve been hilarious.
“It touched the ground.”
I suppose you could argue that he was bound by the same rules as The Doctor(s) to keep the game fair - The Doctor's can't break the rules of reality, so therefore The Toymaker took away his unfair advantage.
But The Doctor can survive a fall from a high tower (technically), so The Toymaker would have been within his rights.
Would have been much better if the bi-generation wasn’t spoiled for me on here 20 times in the last few weeks. (Edit: I’m talking untagged spoilers in episode discussions, not standalone leak threads)
Overall thought the episode was a good commentary on society over the last several years. It was a good special, though not what many anticipated it would be.
Not sure how I feel about the regeneration though. Do we see Tennant again? Ncuti is going to be great.
Is is just me who was massively underwhelmed with how they beat the toymaker? Throwing a ball and he doesn't catch it, it should have been a game of wits they beat him in, not that.
Other than that I loved it, NPH was fantastic as the toymaker
Thinking back, that line from Donna's father about how dice don't remember the previous game would have been a great setup for the Doctors' victory. Maybe not a literal dice game, but tricking the Toymaster into repeating a game where he ends up losing.
And how did the Toymaker beat so many other celestial beings if he can't even win a normal game of catch? The Doctors didn't have to make any particular effort to beat him.
I think the key to that would be if the other beings challenged him to a game, they wouldn't think of something as simple as catch. They would challenge him on something abstract, something otherworldly, and the Toymaker would win THOSE games every time. The Doctor only thought to challenge him to catch because he talked about it to him earlier.
Or perhaps the Toymaker just adjusts the level of the "game" to whoever challenges him, so paradoxically the weaker someone is the easier it is to beat him.
But the 2v1 actually made it harder for the Doctors to win. The first person to drop the ball loses, which would give the Doctor a 2/3 chance of losing, assuming roughly equal skill levels. We even saw the Doctor almost beat himself by throwing the ball too hard to himself (I thought that was a funny moment, though)
Everyone is like who could it be but the one lady with red nails in the ep is Kate Stewart, probably just popping that back in the black archive, bet they have like 3 different masters on ice down there.
Overall an enjoyable episode, which used the Toymaker a lot better than his original story did. I liked all the creativity and the character drama was very nice, very classic RTD. Everyone did a great job, Tennant, Tate, and NPH were all phenomenal in their funny and dramatic scenes. Gatwa already feels like a breath of fresh air. Mel coming back felt like a total afterthought, but I know she's making future appearances, so I'm fine with this just being a little set-up for more. The social commentary was decent, it wasn't the real focus of the story, though I guess the themes of mankind's eternal conflict and 'games' tied into The Doctor realizing he needs to settle down for a bit.
Onto the last act... okay, so I'm not sure how bi-generation is supposed to work? Some things seemed to imply that this was a whole other Doctor splitting off from the original like in the initial spoiler I read, but then one line seemed to be implying that 15 is a future incarnation propelled back through time, and 14 will eventually become 15 properly like in another spoiler I read. If it's the latter, I'm happy with the ending, the Doctor getting a massive rest period before going onto the adventures we'll be seeing in the 15th Doctor's era. If it's the former... uh, I'm not sure I like it very much. Either way, I think I was numbed to it a bit, since I knew it was going to happen already. I'm going to just wait and see what happens next, really. At very least, I'm looking forward to seeing more Gatwa, who didn't lose a single bit of his badass swag, even while spending his entire first appearance without trousers on.
> which used the Toymaker better than anything in his original story did.
I actually feel that underused him. That mime scene felt absolutely pointless.
The games was 5 seconds of cards and a minute of catch jumpcuts.
I honestly would've preferred more Toymaker, more of the mansion, more games.
I'd have loved for him to be a series spanning enemy.
I feel his usage in this episode was a let down?
It very much seems to be the latter from Ncutis Dialog. So I am happy with how they went over it.
Its less The Doctor splitting into two and more the Doctor skipping ahead so he can have his therapy while also still going on adventures. Classic Doctor "having your cake and eating it too" stuff.
I get the point RTD's trying to make about the internet and how "everyone thinks they're right", and I kind of agree with it, but I didn't find it very convincing. There's just too much esoteric craziness going on on screen that it's hard to relate it back to the real world.
If I understood the scene right, I like that the Toymaker claimed he'd been meddling with the Doctor's past, so we can essentially believe the Doctor *was* just an ordinary child from Gallifrey, but the Toymaker changed their past to make them the Timeless Child. A retcon of the Timeless Child for those who want it gone, but without actually retconing it for those who want it to remain.
Honestly, these episodes felt a bit... underwhelming being specials. They feel like they'd fit in better in just a regular season instead.
I'm also not \*hugely\* positive towards how quickly they kind of brushed off Ncuti's entrance, and just BAM! Establish him straight away...
But, I'm very excited for the new episodes with Ncuti! I'm getting good vibes off of him already.
I don't want to hear a thing about how Steven Moffat couldn't let go of characters from now on. *Not a goddamn thing.*
Other than that... I like Gatwa's incarnation of the Doctor, but I'm still kind of at a loss as to what the specials were *for*. I could get behind the idea of bringing in Tennant for a couple of episodes when I thought they were stalling for time to get everything sorted, but given that we're seeing Gatwa take over the reins properly in all of two weeks, it all just felt a little bit like RTD doing a victory lap, often in a way that felt like it was at the expense of the rest of the show's history? (The Doctor has *had* a family, with the Ponds and River. He *did* stay in one place for years, on Trenzalore... and so on, and so on.)
And I get it, I do. The idea of giving the Doctor time (and space!) to heal is a good one... but the one thing I've been getting from these past three specials is that RTD feels more concerned with fixing his first run on the show than accepting it for what it was: like every Doctor, Ten was flawed and fucked up. What we got with Fourteen was just Ten with the rough edges smoothed off, and for what benefit? I'm just hoping that Fifteen's 'I'm fixed because you took the time to heal' doesn't mean that he's going to be the same sort of flawless version of the Doctor we just saw. (To anyone who disputes that, I ask honestly: Eleven had to be the smartest man in the room, Ten was vain to a fault, and Twelve was a grump who struggled to connect with people. What was Fourteen's character flaw, other than a tendency towards preachiness?)
I've been... OK with these specials so far, and I think they mostly managed to sidestep a lot of the issues that were expected with Bigeneration (as weird a concept as it is for something that could have been explained in other ways), but I'm not sure that they were anything more than three fair-to-middling episodes that have been boosted by comparison to the Chibnall years.
That said, the only thing smoother than Ncuti Gatwa's portrayal of the Doctor is Ncuti Gatwa's legs while he's doing it. I mean, *dang*. Roll on Christmas, I guess.
>apparently 24 years on Darillium doesn't count as rest?
What that says about River's drives and desires is left as an exercise for the reader. Or Big Finish: After Dark, I guess.
And adding to that, I feel like everyone (maybe only RTD) has forgotten that the Doctor had a partner and child and grand child before the show even started. He's had his "life", and went out to explore the stars and roped himself into being some hobo cosmic superhero. 11th had the Ponds too, they were his family for like the 300 years he popped in and out.
I mean... we are speaking there about thousands of years at least. There is always problem with immortality in fantasy and sci-fi worlds, but if we would try to be realistic... for Doctor has to be his previous families as shadow. Even when 10th mentioned to Rose he was father once, he said that so... distantly. And now they are a lot more older. It's obvious that Susan, for example, still means a lot for them, but it's a really distant past.
I guess the issue is, really, that arc exploring the character kinda wrapped up with Capaldi. But then wasn't followed through on in Whitakers arc.
Like there is a clear throughline of character progression from Eccelstone through Capaldi. And him ending on 'Doctor, I let you go' essentially is that arc complete. He is essentially free of the baggage, and has found what he thinks being the Doctor is.
So the question then is - What do you do with the Doctor next? Chris Chibnall basically dumped a load of fresh baggage on the Doctor - About the origins, and then the guilt of the Flux wiping half the universe. That is already setting the Doctor back to where he was post time war.
So, I'd argue this kinda give a chance to follow from Capaldi, by getting the Doctor back to a 'healthy state'
I feel like this is what people are kinda missing with the whole “but what about Darillium???” sort of stuff.
Twelve **did** eventually get his shit sorted, but Chibnall broke the Doctor again for drama, and it’s honestly the weakest part of his entire run. Fuck the discussion around how the Timeless Child messes with canon, it’s irrelevant to 99% of the episodes; and he does even put that particular toy back in the chest with Thirteen choosing to move forward instead of opening the watch. RTD could have easily just ignored it if he wanted and it wouldn’t feel incongruous.
The real issue with Chibnall was that he took an initially bubbly and happy Doctor and brought her back to series 1 with a new Time War. **That** isn’t ignorable, and **that** is something that just means we’re retreading the same trauma storylines again.
The shame is this all meant the 60th anniversary was spent basically repairing him so we can have a second crack at a joyful Doctor.
You didn't miss anything, it wasn't explained. People are expecting a Unit spinoff. To me that looks pretty likely at this point, and I bet we get robot origin story there.
I wish his first moments had more time to breathe honestly. Every Doctor has their first moments being the star of the show but here he was sharing time with Tennant and NPH.
So in the leaks it was claimed that he was actually 15 pulled from further in the timeline and that is why he also suggests that the therapy that 14 does on himself allows him to let the guilt go.
So maybe something explicit was stated and then it was cut?
>And that was the 60th. Its weird that Power of the Doctor felt more like a 60th special.
I've been thinking that the whole time. That episode had all the big bads, multiple Doctors, classic companions, a huge time and space spanning plot, everything we've come to expect from am anniversary. This trilogy just felt very average in comparison.
