Doctor Who Reviews: "The Power of the Doctor"

It’s very intimidating to write about “The Power of the Doctor”, perhaps the most consequential episode of Doctor Who I’ve yet covered, just for the sheer breadth it contains. This is the final bow for the Thirteenth Doctor. It is also the last episode for her companions, one of whom is among the longest-serving in the series’ history and the only companion to have been with her Doctor from beginning to end. It is likely the final episode for another incarnation of the Master as well; and all of this because it is the departure of the current series showrunner, leaving the next one as his predecessor left him, with a blank slate in which to once more reboot the show. Apart from that there are story arcs to conclude, returning characters from this Doctors’ run, and more notably a pair of classic companions making their long-awaited return to Doctor Who. There is so much there to discuss, so much to interrogate -I won’t be surprised if this is my longest review.

And yet, “The Power of the Doctor” has gone underwritten a touch it seems in lieu of the various announcements about the shows’ future: Russell T. Davies’ return, Ncuti Gatwa as the next Doctor, a notable transgender character to make her debut, and rumours upon rumours about next years’ Sixtieth Anniversary! It almost seems intentional, especially as this era has been the most derided by the fandom since the series’ revival -a level of vitriol it clearly doesn’t deserve. But then, all fandom is toxic, and it might just be a matter of hype always outpacing the series itself -that’s how it’s been at least since Steven Moffat’s era, when what might happen on the show was always more popular than what *was* happening on it. Like the Doctor, we couldn’t wait to see what was next. In any case, I aim to give this important special the weight and attention it deserves, even where I find issue with several of its’ choices.

That said, what even was that?? The Doctor is the Master, there’s a Doctor purgatory, the Master was Rasputin all along! The plot was actually fairly focused and clearer than usual, though it brought in so many elements from outside its’ immediate scope of relevance that it seemed cluttered. There were callbacks and plenty of fan service, both cheap and thoughtful. And once again not a lot of patience as it zipped to its’ various locations and contexts, leaving character development, especially for the Doctor, mostly on the back-burner. And yet goddammit I kinda liked most of it. Through the problems and the pacing and the various plot points that seem to dissipate rather than conclude, this was a good old primal Doctor Who story that felt silly in that classical way, yet momentous. It’s a good representation at any rate of this last era of Doctor Who.

Starting with its’ opening that could be a mini-episode of its’ own. The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan attempting to rescue an interstellar train that is being attacked by Cybermen -or rather those regenerating CyberMasters from “The Timeless Children” indicating the return of you know who. It’s a fun little excursion, Dan makes a couple good quips and a cheeky reference to the tannoy systems of British Rail. But ultimately they fail and the Cybermen take the cargo, which is a mysterious child. During the fracas, Dans’ space helmet gets busted and they only just make it onto the train in time. On their return to Liverpool to drop Dan off for a date (presumably with Diane), he tells the Doctor and Yaz he feels he’s pushing his luck travelling with them and has to go back to living his life. They part ways, and Dan doesn’t appear again until the end of the episode.

And right up front this is maybe the biggest mistake of “The Power of the Doctor”. Dan has already been a fairly underdeveloped and sidelined character, an issue in coming into the show amidst the chaos that was Flux. But John Bishop is very charismatic and fun, and it’s a disservice to cut him less than fifteen minutes into this hour and a half finale. Especially when there are roles that pop up later that could easily have been given to him. It kinda leaves him feeling like another companion whose potential ultimately outweighed his service, like Bill Potts. Dan entered the show hastily and now he exits hastily, all but forgotten about by the Doctor and Yaz for the remainder -even with his name above the credits.

