My video on the issue of the BBC's support of Transphobia: ruclips.net/video/aN4uc0HZrWE/видео.html My video on the BBC's response to complaints of its reporting: ruclips.net/video/skh81N5lcYY/видео.html My short on why I'll continue to put up the note at the front of these: ruclips.net/user/shortsHpwwzjzFXiE Shaun's 1st video, which includes some additional confirmed information: ruclips.net/video/b4buJMMiwcg/видео.html Shaun’s 2nd video, which follows how the BBC is trying to dodge accountability for all of this: ruclips.net/video/qfjTG6SVjmQ/видео.html Shaun’s 3rd video, following him escalating his complaints: ruclips.net/video/fRn1UZ4fhdE/видео.html Shaun's 4th video, covering the BBC's response: ruclips.net/video/3F7GW7Ro4OQ/видео.html Laura Kate Dale's protest speech outside the BBC offices: ruclips.net/video/hBjGnWkwAjI/видео.html
That’s a frequent problem I have with the whole Chibnall era. Every time he established an intriguing idea that got me thinking “ooh, where’s this going?”, the answer was almost always “nowhere.”
I feel like, at this point, that was definitely by design. I think his goal was to set up as many cool concepts as possible for other writers to pick up and run with if they choose to after. I know I'll be really sad if we never see Jo Martin's Doctor on screen again.
@@BlueSparxLPsbut it’s not your job as showrunner to set things up for future writers, it’s your job to write a compelling and complete story which chibnall actually failed at. Also, the idea of a lost incarnation isn’t unique, most kids would have had it plus Moffat did it with John hurt, it’s what you do with the idea which gives it value
@@BlueSparxLPs Kind of with Toby here. Guess we will see what happens when RTD shows us his Direction for the show... I'm Speculating that I'm not going to see the Woolly Rebellion of 2211 depicted. Disappointing...
Jo Martin instantly grabs your attention and make you want to know more about her. Her presence was amazing. I wish Jodi had that much power with her character.
For me, Jodie did have that power with her character, just in a different. Jo’s Doctor is deliberately written to be a Doctor in contrast to Jodie’s though, so they do feel different.
@@TheGeorgeD13 I don't blame Jodie but her doctor was written almost too passive. It might have been in response to how forward the past Doctor's have been. Jo's Doctor was definitely in your face and forward so I responded more to that.
As I said at the time, the most sensible place for Jo Martin's Doctor to fit was between Troughton's and Pertwee's (the one classic Regeneration we don't see all the way through). Her TARDIS is a police box, she knows what a sonic screwdriver is but doesn't expect it to have all the extra functions of the modern era, she's on the run from Time Lords who can't even conceive of the notion that Gallifrey could be threatened or destroyed, and the idea of Troughton's Doctor having further adventures as an agent of the Time Lords after "The War Games" has existed for decades at this point. An unplanned Regeneration (not the one the Time Lords sentenced him to) during that period could have neatly explain Jo Martin's Doctor. Personally, I like that placement a lot better than what they eventually did, but that's life. Things don't always happen the way we expect.
For me The Fugitive Doctor was basically everything that Thirteen wasn't - she's a more active character who actually takes initiative and fights back against her enemies, she has a more commanding and authoritative presence, she demonstrates a more intelligent and manipulative approach to taking down the bad guys, and honestly (and I do feel quite bad for saying this) I think Jo Martin is a much better actor than Jodie Whittaker. So yes, I am incredibly disappointed that we didn't really see the Fugitive Doctor again after this episode (which in turn leads to the unfortunate optics of casting the first Black female Doctor and then basically wasting them entirely), but in a strange roundabout way, I can sort of see why this was done, because any more time spent with her would lead to everyone asking why we're not following her story instead
Jo Martin’s Doctor would almost definitely be my favourite if we spent more time with her in her own series. Love how she carries herself - it’s great to see a tough Doctor every once in a while
I like her a lot on presentation, but too violent to be consistent withe the ethos of the Doctor. I don’t see the Doctor’s got to reaction as grabbing a big gun! She did get better in subsequent, if brief, appearances!
@@jayanderson9375 Agreed, and her ripping the horn off a rhino (Judoon) almost sickened me. Take those nasty/badass moments away, and I actually found her acting to be merely adequate, and nothing special.
I remembered being very excited and floored by Fugitive of the Judoon at the time. It was one thing having the Judoon come back, but to have Captain Jack return, a new unknown incarnation of the Doctor get introduced and the Cybermen's return getting foreshadowed...! All these elements did have me very excited for the rest of the series. Shame the finale didn't live up to that promise.
I never see anyone talking about how egregiously wasted the companions were this episode. I know they're usually wasted, but this one sticks out in my mind as especially unhinged. It was the first time I thought MAYBE Yaz's police training would factor into the story with the Judoon, then she's IMMEDIATELY whisked away to stand in a room while being exposited to. And not only her, but RYAN AND GRAHAM TOO LMAO. Like, why have three companions at this point if they're always going to be standing in the same room, completely still, while another character just talks to them? I completely unravel the more I think about how poorly structured this episode is.
@@DoctorTwo I WISH I could forget, but every time there's a scene where competent poli-- *AHEM* Sorry, something stuck in my throat --competent police training could be useful, I just think, "Wait, isn't Yaz a cop? Couldn't she deescalate the situation?" Donna Noble was able to solve a mystery with skills she'd picked up as a SECRETARY, Martha being a DOCTOR gave her one of the most iconic scenes in series 3! What is happening here?! Yaz's never come into play or help her solve a mystery, or if she's about to, she is immediately shafted.
My working theory on Jo’s Doctor is that she takes place between Doctors two and three. Before the second doctor was actually exiled, he performed missions for a secret organization within the Timelord government. This organization was publicly called the Celestial Intervention Agency, but I like to think it was really just a rebooted version of the division. The Doctor was partially taken out of time by the CIA the moment he was about to be thrown into exile. He is then offered to work for them in exchange for his freedom. He hesitantly agrees and is given a modified bio dampener. This will allow him to regenerate without it affecting the regeneration cycle as shown by Ruth or possibly even more not showing up during the five doctors or day of the doctor. The Doctor then goes through several bodies (aka The Morbius doctors) during his time at the CIA. Jamie and Victoria eventually leave the Tardis after the events of The Two Doctors. This leads to the events of the fan-film Devious which was pretty much confirmed by Moffat and RTD to be mostly canon. After an unknown conflict that arrises between The Doctor and the CIA, they he flees the scene, escaping exile yet again at the cost of regenerating into The Fugitive Doctor. As we know, this doctor, in a desperate attempt to hide from the CIA/Division, hides her timelord conciseness within the glass. The events of Fugitive of the Judoon play out where she escapes. However somewhere along the line, most likely during the events of Once Upon Time, the bio dampener breaks which resets the Doctor back into the Troughton similar to Time of the Doctor and Power of the Doctor. When The Doctor leaves the planet, he is caught by the timelords, his mind is wiped, and is placed back into the moment where they exile him. This then kicks off the rest of the series.
The problem with that theory is that she didn’t know what the sonic screwdriver was if the season 6b theory as people call it for this doctor was true she would know what the sonic screwdriver is cause it was introduced with patrick troughton so this theory doesn’t hold water and season 6b isn’t show cannon either but the sonic screwdriver kills the idea of her being after william hartnell no matter what head cannon we want to believe as fact
@@kevin10001 She probably didn’t recognize the Sonic Screwdriver because it had probably been hundreds of years since she had last used one. In fact, Pertwee’s Doctor (during his run) finds his in his coat pocket by mistake. He takes it out and admires it like he hasn’t used one in centuries. Also, Jodie’s screwdriver doesn’t remotely look like a sonic screwdriver. Since Jodie doesn’t mention by name, Jo Martin’s Doctor may be very well confused at what her future self is holding (considering the last screwdriver she saw was barely used much and looked like a small penlight).
