*Warning! This review will feature spoilers for the beginning of the first 60th anniversary special. I’ll be discussing events up to roughly the fifteen minute mark. If you haven’t seen it yet and you want to go in completely blind, click off this review and go watch it on Disney+. Otherwise, feel free to read on.*
The wait is finally over! Part one of the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary is officially here! So begins a brand new era to the longest lasting sci-fi show ever produced!
In case you’re new around here, or you haven’t been paying attention, Doctor Who is a very special show to me. My parents watched the show well before they were married. When the show returned in 2005, the whole family gathered to watch. Some of my earliest childhood memories were sitting around the TV and watching the early adventures of Christopher Eccleston’s 9th Doctor and David Tennant’s 10th. Little boy me was absolutely obsessed; every Halloween, I’d go to school wearing a suit, my toy Sonic Screwdriver in my pocket, and everyone else would gape at me like I had come from another planet.
Little did they know that they were completing my cosplay. I got the full Doctor experience!
Every season of the show was an event in our household. At least, the first few seasons were. As the series continued and the quality gradually fell lower and lower, most of my family stopped watching. First my parents, then my siblings, then me. By the time the 13th Doctor came around, we all gave the show up for dead.
But then, years after I thought I’d put the show behind me, my little brother sent me a link to 13’s Regeneration scene. 13 was out, and taking her place was… David Tennant?! Russell T. Davies was back as showrunner, Catherine Tate was returning as Donna, and a new Tardis team was coming together with Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th! For the first time in a long, long time, I had hope that Doctor Who could be as fun and memorable as it was in my childhood!
Now we come to the moment of truth. Was that hope in vain? Or is the 60th anniversary the return to form I was praying for? Let’s see, shall we? This is Doctor Who: the Star Beast!
Allons-Y!
The special begins with a recap. The Doctor stands among the stars and Donna sits at her dining room table as they both retell the story of their adventures back in season four. This was very strange; it reminded me of Princess Irulan’s opening exposition back in the 80s Dune movie, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. It’s clearly meant to bring new viewers up to speed without them having to watch the older episodes. Not an amazing start, but I can understand why they did it.
After that, we’re treated to the brand new intro sequence. Visually speaking, it’s drop-dead gorgeous! The BBC really put those Disney bucks to work! The new animation combined with Murray Gold’s new arrangement of the theme makes it one of the best looking intros in the show’s entire history!
Now the episode truly begins. Still reeling from his regeneration, the Doctor stumbles into London. Who should he immediately run into but his old friend Donna Noble and her daughter, Rose. As if that wasn’t enough, a space ship comes down right in the middle of London! Something odd is afoot, with the Doctor and Donna somehow ending up right in the center of it! This episode doesn’t waste your time; it gets right into the meat of things straight away!
This opening scene is everything I could have hoped for. Catherine Tate doesn’t miss a beat; she slips back into the role of Donna Noble so comfortably you’d think she’d never left! The gag of her rambling and rearranging boxes, completely missing the crashing spaceship, is absolute perfection! And the Doctor’s reaction to seeing her again is just *chef’s kiss* fantastic! This duo is just as delightful now as they were in 2008!
Unfortunately, it also highlights one of the problems with the special: Rose Noble. Now, I think Rose is a really well-written character; a non-binary transwoman caught in the middle of all this sci-fi nonsense is great! But Yasmin Finney’s performance can be a little flat sometimes. They even make a joke that Rose can’t act in the episode itself! I think that’s more because of inexperience and pressure than any lack of talent; she only has a few other acting credits under her belt. At the very least, she’s clearly putting in an effort, and for that, I respect her.
Hitching a taxi ride with Donna’s husband, Shaun, the Doctor gets the brief rundown on what the Nobles have been up to in his absence. The lottery fortune the Doctor gave them as a wedding gift is all gone, donated to charity by Donna against her family’s wishes. Now why would she do that?
*Side note: I appreciate how they took the time to give Shaun some development. He was around only very briefly at the end of Russell’s first era, so it’s nice to see him return and take on a larger part in the story. Especially because Karl Collins is a fantastic actor with a lot of energy; he bounces off the rest of the cast so well you’d think he was there from the start!
*Side note #2: they bring back the newscasters scenes from Russell’s original run, and I love that. It always made Doctor Who’s version of Earth feel that much more real and alive, like regular people were caught up in all this weird alien nonsense. It raised the stakes and grounded the setting. Sadly, the series drifted away from this style with the Moffat era going forward. Seeing it again didn’t just make me nostalgic, it added an extra layer to the story that had been missing since 2008!
No time to ponder money questions. The Doctor sneaks into the steel mill where the ship crashed to investigate. Only it turns out, it didn’t crash. It parked. As is discovered by UNIT’s new scientific advisor: Shirley Anne Bingham, played by Ruth Madeley. This character is a huge breath of fresh air. An actually competent scientist in a wheelchair who isn’t awed by the Doctor in the slightest, instead treating him as an intellectual equal and bantering with him? That’s awesome! If she doesn’t come back in seasons to come, I’m gonna be pissed!
