An international fan's view on the state of Doctor Who

Argh, why is it so hard to blog during my vacation? Here I sit, rested and content, with oceans of time at my disposal, but will the inspiration come to write that exposé on different kinds of villain-loving (that don't always align with mine)? Will it heck. Therefore, after much deliberation, I will have to go nerdy.

Because if it's one subject that it should be easy to have an opinion on, for a worried fan, it's the current state of Doctor Who. Even the most loyal admirers of the show have been up in arms after the Christmas special that was promised was cancelled – with Russell T Davies commenting defensively that he hadn't written anything of the script anyway, which directly contradicts previous statements from him and others – and BBC has announced that the series has been "put out to tender". 

Since the announcement, commentators have fallen over themselves to explain to us, the ignorant public, that putting a show out to tender does not mean putting it out to pasture. In fact it means the complete opposite, as the show is auctioned off, as it were, to the studio who has the best pitch for it going forward. Shows don't go through this process unless BBC expects it to run for years and years; it wouldn't make sense to invite pitches for a last hurrah. 

If BBC wanted to cancel the show, the commentators suggest, it would have done so outright. Instead, a new studio is needed anyway as Davies and his production company Bad Wolf is leaving the field, so putting the show out to tender makes perfect sense. Moreover, the cancellation of the Christmas special means the process of determining a new, shining future for the show can start sooner. Davies had frankly written himself into a corner by having Ncuti Gatwa regenerate into Billie Piper (whom we know as former Doctor companion and love interest Rose), and a future studio wouldn't want further messy lore on their hands.

All this sounds perfectly plausible as far as it goes. However, Doctor Who fans who have been in the trenches have pointed out that last time the series went off air, the BBC didn't outright cancel it either. The execs may just be trying to let a vocal fanbase down gently. For my part, I'm prepared to buy that the Beeb is acting in good faith and wants the show to continue. But as a foreign Who fan, I have two big concerns: will anyone bid for Doctor Who? And will anyone stream it?

Granted that the BBC wants to find the best studio for Doctor Who. But what good will that be if no studio wants it? The BBC has its own studio, separate from the rest of the organisation, and they've shown interest in Who. But it would look odd if they didn't, and if BBC Studios ends up producing the show, then why put it out to tender in the first place? Putting something up for auction is all very well, but the occasion turns into a disaster if no-one's buying.

The Doctor Who brand isn't strong right now. Whovians who were full of anticipation over Davies's second stint as showrunner have been struggling to defend the RTD 2 run. However much the more positive Who forums have tried to distance themselves from "toxic" fans, they've had to concede that the RTD 2 seasons of the series have overall not been very good. I'm not the only one who has gone from initial unease, to increasing bewilderment, to being close to giving up on the series altogether. To paraphrase Charlotte Brontë, whether it is right or advisable to create things like "Dot and Bubble", I do not know: I scarcely think it is.

What's potentially more dangerous for the series than griping fans – though, lest we forget, we're the ones supposed to be boosting the viewing figures – is the falling-out with Disney Plus. What with the streaming service dropping the series after two seasons and still not airing the spin-off series The War between the Land and the Sea (not that I blame them – it sounds eco-dreary), Doctor Who has been branded, in the eyes of the world, as bad business. Why would a streaming platform such as Netflix want to take on a show that's already failed on Disney Plus?

To a British viewer, this might not be a great cause for concern. YouTube channels such as Who Culture have waxed lyrical about the possibility of Doctor Who going back to its BBC roots of modest budgets and grounded stories and characterisation. But the most important thing about the Disney Plus deal was not the budget, it was the world-wide airing of the series. I don't need big-budget spectacles either, but I want to be able to actually watch the show. 

My foreign blood has been boiling while listening to burbling fantasies about how great it would be if BBC could do the series all in-house and not have to defer to those pesky international streaming services for anything. Yes, I expect it would be great for nostalgic Brits. But what about the rest of us? Do the limeys have any idea of what being an international Who fan was like, before the Disney Plus deal? 

In Sweden, Swedish television aired New Who's first series with Christopher Eccleston. For a while, some series (not the most recent ones) were briefly available on Prime. But apart from that, nothing. I had to wait for the DVDs, and meanwhile have salient plot developments spoiled for me. Some dunce spoiled the plot twist in "Amy's Choice" in a review, a move I have yet to get over. BBC itself put up a video on YouTube with the Sacha Dhawan Master reveal the day after the episode was aired in the UK. Of course, it made its way unbidden into my list of recommended videos because of the algorithm, and there was nothing I could do about it. Christmas specials were released on DVD in the spring, if one was lucky.

The RTD 2 run at least had this to recommend it: I could watch the new episodes the same day they aired if I wanted to. Granted, many of them were bad, but they were available. I don't want to have to go back to buying the DVDs once the whole series has already been aired in the UK, and unless I can be sure that a new incarnation of Doctor Who is better than RTD 2, I'm not sure the investment is actually worth my while.

Everything has its time, and everything ends. Still I cling on to the hope that out of all this upheaval, Doctor Who will rise like a phoenix and be watchable once more. But what will I call this hypothetical new version of the series? I shouldn't have blown the label New New Who on the short-lived Disney Plus era. Surely New New New Who is too much?

Former friends turned enemies – an irresistible trope (at least for me)

Last week was exhausting, which means I'm a bit late with my blogging. Even now, I'm reaching for the easy option blog-wise. Instead of explaining why Pixar's Hoppers is really watchable and not at all the simplistic "Man the Destroyer" fable I had feared (my least favourite cliché or trope, together with "Eat the rich", and "Who are the monsters here"), I'm going to write about Young Sherlock on Prime.

There's no shortage of films or TV projects that want to hitch a ride on the Sherlock train without having much – if anything – to do with the great detective as described by Arthur Conan Doyle. I've mentioned these Holmesian rip-offs a number of times: the Guy Ritchie movies, the Enola Holmes atrocity (I never did watch the second film), The Irregulars on Netflix. Young Sherlock is undoubtedly the same kind of thing. And yet, as with The Irregulars, I ended up enjoying the series on its own terms, even if it is far from "the spirit of the original". 

I'm not going to go into the matter of why Holmes's good name keeps getting exploited again, as it's well-trodden ground. Instead I'll concentrate on another aspect of the series, the irresistible hook that kept me watching even though the banter of the first couple of episodes was pretty tired. In Young Sherlock, we see the future detective teaming up with an Irish Oxford undergraduate called – drum roll – James Moriarty.

Predictable? Yes. Wonderfully inventive? Not really. But it doesn't need to be. I'm a sucker for a story showing how the hero and his arch-enemy used to be friends. It's why I once sat through an enormously long film (which I think was meant as a TV series, something the DVD I rented did not make clear) called Neverland. It's why I've started to watch the TV series Smallville, in spite of having zero investment in the Superman universe (I'm admittedly only two episodes in, but so far Lex is being a great pal to Clark). It's why Master episodes in Doctor Who appeal to me, in spite of The Master being a bit too chaotic a villain for my liking. The friends-turned-enemies trope is "You and I are not so different" and the hero-villain team-up rolled into one, and I love it.

Admittedly, it could be more cleverly done than in Young Sherlock. You have to ask yourself why a Holmes-Moriarty team-up is so appealing when Holmes isn't behaving noticeably like Holmes and Moriarty isn't behaving noticeably like Moriarty. This Sherlock mostly resembles the Guy Ritchie movie version of Sherlock Holmes in his youth, which makes sense as Guy Ritchie directed some of this TV show's episodes as well. Young Moriarty is charming, full or Irish blarney and has some unscrupulousness about him, but there's little hint of a future criminal mastermind at work, or for that matter a future Mathematics Professor. They are less two geniuses trying to think their way to a solution to their problems, and more two boisterous young men who get into scrapes.

There are some hints that these are bright young lads, admittedly, and that they are uniquely on each other's wave length. While we don't get scenes where Sherlock rattles off brilliant deductions, we do see his power of observation, illustrated by time slowing down while he takes in all the details in a scene or a room. Intriguingly, we see Moriarty joining him in these moments, while he follows the same trains of thought. He is the only one who can enter young Sherlock's "mind palace" (to borrow a concept from BBC's Sherlock).

All in all, though, the show's main charm comes not from any impressive detective work on the part of the protagonists, but more from being a ripping yarn. I was a little doubtful during the first episodes, but when the series switches focus to an unsolved mystery from Sherlock's childhood, the plot thickens and becomes more gripping. However, there are no prizes for guessing who the ultimate Big Bad is (not Colin Firth's blunt Empire builder, no), and the motivation of at least one important character remains something of a mystery. 

This is not the kind of show that makes you feel clever for watching it. But if a 19th-century caper involving two bright hotheads, a female Chinese assassin, a former asylum inmate who (naturally) turns out not to be mad at all and the stiff straight man trying to keep some control over the situation sounds fun to you, you could do worse than giving Young Sherlock a watch. After all, Conan Doyle himself appreciated a good adventure story.                      

Chibnall does Christie – and it could have been worse

"From the creator of Broadchurch", an ad boasted, and my heart sank. When I nominated Seven Dials on Netflix as one of the 2026 shows I was looking forward to, I had no idea that the script-writer would be none other than Chris Chibnall, the inventor of The Timeless Child and the bane of Gallifrey.

I had a lot of problems with Chibnall's run as Doctor Who showrunner, which wasn't unexpected, as I didn't care for the Who episodes he penned during the reigns of his predecessors Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat either. Now, however, after RTD has botched his return to the show so badly, I've started wondering whether I judged Chibs too harshly. There were parts of his Doctor Who run I liked, such as the Flux series and The Power of the Doctor. Consequently, I was prepared to give his version of The Mystery of the Seven Dials (simply called Seven Dials on Netflix) a fair chance – or fairish at any rate.

