"How did I end up like that? All rainbows and trousers that don't reach."
TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Jan.26 2020.
IN THIS ONE... The Judoon are after someone, but who?
REVIEW: This one is likely to be known as the one with all the shocking twists and surprises, but is it a complete story? Not entirely, but should that matter? After all, this review series has looked at every episode of multi-part serials as single entities and been able to score them appropriately. In Fugitive's case, it's not that easy because we don't know what's ahead. We just don't have the benefit of hindsight like we did with the classic series. On the face of it, this is a rehash of the Sarah Jane Adventures' Prisoner of the Judoon, with the space rhinos coming to Earth for an alien fugitive hiding among us, despite not having jurisdiction, with red herrings, etc. This one is more violent, however, with the Chibnall era's usual nastiness vis-à-vis innocent bystanders. I don't think the old lady or the café owner deserved their deaths whatsoever, nor do I believe the latter would push a Judoon captain around like that and get him angry. The Judoon making an appearance since to RTD the whole thing, with several Tennantism on show, like the Doctor rhyming with Judoon and...
Big surprise number one: Captain Jack Harkness is back. Well sure, Chibnall was showrunner on Torchwood and this was one of his inherited characters. But it's still very RTD because he acts like he did whenever he was with the Doctor. The Torchwood Jack was more sober. Fun enough stuff, but it's the episode's biggest problem in terms of story. Jack is just here to warn the Doctor about a future episode (if it's not called "The Lone Cyberman", I'll be surprised), not take part in this one. And he doesn't even see her, instead scooping the companions up from their previously-scheduled adventure for misunderstandings and jokes. If one story heralds another, that's fine (and indeed, Fugitive also does that), but the Cyberman element is just a plug-in, so this feels like two prologues for the price of one. Very clunky. Is this why Chibnall got a co-writing credit? He wrote those interruptions?
The other big surprise is that Ruth, our guest-star of the week, is in reality not only the Judoon's target, but the Doctor herself, humanized with a chameleon arch. And when you're really reeling from that revelation, might as well throw in that there's a parallel Gallifrey out there from whence this other Doctor (damn, I'm gonna have to call her Doctor Ruth for clarity) came, as did the Time Lords who are after her. If you can't tell there's gonna be a full Theories section on this one, you haven't been reading me for long. Quite beyond "what this all means"(TM), this is basically what I wish they'd done back in The Next Doctor (another Tennantism, then). Jo Martin is a fine Doctor with a sharp look, albeit a Doctor from what has to be an alternate universe where - from what I can tell - she may have been a Celestial Intervention Agency operative. Even with limited Time Lord knowledge (as though triggered by Lee's message), she's able to martial arts the heck out of a Judoon platoon, and doesn't mind pointing a gun at someone (though like our Doctor, she doesn't use weapons and it's a trick). Despite the differences, she's still Doctorish, and gets to do the thing where Doctors can't stand each other. Her former handler Gat is cool too, and it's really too bad she had to be disintegrated - a waste. Her TARDIS is a very nice adaptation of the classic white look, and seeing how it's not the first such on the show, I'm kind of amazed they keep going for bizarre looks that polarize fandom, when they could just go for a classic and already iconic look. On the second watch, you get to see if there were clues to her true identity, which is fun in and of itself because there are. We start on a watch, harking back to Human Nature's fob watch. Lee is described as her faithful companion (he's a Time Lord and no tears are shed for him, but I think his Doctor is pretty impatient and grim after his death, just no time for her to properly react). If Ten's human life was that of a history teacher, hers is that of a tour guide, which also resonates. All in all, Doctor Ruth makes a nice splash, but she's in service of a larger story we know little about.
I do think there's a lot of nice comedy in the episode, with practically everyone getting a couple jokes in, and in the end, it pushes the Doctor's subplot about dead Gallifrey forward a little. She finally tells her companions why she's been so distracted, and they make her genuinely smile with their trust and love for her. Scenes like this feel quite written, to me, but Jodie sells the reaction beautifully.
THEORIES: Let's take some things off the table. It's not a trick because Chibnall himself has spoken about this and said he gave Jo Martin the proper Doctor credit because she's the real deal, somehow. I also doubt that she's pre-Hartnell, because that wouldn't explain the other Gallifrey she comes from. Orphan 55 has just mentioned the existence of parallel timelines, and that can't be an accident. The truth should also tie into the secret the Master discovered (and yes, we should be asking if this new Master regenerated from Missy or Simms, or whether he's from this parallel). One possibility is that she IS pre-Hartnell, but not the way we think. Before the current Hartnell-to-Whitaker cycle, the Time Lords lived another cycle, one they had to Mulligan, wiping everyone's minds, though not their core identities. The Master discovers his previous lives were wiped from history and goes crazy. Perhaps it's not all Time Lords, perhaps it's just the renegades themselves. Possibility 1B then, is that Doctor Ruth is from Season 6B, pre-Pertwee and pre-proper sonic screwdriver, what Troughton regenerated into, all memories of which were erased from the Doctor's mind, and all missing regenerations replaced. This is too nerdy and difficult to explain to current viewers, so I would nix it. The second actual possibility is that, either in the Time War, in the time of the Timeless Child, Gallifrey has (much like it did in the Eighth Doctor novels) created back-ups of itself, stored away in alternate realities in case the worst happens. The Master's genocide would count, and another Gallifrey is entering our universe, with its own Doctor (oops). Note Gat's different look. Is she from a far past Gallifrey, or from an alternate timeline where they never adopted the big collars?
