Happy Tenth Anniversary everyone!! Today over on my Tumblr account I'm blogging the moments from Doctor Who that make me smile. (The artwork is all made by much more talented people than me!) All the New Who moments that put a big fat grin on my face. Because yeah, there are amazing themes and arcs and characters, but Doctor Who is just pure fun as well.

Some shows hold a special place in your heart, and Doctor Who is one of those for me. I live with multiple chronic illnesses and chronic pain, and I rely on film and TV to distract me when it all gets too much. Escapism isn't a bad thing, especially if it reminds you of the good things in the real world, and Doctor Who is fantastic escapism. It has made me smile so many times, through a lot of otherwise shitty days and nights, sometimes when nothing else could cheer me up.

Doctor Who has inspired me to take writing seriously, and to try to become a better TV and film reviewer. And it's been a conversation-starter with so many unexpected people. One day when a hospital clinic nurse called to assess me for an appointment, we got talking, and I soon found out that he was a huge Classic Who fan, and wanted to know whether New Who was worth watching. So we talked about the Autons, and whether the Cybermen are scarier than the Daleks - as you do when you've just met someone! Doctor Who has this great way of connecting enthusiastic people with each other. I love that.

I'm so grateful for this brilliant show and for all the people who made it happen. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Russell T Davies - I love his work and if he hadn't decided to revive Doctor Who over ten years ago, we wouldn't all be here. So thanks, RTD, for getting the party started again. We owe you a lot.

For me, this day is dedicated to that magnificent dork, the Tenth Doctor, who made me fall in love with the whole thing in the first place. Some characters grow on you over time, but as soon as that cheeky madman in his pyjamas used a satsuma to save the world, I was gone; I knew right then I'd be absolutely enchanted by this character. I love all the Doctors (they are the same person, after all), but it was Ten who started it all for me - my brave, dark, sparkling, "fun-footed" Doctor. (And David Tennant's phenomenal acting talents might have had something to do with that too. Thank you a million, dear sir.)

Thanks, Doctor Who, for all the laughter, tears, artistic inspiration, and pure joy. Let's hope the next ten years of New Who are even more amazing.

“Just . . . . be magnificent.”
“I think I will be.”

Today most of the action is going on over on my Tumblr, so head over there for lots of 10th Anniversary happiness. This is the free day of the Countdown Challenge, so I'm posting the things about New Who that have made me smile. There's quite a lot :)

 Bad Wolf is pretty much my ideal for a season arc.

I love the pure, simple concept of Bad Wolf. I love that it’s such a keenly visual motif, and that it’s become such a recognisable meme through the fandom and far beyond. I love the elegant ontological paradox it contains: the way Rose in her god form is calling to herself before she even knows what’s happening. I love the romanticism of it: someone risking their life to become a god and save the person they love.

The words are commonplace yet alien: they sound like a child story-book; they’re expressed in unglamorous graffiti; yet they echo with an amorphous fairytale menace. The elemental contrast between Rose and Bad Wolf is stunning: the Earthling and the universal force, the shop girl who likes chips and the goddess made of gold and fire and the fabric of time.

Bad Wolf signifies the potential of Rose the ordinary woman: she has no idea what she will become. And she creates Bad Wolf through her ferocious determination and her love for the Doctor. “I want you safe, my Doctor”: she becomes his cosmic protector. She brings closure to the Time War, ending it with an act of life to counterpoise its terrible destruction.

Rose as Bad Wolf doesn’t just save the Doctor in The Parting of the Ways, she also sets up Bad Wolf’s ongoing relationship with the Doctor. In light of the tragedy of Rose and the Doctor’s love story (the original Doctor, that is), it’s a stunningly beautiful thing to imagine that even if he’s lost forever, a universe away from the one he loves, that she has scattered an echo of herself through that whole universe and every universe, as his cosmic protector and guardian.

There’s an eerie echo of this in Tooth and Claw: the Doctor is trapped in a room, while a wolf roams outside, trying to get in to him. It’s a beautiful and bittersweet foreshadowing of Doomsday. And the Doctor’s Big Bad Wolf eventually does find him. My inner romantic likes to think that she’ll always be out there, haunting him, ready to drop those two words in his ear when the time is right and he needs her most.