It’s clear why this happens to Dan though, and in some respects I can’t blame Chibnall for the decision, because no sooner does he leave than we’re reintroduced to the two special guests here, Tegan Jovanka and Ace. This was of course forecast in the teaser months ago, but it still has the desired effect for us old-school Doctor Who fans, being a kind of giddiness. Both of these ladies rank very highly in my personal list of favourite companions, as I’m sure they do many others, and though both Sophie Aldred and Janet Fielding show they’ve clearly been out of the acting game for a while, they can hold their own well enough and Chibnall is generous in giving them some of the best dialogue and even individual character threads. They work for UNIT now, recruited by Kate Stewart as experts in the kind of world-threatening incidents they face every day; and when called to meet the Doctor it is an intriguing reunion, Ace of course excited and Tegan ever so slightly dismayed. Neither has seen the Doctor in decades, and I particularly appreciate that Chibnall appears to have not forgotten the circumstances under which Tegan left the Doctor back in “Resurrection of the Daleks” almost forty years ago -Fielding very much playing it with a vestige of that lingering trauma. Obviously though there’s not much time to dwell on such things.

The reason for this meeting, Kate present too, is some shenanigans by the Master -with the return of Tegan and Ace also seems to come the spirit of Anthony Ainley, as Sacha Dhawan does the old disguise trick, either playing or taking on the historical role of Rasputin in 1918 Saint Petersberg -a look that fits him. As an apparent message, he has insinuated himself into several works of art throughout history (it’s quite a funny montage, especially when it reaches “American Gothic”), and has driven the Romanovs out of the Winter Palace. This seems connected the Doctor finds to a cyber planetoid that has come into existence just above Earth at that same time, powered by the girl the CyberMasters had kidnapped from the train. On that planet is an identical TARDIS, but with a creepy sign and a creepier interior -the Masters’. He as it so happens has now shifted into the present, abducting several of the worlds’ leading seismologists, and while holding a mock lecture the Doctor confronts him, and he it seems is madder than ever, Dhawan using what’s likely his last appearance for some of his greatest scenery-chewing.

And then the Master does what so many villains have done in the last few decades of popular entertainment: he gets himself captured by UNIT as part of a larger scheme. Turns out a little Cyberman figure that had been sent Tegan presumably by the Doctor was actually from him: a Russian nesting doll of a transport, and suddenly Cybermen pour into UNIT headquarters led by an apparently cloned Ashad -one of the more fascinating additions to the Cybermen in recent years, here just a stooge of the Master. Likewise fascinating is the Dalek who all the while this is going on, contacts the Doctor to arrange a meeting and exchange information that could bring down the Daleks’ latest plans to eradicate humanity. A renegade Dalek is a very curious concept, and yet like Ashad is reduced here to mere plot contrivance. For as soon as it meets with the Doctor, and does exchange that information, more Daleks show up, having manipulated this ploy, killing the traitor and capturing the Doctor. Why are either of them here? Ashad seems to just be a callback and this Dalek a plot point, but several alternatives could have gotten the episode where it needed to be without bringing in these characters and wasting them.

Where it could be said the real plot begins is here, the Doctor at the Winter Palace in the clutches of the Master and his Dalek-Cybermen union. In his Rasputin garb, he explains his plot to set off volcanoes all over the world simultaneously, giving the Daleks and Cybermen free reign over Earth. Through his expositing, the Master seems genuinely unhinged, and Dhawan plays it well in its’ various forms, from the fractured horror behind his eyes as he talks to the Doctor of wiping her from existence to his goofy inane dance of Boney M’s “Rasputin” in one of the few needle-drops in Doctor Who, and a pretty damn good one too. Then he reveals his gravest plan to put the Doctor through an ancient Time Lord punishment of forced regeneration -but with a twist. He intends to regenerate the Doctor into himself using a device that is basically the transporter machine from The Fly. His stated later purpose here is to ruin the Doctor’s name by acts of evil and destruction, but it’s curious he’s so intent on “becoming” the Doctor first to do this. There’s always been that envy there, but the psychological component of this particular goal, far more than the physiological component, is something ponderous. Suffice it to say, it works, and we suddenly have a Master in a combination of old Doctors’ outfits (Seven’s vest, Four’s scarf, Five’s celery) in place of any part of the Doctor themself. And this agitates Yaz greatly.

