Doctor Who’s best speeches | 12-10

The speeches and monologues in this show make up some of Doctor Who’s most memorable moments. The writers love to show their flair by giving the Doctor or his companions and friends rousing monologues to perform, whether they’re extended soliloquies or short and punchy passages. They’re the centrepieces of the best episodes, and we consider a Doctor or a companion short-changed if they haven’t been given a sufficient selection of meaty, memorable monologues to perform. Over the next four days I’m counting down what, in my opinion, are Doctor Who’s 12 best speeches and monologues.

I’ve restricted myself to New Who because, while I know there are plenty of brilliant monologues in Classic Who, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen those episodes so I don’t want to miss out any worthy speeches just because I’ve forgotten about them!

So, without further ado, here goes…

12. Tenth Doctor, The Christmas Invasion

After being practically absent for the entirety of his first episode up to this point, wasn’t it just so, so sweet when Ten strutted out of the Tardis, bathrobe and all, and proceeded to lay down the law? It was the big payoff to this episode, seeing our new Doctor for the first time — for real — and seeing him wrest control of the situation in such a familiar flamboyant Doctor-ish style. And it worked. It established, within a matter of minutes, this unfamiliar new face as undeniably the Doctor in the eyes of an audience which could easily have failed to take to the new actor after the beloved Christopher Eccleston’s departure. I don’t think it holds up as well with time as it does on first viewing — some of the cornier lines and gestures make me cringe now, and Ten’s character is still relatively unhewn here — but it’s still undoubtedly one of the most memorable moments of New Who.

11. Ninth Doctor, Rose

In the first episode of the revived series, the Ninth Doctor expresses powerfully and mysteriously to Rose who the Doctor is. Although the Doctor is a beloved and iconic figure for viewers, part of the secret of the popular fascination and appeal of the character is the element of mystery and mystique which surrounds him, most obviously in the fact that the Doctor never reveals his name. In rebooting the character and the show, Rose did a fantastic job of establishing the Doctor in the minds of the audience as an interesting and endearing character, but also whetted the curiosity of the audience by casting a shade of mystery and mystique over him. In doing so it captured the essence of the Doctor perfectly, to my mind.

10. River Song, The Forest of the Dead

Just when you thought this majestic two-parter was going to end on the morose, poignant note of River Song’s sacrifice, it takes a complete u-turn and delivers one final, thrilling coup de grâce as the Doctor races against the clock in pursuit of one, final, lingering chance of saving River. It’s an uplifting, exhilarating, emotional short sequence set to River’s haunting monologue about the Doctor. It all captures who the Doctor is so rousingly and perfectly. I find it incredibly stirring and it never fails to make me emotional every time I see it.

Doctor Who headcanon #4

Let’s talk about sex. In particular, sex involving the Doctor. Or, you know, just love and romance in general. The topic of my fourth headcanon exposition is the Doctor and love, romance and sexuality.

The question of the Doctor’s sexual preference, or how (and if) the Doctor feels sexual or romantic attraction, is a nebulous one because we’ve never really got anything that could be described as a straight answer. Before the 1996 TV Movie, in which Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor kissed Grace Holloway, there were no suggestions that the Doctor experienced love or sexual attraction at all, apart from the occasional very subtle hint which may not have actually been hints at all*. We did know, at least, that the Doctor, in his first incarnation, had a granddaughter, Susan, so, logically, at some point he had to have had children and a wife or lover.

In the revived series, though, we’ve been hit hard and fast with pretty unambiguous evidence that the Doctor does, indeed, experience love or romantic attraction of some kind. The Tenth Doctor fell in love with Rose, became smitten with Reinette (Madame de Pompadour), Astrid Peth and Lady Christina de Souza, and began a fledgling romance with Joan Redfern (albeit as a human). The Eleventh Doctor and the Twelfth Doctor both loved River Song. The Eleventh Doctor clearly had a crush on Clara (“a mystery wrapped in an enigma squeezed into a skirt that’s just a little too tight…”), and there have been subtle suggestions of romantic tension between the Twelfth Doctor and Clara**.

