David Tennant and Catherine Tate are back for one last hurrah with Doctor Who’s one-hour 60th Anniversary Specials!
by Boris Nusinzon
Managing Editor
Doctor Who is a show with a long and rich history; it started all the way back in 1963, was canceled temporarily in 1989, and returned in 2005 all the way to the present day. “New Who,” or the revival of the show, has followed three distinct eras throughout three showrunners– Russell T. Davies, Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall.
The previous three series, under the helm of Chris Chibnall, have faced continuous controversy from fans for purportedly straying too far from the spirit of the previous 10 series established by Davies and Moffat. Series 11-13 were criticized for poor plotlines, uninteresting characters, and was especially panned for the introduction of the controversial “Timeless Child” storyline.
However, in 2021, it was announced that Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker, the actor for the Thirteenth Doctor, were leaving in 2022 after a trilogy of specials. This left fans wondering who would take the helm after what was a highly controversial run of the show that majorly divided the fanbase.
Fans’ questions were quickly answered, though, as just two months later it was announced that Russell T. Davies, who had helmed the return of the show in 2005 all the way up to the end of David Tennant’s tenure as the Tenth Doctor in 2010, would be running the show once more.
But the surprises weren’t over yet, as things quickly took an interesting twist for fans. In the last of the 2022 specials, Jodie Whittaker regenerated into David Tennant’s face once more as the Fourteenth Doctor.
“Whovians” were now treated to three whole 60th anniversary specials featuring one last “hurrah” with David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor, alongside his final and arguably most iconic companion, Donna Noble.
The first special, The Star Beast, released on November 25th. This special began with the Fourteenth Doctor finally landing back on Earth… but he had a predicament. In “Journey’s End,” the final episode of the Tenth Doctor’s Series 4, Donna Noble took in the full power of a Time Lord, and as such, was on the brink of dying due to her mind burning up. The Tenth Doctor had to wipe her memory to save her life, but at a cost– if she ever remembered him, she would die.
This special can be best described as “wastes no time.” It had exceedingly brisk pacing that felt like it took no time to reminisce, and when it did, the emotional and heartfelt scenes felt cut off. It appeared as if Davies was purposefully constraining himself to the 60-minute timeslot, rather than writing to meet whatever length the special truly might have needed (80 or 90 minutes).
The premise of The Star Beast is that Beep the Meep, the leader and the last of the Meep, a once-peaceful race that went insane due to their sun’s radiation mutating them, crash-landed on Earth alongside the Wrarth Warriors. Viewers are initially led to believe that the Meep is a peaceful creature, looking much like a stuffed animal, but we find out that the Wrarth Warriors are actually hunting down the cruel monster.
The Meep was a generally enjoyable villain, intended as comical– though even when it was revealed to be evil halfway through, the character did not feel particularly threatening.
The Wrarth Warriors did not particularly live up to expectations either. While the species turned out to be quite peaceful, simply defending themselves against the Meep, the costumes and voices did not feel particularly threatening initially.
UNIT (Unified Intelligence Taskforce) is partially re-introduced here as well, primarily serving as a framing device for the Meep’s plan. The Meep was able to mind-control UNIT soldiers to use as an army for the creature’s plan to escape Earth. The issue with this is that how they were mind-controlled is unclear and made a rushed plot-point; they simply look into a swirling energy vortex created by the Meep and become possessed.
Two of the main characters that drive the plot are, of course, Donna, as well as her trans daughter, Rose. Rose is the one to initially discover the Meep, and eventually the Doctor has to save the entire family from a battle outside between the possessed UNIT soldiers and the Wrarth Warriors.
The episode comes to a crux with the Meep activating a ship with a “Dagger Drive” that will destroy the entirety of the Earth to get the monster off the planet. The Doctor and Donna end up trapped together in the control room of the Dagger Drive, and the Doctor has to force Donna to “regenerate” back into the Doctor-Donna in order to help him with the two-person procedure of reversing the ignition.
