Available now is my overview of all thirteen Christmas specials from 2005 to 2017, featuring the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, each one rated for story strength and Christmassy-ness. A nice bit of nostalgic festive rewatching before Doctor Who returns to the Christmas Day schedules with the Fifteenth Doctor.
Read it now at Television Heaven.
The Giggle is a weird, packed, proudly camp episode, full of striking imagery and some excellent performances. Showrunner Russell T. Davies stakes out his revised vision for the series, giving us the first glimpses of the style of the new Doctor Who. It's worth, once you've watched the episode itself, playing it again with the in-vision commentary available on iPlayer, in which Davies, Tennant and producer Phil Collinson discuss the making of the special, with Davies in particular revealing his own creative process, early draft ideas and concepts that never made it to screen. Davies is vocal about his decision to embrace the more fantastic side of Doctor Who, with the upcoming Christmas special and subsequent season steering away from the science fiction side of things for the most part. It's not that this is new for Doctor Who, which has been firmly on the fantasy side of sci-fi since it began ( the two are really sides of the same genre, and not as different as people tend to think), but it's a statement of intent for the style and content of the adventures we'll see.
It makes perfect sense, then, to bring back the Toymaker as the big, returning villain for the special. Previously he appeared as the eponymous antagonist of the 1966 serial The Celestial Toymaker where he was played by Michael Gough (Batman Returns, The Avengers) and defeated by William Hartnell's original Doctor. The modern Toymaker is played by Neil Patrick Harris, a superstar coup for the show. Best known for How I Met Your Mother, A Series of Unfortunate Events or, for older viewers, as the lead character in Doogie Howser, MD, Harris previously worked with Davies in his seminal Channel 4 drama It's a Sin. Harris gives a magnetic performance that shifts from absurd and over-the-top to deeply sinister with ease.
The Toymaker is one of the few purely fantasy-based beings in Doctor Who, a godlike entity who obeys no rules other than those of the game. He can bend time, space and matter to his will with the slightest thought, and only his adherence to game rules prevents him from being completely unstoppable. His inclusion harks back to the programme's early days, an obvious move for an anniversary story, albeit a more obscure one than most of the villains and monsters who were retooled for the modern era. Three of the four episodes of The Celestial Toymaker are missing from the archives, and the remaining episode reveals as story that is frankly rather dull. (The upcoming animated remake may add some more life into it.)
There's also the distinct issue for a modern audience that the Toymaker's original appearance was racially problematic, with the Caucasian Gough dressed up in archaic Chinese Mandarin robes and putting on a stereotypical cod-Asian inscrutable character. Even the word “celestial” was questionable, meaning cosmic or heavenly in one sense, but also an old-fashioned and insulting word for the Chinese in another. (It's not the only such problem with the serial, which is the only one in Doctor Who's history to contain the N-word.)
Still, the basic concept of the Toymaker is one with huge potential as a villain, and so it was always possible to bring him back, shorn of the celestial baggage. Davies, of course, is fully aware of the issue, and is clever enough to, if not excuse it, then at least accept that it's there and deal with it. Harris's version puts on outrageous German and French accents as part of his manic performance (his rather proper English accent during the final confrontation being just as false, of course) and even makes a lazily racist comment to Charlie de Melo's (Coronation Street) character Charles Banerjee. There's no logical reason that a cosmic entity should appear as a white male human, with a tan verging on the Oompa-Loompa and given to offensive remarks and impersonations of other peoples. There's also no reason why not; it's simply another of the Toymaker's perverse games, presumably designed to antagonise his opponents. By the time it's done, the Doctor is even able to embrace the celestial epithet without the baggage.
Together, Davies and Harris transform the Toymaker into a truly frightening and entertaining villain, a puppetmaster on a grand scale who delivers a mixture of absurdity and surreal nightmare imagery. Whether it's Donna trapped in a room fighting dummies or his ludicrously over-the-top entrance to UNIT's new Avenger's Tower-inspired HQ, the Toymaker's scenes and his realm stick in the mind long after viewing. None of this is entirely original: killer puppets and creepy toyshops have a long history in horror, and the Toymaker's dance number to the Spice Girls is derivative of the Davies's own Last of the Time Lords. That was the Master dancing to the Scissor Sisters, back in 2007; combined with the Doctor's offer to play across the stars with the Toymaker, it comes across as part of a greatest hits package. (The Master must be turning in his tooth.) It would probably have stood out less if the scene hadn't been referenced as recently as last year's The Power of the Doctor (which, for the Doctor, was seemingly only a matter of days ago).
Yet, it's hard to find fault with that, when it's so much fun and especially considering that it's the big anniversary celebration. Of course there's going to be a bit of a greatest hits feel to things. Various characters refer directly to previous adventures, with the Toymaker getting under the Doctor's skin for his failings while simultaneously providing a handy catch-up for those who stopped watching when Tennant left the first time round, and the Doctor himself listing a seemingly arbitrary collection of elements from the full sixty years of this silliness. There are familiar faces too, of course, fewer than we might have expected given the occasion. Jemma Redgrave (Howard's End, Holby City) returns once more as UNIT head Kate Stewart, given far better material to work with than she's had since her introductory story (2012's The Power of Three). More surprising is the inclusion of Bonnie Langford (Just William, EastEnders) as Mel, former companion to the Sixth and Seventh Doctors (Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, respectively). Although her involvement in next year's series had already been announced, and she'd had a brief cameo in The Power of the Doctor, her appearance here was a lovely surprise. She didn't get much to do, but at least she didn't have to scream in key.
On reflection, it's funny how the sixtieth anniversary story tied into the dawn of television, while the BBC Centenary Special was the one that brought back a troop of old Doctors and companions. John Logie Baird's invention of the earliest television is the perfect subject for a Doctor Who story, with the genuinely sinister puppet Stooky Bill being just as unsettling in real life as he was here. John MacKay (Casualty, The Hollow Crown) gives a charming performance as the Baird, reprising his role from Davies's biographical drama Nolly. It was while researching that series that Davies first learned of Stooky Bill, which became the initial basis for this special.
It has to be said, though, that the various elements of this episode don't quite cohere. The idea of a creepy puppet insinuating itself into television works, the godlike puppeteer works, the disturbing concept of humanity being turned into a living comments section works. However, once the Toymaker meets the Doctor, the other elements virtually disappear, given only the briefest of mentions. All of this could tie together beautifully, but not enough time is spent on the earlier ideas to make them fit with the rest of the story. It's perhaps a result of the script starting as Stooky Bill's story, before Davies decided the puppet needed a puppeteer as the main villain, something which immediately suggests using the Toymaker. The grand villain's inclusion eclipses the rest, but it still hangs on there as a relic of an earlier draft. Still, cramming a story with too many ideas is not the worst sin, nor is it one unique to Davies (if anything, he's the showrunner whose work suffers from this the least).