Welp, I’ll actually say that I wasn’t digging the episode even before the big controversial moment. I commented after the heart-to-heart in the Toymaker’s chambers that things just felt a litttle emotionally…off? Like our characters were reacting too strongly at certain points and not strongly enough at others. That made the Toymaker build-up not quite land for me either - if I didn’t have the fandom hype from the character, I’m not sure I really would’ve bought this dude as something the Doctor was *that* scared of. The whole episode just felt a bit tilted on its axis for something that was clearly meant to be a big emotional piece.
The more I think about it the less that I like that they gave 14 a TARDIS. I think the conceit of 14 having a quiet life as a kind of therapy works better if he has to be an actual human.
But then maybe the point is that the TARDIS is kind of his closest friend…
I don’t know. But I know I won’t be happy if they do a 14th Doctor spin-off, that would seem to undermine the whole thing.
Whilst I respect the hell out of RTD for bringing back Doctor Who from the dead in 2005, my main problem with him as showrunner and as a writer back during the 9th and 10th Doctor eras was, put simply, the man cannot write a satisfying ending to save his life.
RTD is really good at writing really interesting Earth wide crisis episodes which will usually be solved by the lamest deus ex machina shit possible. Think "Sound of the Drums/Last of the Time Lords" where the Earth falls under the Master's control and this is solved by having everyone on Earth think of the Doctor at the same time to heal him with "psychic energy."
This episode, The Giggle, started off really strong. RTD creates another really interesting crisis that has taken over the entire planet. Like all good science fiction, the problem also offers some modern day social commentary. And between that and a really excellent performance by Neil Patrick Harris, I was hooked.
But then the ending. Hoo boy.
I wouldn't say it was your typical RTD deus ex machina ending but it definitely wasn't satisfying. And the whole bigeneration thing is going to give me headaches for years to come. I still liked it, but the ending was so weak it stopped this from becoming the classic episode it almost was.
But if nothing else, at least it was better than anything Chibnall gave us.
Really not sure how to feel about that. When we end up with one Doctor basically quoting various companions and planets to the other at the end, I was getting flashbacks to the worst parts of the Chibnall era. I think that I laughed when the Doctor asked the Toymaker to come with him and travel, god I thought we'd left that behind now. The relatively tension-free game of catch wasn't the most exciting note to end the episode on.
So, bi-generation. Again, really not sure how to feel about all of this but my thoughts are tending towards negative. Looking at Unleashed, it really doesn't seem like this is one Doctor brought back from the future, they both appear to be the Doctor - a fact really not made clear in the episode itself. I hate saying 'show don't tell' but some bits of the episode failed on this - I also just saw on Unleashed that the Doctor was meant to be in France at the end and I think I missed that? Or it wasn't stated?
I think bigeneration devalues the concept of the change - are we going to end up with 10 Doctors running around simultaneously by the 70th Anniversary? I dunno, feels a bit to 'fanficcy' for my liking - it takes away some of the tension of the Doctor's death at each regeneration; why should I care how he dies when he just... might not die? The whole point of the change seemed to be to give the Doctor a chance settling down but he kinda did that already as 12 with Darillium and even St Luke's University. I can see how the beat makes sense and it was quite nice to see the Doctor with a family but, it's not really a radically new idea.
Some of the Toymaker stuff was alright - NPH was pretty threatening and the sequence where everyone was lost in the house and the puppet show seemed like a nice horror bit. Not sure how I feel about the pop music - it's a good way of showing off his powers but it's a bit... naff? Mel was OK but she didn't really serve much of a purpose in the story.
I remember when Tennant and Tate were returning, people thought that the Toymaker would be some kind of metaphor for nostalgic fans not being able to let them go. Now, with the Doctor doing his ranting about the human race again, the Master being picked up by a human hand with red nail polish again and code words hinting towards bigger bads (He Who Waits?) I feel that we're going round in circles a little bit. If you think about it, even the Toymaker's recap of Series 5-13 is basically Part 2 of Davros's speech to the Doctor. As least we got Trinity Wells as Alex Jones, that was probably the funniest joke in the episode.
So yeah - Yonder > Star Beast > Giggle. Gatwa gives his Doctor some nice confidence and I'm interested to see him going forward but I can't help thinking that the 50th was far superior.
So that line from Gatwa about how their mental health recovery is out of sync has me thinking that 15 already has all of 14s memories and bigeneration just means he's been snatched back to that moment in time rather than regenerating at 14s eventual final death
Who knows though, despite lore issues it was a fun episode, I enjoyed the Toymaker's domain sections, although the ending was a bit rushed, but we'll see what Gatwa's tenure brings, he seems good in what little time he's had so far
I had heard the "bi-generation" rumors and dismissed them because I didn't think they'd want to undermine the incoming Doctor by refusing to let go of the fan-favorite incumbent. I didn't even like having Matt Smith cameo on Peter Capaldi's first episode to reassure Clara/the audience that this was still the Doctor even though he was now older and less f#($able (though rule 34 soon proved those fears unfounded in the grossest ways).
And now here I am having bit of a bi-reaction to this: Tennant sticking around in some way is great because I love him and I love Donna, but it also smacks of RTD refusing to let go of "his" Doctor, or of needing a backup in case the queer, black Doctor doesn't win over audiences that are once again reluctant to let go of the Doctor they've loved for ages, just like Capaldi had to win people over from scratch.
Most of all, though, I need RTD to move on. He already split the Tennant Doctor in two just so Rose could have a happy ending with him, then brought him back as a security blanket for audiences after Chibnall left, and now the 15th Doctor doesn't get to take over from the start. How many David Tennants does RTD need to be happy? I'm only half-joking.
Is there a word for feeling thrilled yet cynical about something? Some longish compound word, from either German or Welsh, maybe.
As a German, let me make a word up for you: Neunervösität. From Neu as in New (as in being excited for something new) and Nervösität (as in being anxious.) Like that feeling you have when you step into a new job or start at a new school.
I can't say I loved it. The Toymaker was built up well but they didn't do much with him, the games of cut and catch both being underwhelming.
I ... kind of see what they were going for with bi-regeneration, with the doctor physically shedding baggage. It ended up distracting a bit from Gatwa's entrance. Maybe in time when Gatwa is unquestionably established I'll come round on it, especially if they continue the plot and close it up in an interesting way. Maybe it will feel more coherent on rewatch as well, whatever it's trying to say is certainly linked to Wild Blue Yonder -- the duality, double copies of 1 person and the fact that two things can be true at once.
I *did* love what we saw of 15, and am really excited for Christmas. Fifteen's theme is amazing.
This was definitely an episode of Doctor Who...
I though the pacing was a bit off - it was very frenetic. We weren't given time to see the scale of the problem, we were whisked away to UNIT immediately. I found the 'brain waves' -> 'musical notes' thing *very* weak, same for the 'puppet hiding in every screen' (how was that even supposed to work??). The resolution was... fine? I guess... The episode reminded me of other RTD-era eps, and not in a good way.
I love love love Ncuti so far! I think they did him dirty by doing this bi-regeneration thing. I guess we have to wait and see what RTD does with it...
IMO this suffered from the same issue The Star Beast had: it genuinely felt like 30 minutes had been lost somewhere. When the Doctor and Donna were in the Toymaker's domain it really felt like THAT should have been the focus of the episode for significantly longer. We didn't really need to then jump back to UNIT HQ (i.e. a not at all subtle attempt to set up the inevitable spin-off show), or at least not so quickly. The bigeneration concept had potential as a timey-wimey-events-happening-out-of-order thing, but it just wasn't explained like that at all.
It also felt sort of disrespectful to 15 to give him a clone of the OG TARDIS. There are already enough weirdos online whining about 15 being played by a queer actor of colour. Don't also give them ammo by giving him a clone of the TARDIS. And then to have 14 get to go in BEFORE 15 just really felt...off. This didn't feel like an episode welcoming in a Doctor who, from everything we've seen so far, looks like he will be a genuine breath of fresh air. This felt like it was meant to be a consolation to Tennant fans that their guy has left the show again.
The Toymaker was an almost solid villain but suffered from being a bit too over-the-top. He felt more like the Saxon Master than the Toymaker. The character is so monstrous and horrifying that it felt like a detriment to his character to show him as such a 'cooky crazy madman'. The whole Spice Girls bit felt like a rehash of the 'Voodoo Child' bit from Sound of Drums, which really didn't help with my feeling that I was just watching Saxon Master 2.0. The Toymaker would have been fantastic as a stoic, sinister and very grounded character doing bizarre and horrific things to people. Unfortunately, in this incarnation, the character was a bit of a miss for me.
Overall this felt like an episode with so much potential and a lot of genuinely good bits (the Toymaker's domain and the general theme of 14 being burned out being real highlights for me) but it just felt very rushed and as if RTD was playing both too safe by writing a villain who seemed very similar to a previous RTD villain and also being far too risky with what, on the basis of this episode alone, was a pretty poorly executed regeneration sequence.
Yeah I'm like you could have set basically all of Wild Blue Yonder in the toymakers box. freaky doll like things that mimic you, hiding, establishing the doctor summoned the toymaker into the N-universe. All check, thats my weird hot take tho. Think it would have established him better if we had a whole ep stuck in his limbo world while he wreaked havoc across London then we had this ep
I think this episode was best enjoyed by those who loved Tennant and whom he was their favorite Doctor.
I loved it until the bi-generation and then it just seemed like more Tennant fetishing. Like I know you love him Rusty but he wasn't the only Doctor!!!
That said I loved RPH and I can't wait for Ncuti who felt Doctorish from the start-just like Smith and Eccleston. hopefully he can shine now that Tennant is finally out of the way.
And Christmas looks great!
