I agree with everything you’ve said here, and you’ve articulated a lot of my own thoughts about the Twelfth Doctor and his successor incarnations really well - I agree that he works perfectly as a culmination of that archetype for the character, and that makes it difficult for further incarnations to continue along those lines. I don’t wish to suggest that the character should only follow that archetype either, and I would certainly be happy with a return to the Doctor as more of a traveller/cosmic hobo type. I was actually really hoping that Whitaker and Gatwa would follow that archetype - Whitaker sort of does, but I don’t really think we have that with Gatwa’s Doctor, after the events of the current season.
I think really, I’m just a bit tired of the trauma-ridden, angsty mould that has been followed for most of New Who - it worked brilliantly with Eccleston, but I think it got quite played out by the end of Tennant. I was glad to see that Smith, Capaldi and Whitaker’s Doctors all moved away from that sort of character, but now that RTD is back, he seems to have brought it back with him for Gatwa. I’m not super keen on that, because it’s not really my favourite way of viewing the character, and more importantly, I think it has just become stale after 20 years on and off since we first got it. That’s not to say that version of the character didn’t have its place once upon a time, or that anyone is in the wrong for enjoying it more than I do!
I’ve always taken the view that there tends to be three broad “versions” of the Doctor as a character - the Moffatian “children’s hero” version who is very knowing and always saves the day, the RTD “space jesus” version, who is very human but also sort of a dark, vengeful god at the same time, and the Classic Who version, who as you say is really more of a straightforward traveller, and for the most part is more alien and a bit of a cosmic hobo. I definitely prefer the “children’s hero” and “Classic Who” versions myself, but I don’t mind “space jesus” now and again - I just think that one is harder to get right than the other two.
Well, I didn’t mean to finish parts 8-12 all today but here we are! Yeah it’s as fantastic as everybody said. Seeing 8 manipulate and scheme almost like 7 would, but feel regret throughout and show love and affection to the people he was using was lovely and is such a great interpretation of TimeWar!8 All the character work generally was fantastic, and I love that in classic 5 fashion he was more along for the ride and helped but was never truly the one to resolve things or be in control
Normally longer and slower, more methodical stories don’t fully grip me; but this did its pacing so beautifully and had just more than enough action and amazing cliffhangers to make me never bored.
Absolutely, I love the way Eight is used here as well - he isn’t usually a schemer, so his presence here already feels very unique, but adding in his more empathetic side really makes his role in this story stand out from others even more. This is the second Tim Foley story I’ve heard where the Doctor takes on a kind of benevolent “ferryman of the dead” role to comfort dying characters, and I really love that both for Eight specifically and for the Doctor as a character in general.
I also loved the fact that actually, Five doesn’t figure into Eight’s scheme at all at the end of the day! Kessica is the one he needs to defeat the Hooklight, and Five is only useful to get her where she needs to be to do that in part 12. Five never actually meeting Eight, and instead effectively being distracted with the professor while Eight has the really important conversation with Kessica, was really cleverly done in my opinion, and absolutely not what I expected whilst also feeling very natural. Eight is absolutely spot on in that scene that a meeting between the two would just devolve into Five railing at him for his scheming, and what we ended up getting was far more memorable for me.