Meanwhile, Donna and Rose return home. After some transphobic bullies deadname poor Rose a bit, we’re reunited with Sylvia, Donna’s mother. She’s become noticeably kinder and more considerate towards her family. Yet when Rose asks about the space ship, she panics, immediately claiming it wasn’t real and checking to make sure Donna didn’t see anything. Clearly she’s taking the Doctor’s warning about Donna’s condition very seriously. Sylvia is delightful; Jacqueline King is just as great in the part now as she ever was. Maybe even better!
When Rose disappears into her shed to make more toys to sell, Donna and Sylvia have a heart-to-heart regarding her transition. I love this scene. Not just because it’s gonna make hardcore transphobes online mindlessly angry, which is always hilarious, but because it perfectly captures the difficulties for those trying to support a non-binary family member. Accidental misgendering, the concern that what they’re saying to try and support them is the wrong thing, it’s all so grounded and real and it gives so much depth to these characters! This is what I love about Doctor Who, and seeing it return after being missing for so many years fills me to the brim with joy!
The conversation turns away from Donna’s daughter and to Donna herself. She reminisces on the day she lost her memories, lamenting at the something she’s lost. Sylvia tries to deflect and change the course of the conversation, but Donna isn’t listening. Echoes of the DoctorDonna are still there. Will she be awakened by the events to come?
Then we meet Fudge. I hate Fudge. His job is to be a loud annoying child that gawks at alien stuff. But he delivers Rose an important piece of information: an escape pod broke off from the crashing ship, landing in their neighborhood. And now, it’s empty.
On her way back home, Rose notices something strange. Something is hiding in the garbage. Investigating, she finds the alien at the heart of events: the Meep. Only they’re not the only one. Other aliens have arrived on Earth, hunting the Meep. Without even realizing it, Rose has dragged her family right into the crossfire of an alien hunt.
Speaking of aliens, we should talk about those. Good god, they look amazing! The costume and effects work are insane! Meep looks so good that it’s hard to tell where the puppet ends and the CGI begins! I love the cheesy monster costumes of the Classic and 2005 eras, but these are in a league of their own! Doctor Who has never looked better!
Finally, we get a scene between the Doctor and Shirley discussing the plot. This scene does a great job of highlighting the differences between Tennant’s 10th Doctor and his 14th. The 14th is much quieter, calmer, more level-headed. The fire of his original version is still there, but it’s been tempered over the years, only slipping out once in the entire episode. He’s even made improvements to his Sonic Screwdriver, giving him all-new non-violent abilities for the challenges ahead. He’s still very much the 10th Doctor again, but he is a different enough take on that character to be called the 14th Doctor instead of Doctor Who X-2.
But questions still burn hot in his mind. Why did this face come back? And what does it have to do with Donna Noble?
That is where the spoilers end. If you want to know what happens next, go and watch the actual special. Trust me, if you loved the 2005 era of the show and you want more of that back, it’s a must-watch. Seeing this brought me right back to my childhood!
Actually funny gags? Check. Emotional character moments? Bingo! Surprising plot twists? Present and accounted for! A cheesy but engaging plot? Plenty of that and more! Non-violent solutions to violent conflicts? You bet! Running? An awful lot of it!
It’s official! Doctor Who is BACK, ladies and gents and non-binary friends!
Still, it’s far from perfect. The resolution leaves something to be desired. The Metacrisis plotline is one of the most important parts of the whole special, and it’s ending is very underwhelming. It removes a lot of the weight and impact that story thread had before.
Interestingly, this special isn’t an entirely original story. Everything to do with the Meep is based around a comic of the same name by Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons. I haven’t read said comic, so I can’t say how it compares to this episode. But the two original creators were involved in the special, and they seemed pretty pleased with it in this behind-the-scenes video. So I’ll call it a win!
*Side note #3: I’m so glad we get the Confidential-style BTS videos again. Getting to actually see how the show was made was always really cool! Unfortunately, they gradually stopped doing that, dropping it altogether by season 6. Nice to get a look behind the camera again!
One final note: I couldn’t be happier that we have Murray Gold back as the composer. His music brought so much to Doctor Who and he hasn’t lost his touch at all! From brand new tracks to new compositions of classic tunes, his work is as amazing as ever!
The Star Beast is a fantastic start. It brings Doctor Who back to the quality of its early 2000s glory days. Watching this with my family felt like being zapped back to my early childhood! If this is any indication of things to come, then the rest of the 60th is set to be a show well worth watching!
Welcome back, Doctor. Donna. It’s so very nice to see you two again!
See y’all next week for part two!
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