The Power of the Doctor: A Powerful Ending

 Hello!

Last June, I set out to review all the regeneration stories in Doctor Who. And Jodie Whittaker has just left the role. So, I decided I would review the latest regeneration episode.

Finally, finally, the Doctor regenerates without trashing something...

So, quick run-down of, basically, Thirteen's entire era up to Power of the Doctor: (hey, that title sounds familiar for some reason!) Series 11 just saw the Doctor and her fam globe-trotting the universe, though the New Year's Special saw the return of the Daleks. At the start of Series 12 the Master returned and revealed that he destroyed Gallifrey. Mid-way through Series 12, Captain Jack Harkness returned and warned the Doctor about the Lone Cyberman. At the tail end of the season, the Lone Cyberman, AKA Ashad, appeared...and the Doctor gave him what he wanted. (In fairness, he was going to destroy Earth in the 19th century, causing all sorts of nasty temporal anomalies, if she didn't comply

Travelling forward in time to a period where humanity was engaged in a fierce battle for survival against the Cybermen, the Doctor's confrontation with Ashad ultimately brought her to the ruins of Gallifrey, where she met the Master. The Master and Ashad teamed up; while the Master distracted the Doctor by telling her the truth about the Timeless Child, Ashad brought his troops to Gallifrey. The Master combined Cyberman technology with the corpses of the Time Lords he slaughtered to create Cyber Time Lords - capable of regeneration, and thus making them unstoppable! (Though the actual name for them is Cyber Masters - not nearly as cool as Cyber-Lords.)

He also killed Ashad and attempted to use his corpse to destroy Gallifrey (again!) The Doctor, her companions, and the Master all managed to escape, however.

The Doctor then got arrested by the Judoon; Captain Jack rescued her in the Christmas special, just in time to save the day from a Dalek invasion. Graham and Ryan also left at the end of the Christmas special. 

This is Ashad. He's meant to look like that. (Cyber-conversion gone wrong - not everyone's compatible.)

Series 13, 6 episodes in a serialised format, saw the universe on the brink of destruction by something called the Flux, and the Doctor running around trying to fix everything. It eventually turns out that the Flux was engineered by Tecteun (the Timeless Child's mum) and Division; they view the Doctor and her impacts on the universe as a rogue element, so they're trying to destroy the universe and move to a new one. Luckily, the Doctor saves the day, stops Division, and presumably reverses the Flux.

Series 13 also sees the introduction of new companion Dan Lewis, a plasterer from Liverpool.

There's also a New Years' special and an Easter special between Series 13 and the regeneration episode,  the former featuring the Daleks (again) and the latter featuring the return of the Sea Devils, a cousin species of the Silurians.

The Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz and Dan.

Power of the Doctor begins with the Cyber-Masters attacking an interstellar train, attempting to obtain a valuable cargo. The Doctor and friends land and attempt to save the day; they rescue the passengers, but fail to prevent the theft of the cargo. Also, Dan nearly gets sucked into space; the resulting brush with death leaves him deciding to leave Team TARDIS. 

When dropping Dan off, the Doctor receives a transmission from a traitorous Dalek, who reveals that it has information which can be used to destroy the Daleks. The rest of the genocidal pepper pots, meanwhile, are based in a volcano, planning to set off a chain reaction which will cause all volcanoes on Earth to erupt, wiping out life on Earth. (It's never explained just how a Dalek turned good.) However, before she can decide whether or not to trust the Dalek, she gets recalled by UNIT over a series of defaced paintings and missing seismologists. She also re-encounters Tegan Jovanka and Dorothy 'Ace' McShane, who travelled with the Fifth Doctor and the Seventh Doctor, respectively; they've been working together to investigate these occurrences themselves.

Of course, the person responsible is none other than the Master. Half his plots seem to be purely to get the Doctor's attention! (This was actually confirmed by Missy at one point - it's basically the Master's way of texting.) The Doctor tracks him down to Naples, and UNIT effortlessly arrests him...perhaps too effortlessly...

The Master before he steals the Doctor's body and outfit.

The Doctor and Yaz track down the Cyber-Masters' cargo, which turns out to be something called a Qurunx - sentient energy. The Qurunx has been plugged into a cyber-converted planet (or moon), which has been parked next to 1916 Earth. Also plugged into the planet is the Master's own TARDIS, deliberately styled off the Doctor's TARDIS. Back at UNIT, meanwhile, the Master reveals his master plan - smuggle a dimensionally-transcendent shrunk-down Ashad into UNIT, by anonymously sending it to Tegan (who thought it was a taunting message from the Doctor - ouch). Ashad returns to full size and opens up, unleashing an army of Cybermen, as well as a clone of Ashad himself. The Cybermen then start converting the UNIT soldiers, in preparation for converting the Earth. They also free the Master, who vanishes.

