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Tag: 2023 specials

Arc Watch: 2023 Specials Novelisation Update, plus a correction

Posted on by Alex Daily

Well, alright, with the ideas from Arc Watch in mind, I’ve read through the novelisations of the 2023 anniversary specials, and come up with… exactly one and a half idea.

Outside of the usual narrative expansion — an hour of TV doesn’t tend to fill 120 – 200 pages of prose — the novelisations do sometimes shed some additional light on things we’re looking out for. They’re not1Don’t say canon. true to the continuity of the television series, and I don’t think we can use them for new arcs, new information, but I do think think there may occasionally be bits and bobs worth noting here.

The Star Beast

  • Gonkage: The novel includes some memos, articles, emails from characters on- and off-screen between chapters to fill in some details about the world of the story. One of these emails reads as follows.

    Leila.krishnam@senenet.co.ae

    18 November

    To: Rose Noble

    Re: Latest shipment

    Hey lovely Rose

    Just wanted to say the latest shipment of your toys has safely arrived in Abu Dhabi. Thank you for packing them so well.

    I’ll let you know how soon I need another shipment, though probably not until early in the New Year. Everyone here absolutely loves them, especially my friends in Fujairah and Dubai. Even my dad says to tell you that, and I quote, ‘Rose has an amazing, imaginative product that is unique.’ See, told you! Your designs are going down a treat and everyone is talking about them.

    Happy Christmas to you and your mum

    Leila x

    I think that’s good enough to close the book on Gonkage — the idea that there’s any mystery to the woman in Abu Dhabi buying Rose’s toys is clearly not something this book is thinking about.

The Giggle

  • The Mavity of the Situation: Even the Toymaker, who you might almost expect to be “above” that kind of change, refers to it as mavity in his narration.
  • While reflecting on her inability to ever talk about her job outside of work, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart recalls:

    Every now and then, she’d crack and start to talk about how she was brokering a fragile peace with the Earth’s Original Owners and she was losing sleep about how long it could be maintained. She’d start to explain it all — how the leader of a junta somewhere had broken into a nest to steal ancient weapons to finish a grubby civil war. How she’d had to attend a Silurian funeral then sit down with the leader of the nest and stop him from wiping out an entire country. The words just poured out of her and down the conversational sink. Awkward looks, coughs, nervous silences. ‘It’s a metaphor, isn’t it?’ someone would say. ‘Oh, you are clever, Kate!’

    This goes on into a further reflection on the Sunnydalian tendency of Earth’s humanity to just… not really want to talk about the things that don’t add up, but I’ll be god-damned if this doesn’t feel like setup for the as yet officially unannounced UNIT spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea, which, and I know I said the novelisations aren’t good for New Threads, I’m sure we’ll get more hints towards in due course. Let’s call this thread Original Owners.

A small correction

I said in the Arc Watch post for The Church on Ruby Road that I didn’t think Susan Twist, who’d played Mrs Merridew, also playing the woman in the crowd at Ruby’s gig meant anything. In the words of the released script:A WOMAN in the CROWD - a woman we’ve seen as Mrs Merridew in Special 2, a woman we’ll see a lot more of - YELLS: WOMAN: Give it some welly! TRUDY: All right, I said sorry! Okay?! WOMAN: Give’s a bit of Steeleye Span! Can you do Gaudete?I stand corrected. I still think the idea that it’s a twist to do with Susan just because she’s called Susan Twist is patently ludicrous, but let’s keep an eye out for Mrs Merridew going forward.

(I’ve just read three novels for this blog, so it’s not gonna be me, but if anyone wants to pick through the rest of the scripts to see if there’s anything interesting in there, go ahead and file your report with me.)

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    Don’t say canon.

Arc Watch: Doctor Who: “The Church on Ruby Road”

Posted on by Alex Daily

This one took a sec because of the holidays, but here it is, less than a week after the episode. I’ll do a rewatch and Arc Watch summary later this year.

Revolving Around Us

  • It’s About Timeless: Dr Who is open about being adopted, like Ruby, like Lulubelle. It informs the decisions he makes, and breaks his heart when talking to Carla after Ruby is erased. It makes him the Third Foundling, or, perhaps, the Original Foundling.
  • Sweet Christmas Baby: Ruby is adopted, having been left at a church in December 2004. Dr Who saves her from the Goblins going back for her after they fail to eat Lulubelle. Would the Goblins have gone after the Third Baby in this story, Dr Who, if they hadn’t been defeated? Dr Who chooses not to follow the person who leaves Ruby behind. Even Davina McCall can find no information about Ruby’s parents. Ruby now lives with Carla and Cherry, having been the first of Carla’s 33 foster children, and the only one to get adopted.
  • Lady of the Water: Alright, I think “who is Mrs Flood” is its own post, but I’d like to note two observations: One, Mrs Flood’s entire personality seems to change after Dr Who goes back to save baby Ruby. Two, her name is Mrs Flood. Flood. Like a river does.
  • The Pretenders: The Goblins pretend to be bad luck and clumsiness to generate the coincidences they feed on. Mrs Flood is clearly pretending to be just another neighbour. Carla pretends to be okay with her life after Ruby disappears.