All this leads to the most anticipated part of the episode: the regeneration. This is where it gets really spoiler-y, so if you've managed to avoid details so far and still want to watch it, I'd advise against reading further.
Getting to the cinema is a challenge these days, but I finally got the chance to see The Marvels, a movie I had really been looking forward to. I was aware, of course, of the poor reception of the film, but based on the trailer I was honestly expecting a good time.
.png)
I wasn't wrong. The Marvels is, quite simply, great fun. It's not a groundbreaking or genre-defining instalment, and it's certainly not going to reinvent the Marvel Cinematic Universe, something which, if we're honest, is probably needed at this point. Moviegoers who are tired of the MCU or comicbook movies in general are not going to won round by this, but those who are simply looking for an entertaining adventure are in for a treat.
This movie was always going to have a hard time of it, purely because of the depressingly inevitable backlash from the more misogynistic side of fandom. Much like the She-Hulk series or 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, the actual quality of the film is completely irrelevant to such people. They were downvoting it on ratings sites as soon as it was announced, insisting that their problem wasn't the gender balance, but the writing and acting - before anyone had even seen it. For all the damage these quarters do to a movie's reputation before it even arrives, there's little point engaging with them.
However, women have to work twice as hard to get half as far in this world, and unless a film of this type is a phenomenal work of art, it will be largely written off if the cast if more female than male (or contains multiple people of colour, varied sexualities or gender expression - anything to which the label "woke" can be attached derisively). The Marvels is a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable superhero romp, easily as good as the majority of the MCU.
The story is fairly by-the-numbers, with a maniacal villain perpetrating terrible cosmic crimes, who must be stopped at all costs. Some handy technobabble causes the three characters with light-based powers to become entangled, shifting places with each other when they use their abilities. The plot is primarily there to generate some exciting visuals and provide a reason for the three leads to be brought together so that they can bounce off each other, and this is where the film triumphs.
The stand-out star here is Iman Vellani, returning as Kamala Khan after her breakout series Ms. Marvel. It must be mind-boggling for Vellani, to have been propelled from fan to superstar in such a short time, but she undoubtedly deserves it. Her performance as Kamala is heartfelt, adorable, relatable and resolute. Seeing Kamala encounter her hero Captain Marvel is a blockbuster-scale version of one of us meeting the our favourite movie star, and Kamala's joy, mixed with fear of disappointing her hero, is brilliantly portrayed by Vellani. As the story progresses, she matures, stepping up as a hero while never losing her idealism.
She provides a great contrast to Brie Larson's Carol Danvers, who has been operating as Captain Marvel for thirty years at this point, in-universe. Thankfully, the film doesn't go down a "never meet your heroes" route of dragging Danvers down, but she is weighed down by responsibility and the mistakes she's made. The script is brave enough to show us that the first thing Danvers did was foul up massively, causing a chain reaction of events that devastated the Kree homeworld, while still maintaining her as a hero it's right to look up to. Larson's performance as Danvers has received some flack since her first appearance in Captain Marvel, but I don't get it. She's a powerful leading lady, and dominates events even as she is generous to her co-stars.
This gives Teyonah Parris the tough job of being the third member of the team, neither the main lead nor the up-and-coming youngster. She does an amazing job in a tricky position, making Monica Rambeau the most down-to-earth and pragmatic member of the trio, but also the one we might look up to the most. With even less experience in using her powers than Kamala, Monica has the steepest learning curve of all, while grappling with far more complicated feelings for her Aunt Carol than Kamala's fannish worship. Having given a strong performance in WandaVision, Parris really steps up here and makes Monica a central figure of the film.
The supporting cast are all very good as well, with Samuel L. Jackson putting in a reliably entertaining and worldweary performance as Nick Fury (rather more engaging than the theoretically richer material in Secret Invasion). The script is wise enough to remember that Kamala's family are central to her story, and while it takes a bit of contrivance to keep the Khans in the middle of the action, it keeps things on a human level even when the weirder space stuff starts happening.
The weakest member of the cast is, surprisingly, Zawe Ashton as villainous Dar-Benn. She's not bad, by any means, but puts in an arch and hammy performance that, while fun, seems ill-judged for a character who has a genuine and understandable grievance with Danvers. It's one occasion when making the villain cartoonish was the wrong move for the story. It makes her treatment of the Skrulls too simplistically evil, when something cleverer could have been done. Still, it's good to see the Skrulls being used in a positive way in the story again, unlike the mixed messages of Secret Invasion which too heavily linked refugees with terrorists. A dignified performance by Gary Lewis, under a mountain of make-up, as the Skrull leader helps.
In spite of there being some serious themes here, the film is joyfully silly and over-the-top. Some critics have had problems with the film's tonal shifts, and it's a fair point, but I feel that these jumps are all part of the frenetic journey of the story. Suddenly stepping across genres into an impromptu Bollywood-esque musical number, or hingeing the climactic act on alien cats is a delirious way of keeping the story fresh and surprising. It does, however, need a stronger villain to ground the threat that drives the plot.
There are other elements that I loved. The effects are spectacular, combined with some absolutely stunning fight choreography (the best since Daredevil, I'd say), making the film into a visual feast. It's also consistently funny in a low-key, unforced way, more Spider-Man than Guardians of the Galaxy. In the comics, Monica was Captain Marvel before Carol got a chance, and has had various names including Photon, Spectrum and Pulsar, making Kamala's continual workshopping of her superhero identity a fun running gag. There are some fun cameos by other MCU stars, some expected, some not. Park Seo-Joon, who I understand is a big deal in Korea, stood out as the charismatic Prince of Aladna, and deserved more screentime.
While it's never going to top the polls of MCU movies, The Marvels is simply tremendously entertaining, and I can see it becoming a film that I will rewatch often simply because of how much fun it is. And, you know, it's a comicbook movie - isn't that really the point?
Extra spoiler-y bits after the cut
The middle episode of Doctor Who’s three sixtieth anniversary specials is a deeply unsettling, inventive and unexpectedly slimmed-down story. The secrecy around its content led many fans to assume there would be some manner of exciting reveal or a character making a surprise return. Instead, the secrecy served to maintain the surprises of the story itself, giving us the one episode in which we had no idea what to truly expect. Understandably, some viewers were disappointed by this, although no event episode can ever quite live up to fan hopes and expectations. While the episode we got might not have felt much like a special, it was indeed something rather special.