For a moment now let’s talk about Yaz. I was surprised to see, especially after “Legend of the Sea Devils”, that her romantic attraction to the Doctor is one of the most downplayed of subplots here. It is clearly present, Mandip Gill plays it with that same unbearable longing, but it’s almost not at all addressed openly. Yet Yaz’s attachment to the Doctor holds incredible sway, and she does an excellent job conveying the horror and disgust at this latest “version” of the Doctor. When they are in the TARDIS together, some of the close-ups on Yaz’s face, her reactions, suggests a rage that we haven’t seen before. She kicks the Master out, and knowing how to fly it herself takes it back to 1916. Along the way she activates a holoprogram recorded by the Doctor in the event of her death that can be interacted with based on patterned behaviour. It allows the Doctor to posthumously come up with a plan, one that might have been narratively preferable through Yaz -here again made to follow her orders more than make her own choices. Though it does build to an important theme. She picks up unexpectedly Vinder, who had crashed onto the cyber-planet in the process of investigating it. I like Vinder, but even next to Ashad and the renegade Dalek he is especially pointless here -a returning character for the sake of a returning character- and if Chibnall had to play that with someone from Flux I’d have much rather it been Bel. They then pick up Ace mid-parachute, who in perhaps the most forced instance of fan service, whips out her old jacket and baseball bat to take out some Daleks at one of the largest volcanoes in Bolivia; while Kate and Tegan put into effect a way to collapse UNIT headquarters around the invading Cybermen.

I wondered at this stage whether the Doctor would come back, or whether this A.I. program would be her replacement until they found a way to regenerate the Master into the Doctors’ new form. It would have been a risky move for Chibnall, and not one I think he could have done well. Instead the Doctor’s death becomes the episodes’ greatest excuse for fan service, though for the most part meaningful fan service. The introduction of Doctor purgatory, some void outside the physical where past lives go to rest adds a kind of spiritual dimension to the Doctor or just the Time Lord species. But it’s purpose is of course for our Doctor to meet and receive assurance from the faces of her past selves. It is David Bradley there first, the official replacement First Doctor, but then the figure turns into Colin Baker, and then Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann. There they sit, guardians at the edge of infinity where the Doctor must pass through when her time is up. Obviously it is a treat to see this special ahead of the Sixtieth Anniversary put more effort into the weight of its’ history than the last anniversary special by bringing back classic series Doctors, two of whom have never appeared at all since leaving behind the TARDIS in 1986 and 1996. The whole context for their appearance may be a bit clumsy but it feels genuine too, each with the voice of their Doctor coming through flawlessly. 

Better still though in another region of the episode is the A.I. Doctor appearing to her old companions as they go about their tasks, and doing so in the face they recognize. I was legitimately moved when Peter Davison in that hat, cream coat, and flannels appeared to Tegan, reconciling with her, giving her courage by reminding her of Adric’s sacrifice -it was beautiful. And then knowing it was coming didn’t make Ace’s reunion with her “Professor” any less impactful, Sylvester McCoy’s little line about the joy of watching companions metaphorically fly from the nest just hit all the right spots. The point being relayed is that the companions matter, that they’re never forgotten, and that they are the real advantage the Doctor has always had. Her “fam”, as Thirteen puts it.

It’s been done this notion, plenty of times. And while here it is somewhat hidden by everything around it, and in that same miasma inconsistent, it’s more powerful. As much as I liked the little references to Tegan’s time as an air hostess in the 80s and that the last encounter Ace had with the Master he was half cat, this was the fan service that was needed, that felt like it added something and gave reason to plot devices that may have simply just been devices otherwise. It reinforces the sense of the Doctor’s history, the power that the Doctor gives off in a way that is deeply resonant. The Doctors’ family is a strength, they will pull through as both Tegan and Ace do, the latter through some help from another returning companion, Graham O’Brien, who suddenly appears in that Bolivian cave to help -without much explanation.

