This is… the third Doctor I’ve said goodbye to in my time on this site. It doesn’t get easier, which feels little silly to say over a regenerating fictional character, but if you’re here, you know. And this is Thirteen we’re talking about. She’s special. Letting her go was never going to be an exciting prospect.
Recap
The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan are trying to save a hijacked space train from the CyberMasters, who are trying to nab the train’s cargo. They stop the train, but fail to save the cargo, which appears to be a little girl, and in that process, Dan almost dies. They land on Earth to refuel and regroup, and Dan tells the Doctor that he’s had a great time, but needs to get back to his life. As he’s saying goodbye to Yaz outside, the Doctor gets a message from a rogue Dalek, who believes that their kind has lost the right to exist. It wants the Doctor to meet with it so it can tell her about the Dalek’s current Earth invasion plan. She’s skeptical, but curious all the same, and she’s also spotted a strange anomaly in 1916, a new moon orbiting Earth. Once Yaz is on board, they get a call from Kate Stewart, who demands that they head to UNIT immediately. The Doctor finds that former companions Ace and Tegan Jovanka are working with UNIT, and they awkwardly reunite.
At UNIT HQ, they find out that famous paintings have been stolen and the world’s leading seismologists have been too. The paintings were all defaced with the Master’s image, and a message from him quickly pops up—he’s having a meeting to discuss his current plans. The Doctor and Yaz head over and find that he’s shrunken all the seismologists and plans to erase the Doctor from existence. UNIT takes him into custody, which he seems very okay with. Tegan and Ace are both less than pleased to see him again, but he’s brought a basement holding cell. It turns out that he’s in league with both the CyberMasters and the Daleks. The extra moon in 1916 is a cyber-conversion center being powered by a Qurunx, the cargo that was kidnapped from the train. Qurunx’s are beings of incredible energy that can create life anywhere on a massive scale, and it’s being used to power the moon. The Dalek part of the plan will set off all of Earth’s volcanoes in the present, destroying the planet.
The Master reveals that he cloned Ashad and that the little Cyberman doll Tegan thought she received from the Doctor was actually from him; it embiggens and releases a cyber army who quickly take over UNIT and release him. The Daleks capture the Doctor (her Dalek contact was legitimate, but didn’t know it was being monitored), and send her to the Master in 1916, where he uses the Qurunx to power a forced regeneration, making her to regenerate into him. Now that he’s “the Doctor,” he demands that Yaz be his companion and watch as he destroys the Doctor’s reputation. But Yaz knows enough about the TARDIS to fly it, and she abandons him after getting a distress call from Vinder, who has crashed on the second moon. Yaz learns that the Doctor planted holographic interfaces in herself, Tegan, and Ace (why she kept static shocking everyone) made up of her personality, and it offers the three of them help in their missions—thought in Ace and Tegan’s cases, it morphs into the versions of the Doctor that they traveled with.
Ace heads to the volcano where the Daleks were working to stop them with her latest version of Nitro 9, and runs into Graham; they quickly hit it off and start working together. Tegan stops the Cybermen at UNIT with a little tech help, preventing the deletion of Kate Stewart. The Doctor finds herself in a mental netherworld where a few previous incarnations—Five, Six, Seven, and Eight specifically—tell her she’s not done and cannot let the Master take over their life. Yaz and Vinder head back to pick up the Master and bring him back to 1916 to kill the CyberMasters and reverse the forced regeneration. A holographic version of the Fugitive Doctor helps them achieve that end by confusing the CyberMasters thoroughly. They succeed, and the restored Doctor thanks Yaz, picking up her friends from various points in time, showing them all how to help pilot the TARDIS, pulling the second moon into the present, and using it to stop the volcano eruptions in their tracks.
The group then goes to the moon to free the Qurunx. As the Doctor advises it to destroy the place and set itself free, the Master arrives, his body failing. He tells her that if he cannot be the Doctor, neither can she, and forces the Qurunx to direct the destructive energy it was aiming at the moon on her. After she’s hit, Yaz comes outside and carries her back to the TARDIS, then drops everyone off back at Earth. When the Doctor comes to, she realizes that the regeneration process has begun. She and Yaz get ice cream and sit on the roof of the TARDIS talking. The Doctor tells her that she needs to regenerate alone, so Yaz suggests they not say goodbye and lets the Doctor drop her off on Earth. There, she runs into Graham and Dan, who bring her to a group that Graham has started for former companions of the Doctor.
The Doctor goes to watch one last sunrise. She laments the fact that she won’t get to know what happens next, but welcomes whoever she’s about to become, the regeneration process overtaking her—
—and spitting out the Tenth Doctor, who is very surprised to be there.
Commentary
The Chibnall era of Who has certainly had its ups and downs, but there’s one thing (aside from Thirteen and Yaz being perfect) that keeps me on board regardless—we are clearly the exact same kind of fan, with the exact same tastes. If you’re not at all into the show’s history, and certain pockets specifically, this finale might not hit quite as hard. But for me?
Apologies in advance, this is… kind of tailor-made to my preferences. I am not capable of being chill about it.
See, for my money, in good regeneration episodes the plot is ultimately trivial and completely secondhand to the emotion. The Tenth Doctor’s final episodes nail that dynamic perfectly—the story is bananas and ultimately nothing next to the Doctor and the Master talking about their childhood and meaning to each other (with bonus bondage imagery), and also the Doctor and Wilf loving each other and crying a lot. It’s just feelings and history and rumination in the face of death. It’s pure pathos, which is extremely my jam.
This episode is one giant truckload of pain and catharsis. From a character perspective, this is actually one of the Master’s more salient plans: He knew there was every chance she’d beat him last time (he always knows because that is the nature of them, distilled down to its purest form), so this time he resolves to become her, and in doing so, destroy her legacy. He gets about two centimeters into that plan before being roundly foiled, and that’s excellent because the plan itself is still not a good plan. None of the Master’s plans are good, they’re just dramatic and overwrought and full of unnecessary style and grandiosity (because there’s a reason he and the Doctor were best friends).
Sacha Dhawan gets it, and goes so much farther than chewing scenery—he’s having the time of his life, the frenetic energy buzzing off him so effectively that I’m surprised he doesn’t levitate. The glee at being caught, the teasing and flirting, telling Kate Stewart that her dad was an idiot (you can feel the Brigadier rolling his eyes from beyond the grave), getting in every single companion’s head with ease, the “you all feel safer, then, with me in the building?” Honestly, if the episode were only this, it would be enough.
