YeonchiDoctor Who Series 13 (Flux) Review: Prelude20 months. That’s how long it’s been since Series 12 ended. That’s how long fans have been left hanging for an elaboration to the Timeless Child mystery after it destroyed canon and divided the fanbase. Given what’s been happening around the world, we might as well have been waiting for two years. At the very least, the payoff had better be worth it.
Once again, like in Series 11 and 12, I will be reviewing every episode of Series 13, posting my thoughts and rating them on a scale out of 10. Since there are only six episodes in this series (titled Flux) that form a single story, there will be no mid-series review this time around. Following this series, there will be three specials in 2022 that I will also be reviewing; a New Year’s Special, an Easter Special, and the BBC Centenary Special in autumn 2022 (Northern Hemisphere) that will also act as Jodie Whittaker’s final episode as the Doctor.
Before I get into the background details after the break, you can find the reviews I’ve done so far on this page.
A higher standard
Given my red-pilling towards the series following The Timeless Children and the fact that this is the third (not to mention final) series of Doctor Who headed by Chris Chibnall and starring Jodie Whittaker, I intend to hold this series to a higher standard than I did before (which I also did in Revolution of the Daleks). As such, there may be times where I take points off for things that I find offensive in the series (such as destroying canon, severe SJW red flags or even insulting Hongkongers). If it comes to it, some episodes will be scored negatively which will affect both my score for Series 13 and the Chibnall era as a whole. Let’s bring out the scoreboard right now and see where we stand:
Series 11 total with Resolution: 81/110 (73%) Series 12 total with Revolution of the Daleks: 83/110 (75%) Grand total: 164/220 (74.54%)
Right now, my verdict on the Chibnall era up to this point has been fairly good, but that could change. Let’s just hope we don’t come out of this any worse than we are now.
Reflecting on the motivation for this series
With Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker scheduled to leave the series, I thought I would look back on why I decided to do this review series as everything comes full circle.
Back in 2017 when the Thirteenth Doctor was announced, I stated that while I wasn’t keen on the Doctor being a woman at first (and by extension, Time Lords changing genders), I would give her a chance and see how she does in the series before I made any judgements. In the Series 11 review prelude, I set out two questions that I hoped to answer:
How does Jodie Whittaker’s performance set the bar for other Doctors after her, male or female?
Will the so-called “SJW/feminist/diversity agenda” affect the way I see and think about Doctor Who?
I answered those questions once in the Series 11 review epilogue. After having gone through two series, I’m going to answer those questions again here and one final time in the final epilogue post that will come out after my review for the Centenary Special, taking in my thoughts for Jodie Whittaker’s entire run.
Question 1: I still think Jodie Whittaker is an okay Doctor whose character is mostly a rehash of David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors. Looking back, I realise that to judge future Doctors based on the precedent this one set isn’t entirely fair. Each Doctor should be measured individually; just because one Doctor acts one way doesn’t mean another Doctor will act the same way. Of course, this move has opened up a path for potentially more actors and actresses to be casted as the Doctor, though I would still prefer to have male Doctors (regardless of race).
Question 2: To be honest, all the SJW red flags have done for me so far is get me talking about things, like racism in Rosa and climate activists in Orphan 55, probably because I was dense and not well-versed in social justice back then. Admittedly, while I still am dense in social justice to this day, I don’t know if things will change given my red-pilling in 2020, though regardless, the true political red flags for me will be anything relating to Hong Kong and China.
Obviously, my attitudes toward all this are different now than when I decided to start this review series. It’ll be interesting to see how my attitudes change at the end once Jodie Whittaker’s final episode airs.
Waiting to wit’s end (a rant on the promotion and marketing of the series)
In the prelude for the Series 12 reviews, I talked about how the scheduling of the series has started going all over the place since Series 6. Even after two gap years from 2016-2020, this prolonged gap year really takes the cake. OK, I can forgive the BBC a little given the coronavirus pandemic, but I’m not going to excuse the efforts they made to promote Doctor Who, which I’ll explain now.
For some reason, it feels like there has been less promotion of the series, or rather, confirmation of airdates, during the Chibnall era than I recall seeing during the Moffat era. Although promotion of the series usually begins three months prior to the start of a series, they do give a timeframe for when the series will premiere, which is important for a series with a schedule like Doctor Who. Even the first teaser trailer for Series 8 in May 2014 stated that it would premiere that August and the actual trailer for the series wouldn’t come out until July.