Sorry but that's not gonna fly, you can't use ambiguity and mind-wiping to try to make sense of something that makes no sense. The Morbius Doctors thing was quickly abandoned by the Writers as soon as The Brain Of Morbius aired, if you want to fully commit to lining everything up that's been established then you've also got to explain how The Doctor is also half Human. I'm striking the whole Timeless Child bit from my memory and all around it since it helps make things make much more sense. In fact the whole Chibnall era is going to be treated like the 96 TV movie in my mind.
@@JAM92 To answer you question thats easy. He only said he was half human to trick to the guy at that ceremony. The Doctor has always been something of a cunning manipulator. In fact thats what he does to get through to the clock during that scene. Also to answer your other statement, this was created to eliminate the possibilities of the Doctor being the timeless child by making all these “pre Hartnell incarnations” that everyone is talking about apart of the season 6B era. I don’t understand how I used ambiguity and mind wiping to make sense out of everything. That was only used to make sure that it lines up with everything we know in the present timeline and explains why these timeless doctors aren’t around in anniversaries. I used several expanded media sources and some small creative liberties to help tie together a more linear new timeline that doesn’t negatively affect the Doctor as a character like chibnall did. Hope this bit of clarification helped
@@ShortCircuitStudios The Master also scanned the Doctor and identified him as being half human, the said too that random guy that he's half human on his mothers side, he was just some rabdom guy at that New Years eve party. The 1996 TV movie definitely says he's half Human.
I don't think the Fugitive Doctor didn't recognize the sonic, she said she was "smart enough not to need one." So I think she's similar to the Fifth Doctor, who went "hands free." Therefore I think Two regenerated into Ruth, then was forcefully degenerated, which would result in the Doctor not remembering that incarnation.
I just rewatched this episode cause I'm catching my mom up on DW (she hadn't watched since the end of Capaldi). It struck me this time that they never say anything about Lee after he gets killed. Like he was married to Ruth and they imply that he was the Doctor's companion. Why didn't she ask about him once she got her memories back? He was posing as her husband, why don't they ever circle back to that? It's just weird to have the Doctor not care about their companion in a crisis. He gets killed and no one cares.
While I’ll grant it would have been nice to get some sense of who Lee was to the Doctor, she did know he was dead. The Judoon told her that while she was still Ruth and we know timelords retain those memories. So she didnt have to ask about him.
This is the only episode of the Chibnall era that I really care for, even with what we know now, that it was a dead end. Ruth has more presence in just this one episode than Jodie did her entire run. My head canon is Ruth is between Patrick Troughton & Jon Pertwee, & that the Master is the next incarnation after Delgado.
When I first watched it, I immidiately said "Wow... this can't possibly get a payoff. Theres only 10 episodes and we're already half way through, they havent developed anything before this so why would they develop this?" I've said it a billion times, but Chibnall seems to resort to introducing another character everytime he should delve deeper into anything. We already started with Yaz, Graham, Ryan and Grace. Then every episode has at least 2 characters, sometimes 3-4, who show up with their own subplots that dont really add much (they (and the villains) often just get teleported away or are one-note arcs. They have one trait and we focus more on that than any companion only for that one trait to reverse at the end and that's it). Then when half the companions left, instead of narrowing down we got Dan, Diane, Bel, Vinder, Jericho, Swarm, Azure, Master, Time, Ashard, Ruth, old companions, Grand serpent, Jack Harkness, and they all did ... what of substance? Other than being IN THE ROOM. Wow they showed up, what a reveal. Jack Robinson was probably the only one who achieved anything, and he's an intentional caricature. His characters are extremely shallow, and yet there's a lot of them. I feel like I loved Power Of The Doctor because it embraced this superficial cameo habit, raised the white flag, dropped pretence of any story, and just embraced the flat cartoonishness of the villains.
She could work being placed between Two and Three if you made the case that the Time Lords erased the Doctor's memories of her when they became Three, and Eleven just assumed that the Stolen Earth regenation counted because he didn't know he'd regenerated an extra time.
As a slight alternative, the Time Lords could have easily just given The Doctor an additional regeneration to replace the one they've wiped the memory of. I love the Season 6B theory and I wish they'd gone that route.
@@BlueSparxLPs Considering the Doctor would've just been caught after going on the run from the Time Lords to escape a previous sentence of exile, I don't see them being generous enough to offset the extra regeneration.
The thing that I remember hearing multiple times - though I cant verify it - was that Chibnall didnt even cast her and that she hasnt been planned to be a huge part of the Arc, but was rather something Chibnall and Patel came up with fairly late and Vinay was the one doing the casting for it and only after they saw Jo Martin in the role they added her to later scripts as well. Which would kinda explain why she wasnt more in the Series 12 finale and probably off-set, which would have been the best place to have more of her. But even then, I cant wrap my head around not using her more in Flux. Flux was already so wildly different from usual Doctor Who in Format, I wouldnt have minded if they just had made the entirety of Flux a Multi-Doctor Adventure. Its not like the Fugitive Doctor didnt have any skin the game, knowing her abuasive adoptive mother and the rest of her Devision-Crew might still be out there. And its WILD that Fugitive and Karvinista never met.
Jo Martin is a great Doctor, I wish we could have gotten to see more of her instead of just this episode and some holograms/visions of her. Hope she gets a great run at Big Finish.
Spot on that looking back its impact is lessened as we now know where it went... i.e. nowhere really! The trouble with Chibnall here is that we have to really make up our own head-canon to make things fit. It really wouldnt have hurt just to throw in a line about this and that to appease the fans. For example, its clear to me (by the end of flux) that Jo Martins doctor was the final incarnation before she was genetically wiped and reset to the Hartnell body, and in so doing was stripped of her unlimited regeneration ability and started as a child with 12 as all high galifreyans are given. Making the doctor finite (in galifreyan terms) and resetting his memories was effective at 'dealing with the doctor problem'. Now, the TARDIS... yes it was anomalous being Police box shaped... and Chibnall admitted that it HAD to resemble a police box when dug up in order for that scene to have the impact it did... (not disagreeing there) but KNOWING the fans would pick up on this instantly, the onus was on him to give it a line of exposition to make sense. NOW, ive mad up my own. The doctor visited earth way before Hartnell and thats when the chameleon circuit malfunctioned and stuck as a police box. On apprehending and wiping Jo Martin.. her TARDIS was sent to the repair shop where they first reset the chameleon circuit and the TARDIS changed to the concrete toilet roll exterior.... but there is sat - too old to fix and neglected UNTIL Hartnell breaks in and steals it and in the biggest coincidence actually just steals his old one back..... then when he arrived on Earth it simply snapped back to the police box form. Easily done and an explanation like this mostly works but its good enough to fix a lot of issues people have with it.
@@cooluncle4242 I find I enjoyed it more with my little explanation - what ever we have seen can work - hell it ALL can its just made up sci fi after all!.. but we just need a quick explanation and its all good. To me, my explanation is precisely what happened and im at peace with the plot holes and can enjoy it and move on.
When you said "my brain doesn't do fan theories" on the podcast, it seems like it would be more accurate to say that your brain no longer wants to do fan theories because it has been disappointed so thoroughly in the past.
As far as where Dhawan falls in the timeline, I can kind of buy him being a regeneration after Missy. She goes thru her arc, she finally decides to stand with the Doctor, and all it gets her is her winding up killing herself (twice!). That realization could have caused the Master to have (another) psychotic break, which is what makes Dhawan's Master so on the verge of losing it all the time.
But that wouldn’t work cause John sims said he stopped the cycle so she couldn’t regenerate and he wouldn’t so he wouldn’t become someone who would stand with the doctor or he could be enturpted that he wouldn’t regenerate so he wouldn’t become female but in that scene the master died so the last version couldn’t be after missy
@@kevin10001 Unless two Masters dying at the same time caused a power surge of regenerative energy that broke the space time continuum. XD Honestly, with the Master having a knack for lying to people and surviving scenarios he should have no way of surviving even if he regenerated, I wouldn't be surprised if Simm was bluffing, or Missy found a loophole. Or the Time Lords picked up Missy, brought her to Gallifrey to regenerate into Dhawan and heal, and while the Master was there he learned about the Timeless Child, which led to him wrecking Gallifrey.