Ace escapes the building, by jumping off the roof, while Kate distracts the Cybermen and Tegan goes to the basement to destroy the Cyber-conversion machinery.

Ace (left) and Tegan (right) 30-40ish years on. (Behind them, you can see an anxious/curious Doctor!)

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Yaz follow up with the traitor Dalek. Only, it turns out to be a trap. That is, the rest of the Daleks knew there was a traitor in the ranks, and deliberately allowed said traitor to contact the Doctor so they could capture the Doctor. Tragically for our heroes, the plan goes off without a hitch, and the Doctor is taken to Siberia, in 1916, to meet with Rasputin. Rasputin is, of course, the Master, having grown out a long beard. His Master's Dalek Plan is to force the Doctor to regenerate (using the cyber-planet powered by the Qurunx); during this process, the Doctor will regenerate...into the Master! (This unique regeneration has the bizarre side effect of transferring the Master's soul into the Doctor's body...never explained how.)

After the plan succeeds, the Doctor-Master, adopting Yaz as his companion, decides to slander the Doctor's name by claiming responsibility for a bunch of atrocities (many of which the Master prepared ahead of time.) Unfortunately for him, Yaz kicks him out of the TARDIS and ditches him at his first stop. She then encounters an AI hologram of the Doctor, which the Doctor has been devising for thousands of years, in case they're put out of commission and the world/universe needs them. (Where was the AI in The Christmas Invasion, when the Doctor was comatose, or Turn Left, when the Doctor was dead?) The Doctor, in the meantime, finds herself in a sort of between-place, which all incarnations apparently pass through; there, she meets her past lives (First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth), who agree that letting the Master become the Doctor is unthinkable. However, if Thirteen stays put (rather than moving on), it would be possible to reverse the regeneration; for that, though, they need external help.

Behold...the Doctor-Master...(Marvel at the reveal that the Master's fashion tastes are even more eclectic than the Doctor's!)

Assisted by the AI, Yaz returns to the cyber-planet, where she picks up a fellow called Iston Vee-Vinder. He was a prominent character in Series 13; he's an inter-galactic space ranger, and he's on the hunt for the captive Qurunx. Yaz and Vinder return to UNIT, just in time to catch Ace as she plummets. They take Ace to the volcano, so she can take out the Daleks; when she gets there, she meets Graham O'Brien, who's been investigating the threat independently.

Ace also gets closure with the Seventh Doctor; earlier, when the Doctor greeted her, she sonicked(!) a microchip into Ace (and Tegan and Yaz), which allows the AI to find them and talk to them. The AI Doctor takes the form of Seven, and they discuss an apparent falling-out Seven and Ace had, making peace with one another.

Tegan, similarly, has a discussion with the AI version of the Fifth Doctor, who empathises with her apprehension about facing the Cybermen (Adric died because of the Cybermen in a Fifth Doctor serial.)

Tegan, Graham, and Ace successfully destabilise the Cyber and Dalek operations - in the former case, narrowly saving Kate from getting upgraded. However, in the process of destroying the Daleks (again...), the volcano blows its top and sets off that chain reaction.

The Eighth, Seventh, Sixth, Fifth, and First Doctors (as well as Thirteen).