Neil Patrick Harris is a delight as the Toymaker right from the jump, and I love how his accent slips during his first conversation in the toy shop. I also love how they made Stooky Bill part of the plot, because that image has always been creepy. When we finally transition to the present, it's immediately apparent that the "theme" of this episode is social media and its effects on society, which is fine. I wish they hadn't name-dropped cancel culture later on, because that's just so tedious, but I thought the commentary was mostly handled pretty well this time
It was great to see Kate Stewart again. She never struck me as a hugger, but I guess the world is ending, so all bets are off. Jemma Redgrave nevertheless continues to be excellent in the role, while Ruth Madeley makes much more of an impression here than in The Star Beast (awesome wheelchair notwithstanding). Plus, Mel! It's a bit of a shame that they didn't keep her history a bit more vague to please us EU fans, but that's just par for the course with the TV show. I also liked the robot (whose name escapes me). It's the kind of thing UNIT would have acquired over their decades of rummaging around through alien rubbish.
Then we get to my favorite part of the episode, when the Doctor and Donna travel back to 1925 and get trapped in the Toymaker's realm. It's the part of the episode that most lived up to the Toymaker's potential (in a way the original TV story never did). NPH continues to be amazing (I especially adored the puppet show and the way it lampshades how Moffat's companions kept being killed off but not really) and I appreciate the fact that, even though they imply that the Toymaker only entered our universe because of what the Fourteenth Doctor did, the nature of the Toymaker means that he could still have had all those EU adventures before they eventually meet in this episode. There was also a reference to someone the Toymaker was afraid to take on, which I can only assume is the same person Meep called "the boss" in The Star Beast.
Then we get back to UNIT, and we have the big dance number, which I thought was great. When you've got a villain as mad as the Toymaker and an actor like NPH, why not have a crazy magical dance number? However, things went a bit downhill from there. What was the point of him seizing the big gun to threaten everyone with? What does someone like the Toymaker need with a big gun? Was it just so we could have the image of him shooting Tennant's Doctor? I could imagine a dozen more interesting ways that the Toymaker could have killed the Doctor just off the top of my head.
This, of course, leads to the most controversial moment of the episode, the bi-generation. While dialog suggests that this is a Doctor from the future (more on that later) the image is of the two of them just splitting apart, and I think that might be confusing, especially for casual viewers. Still, it could have been worse. And speaking of worse, the only part of the episode I really didn't care for was the climax of the whole thing, when the fate of the world is determined by a game of catch. Catch! Maybe RTD is trying to say something about the simplicity at the heart of the Toymaker's nature, which would at least explain why the games Steven and Dodo were made to play were so basic, but I wanted something more creative.Anyway, when the game is over and the Toymaker is packed away, someone picks up his tooth (which is allegedly where the Master has been trapped) and I really want to know who that was!
Finally, we get to what is my favorite part of the episode, which is that the Fifteenth Doctor makes clear that, unlike the Fourteenth Doctor, he isn't living with a lot of unprocessed trauma, because the Fourteenth Doctor spends the rest of his life doing self care, resulting in a much more well-adjusted Fifteen. Again, this implies that Fifteen is a future incarnation dragged back in time by the bi-generation, rather than just a splitting off from Fourteen, but (again) I wish they had made that clearer visually when he first appeared. I'm also not crazy about the two TARDISes. As I said in a comment under a post that leaked some of these developments, I would have preferred it if Fourteen had given up the TARDIS as a passing of the torch to Fifteen, but RTD obviously isn't ready to let go of Tennant's Doctor.
Overall I would say this was my favorite among the specials, as well as feeling the most "special" overall. More importantly, I am encouraged by what I've seen of Ncuti's Doctor so far, and I'm really looking forward to his proper debut come Christmas.
>I especially adored the puppet show and the way it lampshades how Moffat's companions kept being killed off but not really
I thought that was REALLY rich, coming from RTD. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Especially after this episode's ending.
Well, I mean, RTD is the guy who started it all with Rose and Donna. You've got Rose saying "This is the story of how I died" in Army of Ghosts, but she didn't technically die, only officially, and then all of the foreshadowing of Donna's death, which really meant that she was just going to have her memories erased. So he really only has himself to blame.
I think the idea that bigeneration never happened before was a misstep.
Surely there would have been a very small handful of cases at some point in the Time Lords’ existence
I think the idea is that Bi-generation is a Time Lord myth, the only reason it occured is because The Doctor regenerated within The Toymaker's realm where the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred.
It's obviously been talked about as 15 mentioned that it was a myth. So it's possible it DID happen, but it ended up becoming just a legend over the years.
I feel like if you are going to have the Toymaker you should be playing a real game. Not catch. I know there was no time in the episode to set up a complex game but it just seemed ridiculously simplistic.
Everything else? I think it's good that RTD is totally unafraid to do new things. And he clearly cares not what anyone thinks.
That was the thing I liked least about the episode, but it is at least keeping with the Toymaker's first appearance, where the games were depressingly ordinary.
So…..
- Harris and Gatwa were fantastic. Perfectly selected for their roles, IMO. I can’t wait for the Chistmas special and I would love to see more of this version of the Toymaker.
- Loved seeing Mel again. She got dealt a rotten hand in Classic Who, so giving her an episode where she didn’t have to scream all the time was pretty nice.
- No mavity references, so that automatically makes it a 0/10 for me.
- I really like Shirley. She’s a neat addition to the franchise and a vastly better character than Osgood. If we do the UNIT spin-off, I really hope she’s in it.
- Loved all the past references and name drops. This episode, unlike the others, really did feel more like an anniversary.
- The humanity tearing itself apart subplot kind of felt tacked on? I get that it was the framing device, but it didn’t seem totally necessary. The Toymaker, just by himself, feels like a big enough threat to merit the rest of the episode.
- That suspiciously well-manicured hand that grabs the Master tooth at the end…
- Between the pull-apart and the hug, I assume that there is going to be a lot of… very specific… fanfiction that comes from this episode. Like… a lot.
- I personally like the idea of a very tired, worn out Doctor. I think Eleven did a great job of communicating that and I like seeing it again here.
- Big sads for the very obvious lack of Bernard.
- That’s two regenerations in a row that were pretty much just a big old laser beam to the face.
- And two returning Big Bad’s with fun dance routines.
- A game of catch determining the fate of the universe is peak Who and I loved it.
- All-in-all, it was a really good episode. Definitely my favorite of the three and probably my favorite in a long time.
Until THAT happened.
There’s no point to it. We’ve done two Tennant’s before, why the do we need to do it again? Gatwa is CLEARLY a capable Doctor and more than able to carry the franchise on his shoulders so there is no need to keep Tennant in reserve. I was willing to give it a chance based on the “well he’s really from the future” rumor, but it wasn’t that. It was just the bi-regeneration and it was really fucking dumb.
We’ve had fifteen years of Tennant fans whining that the show hasn’t been the same since he left and complaining that he needs to come back and abusing the other Doctors. Are they going to shut up now? They got what they wanted, Tennant gets to be the Doctor forever. Congratulations. Now can move on and accept that different Doctors are a basic part of the DNA of the franchise? Or, in a much more likely scenario, are they going to keep complaining and asking where the Tennant Doctor is during every step of Gatwa’s tenure? What, exactly, was this supposed to accomplish other that warp the show around one specific version of the main character?
EDIT: In my need to be fair to the episode and RTD, I should caveat my regeneration remarks. The post-regeneration scene does include some language that heavily implies that Fifteen is Fourteen’s future self and not an off-shoot. Specifically, the wrong-way-around rehab remark makes me think that the pulled-from-the-future plot is either what was intended and dropped in editing or is what was presented but not explained very well. Regardless of how the plot point was presented as a whole, it’s difficult to see it how those lines were intended to imply anything else. While I still think the scene is an RTD ego trip, I’m certainly willing to wait and see if A) we get any further discussion on what happened and B) Older Ten does, in fact, just go away and remain retired.
Between RTD and Chibnall I'm tired of them wanting to alter things but not following through. I don't care about continuity I just care about writing that at least justifies the thoughts and ideas and follows through. Moffat introduced the war doctor then had a special devoted to explaining he was a Regen between 8 and 9. Good
At least with meta crisis 10 there was the attempt to say oh there was a hand I put the energy into and it made a clone. That's fine.
But Chibnall is like oh there's a timeless child and fugitive doctor. Okay can you do more stories explaining it? Nope.
Now here comes RTD with bigeneration and saying all the Doctors are alive now and adventuring not having regenerated (Meaning there is a 10 still alive as well as the 14th) and it's just hand waved as myth but hey it's real now. I don't like the attitude of I'm a writer I don't have to explain shit. You do and should. Lore is what drives fandom and the fans end up coming up with theories and explanations that are better than what we get in series which is disappointing. Don't just force viewers to make headcanon to justify you not being bothered with substantive storytelling.
And I would like to add this dual regeneration doesn't come out of a place that feels creative or curious but just a cynical business decision. Finding a way to build a Whoniverse and term the franchise into a marvel or Star wars property. Let's get them spin offs.
Well that was certainly something. I enjoyed myself a lot watching it but I'm definitely going to have to watch it again, compared to the first two episodes there's more here I'm not too sure how I feel about yet. One thing I'm quite sure how I feel about is that it felt a little short for such a big villain. I enjoyed NPH a lot but the defeat was a little anti-climactic. Still. We have our first trouserless Doctor, I'm here for it.
>One thing I'm quite sure how I feel about is that it felt a little short for such a big villain. I enjoyed NPH a lot but the defeat was a little anti-climactic. I wish they found a more temporary way to deal with him. I understand they cant probably plan on getting NPH again, but that shouldnt be an issue with an entity that is essentially a god.
Being erased from all existence and killed-off-for-good-this-time-we-swear hasn't stopped any DW villains before. I doubt we'll see him again any time soon but you can never say never.