His attempt to become the Doctor is perfect because once he achieves it, the effect is, and could only ever be, sad. (Because the point of the plan is enacting it, never what comes after.) You get one awful moment where he forces Yaz to accept him, shouts her down, but it’s a brief thing because even he is losing steam at this point—takes time to change, steps out somewhere he’s easy to abandon, sits and plays the recorder alone. It’s like he doesn’t exist if the Doctor’s not there to observe him… which is the truth for all intents and purposes. Once she’s not there to look horrified or worried or angry, what’s the point of any of it? It’s like having seasonal depression, but the season is whenever the Doctor isn’t around.
The conceit of a metaphorical place in the Doctor’s mind where they let go as they regenerate was a great excuse to bring back previous Doctors in a more intimate manner than we’ve seen before. And while the set we’ve got is obviously down to who was available and willing, it feels right—I’d argue that Five, Seven, and Eight in particular are some of the heavier influences on Thirteen’s personality. (Five especially.) And the jab about Eight refusing to wear the robes in the mindscape is both comical and right on the money: the Eighth Doctor was the one who started in on the Time War, after all. He’s got more feelings than the others about anything that smacks of home.
Still, it’s not over. I haven’t even hit on the return of Tegan Jovanka and Ace, two of my absolute favorite Classic Who companions. I’m just saying, if Doctor Who wanted to create me a spinoff where all these older women who used to be stuck telling the Doctor how clever he was got to work together on their own adventures, I’d be extremely into that. Tegan and Ace, in particular, are the archetype that built most of the present-day companions—the two of them never hesitated to tell the Doctor what they really thought, and they both gave him a run for his money at every turn.
But it’s also relevant that we’re looking at two companions who never got any closure within their respective tenures: Tegan because she ran away, Ace because the show ended and we never saw her leave. So this episode is also about giving them a chance to get that closure, and the holographic interface is such a sweet way of working it out. With Ace, we’re finally given a sense of why she left, and it seems that it wasn’t a happy parting—but the Seventh Doctor knew that Ace was more a child to him than most of his other companions, and that all kids leave home eventually. They finally get the chance to say goodbye properly, a farewell thirty-three years in the making. It deserved more time, but I’m still glad we got it.
With Tegan, there’s even more complexities and hurt; her time on the TARDIS was marked by mind control, the Master showing up every other week, and the death of Adric at the hands of the Cybermen. In typical fashion, she’s the first one here to scold the Doctor for never dropping by, the one to complain about not being asked back onto the TARDIS. (In typical fashion, she’s also right.) The Master tries to tweak her by suggesting that she brought the shrunken Cyberman with her because she hasn’t got anything else, but as usual, he misses the mark—Tegan keeps it because she’s hopeful.
And then she gets the chance to see her Doctor, and I adore the fact that the holographic interface doesn’t just change the appearance of the image, it clearly loads in their personalities too, which is even more evident in the persona of the Fifth Doctor—he was always so gentle with his friends, but particularly with Tegan, who was often afraid despite her innate competence. He’s able to divine precisely what has her shaken, bolster her with knowledge and banter, and offer one last “brave heart”… a term reserved always and specifically for her alone.
Friends, I sobbed.
The long and storied legacy of companions has been brought up before, but only vaguely on Who itself—the more direct moment of acknowledgement came in The Sarah Jane Adventures, when the Eleventh Doctor told Jo Grant that he often checked in on all of them, though from a distance. In that moment, he noted the work that Tegan and Ace were doing, and the work of many more friends who stayed on Earth to keep it safe. But allowing Graham to set up a sort of “companion support group” was a beautiful thought that’s been a long time coming. (Knowing that Kate Stewart will be recruiting quite a few of these people also makes plenty of future cameos possible.) And there are faces who we might have never seen again otherwise—the addition of Jo, Ian Chesterton, and Mel Bush were all heartwarming surprises.
There’s too much in the episode to recommend, and the plot is actually quite neat considering everything that happens. The deus ex machina to stop the volcanoes at the end doesn’t feel anywhere near as awkward as some of the ones pulled off during the Davies or Moffat eras, so I have to tip my hat to that. (And also offer an all-too-brief aside for the Dalek who actually did want to help the Doctor, that was such a great detail that unfortunately gets lost in all that’s going on, but you have to dig it.)
And finally we arrive at her ending. After a revival at the hand of the person who loves her most, moments of engineering brilliance (one of her finest traits), and another TARDIS tutoring session, the Doctor saves the day. There’s just one thread left to snap—you should never underestimate the Master’s pettiness. That’s always when he’s at his most dangerous.
While it’s never good to watch a killing blow, I have to thank the show for that shot of Yaz carrying the Doctor back to the TARDIS. Sometimes pandering (in a positive context, which it absolutely does have) is brilliant, and women carrying the injured women that they love in their buff lady arms is exactly the queer pandering I desire in all my media forever. Thanks be to Doctor Who (and She-Ra) for knowing what we need.
One last trip, one last ice cream. The Doctor knows that she has a responsibility to be more truthful to Yaz than plenty of other companions—because she’s earned it, certainly, but also because she’s asked, repeatedly. Because she loves her. So the Doctor admits that she needs to regenerate alone. (I think a lot about how this appears to be a preference on the Doctor’s part, how when they get to choose, they seem to want privacy.) And far from the many ends we’ve seen on the revived series, where regeneration carries such dramatic weight, Thirteen is different—irate that it’s ending, of course, but also joyful. Game for the next bit. Ready to pass the baton. So many of them stagger into the process, but she opens her arms wide like a choice, welcoming the next chapter.
“Tag—you’re it.” They’re such perfect last words.
It was perhaps the worst-kept secret in the BBC that Thirteen was going to regenerate back to Ten; it had been suspected from the moment that it was announced we would have Ten and Donna back for the 60th anniversary special. It’s not a complete surprise; the 50th anniversary special made it clear that the Doctor would be able to resume faces, as the Curator showed us. But this is the first time it’s happened to the Doctor, as far as we know.
It’s also the first time that regeneration has come with an automatic wardrobe change.
Oh, Ten. (Fourteen? How the hell do we number it now? I’m sticking with Ten.) I’m looking forward to you technobabbling that one away next year, you fashion plate, you.