What stands out about Wild Blue Yonder is just how little there is to it. Aside from the opening and closing scenes, the cast is comprised of only David Tennant and Catherine Tate, fulfilling two roles each, in an isolated location. Even the location is limited, being made up from a handful of claustrophobic sets and a vast central area that was rendered digitally. This allows for some freedom in creating uncanny effects, which, while deeply disquieting, are perhaps not used to their fullest extent. Still, this is an occasion where maybe less is more, and using the effects sparingly is the more effective way to create a new and alien environment.
With the TARDIS still careering out of control, the Doctor and Donna are dropped into a huge, cavernous spacecraft. Naturally, the Doctor can’t resist wandering off in spite of the potential danger and Donna’s reluctance to leave the TARDIS. In this respect, at least, the episode perfectly evokes the history of the programme; the Doctor’s been behaving like that since the very beginning. (At least he didn’t fake the TARDIS’ damage; viewers of the revamped The Daleks in Colour will see how he used to play it.) The TARDIS dematerialises due to the HADS (the Hostile Action Displacement System, another callback), running away from whatever danger it has senses and leaving the travellers stranded.
The Doctor’s universe has been populated with so many forms of time and space travel by now that this is, potentially, not such a problem as it might first appear, but this situation is unusually dire. The ship is stranded at the very edge of the universe, beyond matter, light and energy, at the cusp of a dangerous nothingness. There’s simply no getting home, something which immediately horrifies Donna and even unsettles the Doctor. We’ve had occasional glimpses of the Doctor being up against the truly unknown, and his lack of knowledge is clearly both frightening and exhilarating for him. Donna, on the other hand, is faced with the possibility of never seeing her family again, leaving them to wait for her indefinitely. Still, the Doctor isn’t wrong when he points out that Donna took little convincing to go and explore, and she rapidly adjusts to the situation.
Tate is excellent as the older Donna. Over these two episodes so far, she’s been recognisably the same brash, no-nonsense London temp, but she also displays a maturity and level-headedness we’ve seen little of before. The same is true of the Doctor. Last week I said there was little to separate the Fourteenth Doctor from the Tenth in terms of Tennant’s performance, but this episode, with more time to spend simply in the characters’ company, allows both of them to show how they’ve changed. The new Doctor shares many of the mannerisms of his earlier self, but he’s more patient, more emotionally attentive, and humbler. He and Donna come across as genuine old friends here; happy in each other’s company, sharing humour, sniping at each other good-naturedly and occasionally coming to genuinely cross words, but dealing with it reasonably. It’s a world away from the clash of personalities way back in 2006.
Given the time spent in just the two leads’ company, and the amount of it used to simply talk and explore their feelings, we learn some interesting things about the Doctor. While the more reactionary are spinning around at the Doctor’s apparent attraction to men in this incarnation, the more interesting stuff comes as he opens up about his guilt over the damage done to the universe by the Flux. This, and the confirmation that the Doctor’s origins are ultimately unknown, refute the idea that Russell T. Davies would jettison the events of Chris Chibnall’s tenure, specifically the revelation of The Timeless Children and the universe-shattering events of Flux. That said, Davies delivers more revealing and real exploration of their effect on the Doctor in five minutes of dialogue than Chibnall did over a season’s worth of episodes.
Of course, much of the dialogue in the episode isn’t between the Doctor and Donna, but between them and their respective duplicates. The edge of the universe is home to some terrifying things, it seems, with no form or thought of their own, and desperate to have ours. The idea of a being that is slowly refining its appearance and responses until it’s a perfect copy of you isn’t entirely original, of course – it crops up in all manner of science fiction and fantasy settings – but remains chilling. Tennant and Tate are both brilliant as the copies of the Doctor and Donna, giving subtly different performances when we’re not meant to be certain of their identities, and becoming distressingly malicious when the cat’s out of the bag.
The creatures’ warping forms skirt that thin line between frightening and ridiculous. It’s a safe level of body horror for family viewing – tea-time terror for tots – but it’s nonetheless uncanny enough to truly unsettle if it hits you the right way. (It certainly worked on me.) The physical effects, of grotesquely disproportionate limbs and so on, works better than the CGI elements, which unfortunately comes off as a little cheap looking. That is an unfortunate issue with the effects all round; this is clearly the cheap episode, and while the Disney money has obviously been spent well, BBC programming is never going to hold up against the quality of Disney’s own effects-heavy material.
Isn’t that, though, rather the point of Doctor Who? If there’s one thing this series has shown us over the years, is that there’s nothing wrong with ambition exceeding ability from time to time. Wild Blue Yonder crafted a story that focused almost entirely on two actors in a white corridor, and elevated it to a slice of existential horror that, albeit briefly, genuinely convinced us that the heroes might not both survive this one. Given that we know they’re both coming back next week, that’s no mean feat at all.
There are a few other elements on the alien ship, though. The little robot, which ties in so simply yet effectively to the plot, is a cure little critter, although the long-dead pilot of the ship, a simple yet effective and refreshingly non-humanlike creature, better fits the strange and unsettling nature of the story. The organic elements of the ship, which the Doctor, perfectly in character, insisted on tasting, were fun as well. It would be funny if it turns out they were poisonous after all, and that’s what leads him to regenerate next week.
In spite of the strength of the material in the main story, it’s the bookends that will provoke the most comment. The cliffhanger ending, which will lead us into the grand finale, is slim in itself, but will be remembered fondly as the last appearance of Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott. Cribbens, to whom the episode is dedicated, did his very last filming for this episode, which unfortunately had to be cut down due to his health. A brief reunion by necessity, it’s a joyful one, and it’s quite right that such a beloved figure make one last appearance, particularly since Cribbins has been with Doctor Who almost since the beginning (he played companion Tom in the feature film Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD in 1966).
At the other end of the episode we had a very brief run-in with Isaac Newton, on the day of his fateful apple encounter. There’s already been a great deal of comment, not all of it civil, about the casting of Nathaniel Curtis as the young Newton. Most likely it was nothing more than Davies wanting to cast his It’s a Sin star in a brief role, but the incongruity of having an actor of colour play the historic English scientist has caused a stir. It’s hardly worth worrying about, for what amounts to a throwaway gag.