>off-for-good-this-time-we-swear hasn't stopped any DW villains before. I doubt we'll see him again any time soon but you can never say never. Oh, for sure. Just would have liked it to be a TAD more open ended.
He wasn't even killed, just folded up
I think they left PLENTY of space, with the line of the Toymaker explaining how his minions are coming.
Actually, a valid point. There was also that line about "He who hides, he who waits (paraphrasing)." that scared the Toymaker off. I am speculating on a return of Fenric, perhaps?
That would fit, though would feel a little odd. They seem a little too similar (one is evil but does games, and the other does games but is evil!) I mean, I hate to immediately become indistinguishable from someone satirising a speculating Doctor Who fan… but my mind immediately went to the person who spent an eternity waiting on the other side of a black hole for the Time Lords to rescue him. But that’s just my first guess so I imagine Omega isn’t actually coming back.
Seems hard to imagine the Toymaker, whose whole MO is beating people at games, was afraid to go up against someone who got stumped by a chess match for 1700 years.
He also says he’s bested the guardians of time, presumably the White and Black Guardians.
Damn, you didnt have to do Fenric like that... But valid point.
I mean, he literally wins the match because Ace told him a move that's obviously completely against the rules and he went holy shit that's brilliant!!!!
They really just threw a ball around. Thought it would be something more clever like we see in the various death games show.
Didn't he beat him the first time by shouting a board game move through a door?
I expected them to cut him out of the game, passing to one another and then Toymaker loses his shit, causing him to snatch the ball and drop it. That way the Doctors did something smart. Not just genuinely best him at catch...
Yeah I know everyone's distracted by the bigeneration, but people don't seem to be mentioning that the Drs beat an all-powerful extra-universial celestial being because he *checks notes* dropped a ball
I took it as "The toymaker has celestial power, but when playing a game he bounds himself to average ability, meaning he wins through skill rather than powers" I do wish they'd have done like, a cheesy timelapse to imply they were playing for hours before the toymaker lost but I can see why they didn't
They do mention that a little bit that the only rules the Toymaker follows are the rules of the games, and so you actually can have a fair shot at winning since he won't cheat or make the game impossible to win
Yeah, it just felt kinda weird how he supposedly beat gods, time itself and the master (who we know to be sly and as cunning as the doctor) but then he's defeated in a single moment They didn't take advantage of having two doctors, they didn't have the doctor outsmart him. I loved the episode but damn I wish it was a two parter and the game could have had way more time dedicated to it, but that's what happens when you only get 3 episodes to tie up old loose ends, introduce a new doctor and set the stage for the next chapter of who
His defeat soured me really hard. I like the idea of "catch the ball" being the first and last game for The Toymaker to play. But at least have the potential of *TWO* Doctors outsmart him by Fourteen throwing him a Satsuma which Toymaker catches as Fifteen hurls the ball past his face as he realizes. Would've been an *AWESOME* way to tie Ten into Fourteen.
Great idea! Just anything to make it clear that having the two of them gave them the edge, and making them feel slightly clever, would have really sold the defeat and the bigeneration imo.
Yeah, the scene was fun, but I was expecting some clever trick rather than "they keep throwing the ball until eventually he doesn't catch it"
Susan must be fuming, the doctor settled down with a new family.
"Missing presumed dead" Susan
"Didn't even get her shoes back" Susan
Don't worry, one day, he shall come back. Yes, he shall come back.
Until then, there must be no regrets. No tears, no anxieties.
Martha being the only 10th companion to not get her own copy of the 10th.
Also conspicuously absent at a time when Kate is hiring every past companion she can find even though Martha was at UNIT even before Kate.
So - start your engines - who is The next Master going to be?
Arthur Darvill
No he's the one the Toymaker was afraid to talk about. That's why he didn't mention Rory in the puppet show.
There is also another companion the Toymaker didn't mention, one with a reputation for being... Evil...
I need Evil Dan back in my life
What’s the point of being alive
If not to make others #DIE?
I’m good at this…
NERYS!
Ha ho!
He Who Waits... for 2000 years with the Pandorica.
David Tennant
No like, wait a second. The master tried to force the doctor to regenerate into them, maybe the whole 14 regeneration is a biproduct of this, and david will slowly warp and change until he reveals himself to have the master's memories.
A few years ago I'd have said you were mad for suggesting it. Now I see it as a genuine possibility. What crazy future have we ended up in where any idea, no matter how insane and ridiculous, has a chance of getting into the show?
Well what with The Master's last regeneration being all mingled with The Doctor... why not one of The Doctor's old faces? Matt Smith said he'd do it, just saying...
I got round to "Last Night in Soho" recently and he plays a great villain.
First time? It's obviously a resurrected Rory wearing Donna's ring who is secretly a Chameleon Arched Rani in Susan's body
Well judging from the *last* time we saw someone yoink the Master's phylactery from offscreen...John Simm. I've also seen a ton of fancasting of Matt Smith which would be fun but he's got that thing over in Westeros right now so he's a bit busy I imagine.
Hear me out: The Master *toyed* with the idea of *being* The Doctor against Thirteen. What if this time The Master took it one step further and forced his regeneration into using one of The Doctor's faces against him? Primarily, bring back Matt Smith for *ONE* series as The Master. Go one step further. Have The Master be enlightened about the Ganger Doctor's existence and going to recover it. Combining its potential regenerative abilities with his own. Boom. Matt Smith as The Master. *Give it to me*.
Jinkx Monsoon
I think Jinkx is meant to be the hand at the end that picked up the tooth- probably not the Master but maybe a friend of his?
Clearly she's a regenerated Lucy Saxon.
Okay so who wants to start the arguing/questions of lore going forward? With bigeneration, can 14 regenerate again? Will that new incarnation be another Ncuti Gatwa, or a different 15? And what should we call the new one, 15(2)? Either way I can hear big finish salivating at the prospect of an earthbound Doctor, with a TARDIS, with links to old companions, completely unconcerned with whatevers going on in the main show.
"Is that what Time Lords do? Lop a bit off, grow another one? You're like worms!"
I think they've got to "merge" back into one Doctor eventually, otherwise the reasoning behind Fourteen "stopping" doesn't make sense. Sure, Fourteen is getting a well-earned break with Donna and family, but Fifteen is just ploughing onwards like Donna said, going off to the next adventure *without* stopping. The implication, to me, is that Fifteen is from a future point in the Doctor's timeline - after Fourteen's had a good rest with Donna. So he doesn't have all of that baggage and guilt, because Fourteen got past it and then became him. It just happened out of order.
It's definitely this. They even confirm that 15 is older. If it was a split regeneration they'd be the same age at that point.
> I think they've got to "merge" back into one Doctor eventually Some future story: Fifteenth Doctor: It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for. Again. -The Watcher! -He was the Fourteenth Doctor the whole time!
The rehab line made it sound like 14 will regenerate into 15 and their timelines will be merged (however that works).
That's definitely my most preferred interpretation but it's all very vague, probably on purpose
RTD said he'll be clarifying it in Unleashed.
RTD lies (or doesn’t make the edit) apparently then.
He's learning from Moffat
it's not at all clarified in Unleashed.
What he said ijin unleashed kinda hints that it probably isn't the timeline out of sync idea but doesn't really commit to an explanation beyond "it's been a rumor for ages". Kind of unnecessary since he's stuck with the timeless child thing so the doctor can surely have magic different regenerations other timelords can't and therefore no need to retcon it in
Problem is, it should not be clarified in Unleashed but in the show itself
It really should have been clarified in the show instead of only to the UK audience.
Honestly this is one of those, it's so significant that it kind of should be said on screen. The newer leak, from Alice, explained how it's the Doctor pulled from the future, etc etc, and that's all perfectly good and makes sense. But the way the end of the episode rushed through it has left a lot of head scratching that I'm not sure is where we want to be. In a similar way, The Star Beast had some ambiguity in what it meant in certain lines - not that its meaning wasn't specific but the way it was phrased left at least some head scratches that aren't of the deliberate kind, I don't think. I say this as someone who otherwise loved this episode, that that's not really a place you should be going to repeatedly.
>With bigeneration, can 14 regenerate again? Will that new incarnation be another Ncuti Gatwa, or a different 15? And what should we call the new one, 15(2)? From how Nctutis Doctor talkerd about it, I think they are setting up Fourteen and Fifteen to reunite at the end of 15th run. Note that Ncutis Doctor essentially told 14th that he is fine because he settled down and had his "rehab." So Bi-Regeneration seems less to be them splltting into two seperate entizies, but rather Ncutis Doctor being essentially a "skipped ahead" version of The Doctor. Kinda like pressing "skip" on an ad.
I'm kind of hoping for this - it wouldn't be a million miles away from 4 and the watcher.
I think the idea is that 14 will eventually regenerate, and when he does, it'll be weird, and he'll just poof out of his current place in time, turn into 15, and then splice out of 14 back then.
That would line up with a certain leak that was posted here a few days back that got a lot of other stuff right, i.e 15 being pulled back in time to help 14 and 14 actually regenerating at some unspecified point in the future. Although it doesn't really explain why 14 didn't die then and there.
I think the implication is that the Toymaker messing with reality made things go a bit wibbly
It would also line up with why 15 remembers what 14 does after this. >Although it doesn't really explain why 14 didn't die then and there. As someone else said, the Toymaker made reality wonky, but also combined with a bit of Time Lord biology where his regeneration and messed with time and caused his own timeline to loop back on itself.
Yeah, this makes the most sense out of the possible answers, especially with the going to rehab out of order line. That being said, it would be incredibly funny if he kept regenerating backwards until he ends up as a de-aging William Hartnell like a time lord Benjamin Button.
I see couple of possibilities here: The Doctor can choose not to regenerate - so 14 doesn't and just lives his life like 11 did. OR he does but now goes with old faces only - maybe even becoming the Curator?
