Doctor Who Reviews: "The Star Beast"

How many pop cultural institutions have lasted sixty years? As in, maintained a presence, relevance and recognition for six decades? There aren’t many. Yet for most of that span of time, Doctor Who has been a constant. What initially began on November 23rd 1963 as a pseudo-educational television program about time and space travel has ballooned into one of the most celebrated and enduring science-fiction series in pop culture -as vast as Star Wars and Star Trek though older than both, and more consistent. For twenty-six years straight it ran on the BBC as it evolved its purpose, its continuity, and its character. The mysterious old man in a time travelling police box became an alien Time Lord, capable of regenerating appearance and even personality, armed with a mere tool -a sonic screwdriver- in the face of foes, and an ever revolving collection of companions, some from Earth, some not -but all audience surrogates to the wild and thrilling adventures this nameless Doctor would take them on. It was an entirely unique entity in science-fiction culture, so distinctly British in its charms and seeming inability to translate much beyond the U.K. -even at the time of its cancellation in 1989, by that time firmly a British cultural institution. Sixteen years without the Doctor followed, save for an ill-conceived American television movie in 1996 intended as a back-door pilot that was never picked up.

But in 2005, Doctor Who was impossibly resurrected from the dead courtesy of an intuitive television writer by the name of Russell T. Davies -then best known for the gay coming-of-age drama series Queer as Folk -very much a bold choice to revive the U.K.’s most prominent science-fiction franchise. The series not only came back though, but it came back strong, with renewed passion and a twenty-first century international appeal, even as it retained aspects of its innate campy atmosphere and silliness. These past eighteen years have seen Doctor Who reaffirm itself as a science-fiction staple in a broader sense, as it has grown only more complex and versatile and found whole new generations of fans, such as myself -indeed one of the marks of its genius is that regeneration aspect that has kept it from growing stale by constantly rebooting the series around the new face of it. Change is its bread and butter, such a relief from counterpart franchises that can too often get stuck in the familiar (Star Wars for example). Evolution is where Doctor Who has always thrived.

This is the 60th anniversary, and now Davies is back, nearly two decades after he made Doctor Who matter again -the golden boy of the Doctor Who fandom, brought back to give the franchise yet another fresh start. And as someone who very much loved his era as showrunner, I have been pretty sceptical about his return. He is the first Doctor Who showrunner to come back after leaving, and it’s hard not to see his recruitment as a little cynical in design. We are after all in a pop culture era where nostalgia reigns supreme, and Davies coming back at the same time bringing with him David Tennant -by a good margin still the most beloved of the modern Doctors- as an interim Fourteenth Doctor who looks just like the Tenth, looks an awful lot like shallow nostalgia-baiting for my generation. That run of Doctor Who was incredibly solid, but it was also another era, and I’m concerned by the idea of Davies trying to recreate it rather than do something new. A comment he made last year about designing Doctor Who as more like the MCU is also cause for alarm, as that dimly-constructed, monotonous shared universe is the last model any series should be emulating in 2023 -when the MCU itself is in arguably its lowest position incidentally. Then there are little things like a recent colourized re-release of “The Daleks”, the second-ever Doctor Who story (far too reminiscent of that 90s trend of “improving” classic Hollywood films by colourizing them -turning out ugly every time without fail), and inserting upcoming Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa into the end scene of a re-broadcast of Mark Gatiss’ 50th Anniversary special An Adventure in Space and Time (pasting over a lovely little performance from Matt Smith). It’s not quite George Lucas-ing Doctor Who yet, but it is worrying.

Still, I’ve tried to maintain some faith that Davies remains aware of the necessity to take risks on his new era of Doctor Who. The casting of Gatwa, the first black Doctor (and also the first millennial Doctor), certainly was one. And I’ve got to say that “The Star Beast”, first of a three-part anniversary special, takes a few of its own risks that do a lot to bolster that faith.

Granted it’s not so much a 60th Anniversary Special as much as it is a sequel to the events at the end of the fourth series back in 2008, as that is what drives a lot of the episode’s hook and is followed up on in a big way. “The Star Beast” is in fact essentially Davies’ version of The Matrix: Resurrections -a piece that seems to exist purely to correct a choice it’s fairly clear the creator has to some degree come to regret. In case you missed it, the episode opens with a summation of the events of “Journey’s End” fifteen years ago, in which the Doctor’s companion and proclaimed “best friend” Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) absorbed the Doctor’s regeneration metacrisis energy, being imbued with all of his Time Lord knowledge -which proved too much for her mind to handle. Against her wishes, the Doctor wiped her memory of him to save her life. Now it seems powers beyond his control are bringing them back together, as no sooner does he step out of the TARDIS in London than he runs into her accompanied by her daughter Rose (Yasmin Finney), curiously the name of another of the Doctor’s much-loved former companions.