Mytholore

  • Black Cats and Ladders at the Edge: The Goblins are fantastical creatures who ride the wave of time and feed on coincidence.
  • The Mavity of the Situation: All the mass and density and mavity is moved to the intelligent gloves. Dr Who meddles again, by going back and saving not just Ruby but also preventing Davina McCall from being killed by a Christmas tree. Did that change her phone call with Ruby?
  • Knowledge Lord: In his encounter with the cop, Dr Who does the thing he does with Gareth in the 1996 TV movie, except this time he backs it up with facts and explains how he got there.

 On the back foot

  • Not This Week: UNIT has no presence in this story (UNified Intelligence and Skyscraper-Building Taskforce) and neither does The Boss (The Boss Is Not Rhetorical) though the Goblins might retroactively be part of the One Who Waits or the Toymaker’s legions or something. The Goblins are fantastical, but not on the level of Guardians of the Playground. No meaningful update re: In Flux.
  • The Long Game: No updates on the state of Gallifrey (The State of the Home Planet) or Rose’s toy-buyer (Gonkage). I’d consider that last one ended, but we’ll see Rose again.

Not happening

  • Calm Down, The Actress Is Just Called That: A lot is being made of actress Susan Twist now having appeared as both Mrs Merridew in the mavity scene in Wild Blue Yonder and as an unnamed concertgoer at Ruby’s band’s gig in The Church on Ruby Road. I don’t think there’s anything meaningful going on here — sometimes actors just appear as different characters in the same show — and certainly, the idea that this is foreshadowing a twist to do with Susan is transparently ridiculous, humans seeing patterns that aren’t there.

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Futurama Theory

Posted on by kurt
Content Warning: Spoilers for both the 60th Anniversary Doctor Who Specials and the Futurama movies
When the titles of the 60th Anniversary Specials were first announced it immediately struck me that two of them were almost exactly the same as the titles of two of the Futurama movies. Little did I know at the time that I had just uncovered the greatest plagiarism scandal in the history of… well, I’m getting ahead of myself and I should probably present the evidence first.

Now, just to be clear this is not actually a legal threat, this is just a little observation I made when watching the specials. Unless of course Fox Comedy Central Hulu would like to pay me for my analysis or @Daily for their almost-lawyer skills.

The legal claim theory is that the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials are a retelling of the Futurama movies, or, alternatively, the Futurama movies are a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey parody of the Doctor Who Anniversary Specials.1It’s a little known fact that time travel was actually invented around 1998, but Disney suppressed it, because they feared the ability to go back in time would weakened their copyrights. There’s a great documentary about it in a now defunct timeline.
This theory is definitely not solely based on the resemblance between the titles. It is the product of a deep critical analysis of both pieces of media as well as an extensive study of behind-the-scenes material and interviews that I personally conducted; it is not primarily the product of vague memories of a series of movies I last watched a decade ago.
I think the best way to illustrate the similarities is to give you a quick plot rundown of the Futurama movies and show you how with just swapping out some names and a few minor details things start to sound a little too familiar.

“The Star Beast” is “The Beast With a Billion Backs”

Some time after Fry the Doctor and his former roommate companion Bender Donna have parted ways a rip in the universe spaceship crash lands above New New York in regular old London.

DOOP UNIT goes to investigate the rip ship while Fry the Doctor sneaks his way onboard into the temporary base. DOOP UNIT decides to do what they do best shoot a missile guns at the problem. Purple tentacles tendrils made of light appear out of the rip ship and hypnotize anyone they touch.

The titular Beast Yivo Beep, who is neither male nor female and uses the pronouns shklee/shklum just The Meep, tricks everyone into thinking shklee the Meep is benevolent by taking them on a date due to the Meep’s cuteness. However Leela the Doctor reveals Yivo the Meep’s true motive is to fuck everyone fuck everyone up.

At the end Bender Donna goes to retrieve his friend retrieves her memories and they banish the Beast to their own universe prison through some, let’s be honest, handwavy science fiction. Anyway it’s got something to do with love and being yourself.

