Light spoiler for Wild Blue Yonder below.
For those not in the loop, I've been on a major Doctor Who kick for the past...I don't know, six months or so. I fell out of love with the series during the episode "A Good Man Goes to War", and hadn't picked it back up again since. I loved River as a mysterious, snarky character, and her reveal felt hollow and like a betrayal. I didn't really relate to Amy, and 11th Doctor wasn't my jam either. Too whimsical. His type of whimsy didn't seem to work in the Doctor's world like the Joker's did in his. He was happy to joke while disasters happened around him and didn't seem impacted enough by it. 11th Doctor lost touch with the things that I liked about Doctor Who. I was trained to love immortal stories by Highlander - being immortal is hard. You have to laugh or you cry. People die around you and you continue on. You have to love what you have while you still have it.
And there I go - quoting 13 without even trying.
I did want to come back for 13 - but I didn't like the first time I watched. I don't quite remember why - just didn't vibe with it. So, I abandoned the series again.
My online friend and I decided to inflict a newcomer on NuWho as it was a good opportunity to review the series before the specials coming out (coincidentally...) last week. I have loved David Tennant since his Doctor, and always perk up when he turns up in something. His Doctor returning sparked joy, joy enough to give the run another chance.
So we watched. I grimaced through the episode that had destroyed my love for the series - mourned River freshly again, swearing 'Moffat...' under my breath, but kept going. Suffering in the order the writers had intended, as my friend quipped. Some of the 12th doctor stories were ok - I really liked Osgood and was glad that Kate was back, despite her previous humanity being whittled down to a fraction of the scientist leader of UNIT, determined to whittle down the militarisation of the weapons-hungry agency while honouring her father's memory and the ideals of the Doctor. I bit my tongue when Clara had the same sort of lovely snark that River had but nothing behind it. I loved Heaven Sent. I hated Bill and the throwaway queer plot. Again no substance. Moffat can't write women.
And then we came back to 13. I wanted to like her so much. I paid attention, and I just went with it.
And I liked her. I was on board for her entrance. I was sad when Grace died. I was worried for her on Desolation, and my heart melted for her when she was reunited with the TARDIS. I loved the history episodes. I laughed at Spyfall - and even though my eyebrow tweaked at the Dhawan Master because he followed Missy - looking at him out of context - he was an amazing villain. I had complaints - some of the dialogue was too long, 13 wasn't a superhero, she relied on her friends a bit too much. I was used to the Doctor being the focus - the solver and causer of problems. 13 was flawed. The Doctor was only one character in an ensemble and I wanted more of her. I didn't want her to have to share her time with so many others.
But in that flaw there was something I'd been missing from 11 - a real type of whimsy. A whimsy that didn't quite get there because things were always happening and going wrong. Someone was always in danger, and the Doctor never says no. They always try to help. 13 didn't always leave things better than she found them. She was more often in the centre of a disaster than solving ones that existed without her.
And then they made her love her companion. Officially. Without subtext. And Jodie and Mandip played it beautifully.
Needless to say I was hooked. I rewatched the series, found more things to see in 13, formed more opinions, wrote fanfiction trying to untangle what I saw in subtext. She was genderless - Peter Pan if his neverland world was constantly closing in, talking to the TARDIS as though it were Tinker Bell, the source of her powers and dragging a team of lost boys along. She was effortlessly humanist, her gender took a back seat. The growth of her companions was more important than her own identity, and when the Master turned up, the grim jaw, the tired eyes. Not this again. She aged. She felt old and at the same time ageless and youthful.
And so began my obsession with Jodie Whittaker. Maybe one day I'll be sick of watching her wonderful characters - today is not that day. But that's for another post.
So came the new specials of 2023 under the renewed leadership of Russel T Davies - who'd been responsible for some good episodes, but they were very much point in time. Reviewing the 9th and 10th Doctor episodes - they'd aged. But the stories hadn't. The Star Beast - wonderful puppetry and physical effects, a message of allyship which perhaps came off a bit blunt and blatant - but what it lost in subtlety it gained in anti-bigotry that I've seen around the Doctor Who fan groups. And, of course, it was an adventure with David Tennant and Catherine Tate. And Wild Blue Yonder - an experiment in testing the VFX budget to make a creepy solo story. After 13 never able to have a single story where she was by herself and on screen for a full episode, it was delightfully simple.