Space, Time, and Sundry
- When the Master showed up as dear old Grigori in 1916, I immediately shouted, “If he doesn’t play Boney M’s ‘Rasputin’ when he’s got the Doctor in his clutches, we riot.” It would have been a betrayal of character, is my point. Thankfully, there was nothing to worry about on that front, but it resulted in a delighted shriek and couch dance-break at home.
- The hypnosis is an old school trick, one that Masters Delgado and Ainley were particularly fond of.
- I can’t deny I love the nega-TARDIS.
- The bit where Ace refers to the Master looking like a cat last time she saw him (the response, “a man’s allowed to experiment,” I could die) is a reference to the very last Classic Doctor Who serial, “Survival,” in which the Master did ally himself with cheetah people and turn into half-a-cat. Look, there’s a reason I love this stuff, and if it’s not for you, I understand but… no, that’s a lie, I don’t understand. How could you not want that.
- Forced regeneration is what happened to the Second Doctor; the Time Lords thought he was more trouble than he was worth, so they forced his regeneration into the Third Doctor and stranded him on Earth without a functioning TARDIS. It was good to see that talked about with the weight it deserved for once, as it tends to get glossed over on account of the show having barely built up its mythology at the time.
- The Master-Doctor went to the wardrobe room and scavenged as much as he could in his desire to make his Uber-Doctor outfit—at a glance we can spot Four’s scarf, Five’s celery, Ten’s tie, Seven’s sweater vest, I think One’s trousers, and that’s Two’s recorder, of course.
- Yaz telling the Doctor that she dropped the crew off in Croyden is a nod to where the Fourth Doctor was supposed to drop off Sarah Jane Smith when she left (he left her in Aberdeen by accident).
- Are Graham and Ace gonna date now because I am SO DOWN.
See you on the 60th anniversary special, I expect!
I liked it too: it moved and had energy enough to overcome the massive loads of fan service.
I am a little unhappy about how we’ve had two stories now where both the Daleks and Cybermen together were just making supporting appearances in someone else’s plan (the Sontarans in Flux, the Master in this). They should not be just background.
The ending scene seems to contradict something Jo said in “The Death of the Doctor”…but, oh well.
I don’t know if I agree about regeneration mostly happening alone. Nearly all of the regenerations so far have been in the presence of at least one companion, and some of the others have been in the presence of groups of other people, sometimes large groups. The only other ones I can think of that were actually alone have (not coincidentally) been ones that happened when the showrunner was changing too: 7 → 8, 10 → 11, 12 → 13. (Well, all right, I suppose there is also War → 9.)
Yes, it was quite a high to go out on, and for me also, it hit me exactly where I live, because Five and Seven are particularly my Doctors, and Tegan and Ace so important.
I loved that Tegan carries the anger at the Doctor, she was the one who got left behind once and then walked out another time. But also I love how supportive Ace is, and it’s so on note for how she would have developed, because people forget just how supportive Seven was because he’s so often characterised as the chessplayer (even though he himself dismisses that with “I’m playing poker!” in Battlefield).
And you’re absolutely right, Thirteen’s era has at times felt very like Five’s (in the crowded TARDIS, but also the distracted “I’ll explain later” manner of the Doctor) but also very like Seven’s in the attempt to rebuild the engima at the centre of the character and the very devoted companion.
I feel that Chibnall’s legacy will be one of unleashing chaos on the show, sometimes successful sometimes not, sometimes intentional sometimes not, tearing up a lot of rules to give it more space, after Moffatt’s era did a lot of defining of who the Doctor is and what the show is. This is the era that has the Doctor questioning their identity for the first time, rather than having everyone else do so. And I think that the messiness will be useful to the continuation of the show, even if the presentation sometimes left a lot to be desired. At the very least, I think there’s so much that could be done fan fiction wise. And being the era of the show that gave us the fugitive Doctor will be long remembered.
But Jodie herself was great. As the great Colin Baker said, she uniquely brings a joy to the Doctor, and feels new. I will miss her.
I was very careful to avoid spoilers so David Tennant’s appearance shocked me and made me very happy. A pity it will be a short run. It was such a shock that the appearance of so many of the former companions at the end was diluted.
I am so bloody sick of the Cybermen, the Daleks, and the Master. That’s one of the few things Chibnall did right was to avoid these classic bores in his first season, not that the newer monsters were better.
Actually, the very first regeneration in THE TENTH PLANET/THE POWER OF THE DALEKS in 1966 also featured a wardrobe regeneration.
I’m very glad I found a way to legally watch this online, since that let me watch it before I saw a ton of spoilers. I was spoiled on Tennant’s return and Whittaker’s parting line, but there were so many lovely surprises. David Bradley hauling out his Hartnell impression (which seems to have improved)! Peter Davison! Colin Baker! Sylvester McCoy! (All the ones who got stiffed on the 50th!) Paul McGann! Vinder! (But no Bel, alas.) And not only Tegan and Ace and Kate, but Graham, Mel, Jo, and even Ian, since William Russell is apparently eternal. True, he was only up to delivering one line, but what a lovely way to tie all the eras together.
So let’s see, we had companions returning for One, Three, Four/Five (Tegan), Six, and Seven. If only they’d managed to get Anneke Wills back as Polly, there would’ve been someone for every classic Doctor. (She’s the only surviving Troughton companion whose character returned to contemporary Earth.)
I especially love it that the hologram idea, while totally contrived in story terms, let Davison & Fielding and McCoy & Aldred have scenes together one more time. I’m sure they did it with the actors actually there despite appearing transparent — why waste it by not having them together? But I’m glad they got to have real, substantial scenes rather than just quick cameos.
Sacha Dhawan is still my favorite Master, and I hope that what I read is accurate and he’ll be back alongside the next Doctor. He brings such soulfulness and menace to the character in equal measure. And it says so much about the Master that his ultimate desire is to become the Doctor. I wonder, if the Master had stayed in the Doctor’s body permanently, might he have been swayed to the side of good eventually, feeling some need to live up to the Doctor’s example? Like how taking over Spider-Man’s body and life redeemed Doctor Octopus in the comics?
It surprised me that they did 1916 Siberia and didn’t give a sci-fi explanation for the Tunguska impact. I was so sure the Cyber planet was going to blow up in 1916 and send a fragment crashing to Tunguska, or something like that.
