*Yep, spoilers aplenty ahead.*
Last week, I talked about all the warm fuzzy nostalgia bits and callbacks that made “The Power of the Doctor” so special. This week, I’m talking about… basically everything else about the episode. You know, the plot that serves as the delivery system for all those fuzzy bits.
As with most extra-special episodes—multi-Doctor stories, season finales, and/or regeneration episodes—“The Power of the Doctor” is seriously overcrammed. It manages to balance everything in a way that basically holds together if you squint, but if you think about any major plot element too long, the house of cards starts to collapse. The Master’s plan is ridiculous convoluted even by their standards, and the eventual solution involves plenty of handwaving. But for all that, I’d still put it ahead of “The End of Time,” “The Day of the Doctor,” and “The Time of the Doctor” for that sort of thing. While those stories sort of exhausted/annoyed me, I was mainly just hanging on for the ride with this one.
The nostalgia bait was, of course, a big part of that—I’ll put up with a lot of nonsense to see Five and Tegan bickering on my screen again, or the Master referencing the Brigadier or Ace pulling out her baseball bat. Another major part of my enjoyment was down to the Master. Sacha Dhawan consistently kills it in this role, and for my money, he knows how to go big while staying just on the right side of over-the-top. All kinds of love for the Master being wild and evil in this episode. His “Rasputin” dance is so awesomely WTF that even the Cybermen and Daleks are side-eyeing each other, I get a kick out of all his banter at UNIT, and his knife-twist to the Doctor is right up there with Missy’s plan in series 8.
And as always, the heart of this character remains that odd, compelling pull he has with the Doctor. He obviously could have killed the Doctor and used the forced regeneration technology to make himself regenerate into Thirteen’s form and accomplished his same plan of torching the Doctor’s name throughout the universe. Hell, he could’ve done it with his own face and just gone around telling people he was the Doctor. But he specifically chooses to have the Doctor regenerate into him. He goes hog wild in the TARDIS wardrobe with his own multi-Doctor cosplay, and he still brings Yaz along with him. There’s a part of him that keeps reaching for something, that needs the Doctor as much as he despises her.
As I said last week, even amid all the frantic busyness of the storyline, I thought the returning characters pretty much all get their emotional due, with all of them getting one or more moments to shine. The special is less successful on that front when it comes to the current companions, though. While I understand Dan’s reasoning behind his exit, he leaves in like the first ten minutes of the episode, completely without fanfare. And with Yaz, once she and the Doctor realize a regeneration is imminent, they both just kind of take it for granted that their thing, whatever it is, is over and it’s time for Yaz to go home.
Some of that is showrunner bleed. Whenever the Doctor regenerates and the same showrunner carries over, it’s all, “I know I’m different, but I’m still me! Can’t you see that, Rose/Clara?” Whereas, when a showrunner hands the reins of the next regeneration over to someone else, it’s like, “I know the next one to come along will technically still be me, but the me you know is dying! Goodbye forever!” The thing is, there are other, better reasons the show could’ve given for Yaz leaving. There’s a something in her eyes when she meets Ace and Tegan, really contextualizing for the first time that she’s just the latest in a long time, but the special never takes the time to explore it. Or maybe, after having seen Thirteen literally regenerate into the Master, Yaz is shaken by that and unable to handle the prospect of another regeneration. Maybe after everything she’s gone through in this special, she decides it’s time to get back to the goals she had before she met the Doctor. All possibilities with potential, but instead the show just kind of goes with, “Well, I guess this is over now.”
All that said, I do really like Thirteen’s actual regeneration scene. Kudos to her for being the first Doctor in way too long not to regenerate inside the TARDIS (while in flight, no less!), and it doesn’t get drawn out too long. I love Eleven and Twelve, but both of their regeneration scenes milk it too much for my taste. Thirteen’s is second only to Nine’s for me. I adore “Doctor I’m about to be” and “tag, you’re it!” So Thirteen and so lovely.
And then… David Tennant! And he’s not Ten, he’s Fourteen!! Clearly, there’s something hinky going on that surpasses regenerating into a familiar face, because clothes don’t regenerate like that! I’m not looking forward to the 13-month await, but I’m definitely curious to find out what’s going to happen in the 60th anniversary specials!
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