In the end, Seven Dials turned out to be a solid good watch. Chibnall proved to be a better Christie adapter than Sarah Phelps, just as his Doctor Who run (with hindsight) can be said to be better than the RTD 2/Disney Plus era. The problem is, that's not saying an awful lot. I was grateful Chibnall didn't mess around more with the source material than he did, but there were still lots of moments when I had reason to recall why his Who scripts irritated me in the first place.

The basic plot is more or less the same as in Christie's novel, and her twists are intact. Chibnall has added one twist of his own, but I didn't think it detracted from the original story. Other tweaks of the plot were pardonable too. I don't quite understand why Bundle had to be in love with the first murder victim – it causes her to mooch around a great deal during the whole first episode – but I didn't mind it much. Gender-swapping Lord Caterham to an almost equally unlikeable Lady Caterham worked quite well, especially as she's played by Helena Bonham Carter. Mandatory diversity is built into the plot by making Ronnie Devereux of Indian descent and the brilliant researcher from Cameroon rather than Germany, but if we have to play the diversity game I much prefer these kinds of changes to "colour-blind" casting.

What is less easy to bear are the outbreaks of clumsy commentary, as if Chibnall just had to leave his 21th-century fingerprints everywhere. Sir Oswald Coote lunges into a Brash Capitalist rant about how class can be bought at one time, for no good reason that I can see. A whole scene is dedicated to showing how harsh Lady Coote has been to a maid. Lady Coote in the book was a good-natured creature who was bullied by the Caterhams' gardener, but I accept that making her sharper adds her to the roster of likely suspects, which is no bad thing. However, she doesn't have to turn into a servant terroriser. Lady Caterham's snobbishness is very on the nose, and the Cameroonian scientist makes a whole little speech about how he and others on the African continent had to fight at the behest of "European white men" which sounds a great deal more 2020s rather than 1920s.

It's not as if Chibnall has that good a grasp of the period he apparently feels superior to. When George Lomax laments the lack of political interest of young women, Bundle replies sweetly "gives us the vote and we just might [take an interest]", whereupon Lomax guffaws patronisingly. It's true that Bundle wouldn't have had the vote in 1925, but married women of 30 and over already had the right to vote since 1918, so the idea of extending this right further wouldn't have felt far-fetched even for Lomax. Lady Caterham tells Bundle that Bundle's brother died because of the mistakes of a "drunken old general". The High Command during World War One hasn't had the best press, but that is surely an oversimplified view of what went down. Officers trained in traditional warfare were ill-equipped to make tactical decisions in the first truly modern war; I would argue that their age and state of inebriation didn't have much to do with it.

But enough complaining. Chibnall may not be able to refrain completely from Chibnallisms, but compared to some of the pontificating we've had from other script-writers, and the right-out distortions of the source material we got from Phelps, they are simply mild annoyances. The best thing about this adaptation is not the script but the stellar casting. Mia McKenna-Bruce is spot-on as Bundle (though Chibnall should have given her a better grasp of grammar). Helena Bonham Carter is fun, as always. Martin Freeman makes a surprisingly convincing Battle, and his first confrontation with McKenna-Bruce's Bundle adds a welcome sparkle to the proceedings. Edward Bluemel is excellent as Jimmy Thesiger, and Alexander Macqueen is genuinely funny as Lomax. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Mark Lewis Jones's Sir Oswald Coote, especially not if he was carrying his rifle and you were an aristo.

It's a shame that a few things are dragged out or added unnecessarily, while other aspects of the plot which were important in the book – Bill Eversleigh's feeling for Bundle, the efficiency of Pongo – get very little room. But all in all, this isn't a bad Seven Dials version. If Chibnall chooses to do a sequel of some kind (maybe adapting The Secret of Chimneys, though that would be reversing the original chronological order of the novels), I'm here for it. 

New New Doctor Who season two: the parting of the ways?

Nowadays, I sometimes watch an old Doctor Who episode not just because I feel like it, but to remind me that Doctor Who actually was good during the first Davies era and the Steven Moffat era. I wasn't imagining it, and so back in December 2022, when I was so excited about the return of Russell T Davies (aka RTD), I had no way of knowing how hard his second stint as showrunner would crash and burn.

True, I was apprehensive about his politics, though not apprehensive enough as it turns out. The problem with Davies's second run – the "RTD 2" run – is that not only is the political commentary dialled up to eleven and clumsier than ever (and it wasn't exactly subtle in the olden days), but the things he did well are less in evidence, if at all. 

Where are the grounded characters and everyday situations that you believed in? I barely feel I know the new companions Ruby Sunday and Belinda Chandra at all. Ruby's adoptive mother Carla and grandmother Cherry had some promise, but they weren't given enough screen time to develop (and it was a shame that Carla ended up betraying Ruby in two aborted time lines over two seasons). All the UNIT staff seemed to be given about one or two character traits each. You can't blame the Who Culture youtubers for nicknaming Colonel Ibrahim "Colonel Sexy", because what else is he? I'm starting to wonder whether I like Kate Stewart simply because Jemma Redgrave is such a great actress, as I still don't quite know what the character is about after all these years. And what is Rose Noble (who ought to be in school) doing at the UNIT headquarters at all? Not even Davies himself seems to know. 

As for Belinda's family, I kept thinking there was a plot twist coming where it would turn out she actually didn't have any parents, in spite of her talking about them all the time, because we didn't get to meet them. Belinda's mother eventually makes a brief appearance, but her father is kept off-screen. What's with all the missing fathers? Davies, who once opened up Doctor Who to romantic girl-meets-Doctor storylines, seems to have acquired a new distaste for heterosexual mating and its manifestations.

While we're on the subject of characterisation, what happened to the characters being interestingly flawed even when they happen to tick some minority box? Ruth Madeley was allowed to play a complex character in Years and Years – the cheeky little sister whose judgment wasn't always sound (she voted for the dangerous populist Vivienne Rook). Her Shirley Bingham, on the other hand, is little more than a token disabled character, seemingly flawless.

What happened to bringing back characters from Classic Who in a meaningful and thrilling manner, instead of hauling them in and then completely wasting their potential? Who can forget the Dalek-Cyberman face-off ("this is not war, this is pest control"), the Master's return and the confrontation between the Doctor and Davros in RTD's first era? And now what do we get? Not one but two excellent actresses taking on the Rani, but given precious little to work with. The Rani is dispatched unceremoniously and without any real effort on the Doctor's part about midway through the final episode. Still, she is lucky compared to the other Classic Who villain Omega, resurrected as a soulless CGI monster then got rid of within minutes. I haven't even seen any Omega adventures, and I still felt offended. And what happened to the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, of whom we saw the merest glimpse but who then didn't appear in the finale at all? 

To get to the point, season two of the RTD 2 era had so many flaws they even became apparent to viewers who have no problem with the politics, which is still very much in evidence, as it was in season one. What particularly cheesed me off about the commentary this time around was that its particular target was white young men with a taste for gaming or social media – in other words, we got a look at what Davies imagines New New Who's angriest critics are like. 

Both Belinda's controlling ex-boyfriend Alan and the duplicitous podcaster Conrad were poorly understood caricatures. I should have enjoyed the episode "Wish World" as it contained a fake reality, a trope I'm usually a sucker for. But the moral arrogance behind the depiction of Conrad's Wish World as everything the seemingly progressive Davies despises was hard to watch. Of course a monster such as Conrad must be in favour of women staying in the home, against homosexuality and ignorant even of the existence of the disabled and "dispossessed". Unlike, one imagines, Davies, who is all for rainbows and puppies and world peace.

To be fair, the finale did take a step back when it came to the Conrad hate (I seem to be the only one who appreciated that Ruby showed him mercy instead of tearing into him). But that is about all that can be said for it. Ncuti Gatwa regenerating into Billie Piper (who played companion Rose Tyler in RTD's first era) was a tired stunt that had even me groaning, and I have a high tolerance for fan service. But to tell the truth, I was fed up long before then. I'm not sure what to do about Doctor Who in the future. I can't seriously be prepared to stop watching it, can I?

A very English (somewhat chilly) mini-series

Finally, I've followed the strong recommendations of friends and critics and watched the mini-series A Very English Scandal from 2018, which, as luck would have it, was still available on Swedish streaming. The title's not a lie: it's certainly very English indeed. Given this and my anglophile tendencies, one would maybe have expected me to warm to it more, but perhaps it's just not meant to be the kind of story you warm to. In any case, I did enjoy it.

The odds are stacked in the show's favour. It stars Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Alex Jennings and a great supporting cast; it's directed by Stephen Frears; it's based on a book by John Preston (if it's the same John Preston I'm thinking of, I used to like his reviews in The Sunday Telegraph a lot); and, last but not least, it's written by Russell T Davies, back when he was still good. All right, maybe that's unfair, but I'm still bitter about what he's serving up in Doctor Who these days. In the best scenes in Scandal, you wonder how it can be the same man who wrote this and drivel like the "male-presenting Time Lord" speech in "The Star Beast" or the clumsy eat-the-rich-kids satire in "Dot and Bubble".

The scandal in question is one I know nothing about, which can be both an advantage and a bit dangerous. It concerns Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party in England in the Sixties and Seventies, who was doing really well until people found out, one: that he had a male ex-lover and two: that he tried to have said male ex-lover killed.

At least, that was what Thorpe was accused of. From the point of view of the TV series, there's never any doubt that he was as guilty as a man can be. This is where the danger of not knowing anything comes in, because I buy it all, even while wondering how a seemingly canny politician could have been so stupid. Although the characterisation is far from black and white, you do briefly wonder about the ethical aspects of making a juicy TV drama of something that happened not so long ago (Jeremy Thorpe's son is probably still alive). But heck, it is a good story.