Or is it? The episode continued with the Doctor and Donna repeatedly substituting gravity for “mavity,” which at first just seems like them taking the mick… until you realise, of course, that they no chance to hear Newton get the word wrong in the first place. Is this, perhaps, a hint that they have made a genuine change to history? Given that the Doctor is also concerned with his introduction of superstition to the edge of space, it’s tempting to wonder if the seeds of something are being sown. There’s also the question of just why the TARDIS chose to play “Wild Blue Yonder” in the first place, other than to provide this episode with an opaque title. Was it simply a chance for Davies to address a pet peeve, and correct people on the nature (and the name) of the song? Or was the TARDIS playing a war song for a reason? While the episode appears to be very much self-contained, there could well be fallout yet to come.
Links and References: Very few. Davies removed a line in which the Doctor hinted at previous encounters with the edge of the universe, but even this gave little away. Davies noted that this serial has some similarities to Underworld, another story set at the edge of space and using (very primitive) virtual sets.
The Fourth Doctor previously mentioned dropping apples on Newton's head. Unless the TARDIS landed on top of him this time, he probably talking rubbish. The Fifth Doctor met Newton in the audio Circular Time, where he was played by the late, great David Warner.
4-9 - "The Inner Fight"
Getting back to these reviews to finish off the season after being sidelined by various sf anniversaries, and we have what might be the most satisfying finale for Lower Decks in terms of character work. The penultimate episode gives Mariner the focus she's needed all season, dumping her on a brutal planet and forcing her to confront the reasons behind her self-sabotage. It's indicative of the way the writing on this show has grwon, in that the character's motivation was initially presented as being nothing more complex than trying to avoid hard work while sticking it to her mum. Building on the gradual revelations about her background, Mariner's motivations make perfect sense, while incorporating some surprisingly deep Trek lore.
Lower Decks has been particularly heavily indebted to The Next Generation from the beginning, taking its name and basic concept from a seventh season episode. It feels right that Mariner's trauma calls back to this, with the unexpected, but perfectly plausible, revelation that she was friends with Sito Jaxa at the Academy. Sito's death during the episode "Lower Decks," was one of TNG's most powerful character deaths, even though it was entirely off screen. Hearing that her friend's commitment to the mission and her own advancement led to her, presumably brutal, death at the hands of her people's conquerors has weighted heavily on Mariner's mind for years (it's not entirely clear what year this season is set in, but it's no less than ten years since the event, possibly as much as fourteen).
Piled on top of this is the added trauma of the Dominion War, which we already knew Mariner fought in. It's satisfying to see the ongoing Trek universe finally explore the fallout from the war, here and in Picard's last season. It makes sense that Starfleet has been recruiting hard and pushing promotion in order to build up ranks again following the losses of the war, and just as plausible that someone like Mariner would do everything she could to avoid being put in the position where she'd be giving orders that could result in her friends' and colleagues' deaths. It also ties in nicely to the series' occasional looks at Starfleet's clear status as a military organisation, even while it's desperate to paint itself as something else entirely.
While that's the main point of the episode, around it we get to have a lot of fun. We follow up on what happened to the crews of the alien ships that were attacked and stolen, finding them living as a rag-bag bunch of survivors on a dangerous planet. It's also about time Ma'ah (aka Mach, Magh, depending on your subtitles) arrived into the main narrative, and it's great that he and Mariner bond. As the most truly honourable of Klingons, he was the right person to force her to face up to her demons.
Meanwhile, the Cerritos crew are on the trail of Nick Locarno, as a potential target of the alien ship which is now seemingly targeting ex-Starfleet officers. New Axton is, of course, just Tatooine under a different name, but it's fun to have a bit of Star Wars in our Star Trek now and again, and the sheer number of familiar Trek aliens milling around the place made it feel like home. Of course, the reveal that Locarno was behind the whole thing ties it all together, setting up the finale beautifully.
Observations:
4-10 - "Old Friends, New Planets"
The whole season is brought together in the finale, tying up the storyline of the mysterious starship - the Nova One - and its crew of merry mutineers. It's far beyond time that Nick Locarno's story was followed up on; after all, he was meant to be on Voyager, but the showrunners bottled it and created Tom Paris, who's basically the same character but watered down.
I love the idea of someone expelled from Starfleet who then goes off the deep end, seeing themselves as the hard done by party. His fleet of ships, crewed by an autonomous collective of disenfranchised extraterrestrials is a great idea, even if their actual plan - to hole themselves up behind a forcefield for god knows how long - doesn't really make sense. But then, should it make sense? The fact that none of them have really thought this through is surely part of the point, and doesn't reduce the damage they can do in the mean time.
There are some lovely voice cameos in this epiosde. Of course, we knew Robert Duncan McNeill would be in it after last episode - with the characters naturally commenting on the likeness shared between his two characters - but it was a fun surprise to hear not only Wil Wheaton, but also Shannon Fill, returning to acting after some time to play Sito once again. The flashback to the Academy helped tie everything up, as well as showing us a version of Mariner who was more enthusiastic and greener aorund the gills than the one we know now.
The resolution to the problem took on all sorts of twists and turns, from the Mark Twain Manoeuvre to the trip to Orion. While I doubt we'll be missing Tendi for long, I hope there's at least some time in season five for the main characters to deal with her absence, and perhaps to see how she does sharing power with D'Erika on the homeworld. Bringing in T'Lyn as the fifth member of the team over the course of the season makes particular sense now, as she's poised to take Tendi's place as the science enthusiast, so it'll be interesting to see how things go when Tendi eventually comes back.
The inclusion of the Genesis Device was a bit of a surprise, although it was kind of telegraphed by the very Wrath of Khan-esque music and effects throughout the episode (the one departure from the TNG-fest this has been). If there are any complaints, it's that Maah and the other alien captains were left out of the loop, when it really felt like it should be part of the solution. Still, these are only half-hour episodes, and there's only so much they can do in the time. It's not like they're not ludicrously packed as it is.
So, altogether, a brilliant end to the season, once more shaking things up for the next round.
Observations:
After thirteen months, Doctor Who is back on our screens, and after almost fourteen years, Russell T. Davies has delivered a Doctor Who episode starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate. It's an odd way to launch a new era of the programme, one intended to bring in a whole new audience through the BBC and Bad Wolf's deal with Disney, by leaning so heavily on the programme's past. Yet it's also a canny move, calling back to one of Doctor Who's most popular periods, drawing back older viewers who have drifted away during the interim.
Since his final episode as the lead, The End of Time – Part Two on New Year's Day 2010, Tennant has returned before, opposite his successor Matt Smith for the fiftieth anniversary special The Day of the Doctor. That was quite a different thing though; a Doctor returning as a guest alongside the current star is a favourite way to celebrate a milestone. Ten years on, this is something new: a former lead stepping back in to star in the show once again, with the Doctor regenerating back into an old form.
