Given how brief the Fourteenth Doctor’s onscreen tenure is I figured I’ll just go over all four stories of his. Is it possible we could have the Fourteenth Doctor appear in Big Finish? The door is certainly open for that idea given the ending of the 60th anniversary, but that does all depend on when David Tennant comes back to Big Finish which at the moment I think he’shaving a well earned break from Doctor Who.
Destination Skaro - Getting this mini-episode out of the way, it is obviously the weakest of the four and one I didn’t expect to have a lot of fan mudslinging but I guess you can’t even have a Children in Need special without some people getting their underwear in a twist. I dunno, I guess I just had enough sense going in to know that a five minute Children in Need comedy sketch with a character called “Mr Castavillain” surprisingly wasn’t gonna be Genesis of the Daleks 2!!! As far as the whole changing Davros permanently to get rid of the wheelchair, yes I’m not a fan of getting rid of his iconic design but believe it or not there is actually a good in-universe explanation for such an idea. Let’s not forget Davros’s last appearance in the show where he stole a large ammount of the Doctor’s regeneration energy, it’s perfectly plausible that the energy gradually grew back Davros’s body over the years. So if anyone’s gonna be mad at the change in design to Davros, be mad at Moffat. See if he’d just done a story about the Doctor meeting child Davros we wouldn’t be in this mess! But then, that all depends on Davros even showing up again in the near future and how likely is that given that it’s almost ten years since The Witch’s Familiar.
The Star Beast - The first of the 60th anniversary specials and easily the weakest of the trio. Bizzarely an adaptation of the comic of the same name from the 80s. It’s crazy to think that The Star Beast has now had an adaptation in all four mediums! There’s the comic, then we had an audio from Big Finish in 2019, then this televised special and a Target Novelisation, I think that’s a first in the franchise! The whole Beep the Meep angle is nowhere near as funny as it was in the Big Finish version, it’s having to accomodate for a shorter runtime and sharing the story with the whole Doctor reuniting with Donna aspect of the story. A lot of people complained about how it ruins the Donna losing her memory ending to Series 4, hate to break to everyone but Russel alredy ruined it way back in The End of Time when he had David Tennant telling everyone who’d listen that Donna would burn up and die if she remembered him, then we had the cliffhanger and instead of dying she just goes to sleep for the rest of the story in an explanation Russel clearly pulled from the backside at the last minute, why? Cos the guy’s a coward when it comes to teasing companion deaths and this story is no different, though in fairness the explanation is a lot more reasonable.
Wild Blue Yonder - This is the best episode of the show since 2017 with World Enough and Time, I absolutely adore this story and it’s one I’d like to see more of in the future. It’sthe one I was most looking forward to given how little was being advertised about it and it didn’t disappoint. It allows David Tennant and Catherine Tate to put on some of their best work together and it’s one of David Tennant’s best performances as the Doctor.
The Giggle - This is a complicated one cos there’s a lot I love and a lot I hate about The Giggle, to the point where I don’t know which way my thumb goes for it. Starting with what I love, it’s basically everything around the Toymaker, there’s a lot of great imagery and visual effects that do justice to this god-like being who can manipulate reality with toys and games. The puppet show was by far the best scene of the special (there has to be a six hour cut where he just goes over every terrible thing that has happened to the Doctor’s companions!). I’m actually one of the few that really liked how he was defeated, I know most people felt disappointed that the climax was a game of catch,overplayed as it was I think it’s very in line with Doctor Who to have the fate of reality against a god of games come down to something as childishly simple as catch. I didn’t hate the whole bi-generation scene, it’s the 60th anniversary, it’s the Toymaker playing havoc with the rules of reality, you can get away with doing something bizzare for the Doctor’s regeneration into Fifteen. Thematically I like the conclusion to Fourteen’s story and how he stys behind with all the emotional baggage he’s carried for the last 60 years while this new Doctor begins his adventures completely clear of all that was weighing his past self down. That said the explanation for the mystery of Fourteen’s face was a load of bull and yet more Russel stroking his ego. Nothing to do with the Toymaker manipulating reality as I figured going in, no the reason the Doctor regenerated into David Tennant was cos he subconsiously wanted to be David Tennant again! And he also subconsiously wanted to be with Donna again. I’m sure it wasnt intentional but that felt to me like a massive FU to every other Doctor and companion in the show, the only two that matter are Russel’s two golden geese. Which lends itself into the overarching issue with these specials, these weren’t exactly celebrations of the 60 year history of Doctor Who, they were more celebrations of Series 4 of Modern Who. I do enjoy these specials for what they are but again, it felt like Russel putting himself and his own era over everything else in Doctor Who, even Chibnall went the extra mile and brought back several Classic Doctors for his farewell episode.
So that’s my brief rundown of each televised episode of the Fourteenth Doctor era, time will tell if Big Finish wish to do something further with the character. I’ll see you all later today with my final entry.