The two of them barely manage to stop the Meep with the assistance of Rose, as the shocking final twist is that the Doctor-Donna was passed down to Donna’s daughter due to “binary” and “non-binary” (Rose being trans).
Two pieces of the ending were frustrating. Firstly, with the use of the Dagger Drive, the Meep had fully caused London to split and open up, with flames belching out. Once the process was reversed, all of the damage disappeared nearly instantaneously. Even worse, the solution to Donna and Rose having the power of a Time Lord in them was that they were able to simply “let go” of it due to it being shared between the both of them.
It made for a very unsatisfying ending as a whole, leaving the tension previously left of Donna never being able to remember the Doctor unsatisfying. It might have been a necessary choice due to the requirement of needing Donna to remember the past for the following two specials, but it ended up appearing contrived nonetheless.
The Meep ended up being successfully carted off to prison by the Wrarth Warriors, and the episode ended on a cliffhanger as the Doctor and Donna went to take one quick trip in the TARDIS… but Donna accidentally spills coffee on the brand-new TARDIS, sending them flying off.
The second special, “Wild Blue Yonder,” absolutely knocks any expectations out of the park comparatively. The special begins with the Doctor and Donna, following the last episode’s cliffhanger, crashing in England 1666 with Isaac Newton under the famous apple tree. One thing leads to another, and they end up retroactively changing the word “gravity” into “mavity,” which becomes a sustained joke throughout the hour-long special.
Before long, the duo crash on an abandoned spaceship at the “edge of the universe,” with the TARDIS busted and then fully rebuilt… but not before it dematerialized due to the now-fixed “Hostile Action Displacement System” (HADS) after the complete rebuilding of the TARDIS.
However, the two are not alone– they find themselves alongside terrifying creatures known as the No-things that are slowly taking human form in an attempt to fully mimic the duo and find their way into the universe to wreak havoc.
This special can best be compared to other experimental, horror-adjacent Doctor Who episodes such as “Blink” and “Midnight,” in that it took the generally more adventurous, lighter topics of the show and turned them on their head.
This special does an absolutely unparalleled job at framing and pacing. Typically, Doctor Who can struggle with rough pacing or vague plotlines, but Wild Blue Yonder was shocking in that the pacing was all but perfect.
The episode had a perfect balance between frantic action and heart-stopping horror, truly keeping the viewer antsy and on the edge of their seat. The episode slowly follows the Doctor and Donna as they discover the truth of what had occurred on this ship– the two creatures, the No-things, invaded the ship long ago in order to take control of it and escape from the edge of the universe.
The former captain of the ship then had to make a bid to prevent the creatures from fully copying them– they set off a ship self-destruct sequence that would work exceedingly slowly so that the creatures would never be able to grow in strength, then ejected themselves out of the airlock.
The No-things themselves are absolutely horrifying, featuring plenty of “body horror” scenes that could actually cause children to have nightmares at night (which is often customary for scarier Doctor Who episodes). For example, Not-Donna first proclaims “My arms are too long,” and then the viewer sees that, indeed, the copy’s arm stretches massively past her body in a limp state.
All of the horror and frantic feel is accentuated by an excellent use of atmosphere. The viewer gradually witnesses the ship reconfiguring itself, and the robot nicknamed “Jimbo” leisurely walking towards the comedically red button to initiate the full self-destruction of the ship.
Alongside this terrifying atmosphere, the Doctor and Donna are written superbly alongside the Not-Doctor and Not-Donna. The copies not only have their physical appearance, but also share their memories. This helps accelerate the development of the Fourteenth Doctor that began in “The Star Beast,” as Davies took the Flux from the previous series that was poorly received by some and added more retrospective emotion to it. This way, the viewer felt that the events of the Flux (the destruction of half of the universe) have a real, tangible impact on adding to the Doctor’s compounded trauma from his last few incarnations.
