TV Review: ‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Specials Reviews

“Spoilers!” This review contains spoilers for ‘The Giggle’.

Upon the return of fan-favourite showrunner Russell T. Davies, sci-fi classic Doctor Who returns to screens with a trio of special episodes entitled: ‘The Star Beast’, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’, and ‘The Giggle’. Russell T. Davies is not the only Who-heavyweight to return to the fray, however, as David Tennant has returned to reprise his role as The Doctor. However, he no longer stars as the Tenth Doctor, but as the fourteenth incarnation of the eponymous alien.

‘The Star Beast’

★★★✰✰

The trio of special episodes begin with ‘The Star Beast’, an introductory episode that grounds viewers in Tennant’s unexpected return, and the reintroduction of beloved companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate). Once The Doctor has somewhat come to terms with his return to Noble’s life, he has to navigate the secrecy surrounding their relationship — a result of 2010’s ‘The End of Time: Part 2’, where Donna sees her memories of time travel and The Doctor wiped in order to save her mind from being “burned up”.

We are introduced to Donna’s family, old and new: There’s her husband Shaun (Karl Collins), her mother Sylvia (Jacqueline King), and we are newly introduced to her daughter, perhaps slightly awkwardly for The Doctor, named Rose (Yasmin Finney). Rose is just as curious about time and space as her mother once was and unexpectedly discovers a mysterious beast named Meep (Miriam Margolyes). The Meep appears to be a cute and cuddly alien, so this kind-hearted new addition seeks to help it find safety. As with all mysterious beasts that fall from the sky, it serves Rose wisely to trust The Doctor in finding Meep’s true motivations on Earth.

‘The Star Beast’ is certainly a bold episode to begin Russell T. Davies’ 60th anniversary specials, revamping a comic book story of the same name from the 1980s. This may please the most die-hard of Who fans, but it does raise issues with translating a quirky comic book plotline for one of 2023’s biggest television events of the year. 

The episode, sadly, feels as though it is trying to juggle too many things at once, all whilst working from source material that feels a little too sparse for such an event. The episode’s dialogue is clunky in places and oftentimes feels as though it struggles to ‘show’ and not ‘tell’, misjudging its viewership’s ability to understand what they see before them. This, alongside introducing audiences to a new situation and new characters, made for a rather shaky, yet still enjoyable, start to the 60^th anniversary specials.

‘Wild Blue Yonder’

★★★★✰

The second special, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’, was a breath of fresh air for fans of The Doctor’s creepier encounters. Stuck out at the edge of the universe, further than the Doctor has ever been before, he and Donna face an unknown evil that seeks to destroy that which it does not understand. 

The episode feels most comparable to that of the terrifying fan-favourites ‘The Waters of Mars’ and ‘Midnight’, digging deeper into the fact that The Doctor is not an omniscient being, and that time and space are far bigger than him. The entities in ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ mimic what they see before them, much like that of the Midnight entity, causing The Doctor, Donna, and the audience to question each other at every turn. 

‘Wild Blue Yonder’ is far more self-contained than ‘The Star Beast’, stripping the Doctor Who 60^th anniversary specials down from its broad introductory episode to simply Doctor and Companion, showing off Tennant and Tate’s glorious on-screen chemistry and witty dynamic. Playing upon the tropes of space isolation horrors like Alien (1979) and Event Horizon (1997), ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ builds tension throughout its 54-minute runtime as The Doctor and Donna are perused around an abandoned spacecraft.

Alongside questioning the extent of The Doctor’s knowledge, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ also builds upon the existence of superstition and folklore in the Whoniverse, as The Doctor is seen to invoke a superstition at the edge of the universe. This act not only sets audiences up for a key plot point in episode three, ‘The Giggle’, but brings about a rarely considered theme in new-Who. Aside from Torchwood’s (2006) fairies and Eleven’s minotaur, it is hard to think of many Doctor Who monsters that build upon superstition and myth, enhancing the hypothetical possibilities of Tennant’s latest Doctor acknowledging superstition as an important force in the known, and unknown, universe.

Episode two of the trio, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’, feels like a return to form with Tennant, Russell T. Davies, and New-Who. The show’s effort to form a drastic transition from ‘The Star Beast’s goofy clunkiness and ex-showrunner Chibnall’s grand yet hardly fleshed-out plotlines is clear in this episode, digging down to the roots of what makes Who Who. Tennant and Tate’s stellar performances matched with a killer script and Disney’s budget seem to be priming us for what the new era of Doctor Who has to offer with this brain-scrambling episode.

‘The Giggle’

★★★★★

The three-part series of specials ends on ‘The Giggle’, a show-stopping entry starring the spellbinding Neil Patrick Harris as Classic-Who villain The Toymaker, a celestial being who forces his victims to play cruel children’s games, with the outcome determining their freedom. The Toymaker’s losing victims ultimately become his playthings for the rest of eternity, in his personal universe.

‘The Giggle’ is exemplary of Doctor Who at its very best: it’s camp, it’s terrifying, it’s bigger than ever. The episode pits The Doctor against one of his greatest foes, proving that Classic-Who has a wealth of content that can frighten and intrigue modern viewers. The Toymaker is a far greater power than The Doctor, but similarly to The Doctor, he too is governed by a self-imposed code. The Toymaker is ruled by the rules of his games, and The Doctor must use these games against him in a showdown that has the potential to alter humankind’s entire future as a species. 

‘The Giggle’ is the perfect episode to introduce the concept of a canonised Whoniverse to viewers, featured an Avengers-style skyscraper and companions old and new, the episode feels larger than life in so many aspects. Plus, who could forget about that sensational dance number?

It is an impossible feat to not spoil the climactic scenes of ‘The Giggle’, so please stop reading if you somehow haven’t come across the ending yet.

Although prematurely leaked, Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa’s newly introduced bi-generation was a stroke of genius. Of course, many fans are quite to condemn this new feature of Time Lord existence, however, viewers must remember that the entire concept of regeneration came out of nowhere back in 1966 in a similar manner. It feels impossible to satisfy everyone with the outcome for such a beloved character as Tennant’s Doctor, and bi-generation feels like a gift from Russell T. Davies to those who were traumatised as children by the loss suffered during ‘The End of Time: Part 2’ — myself included. 

This episode’s second surprise was the ease with which Gatwa took the reins, donning a commanding presence that puts viewers and die-hard Who fans at ease for this relative newcomer. Gatwa’s suave coolness suited the character well, and with the return of the Christmas Special, fans are surely in for a treat with the upcoming episode ‘The Church on Ruby Road’. 

Words by Jess Parker

Support The Indiependent

We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.