So, my interpretation of the above is that it’s pretty clear that the Doctor experiences romantic attraction. It used to be the general presumption among the Doctor Who fandom, at least until the 1996 TV Movie, that the Doctor is asexual, in that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction—which would be consistent with the proposition that he still experiences romantic attraction, because asexuals can still feel romantically or personally attracted to someone, although not sexually or physically attracted. None of the evidence negatives the idea that the Doctor is asexual—in his various attractions he has always displayed an attraction or infatuation that is personal but not necessarily sexual or physical, i.e. we never saw the Doctor sneaking peeks at Rose’s bum or checking out River in her tight, revealing outfits.

I would propose that the Doctor is asexual, but for the complication of that one line of the Eleventh Doctor’s about Clara (“a skirt that’s just a little too tight…”). You could reason it away by suggesting it was just a throwaway line, that the Doctor was just babbling, as is his usual manner, but somehow I don’t think the Doctor would know to make a comment like that if he hadn’t noticed that Clara, er, not to put too fine a point on it, has a very alluring figure which is particularly pronounced in the tight dresses she wore in Series 7. At the same time, there’s the issue of how the Doctor had a grandchild***, and therefore children, if he didn’t at one point have a wife or lover with whom he conceived those children. In short, the Doctor must have had sex.

I’m concluding that the Doctor does experience sexual attraction, but I don’t think to the same extent as humans do. I’m inclined to think this would be a product of the Time Lords’ evolution: beings that have such advanced lifespans, that can live “practically forever, barring accidents” would very quickly overpopulate and ravage their own planet, and go extinct, if they had the same hyper-charged sex drive as we short-lived humans. But, at the same time, they would also go extinct if they were a completely asexual species with no natural impulse to reproduce. I’m thinking that a latent or negligible sex drive evolved in the Gallifreyan species alongside its ultra-extended lifespan to ensure its survival. The other possibility is that, like Tolkien’s Elves, Time Lords have a normal sex drive in youth but which quickly wanes after peak childbearing age, leading to a condition for the rest of their lives of virtual asexuality, although we could assume that, even then, some latent sexual attraction remained (evolution is rarely so neat and tidy).

Either of those theories could account for the Doctor’s history of onscreen romances and attractions, I think, and I don’t necessarily have a preference for either. The point is that, in my headcanon, Time Lords’ sexuality differs greatly from human sexuality for evolutionary reasons, with the implication being that, the Doctor, as a mature Time Lord, doesn’t experience sexual attraction to the extent humans do, although he’s still perfectly capable of experiencing romantic love and personal attraction.

What do you think of my headcanon? What do you think about the Doctor’s sexuality?

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* I.e. Jo Grant and Sarah-Jane Smith. I personally ship Four and Romana.

** Disclosure: Whouffaldi shipper.

*** There are fan theories suggesting that the Doctor’s relationship with Susan wasn’t actually biological, that Susan is the Doctor’s “granddaughter” in some other sense that didn’t involve the Doctor conceiving children with someone. There is also the pseudo-canon of the Virgin novels (i.e. Lungbarrow) that suggests that Time Lords don’t actually come into being through sexual reproduction, that they are artificially conceived through genetic “looms”. I’m ignoring all this and assuming that Time Lords do reproduce the same way as us (given that they have the same parts as us, as confirmed amusingly in Deep Breath) and that Susan is the Doctor’s biological granddaughter.

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Admin note: Maybe you’ve noticed my absence over the last two weeks (I’d be flattered if you did!). I’ve just got back from a holiday to Melbourne this week, which I kind of needed badly, and enjoyed very much. So now I’m back, and my regular (erratic, disorganised) posting schedule should resume normal service!

Thoughts on: The Husbands of River Song

Warning: spoilers.

Steven Moffat stated in an interview that, for a long time, he thought that this script, the 2015 Christmas special, might be his last for Doctor Who. He didn’t know if he’d be continuing as showrunner after 2015, and undoubtedly had at the forefront of his mind the possibility that this year’s Christmas special might very well be the last episode he produces for Doctor Who, at least as showrunner. And, truly, The Husbands of River Song feels very much like a swan song of sorts. It isn’t just that it ties up the seven-year story of River Song in what feels like definitive and satisfying closure — there’s a relief and gaiety, but also a genuine emotional touch, to the proceedings that lends to it a sense of warm finality. I mean, much of it is silly farce, but it’s silly farce done in such a loving, adoring way that it does feel as much a personal statement from its writer as much as it is a bit of lighthearted seasonal fluff. You can feel, in a very real sense, Steven Moffat smiling affectionately through the script. To put it another way, if Heaven Sent and Hell Bent were the soaring final act, the coup de grâce to the Moffat era, then The Husbands of River Song would have been the rousing encore.