Meanwhile, Yaz, Vinder, and the AI Doctor 'rescue' the Doctor-Master from where Yaz stranded him and return him to Siberia; there, they shut him in the forced-regeneration machine. The AI, now wearing the face of the Fugitive Doctor, tricks the Master's Cyber-Master honour guard into shooting each other down, whereupon the regenerative energy from the Cyber-Masters' regenerations is used to fuel the Doctor-Master's regeneration back into the Doctor. (Though the Fugitive Doctor's appearance indicates that the Doctor's been working on this for at least that long...which raises a lot of questions.) The Doctor returns to UNIIT and the volcano, rescuing Kate, Tegan, Graham, and Ace; then, she returns to the cyber-planet to free the Qurunx, move the planet, and fix Vinder's shuttle (which crashed on arrival.) With the help of her companions and two TARDISes, the Doctor moves the planet forward in time to stop the volcanic eruptions; she then sets the Qurunx free. Then, the Master hobbles out of his TARDIS, having teleported back to it after the Doctor left. The aborted regeneration is killing the Master; as a last act of spite, he declares that if he can't be the Doctor, then neither can the Doctor, and he tricks the Qurunx (now destroying its prison) into zapping the Doctor. Yaz rescues the Doctor before she can come to more harm, then drops off the other companions at home; she then waits for the Doctor to wake up. When the Doctor does wake, she finds that she's starting to regenerate. The Doctor and Yaz share one last view (ice-cream on top of the TARDIS in orbit around Earth), then Yaz is dropped off at home. Once home, she finds Graham and Dan bickering on their way to a companion support session; after his latest adventure, Graham decided to get in touch with other companions of the Doctor, so they could share their stories. Gathered at the meeting are Graham, Dan and Yaz (Thirteen), Kate (Twelve and Thirteen), Ace (Seven), Tegan (Five), Ian Chesterton (One), Jo Grant (Three), and Melanie Bush (also Seven, appeared in Time and the Rani), with an extra chair laid out, maybe for Sarah-Jane Smith. The Doctor, meanwhile, takes one last trip to Durdle Door and steps out of the TARDIS to regenerate while watching one last sunset. Upon the end of the regeneration, he finds that he's got a very, very familiar face.

Passing the baton on...

...to a previous contestant! What? What?? What???

(Fittingly, the next time trailer ends with Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor, who was originally announced to be the next Doctor, saying 'Excuse me, will someone tell me what the hell is going on here?' Rather an appropriate reaction to getting shafted...)

Overall, I really enjoyed Power of the Doctor. In all honesty, I enjoyed it more than I thought it would - between the characterisation and the Timeless Child arc, the era as a whole has been slightly disappointing to me.

In fact, I think the reason why I liked Power of the Doctor so much is because those elements weren't there. With the exception of the Fugitive Doctor, and one throw-away line from the Master, the Timeless Child arc is entirely ignored. (Poor Child - once again forgotten and abandoned...) And the Doctor and the narrative don't forget her companions this time. The episode sees the Doctor reunite - eagerly - with Ace and Tegan, and the Doctor is quite obviously very happy to see them again. Additionally, Tegan and Ace get their closure with their Doctors - both of whom confirm that they never forgot Tegan or Ace, or any of their companions. The narrative similarly acknowledges the companions - after the Doctor's dropped Yaz off at home, it's revealed that Graham created a companion support group - a means for the Doctor's companions to share all the amazing, wonderful, and often terrifying things they've seen while travelling with the Doctor. Present at the support group are companions from across the Doctor's lives - such as Ian, from the First Doctor's era, and Mel, from the Seventh. Additionally, there's an empty chair laid out in the circle - it's a subtle, silent acknowledgement of the companions who are now dead, including Sarah-Jane and Adric.

Moreover, the companions meeting and discussing the Doctor switches to the Doctor in the TARDIS, preparing to regenerate; as she tells the TARDIS to look after the next Doctor, Yaz assures the gathered companions that the Doctor is OK - of course she's OK. It's a reflection of how the Doctor has shaped the companions; the fact that they are thinking of her as she regenerates reflects also how they've shaped the Doctor. The First Doctor, a crotchety old man with a heart of gold, rejected the idea of regeneration - he refused a perfectly natural biological process, because he was scared of what he'd become. The Thirteenth Doctor, a cheerful young woman with hair of gold, calmly accepts the change, merely requesting that the TARDIS look after her next incarnation. And this change was partly wrought through her companions - many of whom have been willing to face permanent death when necessary. Indeed, perhaps Tegan, Kate and Ace's willingness to face death in this very episode inspired the Doctor to be similarly accepting of her demise. In fact, there's also a change from the Tenth Doctor's regeneration - the Tenth Doctor, to put it bluntly, throws a tantrum; his last words, on the verge of crying, are 'I don't want to go!' The Thirteenth Doctor, meanwhile, laments briefly, but makes the best of the situation. She spends some more time with Yaz, then regenerates watching a sunset, cheerily and quippily saying 'Right, then. Doctor Whoever-I'm-about-to-be. Tag, you're it.' Indeed, the Tenth Doctor's last episode is sombre and melancholy, while the Thirteenth Doctor's is unabashedly cheerful.