In spite of its sharp script and good pace, underscored by lively music from the excellent Murray Gold (more British talent), I wasn't completely blown away by the first episode. It was hard to care too much about an affair gone sour when the persons involved were Grant's callous Thorpe and Whishaw's neurotic Norman Josiffe, later Scott, who as soon as he was ditched reported Thorpe to the cops and wrote a 17-page-long letter to his (Thorpe's) mother. But the show got steadily better – or rather, more engaging, as it was always good. By the third episode, I was at the edge of my seat, and here it is a definite advantage not to know how it all turned out. The last sentence of the "what happened then" summaries at the end hits the at once droll and moving note it aims for.

If anyone is short-changed in this drama, it's Jeremy Thorpe. Not that Hugh Grant doesn't do an excellent job of playing him, but the man remains an enigma until the end. Grant can do both charm and the lurking darkness beneath to perfection, but what he's been less called for to do during his career is vulnerability or raw emotion, and this part is no exception. This version of Thorpe is no tragic hero, someone who could have done great things if he hadn't stumbled down a dark path following one misstep. He is a man with a sliver of ice in his heart acting in character. It's not a complete hatchet-job, which makes it all the more damaging. Thorpe clearly cared about his family, and every clip we see of a political speech (there's not that many, though) makes quite a lot of sense. Also, Norman's no saint, and you can understand why his ex feels sorely tried at times. Still, you're left thinking that England had a lucky escape.      

Davies keeps his own hobby-horses admirably at bay. There's the odd line that sounds more like him than the characters, as when Norman complains about "men like him" not being in the history books (but what do I know? That could be direct quote). It's also a bit remarkable that just about every male character seems to have at least tried on sleeping with men, and bisexuality isn't really considered as a plausible explanation to playing both sides, unless the fellow concerned would otherwise be labelled heterosexual. But we're spared ranting, and Davies even uses his own experiences (or what feels like his own experiences) to touching effect. Not that he was around the gay scene, or lack of it, at the same time as Jeremy Thorpe, but he can clearly relate to it's being a jungle out there.

I'm glad I got round to watching A Very English Scandal. Like one of its protagonists, it can be a bit chilly at times. However, if RTD hits his stride again and produces anything nearly as good in the upcoming season of Doctor Who, I will be a very happy bunny.

Anticipation list follow-up: expectations met, mostly

Back in January, I did one of my almost-yearly "things to look forward to" posts (restricted to the area of pop-cultural consumption). As it's sadly a bit too early to start the 2025 lists, but I feel in the mood for a list post, what if I followed up on the projects I thought sounded at least vaguely promising? I mean, I know I've already blogged about some of them, but as a summing-up? No, I'm not dodging an in-depth analysis of the problems of making the multiverse work (in film/TV) at all...

I'll change the order around a bit, though; I'll start with the items I haven't discussed in blog posts yet and save the item that was the biggest disappointment to last.

Moonflower Murders: Thankfully, Swedish Television didn't let me down. They both aired the latest adaptation of an Anthony Horowitz crime novel and made it available on their streaming service, and I was well pleased with it. It had the same virtues as Magpie Murders: Lesley Manville's Sue Ryeland and Tim McMullan's Atticus Pünd make for a likeable sleuthing duo with their meetings on the border between fiction and reality (there's a multiversal incursion for you), and the way some of the actors played two roles in parallel plot threads was cleverly done. As with Magpie Murders, I felt less cheated by the way the two interlocking crime mysteries were laid out than when I read the novel. Moonflower Murders the novel ended with a firm goodbye to this particular fictional universe, but the TV adaptation (also done by Horowitz) leaves the door a little more open for a sequel. I would not say no.

The Bad Batch season three: Is it just me, or have the animated projects from the Star Wars and Marvel franchises been consistently great of late, while the live-action projects are a bit more hit and miss? It may very well be just me with my soft spot for animation. Be that as it may, this Clone Wars spin-off, which perhaps didn't seem that promising on paper, outdid expectations with an engaging, well-knit overarching story about a band of brothers and a sister trying to carve out an existence during the Imperial era of the Star Wars galaxy. Crosshair remained my favourite throughout, but as he kept himself on the path of redemption he hesitantly started on previous season, new entertaining if unsubtle villains were introduced. Doctor Hemlock (I warned you!) with his pleasing design, satisfactorily high level of competence and purring voice (American-accented, which makes a nice change in this context as Star Wars baddies are so often played by Brits) caused my villain-loving heart to flutter, and disgraced Vice Admiral Rampart was a hoot.

Inside Out 2: Yeah, as I've previously mentioned, this was pretty darn good. Even though I prefer the original, which is more rewatchable, the way Anxiety is portrayed in this film is almost too relatable. Roll on Inside Out 3 – next time, I want to see Riley fall in love.

Belgravia: The Next Chapter: OK, I can't pretend it wasn't a let-down that Julian Fellowes didn't pen this supposed sequel to Belgravia, which at the end of the day had very little to do with the original. I had other reservations as well, especially at the start of the series, but taken all in all it was a solid period drama that felt a little closer to being set in a recognisable past than many costume dramas of late (which are often knowingly anachronistic). It particularly seemed to find its stride in the final episode. Poor Oliver Trenchard was hard done by, though.

Doctor Who series fourteen/season one: As you may already be aware, this was a big let-down for me. When will I stop hoping for Doctor Who to return to its former glory? It's hard to let go of hope when the very same duo that were show-runners back in those glory days are still running and/or writing for the series. But by now, Doctor Who has become so heavily politicised that it has a harder time getting away with things that weren't such a big deal in the olden days. 

When the main thrust of Doctor Who stories was about something bigger (love, friendship, the wonders of the universe, the problems of near immortality, the strengths and weaknesses of mankind) or something smaller (oooh, look, Daleks and Cybermen are fighting!) than politics, I could shrug off the odd bout of clumsy messaging. Now, it seems, clumsy messaging is practically all the show does. I had hopes that the Steven Moffat-scripted Christmas special would be a suitably light-hearted palate cleanser, but the sneak peek we've been given does not look promising. "Evil must logo"? Really? Also, the main villain being a Big Bad Arms Manufacturer isn't only clichéd, it's not quite as obvious a choice of common enemy as it might once have been. Yes, of course there are all sorts of ethical implications when a company's products are expressly made to maim and kill people. But at the end of the day, what are we supposed to defend ourselves with if we are attacked? Bananas?

I've not yet reached the point where I will stop watching Doctor Who, and most likely I never will. But for now, it's no longer my favourite sci-fi franchise. For all its faults, Star Wars has eclipsed it. It gave me the most memorable Doctor to watch this year.

The bumpy ride of New New Doctor Who

I'm late with my blogging, partly because last week (the week before my summer vacation) was intense, partly because this is not an easy topic. So let's get it over with.

The latest series of Doctor Who, now airing on Disney Plus, has been labelled "season one", so as not to scare off new viewers. We are, then, officially, in a new Doctor Who era. I'll call it New New Who for now, in honour of New New York which featured in episodes like "New Earth" and "Deadlock" back in the good old days of Russell T Davies's first stint as show runner.

Up until now, I've agreed with the commonly held opinion that Davies aka RTD was the show's best show runner, while Steven Moffat was the best script writer. These high expectations make my disappointment in RTD's return all the greater. If Chibnall had still been in charge, I would probably be kinder to the season. There were still episodes I enjoyed, and flashes of the old magic showed even in the episodes I didn't particularly like. But this is RTD. Under his captaincy, Who should be better than just OK.

Who's to blame, then, for the decline of Doctor Who? Disney? Is it likely that I'd say that? No, I've got another scapegoat in mind. I've made it clear more than once, the first time after the overall underwhelming 60th Anniversary Specials, that my enjoyment of Doctor Who would depend on in what degree Davies steered clear of his own irritating brand of political and social commentary. And... well... he didn't.

It started merely as an annoyance. The first episode "Space Babies" (or second if you count the Christmas special "The Church on Ruby Road" which I still think is great) had some political commentary smuggled in, but it was puzzling rather than anything else. The issue with "Space Babies" was rather its over-childish plot, where nappies and a "bogey man" literally made out of bogeys played important parts. Not a good jumping-on point for the uninitiated, in spite of all the crammed-in exposition.

Then came "The Devil's Chord", which, again, wasn't overtly political, but seemed rather too pleased with itself for starring the drag artist Jinkx Monsoon as the villain Maestro. I thought the concept and look of Maestro weren't bad, and I didn't mind the pronoun quibbling this time around as it fitted the story – when Maestro wearily explained "I'm 'them'" to a suitably non-plussed gent of the 1920's, it had echoes of "I am legion". But you must have pace when serving up an OTT villain, and this episode lingered far too long on Monsoon's scenery-chewing. The pace was off throughout, and in spite of the Beatles playing a part, we didn't get to hear a single Beatles song. 

The third episode was "Boom", penned by the great Steven Moffat himself. Surely now things would start to look up? Well, yes and no. There was much witty quick-fire dialogue, but we also got sanctimonious shots fired at the military, the church, AI and, of course, every Who writer's favourite target, Big Bad Capitalism. 

This is one of two episodes where the commentary crossed the line for me from merely irritating to downright offensive, when the Doctor spluttered to one of the "anglican marines": "Faith! The magic word that keeps you never having to think for yourself." Firstly, no, that's not what faith is. Secondly, how does a Doctor Who writer have the gall to put this on paper, when Who writers are the most notorious bunch of group-thinkers you can find? Script-writers with the wrong opinions are put in the dog house, and steps are taken to actively scare away viewers with the wrong opinions. "Thinking for yourself" is not encouraged.

I was as good as done with Who at this point, and then "73 Yards" came along, which I thought was an  excellent supernatural chiller. I'm not without notes, and the impact could lessen with time. I assumed, for instance, that the Welsh populist politican Roger ap Gwilliam who becomes "the most dangerous Prime Minister in history" (and this in a field which includes Harry Saxon aka the Master) either was or was possessed by the spirit of "Mad Jack", let out when the Doctor tramples on a fairy circle, and was thus a supernatural threat. But when Ruby finally manages to undo the whole fairy-circle-trampling timeline, Gwilliam is still a factor, so what gives? If he turns out to be just an ordinary bloke who wants to nuke the world for some reason, then I'll be mad myself. Nevertheless, this episode had plenty of atmosphere and is probably my favourite of the season.