This is different in the Chibnall era. The first trailers for Series 11 were released in July 2018 and we didn’t know about the release date until September, a month before the series was due to premiere (and even then it was in the description of the trailer and not in the actual trailer itself). Although the BBC confirmed that Series 12 would premiere in “very early 2020”, we didn’t get a trailer until 23 November 2019, over five weeks before it actually premiered, and the official date wasn’t even announced until the week after. As for Series 13? It honestly feels like Chibnall and the production team are keeping things more secretive than usual when they probably don’t have any reason to; given what we’ve been through in the past two years, it wouldn’t have hurt them to reveal something earlier, particularly because they might need to coordinate with TV networks or merchandising and publishing companies.
Following the Doctor Who panel for San Diego Comic Con @ Home on 25 July, we got a teaser trailer, but at the end, it just says “Returns later this year” - no timeframe, no date, not even which month. At the same time, the BBC launched #FindTheDoctor, an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that was intended as an additional promotion for the series. Over the course of eight weeks, fans would collect clues in the form of letters that would make up a password to be entered once all the clues were collected. The BBC seemingly went all out on this, from placing clues in YouTube videos, Google Maps reviews, social media posts, the Doctor Who Magazine, even working with the Museum of Liverpool, the Science Museum and the British Library to incorporate clues on their sites.
By 16 September, most of the clues were released, but someone managed to find the remaining letters in Inspect Element (there was a placeholder password in there before that date) and find the prize of the ARG, namely a promotional photo of the Thirteenth Doctor and a sneak peek of a monster that would be appearing in Series 13, with no release date to be found, even after a few days when the official Doctor Who Twitter account revealed another clue (like it was damage control to them) which led to the remaining letters being found on Shazam (because the BBC actually worked with them as well and had them change an entry just for this). A follow-up video was posted on 24 September and nothing much was revealed either.
Then a week later on 2 October, four weeks before the premiere, we get teaser interruptions of the Doctor saying “Can you hear me?” that either get clearer or distorted with each day. On 6 October, the Doctor Who social media accounts posted a picture of a Sontaran ship hovering above Liverpool before deactivating them two days later on 8 October following a cryptic post. The next day on 9 October, the BBC ran an advertising campaign around Liverpool, with one such advertisement providing a phone number that when called, leads to the Doctor’s voicemail and apparently allows people to leave messages regarding alien sightings (given that the phone number was
0800 678 3110 they totally missed an opportunity to make it
07700 900461, though given the 3110 at the end I can see why they picked that one). Later that day, the Doctor Who social media accounts were reactivated and the release date for Series 13 was finally released along with a full version of the teaser interruption. The full trailer was released a week later on 15 October, just over two weeks before the premiere. And finally, on 20 October, one and a half weeks before the premiere, we get the episode title for Chapter One of Flux, namely The Halloween Apocalypse.
Admittedly, this campaign would have been more exciting for me in better times, but with the way the series has gone, the way things are now and the way this campaign was executed, these recent marketing attempts just doesn’t excite me that much. It’s been essentially two years and we’ve been through so much in that time. Stop being so secretive and just give us the details! Would it have killed you to put the release date out earlier instead of leading us on for three months? The #FindTheDoctor ARG was a big opportunity to do it, but it just came and went without a release date reveal like it was nothing, meaning that the ARG just ended up being a sham as the payoff wasn’t even decent. The execution of the ARG was poor as well because people found the final letters in Inspect Element before the last clue was revealed. They could have kept the “Have you borrowed the TARDIS? You’ve arrived here a little early!” message until the very last clue was released and they could have updated the reveal page with the premiere date for Series 13 once the last clue was officially released. Just saying.
Also, the timing of the first episode title reveal for this series is horrendous particularly given that the first episode title reveals for Series 11 and 12 were a month before the premiere, which is another reason why the gap between the ARG and the trailer reveal along with all the teasers and social media PR stunts is absolutely stupid. If the teaser interruptions started two weeks earlier, the Series 13 promotion flow would have been smoother, but that’s probably presuming that the premiere date for the series is 2/3 weeks earlier than what we have now. Oh well, at least these lame and desperate attempts at seeking attention worked because it did get people talking. Besides, it’s good that we know we’re getting a New Year’s Special so we don’t have to keep guessing if we’re getting a Christmas Special this year.