As far as Christmas specials ago, this is surely the campest, fluffiest, most farcical yet. And there’s nothing wrong with that. After the intense and emotionally devastating three-week long coda to Series 9, a lighthearted, comedic, self-consciously camp story about the Doctor and River Song stealing a bad old king’s head, jam-packed with the most juvenile, lame humour Moffat could muster, was exactly what we needed to bring Doctor Who in 2015 to a close. It was the perfect tonic to one of the darkest, heaviest ends to a series since 2005. And this episode wasn’t just a worthwhile watch for that reason — lighthearted camp can often be tedious, forgettable pap (e.g. Partners in Crime, The Crimson Horror), but this was genuinely fun, funny and well-written farce. It was so self-consciously camp and silly — the characters, the lines, the whole situation were supposed to be unutterably ridiculous — that it was good, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. If nothing else, it’s highly pleasurable and gratifying light Christmas viewing, which is as it should be.

At heart, though, this was a story about the Doctor and River Song, not King Hydroflax’s head. It was a joy to watch Peter Capaldi’s Doctor and River Song together, no less in a situation where one doesn’t recognise the other. It was also poignant to watch the Doctor visibly hurt by River’s not recognising him and by her flirtation with what seems like everyone apart from him, when she thinks he’s not watching. The situation made for some fantastic moments, hilarious as well as poignant, not least the Doctor’s side-splitting and eminently re-playable performance when he gets his chance, “finally”, to do the “It’s bigger on the inside” thing. Easily the best “It’s bigger on the inside” of them all, in my opinion. But moments like the Doctor and River’s tension-laden conversation at the dinner table on the supervillain luxury resort spaceship carried great emotional weight. And of course, River’s speech, insisting the Doctor (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”), the love of her life, doesn’t love her back, was very good, very earnest and emotive.

All of which made it so much better when River finally recognised the Doctor. The dynamic between River and Capaldi’s Doctor, and the flirting and the banter, after River recognised the Doctor was every bit as good and electric and convincing as River with Matt’s and David’s Doctors. It does make me wonder, even, whether the moment shouldn’t have been delayed as long as it was, whether we could have been treated to more quality Twelve-River action. As a close to River Song’s story in Doctor Who, though, the episode was perfect: as lovely and beautiful and emotional as you could want. The show, in tying up River’s seven-year long character arc, brings her story full-circle, ending it by leading into Silence in the Library, the first time we ever see River, but the last time River sees the Doctor (in life). As an effective addition, it was interesting to see that the Doctor has learnt his lesson from Hell Bent — he knows, and accepts, that this is the last time he sees River before she goes to the Library, where she will meet her end, and he can’t change that. When he says “Times end because they have to,” and “There’s no such thing as happily ever after,” he’s clearly still internalising his lesson re Clara, as well as resigning himself to River’s fate. Which is as punchy and profound an instance of the Doctor’s character development as it gets, frankly. “Happily Ever After”, though, as River insists, only means time, and it’s such a gratifying and lovely end to River’s story on Doctor Who to know that River and the Doctor will have, practically, as much time as they could want to spend together on their final night. And that final shot, of the Doctor and River gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, was beautiful. Happy Christmas, indeed.

Rating: 8/10.

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Quote of the week:

“It’s bigger on the inside!”

Ranking the finales (Part 1)

Have you recovered yet? Are you ready to come out? Have you come to terms with last Saturday’s gut-wrenching end to the beloved onscreen partnership of the last two years? Are you able to hear Clara’s name spoken without breaking down in tears yet?

Or, alternatively, have you chewed away all your frustration and exasperation? Have you stopped muttering “f*cking Moffat” under your breath every thirty seconds?