The Dalek turncoat was a fascinating idea — the Daleks are all racial purists, but this one remembered the original motivation of Kaled purity and felt the rest of the Daleks had evolved away from that. It deserved to be a whole story on its own, so I agree it’s a shame it got lost in the clutter.
Speaking of things that deserve to be stories, I totally want to see a UNIT spinoff series about Kate recruiting former companions of the Doctor, with the support group as a side thread. Please please please let it include Clyde, Rani, and K9!
I find it hard to believe that a support group for ex-companions has never been done before. There is a lot of precedent in the audio plays, novels, and comics for ex-companions teaming up.
“they find out that famous paintings have been stolen”
Rather, they find that the museums have taken the famous paintings down to conceal that they were defaced with the Master/Rasputin’s image.
“(Fourteen? How the hell do we number it now? I’m sticking with Ten.)”
I read somewhere that this incarnation is officially considered the Fourteenth Doctor, and is distinct from Ten in some way, though he didn’t seem that way in his scene here. Ncuti Gatwa will be officially counted as the Fifteenth Doctor.
I’m uneasy with bringing back Tennant, even temporarily. It feels like a stunt, an attempt to pander to comfortable nostalgia in the wake of the novelty of a female Doctor. But I shouldn’t hold that against Tennant himself, who’s always very much worth watching.
In-story, I guess all the stuff with the reversal of the forced regeneration, and the re-emergence of old personalities within the Doctor’s mind, could turn out to be the explanation for why the Doctor had a “rerun” regeneration. And technically, this is the second time that appearance has returned after a regeneration, the first time being in “The Stolen Earth”/”Journey’s End,” which seemed like an abortive regeneration at the time but was established in “The Time of the Doctor” to have been a full regeneration with only the change in appearance aborted.
@4/Daniel Kukwa: “Actually, the very first regeneration in THE TENTH PLANET/THE POWER OF THE DALEKS in 1966 also featured a wardrobe regeneration.”
Well, maybe. There were differences in detail, but they were similar enough that I think Two’s outfit was meant to be the same as One’s, just more ill-fitting on his smaller frame. Apparently he did change out One’s cloak for a frock coat while rummaging around in the chest (according to one description I read of the lost footage), but he was already wearing a subtly different costume. Still, on televisions of the era, the difference would’ve been hard to spot, so they could be passed off as the same outfit.
Am I the only one who feels this was influenced by the wonderful “Fivish Doctors?” I was a little disappointed they didn’t get Tom Baker back too, but understandable. I like the ending with several of the former companions gathering for a support group. I would think there’s be a lot of PTSD to deal with after a series of adventures with the Doctor. Does anyone know what they did about the old rule of 12 regenerations only? They seem to have chucked that, but I don’t recall if they ever addressed it or just hoped everyone would forget (I mean, fans are known for forgetting details or not mentioning it LOL).
@7. In the last story arc for Matt Smith, Clara convinced the Time Lords to give this Doctor more regenerations.
I loved this episode and I loved this article. Thirteen was my favorite Doctor (or maybe tied with Ten) and it was hard to see her go, but they wrote a good sendoff. Lots of people have pointed out problems with the episode and I’ve struggled to explain why I like it, but I think Emmet nailed it with “in good regeneration episodes the plot is ultimately trivial and completely secondhand to the emotion”.
We get so much emotion here. We get so many moments– “Brave Heart, Tegan”, Ace blowing stuff up, Yaz flying the TARDIS, the former Companions support group, ice cream– and I appreciated seeing the Classic Doctors we didn’t get to see in the 50th Anniversary. (And now I need to track down Ace and Tegan episodes.)
I both love and hate this version of the Master– he’s insane, and terrifying, and obnoxious, and also makes me laugh? Becoming the Doctor feels like the sort of twisted plot he’d do– he wants to defeat her, but he doesn’t really want her gone– and they performed it so well I didn’t get distracted by “how does that actually work, like did they swap bodies or what?” (Also, that Rasputin number brought me right back to his dance party in “The Last of the Time Lords”. He’s such an annoying drama queen.)
I should be disappointed we didn’t get proper Thirteen/Yaz, but honestly this felt fine. I’m glad they got a slightly different story rather than rehashing Rose, Martha, or Clara’s story– though I would like some female non-hetero romance with happy endings on the show.
And then Thirteen became Ten and my reaction was what!?! (I did not see that coming and I can’t wait to see where it goes!)
“I know those teeth”
Generally lovely with lots of almost-crying moments. I like that her final moments didn’t have all the melodrama of Certain Other Regenerations, and she even stepped out to make sure she didn’t mess up the Tardis.
I totally want to see a UNIT spinoff series about Kate
Mandatory reminder her that the Big Finish UNIT series is really quite good. Kate gets to be a leader and a scientist without the Doctor in the way and have an excellent friendship with Osgood, and there have been a few classic companions wandering in and helping out (Jo, Harry Sullivan, Sgt. Benton) here and there. There’s a Master-and-Cyberman story which gives Gemma Redgrave and Derek Jacobi some amazing moments together, letting her get some of her own back when the Master needles her about her father.
And Paul McGann’s 8 felt pretty much a product of his BF work too – much for of a Doom Coalition “I don’t do robes” than the chipper version of the movie. Wonderful to see him either way.
Like a lot of the Chibnall era, it was a bit too manic and chaotic for my taste. I love a bit of fan service, and each individual bit was wonderful, but here there were too many bits, and it barely left room for a story. I always love adventures with UNIT, and was glad to see Kate again. I was glad this Doctor got one last chance to do Mad Scientist, fixing her space cop friend’s ship, complete with goggles and all. And Graham’s return was a nice surprise, as was the post-doc support group, which was brilliant.
I will miss Jodie, and enjoyed her version of the Doctor. And I had grown quite fond of Yaz as a companion.
I knew Tennant was returning, but was surprised in a good way to see him back via regeneration. And I hear a Donna reunion is coming, too. She is my favorite companion, so that should be fun.
I am irritated at how long we have to wait for the next installment–reportedly a whole year–BBC needs to pick up their pace a little.
Incidentally, I checked the transcripts, and while Emmet is correct that the Fifth Doctor said “brave heart” only to Tegan, the Eleventh Doctor said it twice, to Canton Everett Delaware III in “The Impossible Astronaut” and to Clara in “The Crimson Horror.” Although in the latter case, it was just after he mentioned “trying to get a gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport,” so he had Tegan on his mind.