It's a backward-looking step for the normally forward-moving series, and one that has previously been dismissed. (Many people called for perennial favourite Tom Baker to return to the role to revamp the series in years past, and the programme's original creator Sydney Newman even pushed for Patrick Troughton to make a one-season comeback when consulted on the series' future in the 1980s.) It's something they can only really get away with on this one occasion, for a short run marking the sixtieth anniversary.
Fortunately, Davies is too canny a writer to simply wring this for nostalgia without constructing an absorbing storyline to justify it. The Star Beast is an exciting, funny, and moving tale in itself, but also the beginning of a short arc that explores the mystery surrounding the return of the Doctor's old face and his fated reunion with Donna Noble.
Tennant, still a popular and familiar face on our screens thanks to hits such as Good Omens, Around the World in 80 Days and Staged, strides back in and takes over as the Doctor as if he'd never been away. Based on this first episode, the new Fourteenth Doctor is little different to the Tenth, displaying the same quirks and style, save for his sudden emotional honesty. He even openly admits to loving several people, something that had been anathema to him in his earlier life. Otherwise, there's little to set the two incarnations apart so far, although we have another two specials to further explore the character.
Just as impressive is Catherine Tate as Donna, always the most real and believable of the Doctor's companions, now older and happier, but always trying to shake off a sense of profound loss. Tate's performance is moving and hilarious by turns, reminding us just how far her character has come since her first appearance in the 2006 Christmas special The Runaway Bride. Her original exit, in the otherwise overblown fourth season finale Journey's End in 2008, was heartbreaking. Naturally, it can't be expected that the audience will be familiar with or remember the story, which saw Donna become, briefly, part-Time Lord, absorbing some of the Doctor's personality and knowledge. With this threatening to burn out her mind, the Doctor was forced to wipe her memory of him, erasing everything she had learned and experienced over her travels. The episode recaps this, first rather clumsily in an in-character introduction by Tennant and Tate, and later more naturally through the story itself.
The End of Time had rather unsatisfyingly skirted the issue when it included Donna in its story. The Star Beast faces it head on, with the threat that Donna will join the dots and match up this strange man and the extraterrestrial goings-on with her suppressed memories never far away. Her death as her mind gives out seems inevitable towards the episode's climax, even though we know she's going to be in the next two. It's a testament to the writing and performances that this is sold so well.
Donna's family return as well, with the wonderful Jacqueline King (55 Degrees North, Adult Material) as Donna's mother Sylvia, and Karl Collins (The Bill, Hollyoaks) as her husband Shaun Temple, finally getting some actual character after his brief appearance in The End of Time. Most important, though, is the introduction of a new member of the family, fifteen-year-old Rose Noble, played by twenty-year-old up-and-comer Yasmin Finney (Heartstopper). Finney gives a warm, likeable and sympathetic performance as Rose, who is, unknowingly, named after the Doctor's earlier companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). Both Finney and Rose are transgender, and this is a major focus of the story. It would be enough for the programme to feature a trans character and explore her experiences as an end in itself. In this case, though, Davies has crafted a story where Rose's gender identity is crucial to the resolution of the plot. It culminates in one of the most unsubtle yet powerfully affirming moments in the series' history. After Chris Chibnall's controversial era as showrunner, there were really fans who thought that Davies would tone down the “wokeness” of the series. As if Davies would ever knowingly make something less woke.
The same people who have a problem with a prominent trans character in their favourite show will likely have similar issues with the new character Shirley Ann Bingham, played by Ruth Madeley (Years and Years, The Watch, Then Barbara Met Alan). A wheelchair user, Shirley is one of the most competent and cool characters in the episode, being the heavily-armed new UNIT scientific advisor. (The Doctor claims to have been the first such advisor. I think Liz Shaw may have something to say about that.)
Perhaps the most surprising move on Davies's part is his decision to adapt a 1980 comic strip story into the opening special. Doctor Who and the Star Beast, by Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons, ran over several issues of Doctor Who Weekly (the predecessor to today's Doctor Who Magazine). A beloved story for fans, the strip forms the basis for the new episode, albeit with some quite significant changes, not least the new central characters. The eponymous Star Beast is the Meep, a cute, cuddly and seemingly harmless creature from the stars, here voiced with some brilliance by Miriam Margolyes (Blackadder, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Monkey). It's surely no spoiler to reveal that the Meep is more sinister than it first appears, and Margolyes gives a fabulously entertaining performance. The visual and practical effects that bring the Meep to the screen are some of the best ever seen on the programme (the Disney-backed increased budget is readily apparent throughout), and its enemies, the insectoid Wrarth Warriors, could have stepped straight from the pages of that original comic. Still, the sheer weirdness of seeing Beep the Meep as a primetime drama villain is hard to get over.
The plot is fairly slim, and Davies does occasionally fall victim to some of his perennial dialogue issues, with some unnatural exposition and a reliance on meaningless technobabble to stand for intelligence. It is, however, thoroughly entertaining, coming to a climactic resolution that not only relies on Rose's identity and involvement, but also satisfyingly resolves Donna's story, which is no mean feat. Two further specials will explore the Doctor's mysterious return to his old appearance, leading into the introduction of the eagerly anticipated Fifteenth Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa.
Links and References: They abound. Lovely to see young Fudge, a main character in the original strip. The Doctor refers to resonating concrete, a brief obsession he held in The Doctor Dances. The barrister's wig he keeps in his pocket must be a nod to the similar scene in the Tom Baker serial The Stones of Blood.
Placement: It seems to be very soon after the Doctor's regeneration in The Power of the Doctor, allowing for, if you include them, the DWM comic story Liberation of the Daleks and the Children in Need skit Desination: Skaro, both of which apparently took place across just over an hour.
This isn't the first time Doctor Who and the Star Beast has been adapted to another medium. The 2019 Big Finish audio version was a pretty straight adaptation which sat nicely with the original. Where this episode leaves those versions, and the various other appearances of Beep the Meep in comics and audios, is a mystery.
And one more thing: Davies really missed a trick by not keeping the Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS interior for this episode, and have it regenerate into the new one after Donna destroyed it with her unlucky spillage.
The Colour of Magic was published on 24th November 1983, the first novel in the late, great Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which would eventually run to forty-one books, not including the various tie-ins, short stories, Science of Discworld books, expansive map books and assorted ephemera.
Sadly, Pratchett made an appointment with Death in 2015, after just about finishing the final book, The Shepherd's Crown. He made it known that he didn't truly consider it finished, but he was no longer able to continue editing, and the book was published posthumously a few months after his death. It hardly seems like it can be over eight years since we lost him, but it is somehow true.