Eventually, the episode culminates in a showdown between the real and fake Doctor and Donna, as the counterparts find themselves in an all-out race towards Jimbo. This creates a fantastic role reversal climax, as the protagonists want the ship to explode, whereas the antagonists don’t. This all results in the Doctor eventually escaping, but not before he picks up Not-Donna, thinking she is the real Donna and almost leaving the real one to die.
The episode ends on a fantastic cliffhanger as the duo finally make their way back to Earth, meeting the now late Bernard Cribbins reprising his role as Wilfred Mott one last time before his passing. We find that some unknown force has caused all of humanity to go insane, with the street behind them full of mayhem and a crashing plane above.
Wild Blue Yonder was unconventional, and the risk paid off– it was a spectacular special that landed with an impressive 9.5/10.
The final special, “The Giggle,” was not quite as good as Wild Blue Yonder, but still had quite a bit to love. It was very much a traditional Russell T. Davies finale, featuring grand stakes, massive sets, and intense scenes.
The premise of The Giggle is that the Celestial Toymaker, a villain the First Doctor faced in 1966, has returned to their dimension to wreak havoc. The Toymaker is bound to the laws of his universe, meaning that he plays games with others in order to cause mayhem.
The special slowly builds in drama as watchers discover what has happened to the human race– all the way back in 1925, the Toymaker implanted himself in the human race through putting the very first picture ever put on television (a clown) on every single screen. Once the final satellite ever came online, the supplanted images started causing the entire human race to think they are correct in everything, causing chaos across the globe.
This special fully re-introduced UNIT as a global superpower fighting against alien incursions. A former companion all the way from the Sixth Doctor’s era (Bonnie Langford) reprised her role as Melanie Bush, now working a job at UNIT itself.
The Giggle did a spectacular job at switching between frenetic action and slower, mellow character moments– much like Wild Blue Yonder did. Neil Patrick Harris as The Toymaker is the ultimate villain, wrapping insane comedy with threatening force into one character. The character made it clear that ever since he made his way into their universe, he has made bets with and destroyed many powerful beings.
The high stakes made for an explosive finale, as the character work here builds into the Fourteenth Doctor’s shocking regeneration. Donna remarks once more to the Doctor about his collected trauma and how he’s unable to stop and move on– and this all culminates in the finale of the episode. The Toymaker ends up having a final showdown with the Doctor at the UNIT HQ, facing off as the Toymaker took control of the Galvanic Beam UNIT had used to attempt to take down the last satellite that came up previously.
Shockingly, the Toymaker actually shot the Fourteenth Doctor straight through with the beam, causing him to regenerate… but instead, a second Doctor splits straight out of him?
Russell T. Davies chose to introduce the concept of “bi-generation,” being that the two Doctors split into incarnations separate from each other. Not only did this create a clever twist in that the Fourteenth Doctor did not have to traumatically regenerate like the Tenth Doctor did, but the effect of the Toymaker’s domain being on Earth explains how this unnatural phenomenon occurred.
The second Doctor was now the new incarnation, the Fifteenth Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa. Immediately, the two Doctors challenged the Toymaker to his own game– a game of ball, with the winner deciding the spoils. The two Doctors, of course, win… and banish the Toymaker from this realm forever.
The final twist comes in that given both Doctors won, they each get a prize– and while the Fourteenth Doctor chose to banish the Toymaker forever, the Fifteenth Doctor was able to choose to duplicate the TARDIS. This gave the Fourteenth Doctor his very own TARDIS, and opened the way for a slew of Big Finish audio episodes featuring the incarnation in the future.
The Giggle was an incredibly fun and well-done special as a whole, getting an 8/10.
Overall, the 60th Anniversary Specials deserve major kudos. The specials had some pacing issues, and there were certain parts of the writing of the specials that were flawed, but the directing and direction was exceedingly impressive. Many complained that these specials did not feel like 60th Anniversary Specials, given the lack of the true “multi-Doctor” bonanza that grander specials like the 50th Anniversary featured. However, the lack of a large multi-Doctor special did help give the 60th Anniversary its own feel, and these three specials should be remembered favorably by most Whovians.