@11/bmac: “Mandatory reminder her that the Big Finish UNIT series is really quite good.”
That would make it a considerable improvement on the 2004-5 BF UNIT series and UNIT: Dominion, which I borrowed from the Hoopla online library last year. The former was way too dark and felt more like a real-world political conspiracy thriller than a Who-universe sci-fi tale, and the latter was okay but was really more a Master story than a UNIT story, failing to establish any worthwhile UNIT characters. (Although it had a similarity to this one, in that it featured the Master pretending to be a future Doctor for much of the story, and it gave the same sense that the Master secretly wishes he were the Doctor.)
The implication I had from Tennant’s brief scene is that he may have Ten’s body, but not Ten’s mind, hence his being surprised that the body felt familiar.
(Less “I’m back!” and more “Why am I in an old body?”)
I don’t know. It feels like one of those episodes that’s fun to watch and not so much fun to rewatch or analyse, that’s a collection of moments rather than a story, doesn’t make sense in a lot of places and maybe takes more away from Doctor Who than it adds? Okay, no, that’s me being churlish and the episode deserves more than that. It did have good moments but many of them aren’t so great in retrospect. I mean, are they saying the Master actually was Rasputin or did he just dress up as him for a bit? If Ko Sharmus’s sacrifice not only failed to take out the Master (obviously) but the CyberMasters as well, then what exactly did he achieve? Stopping them taking over Gallifrey?
Tegan was spot-on. Ace…was more awkward. Seeing her pull on the leather jacket, wield the baseball bat and prepare to jump off a roof is a great image in some regards but left me wondering why a middle-aged woman was acting like her teenage self. And then she herself queried the fact that it didn’t feel like it used to and she wasn’t sure if she could do it anymore and I thought “Oh, okay.” And I genuinely punched the air when she bumped into Graham. I am definitely up for that.
The rogue Dalek, sadly, was a narrative dead end, with the data it was downloading just forgotten about. And what was Vinder for? I think his only contribution was to point a gun at the Master and he didn’t even stick around for the climax.
I loved the companion reunion and ohmigod Ian!!! Never mind Tegan waiting 38 years for the Doctor. This is the first time Ian has returned to the show in 57 years. That feels like some sort of record. Someone pointed out it was just old series and Thirteenth Doctor companions but frankly, except Martha (and I don’t know what Frema Agyeman’s workload is), I don’t think any of the other new series companions would be around in the present day.
The Doctor and Yasmin…well, at least it’s back to being subtext after straying way too far into the text in the two preceding specials thanks to Dan’s extremely ill-advised matchmaking. The fan reaction has managed not to be toxic, so that’s something, but I wish they’d kept it as a close friendship rather than explicitly making it about unrequited love.
I’ll say this for Chibnall: He managed a much more restrained and respectful “final” regeneration than his predecessors. Yes, we get the indulgence of him bringing back all his greatest hits, sometimes without any reason for them to be there, but there’s none of the self-centred and now much parodied “I don’t want to go” of the Davies/Tennant finale or the “Dear god, stop talking and regenerate, will you?” of the final Capaldi/Moffat soliloquy. No. They know they’re just the custodians of all this and the time has come for them to pass the show and its legacy on to the next Doctor. Step forward, Ncuti Gatwa…
Oh.
I’d heard the rumours but I’d hoped they were wrong. I really really hope the claim upthread that Ncuti Gatwa is somehow the Fifteenth Doctor is wrong because that would be unbelievably dumb. (Is David Tennant the Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Fourteenth, or are we counting Sacha Dhawan?) It feels mildly disrespectful that he doesn’t get to take over from his predecessor and we have to get the third coming of David Tennant in between. (He just doesn’t want to go!) I guess we’ll see what they do with it. I suspect the prosaic reason for the costume regeneration is that apparently Tennant’s bit was shot later on by an entirely different production company and they might not have had access to Jodie’s costume!
@14/DigiCom: “The implication I had from Tennant’s brief scene is that he may have Ten’s body, but not Ten’s mind, hence his being surprised that the body felt familiar.”
Well, they’re all the same mind, just different facets of it. And the “What? What?! WHAT?!” certainly implies that Ten’s personality is back along with his face and wardrobe.
@15/cap-mjb: “I mean, are they saying the Master actually was Rasputin or did he just dress up as him for a bit?”
Probably the latter, since he could’ve hypnotized people into seeing him as the real one. It’s possible that the Master was committed enough to his plan to devote decades living in the persona of Rasputin, since he did much the same as Agent O when we first met him. But he vanished from 1916 before Rasputin’s mythologized assassination, so it stands to reason there was still a real Rasputin to be assassinated.
“This is the first time Ian has returned to the show in 57 years.”
To the main show, yeah, but Russell appeared in character as Ian in the 1999 video release of The Crusade, in framing material filling in the events of the missing episodes through Ian’s reminiscences.
He’s also been a stalwart presence in the Big Finish audios since 2009, both as Ian and as the First Doctor in the semi-narrated Companion Chronicles, Lost Stories, and Early Adventures he’s done. He does a pretty good First Doctor, not a dead-on Hartnell but capturing the general flavor and bringing his own flair to it.
Anyway, I guess the closing scenes debunked the rumor Sarah Jane mentioned in “Death of the Doctor” that Ian and Barbara hadn’t aged since the 1960s.
@13 Christopher the new UNIT series is much, much better than either of those. Exactly the right amount of defeating-aliens-via-science-and-shooting that you’d want in such a thing. If Big Finish did gift certificates I’d send you one.
Thing I forgot to mention: The Doctor indicates the Master has undergone forced regeneration more than once, which I guess was an attempt to explain why he was on his last life when the Doctor was still in his fourth incarnation.
@16: Yes, I know William Russell has reprised the role of Ian elsewhere, which is why I said “the show”. Just as all the other old series companions present have worked for Big Finish, Bonnie Langford and Sophie Aldred were both in “Dimensions in Time”, Sophie also played Ace in an episode of Search Out Science plus some ambiguous appearances for Reeltime and BBV.
@20/cap-mjb: “The Doctor indicates the Master has undergone forced regeneration more than once, which I guess was an attempt to explain why he was on his last life when the Doctor was still in his fourth incarnation.”