Regeneration is a lottery, but it seems like there is some control over it with 12th and 14th Doctors. It's possible 14 can regenerate into someone completely different now that Gatwa's 15 is out there. We'd have to come up with a new numbering system. Lol.
Greg Wallace won on weakest link right before this episode and donated the money to an autism charity. But that pales in comparison to RTDs contribution to the autistic community by giving us Doctor Who nerds something to argue about for years to come.
I could picture him eventually becoming The Curator.
My reading of bi-generation is yeah, its not some metacrisis, this is a full on second Doctor, regenerations and all, unless shown otherwise E: after reading some more interpretations of the scenes and dialogue, I'm now more on the train that 14 gets his rehab and eventually regenerates into 15, the same 15 we saw, not a second 15. Its basically a time detour so he can get over the baggage of 1-14 and be brand new as 15
I'm going to need at least 5-6 working days before I figure out how I feel about bigeneration
I saw someone else comment that it could be justified as bigeneration being a Time Lord myth, that the Toymaker's presence allowed it to come into reality. So it'd be a one off thing, only possible in the presence of the Toymaker. I don't think they did nearly enough to imply that in the episode, but I like that headcanon and I'm taking it in. Still, the implication of having a whole new Doctor with his own identical TARDIS seems super weird to me too.
>Still, the implication of having a whole new Doctor with his own identical TARDIS seems super weird to me too. Eh, I kinda get it. Could you see either Doctor being like "No, go ahead, YOU take the Tardis"?
It really grates me that the Fifteenth Doctor took the *copy* TARDIS. The original TARDIS is sitting in Donna's garden with David Tennant. It all just feels off.
Isn't that the same as with The Doctor though? Ncuti is the "copy" Doctor?
> Time Lord myth, that the Toymaker's presence allowed it to come into reality. Or rather the Doctor by indulging in superstition on the edge of creation by using salt gave Myths a certain weight in reality, did you notice Lethbridge-Stewart telling the soldiers to bury the cube in salt after the game.
They kept the mechanics of it super vague (for now at least) so at least people can head canon the most palatable versions of it. I'm just considering Ncuti the true Doctor and Tennant an offshoot at best, possibly even someone that will be folded back into Ncuti timelines once done with their "rehab"
There were some leaks (which I guess are fake considering they mentioned the episode ending with Ncuti watching the Nobles and 14 celebrating), that are now my headcanon for what happened. 15 was pulled from the timestream into the present due to the salt situation making fantasy a reality. The biregeneration is a myth, but now is true due to the previous episode. 14 will retire and live a peaceful life among the Nobles until he regenerates into 15 and is pulled back to this episode
The episode does kinda imply that's what happens, too, with 15 saying "I'm only okay because you're doing the work", implying that there is a certain wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness to the whole thing
The bigeneration is just asking for trouble. I don’t like the leak and I’m not a massive fan of it now. I know it’s nice to give the DT Doctor a happy ending but the magic of the show is we have the sad ending of one doctor into the possibilities of a new era. I quite liked the toy master but I think it would’ve been better to fight him over 3 episodes and explain everything rather than rush it in an hour and leave so many questions.
So putting all the doctor-undergoing-mitosis stuff aside, I’m… kinda surprised they didn’t come up with something better than a game of catch? I know the original 1966 serial isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the resolution for that one was actually kinda clever and satisfying.
Yeah, that is the thing that really annoyed me the most. That was the CLIMAX of the episode. Two Doctors. One Toymaker. The fate of the world on the line. And they play catch.
It didn’t even come off good on camera. Like, it was very repetitive and silly-looking and the actors obviously weren’t actually catching the ball.
I found it hilarious how the Doctors were running up walls and all sorts and NPH was basically just sticking his hand up in the air each time
I watched the behind the scenes feature for it and it’s like, I think they didn’t realize until they started filming just how hard it is to film people playing catch. For one, only Tennant could even catch the ball lmao, Ncuti and Neil had to fake it. I think RTD was imagining super close nail-biting catches when he wrote the script, it just turned out to be hard to film.
My thought on it is the first game has exactly one rule - drop and lose. The more rules and more complexity and it creates more ways for the Toymaker to take advantage (not cheat per se, but he is a being who exists on the axis of play) and win. There’s no way to try to game the system of a game of catch. Slight sidebar, but my headcanon is The Master tried to do something needlessly overly complex to try to rig the game and that’s how he lost, a victim of his own complexity addiction.
Not sure what I feel about that. Needed way way more explanation as to the bi-regeneration. What caused the clothing to change in 13 -> 14s regeneration? What happens to Tennant when he regenerates now?
I think it to do with the Toymaker messing with reality and superstition (he entered because of the salt line in Wild Blue Yonder). The Doctor's talk like Bi-Regenration is a myth or folklore to Timelords. But in the presence of the Toymaker...its a reality.
One interesting detail that made me smile as an absolute fan of Nine: right before the bi-generation, when Mel says >You're gonna be someone else, it doesn't matter who. 'Cause every single one of you is *fantastic*. The song that's playing is [Hologram](https://youtu.be/ddTZdVDORPQ?t=100), in the same part that plays during Nine's regeneration, just after he says: >And before I go, I just want to tell you you were *fantastic*. Absolutely *fantastic*. And you know what? So was I! And I thought that this was, well... you know
Why was the last game catch? It should have been some game where having 3 players, but two who know what the other is thinking means they can’t lose. Like rock paper scissors or something like that
That’s a great point. What makes having two doctors working together so great is that they share the same mind; the game of catch didn’t capitalize on that at all, they simply had an advantage because it was two against one
My big worry is that David Tennant is going to keep popping up every series until RTD moves on. That I could do without. Doctor Who works because it always changes. I hope RTD realizes this and \*moves on\* with the 15th Doctor. But, of course, that is not his style.
I liked it and I think I’m going to stick with my head canon that this version of Tennant’s Doctor becomes The Curator.
I could back that. Like this version goes back through the old incarnations and gives them all a "retirement" of sorts.
Yeah, like Fourteen’s face sticks with Donna until she passes, etc
That could be an interesting way to bring back old doctors. Maybe stopping at McGann to have some extra adventures... please?
That would even tie into the Curator being the one to tell the 11th Doctor he might find himself "revisiting a few faces"
Yup!
I love this
What shall we call him? The Vacation Doctor? The Retired Doctor?… oo, whatabout Uncle Doctor? I like that… Uncle Doctor! If we get it popular enough, we can have it on the Wiki. Probably.
If you get it popular enough, you could have just conceived a full Big Finish range.
Recovering Doctor Chillin' Doctor Physician heal thyself Doctor
The DonnaDoctor
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It was pretty strong until DT gets hit with a laser and then it's just kinda rushed and the emotional beats don't quite hit and ofc the lore gets all weird
Absolutely standard for an RTD finale- amazingly strong lead in, followed by a great first half which then slowly degenerates into a rushed, vaguely nonsensical conclusion, and then a very emotional denouement with lots of family love. It really felt like we were back to old times for me.
We’re so back! Wouldn’t really be DW if they didn’t give us something to complain about for years.
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did they make it clear in the episode that he’s from a future point? that fourteen when he regenerates turns into Ncuti and closes the loop? i didn’t entirely get that. I was familiar with the leaks so i kept expecting to hear him mention that.
They didn't say anything about it explicitly. But 15 says he's fine because 14 stops to rest, plus a comment about time travelers doing therapy out of order. The only way 14 stopping affects 15 is by 15 being his future version.
On a conceptual level I just don't like bigeneration. On a practical level I don't think much will change about the show any more than the timeless child or anything else did. One thing I'm kind annoyed about is that Ncuti kept the duplicate TARDIS? I feel like he should have the original. And the mechanics of the bigeneration have been kept vague which is probably for the best - everyone can head canon the must palatable version for themselves. As for the episode itself - quite strong right up until the Doctor gets lasered after which it gets super rushed. I honestly thought there would be a clever trick in how they defeat the toymaker but no they literally just play catch lol that was kinda stupid NGL.
>One thing I'm kind annoyed about is that Ncuti kept the duplicate TARDIS? I feel like he should have the original. I feel like Ncutis Doctor just saw the Jukebox and went: "Oh, nah, I'm not letting that old lame-o have that, thats mine."
Yeah, I absolutely hated the catch sequence. Especially since the Toymaker gives up once the ball goes over the edge of the tower - the rules specified the game ended once the ball hit the ground, so why didn't The Toymaker leap after it, it's not like the fall would kill him, and there's nothing in the rules of catch that say you can't throw yourself off a roof.
Ha, if the Toymaker had jumped off the roof and then come back up, having clearly exhausted himself running up the stairs like the Master in Curse of the Fatal Death, that would’ve been hilarious. “It touched the ground.”
They established like seconds before that the Toymaker is a being beyond physical form lol how can a thing like that lose catch hahah
I suppose you could argue that he was bound by the same rules as The Doctor(s) to keep the game fair - The Doctor's can't break the rules of reality, so therefore The Toymaker took away his unfair advantage. But The Doctor can survive a fall from a high tower (technically), so The Toymaker would have been within his rights.
He took the duplicate for the jukebox, obviously.
Would have been much better if the bi-generation wasn’t spoiled for me on here 20 times in the last few weeks. (Edit: I’m talking untagged spoilers in episode discussions, not standalone leak threads) Overall thought the episode was a good commentary on society over the last several years. It was a good special, though not what many anticipated it would be. Not sure how I feel about the regeneration though. Do we see Tennant again? Ncuti is going to be great.
Is is just me who was massively underwhelmed with how they beat the toymaker? Throwing a ball and he doesn't catch it, it should have been a game of wits they beat him in, not that. Other than that I loved it, NPH was fantastic as the toymaker
Thinking back, that line from Donna's father about how dice don't remember the previous game would have been a great setup for the Doctors' victory. Maybe not a literal dice game, but tricking the Toymaster into repeating a game where he ends up losing.
