It may so simply have been that final 12 months’s specials starring David Tennant had been merely a victory lap for his period. A celebration of the revived present on the top of its energy, with everybody’s favorite and arguably dapperest Physician to have ever served within the position, coming again for one final reminder of why all of us fell in love with the collection within the first place, farting aliens and all.
Fortunately, they had been simply the beginning of RTD’s second wind as Whovian-in-Chief. And what an announcement of intent: sure, that is the present as you keep in mind it. Vibrant. Gleaming. Brimming with all of the chaotic vitality of Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night time Takeaway and shot via with all the heat and world-weary empathy of Davies’ different, extra severe works, with a sixth sense for casting (bolstered by longtime collaborator Andy Pryor) that different showrunners would kill for. Having the ability to summon Neil Patrick Harris to Bristol to play the Celestial Toymaker is testomony to RTD’s Time Lord-like powers as a producer, and positioning him as a darkish mirror for David Tennant is divine genius.
However that is additionally a brand new period of Physician Who, future-proofed for Gen Alpha and reinventing itself for a jaded age that desperately wants new myths. Ncuti Gatwa is so removed from the “traditional” picture of The Physician – he’s not a middle-aged white man, clearly, however that’s not why. He’s effortlessly cool, rocking an ever-changing wardrobe and grooming routine that no earlier Doc may pull off. I imply, he even managed to look fashionable throughout his debut episode, which he spent in a shirt and underpants. There’s nothing stuffy or superior about him in any respect – he brims with the essence of creativity and invention. If all of the earlier Docs are Phil Collins, he’s Prince, and he can do something.
He’s additionally managed to chop via my built-in aversion to accents from the east coast of Scotland, the place I grew up. Listening to anybody who sounds remotely like me or the individuals I grew up with on the telly is normally like nails on a chalkboard, however Ncuti’s resolution to make use of his pure accent – Fife with simply the slightest trace of a Rwandan upbringing – works massively in his favour. The Physician needs to be directly acquainted but additionally tough to pin down on particulars. A number of planets have a Dunfermline, in spite of everything.
And so he bounces round on display with the cadence of a person decided to make each second depend, who can really feel every second because it slips by. There’s a lot motion on this present, it’s mesmerising, fizzing and popping with pleasant intent. A pointy distinction to the present below RTD’s successors and/or predecessors, which felt glacially sluggish compared. Every showrunner was making an attempt to make their very own mark. Moffatt tried to show it right into a grand, twisting science fiction epic the place time journey and the workings thereof wasn’t only a gadget or premise, however the level of the present. Chibnall tried to present the Tardis a comfy sitcom dynamic whereas desperately making an attempt to transplant some mystique again into an outdated and creaking mythology with complete reference books filled with established and immovable canonical details.
RTD, in fact, is the trickster god of Physician Who, and so he modified the collection bible by having the Celestial Toymaker’s return basically rewrite it, giving licence to do issues that Physician Who genuinely hasn’t performed in its sixty-plus years. Goblins in floating pirate ships kidnapping infants. Demons crawling out of pianos and magicing the very idea of music out of humanity’s soul. All of the whereas, nonetheless journeying to the sting of the universe to repair spaceships gone awry. The present was all the time science-fantasy, however the steadiness is now tweaked within the latter’s favour. And god is it a welcome tweak.
Maybe probably the most classically-Who story of season one in all 14 or 40 (delete in keeping with choice) is Area Infants. It begins with an intriguing scifi idea: what if an area station had been run by tremendous good infants? Extremely smart sufficient to downside remedy and function refined gear, however nonetheless outwardly babyish: incontinent, barely cellular, unable to sleep with out being learn a bedtime story. Terrorised by a snot monster. The entire thing. What a splendidly Physician Who concept. It has shades of Who’s previous in that it’s barely evocative of Tennant-era favorite The Lady within the Fire, however can also be a showcase of RTD’s famed comfortable spot for the completely puerile: the person who introduced you burping bins, guffing alien invaders, and paving slab blow jobs is again with extra of that. The Physician discovering an affinity with a literal snot monster, then saving the day by urgent have interaction on a large farting area arse. My god, individuals, we’re so again.