I've not seen this episode since it came out, so it was a surprise when you showed Gat on screen and I was 100% possitive that I knew her from somewhere else (when I hadn't felt that when I watched the episode initially) Google says she plays Lila Pitts in The Umbrella Academy, so that makes sense, given I hadn't seen that at the time
I know there is the whole "Tardis takes the Doctor where they need to go" trope but the Doctor only now meeting a past "unknown" incarnation right during the whole Timeless Child arc is .... infuriating. It is never justified or explained later.
Yeah, I find that odd. If the TARDIS does take the Doctor where they 100% need to be, why have they never took him/her to meet a past or future incarnation till this story 🤷🏻♂️
I don't agree that there's no way the Fugitive Doctor can't be between Troughton and Pertwee, say. For a start, her TARDIS is in the shape of a Police Box, a shape it didn't get knowingly stuck in until The Cave of Skulls. The TARDIS interior is visually reminiscent of both the Second and Third Doctors' TARDISes, and she also calls herself The Doctor, and it could be argued that the character hadn't used that title until Susan mentioned her grandfather's profession to Coal Hill School. Now, there's little evidence to back up that last point, but I certainly think it's worth mentioning. As for the Sonic Screwdriver, it didn't look like Thirteen's when the Second Doctor had it, besides which 'Ruth' had only just got her memory back. Given the Second Doctor only uses a sonic (on-screen) 4 times in 3 stories, she can be forgiven for not remembering it at that precise point. Finally, while the Doctor told Clara that 10 regenerated twice, and that that counted, I suggest it simply didn't. The Doctor knew he was on his last life, and wrongly assumed he'd wasted one. In fact, it was because of this secret, hidden incarnation he had no memory of that was the cause of his supposed demise. There are a couple of other clues to support a 6B placement. Firstly, we see Ruth fight the Judoon in Gloucester Cathedral, and the way it's shot is reminiscent of similar Third Doctor fight scenes, in particular The Curse of Peladon and The Time Warrior. Secondly, although perhaps more tenuously, when Ruth receives the message Lee, her mobile phone is at 68%. This could either be a reference to 1968, the year Troughton final season began or, more probably, signifies a 6B placement; 68 and 6B looking remarkably similar at first glance. Even taking the Timeless Child into account, having her be pre-Hartnell makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, frankly.
It's an interesting one because I don't like the fact that the first Black actor to play a version of the Doctor is a fugitive. I, for myself, refuse to refer to her as "the fugitive doctor." Rather, I call her the Division Doctor. Or, you could call her The Secret Agent Doctor. Maybe the Defence Doctor.
I think the point is that it makes doctor realize that time is catching up to her because all the past stuffs are coming back to her. She hasn't met anything in the past in S11, so once the master, jack, cyberman and her home are all coming back into her life, it makes her scared. So based on that I don't think it's purely a nostalgic bomb.
Jo Martin's Doctor being revealed as a future Doctor would have worked so much better in every way. She could have given the warning for the Lone Cyberman and Captain Jack's return wouldn't have been necessary.
I've been watching the show alongside the reviews and all the praise that Jo Martin got...idk if I expected more or if she's in more episodes down the line, but she didn't particular wow me. I guess fans tend to blow stuff out of proportion when they like stuff
This was the last episode I watched. There were all the rumors of the timeless child and them heavily implying that Jo Martin was a previous and unknown doctor that 13 forgot heavily implied that this was going to be the case so I decided I would tune out until otherwise stated. The ironic thing about that is that I felt Jo Martin would have made a better Doctor than Jody had just in that one episode alone, but because of the timeless child implications, I decided to drop it there. Now that it is no longer in Chibnall's hands, I might watch the rest of it (assuming series 1 through the present comes to Disney+).
Funny thing about Jo Martin's Doctor; probably due to her being referred AS Jo Martin's Doctor, in my head, I replace her character name, Ruth, with JO MARTIN! It's a weird thing, I know, but there you go :)
The Fugitive Doctor has continued at Big Finish I"m glad to see. I'm hoping that some of these threads left dangling may well be addressed in the future - so many story possibilities have been suggested, surely they will be explored, in an open-ended future of the show.
S12's finale acts like the TCs explain the Fugitive incarnation, but in light of her TARDIS they're independent issues, so I've always preferred a "free incarnation because reasons between 2 & 3" theory, even though it was never likely Chibnall would actually use it. Maybe it's for the best he never made canon that I'm wrong.
Jo Martin is SO AWESOME! I wish she had been the 13th Doctor. That being said, I've only seen the ep once as I just can't bring myself to re-watch Chibnall-era episodes, but I remember being puzzled about why only Ruth used the Watch. If she spends all her time with Lee (who I remember as being a Time Lord as he used to work with Gat but maybe I'm mis-remembering and he was a human companion?), doesn't that make it pretty easy to find her by just searching for a Time Lord, finding Lee, and then seeing who else is there? It's just such a dumb plan from the Time Lords' POV.
Jacks return kinda reminds me of thr return of Rose. At first just being there, amounting to something, her reintroduction noy being necesarely that important or centered on her... only difference is jack didnt amount to anything
RTD2 can ignore the Timeless Child for all I care, but I will be sad if the Fugitive Doctor doesn't get (re)used. And yes, Capt. Jack is totally wasted here.
Your review of this is pretty much dead on. For me, it's also an episode that doesn't have a lot of repeatability. Once we've seen the Martin Doctor and Captain Jack and those big surprises have been expended, the episode really doesn't have much bite.
This is an interesting episode to see revisited, as I didn't have as positive a reaction as so many people. I'd found it an episode far too focused on getting us to wonder about this big twist than actually telling a good story, rushing through moments that up the intrigue rather than telling us much about the characters or why we should care that they're involved - the big twist, then, fell rather unspectacularly for me, because it turned out this story and the big mystery were really about getting us to wonder about another big story or mystery, with little real substance to it. Even worse, the character I spent a bit of time with (that I found fine as a secondary character, but wasn't so invested into) melted away to give us another I know even less about (the past Doctor) that I didn't like too much (don't get me wrong, Jo Martin was fine...I just didn't find the performance as electric as others did, so I wasn't really blown away or impressed, though I certainly was and still am open to seeing more of her, if she can actually get a good story on screen, not in Big Finish). It didn't help that the episode doesn't do the best job confirming her as The Doctor because it's trying so hard to shroud the truth of who she is (a pre-Hartnell Doctor tied into the Timeless Child stiff) that it leaves more doubt than there should be, but also the followup further soured or ruined any interest in the character (that aspect is certainly coloured post-hoc, but I assure I'm not trying to be the "I didn't like this first" hipster, I just didn't like the episode quite as much as so many people did) and yet still gave us so little that I still can't really tell you who this Doctor is (attitude, etc.) As you mentioned, the quick end of Gat (Gatt?) was also a big fumble, almost as if Chibnall wanted to seed his big gamechanging plot without it being a big part of the show he was delivering so it was best to remove a possible recurring link. It's also interesting that my memory of Captain Jack in this episode was fuzzy at first: my mind kept going "wasn't he in this" and then I'd dismiss it, thinking "nah, must've been an adjacent episode, that doesn't fit with the story" - and I agree with that assessment, it really doesn't fit, as that is merely setup for a different storyline whose payoff was also fumbled. It feels almost like we got the "Midnight" and "Turn Left" (equivalent) episodes shoved together, with our Doctor in one story and the companions in another entirely, diminishing particularly the Doctor-focused A-plot that needed a little more breathing room. While Barrowman does capture a certain version of Captain Jack (more the earlier, pre-death Jack rather than the Torchwood or even Last of the Time Lords era), the writing is a little dull and the entire plotline seems pointless (possibly because the controversy around Barrowman meant he was shifted out of a role he was meant to fill later, perhaps Flux's Vinder is a modification of that original line).
