*Spoilers for the end of “The Star Beast.”*
I’m torn. Because I really excited for Ncuti Gatwa, and I’m looking forward to meeting Fifteen so much. But I love Fourteen. Despite the various similarities, he’s most definitely not just Ten 2.0. He’s his own Doctor, and unless something incredibly timey wimey happens on Saturday, he’ll only have lived for a few days. And I feel like that might break me.
But for now, he’s still here, so let’s revel in this magnificent episode we just got!
At the end of “The Star Beast,” the Doctor needed to reawaken Donna’s memories of being the Doctor-Donna, because it was the only way to stop the Meep and save London. Through some narrative maneuvering, 1) she didn’t die, 2) she’s no longer the Doctor-Donna, and 3) she got to keep her memories! However, her agreement to “one quick trip” in the TARDIS to visit Wilf didn’t go as planned when she spilled coffee on the brand-new TARDIS console. With the ship going haywire, the Doctor and Donna are flung out to an abandoned spaceship on the edge of the universe with only an ancient robot for company. But as they investigate, they realize they’re not alone in the dark.
That’s all I’m going to say about the plot. While “The Star Beast” has an amusing but flimsy Alien of the Week plot based on an old comic story, “Wild Blue Yonder” is pretty out there. It has elements of some past stories, most notably “Midnight” from series 4, but it very much carves out its own space for itself. It deserves to be experienced fresh.
But I like the strangeness and unease of the deserted spaceship, the automated language not even the Doctor knows. I like the somber atmosphere of the extremely remote setting, combined with the Doctor’s inexorable draw to being “right on the edge” of the universe (there’s a lot of resonance with “The Impossible Planet” / “The Satan Pit” from series 2 as well.) He presses his forehead to the window as he peers out into the blackness: “No one ever has [come this far]. ‘Til us.” And I really like how the fear and foreboding creeps in slowly, oozing in around the sides. “Goosebumps, like Braille,” is a fantastic line.
That said, even though this is a pretty excellent alien plot, it’s once again the dynamic between the Doctor and Donna that raises the episode to greater heights. David frickin’ Tennant and Catherine frickin’ Tate, people. Both of them are just incandescently good here, giving complex, surprising performances that are full of humor, pain, and above all, honesty. The episode gets at the heart of who both characters are, what they mean to one another, and how well they know each other.
Oh God, there’s already only one episode left. How will I face it???
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