I’d say there’s no reason that two different time travelers would have to encounter each other at the same relative point in their lives, as the Master could easily have been thousands of years older than the Doctor. But then, it always has been a conceit of Doctor Who that Time Lords always encounter one another in the same sequence, so that their most recent meeting for one was also their most recent meeting for the other. The only exceptions in the classic series were the multi-Doctor team-ups, and we didn’t really get a story about time travelers encountering each other out of sequence until River Song came along.
Anyway, the novelization of “The Deadly Assassin” explained that the Master had burned through his regenerations quickly as a consequence of his criminal lifestyle, having to change identities frequently and so forth.
If you think about it, though, it’s the Doctor whose regenerations happened unusually frequently. The Doctor made it to 400-something before his first regeneration of old age, giving us a baseline for a single incarnation’s natural life expectancy. But subsequently, he regenerated every few years, and he spent nearly all that time in the continuous company of humans who didn’t age visibly, and with little or no ability to reliably return to a companion he left behind, due to his poor control of the TARDIS. So it’s unlikely that there were many periods where he could’ve gone off and lived 200 years between episodes like in the Moffat/Smith era. (The only points where that could have happened are the hypothetical “Season 6B” between “The War Games” and “Spearhead from Space”; the Fourth Doctor’s solo period between “The Deadly Assassin” and “The Face of Evil”; the Fourth Doctor’s time with Romana, a fellow Gallifreyan; and the Sixth Doctor’s time between Peri and Mel, which the audios and novels have filled in with multiple other companions, my favorite being Evelyn. So only the even-numbered Doctors could have had long lives offscreen.) So it always seemed to me that the Doctor was leading an unusually dangerous life for a Time Lord and thus burned through incarnations maybe a hundred times faster than he would have if he’d stayed safely on Gallifrey.
Anyway, it’s a bit amusing to see forced regeneration referred to as the ultimate sanction here. At the time it happened to the Doctor in “The War Games,” it wasn’t even a punishment. On the contrary, it was meant to protect him, “changing his appearance” so he wouldn’t be recognized by his enemies on Earth during his exile there (that was the excuse, though of course it didn’t play out that way). But then, years later, “The Deadly Assassin” introduced the idea that a Time Lord had a finite number of lives, so in retrospect, forced regeneration became a kind of partial death sentence.
@21/CLB: “I’d say there’s no reason that two different time travelers would have to encounter each other at the same relative point in their lives, as the Master could easily have been thousands of years older than the Doctor. But then, it always has been a conceit of Doctor Who that Time Lords always encounter one another in the same sequence, so that their most recent meeting for one was also their most recent meeting for the other. “
Whilst I don’t think it’s ever been canon, and has likely gone the same way as that whole “crystalised points of history” thing, the tie-ins back in the 90s seemed to operate on a theory called Gallifreyan Mean Time where Time Lords were required to exist in relation to each other and Gallifrey with the same amount of time elapsing for each of them. (A variation of the old “Blinovitch Limitation Effect”, I guess.) I think their justification was that if Time Lords can travel back and forth in each other’s time streams then the Master could just kill the Doctor as a baby or something. It’s hinted at on screen in “Time and the Rani”, when the Doctor and the Rani are said to be the same age. I guess the fact the Doctor had gone through three regenerations in a relatively short space of time (although, as you say, there was certain evidence that 300 years had gone by for him since his first regeneration) makes the fact the Master had had nine more even more extraordinary
I hadn’t been paying attention so the revival of 10 was a surprise to me.
A very unpleasant one.
It feels like a cheap stunt to appease the dude bros that have been angry about a woman Doctor since Ms Whittaker was announced. Perhaps they’ll make something good out of it, but I find myself doubting it. OTOH, I’ll hope to be proven wrong.
I liked it. Loved the idea of a support group. Familiar faces. Etc. All I can say is: Thank you, farewell, and… Hello again. That was a great ride. Can’t wait to see where we go next!
@23. Tennant is there because of the 60th Anniversary specials. No other reason. The anniversary specials always bring on the nostalgia, more than one Doctor, old villains, and favorite companions. From a storytelling perspective, Tennant instead of the new Doctor is a good idea. The new Doctor wouldn’t even have a chance to establish his own character before being thrown into a retrospective adventure which would be both confusing for him and us. When Tennant’s Doctor regenerates into the new form, Gatwa’s Doctor can have time to get into his new skin so to speak.
Just to say that I think the casting of Tennant is probably at least partially to deal with logistic issues. Casting a new Doctor and being able to establish that Doctor and deliver the 60th anniversary celebrations (I’m presuming there’s something contractual that means RTD can’t start before then) would ask a lot of anyone. I’m not saying it’s impossible, the War Doctor is established in short order in Day of the Doctor but it’s hardly fair to Gatwa to have to carry all that in his first outing in the role.
But also, it is likely to give the show at least a temporary bump in viewing figures because Tennant is popular outside of Doctor Who. I think the other part is that Tennant loves being the Doctor and RTD loves Tennant, so getting the gang back together is an easy win.
I will say, I don’t think there is an ideological basis for the choice. I’m not sure how much I like the idea, and how much I would prefer that Tennant was playing the metacrisis Doctor or a parallel Doctor, but one thing established is that the Doctor can probably regenerate as often as they like and I’d half expected RTD to play into that by having a few more unknown incarnations of the Doctor turn up played by big names. I really can’t imagine that the 60th will be just Tennant though, he’s pretty much indicated that it won’t.
I seem to have the opposite reaction from Emmet on just about everything about this special. There were good moments, yes (Tegan and Five!), but they all got lost in a frenetic mess that didn’t make much sense and never left enough time for anything to stick. Plot points and emotional moments passed by in a whizz, and things that could have been whole stories in themselves (like the traitor Dalek) were brushed off and dealt with in two minutes or less. Yes, this has been a constant of many series finales since the reboot, but Chibnall seems to have dialed it up to 11 for his goodbye.
And good grief, the Master. I think Dhawan’s Master is very good when he’s in disguise or self-restrained (you can see the nervous energy, the effort it takes him not to jump out of his skin), but becomes utterly annoying when he sheds off the part and becomes the gleefully cackling persona. The directing doesn’t help, like in the Boney M scene, which would have been fine if it lasted a few seconds but went on for far too long in a desperate attempt to recreate the feel of the “I can’t decide” scene with Simm – except that scene went on for a minute because things were happening in it besides the dancing.
