By: Alex Kuhn, @magaman28
Doctor Who has returned! With the newest installment headed to Disney +, you may be wondering what to expect. Be warned, there are spoilers ahead. If you absolutely want to watch the first installment of the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special, The Star Beast (though I wouldn’t recommend it), go right ahead. And then come back to this review.
I remember when I first heard about Doctor Who as a college undergrad. While I enjoyed the Christopher Eccleston season recommended by a few friends, things really kicked off for me when David Tennant took over the TARDIS. I got addicted to Who instantly and watched up until Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor took over. But in that season, I discovered Chris Chibnall was one of the worst showrunners to ever work on Doctor Who. Despite none of Whittaker’s episodes being particularly memorable, both she and Chibnall maintained their roles on the show through 2022.
Accompanying the duo’s departure late last year came news that the BBC, which has produced the show since its creation in 1963, had brokered a vague deal with Disney, which would allow the show to be streamed on Disney+ and, presumably, involve the media giant in the production of future seasons.
Doctor Who & the Disney Disaster
Why on Earth would the BBC partner with Disney? Not only has the company’s stock price gone down the toilet, but it has also managed to tank all the franchises it’s taken over, including Star Wars, Marvel, and Indiana Jones.
The one positive announcement to come in all this is the return of the iconic David Tennant and Catherine Tate duo as the Doctor and his companion. The two were last seen together in Season 4 of “New Who,” which is commonly acknowledged as one of the series’ all-time best seasons. They have now returned in the first of a three-part Disney+ 60th Anniversary Who special, titled The Star Beast, which aired on November 25.
If the return of Tennant and Tate is the good news, what is the bad? Well, where do I begin? Let’s break it down.
Doctor Who Falls Prey to Pronouns
In a scene that has already made the rounds on social media, Tennant refers to an alien creature, Beep the Meep, with the pronoun “him.” Donna’s “daughter” (more on that later), Rose, immediately jumps in to admonish the Doctor not to assume pronouns. Why on Earth is pronoun usage being discussed on Doctor Who? Fans are not watching for lectures—we are watching to take a break from the world and engage in a little fun!
The Sonic Screwdriver
This episode introduces several new uses of the Doctor’s trusty tool, the Sonic Screwdriver, including creating holograms and making force fields out of thin air. While not the most egregious changes, they do seem a bit far-fetched considering the traditional uses of the Sonic previously seen on the show.
Measly Men
Later in the episode, Rose and Donna find themselves involved in a meta-crisis, which leads the Doctor to state that he wants to fix them. Donna responds that because he is currently a man and not a woman, he wouldn’t understand how to fix them. Disney seems to be sending a clear message that all men are intellectually inferior to women.
The meta-crisis ultimately resolves when the two decide to “let it go,” in what appears to be an exceedingly cringe reference to Disney’s Frozen.
Doctor Who TARDIS Makeover
It simply resembles the Death Star WAY too much, leaving fans wondering exactly how much input Disney had in this creative process.
Transgender Rose
For whatever reason, the BBC chose to cast a transgender actor (that is, a man pretending to be a woman) to play Rose. And, apparently, the character herself (himself?) is also transgender within the Doctor Who universe. Why? Why include a transgender story in Doctor Who at all? Well, it’s all part of the message Disney is trying to send their audience. Gone are the days when the entertainment company focused on entertaining their audience. Now, it’s all about the woke lecturing—even in the Who universe.
And it’s not just the company writ large. Showrunner Russell Davies, despite his previous triumphs reviving and popularizing Who, is being called out for a series of social media posts in which he downplays the concerns of avid Doctor Who fans. Such remarks have many fans, including myself, worried about where the series is heading.
Unsurprisingly, given these circumstances, the viewership count for Star Beast is reported to be extremely low. The BBC should take drastic and immediate action—including firing Russell Davies—to save this beloved franchise.