C+Q - Anticipating Doctor Who Series 10
Fucking finally.
Doctor Who is coming back this month and I'm both excited and disappointed. Excited because this is going to be Peter Capaldi's third series. Disappointed because this is going to be Peter Capaldi's last series. Steven Moffat is leaving too, but while he is my favourite writer, he's been doing this job since 2010. I'd happily watch his era continue, but he's already done enough for the show. With Peter Capaldi though, there's absolutely no sense whatsoever that 27 episodes (so far) is enough for the Twelfth Doctor. If his departure had been announced later, after the Series 10 finale and before the 2017 Christmas Special, it would've maybe sounded more reasonable. Right now, I'm just disappointed. I can't even be particularly angry considering it was Capaldi's own decision to leave rather than Chibnall's decision to push him out in favour of his own actor. There was no scandal involved. It's just an astoundingly good actor choosing to close the book on a role he's astoundingly good at. So I'm sad, but I'm also thankful that he decided to take on the role at all. For the first time, I find myself unable to get excited over the arrival of a new Doctor. There's no actor working today who I'd be more excited to see play the role of the Doctor in 2018 than Peter Capaldi. Still, while I'm in the area, my pick for the Thirteenth Doctor would be Hayley Atwell.
Series 10 might be the end of an era but I'm determined to enjoy it while it lasts. Series 10 will mark the final series to feature my favourite writer, my favourite Doctor, and also my favourite Master. It's unknown whether or not Michelle Gomez will survive into the Chibnall era but let's be honest: all Masters are pretty much married to their creative teams and the Doctors they share the screen with, which means Gomez is probably on the way out too sadly. I hope she's used beautifully this series. I hope she gets to share huge scenes with the Doctor. I hope she gets to be a main antagonist rather than a background player in a Cyberman or Dalek story. I hope we get to see her at the helm of her own TARDIS. I hope she gets to hypnotise a fucker like she did back in the good old days.
Of course the big new addition in Series 10 is the TARDIS crew of Twelve, Bill, and Nardole. Nardole worked surprisingly well in The Return of Doctor Mysterio, and I'm excited to have a non-contemporary companion. That being said, the Moffat era has a terrible track record when it comes to taking one-off characters and inflating them into recurring characters. Every time it happens, whether it's Jenny and Vastra from A Good Man Goes to War, or Kate Stewart from The Power of Three, or Osgood from The Day of the Doctor, their characters aren't given any added depth or complexity to match their expanded screen time. Nothing has been added to Jenny and Vastra in any of their return appearances, meaning they spend most of their time in episodes like The Crimson Horror and Deep Breath reiterating information about themselves that we already know; that they're detectives and that they're a married couple. The same goes for Kate Stewart, who just keeps reiterating the fact that she's the Brig's daughter, or Osgood who constantly reiterates that she's an in-universe Doctor Who fan. None of these are bad characters, they're just characters who were built for one use only. Surely the whole point of bringing back a one-off character is so we can spend more time with them and get to know them better, but we haven't learned anything new about Jenny, Vastra, Kate, or Osgood since their introduction episodes. Nardole worked well in the two specials he's been in, childish toilet humour aside, but I honestly don't know if he'll be able to successfully make The Donna Transition.
The real star of the new TARDIS crew is Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts, who I'm really excited for. I adore Clara and she'll likely be my favourite companion for a long time to come, but I'll admit it's been far too long since Doctor Who had a good jumping on point for new viewers. I've forgotten how good it is to rediscover the Doctor's amazing world through fresh eyes. Hopefully Bill isn't anyone with a complex timey-wimey mystery attached and can just be a normal person who's interesting in her own right. I love a good mystery but after Clara's 'impossible girl' arc it'd be nice to go back to someone normal for a bit of variety.
What we know so far about the episodes have me really excited too. For one thing, I love how diverse the locations are. Yes, yes, there are a bunch of episodes set on modern day Earth. Yawn. But there are also episodes like Frank Cottrell-Boyce's Episode 2, set on an alien world that looks gorgeous. There's also Mark Gatiss' Ice Warrior adventure set on Mars which, yeah, okay, I didn't like Sleep No More at all, but it's good to see Gatiss doing something he does reliably well i.e. retro B-movie horror. Sarah Dollard, Peter Harness, and Jamie Mathieson are all back, which is the least the BBC could've done after failing to make any of them the next showrunner. There's also a mid-series three-parter which I'm really looking forward to with episodes written by Moffat, Harness, and Whithouse. Not only am I interested to see how their three scripts tie together, but this three-parter forms the first of two confirmed Missy stories we have coming up this year. I mean, holy crap, a three-part Missy story where she gets to be written by different writers for a change sounds like a riot. It's also worth noting that Harness has a history of giving female characters strong material and Whithouse has written some stunning hero/villain confrontations for the show already. Capaldi and Gomez haven't had nearly enough screen time together, so I can't wait to see what sort of Doctor/Missy scenes this three-parter brings. Also, did I mention it's THREE EPISODES??? Amazing. The other Missy story we know about this year is the two-part finale. I'm convinced Missy is going to show up at Christmas as well because she simply has to, if only so that an image of her face can swirl around the Doctor's head as he's dying on the floor of the TARDIS saying "No my dear Doctor, you must die! Die, Doctor! Die!"
So yeah: Series 10. It's going to be amazing, and I will as always be posting my reviews of each episode the week after they air. It's going to feel so good to be back.