Doctor Who Reviews: "The Giggle"

Russell T. Davies just can’t resist giving David Tennant a grand special ending. He also can’t resist duplicating David Tennant across the universe (or universes). Somewhere in the last week he made a comment that this final anniversary special (which again, isn’t much of an anniversary special disappointingly) would set up “a controversial new mythology” and it was a question as to what that would mean. Well, we found out last night and …yeah it ends on a choice that breaks Doctor Who rules a little, and has continuity implications on par with the Timeless Child. Whatever can be said about it (and I’ll get to it), it is a bold move though clearly one not made without some consideration.

Up until that point though, “The Giggle” is mostly another strong David Tennant adventure, with the only real complaint being that for the 60th anniversary it feels a touch underwhelming. Unless the upcoming Christmas special proves me wrong -and it should as it probably ought to be more about setting up the new Doctor and his companion- this is the first anniversary while Doctor Who has been on the air not to feature a major crossover with past Doctors. Granted, we sort of got something like that last year with four previous Doctors and several previous companions showing up in “The Power of the Doctor”, but it still would have been cool to see with more prominence on the anniversary, especially when I’m sure recent Doctors Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, and Jodie Whittaker would have been more than happy to come back.

That said, the special obviously is not completely disconnected to Doctor Who’s history. One of the mostly lost yet better remembered serials from late in the First Doctor’s run in 1966 is “The Celestial Toymaker” featuring Michael Gough as a mysterious games-obsessed cosmic villain. And frankly he was a character ripe to revisit (I’d also love for Davies to bring back the Meddling Monk!). So fifty-eight years later he finally makes his return in the form of Neil Patrick Harris in a fluctuating bad German accent -introduced in 1925 Soho selling a puppet toy to the assistant of John Logie Baird for his first experiment in television. He was apparently brought into this universe from his own realm by the Doctor’s sprinkling of salt in the previous special and inserted a giggle into that first broadcast that has remained hidden in every screen ever since -and is now using it to cause chaos. The form this chaos takes: everybody believes without a shadow of a doubt that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

One thing I’m finding in these early days of a new Davies tenure is that whatever subtlety he used to have has gone out the window. And just as “The Star Beast” proudly affirmed trans rights, “The Giggle” blasts off at conspiracy nuts, fake news, and just the general social media addictive bubble -there’s even a snippet of a clear GB News analogue raving on the TV at UNIT. Once again, the alien entity singles us out as uniquely problematic -the perfect ‘playground’ for the episode’s antagonist. It’s less successful than “The Star Beast” though, as Davies really doesn’t have much new to say -some of this same material was brought up during the Chibnall era- and is clearly not quite as passionate, even as he does once again refuse to couch it in metaphor, making explicit that the Giggle is only heightening what is already there (whilst indicating amusingly that travelling in the TARDIS immunizes one against its effects -as neither Donna nor special guest Melanie Bush (very happy to see Bonnie Langford again) experience the same compulsions.

The appearance of Mel is one of the only classic series callbacks in the episode, and I appreciate that Davies took the time to fill us in on her story during her reunion with the Doctor. Thirty-six years ago, in “Dragonfire”, Mel left the Doctor for space pirate Sabalom Glitz and apparently travelled with him until his death, at which point she essentially hitch-hiked a ride back to Earth, and having no family left readily took a job at UNIT. It’s more detailed than the other classic reference, where colourized images from “The Celestial Toymaker” flash to the Doctor upon meeting the Toymaker again -he and Donna travelling to his shop on the exact date the broadcast screwing everything up in 2023 was made.