“Wild Blue Yonder” is “Into the Wild Green Yonder”

The Dark Ones Not-Things who’s shape is unknown have no shape of their own and their only goal is to win the evolutionary arms race win the violent games of the universe and destroy all life destroy all life.

The Dark Ones Not-Things can read people’s minds and take over their mind take on their shape. Fry The Doctor has to figure who is real and who is being mind controlled being imitated by the Dark Ones Not-Things.

Fry The Doctor incorrectly identifies himself Real Donna as the Dark One the Not-Thing and leaves himself Real Donna to be destroyed by the Omega Device the explosion, but the real Dark One Not-Thing is revealed at the last moment and destroyed.

“The Giggle” is “Bender’s Big Score”

Due to time shenanigans a double of Fry The Doctor gets to live out a domestic life with his dog Seymour Donna giving him the closure he never got and reversing the previously sad ending of Seymour sadly waiting for Fry’s return Donna losing her memory of the Doctor.

All of which allows Fry the Doctor to heal and mature and eventually become the wiser Lars 15th Doctor he met before.

“The Church on Ruby Road” is “Bender’s Game”

It’s a Fantasy one. There’s goblins in both. I think. It’ll definitely fit, ok. We’ll know by Christmas when I blow this case wide open.

Addendum

A few more similarities that aren’t directly related to the plot, by the way I’m fine, I’m not some crazy conspiracy theorist, I’ve just uncovered the craziest conspiracy.

  • Bender’s Game was followed by “Rebirth”, a fresh start for the show after a long hiatus. It aired on a new network, but with the original writers, directors and actors returning
  • The next season of Doctor Who is considered a new start and internally referred to as season 1. It is being produced by new production company headed by a returning writer.
  • The only episode title we know of of the next season so far is episode 2 “The Devil’s Chord,” one of the most famous episodes of Futurama is “The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings” in which Fry gains the Robot Devil’s hands allowing him to play music as well as him.

Addendum II

We’re back, baby!
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    It’s a little known fact that time travel was actually invented around 1998, but Disney suppressed it, because they feared the ability to go back in time would weakened their copyrights. There’s a great documentary about it in a now defunct timeline.

Arc Watch: Doctor Who: “The Giggle”

Posted on by Alex Daily

This post also appeared on my personal blog.

We take some money to the bank, but several bills are still left unpaid.

Resolved

  • Why The Long Face: We’ve said goodbye to the Final Tennant incarnation, and Donna’s suggestion that the face coming back and immediately finding her was because of Dr Who’s deep-rooted need “to come home” feels right and true to me, even if some details never quite get ironed out. Resolved.
  • Still Figuring It Out: The Final Tennant incarnation’s personality is clearly also a thread we can set aside, because, well, one, it’s really the same question as “why did the face come back,” and two, clearly we’re never gonna deal with it again, because that story is over. Resolved.
    My guess that the Gatwa incarnation’s personality was shining through has clearly been disproven — there was no trickery, the Final Tennant was simply a totally legitimate incarnation — but clearly the Gatwa incarnation’s personality is gonna be building on Final Tennant’s increased emotional openness. Love it.
  • Couldn’t Keep It In: Donna’s exposure to Dr Who’s mind and memories comes to a head with her using it simply to accurately back up the feeling that the time has come for Dr Who to take a break, and he does so. Resolved.

The World Around Us

  • UNified Intelligence and Skyscraper-Building Taskforce: If Dr Who accepts the Vlinx, the Zeedex, Mel’s lift off the Zingo, so must we, but it’s quite a lot, isn’t it. I, too, remember when this organisation was secret. Companions are offered high-paying jobs at least in part on the basis of who they are to Dr Who, though Donna does have to show off her Mad Skillz first.
  • In Flux and It’s About Timeless get another round of shoutouts. The Toymaker references the Flux as part of a meticulous stage performance on the subject of the death and destruction Dr Who leaves in their wake. Later, he says “I made a jigsaw out of your history. Did you like it?” suggesting he’s either responsible for or at least taking credit for Dr Who’s messy history and the recent revelations about the Timeless Child.
    The Flux is still a likely candidate for being “the new Time War.” Even if, after the Final Tennant incarnation, Dr Who no longer carries the trauma of it with them the way they did that of the Time War, it’s a good, cheap motivation for antagonists, and an interesting new flavour for the universe — the actual narrative effect of the Time War was fairly limited to large military forces like the Sontarans, and to groups with access to time travel, we never really felt it the way you’d imagine “half the universe has been destroyed” might be felt. Curious to see how the Flux is handled in the 2024 series.