Rose is transgender, and very satisfyingly the show goes to no effort to hide that -where other franchise properties including a bit of representation might obfuscate it (as in the case recently of Hunter Schafer’s role in the latest Hunger Games film). But we see Rose harassed by neighbourhood boys dead-naming her as she and Donna walk home, we see Donna’s mother Sylvia (a returning Jacqueline King) struggle well-meaningly with her pronouns, and most importantly we see Donna address it frankly and demonstrate the model attitude for a parent of a trans teenager -it’s really quite nice.  Though on a note that I hope these episodes can still address, otherwise it would be such a missed opportunity, is the relationship between Rose coming into her gender and the Doctor having just transitioned genders themselves. I think it makes for a compelling point of connection, and an avenue to openly explore transgender themes as they relate to the Doctor, beyond just a couple cheeky comments like the ones by Donna and Rose at the end about what the Doctor can understand in his current male presentation.

We’ll come back to themes of gender, as they pop up again in the episode -clearly a subject Davies cares a lot about exploring (and given the state of the U.K.’s record on trans issues more broadly, it is a public service what he is doing here). But he is not the sole credit on the episode, it’s story attributed to a couple big-name figures in British comics: Pat Mills, who was an editor on Judge Dredd, and Dave Gibbons, who was the co-creator of Watchmen. Turns out the episode is a partial adaptation of a Doctor Who comic they made in the 1980s of the same title. That is where you find the origin of the episode’s signature alien character the Meep, a rather adorable puppet creation voiced fabulously by Miriam Margolyes, as well as the Wrath Warriors apparently hunting the Meep down.

Yes, a classic alien invasion of London story with a ship crash landing, one fuzzy little alien escaping and another group of more militant aliens coming to blows with UNIT -several UNIT officers having their minds overtaken by the mysterious alien host. With the Meep, Davies plays a very cute homage to E.T., as Rose discovers them, a soft-spoken fearful creature, and hides them away in her shed, full of her own clothes, toys, and knick-knacks -there’s even a direct play on the hiding with the stuffed toys bit. Donna is not so easily fooled as Elliott’s mother though, and as the Doctor is obliged to come to her home, doing the best he can not to jog Donna’s memory, the mission becomes about escorting the Meep to safety from both the Wrath Warriors and their apparent UNIT drones.

All throughout, the distinctiveness of pace and tone in the episode is resolutely felt -especially compared to the recent run of Doctor Who episodes. This is very much Russell T. Davies’ Doctor Who again, from the silliness of its creatures and humour juxtaposed against harsh dramatic gravity, to the swelling use of music, to the exquisite love for its characters. It’s got a sharp look about it, the episode is directed by Rachel Talalay, who’d directed several of the best from the Peter Capaldi era, and you can feel some depth and dimension has been brought back to this world. There are a lot of really deliberate shot and lighting choices that give the episode a real dynamic flow. Often it throws Tennant’s face into relief, a very important aspect of the episode. I wondered whether the Fourteenth would indeed be a new Doctor or just the Tenth all over again -and to my slight chagrin it’s pretty much the latter; all the old catchphrases come back, the distinct way he carries himself as an enthusiastic dork with a lot of pathos under the surface. It’s just about everything we loved from Ten, but he is clearly older -the episode visually making a point of this (and Donna criticizing his fashion sense). The mystery as to why this face came back comes up a few times, building tension towards its purpose in-universe (it’s clearly not just for Donna) and its ultimate succession to Ncuti Gatwa in a couple weeks.

For Tennant and Tate, and indeed Davies in writing for both of them, it feels like no time has passed though. They each fall right back into character snugly, that incredibly strong chemistry still apparent. And the episode consciously builds towards the moment where Donna is going to remember, where the “Doctor-Donna” from “Journey’s End” will return. And the episode is very good at relaying the weight of that tension. Tennant plays it superbly, the consequences of his choice years ago bringing back all that melancholy and trauma. There’s also the recurring sense with which Donna’s subconscious remembers, her conscious feeling like something is missing, remembering how her grandfather had talked of a strange spaceman then suddenly stopped. There’s a beautiful moment of remembering Wilf, who the Doctor acknowledges he was very close to, before it’s revealed he is still alive just in a UNIT-supported nursing home (the late Bernard Cribbins is due to make a final appearance in one of the next two specials).