And that would still have been fine for me if not for Tennant. I was slightly annoyed that Jodie didn’t transition directly into Ncuti Gatwa, but I figured it was meant to be a fun gag, introducing a special episode with a transitory, in-between Doctor, maybe one with an unstable look that would jump between his previous (2005-onward) incarnations, and finally ending up in the Jodie-Ncuti transition.
But if the BBC press statement and the rumor mill are to believed, that’s not it. We’re having Tennant as the Official 14th Doctor for all three specials. He’s the one who’s gonna pass on the baton. And damn, what an odious way to send off your first woman Doctor, by having her replaced not by the new star of the show, but by a previous guy who is extremely more popular and who many think (like they did of Tom Baker back in the day) should be the one and only Doctor and no one else could possibly compare to him. Between that and RTD’s return, what this seems to say is “a woman Doctor was a mistake, let’s roll the reel back all the way to 2010” – including having to wait a year for three specials instead of having a regular season. Bah.
(Incidentally, and I’ve been saying this a lot through the years, I wish we could have companions stick around after a regeneration again. They gave continuity, and they were the mirror of the audience adapting to a new Doctor. I know new showrunners prefer having a clean slate, and this time there is a whole new production company involved too, but still.)
@25, that’s what I want so much. Specials celebrating Who and setting the stage for 15th’s grand arrival in the 60th.
@22/cap-mjb: “(although, as you say, there was certain evidence that 300 years had gone by for him since his first regeneration)”
That is the exact opposite of what I said, which was that there was no way anywhere remotely near that many years went by, since he was almost always in the continuous company of human companions. And though it’s conceivable that he lived several centuries offscreen between stories after “The Deadly Assassin” or with Romana or after “The Ultimate Foe,” I find the idea very distasteful, because it diminishes the importance of the companions in his life if he only knew them for a tiny fraction of his overall lifespan over the course of the original series.
The various ages given for the Doctor over the original series were highly inconsistent and irreconcilable, and can’t be taken as proof of anything. And the new series had the Doctor start out claiming to be several years younger than he’d claimed to be at the end of the classic series, even though we later learned that he’d lived through nearly three fairly lengthy incarnations in the interim (given how much Seven, Eight, and especially the War Doctor all visibly aged between their debuts and endings).
So the Doctor’s alleged ages are all gibberish and can’t be taken as “certain evidence” of anything except that different producers made different assumptions over the series’s very long run.
@27/Atrus: “Incidentally, and I’ve been saying this a lot through the years, I wish we could have companions stick around after a regeneration again.”
Thinking about it, we didn’t often see companions who spent a significant amount of time with two consecutive Doctors. Sometimes, as with Nyssa, Tegan, Peri, and Mel, they came in just one or two stories before a regeneration. Ben, Polly, Sarah Jane, and Adric are the only classic companions who had significant runs with two different Doctors, and Sarah Jane was the only one to have an entire season or more with two different Doctors.
In the new series, we’ve had Rose and Clara as cross-Doctor companions, with Captain Jack, River Song, and Kate as continuing semi-companions across multiple Doctors, in the vein of the Brigadier.
That was embarrassingly bad. This Master is definitely the worst and I have no idea how the Tegan actress managed to get worse as she got older. Bringing back Tennant really smacks of desperation too
I thought the plot was bananas, like three different stories smooshed into one, but I didn’t care because this felt more like a 60th anniversary episode than the real one is likely to feel (seriously, Tennant again? It’s like the guy’s never left the role with all the Big Finish he’s been doing).
I loved them bringing back all the Classic Doctors (except Tom Baker, who doesn’t really leave the house anymore) and Teagan and Ace getting closure from their Doctors was wonderful. I had wondered why those two were chosen for the episode, but it really makes sense when you think about it. I adored the ex-companion support group. I was so pleased that William Russell showed up. The guy’s 97 years old, so I would have forgiven him if he just sat there without saying anything at all. The one line we got was a treasure.
I have never been crazy about Sacha Dhawan as the Master. He always felt a little too snarly for my tastes in his previous appearances. However, I really enjoyed him this time. It felt like he reigned it in when it needed it reigned in, and he let it out when it needed letting out. After this episode, I would actually be pleased to see him again.
As for Tennant being the official 14th Doctor, I am not sure if that will stick. It might be just for the sake of publicity. But I guess we will just roll with whatever happens. That’s what we do as Who fans when the show changes up every few years.
Old time Doctor Who fan here. I’ve been watching since a few weeks after it started here in Oz in 1965 (kids at school were talking about these fantastic monsters called Daleks…). Gotta say – I loved every second of it! Great fun from start to finish, and wonderful to see so many old friends again one more time (William Russell / Ian!).
Take a bow, all concerned.
After all that, though, I was a bit gobsmacked by today’s news that, outside the UK and Ireland future “Doctor Who” will be broadcast on Disney Plus. Here in Australia it’s primary broadcaster has always been the ABC, since the very start. It just won’t be the same….
@29/CLB: “That is the exact opposite of what I said, which was that there was no way anywhere remotely near that many years went by, since he was almost always in the continuous company of human companions.”
Sorry I misunderstood you. That being said, the Third Doctor was almost never travelling with a human companion full-time, except for a few stories in Season 10. So it doesn’t seem inconceivable that he disappeared for a century or more between, say, The Green Death and The Time Warrior.
@33/cap-mjb: “So it doesn’t seem inconceivable that he disappeared for a century or more between, say, The Green Death and The Time Warrior.”
I suppose it’s possible. He had little control over the TARDIS at that point, but he still managed to make his way back to UNIT periodically. So that’s not out of the question. Still, as I said, I find it distasteful, because it would reduce his time with Jo and the Brig and Mike and the rest to just a brief stopover in a much longer life, and that seems to rob those relationships of their importance to the Doctor. It’s sacrificing the emotional meaning of the stories for the sake of making the numbers fit, and that’s just a completely screwed-up set of priorities.
@34/CLB: Rightly or wrongly, I think the idea’s become more and more acceptable. The Eleventh Doctor had at least two periods when he spent an extended length of time away from his regular companions. I think at least since the 90s, the idea of the Doctor nipping in and out of his companion’s lives and having adventures on his own or with other companions that weren’t seen on screen has become more tolerated. It’s fodder for spin-offs if nothing else!
@35/cap-mjb: I’m fully aware that it’s become more tolerated. That doesn’t change my opinion that it’s a bad idea.
