Watching: Doctor Who S1 (???)

2024, Disney

Season One. What? Not even 2005 Doctor Who has the conceit of rebranding itself as Season One. But Disney bought streaming rights for anything "new" and that has caused all sorts of weird fuckery. 

What 100.  A new Doctor, introduced to us in a weird, David Tenant guest-appearing, Xmas Special, and a brand new companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson, Coronation Street), an adopted orphan with a mysterious past linked directly to The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa, Masters of the Air). This is a Doctor for our age: much more sexual, black (sad this is groundbreaking), extremely colourful, and oh so emotional. The anti-woke whingers will hate him, but fuck em. Russel T Davies returns to give us back the Willy Wonka, welcome to my factory, wonderment of companion-ing with The Doctor, but also with his requisite, dark, underlying story that ties directly to Ruby.

1 - Great. The dynamic between Ruby and The Doctor. Its a romp across space and time. But not without its dangers. She immediately falls for The Doctor, but not in a romantic way, just in a "we can be best buds forever" kind of way, which is how it should be. 

Also, when The Doctor is talking to the intergalactic bounty hunter Rogue (Jonathan Groff, Mindhunter), "Did you get your name from Dungeons & Dragons?!?!?"

Also, the requisite Davies standalone episode "73 Yards", wherein Ruby crosses over a fairy ring in Wales and ends up losing The Doctor, stalked by an old woman pointing at her, which derails her life almost entirely, and ends up saving the world from "the worst Prime Minister in History" (no not, Boris Johnson). She lives her entire life through to its end, only to return to Wales and cause a paradox so we can have our show. I am sure this will come back to bite her on the bum.

And a cute bum it... Shaddup you.

Also, Goblins on a flying boat and a song & dance number -- sadly, the only one for the season.

Ummm, I just noticed you are are not actually using Kent's format for this 100-1-1-1. So, I guess this is a Or Not scenario applied here as well?

1 - Good. The season long arc, which combines The Mystery Behind Ruby Sunday and a legacy Big Bad from Old Doctor Who -- Sutekh, the Egyptian God of the Dead. As is the tradition, it causes The End of the World, but only temporarily as a pissed off Doctor can undo just about anything. I am generally not jazzed for how Davies ends up his long running story arcs, as he is almost always anti-climactic, I did like the chicken & egg aspect of why Ruby was so important, so important that any time she came close to finding out who she actually was, it caused snow out of time to fall. And only because a Dumb Death God thought it was important. Turns out Ruby was just a normal girl with a normal mom, and a normal dad, who just happens to get mixed up with The Doctor, which makes her important from almost the first day of her life.

1 - Bad. Despite the fans lauding a drag queen playing Big Bad Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), I just found the whole episode tiresome. Maestro is connected to the other (legacy) Big Bad from the Xmas Special, The ToyMaker (Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Hauser MD), and both are supposed to be all powerful godlike beings with specific agendas. Sure sure, The Beatles show up. Sure sure, its all over the top melodrama -- classic Doctor Who. Yawn.

Also, its Ruby's only season. Booooooo.

Boooooo !!!