I'm not a bad person but... Jo Martin's energy, attitude, costume and TARDIS were such an improvement that I was tempted to think "If I was the showrunner who took over from Chibnall, I'd reveal that Jo was the REAL Doctor all along and that the viewers had been following a fake Doctor played by Jodie for three series!" (I'm sorry Jodie... I PROMISE I'm not a bad person!!!)
@@tokublwhovian You're absolutely right,.. But you'd be surprised how audacious writers can be when they want to. I remember when Bobby Ewing was killed in Dallas because the actor wanted to leave the show. The ratings fell so much that he agreed to come back for the next season. So they wrote that the entire season where he was dead never actually happened and it was just a dream his wife had whilst he was in the shower!!! LOL
I still think that the ruth!doctor is actually a season 6b incarnation, because 1. the sonic screwdriver was, during troughton's era, just a screwdriver and it wouldn't be til pertwee that it became the do-it-all tool we know now, and imo it just works better with what we've seen of her, and I actually only came around to the idea of 6b because of her. but yeah she's absolutely underutilised and I want to see so much more of her!
There are any number of possible reasons Jo Martin's TARDIS looks like a police box, including that the First Doctor wasn't the first to land in Britain in 1963. That said: my chosen headcanon is that at some point her life, the Fugitive Doctor meets several of her future selves, and when she parks her TARDIS next to theirs, it blends in by looking like a police box as well-then the circuit gets stuck.
Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who reminds me of his first series/season of Broadchurch: all red-herrings… dangling threads… narrative cul-de-sacs… meandering subplots… portentous nonsense… random characters… irrelevant tangents… dead-ends… …and then it just *stops* when [SPOILER!] the killer abruptly turns themselves in. No build-up. No pay-off. No nothing. Just like the Fugitive Doctor. And the Timeless Child. Chibnall just tosses around ideas with seemingly no clue, and no interest. It’s like listening to a toddler tell a rambling story (“And then… and then… and then…”) until they get bored, distracted, or tired. Honestly, he’s just a *terrible* writer… 🤷🏼♂️
Yup, we never got any more answers and we never got more of Jo Martin's Doctor. I really thought she did a good job, and wish we had more. The episode was interesting.Jo Martin did a great job.
Agreed on the first point - Jo Martin did a good job, but that's as far as I'd go. I didn't think she was "great", at least not to the extent that warranted the gushing praise I've seen heaped on the Fugitive Doctor. When she wasn't being snarky and bad-ass (both of which are quite easy to act), I thought her performance was adequate, but no more than that.
A friend of mine who blogs about Doctor Who episodes after they aire was convinced that Captain Jack would appear again in the finale. Then in the finale, she said in the blog about it being a let down that that's not what happened.
Yeah, but jack didn't appear in the finale, he appeared in the special as the "substitute companion" instead. TBH, I remember at the time I felt like Jack was a great surprise, but he was only really there to tease his eventual reappearance, so like Vera says it was a bit of a waste just to bring him back for a couple of scenes of nostalgia hit and future episode tease.
Yeah it would of been great if Jo Martin was the next doctor after Jodie Whitaker or if we found out where she fits in the doctor timeline. And it also would be great if Captain Jack had a bigger part in the episode. And espesaly if Captain Jack would of got to see the Doctor in this episode. Yes it's still a great episode. And I blame the BBC and the pandemic and the fans for it not really going anywhere.
It’s really difficult to watch these episodes. All these epic reveals with tons of potential go absolutely nowhere. It’s hard to feel invested. The companions don’t bother to challenge the Doctor in any way like literally every other past companion does. I really do try to enjoy these stories, but CC gives us very little to work with.
I've got to be honest, this is Poor Man's Let Kill Hitler. Just IP management and bait, feels like a trailer rather than a story. I have significant issues with Fugitive as an incarnation of the Doctor -some of that is in play in the Expanded Media, and some of it is here. Phenomenal casting and Jo is doing her best but she barely has a character to work with, barely any dialogue other than "shut up." And I don't like her ripping off a Judoon's horn. Like the Judoon aren't innocent (they're police) but it's just a little too brutal for a Doctor for me except maybe War or Early Hartnell.
At the time it seemed like such a great and exciting episode, but now knowing everything afterwards, its terribly flawed because of the reasons you mentioned. The setups in the episode are just never paid off - Jo Martin's returns in later episodes are a waste, the timeless child/Division are never a satisfactory explanation to any of the questions raised, and Jack's appearance will only make sense if his character is central to the lone cyberman episodes later. All a waste. Not to mention we never (ever) find out why the fugutive doctor (in particular) is a fugutive.
Weird thing with this story, I remember all of it's follow up ideas, but I always forget this episode. I kind of feel bad for Chibnall, you can feel how much certain elements were put upon him when it came to the Revival Who formula. You put nail on the head with this era retreading old ground, whether this was Chibnall's idea or something asked of him by the higher ups, it's still a poor choice.
I've read his article, the only mention he makes of BBC interference is that they asked for one more special in the last year than he'd been planning on. What are you talking about?
@@CouncilofGeeks I don't think Chibnall was particularly subtle with his talk of Who as a 'brand', the creative freedom of past eras, BBC Studios, his reluctance to 'commit', etc. Power playing down any reference to The Timeless Child and The Master gaslighting the audience absoustly confirms he was told to back off from telling the story he wanted to tell, Fugitive's final words, the Quaruanx pretty much looking to the camera, Vinder showing up without Kavanistra, etc. It toes the official line, but it's absolutely scathing. I doubt Chibnall will ever work with the BBC again.
@@ConnorKent428 Ok, but your original comment was implying something very specific: that the BBC interfered with plans Chibnall had relating to Jo Martin in particular.
@@CouncilofGeeks Just edited my post slightly for further context (please read, this is the internet, we're all set to go), but Fugitive's final words pretty much say it all. Origins from Titan also very much confirms there was a plan set to go that was averted. Absolutely NOT the plan, especially with Fugitive being propositioned as pre-Hartnell in Flux, regardless of the official line expressed later in DWM. Very much 'don't rock the boat with these interested parties' in Who from the BBC.
Jo Martin was a proper Doctor! All she needed was a sonic and she'd be all set. It's just a shame that we never got past the Different Doctors Bickering beat in what is technically a multi Doctor episode.
Fugitive of the Judoon was the one episode that grabbed me, despite my growing dislike the Jodie's Doctor. Jo Martin's Doctor blew me away. She got me to love Dr. Who again. Typical Chibnall did nothing with it.
![DID IT SUCK? | Doctor Who [FUGITIVE OF THE JUDOON REVIEW]](/img/1.gif)
My video on the issue of the BBC's support of Transphobia: ruclips.net/video/aN4uc0HZrWE/видео.html
My video on the BBC's response to complaints of its reporting: ruclips.net/video/skh81N5lcYY/видео.html
My short on why I'll continue to put up the note at the front of these: ruclips.net/user/shortsHpwwzjzFXiE
Shaun's 1st video, which includes some additional confirmed information: ruclips.net/video/b4buJMMiwcg/видео.html
Shaun’s 2nd video, which follows how the BBC is trying to dodge accountability for all of this: ruclips.net/video/qfjTG6SVjmQ/видео.html
Shaun’s 3rd video, following him escalating his complaints: ruclips.net/video/fRn1UZ4fhdE/видео.html
Shaun's 4th video, covering the BBC's response: ruclips.net/video/3F7GW7Ro4OQ/видео.html
Laura Kate Dale's protest speech outside the BBC offices: ruclips.net/video/hBjGnWkwAjI/видео.html
That’s a frequent problem I have with the whole Chibnall era. Every time he established an intriguing idea that got me thinking “ooh, where’s this going?”, the answer was almost always “nowhere.”
I feel like, at this point, that was definitely by design. I think his goal was to set up as many cool concepts as possible for other writers to pick up and run with if they choose to after. I know I'll be really sad if we never see Jo Martin's Doctor on screen again.
@@BlueSparxLPs But Chibnall basically had writing credits on virtually the entire era... So he is one one that didn't pick up those threads.