So my hopes were raised again, and then "Dot and Bubble" came along, an amazingly unsubtle "social media bad" episode – the consciously unlikeable protagonist Lindy can't even walk without her bubble of media content around her where arrows tell her where to go. But this wasn't even the worst of it. People have gushed over the episode as a "masterclass of messaging" for tackling racism. Lindy and her all-white pals turn down the Doctor's help at the end, because he isn't "one of them" – that is, it's heavily implied, because he's black. What commentators have overlooked is that this supposedly brave bit of denunciation of prejudice is heavily prejudiced itself. The episode's lesson seems to be that rich, social-media-obsessed youngsters are horrible, that if AI turned sentient it would rise up against them, and that they deserve to die. 

Oh, but it's all right to savagely attack "rich kids", isn't it, especially if they're white? They're so privileged, they can take it. I'm sure that kind of thinking never led to anything bad.

The last three episodes of the season I liked. I had my issues with "Rogue", such as the fact that the writers clearly hadn't done any research about the Regency whatsoever except watch Bridgerton (which is more a fantasy drama than a historical one). But Rogue was a charming character, a bit of a Captain Jack clone, but I like Captain Jack. His romance with this Doctor was believable enough to me; I'm  ready to roll with the concept that romantic/sexual preferences can change with each Time Lord regeneration, and besides, judging by the Master (which perhaps one shouldn't), Time Lords are up for just about anything.

Many reviews I've seen were disappointed by the finale, but this was good old RTD Who for me – complete with the problems of RTD Who or indeed any Doctor Who in the form of an all-to-easily-defeated Big Bad and giant plot holes. I don't mind. Give me powerful confrontations; emotional beats that work; what others may call gobbledegook but what I call Whovian poetry, such as the harbinger character rattling off the members of the Pantheon of Discord with all their promising villainous attributes; and finally new mysteries which may not have a satisfying payoff but are fun while they last, and I'll not complain.

All I ask is that I'm spared political posturing which aims neither to convince the doubtful, nor bolster those who think as the writers do, but only to provoke those who don't share Davies's supposedly enlightened outlook. It's not so much agenda pushing as agenda shoving, not so much messaging (as no reasoned argument is made) as a parading of views. Doctor Who is supposed to have a broader appeal than, say, Davies's It's a Sin, and it's a problem when viewers are more or less told they're not good enough to watch a show they may have grown up with.

"I don't care what you think", the Doctor says in "Dot and Bubble", "And you can say whatever you want. You can think absolutely anything. I will do anything, if you just allow me to save your lives." Oh, Doctor. If only that were true.

Villain clichés I can't get enough of

Continuing the villain cliché theme of the last post, here are some villain clichés I won't get tired of in a hurry. This is not a complete list by any means. To be honest, I'm a sucker for villain clichés, starting with the typical villain look (pale, thin, icy eyes, sharp features). These clichés are just a few of my favourites I can name from the top of my head. If I were to write down every well-worn villain trope I enjoy the moment I think about it, I could easily get material for a follow-up post or two. But that might just be too much like hard work.

"You and I are not so different" I think Arthur Conan Doyle might be the one to take credit for the widespread popularity of the "mirror image" villain, who resembles the hero in all sorts of ways – except he's bad. Certainly, when I think of famous villains before Professor Moriarty, they tend to be contrasts to the hero. The hero is brave, the villain is cowardly. The hero is kind and generous, the villain is mean-spirited and bitter. The hero is good-looking in a reassuringly homespun way (too much conventional handsomeness can sometimes be a red flag), the villain sports the pale, thin etc. looks outlined above (which I consider fairest of them all, but which aren't generally appreciated) or is downright deformed. And so on. The same often applies to heroines and villainesses. The heroines are pure and unbelievably big-hearted, the villainesses are grasping sluts. Look no further than Dickens, or Shakespeare for that matter, for numerous examples.

But then we get Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, similar in so many ways that it's easy to think of "what-if" scenarios where they might have been friends, either both fighting for good or both becoming experts in villainy. No-one else is at the same level as them. They have a unique understanding for each other. We get a grasp of all this during the span of one single short story. The "mirror image" villain has been a staple of popular culture ever since.

What's more, the "they could have been friends" scenario has often developed to a scenario where the hero and villain actually were friends until things went pear-shaped. Doctor Who's Doctor and Master friendship/rivalry is only one of many highly enjoyable Holmes-Moriarty rip-offs. As I've found out while doing my X-Men homework, there's Xavier and Magneto (though Magneto's case is more complicated than simply "going bad"). Not to mention the countless times we have heard the villain in a Bond movie or similar say "you and I are not so different/more alike than you realise" and the hero respond hotly "we are nothing alike". I know it's a cliché by this time. But as it forces the hero to question his own smugness – after all, aren't the villain's weaknesses the same as his own? – to me, it never gets old.

The hero-villain team-up This is squarely a popular culture thing, seldom attempted in a more literary context, more's the pity. At least once or twice or three times in a long-running TV series, there's a plot line that goes like this. The hero and villain – or heroes and villains, it can be a question of teams joining forces – face a bigger threat; realise that they have to team up to defeat it, sometimes after a little too much pointless squabbling; are successful in their fight because of their different skill sets and then go their different ways again, generally because of some betrayal on the villain's part, but sometimes because both parties tacitly understand that the harmony can't last. 

I'm not too fond of the ultimate villain betrayal cliché, but otherwise I love a good hero-villain team-up. The villain can ensure success by making the hard decisions and, say, kill off an antagonist without the hero getting his or her hands dirty, while the hero can shine when a more understanding approach is needed. You could argue that too frequent team-ups with the good guys can weaken the threat level of the regular bad guy, but I'm not too bothered by that. I'm only sad it always has to end.

Let's twist again (within reason) I'm aware that I'm being a bit contradictory here. Like everyone else, I got sick of twist villains in (fairly) recent animated Disney films and demanded a front-and-centre villain in the good old Scar or Jafar mould. Consequently, it seems that I can get enough of twist-based clichés.

Let me try to explain. Twist villains, and sometimes twist heroes, have a part to play in stories that are otherwise very black and white. Complex characters are always to be preferred to flat ones, but failing complexity, a character with all the attributes of a good guy turning out to be bad or vice versa throws heroes off balance and gives them a reason to reassess their world view, always a desirable goal for a villain-lover. If not everything is at it seems, then there's at least potential for complexity. Plus, I admit, I enjoy a good rug pull now and again – it's a shame so few twists really deliver that. 

The reasons I objected to the Disney twist villains are that there are too many of them in a row, and that the "villain-coded" characters of old (you could see they were bad just by the animation) were so delicious. But there is a case to be made for the much-maligned Disney twist villains too. I may get back to that in a future post.

So, this is urban fantasy... hm.

Neil Gaiman is an author I've always felt ought to be right up my alley. A writer revered by geeks, with a sense of humour, who's written for Doctor Who – what's not to like? What's more, I'm a fan of his Who contributions. That is, "The Doctor's Wife" is a great deal better than "Nightmare in Silver", which (I agree with everyone else here) got the Cybermen wrong. Nevertheless, the latter episode has highlights too, such as an atmospheric setting, a surprisingly loyal punishment platoon and the character Porridge, whose story of how a whole galaxy was blown up just to halt the Cybermen's invasion has stuck in my mind: all those lives lost, and the person he pities most is the poor blighter who had to push the button.

Maybe, though, my appreciation of the great Gaiman has been marred by the expectation that he should be right up my alley. When a TV series he's involved in doesn't hook me right away, I'm more disappointed than if the same script had been written by some random, unknown fantasy writer. Consequently, I make fewer allowances, and give up more easily, maybe a bit too easily. I haven't seen more than two episodes of Good Omens, though I'm continually telling myself I will watch the rest some day. As for The Sandman, I gave up after four episodes and will probably not watch the rest as, unlike Good Omens, it was Very Serious throughout (also, the Sandman himself is annoying). In both TV series, Gaiman mines Christian lore with an insouciance that makes me fidget – especially when things get brimstone-related – and (a related source of discomfort, this), he can go very dark at times.

My track record with Gaiman's books is better. I read and enjoyed his Norse Mythology (why "Norse" though, this Swede has to ask?), which actually taught me a lot, and me a Scandinavian. And now, lately, I've read Neverwhere, which is where the urban fantasy comes in. I did get properly into it, eventually. But it took a while.

Now, don't get me wrong. Getting through the first part of the novel was not a hardship. Gaiman is a very good writer, and as a reader you feel you're in safe hands. His sense of humour shines through, even when things are serious; thankfully, there's none of the dourness of The Sandman about Neverwhere. Nevertheless, through a large part of the book I felt more attracted to the idea of a secret realm hidden under the streets of London than Gaiman's description of it.

The hero of the novel, Richard Mayhew, has his world turned upside down when he helps an injured girl called Door (to all appearances a down-and-out) and misses an important dinner with his fiancée and her boss in the process. His fiancée dumps him, but that is the least of his problems. Suddenly, without knowing why, he loses his foothold on reality, and he realises he has to find Door again if he is to have any chance of getting his life back. With a bit of luck, he manages to make his way into London Below – where Door comes from –, locate her and join her and her small band of associates in a quest to find out who killed her family.

Sounds exciting, right? Especially as in London Below, many London landmarks and underground stations have a more literal meaning, which is fun not only for Londoners but for enthusiastic London tourists like me. There is, for instance, a real Earl's Court, and an order of Black Friars plays an important part in the proceedings. The problem for me is that London Below, though a place of adventure, is also decidedly down-at-heel. Its inhabitants may be familiar with strange and magical things, but square meals and nice clothes are in short supply.