The Discworld books have brought me so much joy over the years. They weren't the first of Pratchett's books I read, but there's a reason he so rarely strayed beyond that funny little world once he'd created it. Simply, it's a perfect setting to explore the absurdity and beauty of human life. The Colour of Magic was a pretty straightforward sword-and-sorcery parody, but as the series went on, Pratchett used the Discworld, and particularly its first city, Ankh-Morpork, to take the real world to account. His books were, very soon, works of literary genius, yet they never for one moment stopped being a silly fantasy parody. There was always a touch of cynicism to the books, but by end, they'd become angrier, as Pratchett stopped pulling his punches - but they never stopped being hilarious.
There follows my tenuous top ten Discworld books, which could very well look different if you asked me again next week. It's not a reading order, but it is, perhaps, a good way to start. Or, if you're already a fan and have been reading them for years, a good thing to argue with.
The fourth novel, and the first one to really reach the Discworld's full potential. Death, one of my favourite characters in fiction, a looming, cowled skeleton who comes to claim your soul at the moment after your last moment, is also a rather lovely gent. Often he'd rather be doing anything other than his job. After some fun cameos in the first three books (he'd actually appear in all but two of the novels), Mort is the first to focus on Death and his rather lonely existence.
His bewildered young apprentice, Mort, is a sweet and sympathetic character, even as he beaks reality itself trying to do what he thinks is the right thing. The book also gives us a proper introduction to Death's adoptive daughter, Ysabel, a rather sinister figure in her first brief appearance in Magic but a more loveable one here. Then there's Albert, Death's servant, master of frying and secretly... well, secretly.
9) A Hat Full of Sky (2004)
In the latter years of the series, the stream of novels that focused on the witches branched into a sub-series of Young Adult books starring up-and-coming witch Tiffany Aching. This is her second appearance, aged eleven, and is a sequel to her first book The Wee Free Men and the short story "The Sea and Little Fishes" from the fantasy collection Legends.
In spite of being ostensibly for younger readers, the Tiffany books are among the most intelligent and questioning of Prachett's books (indeed, his kids' books have never talked down to their audience and there's little between them and his adult-aimed works). Tiffany has to deal with learning how to be a witch from much, much older witches who all know best and disagree vehemently with each other, as well as being the Big Wee Hag of the Nac Mac Feegle, Pratchett's race of little people who are both a parody of woad-covered Celtic tribesmen and the Smurfs.
All the Tiffany books are wonderful, but this one stands out for me. In all her storeis the young witch stands as one of the Disc's defenders against powerful entities from beyond, in this case facing the quite terrifying Hiver.
8) Feet of Clay (1996)
7) Witches Abroad (1991)
The third novel of the witches, centring on the first among equals, the great Granny Weatherwax. Equal Rites, the third Discworld novel, had introduced Granny, and Wyrd Sisters had given her a coven. The lascivious Nanny Ogg and the wet-behind-the-ears Magrat Garlick joined Granny, the three standing as the mother, the maiden and... the other one.
Witches Abroad took them on a tour of Genua, a nation reminiscent of New Orleans, with a bit of Southern Europe and a bit of the Caribbean thrown in. When Magrat unexpectedly inherits the role of fairy godmother and must seek out her new ward Emberella, Granny is forced to confont the mystical machinations of her estranged sister Lilith. It's a wonderful send-up of fairytale tropes, while poking fun at parochial attitudes as the Lancre Three find themselves face-to-face with all manner of foreign nonsense and some of the most dreadful jokes in the series. "Get me an alligator sandwich - and don't take too long about it!"
Pratchett does Christmas by taking it back to its dirty pagan roots. The Discworld version of Christmas if Hogswatch, a midwinter festival personified by the Hogfather, a powerful and vital entity who thrives on the belief of the Disc's children. When the Auditors of Reality decide enough is enough and humanity really need to be sorted out, they go for their very soul and employ an assassin to take out the Hogfather. Fortunately, Death is on hand to step in and take the reigns, quite literally.
Human belief and our need to tell stories is central to the Discworld's philosophy, and it's never more present than here. The Hogfather is a grubbier but obvious reflection of Father Christmas or Santa Claus, and likewise has evolved through the centuries as culture has reshaped him. It goes deeper than that, as Death's granddaughter Susan (it's complicated), a governess who beats up bogeymen to help her wards sleep, faces a threat to the very nature of childhood imagination. A perfect Christmas tipple, and a thought-provoker when you're beginning to wonder which of the various minor deities you're going to encourage your child to believe in. You won't think of the Tooth Fairy in the same way again.
5) Going Postal (2004)
A wonderful, Victorian-style novel (it has chapters and everything) which introduces the fabulously named Moist von Lipwig, another late addition to the Discworld's all-time great characters. An unrepentant conman, Moist given one last chance to evade the hangman's noose when the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork appoints him head of the city's ailing Post Office. This may not sound like a recipe for a gripping novel, but it truly is, as Moist faces the brutal opposition of Reacher Gilt, owner of the Clacks network (the Disc's sempahore-based long-distance messaging service). Gilt will stop at nothing to maintain his monopoly over communications, and so unravels a web of conspiracy and murder.
Moist's continual twisting out of trouble as he gradually comes to care about something bigger than himself is a joy to read, as the man proves he can talk his way out of or into almost anything. Going Postal also continues the golems' story, as Moist is assisted by the unstoppable Mr Pump, and falls for the head of the Golem Trust, the formidable Adora Belle Dearheart (aka "Spike"), the one person who can see through everything he tries. Moist's story continues in Making Money and Raising Steam, but sadly it never reached what I am sure was its ultimate endpoint with Moist becoming Patrician himself
Set some considerable time before the other books (although exactly when is a point of some debate), Small Gods follows Brutha, a simple novice of the Omnian Church. A brutal theocracy, Omnia adheres strictly to the worship of the great god Om. You might think that a monotheistic religion wouldn't do too well on a world that is objectively home to thousands of gods, but there we are - as long as he has enough believers, Om will remain the great and powerful one god of them all. Unfortunately, when he chooses to manifest for the final time, he discovers that Brutha is the only one left who actually believes in him. As a result of this, he manifests as a small, grumpy, one-eyed tortoise.
A savage satire on organised religion, Small Gods takes on the close-mindedness and hypocrisy of "true believers," the brutality of Christian history and the difference between religion and faith without mercy. Yet, in true Discworld style, it remains whimsical, witty and very funny. This should be required reading at any faith school.