And look, I know that people can get iffy about leaks because it might spoil something important or ruin their perception of something on the show, but I don’t really see it that way; the fact that leaks are (intentionally) vague means that we still don’t know the full details of how something will turn out. You can say something like “the Sontarans and Weeping Angels are coming back in this series” or “the Doctor is the Timeless Child”, but they don’t really mean anything until you see how the story plays out. If anything more than that was leaked, like entire episodes or scripts of episodes (which has happened before), then I can understand why the BBC would go into damage control. In short, it’s not really about what the leak is, but how the leak plays out in the actual series that matters.
You know what this entire situation reminds me of? It reminds me of the debacle regarding the trailer for The Day of the Doctor. At the 2013 Comic Con on 21 July 2013, the first trailer for the 50th Anniversary Special was shown to attendees, but it was never released to the public, with even Steven Moffat requesting that fans not leak it online and as such, fans were pissed off about it. Although we did get an amazing teaser trailer on 19 October and then the official trailer on 9 November (which was brought forward due to it being leaked on BBC Latin America’s Facebook page), the official trailer wasn’t exactly like how some people described the Comic Con trailer. Keep in mind that the gap between the Series 7 finale and the special was only six months. Still, even though the special was pretty good (but not great) in retrospect, it wouldn’t have killed them to release the Comic Con trailer earlier to hype the anniversary up more, because 50 years was a pretty important milestone for Doctor Who.
Over the last few months, Doctor Who’s social media pages have been recycling old content from old episodes and sharing promos for boxset releases of old series (that they homogenised with the current Doctor Who logo instead of reusing the logos to fit with the era) and Big Finish audios (particularly because Christopher Eccleston is finally reprising his role as the Ninth Doctor after a decade). I guess that’s all they could do when there’s nothing much to promote, but it’s a real testament to the state of the series when this is all that we have. No wonder I’ve been more interested in tokusatsu these past few years. I guess it can be said that the BBC are likely losing faith in Chibnall’s “five year plan” because this next piece of news excited fans more than the ARG ever did…
The return of Russell T Davies as showrunner
Yes, you heard that right and no, I’m not joking. On 24 September, the BBC announced that Russell T Davies would be returning as showrunner from 2023 to celebrate the 60th Anniversary. On top of that, he will be partnering with Bad Wolf, an independent production company founded in 2015 by Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, former BBC drama executives who have overseen the revival of Doctor Who in 2005 (in addition, Julie Gardner also worked with Russell T Davies as executive producer on Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures). The news came out of left field to me and I, like many others, thought it was a joke, but I guess it’s really happening.
Apparently, this move was a “radical change” teased by Piers Wenger, Director of Drama at the BBC, but I’ve seen information that may state otherwise. This may sound like a conspiracy, but back in November 2020, Noel of The TARDIS Zone was tipped off by one of his sources that this was a hostile takeover from RTD because Chibnall screwed up the series. He has had sources who have stated rumours regarding things like the Timeless Child that turned out to be correct in the end. Since Noel is known to private his Twitter account, I’ve taken the liberty of grabbing a screenshot of the tweet and attaching it below:
I know it’s not going to be a “puppet regime” like the source says, but RTD’s reappointment as showrunner fits with this. And look, while it may seem that Chibnall made his own decision to leave (alongside Whittaker), it would not be out of the realm of possibility for Chibnall to be fired given how controversial The Timeless Children was, so I would advise that this should be taken with a grain of salt.
Can RTD save the show and bring it (and the fandom) back to how it was back in 2005-2010? Not necessarily, but at least we might get better episodes than we did with Chibnall. To say that RTD will save Doctor Who from its wokeness is probably not a good observation; he is part of the LGBT community, has written left-leaning politics in his works (particularly in the drama Years and Years) and has stated that gay actors should be casted in gay roles (this is a bit of a talking point given recent current affairs and while I do somewhat agree with the sentiment of “identity casting” for new dramas, I don’t believe there is a reason to pressure actors into stepping down and having their roles recast because that is the point of acting), so RTD is as woke as they come, but it wasn’t so much a problem back in the RTD era because the political references were more subtle and RTD put more focus into the characters and story.
On a side note, I find that the people who complain about shows like Doctor Who being “too political” aren’t necessarily complaining because of that, but because these people see shows like these as escapism and believe that creators are shoving in more (explicit) references from real-world politics in an attempt to drill an agenda into our heads or send a political message or pander to more marginalised demographics instead of catering to their fans. Admittedly, I would also have to agree - a show can be political all it wants, but when you cross the line to touch on real-world politics, you have to expect criticism from people who don’t necessarily agree with what you believe. In the end, I believe creators should find a balance between giving the fans what they want and what the creators themselves want.