@@lgoamity I don't understand what you mean. I'm referring to future showrunners, not writers within his own era.
@@BlueSparxLPsbut it’s not your job as showrunner to set things up for future writers, it’s your job to write a compelling and complete story which chibnall actually failed at. Also, the idea of a lost incarnation isn’t unique, most kids would have had it plus Moffat did it with John hurt, it’s what you do with the idea which gives it value
@@BlueSparxLPs Kind of with Toby here.
Guess we will see what happens when RTD shows us his Direction for the show... I'm Speculating that I'm not going to see the Woolly Rebellion of 2211 depicted. Disappointing...
Jo Martin instantly grabs your attention and make you want to know more about her. Her presence was amazing. I wish Jodi had that much power with her character.
In every one of her appearances in Doctor Who she felt more like the Doctor than Jodie EVER did🤣
For me, Jodie did have that power with her character, just in a different. Jo’s Doctor is deliberately written to be a Doctor in contrast to Jodie’s though, so they do feel different.
@@TheGeorgeD13 I don't blame Jodie but her doctor was written almost too passive. It might have been in response to how forward the past Doctor's have been. Jo's Doctor was definitely in your face and forward so I responded more to that.
As I said at the time, the most sensible place for Jo Martin's Doctor to fit was between Troughton's and Pertwee's (the one classic Regeneration we don't see all the way through). Her TARDIS is a police box, she knows what a sonic screwdriver is but doesn't expect it to have all the extra functions of the modern era, she's on the run from Time Lords who can't even conceive of the notion that Gallifrey could be threatened or destroyed, and the idea of Troughton's Doctor having further adventures as an agent of the Time Lords after "The War Games" has existed for decades at this point. An unplanned Regeneration (not the one the Time Lords sentenced him to) during that period could have neatly explain Jo Martin's Doctor.
Personally, I like that placement a lot better than what they eventually did, but that's life. Things don't always happen the way we expect.
I still see it that way, I really don’t think it’s been contradicted
For me The Fugitive Doctor was basically everything that Thirteen wasn't - she's a more active character who actually takes initiative and fights back against her enemies, she has a more commanding and authoritative presence, she demonstrates a more intelligent and manipulative approach to taking down the bad guys, and honestly (and I do feel quite bad for saying this) I think Jo Martin is a much better actor than Jodie Whittaker. So yes, I am incredibly disappointed that we didn't really see the Fugitive Doctor again after this episode (which in turn leads to the unfortunate optics of casting the first Black female Doctor and then basically wasting them entirely), but in a strange roundabout way, I can sort of see why this was done, because any more time spent with her would lead to everyone asking why we're not following her story instead
Jo Martin’s Doctor would almost definitely be my favourite if we spent more time with her in her own series.
Love how she carries herself - it’s great to see a tough Doctor every once in a while
I believe Big Finish has said they intend to give Jo Martin a series.
@@mxrichardsonsneighbourhood5402 Rather it was on screen, as many don’t listen to audios or can’t.
I like her a lot on presentation, but too violent to be consistent withe the ethos of the Doctor. I don’t see the Doctor’s got to reaction as grabbing a big gun!
She did get better in subsequent, if brief, appearances!
@@jayanderson9375 Agreed, and her ripping the horn off a rhino (Judoon) almost sickened me. Take those nasty/badass moments away, and I actually found her acting to be merely adequate, and nothing special.
@@ftumschk I wouldn’t go quite that far, she had a certain, Presence. Totally agreed on the nose ripping
I remembered being very excited and floored by Fugitive of the Judoon at the time. It was one thing having the Judoon come back, but to have Captain Jack return, a new unknown incarnation of the Doctor get introduced and the Cybermen's return getting foreshadowed...! All these elements did have me very excited for the rest of the series. Shame the finale didn't live up to that promise.
I never see anyone talking about how egregiously wasted the companions were this episode. I know they're usually wasted, but this one sticks out in my mind as especially unhinged. It was the first time I thought MAYBE Yaz's police training would factor into the story with the Judoon, then she's IMMEDIATELY whisked away to stand in a room while being exposited to. And not only her, but RYAN AND GRAHAM TOO LMAO. Like, why have three companions at this point if they're always going to be standing in the same room, completely still, while another character just talks to them? I completely unravel the more I think about how poorly structured this episode is.
@@DoctorTwo I WISH I could forget, but every time there's a scene where competent poli-- *AHEM* Sorry, something stuck in my throat --competent police training could be useful, I just think, "Wait, isn't Yaz a cop? Couldn't she deescalate the situation?" Donna Noble was able to solve a mystery with skills she'd picked up as a SECRETARY, Martha being a DOCTOR gave her one of the most iconic scenes in series 3! What is happening here?! Yaz's never come into play or help her solve a mystery, or if she's about to, she is immediately shafted.
I absolutely LOVE Jo Martin as The Doctor. She IS the doctor in every wonderful way. Sigh. I miss her.
My working theory on Jo’s Doctor is that she takes place between Doctors two and three. Before the second doctor was actually exiled, he performed missions for a secret organization within the Timelord government. This organization was publicly called the Celestial Intervention Agency, but I like to think it was really just a rebooted version of the division. The Doctor was partially taken out of time by the CIA the moment he was about to be thrown into exile. He is then offered to work for them in exchange for his freedom. He hesitantly agrees and is given a modified bio dampener. This will allow him to regenerate without it affecting the regeneration cycle as shown by Ruth or possibly even more not showing up during the five doctors or day of the doctor. The Doctor then goes through several bodies (aka The Morbius doctors) during his time at the CIA. Jamie and Victoria eventually leave the Tardis after the events of The Two Doctors. This leads to the events of the fan-film Devious which was pretty much confirmed by Moffat and RTD to be mostly canon. After an unknown conflict that arrises between The Doctor and the CIA, they he flees the scene, escaping exile yet again at the cost of regenerating into The Fugitive Doctor. As we know, this doctor, in a desperate attempt to hide from the CIA/Division, hides her timelord conciseness within the glass. The events of Fugitive of the Judoon play out where she escapes. However somewhere along the line, most likely during the events of Once Upon Time, the bio dampener breaks which resets the Doctor back into the Troughton similar to Time of the Doctor and Power of the Doctor. When The Doctor leaves the planet, he is caught by the timelords, his mind is wiped, and is placed back into the moment where they exile him. This then kicks off the rest of the series.
The problem with that theory is that she didn’t know what the sonic screwdriver was if the season 6b theory as people call it for this doctor was true she would know what the sonic screwdriver is cause it was introduced with patrick troughton so this theory doesn’t hold water and season 6b isn’t show cannon either but the sonic screwdriver kills the idea of her being after william hartnell no matter what head cannon we want to believe as fact
@@kevin10001 She probably didn’t recognize the Sonic Screwdriver because it had probably been hundreds of years since she had last used one. In fact, Pertwee’s Doctor (during his run) finds his in his coat pocket by mistake. He takes it out and admires it like he hasn’t used one in centuries. Also, Jodie’s screwdriver doesn’t remotely look like a sonic screwdriver. Since Jodie doesn’t mention by name, Jo Martin’s Doctor may be very well confused at what her future self is holding (considering the last screwdriver she saw was barely used much and looked like a small penlight).
Sorry but that's not gonna fly, you can't use ambiguity and mind-wiping to try to make sense of something that makes no sense.
The Morbius Doctors thing was quickly abandoned by the Writers as soon as The Brain Of Morbius aired, if you want to fully commit to lining everything up that's been established then you've also got to explain how The Doctor is also half Human.
I'm striking the whole Timeless Child bit from my memory and all around it since it helps make things make much more sense.
In fact the whole Chibnall era is going to be treated like the 96 TV movie in my mind.