In Gaiman's Introduction, he talks about two goals he had with Neverwhere. He wanted "to write a book that would do for adults what the books I had loved when younger, books like Alice in Wonderland, or the Narnia books, or The Wizard of Oz, did for me as a kid." But he also wanted to "talk about the people who fall through the cracks". Now, it's a bit tricky to pull off both these goals at once. There's a limit to how Narnia-like a magic realm that's also a metaphor for homelessness can get. 

For the first half of the book, I actually thought that Gaiman managed his worthy talking-about-the dispossessed-goal better than the getting-away-to-a-magic-land goal. The description of how Richard helplessly watches as his old life disintegrates, while nobody pays any attention to him, was a clever way of showing what slipping through the cracks might feel like. But as for the magic wardrobe feeling, classic fantasy realms like Wonderland and Narnia – though filled with their own problems and danger – are actually places you would like to visit (albeit perhaps not for long). They are also distinctly separate from the everyday. I couldn't help thinking of the Epic Rap Battle on YouTube between George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien where the latter points out: "News flash: the genre's called fantasy. It's meant to be unrealistic, you myopic manatee!"

For all that, Gaiman's style is captivating, his characters are colourful and the world building is impressive; it's amazing it was all done for a single book (and a TV series, admittedly). I was sufficiently swept away by the story to savour the "what?! Nooo" moments, and by the end I wanted Richard to stay put with Door. Mind you, more because I shipped them than because I suddenly found London Below entrancing. If urban fantasy is always this gritty, I might be better off sticking to the fairy-tale-based kind, for the most part at least. Mind you, if there's ever a sequel to Neverwhere, I'll read it.

Things to (cautiously) look forward to in 2024

I admit, there are few announcements of 2024 projects in the cultural consumption line that I'm unequivocally excited about. Somehow, I don't think we'll get any great adaptations of Victorian classics this year, and a new Downton doesn't seem to be on the cards either – though there is some hope for original costume dramas on a smaller scale. It seems to be a relatively meagre year for geekdom as well. There's only one Marvel movie slated for 2024 (Deadpool 3 – as I've not watched the previous two Deadpool movies I'm not that invested), and what's worse from my perspective, their planned Disney+ shows don't seem that interesting. They may be fun to watch, or they may not.

Star Wars doesn't appear to be bringing its A game to 2024 either (more on this below). Still, seeing as I've subscribed to eleventy-one streaming services I'm in no position to complain. I feel like a fashionista looking into her enormous wardrobe, wailing "I don't have a thing to wear". Maybe 2024 will be the year when I properly explore the content already available on my services and uncover some gems. Or I may be lazy and simply comfort-rewatch a lot of Downton and Once Upon A Time.

Anyway, I've managed to find a few things that I'll definitely watch and hopefully enjoy:

Doctor Who series fourteen/season one As I've ranted about in my review of the 2023 specials, how much I enjoy RTD's second era as Doctor Who showrunner is entirely dependent on how successfully he steers clear of politics. I've heard a worrying quote from Millie Gibson, who plays Ruby, saying that the forthcoming season will have "controversial" elements and is "what we need". The last thing I need is "controversial" Doctor Who if it takes the form of a showrunner, whose political judgement I don't trust, feeding me his opinions like cod-liver oil. But this might not be what Gibson meant at all. She and Ncuti Gatwa made a great duo in the Christmas special, and there are so many intriguing mysteries set up for this and coming seasons. The one who waits? The Toymaker's legions (I bet that piano-themed villain is one)? The Master's return? Mrs Flood's identity? Oh come on – this has got to be good, hasn't it?

Inside Out 2 Shock confession: I still haven't seen Disney's Wish. It wasn't in Swedish cinemas until the beginning of December, and I was travelling, then I had a cold, and then it was Christmas. By the new year, Wish had moved to the matinee slots, which are of little use to me. So I'll stream it in February or whenever it hits Disney+. Judging by the scathing reviews, it seems that in spite of Magnifico it's not one of the all-time Disney greats.

But at least it will give me some sort of Disney Animation fix this year; otherwise, they are offering nothing. I'm not counting a Mufasa prequel with dead-eyed CGI lions.

However, there is Pixar's Inside Out 2, which could be fun. I loved the original – it's one of my favourite Pixar films, perhaps even the favourite one (in hot contest with Ratatouille). I am a little concerned, though. The film will be tackling Riley's puberty, but among the new emotions introduced in trailers there's no mention of Desire or (which would admittedly be more child-friendly) Love. And in that case, haven't the film's creators kind of missed the point of puberty?

Belgravia: The Next Chapter I had to dive deeply in order to find this one (all right, a Google search on "period dramas 2024"), but apparently there is a sequel of sorts to Belgravia slated to appear in 2024. I say "of sorts" as we're fast-forwarding to the 1870s and a new generation of protagonists, but I'm all for it. The first series of Belgravia, an adaptation by Julian Fellowes of his own novel, was entertaining, if not in the Downton class. But I've stopped expecting the new Downton by now. Just give me a good, solid period drama without TV execs tying themselves in knots over the inequalities of history and I'll be happy.

Moonflower Murders As with Belgravia, my best bet for getting to watch this may actually be Swedish Television, not my aforementioned streaming services (buying the DVD is also an option, of course). It was Swedish Television that picked up the adaptation of Magpie Murders, to which Moonflower Murders is a kind of sequel. These crime novels by the ever-reliable Anthony Horowitz were both great reads, but I think I actually enjoyed the TV adaptation of Magpie Murders more than the book. Lesley Manville is older than I imagined Susan to be, but she has lots of style, and I loved her interactions with the fictional detective Atticus Pünd, played by the mellow-voiced Tim McMullan. In general, there were more connections between the murder Susan was looking into and the story-within-the-story than it was possible to convey in the novel, with actors playing both persons in a murdered detective writer's life and characters in his whodunnit. I'm hoping for more in the same vein.

The Bad Batch season three: Yep, I'm looking forward more to the third season of an animated Star Wars show than to either of the live action series that will (probably) be airing this year. This isn't too much of a slight as I enjoy animation a great deal, and the series has been surprisingly strong so far, considering the loveable clone protagonists are not overly complex characters (I perk up no end whenever the villainous Crosshair shows up). But it's still a bit of a slight. Of course I'll watch Skeleton Crew and The Acolyte, but... kids lost in space (admittedly with Jude Law), really? As for The Acolyte, the quote "This isn't about good or bad, it's about power and who's allowed to use it" doesn't sound very promising (see the first item on the list). Though it has to be said, I'm always there for trashing the Jedi.

Onward Who: Why I still look forward to the new Doctor Who era (in spite of the politics)

Well, I can't put it off any longer. It's time to review the first offerings of the new Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who, "RTD 2" as the fans refer to it. It's not a straightforward business for me. I was torn about the three 60th Anniversary specials that I'd been looking forward to so much. They weren't bad by any means – I thought Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker was great fun, as I knew I would – but they didn't quite live up to my, admittedly sky-high, expectations. They felt more like three solid episodes from series four of Doctor Who (with Tennant back as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna) than anniversary specials. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but I think Chibnall did a better job of celebrating the show as a whole in The Power of the Doctor.

No prizes for guessing what my other major gripe against the specials was (mainly the first one). U-huh, that's right: politics.

I can at least take credit for having called it, to some extent. I knew we could expect some attempts at political commentary from Davies. The problem is that his judgement, when it comes to deciding how much of his own opinions it's OK to put in a show and how, seems to have got worse. The worst example of clumsy commentary was the way he botched the character of Rose – not the companion of the Ninth and Tenth Doctor, but Donna's trans daughter – in the first special "The Star Beast".

It started all right, with mother Donna's furious reaction to Rose's jeering classmates, and a conversation between Donna and her acerbic mum Sylvia about Rose which felt genuine and down-to-earth ("I just get so clumsy", Sylvia complains). I could have gone with this simple, no-nonsense message: This is Rose, Rose is nice, don't be mean to Rose. But then the jargon creeps in. Rose tuts when the Doctor "assumes 'he' as a pronoun" about an alien being; if the point had to be made, why couldn't she say something like "How do you know it's not a 'she'?". 

Then we learn that Rose has inherited a mind-melding condition linking her with the Doctor from her mother, which has resulted in her non-binary-ness as "the Doctor is male and female, and neither, and more". The lecture tour ends with Donna and Rose explaining that they can cure themselves of their condition by just "letting it go", something a "male-presenting Time Lord will never understand". I think most of the Doctor Who fandom collectively cringed at that line.

What bothers me so much about RTD's handling of Rose is his intention. That kind of speechifying isn't going to convince anyone who's still on the fence about trans issues, quite the reverse. Davies has done trans persons no favours. He's not even preaching to the choir, as even the choir seems to think it's a bit on the nose (and I gather the notion that Rose is only trans because her mum melded her mind with an alien has not met with universal approval). No, I can't help thinking that what Davies wanted to do here was purposefully annoy fans who've complained about the right-on-ness of the Chibnall era, along the lines of "They don't like woke? I'll give them woke!" Generally, putting something in a TV series just to annoy some viewers (maybe more than Davies had bargained for) doesn't make for good writing, and it's not good for the ratings either.

The "colour-blind" casting of Isaac Newton in "Wild Blue Yonder" seems to have been done in the same vein. Doctor Who has never resorted to this form of diversity-boosting before, as it has always (well, since 2005 anyway) had plenty of roles for actors of different ethnicities playing roles with the same ethnicity, which is surely preferable to "look, let's just pretend they're white"-casting. The charming Nathaniel Curtis was thus wasted in a cameo that will mostly just irritate people. In "The Giggle", as a contrast, we see Charlie (who happens to be black) enter a toyshop in London in 1925. The Toymaker, posing as a toyseller with a blatantly bogus German accent, remarks that Charlie must be "used to warmer climes". "I'm from Cheltenham", Charlie informs him stiffly. Better.