It’s here where the episode feels most cohesive, ironically in a state of intended confusion, as the Toymaker traps the Doctor and Donna in a maze of corridors and rooms that lead to identical corridors. This region of the special is very much a proper sequel to that 1966 story dealing in very similar themes of the Doctor trying to outwit the Toymaker’s games. It also gives Davies the chance to play in a little more horror imagery, and I again welcome his commitment to the freaky: from Baird’s assistant appearing as a trapped puppet having lost a game to the Toymaker to the simultaneously sad and creepy doll family left behind by the sale attacking Donna. It’s incredibly well-executed, credit to director Chanya Button who keeps so much of the episode’s weirdness in sync while occasionally finding a moment or two to exert a sharp tonal choice -as in the doll hiding in the dark. Following these, Donna is treated to a marionette show put on by the Toymaker illustrating what happened to some of the companions that followed her, and while I don’t know how intentional it was I was amused by the pattern of the Toymaker asserting that Amy, Clara, and Bill had all died, each punctuated by the Doctor clarifying the nuance in that statement followed by the Toymaker ironically declaring “oh well that’s alright then!” Felt like a good gentle ribbing of Steven Moffat’s habit of killing-but-not-killing his women characters.

But it’s connected to an interesting thread that started with Donna meeting Mel (surprised she wasn’t the Doctor’s first redhead) and questioning why the Doctor never mentioned her or other companions to subsequent ones -which the Doctor as per usual avoids addressing. Every so often this theme is brought up -in fact it came up fairly recently with the Thirteenth too, though here Davies loses a little interest in interrogating it -certainly in the way it would effect Donna. Instead it becomes a symbol of his weariness, all the loss he still has to live with -which is interesting too but likewise not dwelt on. 

The show would instead rather devote time to the Toymaker gallivanting around UNIT HQ -which now it should be noted looks suspiciously similar to Stark Tower from the MCU- dancing to the Spice Girls. Granted it is a very fun sequence, a bit repetitive for Davies who did something quite similar in “The Last of the Time Lords” -but here it is more visually bombastic, and possibly influenced a little by Everything Everywhere All at Once, especially in the Toymaker turning soldiers into bouncing balls and bullets into rose petals. There’s a degree to which the episode tries to impart some seriousness over their deaths, but it isn’t particularly successful, all due respect to Kate Stewart.

The Toymaker gets control of UNIT’S galvanic beam, which he threatens the populace with and after some back and forth and the Doctor offering him the chance to play a game together off-planet, he shoots the Doctor through with it on the top of UNIT’s landing pad. What’s curious is there is still about twenty minutes left in the episode. And Davies makes his big gamble. The Doctor begins the regeneration process, but then rather than bursting into flame and changing, he has Donna and Mel pull him from either end and a new Doctor emerges out of him. The Fourteenth Doctor does not die for the Fifteenth to appear. It is a bi-generation, something that the Doctors only ever believed was a myth: a splitting in regeneration that leaves two copies of the Doctor existing at the same time.

Together they challenge the Toymaker to one more game, and after a frenetic game of ball catching (in which the Fifteenth Doctor has no pants for the duration), they win fairly and banish the Toymaker from existence -he folding up into his box, only leaving behind the gold tooth in which he earlier claimed dwelt the captive Master; we last see it picked up by a woman’s hand.

Through this and its aftermath, both on the pad and in the TARDIS, Davies takes the opportunity to really introduce  Ncuti Gatwa’s new Doctor: sharp, playful, emotionally open, possibly a bit of a flirt, and of course very clever (he also appears to be the first Doctor with facial hair). The Fourteenth Doctor, wondering how this can work, is confronted with the possibility that it doesn’t need to, Donna asserting that this old face came back to rest. The Fifteenth concurs that since before their first encounter with the Toymaker they have been constantly on the move, never resting -recounting several moments throughout the Doctor’s history: the Keys to Time, Logopolis, his Trial, the Time War, the Pandorica, reflecting too on lost companions like Adric, the universe-displaced Rose -no doubt content there with her own Tennant Doctor double-, River Song, and Sarah Jane (even though it’s been twelve years now and her death was confirmed in a Davies-scripted webcast a couple years back, my heart still dipped at the acknowledgement that Sarah Jane has passed away in-universe). Affirming the validity of what his successor is getting at, Fourteen insists that he couldn’t leave behind the TARDIS. To this, Fifteen simply grabs a novelty hammer from under a floorboard, hits the TARDIS hard from the outside, knocking a new one into existence: justifying it as their prize for winning. The new Doctor’s TARDIS comes with a jukebox -and re-setting the lights he bids goodbye to the previous Doctor and Donna.

