If you are not a Whovian, you might get something out of this. You might not. But I do know that most of my audience is overseas, and there’s more a chance that they’ll have seen it than my American friends…… so I’m going global by going micro. I love Doctor Who an autistic special interest amount (and I am choking with laughter as I type this). There are just so many things I want to know.
For instance, at first, Amy Pond was The Doctor’s companion, and then her husband, Rory, joined them…… and Rory never stopped working. They did not explain how this was possible, you just had to assume that Rory was able to make it to work with time travel. They also never showed him at work, so it seemed like he never went home at all. I think it would be hilarious to explore another companion’s real life in reaction to The Doctor. Like, what does it take for The Doctor to get them to school, work, doctor’s appointments, etc?
I also want to know more about the companions. What they go through emotionally in their real lives regarding the pull of traveling and the responsibility of family. This is because even with time travel, their experiences are worlds apart and they lose connection easily. Normal people stuff just doesn’t register like it used to, and parents and partners notice. I am so glad that in the last special, they made it clear that Sean Noble was going to be all cool with everything, because it’s a lot. Sylvia and Wilf know that better than most.
The one thing that’s really cool about being a companion is that you have a job for life if you want it. Kate Lethbridge Stewart has taken in lots of former companions at UNIT, and as I joked, “UNIT candidates being offered 60,000 pounds a year was the most realistic part of this episode.” For intelligence officers all over the world, the government has the money for making deals and such. They’re just regular government employees. But good on Donna for never accepting the first offer. 😉
I am so happy that lots of people are saying the show is too woke. It means that the show is doing what it’s always done, which is create a space for the dispossessed to feel powerful. Most autistic people I know describe being neurodivergent as feeling “alien.” There is a reason there’s a large number of people on the spectrum at sci-fi conventions. In utopia, we all belong.
I am also glad that Russell T. Davies has clarified that 14 is retired. They’ll mention him, but there is nothing to take away from Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor in it. It makes me happy because I knew it would be an issue if David continued. Let’s not pretend that Conan losing The Tonight Show had nothing to do with Jay Leno’s refusal to just go away.
I am not being mean to David Tennant, either. I think that it might be a good idea to reboot Torchwood as well, and 14 can be an employee like everyone else. That way, Ncuti and David are playing two entirely separate roles. If they reboot Torchwood, David’s doctor would be more like Al Pacino in “Slow Horses.”
I’ve always loved the interplay between MI-6 and Doctor Who, so it’s been a kick to see CIA on it as well. In the Torchwood reboot, I’d love to see a project with UNIT, MI-6, and CIA all working together. Plus, David has already played a detective in Broadchurch, so I think he’d make a bang up intelligence officer archetype as well.
In case you are completely lost, UNIT in the Doctor Who universe is an intelligence agency in the British government that deals with alien attacks. The Doctor is basically “C Emeritus.” Other people run UNIT, but he’s the last word. The acting head of UNIT right now is a woman with a long history with The Doctor, so she makes her own decisions and The Doctor can override them. Her name is Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and she’s the daughter of The Doctor’s dear friend, the Brigadier General Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Because of their long history together, they trust each other implicitly and work well together. However, I think the reason they get along so well is that The Doctor is not there to drive her up the wall all day. That’s the part David Tennant would absolutely smash.
“Do I have a desk?”
“No.”
The idea is funny just based on The Doctor’s episodes with James Corden as a roommate and the episode where they’re a houseguest at Rory and Amy’s. I cannot imagine how much it would play with your emotions to have The Doctor as a coworker, because you can love them and also want to stab them with a fork.
The Doctor even knows they’re annoying, which makes it funnier. My favorite line about this comes from a conversation between 12, Clara, and some random character. The random character asks who Clara is.
Clara: I’m his carer.
Twelve: Yes, she’s my carer. She cares, so I don’t have to.
For my Americans, in Britain, a carer is someone who works in a nursing home. Peter Capaldi was much older than Matt Smith, and I loved how they worked that one in.
I also hope that Neil Gaiman does more with both Doctor Who and Good Omens. I don’t want him to limit himself to those shows if he doesn’t want it. It would just be nice to get a standalone from him once in a while. Good Omens is already greenlit for season 3.
But mostly I like the way that Neil writes for David Tennant, so perhaps the answer is to lure Neil Gaiman into rebooting Torchwood.
If you see him, could you ask?
Stories That Are All True 