“The Star Beast”

Goddamnit, this having to wait a whole week for the next episode is going to be more irritating than usual, isn’t it?

This grifting cunt has never seen the show, has he? I mean, apart from it not being Korean enough, it’s been “woke” ever since the show decided evil was bad and something the characters should fight against. “Dislike for the unlike” has somehow never been such a pertinent line from the show…

Wokeness gone mad, I tell you. Anyway, the reaction I’ve otherwise seen on the socials before watching the episode has been 1) generally hugely positive and 2) specifically that the anti-woke mob were going to hate it. I completely understand both those points now that I’ve seen it. It really does feel like a throwback to oughts Who, which I suppose is understandable given the people involved, although the story actually goes back even further; it’s essentially adapted from a 1980 Doctor Who Weekly comic strip (THAT’s how old it is!), which was actually kind of “woke” itself in that Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons gave the Doctor a black companion in the strip, long before Martha Jones was a thing in the series… though the show one-ups that by making Rose (not Billie Piper’s Rose) both mixed-race and trans.

This, of course, was the thing that was really going to make the anti-woke mob mald: having a trans performer play a trans character who’s actually presented positively and indeed helps save the day at the end, and yeah, Oli and his ilk do indeed seem to be losing their shit over it, which I’m fine with… I mean, the show handles the issue with, frankly, minimal grace and subtlety and it’s a bit cack-handed when it comes to things like the pronouns scene. It doesn’t always help itself in that respect… on the other hand, giving the disabled UNIT character a weaponised wheelchair? Not bad, Russ, not bad… awfully interesting twist after the discourse about able-bodied Davros from last week, too.

Murray Gold’s music was, well, music by Murray Gold. Still not really a fan.

On the whole, solid comeback for Tennant and Tate, who I always thought were an intriguing duo. Imperfect but one of the better new series episodes. I look forward to seeing how this develops in the next two specials…