O'BSERVATIONS ON THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR'S FIRST YEAR

Throughout this year's “Who’s On First?” blogAthon, I’m going to give my impressions of the first season of ‘Doctor Who’ under the aegis of Chris Chibnall as the showrunner and with Jodie Whittaker as the first female incarnation of the Doctor in the main Toobworld.  (Joanne Lumley played the Doctor in Skitlandia and for alls I know, there have been others in the various meta-fictional universes which are not my bailiwick.)

First, my overview – I welcomed the idea of an actress finally getting the chance to be the Doctor.  (And that verb “to be” is key – Ms. Whittaker isn’t just playing the role, she truly embodies it convincingly.)  The premise was certainly controversial but – as the Fourth Incarnation of the Doctor said at the end – “the moment has been prepared for.” 

The groundwork was laid to prepare the audience with Jenny, “The Doctor’s Daughter”, who showed that the Doctor’s DNA was fluid enough to produce a female on his own without an extra X chromosome from a female donor.  (Assuming their biology at its basic level is the same as that of Mankind’s.) 

Then there was the mention of the Corsair in “The Doctor’s Wife” who had several female incarnations, always making sure he/she had the Worm Ouroboros tattoo with each new regeneration.  And we actually saw two Time Lords regenerate from male into female – there was the General, who usually was a woman and was grateful to be returned to female form (and black at that, knocking down that argument for when the time comes for the Doctor to do the same, no matter the gender.)

The other Time Lord male we saw transform into a woman was of course the Master becoming the Mistress, better known as Missy.  Just as the casting of Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor was the most important casting decision ever in the series, casting an actress as the female Master had to be perfect in order to pave the way for the Doctor.  Michelle Gomez was key in helping to acclimate the audience to the eventual change by the Doctor and she should always be lauded for her contribution to the mythos.

So now we have a female Doctor, with Jodie Whittaker doing a whiz-bang job in the role.  Yes, that’s right.  I said “whiz-bang".  She would not have been my first choice for a female Doctor – long ago, after seeing her in ‘The Good Neighbors’, wearing those denim bib overalls with one orange leg, I thought Felicity Kendall would be a fun choice as the Doctor.  But leading up to the revelation of Whittaker, I was rooting for Honeysuckle Weeks (from ‘Foyle’s War’.)  But then when it was announced that Chibnall would be the showrunner and that he might choose someone he had worked with in the past, probably from ‘Broadchurch’, I saw third season actress Julie Hesmondhalgh as a great choice for the role, someone who could bring a touch of Troughton’s playfulness to that incarnation.

But we have Jodie Whittaker and I love her take on the part.  (Full disclosure, I like every Doctor when they first arrive.)

So let’s get to it, with capsule reviews of each episode posted for the length of the run at the half hour mark for at least the next ten hours, I guess....