The wonderful thing about writing about hope in a show like Doctor Who is that it never feels cheesy or sentimental. I could probably write ten thousand words on this topic - there are countless examples of this theme; it weaves itself through the whole show in so many ways and forms. But I'll focus on what makes this theme unique in New Who. It ties in with something I absolutely love to talk about: the symbiotic relationship between the Doctor and the human race. New Who really establishes the Doctor's inter-reliance with humanity, and how they trade hope as an essential element for survival. Both give it to the other, both need it, both at times lose it and need help to find it again.

The Moment: [The sound of the TARDIS] brings hope wherever it goes.

One of the greatest things the Doctor does is spreading hope. Sometimes giving people hope and a sense of worth is more important than saving planets and defeating monsters. The Doctor gives hope to people in many ways. With his companions, he catalyses their personal potential - they become so much stronger and greater than they thought possible, because he gives them the freedom and opportunity to do so. He brings a sense of optimism by opening people's minds to a larger reality, beyond the confines of their city or planet or even their galaxy. The Doctor thinks big, and through the whole wide universe that he travels, he sees hope. That's the magical thing about him. And he conveys that hope to people by giving them a glimpse of the wide, vast, joyous universe out there, just waiting to be explored.

The Doctor: My experience is that, surprisingly, there is always hope.

Sometimes giving a person hope is as simple as showing them that their life matters. One of my favourite examples of this is Vincent and the Doctor. It's an exquisite, moving, and deeply human episode that deserves all the praise it gets and more. The story of the episode can be summed up in one small sentence: The Doctor meets someone and gives them hope. And the beauty and tragedy of Vincent and the Doctor is that giving Vincent hope isn't the same as saving his life. His death is fixed in time. But the Doctor and Amy give Vincent something more important: the knowledge that he's a valued person. That he mattered in history. Did it matter that Vincent had one magical, joyous day, when he still took his life in the end? Of course it did. It meant everything.

Cyberman: You are proof.
The Doctor: Of what?
Cyberman: That emotions destroy you.
The Doctor: Yeah, I am. Mind you, I quite like hope. Hope's a good emotion. And here it comes.

If the Doctor hopes in anything - has faith and confidence in anyone - it's the human race. He's travelled the universe, yet there's something about human beings that inspires him - gives him something to live for - gives him hope. The Tenth Doctor in particular is very vocal in his admiration for the human race in general. The human race gives the Doctor hope that there's some good in the world. The Doctor is, on one level, a lost and rather norm-less being; he needs something to believe in; and the human race inspires him not only individually but also collectively, by their persistence in living and evolving, and through the abstract ideals that they exemplify: resilience, adventurousness, compassion, and courage.

The Doctor: ...there's no one else.
Rose: There's me. 

Of course, it's through his personal relationships with humans that the Doctor finds hope at its most tangible. His companions have saved him "so many times and in so many ways" - not only physically, but more importantly, emotionally, by keeping his loneliness at bay, giving him courage in his darkest moments, and enabling him to be the best of himself.

The greatest example here has to be Rose. Her compassion and impulsive love for a damaged and traumatised Ninth Doctor utterly transfigured him (that can be a regeneration joke, if you like). Her stubborn loyalty and her belief in him enabled him to forgive himself for his actions at the end of the Time War, and to begin to move on. The Tenth Doctor is only so joyous and optimistic because of Rose's transforming influence. When we first meet the New Who Doctor, he has very little hope. He's worn down, defeated, angry and scarred, and struggling to avoid letting his dark side get the better of him. As Season 1 goes on we see Nine gather strength and lose that despair that so obviously weighed him down. It's no wonder he loves Rose so completely - in Rose he fell in love again with humanity and with all that it symbolises for him. That's the hope that the Ninth Doctor so desperately needed, and that Rose gave him so beautifully.

There's so much more to say. Of course, human beings give hope to each other. Sometimes their hope collides with darker themes, as in Love and Monsters, where LINDA's hope in the Doctor is cruelly exploited. But more often it works out. There are so many colours of this theme to explore, but I particularly enjoy it when it's part of that mutually dependent relationship between the Doctor and the human race. He's not an untouchable alien who just pops down from outer space and solves all Earth's problems. He depends on human beings too. The Doctor inspires us to dream bigger; we remind him what he's fighting for.

 

Ah, Donna Noble. Donna is my darling. I was initially going to write on the Tenth Doctor for today's Favourite Character, but although I adore Ten and find his character interesting particularly on an intellectual level, I'm going to save him for Favourite Arc, I think. And I don't write enough about Donna, because she is fabulous. She was the first companion I really related to on a personal level, and she'll always be my favourite, I think. She really is magnificent.

