This reaction piece was originally published on my (now-defunct) Substack newsletter on 27/11/23.

I was not planning on writing this. I thought I’d put a few cheeky thoughts about The Star Beast at the start of my November 2023 Round-Up post (which is still coming on Thursday btw). But nope, my fan brain has been buzzing about the episode since it aired on Saturday night. Doctor Who came back after a 13-month wait and I’m still high on the serotonin rush that it gave me. The first RTD era was something I consumed uncritically and unapologetically during the ages of 9-14 years old. I did not read Doctor Who Magazine or argue with strangers on internet forums; I had not discovered the fandom-at-large or their endless discourse. And, honestly, I just cherish those memories.

(You know, I spent a whole week thinking Davros was going to be in the Genesis Ark in Doomsday because that year I’d read about the story Genesis of the Daleks in the Monsters and Villains book by Justin Richards. And then I didn’t even care that he never showed up because the episode was just so good! 10-year-old Evan knew how to have fun!!)

But now it’s 2023, I’m a fully paid-up, card-carrying, anorak-clad Doctor Who fan with a personal blog, and I’m bloody well going to embrace that!!!

Oh, and this isn’t going to be a formal, well-constructed review. It’s more a series of thoughts of things that I found interesting that I can recall in a stream of consciousness in roughly a chronological order of the episode’s events. It will also be limited on the time I have to spare, so it will not be detailed and exhaustive. Please excuse any typos and brain farts. Feel free to discourse it out with in the comments below, as long as you promise to be nice.

SPOILERS AHEAD, OBVIOUSLY.

The Pre-Titles

The naffest bit of the entire episode; felt like a total after-thought. We have David Tennant stood in front of a JPEG of Deep Space™ and Catherine Tate sat at her kitchen table giving us a 90-second recap of what happened in the show all the way back in 2008.

A friend of mine pointed out that it had similar vibes to Professor Oak introducing you to the magical world of Pokémon. I found this even funnier when I remembered there is a character in Pokémon Platinum (2008) called ‘Looker’ who looks like David Tennant in his long brown coat who works for the ‘International Police’.

Nevertheless, it was probably a requirement for the Not-We audience to either climb aboard if they are new or to get back on board if they had lapsed.

The Title Sequence

I do really like the general aesthetic, notably the lighting effects and colour palette; I’m just a huge fan of blues and reds and purples. My favourite bit is where we see the names of Tennant and Tate over that wide, deep blue backdrop of space-time – it just feels so huge and epic, like you can go anywhere and everywhere. Previous title sequences have felt more claustrophobic, usually confined to a narrow tunnel or an unremarkable bit of space. The title sequence has never felt so massive to me.

I’m a little indifferent to the TARDIS surfing along the vortex; I couldn’t help but think of Surfin’ USA by The Beach Boys as it cruised along those space-time waves. But I recall feeling the same about the lightning effects in the first version of the Matt Smith title sequence before eventually getting used to it, so perhaps that will happen again here.

The way the new diamond logo swirls in before the episode title is easily my least favourite bit; it feels lazy and incongruous.

It is A Very Good Thing Actually that Russell T Davies has given equal prominence to Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons with himself on the writers’ credits. Marvel should take notes.

The Opening

The Fourteenth Doctor, played by David Tennant (of course!), arrives in Camden Town. Funnily enough, I went out for a late lunch with friends in Camden on the day of broadcast, having completely forgotten it would feature in the episode. I walked past that Camden Lock bridge only a few hours before seeing it again on the telly. It’s nice to see a different yet equally iconic part of London feature in the show.

RTD wastes no time introducing/reacquainting us to all the characters. The episode is well-paced but never feels like it is rushing or dragging. It’s so simple, but it really helps pull you in. This is something I could not take this for granted in recent years. Actually Rachel Talalay’s direction is just generally brilliant, yet in a rather understated way, throughout the episode. This is the first time she has directed a Doctor Who episode that a) is not written by Steven Moffat and b) functions as an opener and not a series finale/ending.