Bad Wolf’s involvement in the series marks the first time that Doctor Who was produced outside of the BBC’s jurisdiction (with the exception of the 1996 movie starring Paul McGann). With Bad Wolf having their own studio in Cardiff, it is presumed that production will move to there from Roath Lock, which is basically just nearby. But what might this mean for Doctor Who from here on out? The only thing I can think of is that the BBC might have less control over production, but that’s probably alright with them because RTD and Bad Wolf already have the experience. I don’t think we should expect anything drastic out of Bad Wolf, particularly in terms of distribution, because Doctor Who is still a BBC franchise; it’s one of the things keeping them afloat at the moment aside from the licence fee. On a side note, we shouldn’t expect Christopher Eccleston to come back for an episode because of what the BBC did to him after he decided to resign (I’ll elaborate on this when I do Doctor Who 10 for 10 at some time in the future). And by the way, did you know that Bad Wolf is apparently going to be acquired by Sony? Not even a month and Doctor Who’s getting bought out by Hollywood, as if HBO isn’t bad enough already.
The wording of the announcement seems to imply that there won’t be anything between Jodie Whittaker’s final episode and the 60th Anniversary Special (tentative), meaning that we may have to wait another year. Given that Chris Chibnall wants to finish up by the end of this year because his sons are doing their GCSEs and A-Levels, the resulting gap after the Centenary Special is a golden opportunity for RTD to make another series before the 60th Anniversary Special. In addition, I also have a few hopes for the series going forward:
Put the series back on Saturdays - This has been a concern throughout the whole of the Chibnall era. Over the course of the revived series, the gap between broadcasts in the UK and Australia has reduced from 2-3 months during the RTD era to pretty much the day after from Series 7 Part 2 onwards (additionally, since Series 7, the episodes are usually available on ABC iView right after the conclusion of the UK broadcast, heck even Series 8 was simulcast with the UK on ABC like with The Day of the Doctor before it was available on iView). As such, episodes premiering on Sundays in the UK means that they premiere in Australia on Monday. Before this series, this wasn’t so much of a problem because I was unemployed and at uni, but I have been working full-time since the middle of this year. Although I work from home some days (most days now given the lockdowns), making content for a weekly series isn’t easy when you have so little time or motivation to work on it during the week (along with other ongoing and proposed projects that I can see no end or beginning of). In order to effectively do a weekly series, I need to have all the content prepared in advance so I can release each part every week, but even with a review series like this, I still need time to write each part up. If the series were broadcast on Saturdays in the UK and therefore on Sundays in Australia, that means I could have an extra day to write it up and mull over it. I’m sure other Australians will agree that the new schedule has been a bit messed up.
Give the series a regular schedule - Since Series 6, the premiere dates for each series of Doctor Who have jumped around quite a bit, particularly with all the split series stuff in Series 6 and 7. Following The Time of the Doctor in 2013, we had to wait 8 months for Series 8. After Series 9 ended in December 2015 and the Christmas Special aired later that month, we had to wait a year for another Christmas Special before a new series aired the following April. When Jodie Whittaker made her debut a couple of weeks after the end of Series 10, we had to wait 5 months to see her regeneration in Twice Upon a Time, then another 10 months for her first story. After Resolution, we had a gap year before Series 12 aired, then we had to wait 10 months for Revolution of the Daleks, followed by another 10 months until Series 13. Allocate a few months in the year for Doctor Who to air each year (preferably March/April to June/July) and stick to it. If they want to have a gap year every 2-3 years that’s fine, but give us some specials every 3-6 months during that gap year.
Make each series 13 episodes again without breaks - Split series were the bane of Matt Smith’s tenure while having one less episode was the bane of Peter Capaldi’s tenure. It almost seems like the Moffat era had problems with scheduling, although if it weren’t for the split Series 7, Matt Smith would probably have left Doctor Who before The Day of the Doctor. I know being a showrunner on Doctor Who can be hard; the first RTD era was notable because he had to oversee two spinoffs and they were doing new things for the revival of Doctor Who, so the production team at the time may not have been as experienced with such things compared to now, while Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss worked on Sherlock at the same time as Doctor Who during the Moffat era. As for Chibnall, he hasn’t worked on anything else other than Doctor Who over his five years on the series and yet this is what we get; 10 episodes and a New Year’s Special for Series 11 and 12 along with 6 episodes and two specials for Series 13 plus the Centenary Special. I know things are like this for Series 13 because of the coronavirus pandemic, but that’s coming from a show that was originally 13 episodes per series, then cut to 12, then 10 and finally 6 episodes. Personally, I don’t mind not having spinoffs if it means that we get 13 episodes per series. Having showrunners concentrate on Doctor Who during their tenure will probably be more beneficial for viewers and less stressful for the producers.
