Nu-NuWho: It’s All Too Much

The reboot of the reboot of Doctor Who is charming and fun, but also rushed and superficial (just like me!).

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Did they have to hire the prettiest people on Earth for these roles?

I’m long past the age when being a fan of Doctor Who matters one way or another. Yes, the show is frequently ridiculous¹, the continuity is fucked three ways from Sunday², and most of the stories resolve with an explosion of technobabble so insultingly dumb it makes you angry—but it’s still charming AF³. Ncuti Gatwa is charming AF, Millie Gibson is charming AF. After the relatively exasperating and exhausting Chris Chibnall years, the new incarnation (once again being helmed by Russell T. Davies) feels light and fun again. Gatwa and Gibson have a good energy, and the stories are at least interesting again⁴.

But! It’s Doctor Who. And it’s Doctor Who being run by Davies, so the new season does suffer from one glaring problem: It’s moving fast. Gatwa plays The Doctor like a man who hasn’t seen colors in centuries, soaking in everything he sees, hears, or smells with elaborate gusto⁵. And Gibson’s Ruby Sunday is one of those companion characters who has zero connections⁶, zero responsibilities, and no end of enthusiasm. They’ve replaced the fast-talking West Yorkshire of Jodie Whittaker with Gatwa’s weirdo Scottish-Rwandan accent⁷; Gatwa’s Doctor also talks fast (a lot) but also displays a willingness to slow down and feel his feelings. And those feelings are deep, and also unearned⁸.

Timey-Wimey

This man knows how to charm.

It’s always hard to track time on Doctor Who—it’s a show about time travel, after all. There’s always an implication that adventures are being had off-screen in-between episodes, and it’s difficult, sometimes, to pin down how long a companion has been looping about the universe⁹. But in episode five, “73 Yards,” Ruby says that she’s only known The Doctor for a few months. And it’s only episode five, I should emphasize. Including the Christmas special, these characters have been interacting for six episodes.

This is a problem because Davies and Moffat, having each established an all-time dramatic Doctor/companion relationship or three (Rose and The Tenth Doctor, Amy Pond and the Eleventh, Clara and the Twelfth) want very much to get back to those dramatic, deeply-felt vibes. And those were vibes; The Doctor often moved heaven and hell to save those companions, and they had years of earned emotional gravitas to play with. When Amy Pond returned at the last minute in a vision to tell the Eleventh Doctor “goodnight” or when Clara wipes Twelve’s memories of her, that shit hits hard¹⁰.

So, Davies wants that, and to get it, he’s rushing the tempo. The Fifteenth Doctor treats Ruby as if they’ve already served side by side in saving the universe a few times, and suffered losses as a result—but it’s only been a couple of months. They barely know each other. The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond dealt with visions of alternate futures, multiple kidnappings, timey-wimey pregnancies, the end of the universe (almost)¹¹, and a dozen other emotionally-charged moments. Was it all mostly ridiculous? Of course! But still, when that “goodnight” line came, it slapped. In the episode “Boom!” that Moffat wrote, when Fifteen says “you are brave and you are wonderful” to Ruby it’s ... an okay line. Because … is she? And how would we know?

Everywhere's a Beach Eventually

I do like the randomness of Gatwa’s look.

Gatwa and Gibson will likely get there. They have an easy chemistry, and after a season or three of breathlessly running away from mortal dangers and solving ridiculous puzzles in order to stop the world from imploding, there very well could be the sort of deeply-imagined emotional resonance between the characters. When Gatwa or Gibson finish out their contract and decide they want to do other things, their farewell episode will likely be a real tearjerker, especially if Davies is still running things (and doubly so if Moffat writes the script).

But the way we’re supposed to just accept that Ruby and The Doctor are now bonded on a deep emotional level after a few jaunts around time and space just doesn’t land. You have to put in the writing work to get to those moments. Davies and Moffat are both talented writers, and television series writing is challenging in many ways, but you still have to lay that groundwork.

Sure, no season of Doctor Who is perfect. The classic series crawled at a pace so slow I literally aged into an adult waiting for one serial to conclude¹². Davies loves fart jokes a bit too much. And too many challenges are solved by The Doctor waving a sonic something (the current one resembles a computer mouse or an old-school PDA) in the air. And maybe a show that’s been on the air since 1963 (with a brief vacation between 1989 and 2005) can never actually make sense ever again¹³ (I’m still not clear if the universe is just a small nub salvaged from the Flux or if that never happened or if it did happen but was reversed. Who can keep track?). But it can make emotional sense, and if you’re a writer you get there by actually showing your characters spending time and forging bonds.

Of course, no one is paying me a lot of money to run a show like this, so what the hell do I know? Well, I know that if I had a time machine I’d be a supervillain called Doctor Time’s Up Bitches and I’d probably cause the universe to collapse in about fifteen minutes of shenanigans¹⁴.

NEXT WEEK: Twisters and its refreshing lack of villainry.

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1. Just like me!

2. Just like me!

3. Just like … wait, scratch that one.

4. I always imagined that Jodie Whitaker needed an oxygen tank to get through her speeches in the Chibnall years.

5. Imagine that Theater Kid you went to high school with getting inebriated for the first time in their lives and spending the whole night sitting on the roof making up poems about the stars and you’ll get the vibe.

6. Aside from an adoptive mother caring for her own bedridden mother who’s all like, sure, babe, go forth and have adventures in time and space I’ll just stay here and change Gram’s bedpan by myself.

7. All right, fine. It’s sexy as hell and I wish I could get away with suddenly using that accent in my own life. I might have to fake a stroke.

8. Unlike mine, which are shallow, but very earned.

9. Clara Oswald apparently stuck around long enough to become some sort of mini Doctor or minor godling, after all.

10. Is it possible I am a man-child whose emotional development stalled at age 11 and I now find deep emotional meaning in Doctor Who episodes? Possibly.

11. Always with the “almost.” Just once I want Doctor Who to pull the trigger and end it all. Smash to black. Make all the children cry.

12. Okay, okay - a sort of adult. I’ll get there. Just the other day I learned that I’ve never once tied a necktie correctly.

13. You could say the same thing about me: I’ve been around so long nothing I do makes any sense at all.

14. Most likely because I refused to read the operating manual, insisting I can figure it out, just like I figured out our coffee table that randomly collapses into its component molecules whenever you look at it.