Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10
Cast: David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Neil Patrick Harris, Ncuti Gatwa, Bernard Cribbins, Jemma Redgrave, Bonnie Langford, John Mackay, Jacqueline King, Yasmin Finney, Karl Collins, Ruth Madeley, Miriam Margolyes, Indira Varma, Matt Green, Jamie Cho, Dara Lall, Ronak Patani, Ned Porteous, Archie Backhouse, John Hopkinson, Matt Green, Jamie Cho, Charlie de Melo, Alexander Devrient.
There have been fine speeches, tales of intrigue, moments of forgotten lore, and new ways to divide the fandom in the years since David Tennant looked into the camera lens and uttered the heartbreaking words, “I don’t want to go”.
Heartbreak, emotional and fierce words, almost every adventure deeply etched on the tenth incarnation of the Timelord’s face as he arguably faced more despair than any Doctor before or since; and whilst he found time to love, to thrill and save the day, that sadness seeped down deep into the soul of the character and perhaps the actor himself, there was a seismic melancholy to Ten’s time aboard the Tardis.
“To begin at the beginning”, as Dylan Thomas would aptly write in one of Britian’s most famous plays, for that is how the viewer might come to comprehend the three 60th anniversary specials that see the return of The Doctor, of Unit, and of utter mind-boggling experiences that lay the foundations for Ncuti Gatwa to springboard forward for with the return of one of the great writers and show runners of Doctor Who, Russell T. Davies, so the future is assured.
The three specials, The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder, and The Giggle, not only should be seen as some of the best writing and plot devices of the last decade, but in the last two of these they should exulted as being amongst some of the most terrifying aspects of the audience’s collective time in watching the long running science fiction serial.
Up there with the moment the nation was gripped with the truth of a Dalek coming up from underneath the Thames, the unknown ends to which the Weeping Angels could take your life whilst leaving you alive in the past, and the way that humans could be turned into zombies via the waters on Mars, so Wild Blue Yonder and the way our bodies can be replicated by an entity and losing our belief in who we are with, and the phenomenal appearance of Neil Patrick Harris as he steals the show as The Toymaker, making a television comeback more than fifty years in The Giggle, it would be hard pressed to describe the pair of episodes as anything but gripping, an attention grabbing, transfixing narrative which honours the programme, and in particular David Tennant’s time as the mad man in the blue box.
The trilogy was every bit as emotional as the fan could hope for, and with the return of Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart, the passion of Bonnie Langford as one and always companion Mel, the excellent Ruth Madeley introducing Shirley Anne Bingham to the overall arc, the fantastic Donna Noble placed back in the Tardis by Catherine Tate, and of course the much missed and forever important Bernard Cribbins as the indefatigable Wilfred Mott, the trio of specials firmly rank highly on the overall Doctor Who list of episodes and story-lines.
The Doctor’s back, but Time has something special in store for them, it’s written in the stars.
Ian D. Hall