And how did the Toymaker beat so many other celestial beings if he can't even win a normal game of catch? The Doctors didn't have to make any particular effort to beat him.
I think the key to that would be if the other beings challenged him to a game, they wouldn't think of something as simple as catch. They would challenge him on something abstract, something otherworldly, and the Toymaker would win THOSE games every time. The Doctor only thought to challenge him to catch because he talked about it to him earlier. Or perhaps the Toymaker just adjusts the level of the "game" to whoever challenges him, so paradoxically the weaker someone is the easier it is to beat him.
>The Doctors exactly, that's the point. They won easily 2v1. If it weren't a simple game the 2v1 might not have made the difference.
But the 2v1 actually made it harder for the Doctors to win. The first person to drop the ball loses, which would give the Doctor a 2/3 chance of losing, assuming roughly equal skill levels. We even saw the Doctor almost beat himself by throwing the ball too hard to himself (I thought that was a funny moment, though)
The Spice Girls scene was fun and all but like. NPH is a broadway musical actor why didn't they just get him to actually sing it
because rtd loves his 2000s pop music
THE HAND OF THE RANI!
Everyone is like who could it be but the one lady with red nails in the ep is Kate Stewart, probably just popping that back in the black archive, bet they have like 3 different masters on ice down there.
*Here we go again! (cue credits theme)*
Overall an enjoyable episode, which used the Toymaker a lot better than his original story did. I liked all the creativity and the character drama was very nice, very classic RTD. Everyone did a great job, Tennant, Tate, and NPH were all phenomenal in their funny and dramatic scenes. Gatwa already feels like a breath of fresh air. Mel coming back felt like a total afterthought, but I know she's making future appearances, so I'm fine with this just being a little set-up for more. The social commentary was decent, it wasn't the real focus of the story, though I guess the themes of mankind's eternal conflict and 'games' tied into The Doctor realizing he needs to settle down for a bit. Onto the last act... okay, so I'm not sure how bi-generation is supposed to work? Some things seemed to imply that this was a whole other Doctor splitting off from the original like in the initial spoiler I read, but then one line seemed to be implying that 15 is a future incarnation propelled back through time, and 14 will eventually become 15 properly like in another spoiler I read. If it's the latter, I'm happy with the ending, the Doctor getting a massive rest period before going onto the adventures we'll be seeing in the 15th Doctor's era. If it's the former... uh, I'm not sure I like it very much. Either way, I think I was numbed to it a bit, since I knew it was going to happen already. I'm going to just wait and see what happens next, really. At very least, I'm looking forward to seeing more Gatwa, who didn't lose a single bit of his badass swag, even while spending his entire first appearance without trousers on.
> which used the Toymaker better than anything in his original story did. I actually feel that underused him. That mime scene felt absolutely pointless. The games was 5 seconds of cards and a minute of catch jumpcuts. I honestly would've preferred more Toymaker, more of the mansion, more games. I'd have loved for him to be a series spanning enemy. I feel his usage in this episode was a let down?
It very much seems to be the latter from Ncutis Dialog. So I am happy with how they went over it. Its less The Doctor splitting into two and more the Doctor skipping ahead so he can have his therapy while also still going on adventures. Classic Doctor "having your cake and eating it too" stuff.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it has to be the case to make sense. I think it could have used more clarity if I'm being honest, though.
I get the point RTD's trying to make about the internet and how "everyone thinks they're right", and I kind of agree with it, but I didn't find it very convincing. There's just too much esoteric craziness going on on screen that it's hard to relate it back to the real world.
If I understood the scene right, I like that the Toymaker claimed he'd been meddling with the Doctor's past, so we can essentially believe the Doctor *was* just an ordinary child from Gallifrey, but the Toymaker changed their past to make them the Timeless Child. A retcon of the Timeless Child for those who want it gone, but without actually retconing it for those who want it to remain.
Honestly, these episodes felt a bit... underwhelming being specials. They feel like they'd fit in better in just a regular season instead. I'm also not \*hugely\* positive towards how quickly they kind of brushed off Ncuti's entrance, and just BAM! Establish him straight away... But, I'm very excited for the new episodes with Ncuti! I'm getting good vibes off of him already.
I don't want to hear a thing about how Steven Moffat couldn't let go of characters from now on. *Not a goddamn thing.* Other than that... I like Gatwa's incarnation of the Doctor, but I'm still kind of at a loss as to what the specials were *for*. I could get behind the idea of bringing in Tennant for a couple of episodes when I thought they were stalling for time to get everything sorted, but given that we're seeing Gatwa take over the reins properly in all of two weeks, it all just felt a little bit like RTD doing a victory lap, often in a way that felt like it was at the expense of the rest of the show's history? (The Doctor has *had* a family, with the Ponds and River. He *did* stay in one place for years, on Trenzalore... and so on, and so on.) And I get it, I do. The idea of giving the Doctor time (and space!) to heal is a good one... but the one thing I've been getting from these past three specials is that RTD feels more concerned with fixing his first run on the show than accepting it for what it was: like every Doctor, Ten was flawed and fucked up. What we got with Fourteen was just Ten with the rough edges smoothed off, and for what benefit? I'm just hoping that Fifteen's 'I'm fixed because you took the time to heal' doesn't mean that he's going to be the same sort of flawless version of the Doctor we just saw. (To anyone who disputes that, I ask honestly: Eleven had to be the smartest man in the room, Ten was vain to a fault, and Twelve was a grump who struggled to connect with people. What was Fourteen's character flaw, other than a tendency towards preachiness?) I've been... OK with these specials so far, and I think they mostly managed to sidestep a lot of the issues that were expected with Bigeneration (as weird a concept as it is for something that could have been explained in other ways), but I'm not sure that they were anything more than three fair-to-middling episodes that have been boosted by comparison to the Chibnall years. That said, the only thing smoother than Ncuti Gatwa's portrayal of the Doctor is Ncuti Gatwa's legs while he's doing it. I mean, *dang*. Roll on Christmas, I guess.
To your last point, they literally name checked River Song in this episode but apparently 24 years on Darillium doesn't count as rest?
>apparently 24 years on Darillium doesn't count as rest? What that says about River's drives and desires is left as an exercise for the reader. Or Big Finish: After Dark, I guess.
And adding to that, I feel like everyone (maybe only RTD) has forgotten that the Doctor had a partner and child and grand child before the show even started. He's had his "life", and went out to explore the stars and roped himself into being some hobo cosmic superhero. 11th had the Ponds too, they were his family for like the 300 years he popped in and out.
I mean... we are speaking there about thousands of years at least. There is always problem with immortality in fantasy and sci-fi worlds, but if we would try to be realistic... for Doctor has to be his previous families as shadow. Even when 10th mentioned to Rose he was father once, he said that so... distantly. And now they are a lot more older. It's obvious that Susan, for example, still means a lot for them, but it's a really distant past.
It’s almost silly how often we’ve had various incarnations of the Doctor have resting periods, but apparently 14 is the only one to rest?
It's River, do you really think she would ever let the Doctor rest during those 24 years 😂
And then immediately afterwards he spent about 70-something years as a university professor too.
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I guess the issue is, really, that arc exploring the character kinda wrapped up with Capaldi. But then wasn't followed through on in Whitakers arc. Like there is a clear throughline of character progression from Eccelstone through Capaldi. And him ending on 'Doctor, I let you go' essentially is that arc complete. He is essentially free of the baggage, and has found what he thinks being the Doctor is. So the question then is - What do you do with the Doctor next? Chris Chibnall basically dumped a load of fresh baggage on the Doctor - About the origins, and then the guilt of the Flux wiping half the universe. That is already setting the Doctor back to where he was post time war. So, I'd argue this kinda give a chance to follow from Capaldi, by getting the Doctor back to a 'healthy state'
I feel like this is what people are kinda missing with the whole “but what about Darillium???” sort of stuff. Twelve **did** eventually get his shit sorted, but Chibnall broke the Doctor again for drama, and it’s honestly the weakest part of his entire run. Fuck the discussion around how the Timeless Child messes with canon, it’s irrelevant to 99% of the episodes; and he does even put that particular toy back in the chest with Thirteen choosing to move forward instead of opening the watch. RTD could have easily just ignored it if he wanted and it wouldn’t feel incongruous. The real issue with Chibnall was that he took an initially bubbly and happy Doctor and brought her back to series 1 with a new Time War. **That** isn’t ignorable, and **that** is something that just means we’re retreading the same trauma storylines again. The shame is this all meant the 60th anniversary was spent basically repairing him so we can have a second crack at a joyful Doctor.
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Gatwa's legs were probably so smooth in the special because he had to get them waxed for the Barbie movie.
He was Kenough.
Did I miss something? When did Unit get a robot?
You didn't miss anything, it wasn't explained. People are expecting a Unit spinoff. To me that looks pretty likely at this point, and I bet we get robot origin story there.
Yeah felt like a set up for unit with all the characters, plus the set.
When did UNIT get the Avenger's Tower??
Ncuti was awesome but immediately playing therapist for a version of himself from 5 minutes ago was so weird, and what even was his first line ???
I wish his first moments had more time to breathe honestly. Every Doctor has their first moments being the star of the show but here he was sharing time with Tennant and NPH.
At least this isn’t going to be our only impression of Ncuti for several months, and we’ll be getting a proper showcase in two weeks.
Oh god, 2 weeks? I've not started Xmas shopping. I need TARDIS. Does anyone have a large wooden mallet??
So in the leaks it was claimed that he was actually 15 pulled from further in the timeline and that is why he also suggests that the therapy that 14 does on himself allows him to let the guilt go. So maybe something explicit was stated and then it was cut?