When we first meet Donna in The Runaway Bride, she's less than likeable. She's self-absorbed, shallow, and constantly yelling. Although it's obvious her abrasiveness comes from personal pain and disappointment, she doesn't immediately steal one's heart as a viewer. It takes a while for her to settle in to her new life as a time traveler, but as she does, we begin to see the person she's capable of being. The person she's always wanted to become, but never knew quite how.

Donna is very different from the previous companions. She's older. She already has a career of sorts. She's fabulously curvy, not fashionably skinny. She's not looking for a coming-of-age story with the Doctor, since she's already done all that. Donna knows her place in the world, and that's the problem. She's profoundly unhappy and dissatisfied with her life, and dimly aware that she's not living up to her potential. When she goes looking for the Doctor, it's because she wants to start over - to have a shot at living a life where she's happy and fulfilled.

Beneath her shouty exterior, Donna is a profoundly compassionate and empathetic person. The only person to date to call an Ood "sweetheart", she's always looking out for those who get neglected or trodden underfoot, precisely because she knows so well what it's like to feel worthless and invisible. For someone who struggles so much with her own feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, she excels in making other people feel valued. She also instinctively forms solidarity with other women and goes out of her way to befriend them. She's never jealous of Rose - wouldn't dream of having a catfight with Martha - makes the Doctor see his bond with Jenny - has a chat with Agatha Christie about unfortunate exes - listens to Miss Evangelista when no one else will.

Donna and the Doctor have so much fun together. They're the galaxy's greatest screwball couple - except not a couple, thank you very much. David Tennant and Catherine Tate have fabulous chemistry - they remind me a bit of Grant and Hepburn - and their characters are bonkers in exactly the right ways for each other. Donna's never daunted by the Doctor - she's always viewed him as an equal - and they truly are best friends. They're platonic soul mates, and their eventual merge as the DoctorDonna is a beautiful symbol of their closeness.

One of the loveliest things about watching Donna evolve over Season 4 is seeing her develop self-esteem. And that happens in slow, realistic steps. She's never quite able to describe herself as a worthwhile person, but she will say she's the best temp in Chiswick. A super-temp. She soaks up all those wonderful experiences, and the Doctor's constant verbal affirmation (something she desperately needs), and slowly but surely comes into herself.

Donna's demise is wrenchingly tragic. I avoid watching the end of Journey's End for that very reason. It's a fate worse than death, really - utterly brutal - and as much as I admire Russell T Davies' writing in general, a part of me will never forgive him for ending Donna's story in such a heartbreaking fashion. Donna loses her memories - the best part of her life - but does she retain any of the confidence and self-esteem she gained? The story isn't clear. I desperately hope she does.

For today I chose the tiniest moment - a gesture so brief that if you looked away you'd miss it.

It happens in The End of Time part 2, in one of Wilf and the Doctor's main scenes together. They're stranded aboard a creaky tub of a spaceship, as the Master runs rampant on the Earth below. The Doctor is fiddling with wires and gadgets, trying to get the power going again, and his concentration is disrupted by Wilf, who sits down beside him and starts talking.

And then a very small but crucial thing happens. The Doctor sighs, mildly irritated at the interruption. He takes off his glasses, turns his mind away from saving the world, and gives his full attention to the old man sitting beside him.

In the wider context of the episode, this small moment is seemingly insignificant. The stakes are high. The Master has possessed the human race, perhaps permanently, and the Doctor himself is reeling from his decision on Mars, still in the middle of a struggle for his own soul. More crucial things are going on than Wilf's delight at realising his lifelong dream of travelling to space.

But the Doctor gives Wilf his undivided attention. And then they trade some of the most beautiful lines in Doctor Who:

"Nine hundred years... We must look like insects to you."
"I think you look like giants."

And that's why the Doctor doesn't become the Master. Why the Tenth Doctor is able to end his life well, after all his mistakes. He keeps in touch with the best of him - the human race. The people who keep him aware of the small details upon which everything rests. The people who give him hope. The human race needs the Doctor to save the world, obviously, but equally he needs them. They remind him that although saving the world is important, human dignity and small kindnesses are even more essential.

That's what I love about Doctor Who, even more than the time travel and the monsters and the thrills - I love the humanism, the hope, the dignity. The reminder that an ordinary person really is the most important thing in the universe.
 

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Day 2 of the Countdown Challenge is difficult. Choosing a single favourite episode...how do you do that?! It can only be an extremely subjective exercise. So today I've chosen Planet of the Ood, a New Who episode that is dear to me for a very unique and personal reason. It's a great example of how, in my world at least, art isn't just a hobby or a luxury. It interweaves itself with every aspect of our lives - what we love, our self-awareness, our development as a person.