All in all, I liked "The Giggle" quite a lot. Commentary-wise, I think highlighting the wish to be always right as a 21-century vice is fair and cuts all sorts of ways. The dig at a faux-Boris PM was a bit cheap and also dated, but this is the kind of thing we saw in RTD's first run as Doctor Who showrunner as well. What with my tolerance already stretched by "male-presenting Time Lords" and the like, though, I would have preferred as little commentary as possible, and more focus on the game-playing between the Toymaker and the Doctor (the games they do play are disappointingly simple).

And then came the Christmas special with Ncuti Gatwa as the new, Fifteenth Doctor. And I loved it.

Not because of the goblins, honest. One could suspect that I'd be onboard with almost anything as long as you put goblins in it, but as adversaries go I have to admit they were a bit silly (their song was really catchy, though). But this was just a fun adventure and a promising set-up for Gatwa's Doctor and his new companion, Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday. I can't have been the only one to complain, when the casting was first announced, that it was uninspired to give us yet another pretty English girl from present-day Earth as a Doctor companion, but Gibson won me over. Her Ruby has great matey chemistry with Gatwa's Doctor and just rolls with the improbable scenarios she finds herself in instead of wasting time questioning reality and her sanity. Goblins exist? OK. Best save that baby from being eaten, then.

I also enjoyed Gatwa's Doctor; I liked him well enough in "The Giggle", but wasn't altogether convinced yet that he hit the right Doctor-y notes. Here, he nailed both the enthusiasm, the wish to know more about everything and the serious, heartfelt moments.

Davies is back, and can write up a storm when he wants to. Murray Gold is back, and his music is excellent throughout. Gatwa and Gibson have both made a great first impression. Of course I'm still onboard for series fourteen, or season one as it will be called on Disney +. Let's just hope I can stomach the political bits.

Villain redemption and free will: of course I like Loki season two!

Oh joy, Loki stuck the landing! While I'm not quite as invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as in, say, Star Wars – I'm fairly new to it after all – it's always a relief nowadays when an MCU project does well and wins the approval of its far from uncritical fanbase. Not to mention that it's great to be able to enjoy the project in question myself without too many quibbles coming in the way.

On balance, I think I liked season two of Loki even more than season one. I had a good time with season one, but I was still adjusting to the fact that Loki wasn't really able to flex his villainous muscles in his own TV series. Also, the over-complicated set-up of the series bothered me, and I wasn't completely won over either by Loki's love interest and alter ego Sylvie or the TVA setting. In season two, we have the set-up out of the way, and though a lot of the storytelling is still labyrinthine, its complications are more enjoyable.

Now we have Loki's whole character arc, it makes more sense to me and increases my appreciation of season one as well. What we saw in season one was Loki's change from a villain to an anti-hero. What we see in season two is his change from an anti-hero to a hero.

Whoa, you might say. Isn't the whole point of Loki that he's a villain? When the shady TVA Hunter X-05 tells him: "Stop trying to be a hero, man! You're a villain. You're good at it. Do that", I for one thought he had a point. However, when push comes to shove, I'm a sucker for a good villain-redemption story, if only it's done right. Loki, ultimately, pulled it off.

I was irritated in season one by the apparent attempt to cram several films' worth of character development into one episode, as Loki was treated to a whistle-stop tour of how the rest of his life would have played out if he hadn't diverged from the "sacred timeline". But I can live with it now as this was only the start of his long and bumpy road to redemption. He made friends with Mobius, but it didn't end there. He fell in love with Sylvie, but it didn't end there. He realised he cared more about her than about ultimate power, but it didn't end there. Season two started with him working apparently selflessly to save the TVA and potentially all of existence, but we still weren't done with the character development stuff.

While the first episodes of season two reminded me of Doctor Who with its time-jumping quirkiness – the lovable engineer and overall fixer Ouroboros (O.B. for short) is in many ways a typical Doctor Who character – the final episode gave me Once Upon A Time vibes, and from me you can't expect higher praise than that. If you'd explain the plot to an old Viking, you'd get the same head-scratching response as if you'd explain the gist of Once to the Brothers Grimm: "Excuse me, who did you say saved the day again?" 

Loki made his final sacrifice in exactly the right way for a redeemed villain: not proudly or self-righteously as a hero might, but resignedly, after having tried everything else. He had a personal stake, rather than acting for an abstract Good of All Mankind. At the same time, he wanted to save not just Sylvie, but a whole group of friends. In the villain-redemption game, sacrificing yourself for a family member or love interest is all fine and good, but sacrificing yourself for someone you don't have to care for yet still do hits harder.

As a Scandinavian, I appreciated the nod towards mythological Loki too. MCU Loki's fate was a great deal less grim – it's not as if he ended tied up in his son's guts with poison dripping on his head, like his wicked inspiration. Nevertheless, he is stuck, and the day he becomes unstuck the world supposedly faces its Ragnarök. Very neat.

Of course, I had some quibbles too. Making Loki so overpowered adds to the ongoing confusion about MCU "gods": I mean, I like the guy, but a Messiah he ain't. Season two dropped the ball badly when it came to the relationship between Loki and Sylvie. Not only is there no discernible romantic chemistry between them any more: she seems angry with him for some reason, though she was the one who betrayed him at the end of season one, a betrayal he never confronts her about. Still Sylvie serves a function as the uncompromising advocate of free will, and I can't but applaud that her outlook won out in the end. The Multiverse may have turned out to be tricky to integrate into good storytelling, but I'm happy that it's still around.

Not even the shapeshifting is fun in this Zygon – sorry, Skrull – invasion

At the beginning of the latest Marvel Disney + series Secret Invasion, I thought I'd have a hot take on it – while others called it "promising", I thought it was dull. At the end of the series, however, I'm far from the only one to be critical. 

The set-up of the series first. Nick Fury, the grizzled head of superhero-related intelligence, is called back to Earth from a mission in space. Back in the Nineties, he and Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel) promised to find a new planet for a fugitive alien species called Skrulls, whose most prominent feature is their ability to shapeshift. Thirty-odd years later, nothing has happened on the planet-finding front, and the Skrulls are getting restless. Some of them are beginning to wonder whether Earth wouldn't make a decent new home – once you get rid of all the pesky humans.

You could see how things could get interesting from such a premise. Now after the show has aired, however, there are far-from-glowing reviews all over containing observations with which I concur, such as:

- There's no in-universe reason for not calling in the Avengers. Nick Fury's insistence on handling the situation himself (with the help from a few friendly Skrulls), just because he wants to clean up what he considers to be his mess, looks dangerously pig-headed. The Earth's future is on the line here.

- The motivation of the villain, Skrull leader Gravik, makes no sense. I'd argue it's quite a leap from feeling angry with Fury to wanting to destroy the whole human race. Gravik isn't four years old. Why is he basically going "you promised, and now I'm gonna kill you all"? Plus his railing over the kills he did as Fury's secret agent rings hollow considering all the non-ordered murders he's done since, including some spectacularly stupid ones of his own kind.

- No-one's plan makes any sense. Not Gravik's, not Fury's, not Fury's best Skrull bud Talos's. Everyone's acting aimlessly and idiotically. This is a serious flaw in a thriller, which needs to be slick and smart.

- Why is it so hard to find a planet for the Skrulls? The MCU seems to be full of perfectly habitable planets. And what has Captain Marvel, who considered herself too fancy to help out in human affairs for decades, been doing with her time?

- Why is it so hard to integrate the Skrulls? Fury is appalled to learn that there were as many as a million of them originally. But even allowing for some population growth, that's not an awful lot compared to billions of humans. You could easily tuck all of Skrull-dom away in one admittedly large city somewhere, or spread them out. Even without a shape-shifting disguise they're not that scary-looking, and MCU humans have seen a lot of strange things by now.

- The series makes Fury look bad. He's supposed to be the classic Broken Hero who finds his mojo again – during the first episode, people are continually telling him he's past it – but he never quite does. He's also made to look caddish because he prefers his Skrull wife, Varra, to wear a (very attractive) human disguise, rather than be her green, ridgy, elf-eared and pointy-toothed self. My own main problem with this is that Varra's shapeshifting was her own idea; she purposefully sought out a woman she knew Fury would like the look of, who was conveniently dying, and asked her permission to take over her life. It's a bit much after that to ask to be loved "for yourself" years later.

- The last episode leaves one character ridiculously overpowered, and seeing as this character has previously been complicit is a mass-murder before seeing the error of their ways (kinda), it doesn't feel earned.

- And, yes, the series is actually pretty boring.

What can I add to all these (in my opinion) well-founded criticisms? A more personal disappointment for me was that the series failed to do something interesting with the whole shapeshifting concept. As someone who has been stagestruck since childhood, I've always been fascinated by the "acting" part of shapeshifting. To what extent do Skrulls who take over a human's appearance and tap into their memories also take over that human's personality? 

In one episode, we saw a Skrull give in to Fury when Fury threatened the son of the human the Skrull was impersonating. How come? It wasn't the Skrull's boy. That would have been worth diving into, but the series never does. Plus, I've always loved scenes where shapeshifters give themselves away by acting "out of character" and doing or saying something the person they're posing as would never do. But Secret Invasion doesn't deal with psychological "tells" at all; Skrulls are revealed in a much more hands-on manner.

Instead of shapeshifting-as-acting-drama, we get yet another clunky immigration metaphor. This was all the more irritating for me because it hit the same beats as the Doctor Who two-parter "The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion", which also featured shape-shifting aliens who had lost their planet. There, as here, there were plenty of peaceful aliens who only wanted to live a normal life. There, as here, a growing dissatisfaction with having to disguise themselves led to some aliens being "radicalised". There, as here, the human originals whom the aliens were impersonating were kept in pods and their memories mined in order to make the impersonations more believable. 

The Zygon two-parter is not a favourite of mine, but I must admit it explored the logistics of trying to integrate a shape-shifting species more thoroughly than Secret Invasion, and it did do more with the "human or alien" premise. But both "The Zygon Invasion/Inversion" and Secret Invasion lack something a shapeshifter story should have if I'm to enjoy it: a bit of fun.       

Things to look forward to in 2023

I had planned to blog about Andor (which is really good, by the way) and have a serious "do ends justify the means?"-discussion about the pros and cons of ruthless rebel tactics, but – sorry, I'm just too tired. So a new year's list post it is, where I will probably forget to mention some obvious items because of ignorance or brain-mushiness. I will get to Andor next year. I think. Anyway...

The 60th anniversary Doctor Who specials So I know I've tried to play it cool and manage expectations when it comes to the return of Russell T Davies as show-runner, but... oh boy, this just looks so good. David Tennant back as an interim Doctor until Ncuti Gatwa takes over the reins; Donna Noble, one of the best RTD companions, back and possibly regaining memories from her time with the Doctor (I know more sophisticated fans have praised Davies for the "hard choice" of never letting Donna get her memories back, but I for one won't be disappointed if she does – I'm not one for hard choices); Donna's family reappearing, including her probably-not-as-snooty-anymore mum Sylvia and the late Bernard Cribbins as lovely grandpa Wilf; and last but not least, Neil Patrick Harris as a promisingly flamboyant-looking villain who must surely be the much-talked-about Celestial Toymaker. I know Harris as Barney from How I Met Your Mother, but I'm sure he'll be "legend-ary" as a villainous mastermind. And if the show has a deal with Disney + now, does that mean that Swedes get to see it almost at the same time as Brits? Here's hoping!

The Gilded Age season two It's no new Downton, yet. But with any luck, it's getting there. I'm amazed we can already look forward to the second season, after we had to wait so long for the first one, but if HBO trailers can be trusted, it's coming next year. I'm excited to get a new dose of the excellent Mr Russell, plus I'll be able to get two blog posts out of it: one where I follow up my predictions for season two, and one where I make new ones for season three (which must be in the works). There hasn't been that much talk about the show, but someone, somewhere, can still make The Gilded Age happen. I'm certain of it.

Grand Admiral Thrawn in live action – and a new Mandalorian season All right, so Andor is probably, objectively, the best-written live-action Star Wars TV show so far, and I did enjoy it. But if I'm honest, The Mandalorian remains my personal favourite. I just like the characters more than the ones in Andor (though the latter are intriguingly complex), and The Mandalorian has more of a classic Star Wars feel, along with an atmospheric Space Western vibe I really like – and I'm not even that into Westerns usually. Ahsoka will also be coming this year, where we'll surely get to see Grand Admiral Thrawn. Come now, I didn't sit through Rebels for nothing. Thrawn wasn't all I hoped he would be in that series, but he was still a tasty villain, and he cannot remain abducted by space whales. That's just waste of Star Wars villain talent.

Loki season two Well, what can I say? I mean, it's Loki! As I thought the first season got better and better as it went on, my expectations for season two are pretty high. They'd better start giving us some answers about how all these timeline retcons work though, as well as explain why Sylvie's timeline was pruned in the first place (my theory is, because she showed worrying tendencies towards becoming heroic).

Sanditon series three I googled "costume dramas 2023" in order to find something to balance out all this geekery and... this is what I can come up with. Yes, a Great Expectations adaptation will also be airing, but as it seems to be from the same people who made a "dark" A Christmas Carol which sounds so awful I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it, my hopes aren't that high. But Sanditon series three will probably be fun. Maybe poor Charlotte will finally get her man in this one?

Possibly, a new Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde Look, I don't need earnest immigration allegories from the creator of the Goliath Corporation. Just gimme more Thursday.                            

The power of Doctor Who nostalgia

Usually I complain that I don't have enough to blog about. I can't use that excuse at the moment: there are plenty of potential blog topics just waiting to be written up. But does that make things easier? Not really.

One comparably easy topic should be The Power of the Doctor, Chris Chibnall's sign-off as Doctor Who show-runner and the Thirteenth Doctor's final adventure. But not even that is plain sailing. I enjoyed it, despite its flaws, and now I have to explain why.

If series thirteen, the Flux series, was overstuffed with plot lines and characters, that's even more the case here. At least in Flux, the different storylines usually had some sort of pay-off, and there was only one serious plot thread left dangling at the end, namely: what happened to the Universe? Seeing as its apparent destruction hasn't been brought up since, I presume that it's fine, somehow. The annihilation of the Daleks was clearly not long-lasting either, but that's nothing new in Who. All in all, though, you realised why the different components were there. The Ravagers, the Sontarans, the Dog Aliens (sorry, can't remember what they were called), the Grand Serpent, Williamson the "mad mole", the Weeping Angels – though it wouldn't, in my view, have been impossible to lift some of them out of the story, they did all have some part to play.

Now on the other hand, I have no idea why many of the plot lines in The Power of the Doctor were included, especially those that were supposed to be part of the Master's plan. Did the Qurunx have to be part of the plot? Or for that matter the whole "conversion planet"? What was Vinder's part in the story? Why was the Master masquerading as Rasputin? Or is he supposed to have actually been Rasputin? Why did he deface fifteen famous paintings? Why did he kidnap and shrink fifteen seismologists – was that necessary to the "cover the Earth with lava" part of the plot, or what? Did we need a Cyberman-Dalek-Master team-up when the Cybermen and Daleks were usually just standing around and acting as muscle for the Master? Some of the story elements were so cool I wished Chibnall would have stripped back the episode content and made more of the remaining plot lines. For instance, I was glad to see Ashad again, one of the best villains from series twelve, but in the end he acted little differently from how an ordinary Cyberman commander would. More could have been made of his anti-human stance versus Kate Stewart's pro-human one.

I would rather have the messiness of late Chibnall Who, though, than the flaws of early Chibnall Who. The Power of the Doctor delivered where it had to: on the nostalgia front. Doctor Who specials, especially ones that mark the end of a Doctor's career, aren't the kind of episodes where you introduce new exciting characters or story arcs – it's where you pay tribute to all the show has offered in the past. Chibnall understood the brief and delivered. The nostalgia content was more geared towards Classic Who than New Who, but maybe that is only fair. After all, Chibnall's Timeless Child nonsense could be said to be most disrespectful to the classic Doctors, in implying that the history they provided the character with was not enough. By including old companions as well as old Doctors in his story, Chibnall had the chance to make amends – to some extent at least.

Strangely enough, seeing as I'm not nearly as well-versed in Classic Who as in New Who, the Classic Who nostalgia was what I appreciated most in The Power of the Doctor. Grumpy Tegan and enthusiastic explosions expert Ace were a great addition to the general shenanigans, and each got to share a moment with "their" Doctor, with moving results. Having the Doctor encounter versions of herself in a sort of regeneration limbo where it didn't seem strange that they had all aged considerably was a really clever move. In the end we even caught a glimpse of some more classic companions, including one of the very first, and I was all there for it.  

Also, does it really matter why we get Sacha Dhawan's Master as Rasputin when we get Sacha Dhawan's Master as Rasputin? Dhawan is still a great Master: not as funny as in his other appearances, I thought, but nailing the underlying sadness of the character, whose maniacal outbursts somehow ring hollow. And there are funny moments too. A Cyberman and Dalek sharing a bemused glance as the Master does a dance number to the Boney M. hit Rasputin is priceless.

Also – a significant negative virtue this for a Chibnall offering – there is no preaching. Absolutely none. Just pure nerdy Who fun, ending in a not entirely unforeseen but welcome return of a familiar face. I believe Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat would both have done more with the plot elements in The Power of the Doctor than Chibnall did. Nevertheless, even if the final meal could be improved upon, Chibnall deserves credit for getting the delicious ingredients together.

And next year we get an RTD-penned three-part special run with the (sort of) new Doctor... I can't wait. The Celestial Toymaker sounds like a very promising villain.

What we can and can't expect from the second Davies-era of Doctor Who

I did say, quite a while back, that I'd blog about what to expect from Russell T Davies (or RTD to his fans) and his return as show runner of Doctor Who – and what not to expect. I guess now, when the Fourteenth Doctor  (Ncuti Gatwa) has finally been announced, is a good a time as any. Quite a while ago, I watched Davies's latest TV series Years and Years and It's a Sin in preparation, though I can safely say they're not the kind of TV dramas I would usually plump for (one being seemingly very political and the other destined to end tragically). I'm also almost up-to-speed with the Chibnall era after having watched the thirteenth series aka Flux. So here we go.

I first intended to rattle off a whole list of do-and-don't-expects, but I realise the first item on the list is already going to take up a lot of space, so I'll have to condense. And it so happens that the first item concerns the ticklish issue of politics. Short version: Don't expect Doctor Who to get unpolitical with Russell T Davies at the helm. 

When it comes to politics, Russell T Davies and Chris Chibnall are pretty much in the same ballpark. Of course, their politics matter only as much as it affects their writing, and the writings of others under their supervision. I've never thought Doctor Who mixed well with political commentary (and I know even old Who dabbled in this, but that doesn't mean they did it well). However, I'm afraid we're stuck with it for now. There was some politicising around during RTD's first stint as show runner – mostly the odd remark or piece of unsubtle political satire you could roll your eyes over and move on from. But now and again, there were episodes which were riddled with political content. My least favourite one has to be "The Planet of the Ood", as it chucked out a nice ethical dilemma set up earlier – how do you make sure not to exploit someone who genuinely wants to serve? – in favour of a tired Oppressed Species story with one-note villains. Compare it to "Praxeus", one of the better preachy episodes of Chibnall's run, and there's not much to choose between them. In fact, I think I'd prefer "Praxeus".