One of the last books in the series, and one of the best, Snuff is another one that focuses on Sam Vimes of the Watch. By this stage he has moved up several stations in life, and is now Duke of Ankh, much to his chargrin. Holidaying in the countryside with his wife, Lady Sybil Ramkin, and their poo-obsessed son Sam, Vimes stumbles upon one of the few truly brutal crimes to appear in the series, as a young girl is found to have been murdered. That girl is, however, a goblin, the last of the uncivilised fantasy races of the Discworld, underground dwellers generally considered vermin by "civilised" society.
While Snuff is a little less accessible than most of the books, being that it builds on a number of elements from earlier stories, Pratchett's deftness means that it's easy to catch up on the complexities of latter-day Discworld lore and politics. As with Feet of Clay, Snuff deals with the dehumanisation of other cultures, with the ever-present reality that even in the most progressive societies there are alsways some who are treated as the lowest of the low. By this point, the Watch itself includes dwarfs, trolls, vampires, a werewolf, a gnome and a golem, and even - gasp! - foreigners. Goblins, however, are just animals, right? But when had anyone ever tried talking to them to find out?
While there's some unflinching stuff in here, there's also some of the series' most wholesome material. The meeting between Young Sam and the goblin girl Tears of the Mushroom is particularly sweet.
The second Death-centric book, and the last to focus on him alone without involving Susan. This is a tale of two halves, in some editions even presenting them in different typefaces. One thread deals with Death's unceremonious sacking, leading him to take up a new life as a farmhand for the wonderfully straightforward Miss Flitworth. The other deals with the consequences of the temporary lack of a psychopomp, as spare life force builds up, causing peculiar supernatural events, such as the unexpected un-death of elderly wizard Windle Poons. (Pratchett truly had a way with names; unlike Death, who take an age to come up with the moniker Bill Door.)
It's a slim book, in spite of the two storylines, but it's quite perfectly contained and rather moving. Death's story is the better of the two, as he learns a little more of what it means to be human, with his very respectful friendship with Miss Flitworth being a highlight. The other section, the Ankh-Morpork part, introduces various supernatural characters, some of whom, such as zombie rights activist Reg Show and small-medium-at-large Mrs Cake, reappear in later books. It also brings in the current Faculty of Unseen University, who have to deal with the side effects of the excess life force, and an alien invasion of Ankh-Morpork, in the form of snow globes. Believe it or not, it does eventually make sense.
Reaper Man is an easy read that, in spite of its silliness, will stick with you a long time after you finish it.
1) Night Watch (2002)
Absolute perfection. While the City Watch books include some of the very best of the series, Night Watch stands above them all, as Sam Vimes is thrown back thirty years into Ankh-Morpork history, in the days building up to the Glorious Revolution. Immediately arrested by his own younger, greener self, Vimes is forced to step into the shoes of his own mentor after he is murdered by Carcer, the truly vile character who is also swept back in time.
Much of the fun of this novel comes from seeing the younger versions of familiar characters, such as Havelock Vetinari, destined to become Patrician but currently an unpopular boy at the Assassins' Guild School; the boy - or boy-like individual - known as Nobby Nobbs, one day to become the least law-abiding watchman ever; and a still livign Reg Shoe, already a staunch campaigner for, well, anything going. Nonetheless, it's still a riveting story for a newcomer to the series, a gripping thriller that reminds us that power - be it that of the politician or policeman - comes with both responsibility and tempation. It also reminds us that history is going on around us all the time, and that we might just have to stand our ground when faced with the darker realities of that.
It's a harder, less comedic book, but all the stronger for it, and when the laughs come, they're truly earnt.
It's a bit odd to be sitting down and reviewing a five-minute skit from Children in Need, but here we are. There's already been a minor explosion in online discourse about this silly thing, thanks to its gleeful rewriting of Doctor Who continuity.
Look, the thing about Doctor Who is that it's been going for sixty years, has been written by dozens of people, many of them gleefully contradicting their own material, let alone everyone else's. And that's only if you watch the actual TV series and ignore all the expanded universe stuff. It's fun to try to make it all fit, but it's essentially impossible, because it is, after all, made up.
At the end of the day, this is a bit of fluff, nothing to take to seriously, even if RTD has declared it canonical. I rather enjoyed it - a fun skewering of the Daleks, who are wonderful but also very silly. It's our first proper look at David Tennant in his return to the role, and from what little we've seen so far there's no difference between the Tenth Doctor and the Fourteenth.
Julian Bleach does a good job in his old role of Davros, seen here presumably some time before his terrible injuries. I understand that RTD didn't want to continue to depict Davros as a disabled character who was therefore considered evil and monstrous, and this is one of Doctor Who's Victorian fiction holdovers that probably doesn't have much place today. Still, it's not always a good idea to mess with such an iconic character. Then again, a few minutes in a charity skit is hardly going to overwrite the popular image of the villain, any more than this story will overwrite the actual events of Genesis of the Daleks.
Mawaan Rizwan is great as Davros's previously unseen colleague Castavillian (cool name), and there's a pitch perfect impression of Peter Miles's Nyder off screen, and there's even a brief hint at the Daleks' oneday taking on the name Klade (as seen in the far future history of Lance Parkin's works). When it comes to it, though, this is a very limited story only ever intended to be a bit of fun, and that's what it is. And if it distorts Doctor Who's long history for a moment? Why not? This is a show about time travel, after all.
The first Forgotten Lives was a real treat, taking those eight face in their various hats and false beards and extrapolating them into distinct characters, all unique versions of the Doctor. Andrew Hickey created the Christopher Baker Doctor in “The Cross of Venus,” a wonderful retro-futuristic adventure which introduced this jolly Doctor and the mischievous Jilly and Cedric. I practically begged editor Philip Purser-Hallard to be considered for the second volume, and was fortunate enough that he asked me to submit an idea.
I actually submitted two (there’s another reason for some indulgent fanfic), one for the Baker Doctor and one for his predecessor, PPH’s own creation, the Robert Banks Stewart incarnation. These Doctors – the explorer and doting father, and the wartime occult operative – were the ones who sparked my imagination the most. The second volume was presumably intended as the last, at the time, and was meant to deal with the various Doctors’ regenerations. By the time I was asked to submit, it had changed direction, with two stories for each Doctor, and only a handful involved regeneration. Andrew Hickey gave us another for his Doctor, “Swan Song,” a more melancholy story than his first, while I got to write “The First Englishmen,” very much a silly romp in an lost, imagined past than a lost, imagine future.