Planet of the Ood is, I think, a very under-rated episode. The musical score is sublime. The story is simple enough, sure, but it has heart. It cleverly picks up a throwaway alien race from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, gives them personality, and sets them in their own world. The Ood are a magnificent piece of design and writing. I love them. They are so physically repulsive that their kind and gentle nature is a total surprise. And one of the underlying messages of the episode is that appearances are deceiving. The Ood are so, so ugly, and yet when they're not in unbearable pain, they're beautifully peaceful and forgiving by nature. The humans of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, on the other hand, are externally familiar to us, but they're pretty ugly inside - either actively engaging in the brutal exploitation of an entire race, or turning a blind eye, happy to be complicit as long as they get the cheap labour of the Ood. The parallels to slavery and human trafficking are very clear. Enter the Doctor and Donna, bent on righting wrongs. Hooray.

The Ood's suffering and their need for justice is the heart of the episode, and the Doctor is uniquely able to understand their plight, because of a certain ability he possesses. He has a type of telepathic ability that enables him to listen in to the Ood's empathic hive mind, a realm of reality that is closed to us and to Donna until the Doctor opens her (and our) mind to hear, through the medium of music, the terrible reality of the Ood's suffering.

If you've watched the episode you'll no doubt remember the poignant moment when, after Donna's mind has been opened to hear the Ood's song, she weeps. And then after her mind is closed again she says to the Doctor, in dismay, "But you can still hear it..." "All the time," he answers quietly, and we see for a brief moment how very lonely it must be inside the Doctor's mind. Having a brain that's open to things other people don't perceive isn't always as fun as it sounds.

I said this would be a personal essay. I'll never forget the moment when I watched the scene I've just described, and I realised, "But that's what I hear. I hear that sort of thing in real life, all the time." And that started a wonderful and strange little journey for me, as I realised that I'm what is called an empath. It's not a terribly rare ability - the odds are that you know an empath - but the nature of this ability isn't widely understood. An empath (also called a clairsentient) is someone who hears or feels the emotional energy of other living beings, like an antenna picking up signals from everything in proximity. When an empath passes someone on the street who is angry, they feel that anger as if it is their own. I receive all sorts of information from my empath abilities, from the mundane to the horrific. It all sounds incredibly woo-woo or, well, sci-fi - something that should exist only in the realm of fiction - but it's real. And for me, I've never known any different. I understand what the Doctor means when he complains that it's so noisy inside his head - being an empath is like listening to ten radio stations at once. The sheer volume of information is overwhelming. And so it was an incredibly strange - and reassuring - experience for me to recognise such commonality with, of all people, an alien using his weird alien abilities. How completely bizarre. And wonderful.

But that's what Doctor Who has done for so long, isn't it? The reason the show has traditionally had such a big following among queer people is that the Doctor will always have something in common with anyone who feels different or out of place in their world. Geeks relate to his consuming enthusiasm. Idealists relate to his code of ethics that constantly clashes with the injustice and suffering he sees around him. Neurodivergents of all kinds can understand the feeling of having a brain that works differently than other people's.

Not only that, but the Doctor is good at being different. He loves it. No wonder he's such a beloved character. The Doctor's difference - his alien-ness - doesn't make him a victim. It makes him lonely, for sure, but he transcends that. His difference makes him strong. He uses it to make the universe a kinder place. That's truly inspiring. The Doctor loves being the kid who never quite fits in. And we love him for it.

It's Day 1 of the Celebrating New Who Countdown Challenge, started by this great Tumblr blog, and I'm thrilled to be taking part. In just a week it will be ten whole years since the revived Doctor Who first aired on British TV. How much has happened since then! and how many new fans of the show (me included) have been made! It's the perfect time for me to spend a week talking about how much I love this show and how much it means to me artistically and personally. Woop!
The theme for today's challenge is "Favourite Season", so here I go. 