I'll give you another one because it's a fun fan theory (I didn't originate it), though once again possibly too complicated for the casual viewer. What if we don't understand regeneration? What if it's not a renewal of cells, but rather the borrowing of a form from an alternate universe? Some fans have used this to explain discrepancies, from Hartnell's single heart to Tom Baker's past selves from Morbius, to McGann's human mother, to the different accents. Each Doctor is one reality's Doctor, brought into our universe, given the memories of the previous identity holder, but also keeping some of their own (like meeting such and such a historical personages, and you, the super-fan, can't find a place for it in the canon). The Master may have found out that this has a massive and deliterious effect on other realities, suffered an identity crisis as a result, etc. With Ruth, we see a Doctor from one of those other realities because perhaps Gallifrey's destruction has put that system out of whack, who knows. If this WERE the big secret, it would create an ethical problem for all future regeneration moments, so no, I don't think this'll be it, but I'm trying to be thorough.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - I want to give the twists and shocks a High, but it leaves too much unresolved.
IN THIS ONE... The Judoon are after someone, but who?
REVIEW: This one is likely to be known as the one with all the shocking twists and surprises, but is it a complete story? Not entirely, but should that matter? After all, this review series has looked at every episode of multi-part serials as single entities and been able to score them appropriately. In Fugitive's case, it's not that easy because we don't know what's ahead. We just don't have the benefit of hindsight like we did with the classic series. On the face of it, this is a rehash of the Sarah Jane Adventures' Prisoner of the Judoon, with the space rhinos coming to Earth for an alien fugitive hiding among us, despite not having jurisdiction, with red herrings, etc. This one is more violent, however, with the Chibnall era's usual nastiness vis-à-vis innocent bystanders. I don't think the old lady or the café owner deserved their deaths whatsoever, nor do I believe the latter would push a Judoon captain around like that and get him angry. The Judoon making an appearance since to RTD the whole thing, with several Tennantism on show, like the Doctor rhyming with Judoon and...
Big surprise number one: Captain Jack Harkness is back. Well sure, Chibnall was showrunner on Torchwood and this was one of his inherited characters. But it's still very RTD because he acts like he did whenever he was with the Doctor. The Torchwood Jack was more sober. Fun enough stuff, but it's the episode's biggest problem in terms of story. Jack is just here to warn the Doctor about a future episode (if it's not called "The Lone Cyberman", I'll be surprised), not take part in this one. And he doesn't even see her, instead scooping the companions up from their previously-scheduled adventure for misunderstandings and jokes. If one story heralds another, that's fine (and indeed, Fugitive also does that), but the Cyberman element is just a plug-in, so this feels like two prologues for the price of one. Very clunky. Is this why Chibnall got a co-writing credit? He wrote those interruptions?
The other big surprise is that Ruth, our guest-star of the week, is in reality not only the Judoon's target, but the Doctor herself, humanized with a chameleon arch. And when you're really reeling from that revelation, might as well throw in that there's a parallel Gallifrey out there from whence this other Doctor (damn, I'm gonna have to call her Doctor Ruth for clarity) came, as did the Time Lords who are after her. If you can't tell there's gonna be a full Theories section on this one, you haven't been reading me for long. Quite beyond "what this all means"(TM), this is basically what I wish they'd done back in The Next Doctor (another Tennantism, then). Jo Martin is a fine Doctor with a sharp look, albeit a Doctor from what has to be an alternate universe where - from what I can tell - she may have been a Celestial Intervention Agency operative. Even with limited Time Lord knowledge (as though triggered by Lee's message), she's able to martial arts the heck out of a Judoon platoon, and doesn't mind pointing a gun at someone (though like our Doctor, she doesn't use weapons and it's a trick). Despite the differences, she's still Doctorish, and gets to do the thing where Doctors can't stand each other. Her former handler Gat is cool too, and it's really too bad she had to be disintegrated - a waste. Her TARDIS is a very nice adaptation of the classic white look, and seeing how it's not the first such on the show, I'm kind of amazed they keep going for bizarre looks that polarize fandom, when they could just go for a classic and already iconic look. On the second watch, you get to see if there were clues to her true identity, which is fun in and of itself because there are. We start on a watch, harking back to Human Nature's fob watch. Lee is described as her faithful companion (he's a Time Lord and no tears are shed for him, but I think his Doctor is pretty impatient and grim after his death, just no time for her to properly react). If Ten's human life was that of a history teacher, hers is that of a tour guide, which also resonates. All in all, Doctor Ruth makes a nice splash, but she's in service of a larger story we know little about.
