I’m still processing the end of this year’s Doctor Who, which I haven’t done a weekly comment on this time round but have obviously been watching… and I have considered it to be probably the best season overall of the new series (and I mean the series since 2005; no, I do not distinguish Ncuti Gatwa’s period from the rest despite Disney), it actually has been that good. Not everyone’s happy about it on social media, obviously…
…because social media can’t cope with anything any more. I imagine that Twitter has been unbearable on this subject like it is on everything else:
“Holy hell, the Doctor’s Aryan again! HURRAY!”
“Yeah, but the Doctor’s a woman again too.”
“FFFFFUUUUUUU RTD!”
…Cos THAT was the unexpected outcome (assuming you haven’t paid any attention to the many and varied leaked reports online) of the whole season:
Indeed, look who’s Who… or is she? Cos a lot of people have been quick to point out a detail in the end credits: Billie Piper is noticeably not credited as the Doctor, merely as “introducing Billie Piper”… that’s an odd enough thng by itself, given she was only in the show full-time for two years as its co-star, but apparently I’m the only one who cares about that, everyone else seems more interested in what’s not being said:
The suggestion certainly got a lot of people talking, with many seeming to agree. Fans were quick to share their thoughts online.
One said: “It’s allowing themselves wiggle room.” Another wrote: “100%, given the reshoots that happened. It’s a smart move to get people talking and potentially have a really interesting Bad Wolf special to lead into the next Doctor.”
A third replied: “Well, the Bad Wolf does have the power to undo the 13 to 15 Doctors, and get the series back on track.”
Meanwhile, someone else commented: “I think the story will pan towards the other Doctor. He has his own Tardis. They are just pointing it out plainly that she is not the next central part of story, only the side kick.”
I believe this sort of talk is what the kids call “cope”, and I’ve seen a bunch of it on various YT video comments and on Bluesky; people seem to be really hoping Billie’s not the actual Doctor but the Bad Wolf entity who will apparently steer the series back in the direction they liked before that woman (and oh, wasn’t Jodie’s scene in the last episode an unexpected delight?) and that black queer made their nice, unchallenging, always status quo-affirming, never even remotely progressive TV show “woke”… at least the last commenter will accept Tennant’s second go-round, apparently; we can deal with a Scottish actor in the lead role as long as he’s straight and white (shame about the trans advocacy but you can’t have everything)…
There’s been an awful lot of speculation about the show’s future, a lot of it emerging from right-wing media sources with a vested interest in the BBC looking foolish and a “woke” program being axed—and I don’t think online fandom has helped by spreading this bullshit and getting the vapours—and it is notable that there’s still no word about whether or not Disney’s going to continue with the show or if even the BBC will continue with it, will they just rest it for a few years or will Billie Piper’s “oh hello” be the end of it… I don’t know, but Russ is clearly expecting at least one more… if nothing else he’s still got to tie up what those flash appearances from Susan in those two episodes were all about—I mean, Carole Ann Ford will be 85 in a couple of weeks, Rusty shouldn’t wait too much longer—plus a handful of other references we still haven’t had clarified. Quite apart from this “mystery” of whether Piper’s the Doctor or not.
Whatever. I know this much: a bunch of interesting shit has gone on behind the scenes over the last couple of decades (not just what Christophere Eccleston has hinted at), and one day it’s going to come out in full (I’ve always thought Matt Smith’s abrupt departure in 2013 was a bit suss). People are going to be honest, especially about the last few years, and it’s going to make the battles between John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward in the mid-80s look mild by comparison. I think we’ll be amazed that the show has got as far as it has, let alone where it might yet go…
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