I just watched the new Doctor Who specials and I’m sorry but this is a Doctor Who blog now. I fell off during the Capaldi years, not because I thought the show got bad or anything but life stuff just got in the way and I never really made the time to get back to it. Then I heard Chibnall was taking over and I’m sure the 13th Doctor is great, because everyone that has played the Doctor has been very good and just has to deal with various quality levels of scripts, but I never enjoyed Chibnall’s writing and the idea of him running the show sounded rough.

Anyway, people were saying nice things on the internet about the new specials so I decided to watch them and they’re really good! I was a little pessimistic that I would since I thought the last year of specials in Tennant’s run was rough (except Waters of Mars, which I loved). I also felt like bringing him back right before a new Doctor would make it tougher on the new guy, which I guess is still possible but at least I feel better about Russell T. Davies as a showrunner again. There isn’t much I actually have to say about the episodes without spoiling anything. They’re just really solid hour long episodes and it was nice seeing people return. I forgot how queer the show was while RTD was showrunner so that’s also been very nice. Unfortunately it feels even more necessary now than it did during his original run. It’s also wild that the show has an actual budget now. I’ll have to go back to watch all the episodes from New Who that I missed before.

It also got me to start rewatching the original series again starting with An Unearthly Child. I’ve seen all of the stories for the first 3 Doctors that weren’t thrown out, along with a bunch of other ones for each of the other Doctors, but it seems like a fun excuse to watch them all again anyway, watch the animated reconstructions, and listen to the Big Finish audio dramas I have along the way. I didn’t know Unearthly Child wasn’t available because of some weird licensing stuff with the son of the writer, who owns the rights. Luckily I own the dvd of it but it sucks this is even a thing. I think the story holds up alright though. I remembered Hartnell’s Doctor being kind of an ass but not this bad. But it does help setup the growth that he eventually goes through. It’s funny to me that the first episode is so iconic and the next story introduces the Daleks but the rest of the story is basically just about some cave men. Probably makes sense to not introduce aliens in the very first story though. The soundtrack is still great too!

A few days ago I also picked up the Doctor Who Humble Bundle that’s ending in a day because of all the Big Finish stuff it has. I don’t have too much interest in the comics since the ones I read before from this line weren’t too memorable to me, but I want to play the tabletop rpg at the time. My Doctor Who ttrpg hot take is that none of the players should be the Doctor and if anything that should be the GM, or maybe a GM-less game. I’m assuming that someone has made a Doctor Who-like game on Itch.io at some point. Although I do like that the book makes it clear that you can in fact play the game without having anyone as the Doctor and basically do your own weird little Doctor Who spinoff.

My other gripe about the ttrpg is that the 8th Doctor book doesn’t mention the Big Finish audio dramas at all! I’m sure it’s for legal reasons and they didn’t get the license to but man, they’re so good. Same goes with the 6th Doctor, where he also gets to have his own character arc and growth and wear a blue suit sometimes. It just feels like, what’s the point of putting out an 8th Doctor book that only references the movie and a short regeneration special?

Oh well, I’ll make sure I keep posting about video games stuff too. Just having fun being really into a tv show again.