I was surprised when PPH asked me to submit another story for the Baker Doctor, with a short turnaround due to the upcoming revamp of the series which, potentially, could make it harder to get away with unauthorised publications. (These things go in waves.) He came up with a brilliant hook for this collection, tying the eight stories together and back to their inspiration. We batted some ideas back and forth, coming back often to the transition between our Doctors. PPH’s story “House of Images” had introduced the Banks Stewart Doctor into a fully realised setting, with his own fascinating companion, Miss Weston. Kenton Hall’s “The Hounds of War” and Matthew Kresal’s “The Rosewell Incident” expanded this, and PPH was now working on a story to move his Doctor and Miss Weston onto the next phase of their story.
Yet this Doctor had no regeneration, so my Doctor had no beginning. This, certain story coincidences, a joke by the first volume’s artist Paul Hanley (whose Doctor portraits were as vital in breathing life into these Doctors as the stories were), allowed us to come up with the bare bones of the story that saw the Banks Stewart Doctor become the Baker Doctor.
"Scientific Advisor" is not that story. It does impact on it, rather heavily, but it isn’t the story either of us wanted to tell. No, my story was informed far more by my own experiences. Between the second volume and my being asked to write for the third, my partner Suzanne and I had a mischievous child of our own. This led me to want to tell a very different story this time, although it also made it much more difficult to find time to sit down and write the thing in the very tight turnaround we had.
I managed it, though, with some much-needed encouragement and support, and a new and essential chapter in the Christopher Baker Doctor’s life is nearly here. So thank you to Philip for working with me and creating this wonderful set of books, Andrew Hickey for giving life to my new favourite Doctor, Suz for making me sit down and work, TVMigraine for being my first, honest-to-goodness fan, and to Astrid for changing how I view my world (through very tired eyes).
I hope you enjoy it, and the stories by seven other wonderful authors.
You can order Forgotten Lives 3 here until the 1st of December 2023.
I am thrilled to announce that the third and final collection of the Doctor's Forgotten Lives is now available to order from Obverse Books, featuring eight new Doctor Who stories including my second story for the Christopher Baker Doctor and his children Jilly and Cedric.
"How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?'
The Doctor has inhabited countless personas, some of which even he seems to have forgotten.
Long ago, in a deadly battle with a rogue Time Lord, eight of those past lives were brought briefly into focus, only to disappear once more.
Now, those Doctors return, in the final stories from their forgotten lives.
FORGOTTEN LIVES III - Available for pre-order from now until 1 December
https://obversebooks.co.uk/product/forgotten/
Featuring
‘The Seven Scholars and the Storyteller’ by Simon Bucher-Jones (featuring the Christopher Barry Doctor)
‘The Country of the Young’ by Philip Purser-Hallard (featuring the Robert Banks Stewart Doctor)
‘Scientific Advisor’ by Daniel Tessier (featuring the Christopher Baker Doctor)
‘The Swan and the Flame’ by Kara Dennison (featuring the Philip Hinchcliffe Doctor)
‘Hope Springs’ by Chris Wing (featuring the Douglas Camfield Doctor)
‘Admission to the Unknown’ by Ian McIntire (featuring the Graeme Harper Doctor)
‘Who Needs Enemies’ by Jay Eales (featuring the Robert Holmes Doctor)
‘The Lungs of a Birastrop’ by Paul Driscoll (featuring the George Gallaccio Doctor)
Edited by Philip Purser-Hallard.
Cover art by Jon Huff.
Cover design by Cody Schell.
Make sure you order soon - after 1st December all orders will be over and that will be that!
This is an unofficial publication with all profits to Alzheimer charities.
A long time ago, I began work on my third full-length story for The Doctor Who Project, Timebase, which at the time was intended to feature the TDWP Tenth Doctor.
In the end, though, I never finished it. Sometimes stories just don't seem to come together, and while I think Timebase had some really good ideas, I just couldn't get it to work.
However, it has since been revived - regenerated, if you will. Meg MacDonald and Hamish Crawford have reworked the story based on my original draft. It's not quite the story I had planned, and has been altered to feature the new TDWP TARDIS team of the TDWP Eleventh Doctor and Maggie. Hamish in particular has jettisoned elments that were dragging it down and tied it up into a proper story.
So, finally, we can present Doctor Who: Timebase, available for free PDF download.
A highlight of the season so far, the sixth episode takes us back to Ferenginar, a planet we used to visit quite regularly on Deep Space 9 but haven't seen since. Surprisingly, for a series so involved in Trek lore, Lower Decks hasn't spent a great deal of time moving the Trek universe forward, generally leaving this kind of thing to the live action shows. We've previously had a DS9 follow-up episode with 3-6, "Hear All, Trust Nothing" (perhaps episode six could become an annual DS9 tribute) but all that really told us about the post-Nemesis era is that some limited negotiations have started with Dominion members.
"Parth Ferengi's Heart Place" (love that title) on the other hand takes a big step forward by showing us the Ferengi Alliance's application to join the United Federation of Planets, a huge deal and one that would have been unthinkable when the Ferengi were first introduced. Under the rule of Grand Nagus Rom, though, things are different. (Plus, Discovery suggests that the Ferengi join sometime before the 32nd century, albeit nothing more concrete than that.)
Like "Hear All," we have a favourite Bajoran and Ferengi return, with Chase Masterson and Max Grodenchik once again voicing Leeta and Rom, now the first couple of the Alliance. (Like Armin Shimerman in that earlier episode, Grodenchik sounds quite different, likely partly due to age but mostly due to not having to perform lines with a mouth full of jagged false teeth.) I loved Rom's characterisation in this episode: he's the moderate Ferengi, of course, but he's still a Ferengi, and his commitment to not merely get a good deal for Ferenginar, but ensure that his culture is respected by the Federation is perfect.
On Ferenginar itself, Tendi and Rutherford up the will-they-won't-they stakes when they have to play a happy couple, and while I was disappointed they didn't finally get together, at least they were forced to face their attraction to each other, even if they're both doing their best to ignore or deny it. Surely we'll see them in a clinch by the end of the season? This is silly but beautifully realised comedy work, and while it's a sitcom cliche to have two characters have to fake being romantically involved, the added layer of jeopardy makes it work. Of course faking a relationship to get a special discount package would be a crime on Ferenginar.
There's a lot going on in this episode. Boimler's addiction to Ferengi TV is the smallest part of the story, but works pretty well, while Mariner is finally facing up to her self-destructive tendencies. It's good to see her character slowly moving forward. Nice to see her buddy Quimp again, who previously appeared in "Envoys," only the second episode of the series. Fun though these storylines are, they're C-plots, and it's the Rom/Leeta/Freeman and Tendi/Rutherford plots that make the episode work.
Fun bits and callbacks:
