The Star Beast
review

Holistic Review: Despite some relatively minor stumbles, The Star Beast is a joyful, and deeply healing, reunion for Tennant and Tate.

Y'all, Russell T Davies really came through for us, didn't he?

Permit me to quote my review of The Power of the Doctor: "When I reviewed The End of Time, I mentioned that if RTD ever undid Donna's memory-wipe — which, it appears, is exactly what's about to happen, especially since it seems that Donna will be accompanying the Doctor across all three specials — I would be "willing to forgive [him] almost anything", and that still holds true today. Therefore, I may be forced to grin and bear some freewheeling." Now that RTD has indeed fulfilled that deepest wish of mine — along with announcing that he'll be bringing back not just the Toymaker, one of my most longed-for classic villains, but my all-time-favorite character, Melanie Bush — he's earned oodles and oodles of goodwill from me. (If Wild Blue Yonder features the return of the Rani, I may pass out.)

But those other items on my wish-list are yet to come. This week, we're kicking off the celebrations for Doctor Who's (first) diamond anniversary with the much-anticipated reunion of a new classic TARDIS team, the first-ever live-action version of a popular comic-strip villain, and the launch of a celebrated showrunner's second era, bringing with it a new theme tune, a new TARDIS interior, and — fittingly — the return of the time-honored Diamond Logo (yes, it's so beloved that capitalization is sometimes called for).

Impressively, The Star Beast is about to give Shada a run for its money as the serial with the most different versions. Like Shada, which has been adapted for both the fourth and eighth Doctor over the years, The Star Beast started life as a comic strip (written by Pat Mills and John Wagner) in Doctor Who Magazine, way back in 1980 when the magazine was still Doctor Who Weekly, and practically at its very beginning; The Star Beast débuted in issue 19 in February 1980 (which, ironically enough, is exactly when Shada would have aired). My first exposure to it, I'm pretty sure, was in the 1984 – 1986 US color reprints of these strips by Marvel Comics, which skipped over The Iron Legion, City of the Damned, and Timeslip to launch The Star Beast as the cover feature of issue #1. I think that's magnified the importance of this strip in my mind, even beyond how great the story itself is. Then there was the brilliant 2019 Big Finish audio adaptation with Tom Baker, co-starring Rhianne Starbuck as Sharon, which I listened to in July 2021. I revisited both the original comic and the Big Finish adaptation in the days leading up to the Meep's television début, and made notes of the plot points (and dialogue) that I was excited to see incorporated into the televised version.

There were two elements of the original plot that I didn't particularly enjoy: the Doctor undergoing invasive surgery by the Wrarth Warriors to implant a bomb in his stomach (eeyurgh!), and Sharon being taken over by Black Sun energy. I was hoping that at least the surgery scene would be excised from the live-action version, and was very relieved to find that, in fact, neither of these plot elements ended up being included. (However, without the context from the comic strip — that the Meep's ship is powered by Black Sun energy [here renamed the "psychedelic sun"], hence the malevolent radiation onboard — the scene of the UNIT soldiers being possessed doesn't make a lot of sense. Nor does it square easily with the fact that the Doctor and Donna later sneak through the same door and then spend loads of time on the Meep's ship with zero ill effects.)

To my great shock, though, not a single one of my favorite moments from either version of The Star Beast made it to screen. These included:

While I'm just as glad we didn't have to deal with the Doctor undergoing invasive surgery, it's a real shame to lose some of the comic's (and audio adaptation's) brilliant lines, even though many of them were so tailored to the fourth Doctor's personality that they might not have translated well to the fourteenth.

I want to say that the televised version exceeded the comic in at least a few ways, but — beyond the lack of stomach-bombs — the only example I can think of, aside from the glorious Doctor/Donna reunion (which obviously wasn't part of the original), is the Meep's newly revamped Most High Chair, aka portable throne, welded together from steel girders but nevertheless grandiose. It makes a clever and fitting alteration from whatever gangly-legged transportation device the Meep was using in the comics.

Regardless of my expectations, it's absolutely brilliant to see Doctor Who now looking beyond the novels to adapt some of the most memorable comic strips, and there's no better time to launch such a quirky-but-fun venture than a celebratory anniversary year.

Though Sharon Davies — canonically Doctor Who's first Black companion — is written out of The Star Beast, her role is filled by Rose Noble, who's not only biracial (thus paying some homage to Sharon) but also proudly transgender. As Doctor Who's first canonically transgender character who is not a villain, Rose is an equally ceiling-shattering character of whom Sharon would be proud. I was absolutely delighted to learn that Rose was going to be played by Yasmin Finney, who I've so loved in Heartstopper (which, like The Star Beast, is television that heals and comforts). Owing to the character's reduced role in the plot, Finney doesn't get a lot of standout moments, which is a shame; but she capitalizes on Rose's bond with the Meep (their heart-to-heart in the shed is a sweet moment), I loved the cute scene of Rose trying to distract Donna from looking at the Meep ("No, I know, but let's go"), and her transformation into the DoctorDonna honestly made my heart swell so much I could feel it.

Even though I have minor issues with the way Rose's plotline plays out, I couldn't be more thrilled that Donna's trans daughter gets to become the Doctor, explicitly drawing parallels between trans identity and the Doctor's gender flexibility. I can't even imagine what a beautiful, validating moment this was for the trans kids in the audience; not only is it full of warmth and support, it says "you can be the Doctor someday, too." On a much more minor note, I love that this finally explains why Rose is named Rose, even though she (not Donna) is the one who picked it.

The character of Rose Noble gives RTD the opportunity to write some wonderful scenes about the trans experience and LGBT identity, though I have to admit that they're somewhat of a mixed bag.

On the positive side: the scene of Rose's (male) classmates (Harley Mcevilly and Max Fincham) taunting and deadnaming her is both powerful and painful. I still have lots of friends and former teachers who see nothing wrong with this sort of behavior, so it's all the more important to hold up examples like this to say, "Look at how your words and actions injure innocent people who are just trying to live their lives." What a beautiful way to leverage the global premiere of Doctor Who on Disney+. (Or, as Elizabeth Sandifer so beautifully put it, "[T]hat cringe" — which I'm about to discuss — "has to be taken in concert with the fact that this is Davies taking a massive pile of Disney money and screaming 'trans rights' on BBC One so loudly that Saudi Arabia won't be able to edit it out." Amen to that!

There's also this magical scene between Sylvia and Donna, which gives us a sympathetic view of two caring women trying their hardest to do what's best for their family. I love that Sylvia and Donna become surrogate characters for audience members who are still, imperfectly, trying to adjust their language out of respect for their gender-nonconforming loved ones, and the behavior they model (especially Sylvia's quick apology, then moving on) is excellent.

On the negative side, I must admit, I expect more from RTD when it comes to accurately articulating LGBT issues. First, the scene in which Rose rightly challenges the Doctor's gender assumptions:

On one hand, hooray for normalizing the incorporation of pronoun sharing in introductions. This has been de rigueur in my circles for a while now, but that is very much not the case elsewhere, so this is a really important moment to have spotlighted on a popular TV program. However, there are a few problems here.

  1. The current norm is not to say 'chosen' pronoun, because that connotes misleading things about identity being a choice. These days, the best practice is to ask for people's pronouns, period; not their preferred, or chosen, pronouns.

  2. "the" is not a pronoun. The Meep might have said "I prefer to be called by my name, always with the definite article" and that would've been fine (because 'my name' is a valid pronoun option). (Likewise, despite what the Doctor claims here, they've thus far consistently used he/him or she/her pronouns, depending on their body at the time. "The Doctor", like "the Meep", is a proper name or a title, not a pronoun.) This inaccurate usage threatens to turn what should be a wonderful moment into a mockery. Which leads me into my third point:

  3. Turning a pronoun exchange into a punchline (especially one in which someone declares a wackily inappropriate pronoun, like 'attack helicopter' or, ahem, 'the Meep') is the sort of thing conservative 'comedians' do. LGBT authors should be modelling polite behavior, as in the earlier scene with Sylvia and Donna, not feeding into the problem. Someday perhaps we'll be able to playfully experiment with pronouns again, but these are fragile times, in which a decent portion of society is laughing at the mere idea of pronouns (if not refusing to use them, or ludicrously denying that pronouns exist at all), so I personally feel that it's still too early for this to feel appropriate as a joke.

Second, the climactic scene in which the Doctor and Donna realize that Rose inherited the metacrisis:

Here again, on one hand, this exchange is absolutely brilliant. I burst into such joyous whooping on Rose's line, with hot tears of joy streaming down my cheeks for this glorious celebration of trans existence, and clapped so hard that I hurt my hands. This exchange recognizes, and leverages, the Doctor's newfound gender fluidity as a full-throated support of LGBT humans. And I must give props to RTD for recognizing that the Doctor does typically identify on the binary spectrum, though as Rose points out, the Doctor could conceivably (and hopefully will) encompass the entire spectrum of gender identities.

However, I again feel the need to check RTD for his language, which took me out of this glorious moment just slightly. Though I appreciate and applaud the fact that this line points out that Rose is not limited to a masculine or feminine experience, and has in fact lived both, it is not accurate (as far as we know) to call her "non-binary". 'Trans' and 'non-binary' are not the same. There is overlap — trans people certainly can be non-binary, and vice-versa — but many trans people identify with one end of the gender-binary spectrum, and people of any sexual orientation, whether cisgender or transgender, can be non-binary. And from everything Rose has expressed, she currently considers herself, personally, to be on the binary, in that she identifies as a woman and uses she/her pronouns, not they/them or she/they (or any other traditionally enby option). Those factors aren't a guarantee of binary identity, of course — it's possible that Rose is non-binary and just hasn't mentioned it in as many words (aside from this one scene) — so I may yet retract this criticism, but precision is important, and if even a gay writer seems to be conflating trans and non-binary identities, it sends the message that it's just too confusing, so it's okay if you don't want to even bother trying to understand.

I do also worry about the use of the word 'because', which implies that Rose isn't innately transgender, but that her gender identity might have been imposed on her by the Doctor's mind influencing her subconscious in the womb. It's surely unintentional, but nevertheless I have seen commenters online (including even Den of Geek) drawing that very conclusion, and the idea that someone can be persuaded into identifying as transgender (as if it's a choice) is exactly the sort of message that we don't need to be sending to people who are already inclined to be hostile to trans rights.

Am I overthinking this? I'm probably overthinking this! (Though perhaps not; I see that trans reviewers have agreed with at least some of these points. But maybe I'm being over-sensitive about the non-binary issue.) Because my goodness, these are wonderful moments to see on a national, indeed global, television program that millions of people adore, and I'm so grateful to RTD for using the reach and influence of our beloved show to defend trans kids. But with this kind of platform, it's all the more important to make sure that your message is accurate.

Third, though this scene isn't as squarely an issue with LGBT-specific representation, Rose's line:

I'm loathe to criticize this because I love and applaud the message it's trying to send: that there are certain elements of the female experience, whether cisgender or transgender — most keenly involving marginalization, threats, and emotional labor, though that's far from an exhaustive list — that cisgender men will never fully understand. I don't know whether that should be extended to all male-presenting people; I daresay most transgender men have an innate understanding of those experiences too, even if they're treated differently post-transition. Likewise, the Doctor is currently male-presenting, but has lived the female experience; therefore, I fear it might be a bit of an insult to claim that that the Doctor, who has been a woman and has not forgotten one second of her life, couldn't possibly understand. An AMAB human, sure, absolutely; but not a Time Lord, unless the Time Lord had only ever presented as male, or if their current body defines and constrains their perspective. But I think the Doctor is, and should be, like a Trill from Star Trek: constantly accessing and informed by the sum of their memories throughout all of their lifetimes. However, I am also male-presenting and therefore am not intuitively attuned to this facet of life as a woman — though I'm not sure if Rose's comment was meant to reference the very many things that women feel obliged (by societal pressure) to let just roll off their backs, or as a criticism of men's general extreme reluctance to let go of power once they've tasted it — so if this line resonated with women, then hooray. (Nancy, for what it's worth, turned and gave me a disbelieving look of extreme skepticism. Ha! But that might've had more to do with how the metacrisis was resolved immediately following this line.)

Mind you, the thought of conservatives foaming at the mouth at the "male-presenting" line — in an episode with a wheelchair user, a Sikh UNIT member, a mostly-respectful discussion of pronouns, and a trans teenager whose gender identity is celebrated — makes me very gleeful indeed. So have at it, RTD. (And, sorry-not-sorry to everyone who derided the Chibnall era for adding progressive themes into stories at the expense, so they argued, of subtle writing, and who felt sure that the handover from Chibnall to RTD would see the end of those in-your-face 'woke' scenes. Did you really forget how progressive RTD was back in 2005?)

Turning back to characters, though: poor Fudge. Originally Sharon's schoolmate and a knowledgeable (though misogynistic) sci-fi geek, the original comic strip ditched his character after the first half, so one of the changes in the audio adaptation was to make Fudge central to the whole storyline... and now, here, he's only really in one scene. I'm glad he wasn't completely forgotten, but the charm of Rose/Sharon and Fudge discovering, investigating, and protecting the Meep together is gone, reduced again to two scenes with just Rose. Still, Dara Lall is delightfully energetic and enthusiastic, and channels the best aspects of Fudge's excitable personality.

Of course, the main reason that Sharon/Rose and Fudge's roles in this story are reduced is that they're no longer the companion figures. And the reason I can't be even slightly sad about that is because the actual companion figure is none other than my head-and-shoulders favorite companion of the revival, Donna Noble herself, played by the inimitable Catherine Tate. I had the grand pleasure of meeting Tate in October 2017 at FanExpo in Toronto — I assumed her career was too stratospheric for her to ever consider doing a convention, so I leapt at the opportunity; little did I realize she'd be right here at Motor City ComicCon in 2023! — and couldn't resist letting her know that I thought she was the best thing to happen to the Doctor Who revival. In the intervening few years, that sentiment has not changed (though Jodie Whittaker gives her quite a run for her money), so I can't imagine any other new-series reunion that could have made me happier than this one. Honestly, I'm over the moon to see Tate back as Donna.

Of course, a not-insignificant part of my eagerness for her return has to do with the circumstances of Donna's departure. Of all the possible companion exits, I've always thought that a memory-wipe seemed the most cruel. So I was extremely optimistic that RTD would finally find a way to dispense with the memory block, not to mention extremely eager to find out how it would be done.

Well, turns out it's a lot easier than I'd expected! For starters, the Doctor is remarkably cavalier about protecting Donna from remembering him. He basically doesn't even try, short of not mentioning his name or how they know each other. Otherwise, he's happy to chat about aliens in front of her, and demonstrate the awfully futuristic uses of his technologically-advanced sonic screwdriver while she watches. In fact, that's when we first see Donna's mental walls start to crumble again: when the Doctor hands her his sonic screwdriver (!!!) and she gives it a very meaningful look.

The walls crumble further on this line, a beautifully throwaway moment hinting that Donna's memories are slowly bubbling to the surface:

The last straw seems to be this line, as Donna finally starts talking like her old self without even realizing it:

Interestingly, this process is nowhere near as quick and dramatic as it was in The End of Time, nor does Donna suffer any of the same feverish effects. But I do absolutely love the very subtle way RTD hints that Donna is beginning to access her long-buried memories.

This is followed by a rather perplexing scene of the Doctor and Donna getting separated by a retractable barrier (about which, again, more later) on the Meep's ship. Before long, the point of this peculiar hurdle becomes clear: in order to save all of London, which requires operating the controls on both sides of the barrier, the Doctor is going to have to unlock Donna's Time Lord knowledge, sacrificing her life in order to stop the Meep. I've said in the past that I'd rather Donna have her memory restored, and die knowing how wonderful she was, than live the rest of her life diminished. Maybe that was harsh, because my choice would've written Rose out of existence, but I stand by it, and if Donna had died here, I could have let her go relatively happily. But I'm so, so glad she didn't. And I'm so, so glad I knew she was in the remaining two specials so I didn't really have to worry... unlike Nancy, who was in shock and denial when Donna appeared to die in the Doctor's arms. For me, this realization that the Doctor finally had a reason to remove her memory block just made me SO HAPPY.

What I had never expected was for the DoctorDonna to return. And oh, is it glorious. What a total thrill to see the hyperintelligent Time-Lord-augmented Donna back in action again, even if it's only for a few lines. I treasured every one of them. As much as I sobbed tears of joy as Donna's mental block was lifted, I grinned from ear to ear as Donna's Time Lord knowledge radiated from every single one of her pores. (And the following line is such a fun performance by Tate, too.)

As to the ultimate resolution of this plotline... more on that momentarily.

And now, thanks to this year's Tales of the TARDIS, Davies has finally, and I think canonically, fixed both instances of this companion-mindwipe cruelty, by finally restoring not just Donna's memories of her TARDIS travel, but also Jamie's — which we all assumed had been done anyway, during series 6b — and (to my shock and delight) Zoe's, which even most spinoff media assumed would never happen. Oh, I bawled, my friends, I bawled.

Donna is characterized so beautifully in The Star Beast. She's still the same old Donna in some ways — loud, blunt, opinionated, and unintimidated; and I absolutely adore that, yet again, Donna is completely oblivious to the alien spaceship, as per Partners in Crime — but that memory loss haunts her, and you can see it in her eyes.

One of the things I've always loved about Donna is her duality: on one hand, she can be boisterous, obnoxious, shallow, and she steamrollers over people. But on the other, she can be tender, caring, empathetic, ethical, and she has such a huge heart. It's such a winning formula for creating a fascinating character; that tough exterior hiding vulnerability is the same combination that makes Ace and Leela so compelling. Here, we learn that Donna was a bit of a bully in school herself (!!!), but at her core, she's the type of woman who will run straight to the side of an injured Wrarth Warrior even if it puts her squarely in harm's way. She's the type of woman who loves her daughter fiercely and with all her heart. And she's the type of woman who's always, even subconsciously, trying to do the right thing, and to help as many people as she can, even if it means sacrificing her own life to save the people she loves.

As always, I was hanging on every word coming out of Catherine Tate's mouth, partly because I was so eager to catch up with Donna and learn how her story would develop, and partly because Tate's line readings are just sublime. My favorite moments of her performance: the heartbreakingly sad look of loss and confusion on Tate's face on "And now I've got a nice life, with a nice feller and a nice house, and the most beautiful daughter in the world... but I just think something's missing.", "I took one look at him, I said, never trust a man with a goatee.", "Sometimes I think there's something missing, like I had something lovely, and it's gone.", "I'm so stupid!", the very sweet "It's like the old days! Just me and the Doctor. Together.", "All right. It's gorgeous! Aaaahhhh!", "In your life? Yes!", "What's gonna go wrong? OH MY GOD I DID IT AGAIN!", and what a delight it is to hear Donna say "Come on, spaceman!" again.

Much has been written about how RTD has brought back Tennant and Tate either as pandering nostalgia, or as a desperate last-ditch attempt to regain fans who drifted away during the (widely disliked, though not by me) Chibnall era. I don't give much credence to either of those theories, though I have to admit, there are worse ideas for giving declining viewing figures a shot in the arm than bringing back your two most historically popular leads for brand-new stories. What I love is that RTD was so flexible about how exactly his new era would play out; presumably he would've started off with Gatwa, if not for the combination of Gatwa being unavailable immediately, and recent conversations during lockdown with Tennant and Tate about how much they'd love to return. Had they been available for eight episodes, we would've had a full season with the fourteenth Doctor and Donna; but they had time for three precious episodes, so that's what we got. I can't look at that decision from a cynical mindset; it's just three people all returning to a job they loved, to make exciting new stories that we're going to love too.

And on that topic, I love this story (and RTD) for wasting absolutely no time getting us to the Doctor and Donna's meet-cute, as the Doctor runs into her almost immediately after exiting the TARDIS. I was emphatically not expecting this random stranger laden with heavy boxes to be Donna, so when the Doctor offered to help carry some of them, revealing her face behind them, I was thrilled; and the Doctor's reaction, to abandon helping her and put the boxes right back onto her pile, is really funny. RTD knows what we're all here for, and that is to maximize the amount of Tennant/Tate interaction that we can fit into 3 more hours of Doctor Who, so I thank him from the bottom of my heart for not squandering a single one of those precious minutes.

David Tennant, how I've missed you in this role! I mean, I adore all of our Doctors, but there's something about Tennant's performance that's just... well, "prototypical" and "quintessential" seem like appropriate words. He just is the Doctor, in a way that few actors other than Tom Baker have managed.

Having now seen the fourteenth Doctor properly in action, my impression from Destination: Skaro is confirmed that he basically is the tenth Doctor, but with extra added memories. Interesting. Evidence in favor of this supposition: nothing the fourteenth Doctor says or does here is anything the tenth Doctor wouldn't have said or done, plus his "Allons-y!" catchphrase returns.

But he does get some exciting potential new character growth. I must cheer this brilliant line by Donna, after the Doctor invites her back in the TARDIS:

His response is less than enthusiastic, but this is exactly the kind of growth I would love to see in the Doctor at this point. I'm feeling like the Doctor's habit of quick goodbyes, and never seeking out old friends despite how much they long to meet him again, is becoming a toxic one, and I would absolutely love to see that trope go down the waste disposal unit. After all, I for one most certainly want to spend more time with the Doctor's old friends! (Actually, given a rumor I've heard about next week's episode — which I wish I hadn't heard, so that if it's true, I would be totally gobsmacked — I wonder if this line won't end up becoming relevant sooner rather than later.)

It goes without saying that every one of Tennant's lines is worth savoring, but I particularly enjoyed his delivery of "Mum? And a bag... full of eyes.", "Er, it's all a bit mad, Shirley.", his running in place (nearly cropped out of the frame) as he tells the Meep "Come on! That's it!", "Look, I can suggest a much better way off this planet than a double-bladed dagger drive.", his heart-rending "Why does it have to be this?!", and the deep sadness on his face as he intones "Westerly. Pelican. Dreams." His new suit, not a dramatic departure from the original, is a pleasing nod to the tenth Doctor's attire, and gosh, his quiff is especially spiky this week, isn't it! I like it.

But really, the star of the show this week — aside from David Tennant and Catherine Tate — is classic 1980 comic-strip villain Beep the Meep — here, just "the Meep" — who presents the most cuddly, furry, adorable, helpless, big-innocent-eyed front in order to fool the gullible humans into helping it evade justice and destroy the planet. As a character, the Meep is just brilliant, and now that it's part of the official canon, just imagine the toy-licensing agreement...!!! Every child will want their own (fanged) plush Meep! Original artist Dave Gibbons, despite his lengthy résumé, must be absolutely thrilled by how the production team have brought his creations to life.

In this incarnation, the Meep is embodied by Cecily Fay, who gives a superb physical performance as the Meep trembles and cowers; I love her "I'm so innocent" pose with paws curled inward, as the Meep asserts that the "evil" Wrarth Warriors want to kill the Meep. Meanwhile, acting legend Miriam Margolyes performs the Meep's voice, and wasn't that quite the casting coup! However, just as I can tell that my evaluation of The Star Beast in general is suffering only because I can compare it directly to the earlier versions, so too does the Meep. As much as I adore Margolyes, I have to admit that I far prefer the Meep as voiced by Bethan Dixon Bate in the audio adaptation. Dixon Bate gave the Meep's lines so much nuance, and amped up the Meep's cutesiness to almost painfully sugary levels, which is just what this character needs, as Beep skilfully plays on the humans' protectiveness toward adorable creatures. Even her deliveries of the Meep's signature "meep meep!" varied hugely depending on context (inquisitive, worried, excited, panicked, etc), whereas Margolyes delivers them more akin to the Road Runner (with the notable exception of the Meep's enraged response to the Doctor naming his ship 'The Delusions of Grandeur'). It helped, of course, that the audio Meep (like the comics Meep) was restricted to only saying "Meep!" for a good chunk of the story's runtime, which meant that Dixon Bate had to give those lines more emotional nuance. In contrast, the live-action Meep starts using English almost right out the gate, which was a bit disappointing; I really enjoyed the conceit of the Meep pretending to be unable to speak English until it had cemented its adorable grip on the humans' hearts. (Plus, Margolyes' delivery of its first line, "I am the Meep.", doesn't come across as terribly cutesy.) But some of Margolyes' lines are absolutely pitch-perfect, including "I hurt my paw!"; the Meep's response, when Rose asks who the Wrarth Warriors are, of "Monsters!"; and "It breaks both my hearts!" She also handles the Meep's transformation to evil so very well: "And here they come! My soldiers of the psychedelic sun!"

It is, though, a shame that the Meep's villainy goes from 0 to 100 in 5 seconds. Because of the transition from page to screen, we no longer have access to Beep's inner monologue, so the Meep is forced to turn obviously evil much faster, which means that we lose out on some of the great lines that I mentioned up above, plus scenes of the Meep getting away with horrific crimes (like murder) by pleading innocence, accidents, and/or total lack of murderous intent, even though we the audience know better.

This is perhaps an opportune point for me to pause and mention that, ahem, RTD, I did notice several of your unlikely plot-convenience shortcuts rearing their heads. Shall we enumerate them? Along with my gripes above about inaccurate discussions of LGBT identity, I glared at:

  1. It's very weird behaviour for the Doctor to bother stopping in the middle of a firefight to check the pulse of a random body on the ground, especially when he's in a hurry to save presumably-innocent lives by getting them clear of the adjacent battle without being noticed. The only reason it happens is so that the Doctor knows the Wrarth Warriors aren't actually killing anybody, but it's not naturalistic at all.

  2. As the Meep prepares to execute Donna, the Doctor's last-ditch ploy makes little sense to me. How could having a second two-hearted alien on Earth help the Wrarth Warriors outfox the Meep...? (If anything, you'd think he would be a distraction, if the Wrarth Warriors have technology that can detect aliens with binary vascular systems.) And how would taking the Noble-Temples hostage help the Meep figure out the Wrarth Warriors' plans?

  3. So. Very. Much. Technobabble. (But I think he's deliberately having us on. To wit, I have to give RTD props for including, among this list, the most hilariously ludicrous example in possibly ever: the Doctor's line "Inculcate the plexidrones!" And Margolyes nails the delivery of "Brandish the gravity stanchions!")

  4. Another great example of technobabble is "bisecting the maxifold", ie, dividing the spaceship control room in half with an impenetrable bulkhead, trapping the Doctor and Donna on either side. This serves no plot purpose that I can detect; what's the point of equipping your control room with a screen that prevents you from using half the controls, unless you're afraid the exterior door is about to blow? (In which case, why not put the shield closer to the door so you can still access all the controls? Especially since there is no other door on the opposite side of the maxifold, so if the exterior door blows while the bulkhead is lowered, you're either dead or trapped.) This makes even less sense if you're the only crewmember onboard your ship; why would you bisect the maxifold as part of your standard takeoff procedure if nobody's even down there? (Plus, I couldn't stop wondering why — if the Doctor was diving under the bulkhead as it was seconds from closing — Donna was just standing there, totally unconcerned about becoming cut off from the Doctor.) But it does serve a character purpose, which becomes obvious once we realize that, in order to save London, the Doctor needs to flip switches on both sides of the room at once, meaning that he now requires Donna's help. So the character justification is more than sufficient, but the plot justification isn't even nonsensical, it's nonexistent. I do often find myself wishing that RTD would take just a moment to think about how he could logically motivate the plot points that he needs to move into position, rather than just going ahead and moving them willy-nilly without a care in the world.

  5. Lava fissures #1: As Nancy observed, it's awfully nice that they follow the existing roads rather than swallowing the foundations of any nearby buildings.

  6. Lava fissures #2: Gosh, it sure is c convenient, isn't it, that the lava fissures magically knit back together as if there had never been any damage in the first place?

  7. Resolving Donna's fate #1: The Doctor realizes that the metacrisis was "Too much power for one person, but you had a child, and the metacrisis passed down!" Soooooo the Doctor's brain is far too vast for a single human to hold, but perfectly comfy when divided between two? Ooookay. So, not that vast then. (Though he does imply that they still have to get rid of the metacrisis somehow, so maybe dividing it in half just bought them lots more time.)

  8. Resolving Donna's fate #2: Rose and Donna's solution to the ongoing metacrisis is ENTIRELY RIDICULOUS. Really?!? ALL THIS TIME all Donna would've had to do was mentally release the Doctor's mind and she'd have been fine?!? It makes a mockery of the life-or-death stakes that this dilemma has been loaded with for the past 15 years. After all, the very strong implication at the time was that, having absorbed all that Time Lord knowledge, Donna couldn't just get rid of it. Sure, maybe if the Doctor hadn't acted so hastily to wipe her memory, Donna would've figured out on her own that she could; but this still feels like a pat, twee resolution.

Perhaps I should make this a weekly "Unlikely RTD Plot-Convenience Shortcut Watch" feature. Grrrr. I must just keep repeating to myself: Donna Noble's memory has been restored. The Toymaker is coming back in two weeks. And RTD has given Mel back to me, maybe next year, maybe a wee bit sooner. Seriously though, when it comes to points 4, 7, and 8 on my list, this is one of the few times where I can genuinely say, I don't care what ridiculous lengths RTD had to go to in order to restore Donna's memory. All that matters is that he did it. (RTD is just lucky that I'm so happy to see Donna restored that I can overlook and forgive everything else. Though I still say my idea was better: why not feature the return of a classic monster who wants nothing more than to extract the Doctor's mind, and finds a copy going spare in Donna Noble's brain? Remove the Time Lord memories, and the metacrisis is neatly averted.)

Sorry, done with my tangent now. Shall we chat about the Noble family?

In series 4, Sylvia Noble was a character we loved to hate. She was so cruel to poor Donna, constantly tearing her down with vicious criticisms, and Jacqueline King played the part so convincingly that I admit I was a little bit shocked to find out just how incredibly lovely, sweet, and enthusiastic she is in real life! Oh my goodness! And what's amazing is that Sylvia genuinely seems to have taken to heart the Doctor's admonition that "maybe you should tell [Donna] that once in a while." When we meet Sylvia again, she's cooking dinner for Donna and her family, which is pretty much always a sign that someone cares about you. She's still critical of Donna — she doesn't accept Donna's 'it wasn't my fault' excuse, and mildly chides her for having spent all of the lottery money — but the venom is gone. Now she scolds the way a loving mother would, with knowing looks and caring remarks. Sylvia may have initially been reluctant to tell Donna how much she loves her, but her concern and love are written all over her face. And, oh my goodness, the lengths she goes to, desperately trying to shield Donna from remembering anything about the life she's lost. For me, the look of sheer panic and terror that flits across Sylvia's face in this exchange said it all: this is a woman who loves her daughter deeply, and is fiercely protective of her.

Sylvia's changed heart is never made explicit; it's all in King's sublime performance, and that, for me, made Sylvia one of the most moving elements of the entire story, a development which has really taken me by surprise. I also loved King's delivery of "You!" (the one moment — well, along with the slap — that harks back to the Sylvia of old), and this brilliant line, as Sylvia encapsulates the sheer barmy chaos of the scene around her, but her desperation only serves to magnify how much love she feels for Donna:

Wilf isn't making an appearance — yet — but it's lovely that he gets repeatedly name-checked. We learn that he stopped talking about aliens when Donna returned with her memory loss (because of course he did), and that he's being looked after by Kate, who's got him set up with an apartment of his own. How sweet! Knowing now that his story is also going to get a bookend — and possibly some absolution for his role in the Doctor's regeneration, for which he was unfairly blamed — I am filled with joy.

How absolutely brilliant that Karl Collins is back to reprise the rather brief role of Shaun Temple from 2009's The End of Time. It's so nice to actually get to spend some proper time with Shaun, to give us a chance to really see what drew Donna to him. Though alas, Shaun isn't given many lines, which means that his character essentially winds up amounting to "Donna's love interest". But you know what? After as many times as women have been relegated to those thankless roles, I don't mind seeing the balance redressed a little bit. (Even though Shaun does seem super cool and I'd love to see him flex his muscles a bit. In a metaphorical sense.) While we still don't get a great sense of his backstory or personality, what does shine through is his absolute reverence for Donna and Rose. We all know Donna can't be the easiest person to live with, but Shaun takes her quirks in stride, up to and including her (apparently unilaterally) giving away nearly all of their lottery winnings. (Nor is it the only thing he takes in stride: Shaun, for a man who had no idea aliens actually existed until today, is remarkably unfazed by everything he learns in this story, up to and including finding an adorable "space rat" in his kitchen, and learning that his wife wants to go on a jaunt across town in a time-space machine.) This alone tells me that Shaun is a peach of a guy, and Collins' performance is so engaging and chummy.

And speaking of engaging performances, hi Ruth Madeley!!! I've been such a big fan of Hebe Harrison, the snarky marine biologist who's joined the sixth Doctor and Mel on their Big Finish adventures. With that role, Madeley too has broken a glass ceiling, helping to demonstrate why there's nothing to stop a wheelchair user from becoming a full-time member of the TARDIS crew. So her casting in the specials, as UNIT scientific adviser #56 Shirley Bingham, feels ever so appropriate (though I hope it doesn't preclude the possibility of Hebe becoming onscreen canonical someday!). And that goes double for her northern accent, the last vestige of the comic strip's Blackcastle (presumably Yorkshire) steel-belt setting. I can't disagree with online reviewers who point out that her only function thus far is exposition and plot device, but I trust that she'll be expanded into a fuller character soon (hopefully as a colleague of, and not a replacement for, Osgood). Bingham's first encounter with the Doctor has a delightful teasing vibe:

And I find myself hopeful, given lines like this, that RTD has some good disability advisors on staff:

I adored all of Madeley's line deliveries, but especially "I don't just fire darts, mate." and the unsurprised little wave she and the Doctor give one another as he rides off in the back of a lorry after she told him to stay put.

The other UNIT characters (Anna Martine Freeman as the Chief Technician, Jamie Cho as Colonel Chan, and Isabella Carey as a UNIT soldier) don't get more than a couple of lines, but I was especially pleased to see Ronak Patani as Major Singh; it's lovely to see a Sikh UNIT soldier. Archie Backhouse's UNIT sergeant gets a couple of nice scenes with Bingham, including the one above, and he's the first one to get possessed by the light of the psychedelic sun.

I can only imagine how much fun the prosthetics team must have had designing the Wrarth Warriors to match their comic-strip selves. The results are just superb: I'd never really paid the Wrarth Warriors much attention, but their design (with the little antennae, claw-hands, horse-like hooved legs that I hadn't even noticed in the comic, and big glowing eyes) is actually really striking, and superbly recreated here. (Although it's a sad moment, I loved the way Zogroth's eyes dim when he passes away.) Another great feature is their new wings, which enable the Wrarth Warriors to flit about. As a species which was amalgamated from five other alien races, sort of like the Krillitanes, it makes sense that they'd have acquired some cool bodily features. So the lack of tongue-digits is easily overlooked, because in every other respect they've been beautifully designed, and I'd love to see them return down the line as a counterpart to the Judoon.

I note that in the TV adaptation, Wrarth is pronounced like 'wrath', which is how I always pronounced it in my head too. But I have to say, I adore the Big Finish decision to give it a more alien pronunciation, "Wuh-rarth", and I really wish the TV show had elected to follow suit. Interestingly, they've also been retooled for the televised version to have absolutely zero bloodlust, whereas in the originals they were quite willing to incur human casualties in their pursuit of the Meep. Even the Meep armies, originally hunted down by the Wrarth Warriors, now "died rather than surrender." It does make for a more stark divide between their treatment of people and the Meep's, much like in Galaxy 4.

Like Fudge, Sergeant Zogroth (Ned Porteous) and Constable Zreeg (John Hopkinson) are reduced to little more than a single scene, despite battling — and then assisting — the Doctor throughout the story's original iterations. I was sad to see them killed off so quickly, but their plummy tones provide a fantastic counterpoint to their threatening appearance.

The set designers, too, must have had an awful lot of fun. Donna's home has a lovely comfy kitchen and living room, at least until the Wrarth Warriors blow so much of it to smithereens. As for Rose's shed, the amount of detail they've put into it is just incredible. Here's hoping we get to see more of it in The Giggle to justify all that hard work! The steelworks is a great space, too, with lots of staircases and metal gantries (love a metal gantry, so very Doctor Who) and atmospheric exposed pipework all wreathed in flying sparks and drifting smoke. But my favorite is the maxifold set, with its handhold-equipped curved steel archways which frame walls covered floor-to-ceiling in blinking instrument panels; both Tennant and Tate have a gleeful time climbing all over it flicking every switch in sight, which is just delightful to watch.

And speaking of sets full of tantalizing switches, my goodness: new TARDIS interior! I looooove that we finally have another bright all-white console room reminiscent of the classic series (but with a rotating array of colorful lights!), it's a multi-level set with gorgeous swooping ramps, and it features not one but multiple doors to other parts of the TARDIS (which I hope will get used). My only mild criticism is that I wish the console room weren't quite so spartan; a little alcove here and there, or at least a hatrack, would give it some character, especially along the walkways bordering long bare stretches of wall. The design of the new console looks cool too, with lots of neat switches to explore, and I love the new central column made of illuminated crystalline discs.