Yes, it’s been almost a week since Series 9’s grand finale, Hell Bent, aired, and has reliably left the fandom in as dazed and sucker-punched a state as always. Perhaps by now we’ve processed the dizzying blows of Hell Bent and are ready to articulate our thoughts in something approaching coherent form.

So how does Hell Bent measure up against all the other finales of the revival? I’ve decided to set out, definitively, how the finales stack up against each other. This post will detail my assessment of the ninth to fifth-ranked finales. Tomorrow (probably) I’ll post the final four.

So without further ado…

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9. The Name of the Doctor (Series 7)

I don’t dislike any of the finales so far, but The Name of the Doctor works for me the least. To be sure, I think it’s a good episode. At the time, I was really impressed; it had one of the best pretitles sequences in the show’s history, and I thought the idea that Clara had entered the Doctor’s timestream, broken herself into a million echoes scattered across the Doctor’s timeline to save him from the devices of the Great Intelligence was nothing short of awesome. I thought that was a spectacular resolution to the Impossible Girl arc, and seeing that montage of Clara manifesting herself in scenes from the Doctor’s adventures was exhilarating. I love that this finale bound together the Doctor and Clara on a cosmic level, so important had Clara become to the Doctor. I love the emotional “goodbye” between the Eleventh Doctor and River Song, and I love the wonderfully enigmatic introduction of the War Doctor, leading into the 50th Anniversary.

No, what leaves me somewhat unsatisfied about this episode, as a series finale, was that not all that much actually happened. It was very much an episode about an idea (Clara = the girl who was born to save the Doctor) rather than a substantive story, and most of the episode was written as material leading up to the big, flashy montage at the end. The stakes in the episode were just as high as any other finale (the end of the universe, as usual), but it did feel a lot like it was mostly style over substance, or a really cool idea over a proper, satisfying story. I don’t know, I guess I just want something meatier to sink my teeth into in a series finale.

Full review here.

8. Army of Ghosts/Doomsday (Series 2)

Okay, let’s be honest here. The only thing the Series 2 finale is ever remembered for is Rose’s farewell. Rightly so, it’s the best thing about this finale, arguably the most heartbreaking and memorable companion exit of all, a traumatising parting of the ways that never fails to move me. The acting of David Tennant and Billie Piper in those moments is some of their best in their respective terms, both of them mustering up everything they’ve got to eke out as much emotion and pain from the audience as possible. It’s justly considered one of the show’s most memorable ever scenes.

But there’s a lot more to this finale than Ten and Rose’s breakup, and it’s that that brings this finale down for me. It’s not a bad finale, by any means, but it all feels a bit sloppy. The Daleks versus the Cybermen was one of those ideas we could all fantasise about, but which we knew would never work onscreen. And this finale doesn’t really do justice to the idea — there’s some amusing banter between the Daleks and the Cybermen, but the actual battle scenes were never going to be as good as the idea of a Dalek-Cyberman standoff merited. No, apart from the emotional goodbye between the Doctor and Rose, and Tennant and Piper’s fantastic performances throughout the finale generally, this is a pretty nondescript finale for me.

Full review here.

7. Dark Water/Death in Heaven (Series 8)

Maybe I’m still smarting from the wholly underwhelming letdown that was the second half of last year’s finale, but I can’t bring myself to rank the Series 8 finale any higher. My enduring impression of Dark Water/Death in Heaven is that it was a big two-part finale that set itself up so well — my first viewing of Dark Water is one of my most treasured memories watching this show — but failed so thoroughly to follow through on the great work of its first half. Death in Heaven was a disappointing letdown if there ever was one. I find it really hard to forgive that, probably more difficult than if it were just rubbish from start to finish.

What I really do like this finale for, though, is its willingness to delve into very dark and grown-up themes, that is to say: death and the afterlife. Dark Water got Doctor Who into a bit of trouble for the whole “Don’t cremate me!” thing, and, to be sure, it was very disturbing. But, at the same time, that was easily one of the best moments of the episode. Dark Doctor Who is always absorbing Doctor Who. I also loved Missy — I felt the Cybermen were, again, portrayed poorly, but Michelle Gomez as Missy was just mesmerising. In addition, I found very satisfying and gratifying the way the Twelfth Doctor’s character arc over the series was resolved in Death in Heaven, with the Doctor coming to the realisation that, no, he’s not a good man, but he tries to be, and helps out where he can, which is what matters. It was really uplifting, in the finale’s denouement, to see Capaldi’s Doctor finally assured of his own identity after a series of a self-doubting, brooding new Doctor.