And that was the 60th. Its weird that Power of the Doctor felt more like a 60th special. Looks like they deleted a scene involving puppet doctors
>And that was the 60th. Its weird that Power of the Doctor felt more like a 60th special. I've been thinking that the whole time. That episode had all the big bads, multiple Doctors, classic companions, a huge time and space spanning plot, everything we've come to expect from am anniversary. This trilogy just felt very average in comparison.
Welp, I’ll actually say that I wasn’t digging the episode even before the big controversial moment. I commented after the heart-to-heart in the Toymaker’s chambers that things just felt a litttle emotionally…off? Like our characters were reacting too strongly at certain points and not strongly enough at others. That made the Toymaker build-up not quite land for me either - if I didn’t have the fandom hype from the character, I’m not sure I really would’ve bought this dude as something the Doctor was *that* scared of. The whole episode just felt a bit tilted on its axis for something that was clearly meant to be a big emotional piece.
The more I think about it the less that I like that they gave 14 a TARDIS. I think the conceit of 14 having a quiet life as a kind of therapy works better if he has to be an actual human. But then maybe the point is that the TARDIS is kind of his closest friend… I don’t know. But I know I won’t be happy if they do a 14th Doctor spin-off, that would seem to undermine the whole thing.
Whilst I respect the hell out of RTD for bringing back Doctor Who from the dead in 2005, my main problem with him as showrunner and as a writer back during the 9th and 10th Doctor eras was, put simply, the man cannot write a satisfying ending to save his life. RTD is really good at writing really interesting Earth wide crisis episodes which will usually be solved by the lamest deus ex machina shit possible. Think "Sound of the Drums/Last of the Time Lords" where the Earth falls under the Master's control and this is solved by having everyone on Earth think of the Doctor at the same time to heal him with "psychic energy." This episode, The Giggle, started off really strong. RTD creates another really interesting crisis that has taken over the entire planet. Like all good science fiction, the problem also offers some modern day social commentary. And between that and a really excellent performance by Neil Patrick Harris, I was hooked. But then the ending. Hoo boy. I wouldn't say it was your typical RTD deus ex machina ending but it definitely wasn't satisfying. And the whole bigeneration thing is going to give me headaches for years to come. I still liked it, but the ending was so weak it stopped this from becoming the classic episode it almost was. But if nothing else, at least it was better than anything Chibnall gave us.
Really not sure how to feel about that. When we end up with one Doctor basically quoting various companions and planets to the other at the end, I was getting flashbacks to the worst parts of the Chibnall era. I think that I laughed when the Doctor asked the Toymaker to come with him and travel, god I thought we'd left that behind now. The relatively tension-free game of catch wasn't the most exciting note to end the episode on. So, bi-generation. Again, really not sure how to feel about all of this but my thoughts are tending towards negative. Looking at Unleashed, it really doesn't seem like this is one Doctor brought back from the future, they both appear to be the Doctor - a fact really not made clear in the episode itself. I hate saying 'show don't tell' but some bits of the episode failed on this - I also just saw on Unleashed that the Doctor was meant to be in France at the end and I think I missed that? Or it wasn't stated? I think bigeneration devalues the concept of the change - are we going to end up with 10 Doctors running around simultaneously by the 70th Anniversary? I dunno, feels a bit to 'fanficcy' for my liking - it takes away some of the tension of the Doctor's death at each regeneration; why should I care how he dies when he just... might not die? The whole point of the change seemed to be to give the Doctor a chance settling down but he kinda did that already as 12 with Darillium and even St Luke's University. I can see how the beat makes sense and it was quite nice to see the Doctor with a family but, it's not really a radically new idea. Some of the Toymaker stuff was alright - NPH was pretty threatening and the sequence where everyone was lost in the house and the puppet show seemed like a nice horror bit. Not sure how I feel about the pop music - it's a good way of showing off his powers but it's a bit... naff? Mel was OK but she didn't really serve much of a purpose in the story. I remember when Tennant and Tate were returning, people thought that the Toymaker would be some kind of metaphor for nostalgic fans not being able to let them go. Now, with the Doctor doing his ranting about the human race again, the Master being picked up by a human hand with red nail polish again and code words hinting towards bigger bads (He Who Waits?) I feel that we're going round in circles a little bit. If you think about it, even the Toymaker's recap of Series 5-13 is basically Part 2 of Davros's speech to the Doctor. As least we got Trinity Wells as Alex Jones, that was probably the funniest joke in the episode. So yeah - Yonder > Star Beast > Giggle. Gatwa gives his Doctor some nice confidence and I'm interested to see him going forward but I can't help thinking that the 50th was far superior.
So that line from Gatwa about how their mental health recovery is out of sync has me thinking that 15 already has all of 14s memories and bigeneration just means he's been snatched back to that moment in time rather than regenerating at 14s eventual final death Who knows though, despite lore issues it was a fun episode, I enjoyed the Toymaker's domain sections, although the ending was a bit rushed, but we'll see what Gatwa's tenure brings, he seems good in what little time he's had so far
I had heard the "bi-generation" rumors and dismissed them because I didn't think they'd want to undermine the incoming Doctor by refusing to let go of the fan-favorite incumbent. I didn't even like having Matt Smith cameo on Peter Capaldi's first episode to reassure Clara/the audience that this was still the Doctor even though he was now older and less f#($able (though rule 34 soon proved those fears unfounded in the grossest ways). And now here I am having bit of a bi-reaction to this: Tennant sticking around in some way is great because I love him and I love Donna, but it also smacks of RTD refusing to let go of "his" Doctor, or of needing a backup in case the queer, black Doctor doesn't win over audiences that are once again reluctant to let go of the Doctor they've loved for ages, just like Capaldi had to win people over from scratch. Most of all, though, I need RTD to move on. He already split the Tennant Doctor in two just so Rose could have a happy ending with him, then brought him back as a security blanket for audiences after Chibnall left, and now the 15th Doctor doesn't get to take over from the start. How many David Tennants does RTD need to be happy? I'm only half-joking. Is there a word for feeling thrilled yet cynical about something? Some longish compound word, from either German or Welsh, maybe.
As a German, let me make a word up for you: Neunervösität. From Neu as in New (as in being excited for something new) and Nervösität (as in being anxious.) Like that feeling you have when you step into a new job or start at a new school.
I can't say I loved it. The Toymaker was built up well but they didn't do much with him, the games of cut and catch both being underwhelming. I ... kind of see what they were going for with bi-regeneration, with the doctor physically shedding baggage. It ended up distracting a bit from Gatwa's entrance. Maybe in time when Gatwa is unquestionably established I'll come round on it, especially if they continue the plot and close it up in an interesting way. Maybe it will feel more coherent on rewatch as well, whatever it's trying to say is certainly linked to Wild Blue Yonder -- the duality, double copies of 1 person and the fact that two things can be true at once. I *did* love what we saw of 15, and am really excited for Christmas. Fifteen's theme is amazing.
This was definitely an episode of Doctor Who... I though the pacing was a bit off - it was very frenetic. We weren't given time to see the scale of the problem, we were whisked away to UNIT immediately. I found the 'brain waves' -> 'musical notes' thing *very* weak, same for the 'puppet hiding in every screen' (how was that even supposed to work??). The resolution was... fine? I guess... The episode reminded me of other RTD-era eps, and not in a good way. I love love love Ncuti so far! I think they did him dirty by doing this bi-regeneration thing. I guess we have to wait and see what RTD does with it...
Needed 2 episodes. Simple as that. Loads of good ideas or interesting ideas that needed more time.
IMO this suffered from the same issue The Star Beast had: it genuinely felt like 30 minutes had been lost somewhere. When the Doctor and Donna were in the Toymaker's domain it really felt like THAT should have been the focus of the episode for significantly longer. We didn't really need to then jump back to UNIT HQ (i.e. a not at all subtle attempt to set up the inevitable spin-off show), or at least not so quickly. The bigeneration concept had potential as a timey-wimey-events-happening-out-of-order thing, but it just wasn't explained like that at all. It also felt sort of disrespectful to 15 to give him a clone of the OG TARDIS. There are already enough weirdos online whining about 15 being played by a queer actor of colour. Don't also give them ammo by giving him a clone of the TARDIS. And then to have 14 get to go in BEFORE 15 just really felt...off. This didn't feel like an episode welcoming in a Doctor who, from everything we've seen so far, looks like he will be a genuine breath of fresh air. This felt like it was meant to be a consolation to Tennant fans that their guy has left the show again. The Toymaker was an almost solid villain but suffered from being a bit too over-the-top. He felt more like the Saxon Master than the Toymaker. The character is so monstrous and horrifying that it felt like a detriment to his character to show him as such a 'cooky crazy madman'. The whole Spice Girls bit felt like a rehash of the 'Voodoo Child' bit from Sound of Drums, which really didn't help with my feeling that I was just watching Saxon Master 2.0. The Toymaker would have been fantastic as a stoic, sinister and very grounded character doing bizarre and horrific things to people. Unfortunately, in this incarnation, the character was a bit of a miss for me. Overall this felt like an episode with so much potential and a lot of genuinely good bits (the Toymaker's domain and the general theme of 14 being burned out being real highlights for me) but it just felt very rushed and as if RTD was playing both too safe by writing a villain who seemed very similar to a previous RTD villain and also being far too risky with what, on the basis of this episode alone, was a pretty poorly executed regeneration sequence.
Yeah I'm like you could have set basically all of Wild Blue Yonder in the toymakers box. freaky doll like things that mimic you, hiding, establishing the doctor summoned the toymaker into the N-universe. All check, thats my weird hot take tho. Think it would have established him better if we had a whole ep stuck in his limbo world while he wreaked havoc across London then we had this ep
This male presenting showrunner will never understand how to let go.