Bring back the Christmas Special - Although I don’t necessarily mind having a special on New Year’s Day, it still doesn’t feel like Christmas without Doctor Who. To add on to the previous point, the production of the Christmas Special should be separated from the production of the regular series, meaning that a Christmas Special is in addition to the 13-episode series so that we don’t get bamboozled by announcements of episode numbers. Back in 2013, Steven Moffat stated that Series 8 would have “at least” 13 episodes; it later turned out to be a 12-episode series and a Christmas Special. Last year, we were told that Series 13 would be 8 episodes long, then a few months ago, it turns out to be a 6-episode series with the remaining two episodes to be released as specials, and oh, the BBC’s celebrating its Centenary, let’s put on another special as an apology to the fans! I just wish that the production team would clarify which episodes are part of the normal series and which episodes are specials early in production so that fans don’t get disappointed just as the series is about to start.
Return to filming in the 16:9 widescreen ratio - The 2:1 ratio (Univisium) makes it look like I’m watching a movie in a cinema and it looks kind of weird when I’m watching in full screen (but it’s not as bad in half screen, which I usually watch in while writing up my reviews).
Despite (ironically) stating that he would not be returning to the series, let alone write an episode (although a movie was still in the cards)
after stepping down as showrunner in 2009 and finishing with the spinoffs in 2011, Russell T Davies has made some contributions to the expanded Doctor Who universe and its fandom. He appeared in Peter Davison’s The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot in 2013 for the 50th Anniversary, had his Virgin New Adventures novel Damaged Goods adapted into audio by Big Finish in 2015, illustrated Now We Are Six Hundred in 2017 (in which it is implied that Harriet Jones survived her encounter with the Daleks in The Stolen Earth) and wrote a novelisation of Rose in 2018 (in which he also alludes to two possible future incarnations of the Doctor). This year, Big Finish decided to adapt Mind of the Hodiac from a script that RTD wrote in 1986 and found last Christmas. It is scheduled to be released in March 2022.
During Doctor Who: Lockdown in 2020, RTD wrote two short stories and two webcasts for the watch parties, namely Doctor Who and the Time War (describing the regeneration from the Eighth to Ninth Doctor that we were expecting and could have gotten if it weren’t for the introduction of the War Doctor), Revenge of the Nestene (an extra chapter acting as the sequel to Rose), Farewell, Sarah Jane (a tribute to Elisabeth Sladen) and The Secret of Novice Hame (in which RTD contributes to the Timeless Child by stating that the Doctor has regenerated into men, women and animals).
Although I did imply that I might be giving up on the series at some point, remaining as a casual fan at most, I must say that RTD’s return gives me more optimism for the series, even if another female were to be cast as the Fourteen Doctor. Currently, I have no intention on reviewing the second RTD era because it is outside the scope of this review series. Whether things will improve or not will have to be seen to be believed. Anyway, that’s enough RTD worship for now. Let’s get back on track.
How the Timeless Child is the key factor in the final verdict
The key factor going forward is how the Timeless Child storyline will turn out, because remember, we only have the Master’s word that the Doctor is apparently the Timeless Child - there currently isn’t enough evidence to back that up because we weren’t shown any more proof. Back in my review of The Timeless Children, I outlined four questions regarding leftover plot threads that I hope to see answered by the end of Jodie Whittaker’s tenure as the Thirteenth Doctor:
Where does Ruth fit in the Doctor’s timeline?
What is the Division?
How did the Timeless Child/Ruth come to be the Doctor?
Why was Ruth a fugitive in the first place?
Although some people say that the key to saving Doctor Who is to retcon the Timeless Child storyline, I don’t necessarily think it will work nor do I think that Chibnall or RTD will go through with it. For two years, that revelation has baited fans and left them hanging while the split in the fanbase continues. I believe that the only turning point is to reveal that the Timeless Child is NOT the Doctor, or at least not the same being as them - the sin of Chibnall diversifying the Doctor and whitewashing the Timeless Child will still remain, but at least the Doctor won’t have the highest pedestal to stand on over the Time Lords.
