Woke Time Lord’s final surprise left us rattled to end
EvEN for a Time Lord, reincarnation is a novelty. David Tennant, incumbent of the Tardis from 2005 to 2010, reappeared at the end of a special 90-minute episode of Doctor Who (BBC1), as Jodie Whittaker bowed out.
A blast of golden light, a thunderous roar of sound (after the noisiest adventure ever) and the first thing to appear was his tatty tie. he always did look like a supply teacher at a sixth form college.
how long Tennant will stick around in the Doctor’s shoes is anyone’s guess. Before springing this surprise in the final seconds of the show, the BBC’s official position was that Ncuti Gatwa was lined up as the next Doctor. A glimpse of the new series, in a trailer after the show, suggested Gatwa is as confused as anyone.
Only one thing is certain: Jodie has gone. As the 13th Doctor, she infuriated many fans with her relentless political correctness. She enjoyed a lesbian frisson with her female companion Yas (Mandip Gill), railed against the British Empire, and set off across time in pursuit of feminist icons from Ada Lovelace to Mary Seacole.
But her final excursion was other varieties of woke. The explosions were loud enough to revive coma patients. Legions of Cybermen fired off blaster barrages, tower blocks collapsed, volcanoes erupted, an entire planet imploded. This episode ought to have been called The Tinnitus Of Doom. Beginning on the roof of an express train plunging across the galaxy, the first 40 minutes of this special episode consisted of a succession of shockwaves. Almost nothing could withstand their destructive power, certainly not the plot. As we were flung about through space and time, captions struggled to keep up: ‘Siberia, 1916’, ‘London, 2022’, ‘Romania’, ‘Bolivia’.
SACHA Dhawan, as the Doctor’s arch-enemy, the Master, enjoyed the best scenes. At the Tsar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg, he was ‘Russia’s famous love machine’, Ra-Ra-Rasputin. Then he stole the Doctor’s identity and swaggered around in a long, stripey scarf and a cricket jumper embroidered with question marks. he had the sharpest one-liner too, as he was dragged off to a prison cell: ‘I have allergies – I’m human-intolerant!’
Tegan (Janet Fielding), a Tardis companion from the 1980s, was one of numerous former co-stars to show up. Ace (Sophie Aldred) also played a central role, and we glimpsed Bonnie Langford as Mel and a 97-year-old William Russell, who was the Doctor’s first companion, Ian, back in 1963. Former Doctors also supplied cameos, including Peter Davison.
Now writer Chris Chibnall, at the show’s helm for the past five years, is handing back the controls to Russell T Davies, who will need to strip away much of the excess baggage weighing the Doctor down. That Tardis needs a clearout.
DON’T imagine the reboot will be any less woke, though. Gatwa is best known as the flamboyantly gay Eric Effiong, from Netflix’s Sex Education – a character so screamingly camp that he makes Charles hawtrey look macho. Carry On, Doctor.
Gatwa’s companion Rose will be played by 19-year-old transwoman Yasmin Finney, also a Netflix star in the romcom heartstopper. She first achieved celebrity on TikTok, talking about her experiences as a Black trans teenager. Perhaps her character’s name is just a coincidence – or maybe she’s a regeneration of Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper in the Noughties. If it’s the old Rose, she’s in for quite a culture shock. Wakey-wakey.