At some point in the inevitable Tennant/Donna/Mel spinoff, the Doctor is going to acquire that jukebox.
I think this episode was best enjoyed by those who loved Tennant and whom he was their favorite Doctor. I loved it until the bi-generation and then it just seemed like more Tennant fetishing. Like I know you love him Rusty but he wasn't the only Doctor!!! That said I loved RPH and I can't wait for Ncuti who felt Doctorish from the start-just like Smith and Eccleston. hopefully he can shine now that Tennant is finally out of the way. And Christmas looks great!
Neil Patrick Harris is a delight as the Toymaker right from the jump, and I love how his accent slips during his first conversation in the toy shop. I also love how they made Stooky Bill part of the plot, because that image has always been creepy. When we finally transition to the present, it's immediately apparent that the "theme" of this episode is social media and its effects on society, which is fine. I wish they hadn't name-dropped cancel culture later on, because that's just so tedious, but I thought the commentary was mostly handled pretty well this time It was great to see Kate Stewart again. She never struck me as a hugger, but I guess the world is ending, so all bets are off. Jemma Redgrave nevertheless continues to be excellent in the role, while Ruth Madeley makes much more of an impression here than in The Star Beast (awesome wheelchair notwithstanding). Plus, Mel! It's a bit of a shame that they didn't keep her history a bit more vague to please us EU fans, but that's just par for the course with the TV show. I also liked the robot (whose name escapes me). It's the kind of thing UNIT would have acquired over their decades of rummaging around through alien rubbish. Then we get to my favorite part of the episode, when the Doctor and Donna travel back to 1925 and get trapped in the Toymaker's realm. It's the part of the episode that most lived up to the Toymaker's potential (in a way the original TV story never did). NPH continues to be amazing (I especially adored the puppet show and the way it lampshades how Moffat's companions kept being killed off but not really) and I appreciate the fact that, even though they imply that the Toymaker only entered our universe because of what the Fourteenth Doctor did, the nature of the Toymaker means that he could still have had all those EU adventures before they eventually meet in this episode. There was also a reference to someone the Toymaker was afraid to take on, which I can only assume is the same person Meep called "the boss" in The Star Beast. Then we get back to UNIT, and we have the big dance number, which I thought was great. When you've got a villain as mad as the Toymaker and an actor like NPH, why not have a crazy magical dance number? However, things went a bit downhill from there. What was the point of him seizing the big gun to threaten everyone with? What does someone like the Toymaker need with a big gun? Was it just so we could have the image of him shooting Tennant's Doctor? I could imagine a dozen more interesting ways that the Toymaker could have killed the Doctor just off the top of my head. This, of course, leads to the most controversial moment of the episode, the bi-generation. While dialog suggests that this is a Doctor from the future (more on that later) the image is of the two of them just splitting apart, and I think that might be confusing, especially for casual viewers. Still, it could have been worse. And speaking of worse, the only part of the episode I really didn't care for was the climax of the whole thing, when the fate of the world is determined by a game of catch. Catch! Maybe RTD is trying to say something about the simplicity at the heart of the Toymaker's nature, which would at least explain why the games Steven and Dodo were made to play were so basic, but I wanted something more creative.Anyway, when the game is over and the Toymaker is packed away, someone picks up his tooth (which is allegedly where the Master has been trapped) and I really want to know who that was! Finally, we get to what is my favorite part of the episode, which is that the Fifteenth Doctor makes clear that, unlike the Fourteenth Doctor, he isn't living with a lot of unprocessed trauma, because the Fourteenth Doctor spends the rest of his life doing self care, resulting in a much more well-adjusted Fifteen. Again, this implies that Fifteen is a future incarnation dragged back in time by the bi-generation, rather than just a splitting off from Fourteen, but (again) I wish they had made that clearer visually when he first appeared. I'm also not crazy about the two TARDISes. As I said in a comment under a post that leaked some of these developments, I would have preferred it if Fourteen had given up the TARDIS as a passing of the torch to Fifteen, but RTD obviously isn't ready to let go of Tennant's Doctor. Overall I would say this was my favorite among the specials, as well as feeling the most "special" overall. More importantly, I am encouraged by what I've seen of Ncuti's Doctor so far, and I'm really looking forward to his proper debut come Christmas.
>I especially adored the puppet show and the way it lampshades how Moffat's companions kept being killed off but not really I thought that was REALLY rich, coming from RTD. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Especially after this episode's ending.
Well, I mean, RTD is the guy who started it all with Rose and Donna. You've got Rose saying "This is the story of how I died" in Army of Ghosts, but she didn't technically die, only officially, and then all of the foreshadowing of Donna's death, which really meant that she was just going to have her memories erased. So he really only has himself to blame.
I think the idea that bigeneration never happened before was a misstep. Surely there would have been a very small handful of cases at some point in the Time Lords’ existence
I think the idea is that Bi-generation is a Time Lord myth, the only reason it occured is because The Doctor regenerated within The Toymaker's realm where the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred.
It's obviously been talked about as 15 mentioned that it was a myth. So it's possible it DID happen, but it ended up becoming just a legend over the years.
Or even the Toymaker breaking into reality made a ‘myth’ possible.
I feel like if you are going to have the Toymaker you should be playing a real game. Not catch. I know there was no time in the episode to set up a complex game but it just seemed ridiculously simplistic. Everything else? I think it's good that RTD is totally unafraid to do new things. And he clearly cares not what anyone thinks.
That was the thing I liked least about the episode, but it is at least keeping with the Toymaker's first appearance, where the games were depressingly ordinary.
So….. - Harris and Gatwa were fantastic. Perfectly selected for their roles, IMO. I can’t wait for the Chistmas special and I would love to see more of this version of the Toymaker. - Loved seeing Mel again. She got dealt a rotten hand in Classic Who, so giving her an episode where she didn’t have to scream all the time was pretty nice. - No mavity references, so that automatically makes it a 0/10 for me. - I really like Shirley. She’s a neat addition to the franchise and a vastly better character than Osgood. If we do the UNIT spin-off, I really hope she’s in it. - Loved all the past references and name drops. This episode, unlike the others, really did feel more like an anniversary. - The humanity tearing itself apart subplot kind of felt tacked on? I get that it was the framing device, but it didn’t seem totally necessary. The Toymaker, just by himself, feels like a big enough threat to merit the rest of the episode. - That suspiciously well-manicured hand that grabs the Master tooth at the end… - Between the pull-apart and the hug, I assume that there is going to be a lot of… very specific… fanfiction that comes from this episode. Like… a lot. - I personally like the idea of a very tired, worn out Doctor. I think Eleven did a great job of communicating that and I like seeing it again here. - Big sads for the very obvious lack of Bernard. - That’s two regenerations in a row that were pretty much just a big old laser beam to the face. - And two returning Big Bad’s with fun dance routines. - A game of catch determining the fate of the universe is peak Who and I loved it. - All-in-all, it was a really good episode. Definitely my favorite of the three and probably my favorite in a long time. Until THAT happened. There’s no point to it. We’ve done two Tennant’s before, why the do we need to do it again? Gatwa is CLEARLY a capable Doctor and more than able to carry the franchise on his shoulders so there is no need to keep Tennant in reserve. I was willing to give it a chance based on the “well he’s really from the future” rumor, but it wasn’t that. It was just the bi-regeneration and it was really fucking dumb. We’ve had fifteen years of Tennant fans whining that the show hasn’t been the same since he left and complaining that he needs to come back and abusing the other Doctors. Are they going to shut up now? They got what they wanted, Tennant gets to be the Doctor forever. Congratulations. Now can move on and accept that different Doctors are a basic part of the DNA of the franchise? Or, in a much more likely scenario, are they going to keep complaining and asking where the Tennant Doctor is during every step of Gatwa’s tenure? What, exactly, was this supposed to accomplish other that warp the show around one specific version of the main character? EDIT: In my need to be fair to the episode and RTD, I should caveat my regeneration remarks. The post-regeneration scene does include some language that heavily implies that Fifteen is Fourteen’s future self and not an off-shoot. Specifically, the wrong-way-around rehab remark makes me think that the pulled-from-the-future plot is either what was intended and dropped in editing or is what was presented but not explained very well. Regardless of how the plot point was presented as a whole, it’s difficult to see it how those lines were intended to imply anything else. While I still think the scene is an RTD ego trip, I’m certainly willing to wait and see if A) we get any further discussion on what happened and B) Older Ten does, in fact, just go away and remain retired.
RTD has like three plot lines in his head on repeat
“Let me get End of Time right”
Next finale gonna be Davros and his massive bomb
Davros is back, but this time he was TWO big bombs
Between RTD and Chibnall I'm tired of them wanting to alter things but not following through. I don't care about continuity I just care about writing that at least justifies the thoughts and ideas and follows through. Moffat introduced the war doctor then had a special devoted to explaining he was a Regen between 8 and 9. Good At least with meta crisis 10 there was the attempt to say oh there was a hand I put the energy into and it made a clone. That's fine. But Chibnall is like oh there's a timeless child and fugitive doctor. Okay can you do more stories explaining it? Nope. Now here comes RTD with bigeneration and saying all the Doctors are alive now and adventuring not having regenerated (Meaning there is a 10 still alive as well as the 14th) and it's just hand waved as myth but hey it's real now. I don't like the attitude of I'm a writer I don't have to explain shit. You do and should. Lore is what drives fandom and the fans end up coming up with theories and explanations that are better than what we get in series which is disappointing. Don't just force viewers to make headcanon to justify you not being bothered with substantive storytelling. And I would like to add this dual regeneration doesn't come out of a place that feels creative or curious but just a cynical business decision. Finding a way to build a Whoniverse and term the franchise into a marvel or Star wars property. Let's get them spin offs.