June 2024 – Planet of the Blog

Planet of the Blog a Doctor Who group blog

Arc Watch: Doctor Who: “The Legend of Ruby Sunday”

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Alex Daily

A lot of ideas left mid-sentence here, but let’s have a go. Next week, I’ll probably

Resolved

We’re likely to get more information on these, but their big questions are essentially answered.

Calm Down, The Actress Is Just Called That: Susan Twist — “a comms officer in the planet Pacifico del Rio,” “someone’s mum in Finetime,” “an ambulance,” “a portrait,” “a Sloogma,” “a Griffin,” “a Bleet,” and then, Susan Triad — is revealed to be one of Sutekh’s harbingers, alongside Harriet Arbinger of the UNIT archive. Susan Triad remembers her other lives as dreams.
The Boss Is Not Rhetorical: The Boss, and the One Who Waits, are revealed to be Sutekh, who is positioned here as the “mother and father and other” of a Pantheon of Gods.

Still Open

Sweet Christmas Baby: A thorough attempt is made to uncover the identity of Ruby’s mother through the UNIT time window, though they never quite figure out a way to actually see her face. Ruby again makes it snow. Dr Who brings up that not only his memory of his visit to Ruby Road but the actual history changed. Sutekh was there, as was a second of Dr Who’s TARDIS.
Lady of the Water: Mrs Flood — “Mrs F,” Carla calls her. Fenric? — takes an ominous turn at Cherry as soon as Carla and Ruby are out of the house. She warns that there’s a storm coming in, and says “He waits no more.” Notably, we don’t see her after this.

The Unresolveables

The Pretenders: The name Susan and S. Triad being an anagram of TARDIS is a misdirect, and the real clue — “Call me Sue, pet.” — is Sue Tech. Whether the storm around the TARDIS is part of the time window’s hologram is a question that’s raised, though obviously it’s got red elements that the window doesn’t appear to do. Harriet from the UNIT archive is one of Sutekh’s harbingers, and says she was “born for this” — she’s positioned perfectly to bring about Sutekh’s return.
Still Figuring It Out: Dr Who opens up a little to Kate about his relationship to Susan. He used to be different, a “great enigma,” but he’s trying to shake it off. He thinks he himself is a harbinger of disaster, but Kate disagrees. :’) Dr Who throws a tantrum, and Mel tells him to get over himself.
UNified Intelligence and Skyscraper-Building Taskforce: The Vlinx, who was all rusty last time we saw it, has been upgraded with “hot metal.” UNIT has a secret time window. Morris Gibbons is UNIT’s new scientific advisor. UNIT have been watching Susan Triad because of the TARDIS anagram. Mel has been scanning her DNA on a daily basis. UNIT’s scanning equipment at the time window can’t parse Sutekh’s storm form.
Knowledge Lord: A lot of limits to Dr Who’s knowledge in this one — he’s picked up on seeing Susan Twist everywhere, but doesn’t know who or what she is, he didn’t know there was a second TARDIS at the Church on Ruby Road.
Guardians of the Playground: Sutekh’s Pantheon includes, from recent episodes, the Toymaker and the Maestro, from previous stories, the Trickster and the Mara, and all-new names, Reprobate, Incensor, and Incensor’s children Doubt and Dread.
The State of the Home Planet: Susan Triad dreams of orange skies; Kastarion 3? Or Gallifrey?

Theories

Theory One: What character archetype in RTD’s take on Doctor Who does a lot of Waiting? Jackie, a year, not knowing. Francine, a year, for a shot. Sylvia, for Donna, for so long. What if the One Who Waits is the Toymaker’s mum?
- Close but no e-cig. Nothing about the Sutekh reveal really plays into this thematically. Gonna say I’m wrong here.
Theory Two: Ruby Sunday is an experiment engineered (or, perhaps, a story told) to infiltrate the TARDIS. The nominative similarity with Mundy Flynn, played by future companion actress Varada Sethu, links them explicitly — Mundy may be another experiment in the series. They also feel like they’re in an RTD and Moffat mode, respectively — Ruby very much a Rose type, Mundy’s early appearance fairly explicitly invokes Clara. Keep an eye out for a funny grey-haired white guy called Tuesday.
- I think this is probably one for 2025, though obviously Sutekh could turn out to be responsible for the experiment.
Theory Three: I think Susan Twist is part of some kind of cosmic corrective, the spellcheck chasing down a typo. The cosmic corrective may be the result of the damage done to the TARDIS by Donna spilling coffee on it.
- Could still be something to this — the exact relationship between Sutekh and the TARDIS is still unclear — but if Sutekh is out to spellcheck Dr Who, it’s more of a wiping the whole document clean type of thing.

Arc Watch: Doctor Who: “Rogue”

Posted on June 8, 2024June 8, 2024 by Alex Daily

🏳️‍🌈 Terrific episode, relatively light on arc stuff.