Again too are on-screen concepts which can be a little bit too formidable for the visible results funds, which I might argue is all a part of the present’s scrappy attraction, however I am additionally satisfied that no quantity of Disney cash may pull off lipsynced infants with none dips into the uncanny valley. The same old tedious types of people that whine about unhealthy CGI each time one thing on display reminds them that they aren’t watching a documentary have all the time revelled in unenjoying this present, however then in addition they often complain in regards to the VFX in ultrabudget films whose catering invoice would pay for 5 seasons of Who. Frankly, you possibly can’t please some individuals. The infants are candy, and ridiculously endearing.
After which: terror. Davies has written a few of the most unsettling episodes of Physician Who ever, in any period. Flip Left, with its harrowing imagery of a world pivoting to fascism in response to a serious catastrophe. Final 12 months’s Wild Blue Yonder, the place Who tried its hand at physique horror with scary outcomes. And Midnight, a single-location episode pushed fully by an all-timer of a script and an ensemble good sufficient to ship it flawlessly. This season’s The Satan’s Chord can slot itself neatly into that pantheon: arriving disguised as a goofy historic episode, it purports to be a Beatles-themed journey in Swinging London however in truth places The Physician and the complete human race on the mercy of Maestro, presumably one of many best villains to ever debut on the present and performed with pitch-perfection by RuPaul’s Drag Race star Jinkx Monsoon. There’s RTD’s eye for casting proving its value once more.
Having a scenery-chewing, fourth wall breaking villain flip as much as make fools of your favourites is a dicey prospect for any TV present, notably one with a fledgling new solid that’s but to correctly set up itself. Monsoon’s efficiency put me in thoughts of Jesse James Keitel’s flip as a hammy area pirate in Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds, which I discovered irritating and overdone greater than endearing, whose complete plan appeared to hinge on the crew turning into full morons for exactly one episode (though it must be stated I’m massively within the minority on that one).
In distinction, Maestro locations The Physician believably out of his depth. As she’s a daughter of the Toymaker, he is aware of that he barely survived his earlier encounter together with her kin, and we see that trauma effervescent to the floor right here. It doesn’t undermine him, because it so simply may: it reinforces the peril. RTD is maybe at his finest when he’s giving The Physician some vulnerability, and that well-practised expertise is deployed for full impact right here.Fortunately, The Beatles are barely in it. And I believe it’s a marvellous meta-marketing twist that they featured so closely within the present’s promotion, solely to show up as victims of a tyrannical, music-stealing goddess. We hear of John Lennon crying himself to sleep each night time from the absence of music as his artistic outlet. Paul McCartney pretends to hate songwriting. It’s about as removed from the Fab 4 as you will get, tonally. A pantomime of distress.
What stops it being a tough watch is the machine-gun tempo, and the performances to match. Monsoon and Gatwa fizz round one another with showbiz aplomb, in a dynamic which mirrors that of David Tennant and Neil Patrick Harris – narratively at odds, however equally highly effective of their command of the stage. Gatwa who appears to glide across the scene like a Prime of the Pops background dancer on rollerskates. Monsoon who gesticulates like an eldritch horror crossed with Liberace, and has an uncanny skill to contort her face right into a terrifying, demonic glare with none apparent post-production getting concerned. They’re so evenly matched in coolness and weirdness that they cancel one another out, giving Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday – right here considerably representing the viewers of their baffled mortality – a major alternative to tip the steadiness.
In Ruby’s relationship with The Physician, we’re reminded of Billie Piper’s ferocious chemistry with David Tennant. Gibson is nailing the transient right here: enjoying Ruby with the tough steadiness of youthful naivete, intelligence, and company that the position requires. Time will inform if their relationship will sit among the many iconic partnerships which have outlined the present over time, however all the correct parts are there for it to hit that standing. And on condition that they’re blessed with the perfect showrunner this collection has ever had, who appears uniquely able to giving it the type of status it truly wants and deserves, I’ve little question that by collection 14 or 28 or 54 we’ll be questioning if the brand new lot can presumably examine to the golden age of Gatwa and Gibson.
Right here’s to extra trickster gods and farting area arses. Thank god for Russell.