And turns out a reversal is possible, Yaz and Vinder bring the Master back to 1916 where the hologram, drawing now on the Fugitive Doctor, engineers a way to trap the Master, force a degeneration if you will, and restores the Doctor to existence and in her Jodie Whittaker form. From there it’s just a matter of gathering her friends together: Yaz, Tegan, Ace, Graham, Vinder, and Kate to bring the cyber-planetoid into the present, technobabble away the seismic threat, turning mid-explosion volcanoes into steel -as the Doctor puts it- modern art displays. She then releases the girl powering the planetoid, who has since been transformed into an energy anomaly, allowing her to absorb that energy and thus destroy the unwelcome moon. As this happens though the Master, restored to his TARDIS, comes out much defeated and with his final impulse uses a control to redirect the anomaly’s laser, catching the Doctor right in its’ blast. As with the last time, both Master and Doctor go out together.

Of course the Doctor isn’t quite finished yet. Yaz carries her back to the TARDIS and surrounded by companions new and old she comments on her “extended fam”. When next she awakes, they’re all gone but for Yaz. Her time running short, finally, FINALLY, they can have a moment together. The Doctor asks for wherever she wants to go, and the two wind up on top of the TARDIS with ice cream cones looking down on Earth. It’s relatively understated, there’s no big outpouring of feelings or grief, but it fits. The Doctor reiterates her love of her companions, how special it has been to be with Yaz, and before now Whittaker hadn’t gotten a lot of chances this episode to play something sincere or with the pathos she’s so good at -it was surprisingly bereft of the mythology that usually prompts this. But in this moment, that sadness is palpable, and also a sense of maturity that she hasn’t often demonstrated. It’s a bittersweet moment between the two, perhaps not as much so as when Ryan and Graham left, but it works.

Yaz is returned home where she almost immediately runs into Graham and a finally reappearing Dan, who have set up a support group for companions of the Doctor. There, they and Tegan and Ace meet Jo Jones and Melanie Bush (Ace of course knew Mel from back in “Dragonfire” -how did she ever get back to Earth I wonder?); and to my disbelief and complete joy, Ian Chesterton. None of the other returning companions thrilled me like seeing ninety-seven year old William Russell back as the Coal Hill science teacher and original member of the Doctor’s fam from back in the early 60s (the most underrated era of Doctor Who in my opinion, and a personal favourite). Him being curiously struck by the Doctor being a woman was especially charming -he’d never even known the Doctor could regenerate. It warmed my heart so much, the atmosphere in that room.

The Doctor decides to watch the sunset last of all, in a gorgeous spot and at peace with her end. Taking stock of the only regret that she won’t see what happens next, she steps forward as the transformation begins. “Doctor whoever you’re about to be,” she says finally. “Tag: you’re it!” And she regenerates. Not just her body but her clothes as well, unusually. Waiting to see the face that was confirmed back in May, it is a shock (though not to some perhaps) to see a familiar face appear, and to hear a familiar catchphrase: “What? What? WHAT??”

There was a rumour going around that I was vaguely aware of that Jodie Whittaker would regenerate not into Ncuti Gatwa, but David Tennant, as part of some development for Russell T. Davies’ Sixtieth Anniversary Special, in which it’s been confirmed for a while that Tennant would appear. I don’t know who plotted that sequence, Chibnall or Davies, but it is bold and unprecedented. I am however kind of annoyed by it seemingly disallowing Whittaker to pass the torch onto her actual successor as every previous Doctor has done -especially in an episode that emphasized earlier the importance of that cycle. Tennant of course is not her successor, it’s almost certain he’ll regenerate into Ncuti Gatwa sometime during that anniversary special. I don’t know, it kinda messes with the smoothness of the Doctor transitions -although Davies had mucked with it a little before in “Journey’s End”. It certainly starts the next chapter of Doctor Who curiously, and I do trust Davies more than either of his successors. But I also feel it takes something away from the end of this era.

