Doctor Who - The 60th Anniversary Special
Are you all ready for me to lose my goddamn mind about the new Doctor Who episodes because that’s what you’re gonna get. 10 (David Tennant) is my favourite Doctor, and Donna is definitely one of my favourite companions, so when I found out they were the main characters in the 60th anniversary specials, well. I’ve never been so excited for Doctor Who in all my life.
Firstly, some background.
The Doctor and Donna used to travel together way back in the day when David Tennant was the Doctor the first time round. I’m not gonna go through all the lore because that would literally take forever, but to summarise what’s relevant to these new episodes:
Things happened and Donna took the mind of a Time Lord into her own head and it messed her up so bad the Doctor had to make her forget everything about what they’d done together. If she remembers she’ll probably die.
Spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t seen any of the episodes yet, gowatch them and then come back to this.
On to the episodes!
The Star Beast
Immediately, I am having a great time. The Doctor touches down in Camden and immediately runs into none other than Donna Noble. We get classic David Tennant confusion in the form of the repetative “what?” which I also partook in at multiple times over this special (more on that later).
Donna, of course, misses the very obvious crashing spaceship and she and her daughter Rose (!!) head off to do more Christmas shopping while the Doctor obviously heads straight to the spaceship. We find out from Donna’s husband that she gave away all the lottery money they won. All £166 million of it. Insane choice but her subconscious remembered the Doctor, and that’s definitely something he would do.
We meet Rose, Donna’s daughter, properly and it’s made known that’s she’s trans. She’s played by Yasmin Finney, who’s also trans, and is most notably known for her role in the Netflix series Heartstopper. The fact that’s Rose is trans is integral to the plot later on, but besides all that I think it’s absolutely fantastic we’ve got some trans rep on such a mainstream TV show.
Rose hides The Meep, a small Furby-ish looking alien, in her shed. At this point, The Meep is just a silly little guy in a shed. The Meep seems non-threatening and is actually kinda cute. Rose is good vibes, making cute little toys to sell online to make some money for her parents.
I’ve very much missed silly Doctor Who. Donna yelling about aliens, Sylvia trying her level best to hide the Doctor behind her, a giant sausage roll and Mad Paddington. It’s all a bit of fun really. The Doctor whipping a little wig out his coat to hold an impromptu court session in a multi-storey car park was a nice touch. And I love the twist of The Meep turning out to be the bad guy.
Admittedly, the Doctor using Winter Soldier-esque trigger words to bring back Donna’s memory was actually quite funny. However, the rest of the scene was just painful. The Doctor and Donna being on opposite sides of the glass is the world’s worst throwback to when the Doctor and Wilf were on opposite sides of the glass before 10 regenerated.
The music that plays in this scene made me SO nostalgic. The DoctorDonna working together again is so fun.
I wasn’t expecting the metacrisis to have passed on to Rose but who am I to complain when it means Donna doesn’t die and everyone is fine at the end of the episode?
I can’t talk about this episode without mentioning the brand new TARDIS! It’s so clean. I miss 10’s grungy TARDIS but it’s still got round things on the wall and the lighting changes colours, which is super fun.
Donna accidentally throwing coffee over the TARDIS console and sending it haywire is extremely funny and I can’t wait to see where they end up next.
Wild Blue Yonder
Welcome to uncanny valley!
Isaac Newton popping up at the beginning of the episode was kinda fun, and the ongoing ‘Mavity’ joke was a nice touch, but he didn’t actually have anything to do with the episode.
The TARDIS disappears due to hostile action, which is interesting because literally when has it ever done that, but here we are.
It’s wandering off time which, of course, always ends well in the history of Doctor Who. We get canon confirmation the Doctor is queer which, we been knew, but it’s nice hear it nonetheless.
I would die for Jimbo, the very slow, ancient looking robot. I kinda want one, actually.
The Doctor figures out they’re at the very edge of the universe, and RTD has to retrofit bits of the Flux from last season, but I don’t mind that as long as the story makes sense, which it did. Mostly.
We get the return of the Doctor licking things they shouldn’t and a new “who turned out the lights?” in the form of “my arms are too long”.