@@JAM92 To answer you question thats easy. He only said he was half human to trick to the guy at that ceremony. The Doctor has always been something of a cunning manipulator. In fact thats what he does to get through to the clock during that scene. Also to answer your other statement, this was created to eliminate the possibilities of the Doctor being the timeless child by making all these “pre Hartnell incarnations” that everyone is talking about apart of the season 6B era. I don’t understand how I used ambiguity and mind wiping to make sense out of everything. That was only used to make sure that it lines up with everything we know in the present timeline and explains why these timeless doctors aren’t around in anniversaries. I used several expanded media sources and some small creative liberties to help tie together a more linear new timeline that doesn’t negatively affect the Doctor as a character like chibnall did.
Hope this bit of clarification helped
@@ShortCircuitStudios The Master also scanned the Doctor and identified him as being half human, the said too that random guy that he's half human on his mothers side, he was just some rabdom guy at that New Years eve party.
The 1996 TV movie definitely says he's half Human.
I don't think the Fugitive Doctor didn't recognize the sonic, she said she was "smart enough not to need one." So I think she's similar to the Fifth Doctor, who went "hands free." Therefore I think Two regenerated into Ruth, then was forcefully degenerated, which would result in the Doctor not remembering that incarnation.
That’s how I see it!
I just rewatched this episode cause I'm catching my mom up on DW (she hadn't watched since the end of Capaldi). It struck me this time that they never say anything about Lee after he gets killed.
Like he was married to Ruth and they imply that he was the Doctor's companion. Why didn't she ask about him once she got her memories back? He was posing as her husband, why don't they ever circle back to that?
It's just weird to have the Doctor not care about their companion in a crisis. He gets killed and no one cares.
While I’ll grant it would have been nice to get some sense of who Lee was to the Doctor, she did know he was dead. The Judoon told her that while she was still Ruth and we know timelords retain those memories. So she didnt have to ask about him.
This is the only episode of the Chibnall era that I really care for, even with what we know now, that it was a dead end. Ruth has more presence in just this one episode than Jodie did her entire run.
My head canon is Ruth is between Patrick Troughton & Jon Pertwee, & that the Master is the next incarnation after Delgado.
When I first watched it, I immidiately said "Wow... this can't possibly get a payoff. Theres only 10 episodes and we're already half way through, they havent developed anything before this so why would they develop this?"
I've said it a billion times, but Chibnall seems to resort to introducing another character everytime he should delve deeper into anything. We already started with Yaz, Graham, Ryan and Grace. Then every episode has at least 2 characters, sometimes 3-4, who show up with their own subplots that dont really add much (they (and the villains) often just get teleported away or are one-note arcs. They have one trait and we focus more on that than any companion only for that one trait to reverse at the end and that's it). Then when half the companions left, instead of narrowing down we got Dan, Diane, Bel, Vinder, Jericho, Swarm, Azure, Master, Time, Ashard, Ruth, old companions, Grand serpent, Jack Harkness, and they all did ... what of substance? Other than being IN THE ROOM. Wow they showed up, what a reveal. Jack Robinson was probably the only one who achieved anything, and he's an intentional caricature.
His characters are extremely shallow, and yet there's a lot of them.
I feel like I loved Power Of The Doctor because it embraced this superficial cameo habit, raised the white flag, dropped pretence of any story, and just embraced the flat cartoonishness of the villains.
She could work being placed between Two and Three if you made the case that the Time Lords erased the Doctor's memories of her when they became Three, and Eleven just assumed that the Stolen Earth regenation counted because he didn't know he'd regenerated an extra time.
As a slight alternative, the Time Lords could have easily just given The Doctor an additional regeneration to replace the one they've wiped the memory of. I love the Season 6B theory and I wish they'd gone that route.
@@BlueSparxLPs Considering the Doctor would've just been caught after going on the run from the Time Lords to escape a previous sentence of exile, I don't see them being generous enough to offset the extra regeneration.
I wish Jo Martin could be cast as the 16th Doctor and all the Timeless Child bs was retconned somehow.
The thing that I remember hearing multiple times - though I cant verify it - was that Chibnall didnt even cast her and that she hasnt been planned to be a huge part of the Arc, but was rather something Chibnall and Patel came up with fairly late and Vinay was the one doing the casting for it and only after they saw Jo Martin in the role they added her to later scripts as well.
Which would kinda explain why she wasnt more in the Series 12 finale and probably off-set, which would have been the best place to have more of her. But even then, I cant wrap my head around not using her more in Flux.
Flux was already so wildly different from usual Doctor Who in Format, I wouldnt have minded if they just had made the entirety of Flux a Multi-Doctor Adventure. Its not like the Fugitive Doctor didnt have any skin the game, knowing her abuasive adoptive mother and the rest of her Devision-Crew might still be out there. And its WILD that Fugitive and Karvinista never met.
Jo Martin is a great Doctor, I wish we could have gotten to see more of her instead of just this episode and some holograms/visions of her. Hope she gets a great run at Big Finish.
Any positive element was ruined by the oncoming timeless child disaster.
Spot on that looking back its impact is lessened as we now know where it went... i.e. nowhere really!
The trouble with Chibnall here is that we have to really make up our own head-canon to make things fit. It really wouldnt have hurt just to throw in a line about this and that to appease the fans.
For example, its clear to me (by the end of flux) that Jo Martins doctor was the final incarnation before she was genetically wiped and reset to the Hartnell body, and in so doing was stripped of her unlimited regeneration ability and started as a child with 12 as all high galifreyans are given. Making the doctor finite (in galifreyan terms) and resetting his memories was effective at 'dealing with the doctor problem'.
Now, the TARDIS... yes it was anomalous being Police box shaped... and Chibnall admitted that it HAD to resemble a police box when dug up in order for that scene to have the impact it did... (not disagreeing there) but KNOWING the fans would pick up on this instantly, the onus was on him to give it a line of exposition to make sense.
NOW, ive mad up my own. The doctor visited earth way before Hartnell and thats when the chameleon circuit malfunctioned and stuck as a police box. On apprehending and wiping Jo Martin.. her TARDIS was sent to the repair shop where they first reset the chameleon circuit and the TARDIS changed to the concrete toilet roll exterior.... but there is sat - too old to fix and neglected UNTIL Hartnell breaks in and steals it and in the biggest coincidence actually just steals his old one back..... then when he arrived on Earth it simply snapped back to the police box form.
Easily done and an explanation like this mostly works but its good enough to fix a lot of issues people have with it.
Nice head cannon. 👍
That actually works pretty well and probably better than anything Chibnall could manage
@@cooluncle4242 I find I enjoyed it more with my little explanation - what ever we have seen can work - hell it ALL can its just made up sci fi after all!.. but we just need a quick explanation and its all good.
To me, my explanation is precisely what happened and im at peace with the plot holes and can enjoy it and move on.
When you said "my brain doesn't do fan theories" on the podcast, it seems like it would be more accurate to say that your brain no longer wants to do fan theories because it has been disappointed so thoroughly in the past.
I generally agree. I hope to see more of the Fugitive Doctor, because we haven't gotten enough as of now
Jo Martin was a-mazing as the Doctor, and too bad she wasn't the next doctor!
As far as where Dhawan falls in the timeline, I can kind of buy him being a regeneration after Missy. She goes thru her arc, she finally decides to stand with the Doctor, and all it gets her is her winding up killing herself (twice!). That realization could have caused the Master to have (another) psychotic break, which is what makes Dhawan's Master so on the verge of losing it all the time.
But that wouldn’t work cause John sims said he stopped the cycle so she couldn’t regenerate and he wouldn’t so he wouldn’t become someone who would stand with the doctor or he could be enturpted that he wouldn’t regenerate so he wouldn’t become female but in that scene the master died so the last version couldn’t be after missy
@@kevin10001 Unless two Masters dying at the same time caused a power surge of regenerative energy that broke the space time continuum.
XD Honestly, with the Master having a knack for lying to people and surviving scenarios he should have no way of surviving even if he regenerated, I wouldn't be surprised if Simm was bluffing, or Missy found a loophole.
Or the Time Lords picked up Missy, brought her to Gallifrey to regenerate into Dhawan and heal, and while the Master was there he learned about the Timeless Child, which led to him wrecking Gallifrey.