Donna missing the crashing spaceship had me in stitches. We know from past episodes that she has this incredible ability to miss major events happening but it was a delight to see it actually happen on screen.

The Fourteenth Doctor

A curious blend of the familiar and the new. This Doctor is clearly a successor to the Doctors that have followed the Tenth Doctor, keeping certain aspects intact (such as some well-known verbal ticks) whilst changing other aspects (this Doctor is more emotionally aware and considerate based on certain dialogue). This feels like a metaphor for the show that has always had to balance the constants and the changes. It is important thematically within the show, and in practicality outside the show, that the Doctor is not exactly the same as they used to be, or else the show will never move forwards and thrive for years to come.

I also prefer how the Fourteenth Doctor looks here compared to the Tenth Doctor, so maybe that’s a sign I’m moving with the times? Or have I just developed taste?

The Noble Family

I loved how all of the Noble family felt recognisable and yet had all moved on since we last saw them.

Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate (of course!), has settled down and started a family, but her personality and sense of humour are still as recognisable now as they were fifteen years ago. She is fiercely loving and protective of her transgender daughter. There is less friction in her relationship with her mother. She is haunted by her memory gap and still longs to find out what she thinks is missing from her life – a classic companion trait if there is such one.

Rose Noble, played by Yasmin Finney, is compassionate to the Meep and has a creative outlet by making toys (!! Toymaker Klaxon !!) in the back garden shed (this has Wilf energy) to sell so she can help out her parents financially. She is bullied by some lads on bikes who deadname her. I think the acknowledgement of this within a mainstream Saturday night drama feels significant. Throughout the story, she is always thinking of others (the Doctor, her parents, the Meep).

Sylvia Noble, played by Jacqueline King, has mellowed noticeably since we last saw her. No longer always being critical of Donna, she now tries to protect her from remembering her travels with the Doctor so that she can continue to live a normal life (a generational echo there!). Her scene with Donna about slipping over pronouns and Donna reassuring her that she doesn’t always get it right also felt genuine and significant. It happens, they apologise and move on. People can grow and adjust to new norms.

The Doctor’s sole scene with Shaun Temple, played by Karl Collins, in the taxicab was actually one of my personal favourites in the whole episode. We’ve never heard Shaun say a word despite his prior appearance in The End of Time, and yet it feels like this was the character that was always there. The Doctor travels to the crashed spaceship; we learn what Shaun is like as a character (his personality, job and family relationships); some knotty exposition about the winning lottery ticket gets handled; and the taxicab escape later on has been set up: all in one pretty charming and organic scene. This scene is 90% of Shaun’s lines in the episode and yet Collins managed to establish such a presence on-screen with ease. I felt I could sit in that cab and listen to them chat all day; I think this is something that viewers have sorely missed from RTD’s approach to Doctor Who.

The low-key domestic chaos that ensues when the Doctor and the Meep simultaneously intrude on their household was an absolute comedic highlight and I loved watching this back and seeing all the different reactions from each character as it unfolds. Shaun Temple walking in on them and learning about ‘tuna madras’ neatly caps off the silliness.

The Meep

A gloriously problematic fave. The Meep is cute, and adorable, and playful, and totally an evil war-criminal. We cannot fix the Meep. We will all go out and buy cute plushies of The Meep knowing full well The Meep would kill us all in an instant.

I love the scene where the Meep talks the toys as if they were real people. “Please be my friend” melts my heart.

RTD has said that he took on board a note that said he should reveal the Meep is evil much later in the story, and so he did. I totally agree with this note. Even though I knew the reveal would happen eventually, it was still brilliant to see the Meep befriend Rose, ingratiate himself in the household, be escorted out of the firing zone by the Doctor and co., only to then go absolutely feral on them all. YES HAHAHA YES!

I have no shame in admitting that I laughed, in almost Pavlovian fashion, every time The Meep went ‘Meep meep!’ It will never get old.