And so the Fourteenth Doctor is allowed his quasi-retirement, among Donna’s family and Auntie Mel, occasionally using the TARDIS for small trips like taking Mel to Paris or Rose to Mars. Even Wilf is still implied to be with them (after the episode’s opening very conspicuously  shuttled him away without showing his face -Bernard Cribbins having died before additional scenes could be shot). The Doctor states that he is happy for the first time as his counterpart-successor flies off to continue the adventure.

All of this is a lot, and while I think Davies plays it well for the most part there are some issues that arise. While siphoning off the Doctor is again something that he’s done before, it is a little indulgent that he’s now allowed two permanent versions of David Tennant’s Doctor to exist separate from the Doctor’s continuing journey. Also, that he situates that Doctor, who has lived thirteen other lives and forged connections with all sorts of people still alive on Earth -in the U.K. even- with this family of one former companion in particular. It elevates Donna above other companions in a way that bothers me -much as I love Donna, why is she the one singled out for this privilege?

Additionally, the idea of multiple Doctors existing simultaneously in time, multiple TARDIS’s being active at once, and even the opportunity for the new Doctor to visit the old one whenever he likes feels a little diminishing for the Fifteenth Doctor. He is not the only Time Lord that can be called upon. An underrated side of the Doctor’s character is his individuality, and this choice strips that a little bit for the Fifteenth. He doesn’t get to be as special a figure as his predecessors were.  And who knows what bi-generation could mean about other Doctors future or past.

It very much feels like Davies trying to have his cake and eat it too; preventing himself from having to let go of David Tennant’s Doctor once again. And ultimately it does appear that Davies only brought Tennant back for nostalgia’s sake -same as any modern TV reboot- to resolve the Donna story arc and give the pair of them a couple more adventures. Outside of the particular personality that Tennant brings, there isn’t a reason really that this couldn’t have been accomplished by either Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor or Ncuti Gatwa’s. And while this trilogy of episodes are on the whole quite good, I imagine they’re going to feel more out of place with time -like a skip on a record- unless their concept of bi-generation or the return of old faces becomes a recurring thing for the series.

And I am a little bummed that we ultimately got no real 60th Anniversary Special that truly felt like a tribute to the legacy of Doctor Who. I’m not a big fan of “The Day of the Doctor” but I will give it the credit for its at least slightly more holistic approach to celebrating Doctor Who -hell, for the Tom Baker scene alone.

But I did still like “The Giggle” a lot -for its weirdness and whimsy, Harris’s extremely broad but fun performance -and if you look past the nitty-gritty of the bi-generation, retirement, and all those effects, Ncuti Gatwa’s introduction is quite good. He seems to show up fully-formed, unusual for a Doctor immediately post-regeneration (possibly this is due to it not being a “full” regeneration); and for my hang-ups with how it ended and the retroactive shallowness it imbues on all three of these specials, I can understand Davies’ impulse for this choice, and like any bit of “controversial mythology” added to Doctor Who, there’s always room for it to be utilized well. In the distant future I might look back on it positively, in the near-future I don’t expect it’s even going to come up as Davies and Gatwa will be more concerned with charting their own path -which is just a bit of a shame, as while I don’t really need to see the Fourteenth Doctor or Donna any time soon, I would like to think Rose Noble can find her way back onto the show.

One thing’s for sure, the Fifteenth Doctor is here and ready to go, not so tired as his precursor, and nothing has changed in regards to his sense of self -that we know of yet. And as with any new Doctor I am excited to see where he goes. We’ll get a taste of that in a few weeks on Christmas, where perhaps we will truly see the beginning of a brand new era for Doctor Who!

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