I've not seen this episode since it came out, so it was a surprise when you showed Gat on screen and I was 100% possitive that I knew her from somewhere else (when I hadn't felt that when I watched the episode initially)
Google says she plays Lila Pitts in The Umbrella Academy, so that makes sense, given I hadn't seen that at the time
I know there is the whole "Tardis takes the Doctor where they need to go" trope but the Doctor only now meeting a past "unknown" incarnation right during the whole Timeless Child arc is .... infuriating. It is never justified or explained later.
Yeah, I find that odd. If the TARDIS does take the Doctor where they 100% need to be, why have they never took him/her to meet a past or future incarnation till this story 🤷🏻♂️
I don't agree that there's no way the Fugitive Doctor can't be between Troughton and Pertwee, say. For a start, her TARDIS is in the shape of a Police Box, a shape it didn't get knowingly stuck in until The Cave of Skulls. The TARDIS interior is visually reminiscent of both the Second and Third Doctors' TARDISes, and she also calls herself The Doctor, and it could be argued that the character hadn't used that title until Susan mentioned her grandfather's profession to Coal Hill School. Now, there's little evidence to back up that last point, but I certainly think it's worth mentioning.
As for the Sonic Screwdriver, it didn't look like Thirteen's when the Second Doctor had it, besides which 'Ruth' had only just got her memory back. Given the Second Doctor only uses a sonic (on-screen) 4 times in 3 stories, she can be forgiven for not remembering it at that precise point.
Finally, while the Doctor told Clara that 10 regenerated twice, and that that counted, I suggest it simply didn't. The Doctor knew he was on his last life, and wrongly assumed he'd wasted one. In fact, it was because of this secret, hidden incarnation he had no memory of that was the cause of his supposed demise.
There are a couple of other clues to support a 6B placement. Firstly, we see Ruth fight the Judoon in Gloucester Cathedral, and the way it's shot is reminiscent of similar Third Doctor fight scenes, in particular The Curse of Peladon and The Time Warrior. Secondly, although perhaps more tenuously, when Ruth receives the message Lee, her mobile phone is at 68%. This could either be a reference to 1968, the year Troughton final season began or, more probably, signifies a 6B placement; 68 and 6B looking remarkably similar at first glance. Even taking the Timeless Child into account, having her be pre-Hartnell makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, frankly.
It's an interesting one because I don't like the fact that the first Black actor to play a version of the Doctor is a fugitive. I, for myself, refuse to refer to her as "the fugitive doctor." Rather, I call her the Division Doctor. Or, you could call her The Secret Agent Doctor. Maybe the Defence Doctor.
I think the point is that it makes doctor realize that time is catching up to her because all the past stuffs are coming back to her. She hasn't met anything in the past in S11, so once the master, jack, cyberman and her home are all coming back into her life, it makes her scared. So based on that I don't think it's purely a nostalgic bomb.
Jo Martin's Doctor being revealed as a future Doctor would have worked so much better in every way. She could have given the warning for the Lone Cyberman and Captain Jack's return wouldn't have been necessary.
I've been watching the show alongside the reviews and all the praise that Jo Martin got...idk if I expected more or if she's in more episodes down the line, but she didn't particular wow me. I guess fans tend to blow stuff out of proportion when they like stuff
This was the last episode I watched. There were all the rumors of the timeless child and them heavily implying that Jo Martin was a previous and unknown doctor that 13 forgot heavily implied that this was going to be the case so I decided I would tune out until otherwise stated.
The ironic thing about that is that I felt Jo Martin would have made a better Doctor than Jody had just in that one episode alone, but because of the timeless child implications, I decided to drop it there.
Now that it is no longer in Chibnall's hands, I might watch the rest of it (assuming series 1 through the present comes to Disney+).
As long as you keep your head in the sand you can imagine it any way you’d want!😎
Funny thing about Jo Martin's Doctor; probably due to her being referred AS Jo Martin's Doctor, in my head, I replace her character name, Ruth, with JO MARTIN! It's a weird thing, I know, but there you go :)
I think of her as “Doctor Ruth,” or Doc Martin”!
The Fugitive Doctor has continued at Big Finish I"m glad to see. I'm hoping that some of these threads left dangling may well be addressed in the future - so many story possibilities have been suggested, surely they will be explored, in an open-ended future of the show.
S12's finale acts like the TCs explain the Fugitive incarnation, but in light of her TARDIS they're independent issues, so I've always preferred a "free incarnation because reasons between 2 & 3" theory, even though it was never likely Chibnall would actually use it. Maybe it's for the best he never made canon that I'm wrong.
5th Doctor Era was 1980 to 1984.....the Master (Tony Ainsley) used the Tissue Compressor more than once in that time frame
Jo Martin is SO AWESOME! I wish she had been the 13th Doctor.
That being said, I've only seen the ep once as I just can't bring myself to re-watch Chibnall-era episodes, but I remember being puzzled about why only Ruth used the Watch. If she spends all her time with Lee (who I remember as being a Time Lord as he used to work with Gat but maybe I'm mis-remembering and he was a human companion?), doesn't that make it pretty easy to find her by just searching for a Time Lord, finding Lee, and then seeing who else is there? It's just such a dumb plan from the Time Lords' POV.
Jacks return kinda reminds me of thr return of Rose. At first just being there, amounting to something, her reintroduction noy being necesarely that important or centered on her... only difference is jack didnt amount to anything
RTD2 can ignore the Timeless Child for all I care, but I will be sad if the Fugitive Doctor doesn't get (re)used.
And yes, Capt. Jack is totally wasted here.
Your review of this is pretty much dead on. For me, it's also an episode that doesn't have a lot of repeatability. Once we've seen the Martin Doctor and Captain Jack and those big surprises have been expended, the episode really doesn't have much bite.
This is an interesting episode to see revisited, as I didn't have as positive a reaction as so many people. I'd found it an episode far too focused on getting us to wonder about this big twist than actually telling a good story, rushing through moments that up the intrigue rather than telling us much about the characters or why we should care that they're involved - the big twist, then, fell rather unspectacularly for me, because it turned out this story and the big mystery were really about getting us to wonder about another big story or mystery, with little real substance to it. Even worse, the character I spent a bit of time with (that I found fine as a secondary character, but wasn't so invested into) melted away to give us another I know even less about (the past Doctor) that I didn't like too much (don't get me wrong, Jo Martin was fine...I just didn't find the performance as electric as others did, so I wasn't really blown away or impressed, though I certainly was and still am open to seeing more of her, if she can actually get a good story on screen, not in Big Finish). It didn't help that the episode doesn't do the best job confirming her as The Doctor because it's trying so hard to shroud the truth of who she is (a pre-Hartnell Doctor tied into the Timeless Child stiff) that it leaves more doubt than there should be, but also the followup further soured or ruined any interest in the character (that aspect is certainly coloured post-hoc, but I assure I'm not trying to be the "I didn't like this first" hipster, I just didn't like the episode quite as much as so many people did) and yet still gave us so little that I still can't really tell you who this Doctor is (attitude, etc.) As you mentioned, the quick end of Gat (Gatt?) was also a big fumble, almost as if Chibnall wanted to seed his big gamechanging plot without it being a big part of the show he was delivering so it was best to remove a possible recurring link.
It's also interesting that my memory of Captain Jack in this episode was fuzzy at first: my mind kept going "wasn't he in this" and then I'd dismiss it, thinking "nah, must've been an adjacent episode, that doesn't fit with the story" - and I agree with that assessment, it really doesn't fit, as that is merely setup for a different storyline whose payoff was also fumbled. It feels almost like we got the "Midnight" and "Turn Left" (equivalent) episodes shoved together, with our Doctor in one story and the companions in another entirely, diminishing particularly the Doctor-focused A-plot that needed a little more breathing room. While Barrowman does capture a certain version of Captain Jack (more the earlier, pre-death Jack rather than the Torchwood or even Last of the Time Lords era), the writing is a little dull and the entire plotline seems pointless (possibly because the controversy around Barrowman meant he was shifted out of a role he was meant to fill later, perhaps Flux's Vinder is a modification of that original line).