So - why did this scene get me?
Wilfred Mott
Let's start with the obvious - Wilf is the type of family member we all wish we had. Has his own life, knowledgeable about his passions and loves to share them, a hopeless romantic despite his age and experiences. Will drop everything at the drop of a hat to support his family. He will park up until the TARDIS turns back up. He'll be waiting there. Donna knows it. She mocks him for it, but if he wasn't there she'd be miserable. And he is. Waiting for her in his wheelchair while the world falls apart around him. He embodies the Doctor Who spirit of hope and growth which never stops, even into old age, of good that can be done even to the spirit of a lost and despondant temp from Chizick with so much potential, but no opportunity.
I've been without a grandparent for my adult life, and as an immigrant mutt I've been highly disconnected from my extended family. Even as a child, I didn't have the sort of person that I could confidently say - they'll be there waiting for me. I took myself home from school in elementary school to a nanny, in Middle School I was in orchestra practice until the school closed, and sometimes waiting later, and in High School I could drive myself home. Waiting for me? My parents never were. They worked. I didn't feel deprived by that. It's just the way life was.
I have a feeling that very few people do have someone that loves their family that much, who will drop everything and support their descendent no matter what. Certainly not people of an age with me. That's one of the reasons I think that Wilf is so beloved - the doddery old grandfather that you recall with fondness, but is so supportive, the linchpin of the family, a rock for you to hold onto. And that's why at least this whovian mourns him.
The next reason is story driven.
14 needs a hug
When 14 thought that Donna actually understood his pain without him needing to download the whole story, at first there was suspicion. The instinct that remained from 13, who held everything close to her chest. Then - there was that moment of relief. Then grief - the ability to just be able to talk about it with someone that knows the story, who at least used to understand who he thought he was. He feels found in the floundering sea of his new identity, even though 13 determinedly dropped the gallifreyan watch into the centre of the TARDIS in a symbol of acceptance of who she is. When 15 realises that the creature in front of him isn't his best friend, his relief crumbles into despair and utter betrayal. This is some creature that is digging into his soul.
The pain has been brought to the surface with no outlet. No sharing, divulgence, acceptance, resolution, though that's too much to hope for. And then of course - what else is there to do but release it into the ether?
Stiff Upper Lip and Back to Business
13 finds out that Gallifrey has been destroyed - then the mask goes back on
I had trouble capturing both David going in for a hug and Jodie throwing the hologram device given to her by the Master because they were literally a split second action. The Doctor is strong. That weakness doesn't last long.
13 didn't divulge the pain of seeing Gallifrey destroyed to her companions, and tells them they can visit her home 'another time'. This is the home she spent hundreds of years and gathered 13 of her regenerations to accomplish after considering herself the Last of the Timelords for so long. I'm not familiar enough with Classic Who to have the emotional attachment to it - but the Tardis wiki tells me that exile from Gallifrey was maddening to a Timelord. And via 12, the Doctor had finally found relief from that.
13 convinced everyone that she was fine. That she was strong enough to cope. They believed her enough to leave her to it. 'Gallifrey got complicated', says 14 when clone-Donna asks. A very different tone to 13's optimistic depiction in The Woman Who Fell to Earth.
'I'd like to tell you everything', 13 tells Yaz at the end of the Vanquishers. But an adventure throws itself in her path, the same as it always does. By the time there is time, the moment has passed, and 13 isn't ready to talk anymore. She throws them into a pirate adventure date instead as a distraction to Yaz and herself. And the story never does get told.
So when the scene happens with Wilf - that's the hug that 13 convinced everyone that she didn't need. The hug that 14 was ready to have from Donna. This was someone for whom he'd given up one of his regenerations when he thought they were finite. A person who represented hope and stability to Donna, and now to him too.
And it got me.