The location filming at Camden Lock is gorgeous, too, from the flagstone-tiled passageway strung with lights and hanging plants, to the very appropriate use of Cyberdog in the background.

This story is a perfect example of "really good effects should be so naturalistic that you don't even notice them". I barely wrote down a word about the effects in my notes, and yet I know the episode is full of them: the 'crashing' spaceship streaking through the sky looks fantastic, as does the solar psychedelia possessing and then swirling in its victims' eyes, the various explosions in Donna's house, the flying Wrarth Warriors, the pitched battle on Donna's street with energy blasts flying in all directions, the flaming lava fissures cracking and melting the asphalt, and no doubt a dozen others that merged seamlessly into the filmed footage. Kudos also to RTD for flipping the shot of the taxi miraculously surviving its barrage from the Wrarth Warriors — totally unscathed, unpierced, and un-scorched — from an effects dud into a vital plot point (even if Donna does inspect the wrong side of the taxi when looking for evidence of damage).

Of course, with all this flashy new Disney+ money — for the first time, really, in the series' entire history — I was a bit surprised that the story wasn't one eye-popping effect after another. And Engadget has reminded me, in this touching and beautifully summed-up paragraph, that we have RTD to thank for that:

"So what happens when Russell T. Davies returns to re-reboot the show with a big pile of Disney dollars? He writes a kitchen sink drama about a struggling family that's thrust into the middle of an alien conflict. He writes a script that hinges not on an extended battle sequence with plenty of practical effects, or a lavish CGI moment of London being torn apart. But one where the big blockbuster moment is when Catherine Tate is locked in a tiny room across from David Tennant. This is the story of a mother who loves her daughter so much that she opts to sacrifice herself without a second thought. The Star Beast says, both in its production and dialogue, that there are better things to have than money, including love. And money was never the thing that made Doctor Who good."

But an effect that I did notice, and absolutely love, is this cool new power of the sonic screwdriver to create light projections! Whether or not it's a logical ability, I'm not sure, but I'm excited to see how it comes in handy in future stories. (Possibly the ability to erect a temporary shield will be a little too useful, but I still like it in concept! And the effects team do a fantastic job of bringing it to life, especially when Tennant interacts with it. I love the way the lines wobble naturally as Tennant draws them, then pull taut as he connects them up; plus, the impact cracks, and the way the shields shatter to bits when they can't take any more hits, look amazing too.) As someone who's always railed against the ever-expanding narrative-shortcut abilities of the new-series sonic screwdriver, I'm frankly shocked that I'm so in love with its new ability to create solid holograms, but there you go. Never let it be said that I can't be swayed.

This is an auspicious re-début for Murray Gold, too. I enjoyed the jaunty music as the Doctor leaves the TARDIS, the Stranger Things-style score as Fudge and Rose run to look at the escape pod, the thrumming music as Donna runs after the Doctor, and the return of 80s-style music as the Doctor tampers with the controls in the maxifold. I have to admit, I'm appreciating his music a bit more after Akinola's quieter moody scores; Gold may have a tendency to be bombastic and unsubtle, but his music certainly is lively and attention-catching. (Just like dear Keff McCulloch!)

How delightful to have Rachel Talalay back for her first directorial contribution since 2017's Twice Upon a Time. She's just brilliant, and I adore her personal enthusiasm for the series. Her confident direction gives the story a lovely flow, as the camera pans and whips and glides around. Of her many great shots, I particularly loved the gorgeous establishing shot of a twilit London, the TARDIS materializing in a fairy-lit passageway in Camden Lock, the Meep clinging to Donna's leg, and the Doctor gymnastically clambering around on the control banks of the Meep's ship.

Much as Pandora Boxx got me to subscribe to Paramount+, I never would have subscribed to Disney+ if not for Doctor Who. But there was no way I was going to miss out on a global simulcast and risk getting spoiled (which was indeed a wise move, as the Doctor Who Facebook account started a firehose of spoilery posts the moment the episode ended). So for the premiere of The Star Beast and the second RTD/Tennant/Tate era, I was excited to find an uneaten (and unopened) bag of jelly babies from my last trip to the UK in April, and I whipped up a blackcurrant soda using some Swallowtail Farm blackcurrant syrup that I bought ages ago. I enjoyed the story so much on first viewing that I had to immediately squeeze in another viewing before TV night with Nancy, where mention of Catherine Tate (by far her favorite companion actress) made her curious to watch it with me for the third time in a day. And I'm still not tired of it.

Minor points:

What a very fitting choice of stories to celebrate Doctor Who's 60th anniversary. I don't know that I can go as far as to say that this is a great adaptation of the original, because so much gets lost or pared down in the translation to TV — all that really remains is the plot outline and a general sketch of the characters — but the way RTD expands that outline into a new story about the fourteenth Doctor reuniting with Donna is so engaging and entertaining. Returning Donna's memories of her TARDIS travels is such a fitting and heartwarming way to celebrate 60 years of Doctor Who, and I'm going to cherish every moment of the next two weeks with this spectacular, all-time-favorite TARDIS team.

posted: 30 November 2023

Back to The Star Beast.

Back to the episode guide.