The Not-Things, as they call themselves, are verrrry creepy and can copy not just the form of someone, but their memories as well. It was extremely not fun when who we think is Donna starts trying to get the Doctor to open up only for her to melt into the floor and laugh in his face. Speaking of which, I know Donna denies it when the Doctor asks her if she saw what happened since she left, but I think she knows even if she doesn’t necessarily comprehend all of it.
Honestly the funniest bit about this episode was forcing the Doctor and Donna to stay still and quiet so the Not-Things couldn’t copy them. The Doctor, who never stops moving and never stops talking, and Donna who is exactly the same. Especially when they’re together it’s like two frantic five year olds getting more and more excited over not a whole lot. Top class dynamic if you ask me.
There was a lot of running in this episode, which made me weirdly nostalgic. I love the running and I feel like there wasn’t as much of it in the last couple of series so this was a lot of fun.
The way I would’ve absolutely rioted if the Doctor hadn’t realised their mistake and taken the Donna Not-Thing back to Earth. The end of this episode was so tense, I really had no idea which way it was gonna go. I kept myself spoiler free so I had no idea what the third episode entailed so I did genuinely think for a while that the Doctor and Donna were just gonna be stuck at the edge of the universe.
And finally, everyone’s favourite grandad Wilfred Mott has returned! Due to Bernard Cribbins’ health, Wilf is in very few scenes but is a great joy to watch as always.
The Giggle
Honestly, this episode is just one ‘what?!’ after another.
First of all, I fucking hate dolls, so the opening of this episode being what it was was not at all fun for me. Also, Neil Patrick Harris was an interesting choice for the Toymaker. He was good, I very much enjoyed it, but I feel we could’ve done without the accent to be honest.
The Toymaker, or The Celestial Toymaker, first appeared all the way back in 1966 opposite the First Doctor, William Hartnell. The Toymaker sets up what’s essentially a series of saw traps for the Doctor’s companions while he personally challenges the Doctor.
There were four episodes containing the Toymaker in Classic Who, but only footage of the final episode remains in the BBC’s archives. There are fragments and audio of the other three episodes, but only visuals of the final episode, the rest is missing.
John Logie Baird, inventor of the television, makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the episode. (Donna was right, the Doctor must have the TARDIS set to ‘famous’). He records the doll the Toymaker sold him, and lots of timey-wimey stuff happens which means the Toymaker can arrive in the 21st century.
My favourite lesbian Kate Lethbridge-Stewart makes an appearance in this episode. Honestly any episode she features in is pure gold. Kate heads up UNIT and, apparently, hires all the Doctor’s ex-companions.
This episode really has it all, including another classic Earth ballad Spice Up Your Life by the one and only Spice Girls. A banger if there ever was one. I love it when something so random and completely unexpected happens. I could’ve sat there all day guessing what song would’ve played and never would I have guessed this one. Truly iconic.
I realise I’m skipping over a lot of what happened in this episode but I can’t not talk about Ncuti’s introduction anymore. I went from crying about having to watch David regenerate AGAIN to just fully screaming at the TV. Because what do you mean BIGENERATION???
The Doctor bigenerating is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever experienced on Doctor Who, and that’s saying a lot. The mismatched clothes are so funny and it’s made for some fantastic fan art. It’ll be interesting to see if they do something like this again in the future but chances are it’s just special circumstances or some kind of retconning because it’s the 60th special. But we’ll see.
Now, the only burning question I have: who tf picked up the Master? I mean, assuming the Toymaker was telling the truth, and he had actually managed to contain the Master in the gold tooth, who picked it up? Leave a comment with your favourite theory!
Normally I hate a ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ but, you know what? It goes hard here. A family dinner and they all live in a house the Doctor bought? Sign me the fuck up for them to have that forever.
Final Thoughts
This was honestly pretty much everything I ever wanted from this. It had a lot to live up to, because the 50th anniversary special was just off the wall insane, but this was just like that but in a different way. This felt like really good closure on a period of Doctor Who history.
I thought about including the Christmas Special in this, but I’m going to wait for the series to start in May and do a separate blog post on that, so stay tuned for then!