Another aspect of change, for me, is Yasmin Khan. She started off as a...somewhat flat character, and stayed that way, to a degree (sorry Yaz). But she does have an arc in the era. She starts off travelling with the Doctor because she's the most amazing person Yaz has ever met; over time, Yaz starts trying to emulate the Doctor. One example of this is in the Series 12 episode Praxeus, where Yaz recklessly runs back into a dangerous situation to gain more information about the current threat, rather like the Doctor has done on numerous occasions. This reaches its climax when the Doctor gets separated from Yaz and Dan during Series 13, and Yaz and Dan have to figure out how to save the universe without the Doctor - Yaz becomes, in effect, a stand-in for the Doctor, to the point where Dan's more her companion than the Doctor's companion. (Thanks to various shenanigans, the Doctor does rejoin with the others eventually, though.) And here, Yaz's parallels with the Doctor continue. With the Doctor again out of commission, Yaz steps up to the role - she's the one to gather the companions, she defeats the Master, she even pilots the TARDIS by herself. Additionally, there's an inversion of the usual relationship between the Doctor and their companions; when the Doctor is mortally wounded, Yaz is the one to save her from further harm. Later, the Doctor waking up parallels a scene in The Parting of the Ways, where Rose wakes up and sees the Doctor at the console; here, the Doctor wakes up and sees Yaz at the console. Furthermore, the Doctor views her as an equal (in contrast to back in Series 12...). When the Doctor's hand starts glowing, Yaz knows what it means - meaning that the Doctor did tell her at least some private details about herself. In addition, it is apparent that the Doctor and Yaz have discussed regeneration considerably; there is an implicit understanding between the two that, for Yaz, travelling with any other Doctor wouldn't be the same as travelling with Thirteen. And on a more humorous note, Yaz becoming the Doctor extends even to her navigational skills. She's capable of perfectly flying the TARDIS, including in mid-air in time to catch Ace...but she's also terrible at getting the companions to where they need to go. At the end, she drops off the others in Croydon, rather than their actual homes - the Doctor once did the same thing to Sarah Jane. In the same place, no less! 

Returning to a previous point, the Doctor's optimism on regeneration is something which, I feel, characterises the era and the Thirteenth Doctor. The Thirteenth Doctor came to in a wrecked console room, and, heedless of the damage to the TARDIS, joyfully realised that she was embarking on a brand new adventure - that of being a woman for the first time. It's therefore fitting that she went out calmly lamenting the fact that she had to go, but eager to see what happened next. When the Twelfth Doctor regenerated into the Thirteenth, in 2018, I was going through a very difficult time. I won't go into more detail - I've done plenty of that in previous blogs. But the Twelfth Doctor's last words stuck with me. 'Hate is always foolish, and love is always wise.' 'Never be cruel, never be cowardly.' 'Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.' Looking back, the Thirteenth Doctor's optimism has also stuck with me. Being optimistic, even in hard times, even when things look dire - that's a powerful ability. It's something I needed very much in 2018, and I suspect it's something we've all needed over the past few years. And I'm moving on into the unknown - I'm (hopefully) graduating from university in June, and I don't know what comes next. I do think, however, that the Doctor's attitude as she regenerates is something to emulate.

The Thirteenth Doctor came into being when I was going through a difficult time. Throughout the last four years of change, her relentless cheer and optimism has been a consistent part of my life, and many other peoples' lives. Now, I'd like to think I'm in a pretty good place, and it's time for a new Doctor. It may not be because of the Doctor that I'm where I am now, but I do think that how I approach the future can be inspired by the Thirteenth Doctor's attitude - optimism and acceptance. Another aspect of this optimism is the fact that Thirteen also hasn't had a 100% brilliant time. She's once more become one of the only Time Lords in existence, and it was her former best friend, whom she tried so hard to redeem,  who did it. She's learned that she's apparently not even Gallifreyan in truth, and the original Time Lords experimented on and used her for untold thousands of lives. She spent decades in practically solitary confinement, and two of her best friends stopped travelling with her shortly thereafter. She's had to watch the universe she loves so much fall apart, destroyed by something even the TARDIS can't fight, and she's come face-to-face with her abusive foster mother, only to see said mother killed right in front of her. To top it off, when Thirteen regenerates, she's only been around for a few decades - she's a relatively short-lived incarnation. Despite all this, however, she's cheerful to the end, optimistic that whatever comes next will be worth continuing on. That's something to remember when everything seems dark - there's almost always something worth living for.

Overall, I'd rate The Power of the Doctor at 7.5/10.