As for Ruth, then maybe she is the Timeless Child and the Doctor as we know them was cloned from them - maybe they were genetically modified to be natively Gallifreyan (but still identical to the Timeless Child) or maybe they were cloned in an attempt to replicate the Timeless Child but ended up creating an ordinary Time Lord instead - and dumped in Gallifrey’s past, where a young, male First Doctor would grow up and live his life just as he did. Then when the clone loops back to the Thirteenth Doctor and meets Ruth again, she eventually discovers the Timeless Child getting their memories erased by the Division. Whether their memories were erased or not doesn’t matter, but the Doctor manages to save the Timeless Child somehow and bring them back to the planet where Tecteun found them or give them a TARDIS and let them go to essentially be another Doctor.
This is just my theory for how the storyline could play out; the Timeless Child is actually just some kid that the Tecteun and the Time Lords exploited, not the Master as some fans would have preferred him to be, and the Doctor takes it upon herself to give the Timeless Child a normal life or return her to where she came from because she felt sorry for what Tecteun and the Time Lords did to her. It’s an SJW red flag because it’s a metaphor for undoing colonialism and honouring the traditional owners of our lands, but regardless, it is a plausible storyline that minimises the damage done by the initial revelation.
A look ahead
Filming on Series 13 and the specials should have wrapped by now, so it is a good time to sum up what we can hope to expect from Doctor Who going forward.
All six episodes of the series were written by Chris Chibnall, but the fourth episode is co-written with Maxine Alderton, who wrote The Haunting of Villa Diodati. We don’t know the writers of the specials yet, though we can presume that they were written (or co-written) by Chris Chibnall.
John Bishop will be playing new companion Dan Lewis, who was teased following Revolution of the Daleks. He’s done a lot of things over the years (notably comedy), but none that I really know of, so it’ll be interesting to see how he does.
A lot of people would have predicted this when Series 13 started filming, but the Sontarans (or at least a classic variant of them) and Weeping Angels have been confirmed to be returning in this series. Also confirmed is something called “the Flux” and the Ravagers, which is apparently a species of creatures introduced in the Ninth Doctor’s first Big Finish anthology, Ravagers. It’s unknown if the naming is coincidental or not, but if the Ravagers turn out to be the same as those in the Big Finish stories, then it could be the first time that we see a monster introduced in spin-off media (not spin-off series) spun-on into the actual series itself. In the trailer, we also see the Ood, the Cybermen, a furry dog-like monster named Karvanista and a couple of skeletal-like beings in robes (it’s the best way I can describe it).
The Daleks and the Master are rumoured to be appearing as well, with the Master in particular set to be returning in the Centenary Special. I hope the Master appears in another episode or two because his involvement would probably feel a bit lackluster otherwise. Graham is also set to return in the Centenary Special, but there’s no sign of Ryan. It’s probably not that surprising since Tosin Cole has been cast in quite a few roles in both the US and the UK since leaving Doctor Who, while Bradley Walsh has only done The Larkins (the remake of The Darling Buds of May that I mentioned in the Series 12 epilogue) and continued hosting The Chase along with a revival series of Blankety Blank. I would be surprised if they actually did manage to get Tosin Cole back for a cameo, though since filming for the series has already wrapped, it’s just wishful thinking at this point. Oh, and don’t forget about Jo Martin as well, because Ruth’s arc isn’t really done yet.
At this point in time, filming on the Centenary Special has wrapped, but we still have no idea who the new Doctor will be even though Jodie has hinted that she has filmed her regeneration scene. I guess this is just one of those things that have to be seen to be believed.
Kinda unrelated because this is a near last-minute addition, but apparently Chris Chibnall said that it took longer than expected for him to leave Doctor Who because he spent a year trying to find a new showrunner and presumably nobody else wanted to take on the role in light of the current state of Doctor Who. This is already hilarious by itself, but it’s even more hilarious when you realise that if he had managed to find a showrunner early on (probably without the coronavirus delaying things), then Chibnall’s “five year plan” probably wouldn’t have been a “five year plan” after all. Bwahahahahahaha lol.
I aim to publish each review on the Wednesday after the premiere of the episode (which would be on Mondays in Australia), but that’s not a promise. Whether you’ve decided to start following my reviews now, have followed from the very beginning or anywhere in between or outside of the spectrum, I hope you’ll continue to follow me on this final journey into the Chibnall and Whittaker era. See you all next week when I review the first chapter, The Halloween Apocalypse.
It’s coming. Be ready.