Backseat Stories

  • The Boss Is Not Rhetorical: Clearly the One Who Waits and the Toymaker’s legions are the same story as the Boss, clearly this is setup for a larger wave of antagonists in the 2024 series and beyond. All of this is only maybe two or three steps above Bad Wolf-ing, but still, it’s an arc, something to look for.
  • Guardians of the Playground and Black Cats and Ladders at the Edge: The universe is defined as not just being subject to the rules of order and chaos but the rules of play, too. I wonder what all those gods we’re thinking about now make of the reduced size of the universe.
    We get direct shoutouts to the Gods of Ragnarok (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy,) to the Guardians of Time and Space (presumably the White and Black Guardians from the 1978-79 and 1983 seasons,) and the line “I gambled with God and made him a jack-in-the-box,” and then the revelation that the Master is trapped in the Toymaker’s gold tooth. Does the Toymaker consider the Master up there with those other entities?
    Being a science-fiction show, of course none of these entities are gods — but a god is simply the only thing we can call somebody — something — with an amount of power traditionally only described by mythology.
    Invoking a superstition slash game at the edge of the universe is allegedly what let the Toymaker in, but it sets a stage eager for gods and goblins, magic and myth.

The Other Threads

  • The Pretenders: In addition to the previous two week’s big beats on this theme: The Toymaker appropriates German and French culture etc. like he did Chinese culture in The Celestial Toymaker. We all have internalised biases and bigotries, but who we are is what we let come out, the Giggle robbing us of that identity. Evil embedded in puppets embedded in all television, the thing we love being a cover for hatred. In the end, Dr Who gets to stop pretending to be okay. The line is never drawn this explicitly between them, but the Toymaker and Rose Noble, toymaker.
  • The Mavity of the Situation: No “mavity,” but there’s still a thread here of meddling in time and getting away with it — if all of the history of television had the Giggle in it, what might removing it retroactively do?

On the docket

  • No updates on the state of Gallifrey (The State of the Home Planet) or Rose’s toy-buyer (Gonkage).

Arc Watch: Doctor Who: “Wild Blue Yonder”

Posted on by Alex Daily

I love a bottle episode, I love a little creepy horror one. Is that good for Arc Watch? No. Low on arc stuff this week, I have no reason to believe the Not-things are anything but one-offs, but there’s still loads of stuff here. I clearly just needed time to get back into the swing of things.

The Bigger Picture

  • In Flux and It’s About Timeless: We pick up some of the detritus of the Chibnall era with an acknowledgement that, one, a significant part of the universe was destroyed in the Flux, and two, that Dr Who now no longer knows where they come from, doing more with the quite heavy emotional effect these things might have on Dr Who than the Chibnall era ever did.
    These acknowledgements come in the same scene and seem at first glance to serve more as a reminder of the current status quo than to make any kind of progress on them as ongoing issues, and there’s a real chance these are just the new “Time War” and “last of the Time Lords,”but I’ve put them on the docket anyway — if I were RTD I’d want to do something with them.
  • Why The Long Face: They don’t say it out loud, but speaking of the trauma of the Flux, perhaps there’s a reason for the face coming back in Dr Who trying to… you know, deal with the trauma of the Flux. The last time they had this face their personality and attitude were very much coming from trying to stop being the last one — to stop being the Survivor and to try living again. The sheer fucking scale of the Flux mirrors absolutely nothing if it doesn’t mirror the Time War. Maybe nobody is doing this. Perhaps the face is but a comfort face.

Character Arcs and Character Roundabouts

  • Still Figuring It Out: “Is that who I am now?” Dr Who again expresses much more open love and fondness for Donna than they would’ve ever been capable of the last time they had this face. They also notably express aesthetic attraction to a person of the same gender they currently are themselves, which I’m pretty sure is a first in a few ways. Is this the Gatwa incarnation’s personality shining through a face that doesn’t have it?
  • Couldn’t Keep It In: Donna clearly did get exposed to Dr Who’s history since she last saw them, though she denies at the end having meaningful access to the information contained therein. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle — she’d probably recognise, say, Bill, or the planet Akhaten, and emotionally she probably has some grasp on things like the Flux, because, well, it’s Donna, she’s savvy, but I’m willing to take her word for it that it feels like staring into an inferno. Probably does something to you to have or have had a window to that inferno in your head, though.
  • The Pretenders: The Meep pretends to be cute and harmless, and forces UNIT soldiers to serve a cause they don’t believe in. Donna is forced to live as a version of herself she shouldn’t be, and is infinitely better off for getting to stop, just like her daughter. The Not-things copy people but always let their true selves shine through. Dr Who… pretends to be okay, but you can tell they’re not. Even Destination: Skaro had that Kaled pretending to be good at his job. What might RTD, a queer man himself, be trying to say about what pretending to be something you’re not does to you? I reckon perhaps he doesn’t think it’s good for you.