Arcs

Calm Down, The Actress Is Just Called That: Susan Twist appears only as the portrait of the Duchess’ dead mother. Of her characters so far, two of them are bad mothers, one is a bad ambulance, and a fourth reluctantly abandons a space station full of babies. In addition, Mrs Merridew was a maid. That’s a real throughline of playing, broadly speaking, caretakers. Her character next week is called Susan Triad, and S. Triad is an anagram of TARDIS.
The Mavity of the Situation: Dr Who invented tarmac in 1902. A lot of fuss is made about Ruby not introducing future ideas to the 1813 folks, who are listening to ye olde Billie Eilish at their ball, but in the end the only people she actually says things like “OK” and “cushy” and “TV” to are Rogue and one of the Chuldur.
The Pretenders: The Chuldur take the shape of, “cosplaying” as, people from 1813 and intend to go on to do so in London so as to cosplay the planet to death, their cosplaying is fatal to the subjects of their fandom.
Still Figuring It Out: Dr Who has his first gay romance with Rogue. This is who he is now. 🙂
It’s About Timeless: A hologram display of Dr Who’s previous faces includes, amongst the traditional regenerative lineage and recent unnumbered additions like the Jo Martin incarnation and the John Hurt incarnation, an incarnation of the character as played by Richard E Grant, who played two separate incarnations of Dr Who in Scream of the Shalka and The Curse of Fatal Death, both generally ignored by the show as it’s existed since 2005.
Guardians of the Playground: Rogue has a handful of d20 dice in his ship. That’s games. The Toymaker is games. Hmm? Cosplaying is roleplaying, too.
The Boss Is Not Rhetorical: Rogue, a bounty hunter, refers to his “new boss.” Rogue does not appear to know about Dr Who before the events of this story, and, though he might have vaguely heard of Time Lords and Gallifrey, does not know where the latter is.

Theories

No huge changes, but I think Theory One and Theory Three may be connected.

Theory One: What character archetype in RTD’s take on Doctor Who does a lot of Waiting? Jackie, a year, not knowing. Francine, a year, for a shot. Sylvia, for Donna, for so long. What if the One Who Waits, and thus the Boss, is the Toymaker’s mum? Connecting this to Theory Three, if Susan Twist is playing a series of caretakers, and I think the One Who Waits is the Toymaker’s mother… Dot dot dot…
(No development) Theory Two: Ruby Sunday is an experiment engineered (or, perhaps, a story told) to infiltrate the TARDIS. The nominative similarity with Mundy Flynn, played by future companion actress Varada Sethu, links them explicitly — Mundy may be another experiment in the series. They also feel like they’re in an RTD and Moffat mode, respectively — Ruby very much a Rose type, Mundy’s early appearance fairly explicitly invokes Clara. Keep an eye out for a funny grey-haired white guy called Tuesday.
(No real development) Theory Three: I think Susan Twist is part of some kind of cosmic corrective, the spellcheck chasing down a typo. The cosmic corrective may be the result of the damage done to the TARDIS by Donna spilling coffee on it.
The Mega Theory: Look, I don’t honestly think all three of these are true, but wouldn’t it be neat if they were? What if Donna spilling coffee on the TARDIS created some kind of manifestation that takes the form of Susan Twist, left unchecked becomes the Toymaker’s mother, and then, with all the power in the world, creates Ruby, leaves her behind at the church on Ruby Road so she can infiltrate the TARDIS so she can reconnect with Dr Who? That would be too tidy, wouldn’t? Wouldn’t it?

Arc Watch: Doctor Who: “73 Yards” & “Dot and Bubble”

Posted on June 6, 2024June 8, 2024 by Alex Daily

Missed last week — I was busy turning in my graduation project. But let’s catch up.