So when the moment finally comes it is earned. There’s a goofy mock trial scene the Doctor holds between the Wrath Warriors and the Meep, where in a genuinely fun twist it’s revealed the Meep is actually the maniacal villain, the UNIT goons under their control, and they are prepping to escape in the spaceship by siphoning fuel from under London in a manner that will likely destroy the city. The Doctor, Donna, Rose, Sylvia, and Donna’s husband Shaun (Karl Collins) are saved by UNIT’s scientific advisor Shirley Bingham (Ruth Madeley -possibly the first instance of a disabled actor actually playing a disabled character on the show); but while the others are conveyed to safety, Donna follows the Doctor onto the ship in an effort to destabilize it. 

And the whole sequence that follows is I’ll admit quite emotionally powerful to anyone with nostalgia for that era of Doctor Who -the first time the Doctor and Donna are alone together since he made the choice to alter her memories on the TARDIS. And Davies knew exactly what he was doing by separating them by glass during much of this climax, hearkening back to the Tenth Doctor’s death with Donna’s grandfather the one on the other side. It’s a great sequence, Tennant gets to let some anguish loose, Tate on a dime goes from movingly selfless to good old funny-stupefied Donna -momentarily distracted by how much money she gave away in an attempt to emulate the Doctor (if you’ll recall from “The End of Time”, the Doctor’s anonymous wedding present to her and Shaun was a winning lottery ticket), before springing into action and the pair reversing the rocket’s engines.

Sorry, it’s actually a three-person job that reverses the rocket’s engines. What ultimately saves both Donna and the world here is Rose, who had inherited the metacrisis energy and thus sprang into action the same time as Donna. Like Donna, subconscious memories of the Doctor had permeated her life -implicitly it’s where she chose the name ‘Rose’ from. Split across two people the metacrisis power was no longer lethal, and further in this situation split across the three it creates a kind of perfect equilibrium, with the Doctor and Donna representing binaries and Rose, non-binary. All of this is vocalized in the moment, Davies directing your attention to the fact that with Rose the vital piece in the equation here, essentially gender non-conformity saves the day. And with all this knowledge and memory restored to her she declares that she finally feels like herself. It is a cogent metaphor for the trans experience, but what’s so impressive is how much of the episode isn’t -how much is just open affirmation. Davies ends this episode on the clear statement that Doctor Who not only acknowledges queer identity, but brazenly uplifts and celebrates it. A really thrilling sentiment for a show that at its hearts is not binary.

Of course where the show actually ends is on the Doctor taking Donna on one last adventure in the TARDIS -ostensibly a visit to Wilf but Donna characteristically spills coffee on the controls, taking them who knows where. We get a look inside the TARDIS and it has of course redecorated to resemble a slightly more amped up version of the original TARDIS interior (this episode’s only reference to Doctor Who’s longer history). The Doctor is enthralled- we are too; reaffirming how much he’s missed Donna -and we have too. There’s a part of me that thinks it a bit cheap how much this episode is indeed driven by nostalgia for a very specific corner of the show’s history, rather than paying tribute to it’s larger legacy -I feel like it may be the key reason Tennant was brought back, which regardless of how much it personally pulls on the nostalgia strings, would be a shallow choice. Yet at the same time, I agree with the sentiment that Donna deserved a happy ending, and I admit I smiled through much of this show and its loving return to the characters who were there when I first fell in love with Doctor Who (hell I grinned through the opening titles and the return of the fun logo from the 70s -now if only they would bring the floating face back). I’ll say that practically too I’m glad to have immediate access through Disney+, even while I think Doctor Who partnering with Disney is probably bad in the long run.

The 60th Anniversary is not over though, it’s continuing through the next two weeks where we’ll see at least one old Doctor Who character return: the Celestial Toymaker. This special was great closure on a fifteen year old arc, a great statement of representation, and great fun. Davies delivered on what he was expected to, but also brought a few surprises, which is a good sign for what is ahead. I hope the next specials can go beyond and properly celebrate the legacy of the whole of this weird and wonderful six decade old show.

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