david-tennant – JG Judgementally Comments…

Doctor Who – The Giggle

The third and final Doctor Who Tennant special sees the Doctor face the Toymaker. Are we game for that?

What’s the Show? The final 2023 Doctor Who special.

What’s It All About, JG? In the prelude, John Logie Baird’s assistant buys a dummy from the mysterious Toymaker, who’s a bit of a racist prick. The dummy is used by Baird in a test transmission… what could go wrong?

The Doctor and Donna are back on Earth where everything has fallen apart because some mysterious force – you know, the one in the pre-credits sequence – has made everyone believe that they are right all the time. The Doctor and Donna hook up with UNIT who are trying to contain the situation, with limited effect. Mel (Mel!) is also at UNIT for… reasons, helping out. The Doctor and Donna travel back to 1925 to find the Toymaker, who first taunts the Doctor about the fate of his previous companions and then leads him on a merry chase around an ever-shifting series of corridors. The Doctor loses a game of cards to him but survives using the “best of three” rule. Ahem.

Once they escape, they high-tail it back to UNIT HQ where – following a dance sequence – the Toymaker eventually shoots the Doctor. This triggers a so-called “bi-generation” whereby David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa can share some screen time. The Doctor(s) defeat the Toymaker in a game of catch, then the David Tennant 14th Doctor heads off to have a nice life (it says here) with Donna and her extended family while the 15th Doctor heads off to have adventures of his own.

Doctor Who – Wild Blue Yonder

The Doctor and Donna vs The Doctor and Donna! There’s also probably a “long arm of the law” gag in there somewhere…

What’s The Show? The second of RTD’s Fourteenth Doctor specials, “Wild Blue Yonder”.

What’s It All About, JG? After a brief stop-off to visit Issac Newton for a limp joke, the coffee-defeated TARDIS crashes on an alien spaceship. While repairing itself, it vanishes (thanks to the always-rubbish HADS) and leave the Doctor and Donna stranded in a very long corridor that sometimes reconfigures itself randomly and with an ancient robot slowly making its way down. While exploring the ship, they discover they are on the very edge of existence and that they are sharing the ship with the no-things. They are creatures who slowly take the form of those around them until they can mimic them perfectly. Once the process is complete, they plan to swarm into the universe and plunder. The captain of the ship worked out how to stop them and set the ship on a very slow self-desctruct – hence the robot – while the no-things copy the Doctor and Donna in a bid to escape their captivity in the creepiest way imaginage. The Doctor speeds up the self-destruct to stop them, the TARDIS reappears at a convenient moment to save the day and Donna almost dies after the Doctor takes the fake one on board but then is rescued. And on returning to London safely, Wilf is waiting for them but the world has gone to pot.

Doctor Who – The Star Beast

David Tennant is back! Catherine Tate is back! RTD is back! But can the old magic be recaptured?

What’s the Show? Doctor Who returns with RTD back at the helm for three specials prior to the launch of the Fifteenth Doctor. You probably know that.

What’s it All About? The Doctor has regenerated from Jodie Whittaker back into David Tennant for reasons not yet explained. He bumps into Donna (Catherine Tate), whose daughter Rose (Yasmin Finney) has discovered an alien, Beep The Meep (Myriam Margolyes), and hides it – in true E.T. style – in her shed. Donna’s still got the whole mind block from Journey’s End in place whereby she’ll die if she remembers the Doctor (or there’s a big End Of Doctor special in the offing) so keeps missing things like a crashing spaceship. The ship carries soldiers bent on bringing the Meep to justice since, though looking cute and cuddly, it is, in fact, a vicious, evil thing. The Meep is stopped from destroying London by the Doctor and Donna, who eventually deals with the whole I’ll-die thing by having had a daughter and diluting the metacrisis then just letting it go. Hmm. Anyway, Donna pops off for “one last journey in the TARDIS”, it all goes wrong, and then onto the next episode.