The Little Things

  • The Mavity of the Situation: Dr Who creates the branding and final look of the Daleks in Destination: Skaro. Here, Donna invents the word “gravity,” which Isaac Newton mishears as “mavity.” Right now these are gags, but butterflies can stack.
  • Black Cats and Ladders at the Edge of the Universe: Speaking of stacking butterflies, an interesting idea in the way using a superstition like the salt-counting thing unsettles Dr Who here. Easy to connect back to the Wrarth Warriors knowing the Meep as almost mythological butchers, to Dr Who creating much of the branding around the Daleks, to “mavity.” Clearly that’s a thread that’s gonna take us to the Toymaker, but that’s the kind of thing you could spin whole seasons out of.
  • The State of the Home Planet: Gallifrey neither exists nor has it been destroyed — it’s just “complicated.” Like it’s in some sort of state of… hybrid flux.
  • Still on the docket: No updates on The Boss Is Not Rhetorical — the question is simply not brought up or even relevant, though the Not-things could of course turn out to have employers later, or something, I don’t know, probably not. No followup to UNified Intelligence and Skyscraper-Building Taskforce or Gonkage, either, because, well, UNIT and Rose don’t appear. Bottle episode, baby. But we’re keeping them on the docket.

Arc Watch: Doctor Who: “The Star Beast”

Posted on by Alex Daily

Oh, right, this is a thing we used to do.

The Big Ones

  • Why The Long Face: “Why did this face come back?” Such a specific way to phrase it that surely the answer must be very, very specific, too. In this episode, all we really get as answers go is, “destiny,” “to save Donna.” Everyone assumes it’s a ploy by the Toymaker, but that was never really his style — putting faces on people was more a Land of Fiction thing. (Obviously the face came back because everyone had fun livetweeting during the pandemic, but how would that translate to the screen?)
    I don’t think it’s the Toymaker, I don’t think it’s the Land of Fiction or any master thereof. You want the payoff to this to play emotionally — it shouldn’t just be “well the celebrity guest star did it.”
  • The Boss Is Not Rhetorical: “Wait until I tell the Boss!” The subtitles capitalise it and everything. But who’s the Meep’s the Boss? The obvious place we all immediately went to is, again, the Toymaker, but does the Toymaker have… flunkies now? He has toys he plays with, so if the Meep is in the pocket of Big Toy, “Boss” doesn’t seem like the relationship here.
    Plus, on the In-Vision Commentary, Tennant asks Collinson whether they know what that means yet, implying they didn’t while Tennant was actively involved in production. Perhaps the answer is in scenes that were shot much later.
    Really, all we have is the word “Boss” and set reports and casting announcements, so, a wild mass guess to the answer: Whoever Jinkx Monsoon is playing?1The rumour is the Terrible Zodin, but I dunno, is that where this is going? It doesn’t feel like that’s where this is going. Much of early days Arc Watch is gut-based.

The Small Ones

Who We Are
  • Still Figuring It Out: “Do I say things like that now?” Dr Who is still exploring their new personality. Clearly a big thing is that the vanity and egocentrism of the last time they had this face has cleared like bad acne, and their anguished cry of “Why did it have to be this?” when forced into a scenario not unlike the one that killed the last version of this face suggests that that well of emotion this face never would’ve been capable of before may be quite deep.
  • Couldn’t Keep It In: Much has been made of the ease with which Donna and Rose simply let go of the metacrisis energy. Is it that easy? Is that story over? Or is this just the start of its final chapter?
The World Around Us
  • UNified Intelligence and Skyscraper-Building Taskforce: Seriously, how is UNIT just fully back in business already again? I’m gonna assume this is just, let’s get this piece back on the board like usual and not worry about it too much, but there’s been quite a lot of shifting that kind of thing around a little too fast recently, and I wouldn’t mind if this one went somewhere.
  • Gonkage: Is Rose’s one customer in Abu Dhabi just one of those RTD background details, or something we should be keeping an eye on? Who would have reason to send money to Donna’s family? Or maybe, who would recognise what her toys were?
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    The rumour is the Terrible Zodin, but I dunno, is that where this is going? It doesn’t feel like that’s where this is going. Much of early days Arc Watch is gut-based.
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