Full review here.

6. Hell Bent (Series 9)

The recent Series 9 finale improves every time I watch it. As a character piece centring on the Doctor’s attachment to Clara Oswald, showing how far the Doctor was prepared to go for Clara’s sake, it was incredibly powerful and affecting. We were all expecting, I think, an epic, blockbusting Doctor v. Time Lords standoff, the Doctor’s historic return to Gallifrey for the first time since the Time War, filled to the brim with mythology development and revelations about mysterious hybrids. That would, I admit, have been awesome, and I’m a tiny bit disappointed that that’s not what we got—but in the end, Hell Bent was a far more, intimate, emotional and character-driven piece about the extent of the Doctor’s love for Clara, his grief over her fate, and his anger at the Time Lords.

There were many wonderful, powerful and emotional moments in there, such as the scene between the Doctor and Clara in the Cloisters, the face-off with Rassilon, and, of course, the final, tear-jerking goodbye between the Doctor and Clara. Whatever you thought about Clara’s death being reversed, or “qualified”, surely we would all agree that the Doctor forgetting Clara, one of his closest and most beloved ever companions, was utterly heartbreaking. What brings it down, for me, is that it did feel a bit messy and busy, as though there was too much going on, and it took a few attempts to cut through it all and discern what this finale was actually about. I think that was due to the decision to feature the return of Gallifrey and the emotional, character-focussed narrative in the same script. They both, to an extent, rather crowd each other out.

Full review here.

5. The Wedding of River Song (Series 6)

The Series 6 finale is often spoken about in a tone of exasperation and derision by fans. I think the popular view of The Wedding of River Song among the fandom is that it’s a somewhat incoherent ejaculation of arc-resolution, mostly incomprehensible and inaccessible if you’re not intimately acquainted with the multifarious and confusing Series 6 arc. I think there’s some truth in that, but that’s never been my impression. True enough, you need fairly good prior knowledge of the Series 6 arc to understand The Wedding of River Song, but, equally, the series finale is not there to appeal to the casual viewers who tune in and out when it suits them—it’s to reward the committed viewers who’ve come back and followed the show week-to-week. That’s always been the nature of Doctor Who’s series finales, and, at least in the modern show, it couldn’t really be otherwise.

With the requisite background knowledge of the Series 6 arc, then, The Wedding of River Song, I’ve found, is a really rewarding, engaging and satisfying culmination of Series 6. It’s unusually arc-dependent, even for a series finale, but I don’t think the arc material is dealt with in a way that inhibits the telling of a genuinely engaging and beautiful story about two fated lovers, the Doctor and River Song, and how one’s love for the other nearly ripped all of time apart. There are scenes, like those between the Doctor and River, especially the actual “wedding” of the Doctor and River, that are properly chilling, and constitute the actual heart, the essence, of this finale, when you cut through all the arc and timey-wimey stuff. It’s similar to Hell Bent in a way, in that Moffat has made a conflict of sweeping, all-consuming scale out of something profoundly personal and intimate: it’s River’s love for the Doctor that threatens all of time. I think that’s beautiful, and it’s a beautiful story.

Full review here.

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Make sure to check back tomorrow for my top 4!

Thoughts on: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead

Once again Steven Moffat has delivered an absolute triumph of a story. This two-parter was exciting, scary, beautiful, tear-jerking and completely engrossing. It exercised the nerves like only a Moffat story can, and was also generously laden with absorbing character drama, electric dialogue, and some of the most beautiful moments ever in this show. It featured a cast of wonderful characters, including the enigmatic River Song, Moffat here setting up one of the major story arcs of the Matt Smith era. I don’t know how Moffat does it, but, in each of his four stories that I’ve watched in this marathon, I’ve always been left quite blown away by what I’ve just watched. He’s an exceptional writer who has arguably produced more outright classics for the Doctor Who corpus than any other writer, and this is one of his best and one that I personally adore.

