Doctor Who - The Giggle

52 Card Split

Doctor Who - The Giggle
Airdate: 9th December 2023
BBC

Warning: Spoilers right from the outset.

Ha! I totally called it... and have been amongst a few people for several months now at least. Wish I’d have written it in last week’s blog and backed myself more (goes back to check last week’s blog to make sure I didn't)...

Oh... okay... it turns out I did, actually.

Okay... well in that case... it needs repeating. So here’s a sentence from the last paragraph to my review of the Doctor Who episode Wild Blue Yonder (reviewed here) from last Sunday...

“Kinda half looking forward to next week’s show but not happy that Tennant will be leaving it then... if indeed he does and they don’t pull a ‘split regeneration’ on the audience, so they can ‘have their cake and eat a spin off series’ too.”

So, yeah, they totally went there. And, truth be told, I was both happy and disappointed with this direction at the same time. Happy because I’m sure the adventures of David Tennant's incarnation of The Doctor can carry on having adventures in a spin off series... probably one of the spin offs the BBC have been touting for the last year... but disappointed that this in some way dilutes the show for the next... sorry... split generation Doctor played by Ncuti Gatwa. Not that I thought he was a great debut in the role but... okay, getting ahead of myself again.

So, The Giggle... good and bad stuff in this week’s episode but mostly bad. Now, when Russell T. Davies had the reigns of the show before there was always the odd bad episode but, mostly I loved around 99% of his tenure on the show. So... I’m finding his decisions less likeable this time around and this episode was, for me, the worst of the new batch of three. So...

Okay, good things...

The opening in Soho in 1925 was good and I especially liked some of the eerie, surreal terrors found in the episode... such as the puppet babies trying to eat Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) which seemed, to me, to be lifted straight out of the original Barbarella movie... but with less blood. Still sinister though and I enjoyed the whole sequence in that room a lot. I bet that gives some of the kiddies nightmares, for sure.

And it was great to see Bonnie Langford as Mel again... although her inclusion seemed a little pointless, it had to be said. As far as anything in a work of fiction could be said to be pointless. But she was really great in this and I loved hearing about what became of Sabalom Glitz (died tripping over a whisky bottle... I’m sure the late Tony Selby would have loved that) and, also, I was pleased when Ncuti Gatwa mentioned Logopolis... one of my favourite Tom Baker stories.

Okay... the bad.

I don’t know who the heck Neil Patrick Harris is but he did a good job as a Doctor Who villain. Just not a good job as The Celestial Toymaker who, if memory serves, didn’t leap around that energetically and try to channel Joel Gray’s Master Of Ceremonies from Cabaret (which seemed so blatant to me that I can only assume it was a deliberate riff on that character) back when Michael Gough played him in the 1960s. That being said, I’ve only been following the show properly for 53 of its 60 years so, I’m not exactly an expert on it like some people are. But good on Harris from making a good job of what was written... just didn’t buy that writing, to be honest.

Generally, it felt like less was at stake because everything was just ‘made up’ all the time too, without limits. Although, the story about The Toymaker shrinking down The Master and putting him inside his gold tooth was a neat trick for bringing The Master back... I assume everyone spotted that his tooth remained and an unknown hand picked it up after The Toymaker had winked out of existence? A bit like Ming's ring at the end of the Flash Gordon movie.

Okay... not many surprises. My one surprise was when Tennant started dying and I really thought they might let that cash cow go a second time... except, nope, first ever (according to the writing) split regeneration brought about, to my mind, for all the wrong reasons, I reckon. It felt like a gimmick to hang onto future David Tenant ratings in a spin off series ‘cash grab’ rather than a genuine plot point to be honest. So was a little bit disappointed to tell you the truth (and I say that with the background that Tennant is my third, all time favourite Doctor... following closely behind Troughton and Pertwee).

Oh and.... ‘first split regeneration’ kinda but... it’s not without precedent in the show. Russell T. Davies already regenerated The Tenth Doctor’s severed arm and made a new Doctor from that (albeit a mortal one... which makes much more sense as a story thread to pursue since, you know, Tennant ages in real life) during his reign in the show. Yeah, I know it’s kinda different but... it’s also kinda the same.

Now then, the elephant in the room. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the way Ncuti Gatwa played The Doctor to be honest, “love”. Lots of confidence but coming off as a bit too full of himself somehow... which I didn’t expect actually. I was expecting to like the new guy right from the start because RTD has been saying some good things about him and, also, I know he’s already starting shooting his second season so... I’m guessing the producers are confident enough in him to pull in the ratings. But, you know, it’s very early days for this incarnation of the character so, if you felt the same way as me about him... I would caution you and say, let him settle into the role and we’ll see what he’s really like. I’m kinda hoping to be blown away by both him and also RTD again at some point soon. So, let’s not jinx it, right?

One last thing... no explanation has been given as to why Jodie Whitaker’s regeneration into David Tennant had the costume regenerate with her/him this time around... for the first time ever in the show. A friend showed me a quote from RTD saying he didn’t want to have Tennant in female clothes because it mocked ‘drag culture’ or some such rubbish. My friend also went on to point out that Jodie was wearing a pretty gender neutral costume anyway and she agreed with my less than elegant response to such a terrible decision. Either way though, it still doesn't explain why, in the world of Timelord physics, The Doctor’s clothes suddenly changed with him instead of just The Doctor... thus destroying all verisimilitude within the show. Not to mention, why did Gatwa’s new Doctor emerge from Tennant’s body with half a costume on? It makes absolutely no sense and, I’m sorry, if you’re going to pull such ridiculous nonsense on an audience, at least come up with a reasonable explanation of it within the world of the show. It just makes the writing feel a bit amateurish, to be honest. Like nobody actually really cares about the world of Doctor Who.

And I think that’s me about done on this one but, while I’m at it... The Giggle was my least favourite, by a long chalk, of the three new 60th Anniversary specials but, honestly, although I kinda liked the first one and quite enjoyed the second one... I thought that, all in all, this was not the way you celebrate a Doctor Who anniversary. Sorry to be a bit of a stick in the mud and probably a little bit old school (no, just old... yeah, I know) but I want a lot more old companions and a lot more Doctors teaming up together to save the universe from an extinction level event in this kind of celebration. I thought the two 50th anniversary shows... The Day Of The Doctor (reviewed here) and the original cut (don’t get me started) of An Adventure In Space And Time (reviewed here) were hands down ten times better than these ones... so, yeah, bit frustrated by the lack of celebratory goodness here. Not to mention the absence of a stand alone Radio Times special celebrating sixty years of the show (I still have my 10th Anniversary Special with Jon Pertwee on the cover).

So, yeah, more than a little underwhelmed and I am not really looking forward to the new Christmas special, to be honest. But, yeah, of course I’m going to watch it and I hope it proves way better than I am expecting. As always, I’ll let you know my thoughts about it here... probably on December 26th, I would think.