Well, I didn’t have the regeneration spoiled before watching Sunday night, as I hadn’t read anything close to suggesting it and I assumed Ten(nant)’s announced return would be a team-up with Fourteen or a parallel storyline resulting from timey-wimey shenanigans.
Count me among those who loved Thirteen and Yaz even if the stories around them didn’t always live up to the characters; Graham as well. Count me too among those sick of mashing up some combo of the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master, partly because of real-world diminishing returns when they’re overused and partly because in-story they’ve been killed / erased from history and brought back in ways I can’t keep track of.
I agree with points made @26 on the Ten/Fourteen situation. To whatever extent it’s seen as a sop to sexist, racist “fans”… well, screw them, and Thirteen still exists, Fifteen is still coming, we still have the Fugitive Doctor and Timeless Child retconned into predating the First, etc. Maybe a fun detour for the 60th anniversary is just that. I for one am excited. Allons-y!
@29. ChristopherLBennett: “In the new series, we’ve had Rose and Clara as cross-Doctor companions, with Captain Jack, River Song, and Kate as continuing semi-companions across multiple Doctors, in the vein of the Brigadier.”
Don’t forget Jenny, Madame Vastra, and Strax. (I know you weren’t necessarily being completist, but they’re favorites of mine…)
I couldn’t wait for a female doctor and Chibnall ruined this for me. Ruined it for Jodie and for Doctor Who. Her first episode was the best and it was al downhill from there, he was a bad show runner. Missed opportunities all over the place. Who knows how long we’ll have to wait for another female Doctor, I’ll probably be dead.
I do want to see episodes of “The Companions”, and I want it to include the development of the professional *and* personal relationship between Graham and Ace. Team Grace for the win!
So I have a few issues with this – and it extends through the run. And I’m going to start this out by saying that I love Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, Sascha Dawan’s Master, as well as most of the retroactive changes to Time Lord history (because we all know they’re bastards like that). That being said here are my impressions:
How many bad guys are we going to throw at the wall here? Given that the CyberLords or Cybr Masters are around…did we need the Daleks? Kind of seems throwaway.
We’re dropping Dan now? Either should have had him piss off during the last special or held onto him (AND Yaz) until after the regeneration.
The Master basically fridged the Doctor. Or I should say CHIBNALL did. This could have been a powerful moment but it gets lost in how frenetic and spastic the episode is. And by focusing on the Master, it buries Jodie’s moment – and really the show is called Dr. Who not look at what comes to be dramatic lens flare and how many special effects and guests can I throw in?
In other words, I’m disappointed – the great potential with Jodie playing the Doctor is completely lost through her entire tenure and this just caps it off, especially with bringing back Tennant and not progressing to NCuti now. I only hope that they don’t decide to try and erase everything that I saw was positive about this Doctor.
@41/Keith: “The Master basically fridged the Doctor.”
I dunno about that. Fridging is killing off a female character in service to a male character’s arc, e.g. to inspire him to revenge on the killer. It’s about making the female character subordinate to someone else’s story. If a character is killed off for the sake of advancing their own story, as a result of their own actions and choices and conflicts rather than as a passive pawn in other people’s stories, then it’s not fridging.
If you’re referring to the Master forcing the Doctor to regenerate into him, that did motivate Yaz, but she was motivated to fight to get the Doctor back, so it was still ultimately in service to the Doctor’s story. If you’re referring to the Master mortally wounding the Doctor in revenge, that was to catalyze the regeneration, so it’s still in service to the Doctor’s story. Okay, yes, it was to sacrifice a female character so she could turn into a male character, so in that sense maybe you have a point. But it’s a gray area, since it’s still essentially the same character.
It’s also not the first time the Master has killed an incarnation of the Doctor out of revenge for the Doctor foiling his plans — see “Logopolis.”
I’m clearly the exact same time of fan because everything you said in this is everything I loved in the episode and from Chibnall’s run overall. (Right after Thirteen’s outfit was shown but before we knew anything about her personality or what her episodes would be, I wrote fanfic of her first story, also called “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”, in which the villains of the episode were…the Mara.) After having to suffer through seeing so many people dismiss Chiball for the past few years, it’s a relief and a delight to read a review that celebrates his strengths and the strengths of this cast. Also, Janet Fielding said on Twitter that she’d be down for a Tegan and Ace spinoff, so if it doesn’t happen, the BBC are cowards.
@5 You say:
“Speaking of things that deserve to be stories, I totally want to see a UNIT spinoff series about Kate recruiting former companions of the Doctor, with the support group as a side thread. Please please please let it include Clyde, Rani, and K9!”
I’d love to see that! Consider it a John Barrowman-less (better version of) “Torchwood”.
“I’m just saying, if Doctor Who wanted to create me a spinoff where all these older women who used to be stuck telling the Doctor how clever he was got to work together on their own adventures, I’d be extremely into that.”
Yes, that would be very cool.
“a spinoff where all these older women who used to be stuck telling the Doctor how clever he was got to work together on their own adventures”
They already did that quite well in The Sarah Jane Adventures. It was mostly Sarah Jane working with young sidekicks (and an alien supercomputer and occasionally K9), but they did team her up with Jo Jones (nee Grant) once.
I agree with Hawk #39: “I couldn’t wait for a female doctor and Chibnall ruined this for me. Ruined it for Jodie and for Doctor Who. Her first episode was the best and it was al downhill from there, he was a bad showrunner. Missed opportunities all over the place. Who knows how long we’ll have to wait for another female Doctor, I’ll probably be dead.”
I was also so looking forward to Jodie being the first woman to take on that role. Then there came Chibnal, and well it was a disaster from start to finish, at least for me. I watched the first two seasons with Jodie and saw how badly she was being written. I feel she and all the actors who served during Chibnal’s tenor were excellent – just underserved. Have not bothered to return to watch anything further.
I have given up on the Doctor completely. I have watched and rewatched the classics and all the great actors who played the Doctor in this modern series. But, with Chibnal, it has all come to an end. Hate what he has done to the mythology of the series and how it undermines in my mind all the stories and efforts of all the writers who came before Chibnal took over. I gather I am in the minority here, here being the greater Doctor Who Fandom. So, I will occasionally read up on how things are doing, but I won’t be bothering to watch any of the shows that were created under Chibnal’s control. I might come back to the Doctor now that Chibnal is gone. But, I don’t imagine that the ‘Powers-that-Be’ will RetCon all of the damage that Chibnal has done to the Doctor’s mythology, so the damage will be lasting.