Miriam Margolyes plays the part as absolutely high camp – the way she swings from her ‘iddle-widdle’ cute voice to a dastardly, snarling evil sneer is just hilarious and a teeny bit terrifying. Davies just knows a great Doctor Who villain when he sees one. I hope the Meep returns.

Other Odd Things I Had Thoughts About

Shirley Anne Bingham, played by Ruth Madeley, is introduced a capable, wheelchair-using scientific advisor for UNIT who talks to the Doctor like they are equals – so she has a bit of Liz Shaw about her. It’s a noticeable shift from the more fan-adoring-the-Doctor characters of Malcolm in 2009’s Planet of the Dead or Osgood from 2013-15. (Not that I think that’s a bad thing in the slightest, just different).

I liked her response of ‘Don’t make me the problem’ when a soldier points out the stairs. There is dramatic irony in how she does not become possessed like the other soldiers because of her lack of mobility. This later leads to her rescuing the Doctor and the Noble family using secret rockets in her wheelchair. I just think that’s quite fun, honestly.

The Doctor being called out on assuming pronouns is an interesting scene to breakdown. On the one hand, I agree that it is respectful to ask and use preferred pronouns for an individual and Tennant also plays the scene about making the assumption with comedic grace. On the other hand, the Meep claims ‘the’ is their preferred pronoun, which I believe is not a pronoun – that would probably be lost on a general audience. Is that meant to be a clue of the Meep’s evil egotistical nature? (All hail the Meep!) The Meep is also referred to by he/him pronouns by Russell T Davies in interviews, so that implies the Doctor wasn’t incorrect in the usage, just the assumption. It seems well-intentioned but a bit muddled. Am I thinking too much here?

The faux-courtroom scene in the underground car park was a great comedic set-up in order to dish out some more exposition. The Doctor wearing a courtroom wig is a throwback to Episode 4 of The Stones of Blood, something only a Chief Nerd like me would know instantly.

Did we all enjoy Gamer Kid™ watching everything unfold from his bedroom window? I sure did. We know he’s a Gamer Kid because he is wearing a Gamer shirt. Yeahhhh. Could not get enough of Gamer Kid being excited by those aliens. Thanks, Gamer Kid. Wait, that kid is called Fudge Merchandani??

The Episode’s Climax

The emotion and chemistry between Tennant and Tate is top-notch throughout this moment. This feels very post-Hell Bent. Donna is enabled to retain her memories and save the day and not have to choose between the two.

The Metacrisis resolution of being a ‘shared inheritance’ passed down through the family is a perfectly sweet and sentimental resolution to the problem MacGuffin of Davies’s own making. But the play on binary/non-binary honestly threw me here. Rose is never established as a non-binary character. Going across the binary is not the same as going outside/beyond the binary. Again, it seems well-intentioned but a bit muddled.

Nevertheless, I like how Russell has managed to get Disney Plus to finance a story about a trans woman saving the world, something which cannot be edited or censored out in other territories, without the story making any sense.

C’mon everyone, we all saw that Rose Noble was going to save all of London, right? This is exactly what Rose Tyler does in Rose. RTD not being subtle at all here.

The Meep being ejected into the sky, screeching all the way, and then parachuting back down again is pure Looney Tunes stuff and I love it, love it, love it. Then the Meep gets to have a final cryptic message before going off to Space Jail. “And I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for that pesky Doctor!” *chef’s kiss*

Final Odd Thoughts

Shaun being so cool about being cool about everything all the time is just so cool. He’s like the Anti-Rory. Cool cool cool.

The new TARDIS is HUGEEEEEEEEE. Tennant spends like a whole minute running around the place. They’ve got some serious money now.

Donna getting a coffee from the New and Improved Food Machine™ only to spill it on the TARDIS console is hilarious and I will not take any comments on this.

I’m excited to find out what next week is all about.

Oh, and I did spot a 57 (=56+1) in the episode. Maybe we will meet UNIT Scientific Adviser No. 57 next year?