The Thirteenth Doctor has arrived, and with her a certainly fresh feeling episode Doctor Who. The Doctor herself isn’t anything new at the moment (well, apart from gender!) which is of course a common post-regeneration thing, but I did enjoy the new cast that surrounds her. It was a fun opener to her run, and promises a different experience in the weeks ahead. Let’s take a closer look, then, at “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”.
Well, here we go, the first time I review a Twelfth Doctor story in retrospect, rather than after it airs. Deep Breath not only introduces us to a great new Doctor (well, great for the rest of this series, anyway…) but also gives us a fun villain and a waves a goodbye to Vastra, Jenny and Strax by giving them one final adventure. It’s a damn fine story, with only a few minor quibbles, so let’s take a good look!
Although the era of Doctor #11 declined as it went on (not as a whole, there were still some good episodes here and there) watching the Eleventh Hour is a stark reminder of how amazing a start Matt Smith’s time on the show got. In just an hour a lot of new cast got introduced and a new Doctor got to show his thing, while an overall season-long story arc got teased and a few new enemies got thrown in. It’s really well done, and filmed with an interesting and unique style. Comparing this to Series 6 or 7 shows how much the series fell… Still, we’re not here to talk about that, this is about Doctor debut stories, so let’s look at this Doctor’s debut story!
Not even a year later (release-wise) from the previous debut story, we have David Tennant’s debut in the role, as well as the first Doctor Who Christmas Special (of the modern era, anyway…) The Christmas Invasion, as the title suggests, certainly doesn’t forget to remind you of what time of the year it was, but it at least doesn’t forget to tell a story about how the 10th Doctor came to be, and how Rose managed to adapt to the sudden change. So… let’s take a look! Ho-ho-ho! (it’s September as I write this…)
This is not just a Doctor Debut Story, but it was the story that re-debuted the series in general and made it a success all over again. Writer Russell T. Davies looked back on past debut stories for this, specifically Spearhead from Space, and then weaved a more modern family story into it. The result is a very good adventure indeed, and a great debut for both Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor and Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler. Let’s take a closer look!
Now, technically the War Doctor made his debut in a 30 second stinger at the end of “The Name of the Doctor”, but that would seem like a waste of that story for the sake of 30 seconds, so I decided to go down the Eighth Doctor route and do John Hurt’s first performance from start to finish in the role as the lead (as Day of the Doctor was covered last year…), meaning we get the first Full Cast Audio Drama to feature him: “The Innocent”, from the “Only the Monstrous” box set. Is it any good? Well… It’s alright, I guess. It’s nice to finally debut my War Doctor image template anyway!
So, yeah, this isn’t Paul McGann’s debut story, that’s obviously the TV Movie, but as that was already covered in the Regeneration marathon I thought I’d follow the other pattern of these debut stories and cover Paul McGann’s first full story as The Doctor, which release-wise is Storm Warning. It also neatly crosses over with the “Audio / Comic Companion Debut Story” marathon I’ve been doing on and off (though not quite in the right order) as it features the debut of Charley, one of the more memorable and iconic Eighth Doctor companions. So… let’s get to it!
The debut story of Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor is… not great. While thankfully it’s no Twin Dilemma, it’s a bit of a mess with characters running around seemingly just to eat some screen time up. Still, I don’t hate it, in fact the next two stories are so bad that this and the fourth and final Season 24 story “Dragonfire” look like good in comparison! (though trust me, this isn’t actually good…) Let’s take a look then, at Time and the Rani.
How to ruin a Doctor Who story: either have a crap plot, cast child actors who are so awful that they were clearly only hired because they were twins, cut the budget but try and realise the script anyway rather than alter it, or write The Doctor to be a complete selfish crazy person who is thoroughly unlikable and have him strangle his own companion in a fit of paranoid rage. How to make a properly awful Doctor Who story: do all of the above, at the same time. Welcome to The Twin Dilemma!
Castrovalva is the first story where the plot properly revolves around the after-effects of the regeneration, after the last three were pretty much regular stories with a new actor in the lead role. The story features our new Doctor in a weakened state, physically and mentally, leaving him sidelined for portions of the story (though not as sidelined as Adric!). Castrovalva also features The Master, making it three in a row for Anthony Ainley. So let’s see if this jumble is a fun mix or not!