“The Power of the Doctor” was the friends we made along the way. That kind of is the thesis here, but it’s not so hackneyed as that might sound. This episode, this special, has its heart(s) set right, it delivers emotionally where I didn’t expect it to, and it plays around with some ideas that are thrilling. At the same time it suffers its’ ambitions by once more muddying its’ plot at the expense of character, and while there is genuine drama there it feels substantially muted. The crux is much simpler and works better without necessarily needing elements like either the Cybermen or the Daleks, here it seems out of obligation for the “Big Doctor Who Event”. And Dan’s shafting really doesn’t sit well with me, even with the necessary time Tegan and Ace had to be afforded. He easily could have filled the roles that Vinder, Graham, even Kate had played, and it would not feel like John Bishop is being unceremoniously dumped. Things like the Renegade Dalek or the girl who was the teasers’ MacGuffin, played like an important reveal, likewise didn’t amount to much of anything, and indeed Chibnall’s penchant for over-plotting has left several hanging threads that Davies may or may not pick up on. Will we ever see the Fugitive Doctor again? Or the fob watch containing the Doctor’s hidden memories? What of the consequences for any of those secrets from the past couple series? Do those exit the show too?

Chris Chibnall’s time as showrunner has been rocky, I know parts of the fandom loathe it -but I can’t. Because at his best he did capture a sense of the fun of Doctor Who, recaptured it in a classic sense that I don’t think either Davies or Moffat really did in the same way. It was only when he tried to tell a dense, serialized narrative in Flux that the cracks in his writing really shone through for me. But his general vision of the show was one I appreciated, and I love the focus on the Doctors’ family. Even if none of their individual characterizations panned out with the detail of past companions, especially those of the Davies era, they felt authentic and interesting. I’m going to remember this period of the show, much as I do the First and the Fifth Doctors’ as one of a TARDIS community. Family, as this special emphasizes, was the point all along. And I think that’s why I can swallow it in spite of my misgivings, because that aspect was articulated so well.

There were other highlights of course, including the opening, Dhawan’s performance, even the direction in some areas from Jamie Magnus Stone (his choice of a long take to get Ashad to the Master’s holding cell was nicely done), and the smart way it dealt with its’ nostalgia and homage. Part of me feels that as a swansong, it might have deserved more of the Doctor herself, made some kind of culmination of her journey, but I also understand the path that was taken. I can at least respect it. And lord knows there have been plenty worse final episodes for a Doctor. They can’t all be “The End of Time”.

The Thirteenth Doctor could have done more. Even with three series across four years (and it’s a couple months short of five since her first appearance, making her the longest running Doctor of the revival), there was untapped potential in her, different from the lapsed potential I noted in the Twelfth years ago. Her Doctor reckoned with a lot, especially in the last two years, of major personal revelations, but because she was often so insular we rarely got to see her deal with those things in consistent, compelling ways. And Jodie Whittaker was more than capable of doing so. But the storytelling just wasn’t there for it. This is unlike Peter Capaldi, whose enigmas were softened as his run went along, and could have made for a very different Doctor with just a few more calculated risks. Chibnall, with Whittaker, took a lot of those risks, but didn’t explore them they way they demanded.

I liked and appreciated the Thirteenth Doctor though. She was a charismatic personality, and though her evasiveness and immature, over-exuberant sensibility had its’ limits, Whittaker’s earnestness allowed me to accept that, and on occasion be charmed by it. I love her open-heartedness and the importance of the bond with her companions that never elevated them as anything more special than just people who depend on her and who can be depended upon. And whatever else I may have thought about any episode or creative choice, Jodie Whittaker’s excitement always shone through, more pertinently than any actor to have played the Doctor short of maybe Tennant. There’s something very valuable in that. On a personal note, she is also the first Doctor whose run I have covered beginning to end on here -I’ve been there for the whole journey, following and commenting, and I can’t not feel attached because of that.

She rocked the boat but never showed it -nobody had a greater challenge taking on the mantle of the Doctor, and she had to endure the worst elements of fandom misogyny that still run rampant with a perseverance I rarely see outside of the always antagonistic Star Wars circles. She carried a heavy burden these past four years but she has a lot to be proud of as the Thirteenth Doctor. At her best, she embodied the spirit of the Doctor in a vital way, proving the character can transcend gender, and implicitly any other limitations or binaries we might unconsciously impose on this alien character. She earned the legacy as much as any of her predecessors, and I think I will lastly say she had one of my very favourite outfits of any Doctor. I sincerely hope it’s not the last we see of her in Doctor Who -god willing she now gets to make those surprise cameos herself.

Farewell Lucky Thirteen. It’s been a pleasure.

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