It's tough for me to choose which NuWho season is my favourite, but I have to go with Season 4. NuWho almost has a tradition of having one clunker episode per season, but in Season 4 the episode quality is consistently good, and often outstanding. And Donna Noble. Need I say more? It was a bit of a risk to pair the Tenth Doctor with a companion who's even more bonkers than he is, but it pays off. Donna is a main female character who's over 25 years of age - something you don't see all the time - and she's not at all overawed by the Doctor. Tennant and Tate's comic (and dramatic) chemistry is second to none, and since it was high time to have a Doctor-companion relationship with no romantic feelings in the mix, it's a refreshingly new dynamic. Everything works. Plus, there's the heart-stopping teasers of Rose's return. The strands of fate drawing together toward the DoctorDonna. The exploration of the darker side of human nature. The return of my favourite NuWho creatures, the Ood, and a great treatment of classic Who monsters, the Sontarans. There's so much to love about Season 4. Here's a few thoughts on each episode.


Partners in Crime: It's not the strongest opening episode in NuWho history, but Tennant and Tate get some great scenes to establish their outrageous, screwball comedy dynamic. And the Adipose are pretty damn cute too.

The Fires of Pompeii: A brilliant historical episode combined with big ethical decisions. The Doctor and Donna's choice of whether to change history is a reminder of the Doctor's destruction of Gallifrey and also a foreshadowing of his coming dilemma on Mars.

Planet of the Ood: A personal favourite of mine, and an unusual episode in that the human beings (not the scary-looking Ood, a design triumph) are the actual monsters here. The morality is extremely clear, and the Doctor's in top form as an ethical crusader, but the episode's none the worse for that. And the musical score still brings tears to my eyes after multiple re-watches.

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky: A fantastic Classic Who villain race are resurrected here, and it's done brilliantly. They really do look like potatoes. We have two companions in the TARDIS, and Martha Jones has come into her own, as the Doctor's relationship with the military and violence is explored.

The Doctor's Daughter: The presence of not two but three dynamic companions (we count Jenny, don't we?) smooths over some of the weaknesses of the story. A well-paced episode with some imaginative touches. Drives home, again, the foreboding message that the Doctor loses everyone he loves in the end.

The Unicorn and the Wasp: Historical episodes can be tough but this is extremely entertaining, with brilliant guest writing and the Doctor-Donna dynamics at their funniest and most screwball.

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: An enjoyably mind-bending two-parter. The amorphous Vashta Nerada are an exciting new villain, and River Song is a tantalising and well-acted new character at her strongest. "Yes, she's dead. Help her" is one of my favourite lines and a reminder of the Doctor's alien-ness.

Midnight: an episode Russell T Davies wrote in 48 hours and nearly scrapped. Thank goodness he didn't - it's one of his most unusual and striking episodes, and Who psychological horror at its finest ("bananas-creepy", as David Tennant called it). Notable for the outstanding ensemble cast, and for the lack of special effects or visible monsters. Touches again on the theme of humans as monsters, as we see for the first time the Doctor at the mercy of the worst of humanity. Chilling and outstanding.

Turn Left: A companion-centred episode that works. Explores the tantalising question "what would the universe be like without the Doctor?". Donna and Rose continue the RTD-era theme of ordinary people stepping up and filling the Doctor's place in his absence.

The Stolen Earth/Journey's End: A huge, spectacular finale where so much happens. Rose returns and leaves again with-and-not-with the Doctor. Donna meets her gutwrenching end (of which I usually don't speak...). The Daleks. My favourite DW villain, Davros, is resurrected from the Classic series with great respect - he's a chilling and commanding character, and his psychological games with the Doctor are gripping. All the companions of the RTD era come into their own as Doctors in their own right. And on a melancholy final note, the Doctor is left alone, ready to descend into hubristic madness in the 2009 specials.

Season 4 has so much going for it. It's a steady descent into darkness for the Doctor himself, but it manages to keep the gloom balanced with humour and enough action-romp episodes that it doesn't take itself overly seriously. Catherine Tate drew more depth out of the insecure, abrasive, courageous Donna than anyone expected, and the scripts were carefully sequenced and well-realised. I remember Season 4 as the season where Doctor Who really started to grip me. I'd been relatively engaged through my binge-watch of the previous seasons, but I remember chewing my nails through The Stolen Earth and suddenly realising how much I had begun to love this show. And the more I watch Doctor Who, the more I love it. That's not something you can say about every TV show that comes around.

So today on Tumblr I found the inspiration for the next week's writing. And it's all Doctor Who, baby. On March 26th it's going to be the ten year anniversary of when the revived Doctor Who first aired. And this Tumblr blog is pulling the fandom together to celebrate. What a lovely idea. So for the next week, I'm going to be posting every day on a different aspect of New Who - favourite episode, favourite moment, favourite character, and so on. If you're new to Doctor Who, hopefully this next week will show you how amazing this show is. I'd better get writing!