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Doctor Who 12.03
! ??? !!!!!
So when Jack showed up, I figured this was what the above cut excitement was about, and was glad of it, too. Especially since this is clearly just a teaser and a set up for future appearances. I didn't really mind Moffat not bringing him back, but as it turns out, I did miss him - and I'm very much looking forward to seeing him interact with the Thirteenth Doctor. His snogging Graham was perfect Jackian introduction, too.
But of course, much like Utopia which also featured the return of Jack Harkness to DW, Jack is just a bonus, much as the Judoon are a red herring, for the main event, to wit, a chameleon-arched Time Lord revealed. Just not the Master.
So, I'm as clueless as anyone - including the Doctor - as to where alt!Doctor (Doctor Ruth? Wouldn't put it beyond Chibnall to have picked the human undercover name for the pun) comes from, though my current guess is that this season really is doing the multiverse model. Spyfall brought it up, and Orphan 55 had the Doctor tell her friends that this future of Earth was "one possible timeline". (Just as a contrast and compare: the Toclafane in DW are certainly presented as the end result of the timeline. Humanity's final destination: not looking very bright in the 'verse, either way.) Added to which: I do own the Big Finish audio with an Alt! Third Doctor and Alt!Master, with the timeline parting from the one we know from Second to Third Doctor. So basically, what I think is that this Doctor is in fact from a whole different continuity of regenerations, in an alternate timeline that started early on. Perhaps post Second Doctor as well, but could also be right after the first. And the split of timelines happened, retroactively, when time got out of joint after whatever went down between the Master and Gallifrey resulted in massive destruction and caused ripples in all directions.
Speaking of the Master, the Doctor using her time between adventures (and sometimes overlapping with same) to search for him is all I wanted and didn't get in the first two Moffat seasons re: continuity of seasonal threat. (Meaning: the Moff had a tendency to let the Doctor declare something, be it the crack or the Silence or whatever, to be of utmost importance at the season start and then ignore it until it was the centre of a episode again. Whereas here we do see the Doctor continuing to act on what she's learned in the season opener. This also includes not quite managing the cheerful face for the Companions all the time anymore, and it's equally continuity-pleasing that they notice and realise more and more all she's not telling them.
(BTW, not that I don't get why she does her Master-searching sans Team TARDIS. The Doctor's Companions are always the ones who suffer most when the Master and the Doctor are at it again.)
The episode was well-made, too, in the sense that we got a good idea of what Ruth was like as a human, of her personality, and then, in contrast, of what this version of the Doctor is like. Incidentally: love the actress. What else can I see her in? She pulls it off as well as Derek Jacobi did Professor Yana and the Master. Since she's endeared herself to me very quickly, I hope we'll get more of her on the show. (And later, once they get the licence, at Big Finish.) Since her TARDIS is much closer to the original Gallifreyan design, since Get clearly was unfamiliar with any destruction of Gallifrey and since this Doctor said she and Get used to share the kind of job you can't quit, I assume this alt!timeline is one where the Doctor, perhaps, though not necessarily as Two, get successfully commandeered into the Celestial Intervention Agency and thus did not have the rogue time lord life until this regeneration broke free.
But, see above: all speculation, could all be wrong.
Oh, one last thing: when Jack said the lone Cyberman was/would be sent back to ensure an empire would happen - what do you want to bet he's not actually talking about a Cyber empire but in fact the alt!timeline, where Gallifrey has never fallen?
So when Jack showed up, I figured this was what the above cut excitement was about, and was glad of it, too. Especially since this is clearly just a teaser and a set up for future appearances. I didn't really mind Moffat not bringing him back, but as it turns out, I did miss him - and I'm very much looking forward to seeing him interact with the Thirteenth Doctor. His snogging Graham was perfect Jackian introduction, too.
But of course, much like Utopia which also featured the return of Jack Harkness to DW, Jack is just a bonus, much as the Judoon are a red herring, for the main event, to wit, a chameleon-arched Time Lord revealed. Just not the Master.
So, I'm as clueless as anyone - including the Doctor - as to where alt!Doctor (Doctor Ruth? Wouldn't put it beyond Chibnall to have picked the human undercover name for the pun) comes from, though my current guess is that this season really is doing the multiverse model. Spyfall brought it up, and Orphan 55 had the Doctor tell her friends that this future of Earth was "one possible timeline". (Just as a contrast and compare: the Toclafane in DW are certainly presented as the end result of the timeline. Humanity's final destination: not looking very bright in the 'verse, either way.) Added to which: I do own the Big Finish audio with an Alt! Third Doctor and Alt!Master, with the timeline parting from the one we know from Second to Third Doctor. So basically, what I think is that this Doctor is in fact from a whole different continuity of regenerations, in an alternate timeline that started early on. Perhaps post Second Doctor as well, but could also be right after the first. And the split of timelines happened, retroactively, when time got out of joint after whatever went down between the Master and Gallifrey resulted in massive destruction and caused ripples in all directions.
Speaking of the Master, the Doctor using her time between adventures (and sometimes overlapping with same) to search for him is all I wanted and didn't get in the first two Moffat seasons re: continuity of seasonal threat. (Meaning: the Moff had a tendency to let the Doctor declare something, be it the crack or the Silence or whatever, to be of utmost importance at the season start and then ignore it until it was the centre of a episode again. Whereas here we do see the Doctor continuing to act on what she's learned in the season opener. This also includes not quite managing the cheerful face for the Companions all the time anymore, and it's equally continuity-pleasing that they notice and realise more and more all she's not telling them.
(BTW, not that I don't get why she does her Master-searching sans Team TARDIS. The Doctor's Companions are always the ones who suffer most when the Master and the Doctor are at it again.)
The episode was well-made, too, in the sense that we got a good idea of what Ruth was like as a human, of her personality, and then, in contrast, of what this version of the Doctor is like. Incidentally: love the actress. What else can I see her in? She pulls it off as well as Derek Jacobi did Professor Yana and the Master. Since she's endeared herself to me very quickly, I hope we'll get more of her on the show. (And later, once they get the licence, at Big Finish.) Since her TARDIS is much closer to the original Gallifreyan design, since Get clearly was unfamiliar with any destruction of Gallifrey and since this Doctor said she and Get used to share the kind of job you can't quit, I assume this alt!timeline is one where the Doctor, perhaps, though not necessarily as Two, get successfully commandeered into the Celestial Intervention Agency and thus did not have the rogue time lord life until this regeneration broke free.
But, see above: all speculation, could all be wrong.
Oh, one last thing: when Jack said the lone Cyberman was/would be sent back to ensure an empire would happen - what do you want to bet he's not actually talking about a Cyber empire but in fact the alt!timeline, where Gallifrey has never fallen?
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