The setting for this story was ingenious, the largest library in the universe, spanning an entire planet. The Library is easily one of the most interesting worlds which have featured in Doctor Who, and I’d imagine if the show had had a bigger budget, this story could have been visually spectacular. The immediate mystery that strikes the Doctor and Donna, of course, was where all the people were in this enormous library. In classic Moffat style, the story is scarcely underway before the air of conspiracy and spookiness descends when the talking statue urges them, “Run. For God’s sake, run.” An altercation with some shadows and a rendezvous with an archaeology expedition later, and it becomes clear that they are dealing with the Vashta Nerada, which are, in truth, a bargain-price monster if there ever was one, but not that that detracts from their scariness and menace at all. In fact, the gimmick—that they can be “any” shadow—makes them more effective. I was too old to be genuinely scared by the Vashta Nerada when this story was first broadcast, but I’m sure if I had been a few years younger I’d have been properly creeped. That said, their devouring of the sweet Miss Evangelista, and her subsequent “ghosting” through her thought patterns stored on her communication device was surely one of the most disturbing things Doctor Who has ever shown. It was heart-rending and, as Donna said, quite horrible.

It becomes clear that the little girl, Cal, is somehow connected. I think the plotline around Cal and her absorption of people into the virtual world of the Library computer was marvellous writing which elevated this script from what would have been a fairly standard, albeit creepy, runaround to a true triumph of storytelling and drama. Cal in her living room seeing visions of the Doctor and the Library and controlling it all with her television remote was intriguing enough, but the virtual world that she created for Donna and, assumingly, everyone else she “saved” was just spellbinding viewing, and truly interesting experimental television. The sequences showing Donna living in her fictional world were really quite unsettling. When Miss Evangelista showed up, whom I initially thought was a Dementor, telling Donna that her perceived life was a lie, it all got very Matrix—in a good way—it was terrifically chilling: by the time Donna tore off Miss Evangelista’s veil, revealing a freakish distortion where that pretty face of hers used to be, I was totally mesmerised. The revelation of what CAL was, and how the little girl was connected to it all, was really well done. CAL’s identity, and the purpose of the Library, was touching. Cal, by the way, was played really well by Eve Newton, easily one of the better child actors we’ve seen yet on Doctor Who.

I wasn’t altogether impressed by the explanation for what would happen to the Vashta Nerada. I’ve read the transcript and I’m still not sure what happened to them, perhaps this story’s sole fault. Nevertheless, the resolution, with River’s sacrificing herself in the Doctor’s place to restore all the people downloaded to the computer’s hard drive, saying her heartbreaking farewell to the Doctor, was tear-jerking. It contained some of the most beautiful dialogue Moffat has written.

River: “If you die here, it’ll mean I’ve never met you.”
Doctor: “Time can be rewritten.”
River: “Not those times. Not one line. Don’t you dare. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s not over for you. You’ll see me again. You’ve got all of that to come. You and me, time and space. You watch us run.”

I thought all of the scenes between River and the Doctor in this story were incredibly touching, particularly the moment River uttered the Doctor’s name in his ear; that was spine-chilling, and Tennant’s acting when River did that powerfully conveyed the Doctor’s utter stupefaction. Moffat couldn’t have done better to set up River’s story arc. Further, it was obvious how painful it was for River for the Doctor not to recognise her. We were seeing at the same time the beginning and the end of a love story, the love story of two time travellers travelling in opposite directions. How tragic is it to see a lover pained by the love of her life seeing her and not knowing her? Perhaps equally as tragic as it was elating when the Doctor bounded furiously through the Library when he realised he could save River, restoring her to the Library’s virtual world with her friends, his first act of love for River. That was a genuinely stirring, heartwarming sequence, and I’m not ashamed to say I got a catch in my throat when I watched that. It was beautiful.

Another astounding script from Moffat, pulling off the feat of employing Moffat’s traditional talent for scares and chills at the same time as delivering a script with more than one memorable moment seized with emotion. Although Moffat has delivered superior scripts, this one certainly ranks among his best, and to an extent I love it more than any of his others; there’s just something about which plays on the emotions and makes one remember it so fondly. It’s a classic to be sure.

Rating: 10/10.