If there's a difference, it's that Davies is more unpredictable. You can watch something like Years and Years and be impressed by the even-handedness of some of its political content; for instance, the scene where every member of the Lyons family goes to vote and you can see how the events of the past years have sometimes changed their voting patterns in unexpected ways is very well done, and the boo-hiss political threat Vivienne Rook isn't some Nigel Farage knock-off but a sheer populist without any ideological affiliation. And then, suddenly, the Lyons family matriarch launches into an anti-free-market rant. Whoa, where did that come from? Davies's characters are more likely to suddenly turn vitriolic than Chibnall's nice-as-pie ones. I can't be the only one who thought the otherwise likeable Jill's tirade at the end of It's a Sin, where she more or less blames a grieving mother for her son's death in AIDS, both shocking and not a little puzzling. It's true that said mother had been horrible to Jill and denied her to be at the deathbed of her best friend. Still, huh?

For all that, I think I prefer Davies's political volcano to Chibnall's political strait-jacket. No-one of Chibnall's main characters is ever allowed to say anything that could be the least bit controversial to those who share his views – unless they happen to be empty satirical husks like Jack Robertson. In contrast, Davies's characters say and act like people would do in real life, not in some self-censoring alternative reality. The Lyons sisters are allowed to be fed up with their brother Daniel's endless obsessing over his lover Viktor. Jill helps a good friend who has contracted AIDS with shopping and such (this is before the diagnosis becomes a regular occurrence among her mostly gay friends) but she is terrified of contracting the disease, wears rubber gloves in his apartment and showers rigorously when she comes home. In short, Chibnall's characters are often nice but they are also a bit bland, as they adhere to an unwritten code, while Davies's characters are more human.

On the same theme, Davies allows all his characters to be flawed, including the ones who tick some particular minority box. His gay characters aren't in the least bit more admirable than his straight ones. The same goes for characters of different ethnicity. I don't think Chibnall would quite have had the stomach to cast, say, the roles of self-made man Joshua Naismith and his vain daughter in The End of Time with black actors. But if characters that happen to belong to a particular minority aren't compelled to be practically perfect in every way, it makes the story less predictable for the viewers and (in relevant cases) give actors the chance to sink their teeth into a wider variety of parts – not to mention that it enhances their chances of being cast at all.

Years and Years and It's a Sin  may not have been exactly my cup of tea, but they show that RTD is still at the top of his game as a script writer. We know from his previous run that he knows his Doctor. We can't, sadly, expect him to bring back Gallifrey, as he was the one who did away with the Time Lords in the first place, until they were rescued by Steven Moffat. We can, possibly, expect him to retcon the Timeless Child Arc, though I'm not so sure of this as I would like to be. I have little doubt that Davies, like so many Whovians, has little time for the Timeless Child idea, but he will probably feel some sort of loyalty towards Chibnall and reluctance to discredit him (let's not forget Chibnall wrote his first Doctor Who adventure during Davies's era). I'm afraid this and a distaste for seeming to cater to "toxic" fans will keep Davies from explicitly retconning the Timeless Child when, in my opinion, it really needs to be done. But at the very least we can expect him to ignore it.        

All in all, I'm ready for another RTD run of Doctor Who. I haven't seen Ncuti Gatwa in anything, but if Davies says he absolutely nailed the audition, I'm ready to trust him. He's been a good picker of Doctors this far.

Just go easy on the capitalism-bashing, pretty please.

Is Doctor Who: Flux Chibnall's best series, or a complete mess, or both?

I was really grateful when Doctor Who series 13, also called Flux, arrived in the post last week. I needed cheering up, and this series managed to do it. Consequently, I'm inclined to be positive. This is, in my view, the best Doctor Who series with Chris Chibnall as show runner and Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor – in spite of the fact that the Master didn't show up, as I had expected he would. It was gripping, the villains were (most of the time) intriguing, the good guys were easy to root for, and though the high-concept geeky stuff didn't always pay off, it kept Chibnall from producing lacklustre episodes with simplistic political messaging (though he was close once – I'll get back to that). There simply wasn't time for that kind of nonsense when there were alien baddies everywhere and the odds were sky-high.

At the same time, Doctor Who: Flux is flawed. I was a bit worried in the first episode when a lot of different storylines started off at once, and though most of it made sense by the end, there were a number of loose threads and plot holes left. There's no denying the series (which was planned to be longer but had to cut down on episodes because of covid) was over-stuffed. In a way, Chibnall bit off more than he could chew, but I enjoyed seeing him try to get the giant morsel down.

It's easy to expect a show runner to get better and better as time goes by, but it's not always as simple as that. An author or script-writer tends to have certain strengths and weaknesses that are more or less constant. Chibnall will never be the new Moffat. Moffat's high-concept ideas often had holes in them too, but he carried it off (mostly) with brilliant writing. Chibnall's writing isn't terrible (except when he gets political), but it doesn't have the same wow factor as Moffat's. This means, when an explanation for strange goings-on  is not forthcoming, I'm less inclined to be forgiving (having said that, I still haven't forgiven Moffat for not explaining how Gallifrey made it back into our universe and for the hybrid cop-out).

So what are the strengths and weaknesses of this series, which are echoed in the Chibnall era overall?

Strength: good villain handling Chibnall's new villains in series eleven were infamously weak, but he tends to handle recurring Who villains like the Master and the Daleks well. This time around, we get new villains I really enjoyed in the form of the Ravagers (a different name would have been better, seeing as the Ninth Doctor fought another alien threat with the exact same name in a Big Finish adventure, but that's a quibble). It's a pity they are tied up with the Doctor's Timeless Child past and involved in some complicated "Space versus Time" conflict that makes no sense, but I very much liked their style. The male, Swarm, is delightfully cutting and superior, and his sister Azure gets a kick out of destruction and genuinely can't understand why the Doctor feels so differently. They are powerful and intelligent, just as villains should be. It has been remarked on that their wildly different punishments for past crimes are never explained, but it allows both of them to enter the plot in an effective manner (ah, the high-security prisoner who's more in control than he should be – a classic). 

As for recurring villains, the Sontarans, who were mostly played for laughs during the Moffat era, were reintroduced as a serious threat – they really are very good at making war. The grand plan they have at the end of the series is actually excellent. Props to Chibs for coming up with that one. The Weeping Angels, too, were well handled, though their inclusion felt a little unnecessary.

Weakness: Scoring simple points We didn't get too much of that in this series, as previously mentioned, but there was the second episode "War of the Sontarans". The Sontarans were fine, but the characterisation of the humans was less impressive. We are at the time of the Crimean War. The Doctor and her gang meet Mary Seacole, the British-Jamaican nurse and owner of the "British hotel", and a clueless-seeming General.

You can guess exactly what happens next. Naturally, Mary Seacole does everything right, and the Doctor is constantly delighted with her. Not once do they clash. The all-English, white, male General on the other hand messes everything up, leading to a massacre of his men, has to ask the women for help, and then on top of everything else blows up the Sontaran ships when – gasp – they are retreating. (One of these days, someone should tell the Doctor that attacking a retreating enemy can actually be a sound military strategy, especially when it's Sontarans who never really give up. War is not a cricket match.) Characters who are only there to make a point are mostly badly written, and the General is a case in point. Mary Seacole would have been more interesting, too, if she hadn't always been such a paragon and the Doctor's best bud, but at least Sara Powell gives a spirited performance as the newly popular nurse.

Strength: likeable companions Yes, compared to the companion greats during the Russell T Davies era the Thirteenth Doctor's crew are sketchily drawn, but they're nice sketches. Yasmin aka Yaz, who has been there since the beginning of the Thirteenth Doctor's time, is the most developed as this point. She is something of a mix between Clara and Martha – wanting to be the Doctor and (I think) secretly smitten with the Doctor too – but it works and can be touching. Mandip Gill is given more to do here than in previous series and gives it her all. New companion Dan is more of a comic-relief Graham surrogate, but he works well off Yaz. The scenes where he, Yaz and a professor of Psychology called Eustacius Jericho are stuck in the beginning of the Twentieth century and trying to get back to the present day are among my favourite ones: the trio make a very engaging team of historical adventurers. Among other Doctor allies we have Vinder, exiled from his home planet for standing up to an autocrat, and his gutsy girlfriend Bel, who is trying to get back to him after they're separated by his exile (and the universe potentially ending). Commentators have pointed out that they could be taken out of the story without much changing, and I guess that's true – but they're so sweet.

Weakness: too many plots (and inflexibility) There are plots that could be lifted out of the series wholesale, which would have left more time to answer some pertinent questions, such as did most of the universe actually end or not? I understand that covid left the story arch more cramped than it was supposed to be, but Chibnall should have considered solving the problem by ditching some characters and concepts. There is, for instance, the Grand Serpent, the dictator Vinder falls foul of, who's played with slimy aplomb by Graig Parkinson but who adds precisely nothing to the plot and is a pretty generic bad guy. The whole "Space versus Time" concept and the personification of Time at the end (I've seen it more effectively done in a Prince Valiant comic) could also have been removed. Not to mention...

Weakness: The Timeless Child debacle Chibnall managed the feat of stubbornly making sure his idea of the Timeless Child remained canon, while not making anything interesting with it. We meet Tecteun, who confirms that yes, the Doctor was the Timeless Child and worked for the Division, who are responsible for the potentially universe-ending Flux. But then Tecteun dies by the hand of the Ravagers. The Doctor gets hold of her forgotten memories from her Timeless Child days, but never accesses them, and in the end decides to store them away without taking a peek. (I have to admit, the visual representation of the Doctor's forgotten memories as an Impossible House was cool.) And we are still not given the answer to quite basic questions, such as: if the Fugitive Doctor is a Timeless Child version of the Doctor, why does she already call herself the Doctor and travel in a police-box-shaped Tardis? At this point, Chibnall holding on to the Doctor's Timeless Child past comes across as sheer contrariness. Future show runners can ignore it, but not erase it. At least, that's what he thinks.

So I know that I ended with one more weakness than strength, but I did like this series, honest. And I fully expect to see the Master in one of the specials later on.