Random observations

-Power of the Doctor has several rather neat parallels to the Second Doctor's era. The first, of course, is the title itself - not very different to Power of the Daleks. The second is the concept of forced regeneration - forced regeneration is how the Second Doctor met his end. 

-I won't pretend the episode is perfect - it does have inconsistencies and plot holes, like where clean-shaven Master goes after escaping UNIT. At the same time, it's still a fun episode. And I feel like, if an episode or movie is enjoyable, then plot holes aren't so bad (unless they break the plot.)

-In fact, a great way to summarise the problems with the episode is to say that the writers were optimistic about their ability to juggle three plotlines (any one of which would make a good finale). Unfortunately, their optimism was slightly misplaced, resulting in a somewhat messy and chaotic episode. 

-One does wonder where all the Revival era companions were for the support meeting. Presumably they couldn't make it. 

-The Master is brilliant in this episode - he flips between childish and deathly serious with alarming regularity. Two particularly great scenes are when the Doctor catches up to him at the start and matches his childishness blow-for-blow, and the entire scene where he taunts the Doctor, Ace, Tegan, and UNIT, culminating in the Master whooping as he gets taken to his prison cell. Conversely, his interactions with Yaz as the Doctor-Master are chilling - he's initially jovial and cheerful, then as soon as Yaz defies him, he's shouting and screaming, threatening to kill her if she disobeys. Indeed, the Doctor-Master's combination of the Master's ruthless, domineering attitude and the Doctor's friendly, cheery attitude is rather unsettling, but also strangely touching. There's a raw vulnerability in the Doctor-Master's nicer behaviour towards Yaz - deep down (very deep down), part of him wants friendship and companionship as much as the Doctor does.

-The scene where Yaz saves the Doctor is one of my favourite scenes - she slow-walks into the TARDIS, carrying the Doctor in a bridal carry, while a laser tears apart the planet behind her. Seriously epic. 

-Of course, immediately after that scene, you see the TARDIS fly away from the wreckage...and you see something else flying away as well. My bet is that the Master isn't quite dead. 

-Tegan's mildly snitty attitude towards the Doctor is very funny (and quintessentially Tegan!) The bit where she angrily declares that she definitely wants to go in the TARDIS, and the Doctor looks at her thinking 'Did I do something?' is especially funny. 

-Another great Tegan moment comes when Kate tries to persuade her to bail out of UNIT headquarters with Ace, and Tegan declares that she's faced coups and monsters, travelled all round the world, survived two failed marriages and a son who doesn't want to talk to her, and worst of all, was an air stewardess in the 1980s - she can handle Cybermen. Says a lot that being an air stewardess tops the list... 

-Nyssa never gets a mention, though she marries Tegan at some point prior to Sarah Jane's death. Maybe they haven't married yet? 

-In Fugitive of the Judoon, Jack's actor dyed his hair brown, despite the referential opportunities posed by having him be grey. Here, it's the opposite problem - despite the fact that it makes no sense for any of the Doctors except One to be elderly, there was no effort to de-age any of them. 

-My dad used to predict that I'd end up playing the Fifteenth Doctor. Well, depending on how you count it, the Fifteenth Doctor is either Thirteen (total number of incarnations up till Power of the Doctor), the incumbent Doctor (if you count the Master-Doctor as an incarnation), or the Ncuti Gatwa Doctor (if you don't.) And, well, I am neither a woman nor non-white, and I'm certainly not an actor. So, sadly, my dad's dream did not come true.

-The entire point of the 'pose as Rasputin' part of the Master's plan seems to be so he can (badly) dance to Rasputin by Boney M. The reactions of everyone involved (including the Daleks and the Cybermen, two practically emotionless races) is, as one would expect, priceless confusion. 

-The Master also refers to his plan as 'The Master's Dalek Plan', a reference to a First Doctor serial called The Daleks' Master Plan. (Said master plan involved using a time bomb to accelerate entropy. Lovely!) 

-Ryan Sinclair doesn't appear - he just gets an off-hand reference as being in Patagonia, which is disappointing. He's not even at the companion support group at the end, even though his grandad is the one who set it up.

-Regeneration count - forced to regenerate (Thirteenth Doctor to Master-Doctor). Fifteenth regeneration, third of new cycle, but later reversed, so may not count. Later blasted by a destructive laser - presumably causing massive internal damage (Thirteenth to Fourteenth Doctor). Assuming that the forced regeneration didn't count, second fifteenth regeneration, third of the new cycle. (I'm gonna assume the forced regeneration didn't count, for my peace of mind...)