New Who 12.5 Fugitive of the Judoon

[strange_complex]

Well, wow! It's quite a thing when the return of Captain Jack Harkness is not the biggest surprise reveal of the episode.

(Though it was bloody great to see him, and I'm stoked at the prospect of more.)

To me, the neatest thing in this episode was that the first moment we saw Ruth, she was looking at herself in a hexagonal mirror. Even at the time, I thought "Ooh, nice - this character will clearly have some special connection with the Doctor and probably end up on the TARDIS by the end of the episode." She did indeed, but I didn't begin to guess how. Even the symbolism of the mirror image paid off. I love good set design.

Nice that Graham found himself on a hexagonal tiled floor when he woke up on Jack's (stolen) ship, too.

It was just generally a nicely plotted and executed episode. It carried us successfully from an emotional gap between the companions and the Doctor, to them declaring that they knew her, were her family and were ready to help - and her responding to that. It told the small story of Ruth and Lee, and tied it in to bigger and as-yet-unexplained things which I'm excited to know about. (Well, except for the Cybermen. I couldn't care less about the Cybermen.) It made beautiful use of both Gloucester Cathedral and that lighthouse as location settings.

I think I could have done with more coming out of Yaz's role as a policewoman in relation to the Judoon. I felt like lip-service was paid to it, with comments about how she spoke their language and could therefore stall them successfully, but without it really being developed very fully. Still, at least it was there a bit, I guess?

And now we have (sort of? possibly?) had a black female Doctor, without anyone being able to make a big whiny online fuss about it in advance. Although, I would probably have crossed out the line in the script in which 'our' Doctor said rather crushingly, almost sneeringly, to her "I've never been anything like you". Nominally, this was then glossed as being a comment about her shirt, but it did come with the spectre of racist overtones, lurking behind that 'thing' in 'anything'.

I am definitely pleased to see her, and I really like how Hartnell-ish the 'Ruth' Doctor is coming across as so far. My guess is that that's deliberate characterisation, and she is going to prove to be from an early phase in 'our' Doctor's life, her memory of which has been wiped by the Time Lords in relation to whatever lie or secret the Master was on about in the first episode. But oh boy, I hope the Ruth-Doctor doesn't end up going down the line of Jasmine in Angel. That's all.

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

> she was looking at herself in a hexagonal mirror

I didn't notice that at all!

> It carried us successfully from an emotional gap between the companions and the Doctor, to them declaring that they knew her, were her family and were ready to help

I really liked that scene at the end. I actually was wanting the companions to say something like 'We might not have known you for all the thousands of years of your lifetime, but we've seen enough of you to know who you are'. They didn't quite put it like that.

> but without it really being developed very fully. Still, at least it was there a bit, I guess?


She didn't even seem particularly police officer-ish when she stepped out to confront the Judoon! I would have expected her to carry herself with more authority, a bit like when the Doctor yields the psychic paper.

[strange_complex]

I didn't notice that at all!

It pays to look out for hexagons in Doctor Who. They are usually Significant!

Agreed about Yaz. The writing team only seem to remember that she is a police officer sporadically, which is a pity, as I think they could be getting a lot out of it.

[momentsmusicaux]

I'll remember about the hexagons in future!

[softfruit]

Me too :)

[sir_guinglain]

My reaction is very much the same as yours, hexagonal mirror onwards... I'd assumed Ruth would be the Judoon target just because the trailers were setting up Lee, but I never dreamed Ruth would be who she turned out to be. Captain Jack was less of a surprise, and it is good to see him back.

[djm4]

I loved it, and my current theory is that she's a series 6B Doctor, as we don't see Troughton regenerate into Pertwee on-screen, and she's sort-of working for the Time Lords but on the run from them.

Not sure our introduction to the first black Doctor being her turning ultra-violent and ripping the horn off a rhino-alien, but she wasn't fully the Doctor then, of course.

All three companions were basically bottled for most of the episode with sod all to do. I think that worked for this episode, but I want more of them in general.

[momentsmusicaux]

I reckon parallel universe. Extra shoehorned Doctor has been done already!

[strange_complex]

I wonder if it will turn out to be something to do with the Kasaavin from Spyfall who after all were from a different dimension?

[momentsmusicaux]

Oh good point.

[momentsmusicaux]

Another thought I had is that this season feels like Chibnall is finally spreading his wings and doing interesting things. Last season felt very pedestrian. Feels like he's only just starting to expand things and surprise us, in the way that Moffat did almost from the start with River Song and all the predictions about 11's end. I wonder whether the reason for that is that having a female Doctor seemed like one big enough change in itself. In any case, roll on more interesting things!

[momentsmusicaux]

> the first moment we saw Ruth, she was looking at herself in a hexagonal mirror

Watching it again, and even before the hexagonal mirror, the opening shot of the episode is Ruth looking at a watch ticking in slow motion, and looking very confused/worried about. As if the idea of time is worrying her...

[strange_complex]

Oh, nice! I may well re-watch it myself before this Sunday, as there's clearly a lot to get out of reviewing in the knowledge of who Ruth and Lee are.