Your picture with Jo looks so cool!
I'm not a bad person but... Jo Martin's energy, attitude, costume and TARDIS were such an improvement that I was tempted to think "If I was the showrunner who took over from Chibnall, I'd reveal that Jo was the REAL Doctor all along and that the viewers had been following a fake Doctor played by Jodie for three series!" (I'm sorry Jodie... I PROMISE I'm not a bad person!!!)
How would that work? because we see 12/Capaldi regenerate into her. Well, just the eyes.
@@tokublwhovian You're absolutely right,.. But you'd be surprised how audacious writers can be when they want to. I remember when Bobby Ewing was killed in Dallas because the actor wanted to leave the show. The ratings fell so much that he agreed to come back for the next season. So they wrote that the entire season where he was dead never actually happened and it was just a dream his wife had whilst he was in the shower!!! LOL
I still think that the ruth!doctor is actually a season 6b incarnation, because 1. the sonic screwdriver was, during troughton's era, just a screwdriver and it wouldn't be til pertwee that it became the do-it-all tool we know now, and imo it just works better with what we've seen of her, and I actually only came around to the idea of 6b because of her. but yeah she's absolutely underutilised and I want to see so much more of her!
There are any number of possible reasons Jo Martin's TARDIS looks like a police box, including that the First Doctor wasn't the first to land in Britain in 1963.
That said: my chosen headcanon is that at some point her life, the Fugitive Doctor meets several of her future selves, and when she parks her TARDIS next to theirs, it blends in by looking like a police box as well-then the circuit gets stuck.
Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who reminds me of his first series/season of Broadchurch: all red-herrings… dangling threads… narrative cul-de-sacs… meandering subplots… portentous nonsense… random characters… irrelevant tangents… dead-ends…
…and then it just *stops* when [SPOILER!] the killer abruptly turns themselves in. No build-up. No pay-off. No nothing.
Just like the Fugitive Doctor. And the Timeless Child.
Chibnall just tosses around ideas with seemingly no clue, and no interest. It’s like listening to a toddler tell a rambling story (“And then… and then… and then…”) until they get bored, distracted, or tired.
Honestly, he’s just a *terrible* writer… 🤷🏼♂️
Why’s Broadchurch and the first two series of Torchwood (written by Chibnall) raved about, if he’s a bad writer?
Goodness, the changes in pace in this episode is enough for someone to have whiplash...
Yup, we never got any more answers and we never got more of Jo Martin's Doctor. I really thought she did a good job, and wish we had more. The episode was interesting.Jo Martin did a great job.
Agreed on the first point - Jo Martin did a good job, but that's as far as I'd go. I didn't think she was "great", at least not to the extent that warranted the gushing praise I've seen heaped on the Fugitive Doctor. When she wasn't being snarky and bad-ass (both of which are quite easy to act), I thought her performance was adequate, but no more than that.
A friend of mine who blogs about Doctor Who episodes after they aire was convinced that Captain Jack would appear again in the finale. Then in the finale, she said in the blog about it being a let down that that's not what happened.
Yeah, but jack didn't appear in the finale, he appeared in the special as the "substitute companion" instead. TBH, I remember at the time I felt like Jack was a great surprise, but he was only really there to tease his eventual reappearance, so like Vera says it was a bit of a waste just to bring him back for a couple of scenes of nostalgia hit and future episode tease.
Yeah it would of been great if Jo Martin was the next doctor after Jodie Whitaker or if we found out where she fits in the doctor timeline. And it also would be great if Captain Jack had a bigger part in the episode. And espesaly if Captain Jack would of got to see the Doctor in this episode. Yes it's still a great episode. And I blame the BBC and the pandemic and the fans for it not really going anywhere.
It’s really difficult to watch these episodes. All these epic reveals with tons of potential go absolutely nowhere. It’s hard to feel invested. The companions don’t bother to challenge the Doctor in any way like literally every other past companion does. I really do try to enjoy these stories, but CC gives us very little to work with.
I've got to be honest, this is Poor Man's Let Kill Hitler. Just IP management and bait, feels like a trailer rather than a story.
I have significant issues with Fugitive as an incarnation of the Doctor -some of that is in play in the Expanded Media, and some of it is here. Phenomenal casting and Jo is doing her best but she barely has a character to work with, barely any dialogue other than "shut up." And I don't like her ripping off a Judoon's horn. Like the Judoon aren't innocent (they're police) but it's just a little too brutal for a Doctor for me except maybe War or Early Hartnell.
I want more of Jo Martin if I don’t get it I just hope she got paid a nice chunk
Agree wholeheartedly!
Still, on the plus side. The best looking Tardis of Nu Who. If only glimpsed far too briefly.
The police box does not need to be explained.
I think 'partially sighted' was the term you were reaching for, lol.
I'm on the fence on this story, what I didn't expect to age badly was my love and respect for Captain Jack and John Barrowman.
At the time it seemed like such a great and exciting episode, but now knowing everything afterwards, its terribly flawed because of the reasons you mentioned. The setups in the episode are just never paid off - Jo Martin's returns in later episodes are a waste, the timeless child/Division are never a satisfactory explanation to any of the questions raised, and Jack's appearance will only make sense if his character is central to the lone cyberman episodes later. All a waste. Not to mention we never (ever) find out why the fugutive doctor (in particular) is a fugutive.
I loved this episode it is one of my favourites from Jodies era and best in my opinion
My favourite episode of the chibnall run.
Weird thing with this story, I remember all of it's follow up ideas, but I always forget this episode. I kind of feel bad for Chibnall, you can feel how much certain elements were put upon him when it came to the Revival Who formula. You put nail on the head with this era retreading old ground, whether this was Chibnall's idea or something asked of him by the higher ups, it's still a poor choice.
It didn't go anywhere because of BBC interference. Chibnall was blatant about it in Doctor Who Magazine #568.
I've read his article, the only mention he makes of BBC interference is that they asked for one more special in the last year than he'd been planning on. What are you talking about?
@@CouncilofGeeks I don't think Chibnall was particularly subtle with his talk of Who as a 'brand', the creative freedom of past eras, BBC Studios, his reluctance to 'commit', etc. Power playing down any reference to The Timeless Child and The Master gaslighting the audience absoustly confirms he was told to back off from telling the story he wanted to tell, Fugitive's final words, the Quaruanx pretty much looking to the camera, Vinder showing up without Kavanistra, etc.
It toes the official line, but it's absolutely scathing. I doubt Chibnall will ever work with the BBC again.
@@ConnorKent428 Ok, but your original comment was implying something very specific: that the BBC interfered with plans Chibnall had relating to Jo Martin in particular.
@@CouncilofGeeks Just edited my post slightly for further context (please read, this is the internet, we're all set to go), but Fugitive's final words pretty much say it all. Origins from Titan also very much confirms there was a plan set to go that was averted.
Absolutely NOT the plan, especially with Fugitive being propositioned as pre-Hartnell in Flux, regardless of the official line expressed later in DWM. Very much 'don't rock the boat with these interested parties' in Who from the BBC.
As bias as this is, I only really like this episode because it's based in my home city 😅😅
Still one of my favourites, I feel like S12 should’ve been cut down to 6 episodes. So there’s no filler, just the arc-relevant ones.
Yeah thanks Chibnall 😒
Jo Martin was a proper Doctor!
All she needed was a sonic and she'd be all set.
It's just a shame that we never got past the Different Doctors Bickering beat in what is technically a multi Doctor episode.
"Ruth" is a better Chameleon Arch Doctor than "John Smith"
I don't really like The Fugitive Doctor especially cause she makes no sense in the Doctors timeline even with the timeless child stuff
Fugitive of the Judoon was the one episode that grabbed me, despite my growing dislike the Jodie's Doctor. Jo Martin's Doctor blew me away. She got me to love Dr. Who again. Typical Chibnall did nothing with it.