I do think there's a lot of nice comedy in the episode, with practically everyone getting a couple jokes in, and in the end, it pushes the Doctor's subplot about dead Gallifrey forward a little. She finally tells her companions why she's been so distracted, and they make her genuinely smile with their trust and love for her. Scenes like this feel quite written, to me, but Jodie sells the reaction beautifully.
THEORIES: Let's take some things off the table. It's not a trick because Chibnall himself has spoken about this and said he gave Jo Martin the proper Doctor credit because she's the real deal, somehow. I also doubt that she's pre-Hartnell, because that wouldn't explain the other Gallifrey she comes from. Orphan 55 has just mentioned the existence of parallel timelines, and that can't be an accident. The truth should also tie into the secret the Master discovered (and yes, we should be asking if this new Master regenerated from Missy or Simms, or whether he's from this parallel). One possibility is that she IS pre-Hartnell, but not the way we think. Before the current Hartnell-to-Whitaker cycle, the Time Lords lived another cycle, one they had to Mulligan, wiping everyone's minds, though not their core identities. The Master discovers his previous lives were wiped from history and goes crazy. Perhaps it's not all Time Lords, perhaps it's just the renegades themselves. Possibility 1B then, is that Doctor Ruth is from Season 6B, pre-Pertwee and pre-proper sonic screwdriver, what Troughton regenerated into, all memories of which were erased from the Doctor's mind, and all missing regenerations replaced. This is too nerdy and difficult to explain to current viewers, so I would nix it. The second actual possibility is that, either in the Time War, in the time of the Timeless Child, Gallifrey has (much like it did in the Eighth Doctor novels) created back-ups of itself, stored away in alternate realities in case the worst happens. The Master's genocide would count, and another Gallifrey is entering our universe, with its own Doctor (oops). Note Gat's different look. Is she from a far past Gallifrey, or from an alternate timeline where they never adopted the big collars?
I'll give you another one because it's a fun fan theory (I didn't originate it), though once again possibly too complicated for the casual viewer. What if we don't understand regeneration? What if it's not a renewal of cells, but rather the borrowing of a form from an alternate universe? Some fans have used this to explain discrepancies, from Hartnell's single heart to Tom Baker's past selves from Morbius, to McGann's human mother, to the different accents. Each Doctor is one reality's Doctor, brought into our universe, given the memories of the previous identity holder, but also keeping some of their own (like meeting such and such a historical personages, and you, the super-fan, can't find a place for it in the canon). The Master may have found out that this has a massive and deliterious effect on other realities, suffered an identity crisis as a result, etc. With Ruth, we see a Doctor from one of those other realities because perhaps Gallifrey's destruction has put that system out of whack, who knows. If this WERE the big secret, it would create an ethical problem for all future regeneration moments, so no, I don't think this'll be it, but I'm trying to be thorough.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - I want to give the twists and shocks a High, but it leaves too much unresolved.
Comments
The production team is clearly trying, but in many ways there's a certain level of naivety in those decisions. Yes, they've employed a multi-racial cast, tick, but there's very little about the British black experience in Ryan's character, or the Asian experience in Yasmin, albeit, she's a bit more considered. It's kind of the reason I personally feel uncomfortable with the concept of 'blind casting' as advocated by some to deal with the impasse, it doesn't necessarily progress that conversation any further than employing an actor who might not have otherwise previously got a look in. Clearly, not every character in drama should be so clearly defined, you shouldn't have to do anything so tiresome as 'represent' each time you accept an onscreen role, but it feels like such a policy has the potential to mask that experience. The one area I do feel that the show has made significant process is in employing a diverse array of writers, the recent news that Vinay Patel has been presented with an opportunity to develop his own sci-fi series can only be good news in terms of putting Asian creatives in positions of power, and therefore, giving them a say in not only the types of stories that can be told, but it also gives them a say in the backroom hiring/firing policies. As much as Chibnall is valiantly pushing forward on these issues, such decisions are still ultimately the preserve of the educated middle-class white guy, you shouldn't always have to be invited to be included that's just condescending. :\
Excellent.
Hang on, could this mean that she's actually Sam Beckett? I can't remember any little children who could have spotted Al, if he's around. He should be, though, Al does get around...
When I watch ANYTHING and someone says "oh boy", I immediately think the character was just Leaped into.
"nor do I believe the latter would push a Judoon captain around like that and get him angry"
Get HER angry. 😁