Arcs

Sweet Christmas Baby:
- 73 Yards: The Woman who follows Ruby says something to people, including Carla, to make them run away from Ruby, abandoning her forever, explicitly weaponising her anxiety about having been abandoned and not knowing why. Ruby says she used to be able to make it snow “once upon a time,” making what seemed like a weird side effect of remembering her origin story more of a superpower.
  The Woman’s gestures and the words she mouth, though their content is not directly narratively… true, do feel like they connect to Ruby’s abandonment thematically: “Bless you. Thank you so much. That’s so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you.”¹
Calm Down, The Actress Is Just Called That:
- 73 Yards: Ruby explicitly recognises Susan Twist as the hiker.
- Dot and Bubble: Ruby and Dr Who again recognise Susan Twist as Lindy Pepper-Bean’s mother, with Dr Who explicitly connecting her face to the one used by the Ambulance on Kastarion 3.
The Pretenders:
- 73 Yards: The folks at the pub pretend to be both scared and simple, but instead are just bastards. Ruby pretends to be a conservative person to join the Roger ap Gwilliam campaign. Roger ap Gwilliam may or may not be Mad Jack, but all things considered, he’s extremely up front and not pretending to be anything he’s not.
- Dot and Bubble: The folks in Finetime pretend everything is fine and normal but live in an explicitly segregated society. Lindy and Hoochy Pie pretend to care about environmentally friendly sourced clothing, but then Hoochy Pie eagerly declares she’ll buy a hundred. Ruby pretends to work for Finetime to talk to Lindy, and to be clueless to gently guide her to the conclusion she wants her to come to. Ruby and Dr Who pretend not to be in separate rooms. Dr Who pretends not to be fucking exasperated with these people, and condescends to Lindy. Ricky September had to change his surname to something weirder to access some of the privilege of Finetime. Ricky September pretends rescue is coming from the Homeworld, and that he hasn’t seen that everyone on the Homeworld is dead.
Still Figuring It Out:
- Dot and Bubble: Dr Who is, for the first time we’ve seen, confronted with the reality of life as a Black man — the racist people of Finetime will simply distrust him for no reason other than the colour of his skin.
Original Owners:
- 73 Yards: It doesn’t go anywhere in this episode, but Dr Who literally says the rumoured title of the UNIT spinoff “the war between the land and the sea” out loud.
How Much?:
- The Devil’s Chord: Dr Who is shocked by how much Susan Twist as the Tea Lady charges for a tea.
- 73 Yards: Ruby is shocked by how much the woman at the pub charges for a Coke.
The Mavity of the Situation:
- 73 Yards: Ruby changes her timeline by becoming the Woman and stopping Dr Who stepping on the fairy circle. By stopping Dr Who stepping on the fairy circle, she may or may not prevent Mad Jack’s release, and may or may not prevent Roger ap Gwilliam’s rise to power. Though Dr Who no longer goes into detail about what makes him the most dangerous Prime Minister of all time, he does still say that bit. In the revised timeline, she says she’s been to Wales thrice instead of twice, but can’t quite recall the third time, which has been unhappened.
Those Who Step On It:
- Space Babies: Ruby doesn’t look where she’s going and steps on a butterfly and the butterfly effect causes her to become a lizard person.
- Boom: Dr Who doesn’t look where he’s going and steps on a landmine.
- 73 Yards: Dr Who doesn’t look where he’s going and steps on a fairy circle.
Lady of the Water:
- 73 Yards: Mrs Flood says the events of this episode are “nothing to do with me.”
Black Cats and Ladders at the Edge:
- 73 Yards: The stepping on the fairy circle erases Dr Who, locks the TARDIS, and sets the events of the story in motion. The folkloric legend of Mad Jack is… implicitly connected to Roger ap Gwilliam. The Woman is very much in the mode of Welsh folk horror. The cliffside the TARDIS lands at is at the border between the land and the sea.
- Dot and Bubble: Finetime is surrounded by the Wild Woods, which Lindy expresses a light superstition-esque fear of. Hoochy Pie calls the idea of a box that’s bigger on the inside “voodoo.” She expresses their commitment to racial segregation as their “God-given duty to maintain the standards of Finetime,” their racism a religion that will get them killed.
UNified Intelligence and Skyscraper-Building Taskforce:
- 73 Yards: UNIT continues to evolve, and is now explicitly a companion-recruiting organisation, which Kate calls a tradition.
Knowledge Lord:
- 73 Yards: Dr Who references Roger ap Gwilliam for no particular reason — his dropping of future knowledge often seems to be connected to things that are about to happen to him, and some instinct in him may have been trying to warn Ruby.
Ruins of the Fourth Wall:
- 73 Yards: Stepping on the fairy circle removes Dr Who and with him the title sequence.
- Dot and Bubble: Dr Who and Ruby spend most of the episode talking to Lindy through the Dot and Bubble technology, essentially a cellphone, which is how many viewers will be watching this series.

Theories

Not really anything new for any of them, but I’ll just keep these at the bottom here.

Theory One: What character archetype in RTD’s take on Doctor Who does a lot of Waiting? Jackie, a year, not knowing. Francine, a year, for a shot. Sylvia, for Donna, for so long. What if the One Who Waits is the Toymaker’s mum?
Theory Two: Ruby Sunday is an experiment engineered (or, perhaps, a story told) to infiltrate the TARDIS. The nominative similarity with Mundy Flynn, played by future companion actress Varada Sethu, links them explicitly — Mundy may be another experiment in the series. They also feel like they’re in an RTD and Moffat mode, respectively — Ruby very much a Rose type, Mundy’s early appearance fairly explicitly invokes Clara. Keep an eye out for a funny grey-haired white guy called Tuesday.
Theory Three: I think Susan Twist is part of some kind of cosmic corrective, the spellcheck chasing down a typo. The cosmic corrective may be the result of the damage done to the TARDIS by Donna spilling coffee on it.

1
I try not to refer to behind the scenes material too much — what’s on the screen is what’s on the screen — but this is from the Doctor Who Unleashed for this episode.