An Hour of Who a Day

August 26: "Demons of the Punjab"

Finally, a chance to (ostensibly) bring Yaz front and center to the proceedings. "Demons of the Punjab" focuses on her family, with her wanting to know more about a broken watch her grandmother gave her that Nani Umbreen wouldn't talk about -- and since her friend has a time machine, why not look back to see what happened? And so after some warnings about not interfering with history, the TARDIS tracks the watch back in time -- not to 1950s Lahore, as Yaz expected, but instead to the Punjab on 17 August 1947: the day the borders dividing India and Pakistan were announced. And Umbreen lives right on the border, ready to marry a Hindu man who isn't Yaz's grandfather...

"Demons of the Punjab" is the second episode of Doctor Who to be written by a person of color: in this case, it's Vinay Patel (getting sole writing credit -- the first time this series), covering a piece of history that, here in the United States at least, we know almost nothing about: the Partition of India, dividing British India into current-day India and Pakistan. It was a time of intense turmoil and bloodshed as people moved between the Hindu-majority India and the Muslim-majority Pakistan, with lots of sectarian violence and large-scale displacement of people. So in some regards we're once again continuing the educational theme, shining a light on parts of history. And, somewhat surprisingly, this is the first time (televised) Doctor Who has visited India -- or really even mentioned it, other than some stuff in the future (such as in Chibnall's own "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", or the weird Indo-Japan thing from "Sleep No More"). Except we're actually in Spain instead of India, but it looks, to my untrained eye at least, like a reasonable facsimile of the Punjab. And while there are some aliens present, they're more of a red herring: the Thijarians are initially presented as enemies, but they're shown to be strictly observers -- they're not trying to change history or conquer the planet or anything like that. So consequently, despite the aliens, this feels like the closest we're going to get to a pure historical in this day and age. (Confession time: I would absolutely love to see a pure historical again, with no aliens or time travellers beyond the TARDIS team in the episode. Come on, Chris Chibnall, make it happen!)

The Doctor marries Prem and Umbreen. ("Demons of the Punjab") ©BBC

The main focus of the story is the tensions between the families of Umbreen and her fiancé Prem. We're only shown Umbreen's mother, who keeps worrying that their marriage is cursed, while Prem's little brother Manish is shown to be an ultra-nationalist, one who's happy to move all the Muslims to Pakistan -- even the ones like Umbreen who've lived next to him for decades, and who will soon be his in-laws. "Don't marry tomorrow," Manish tells Prem. "You can't live together here. India's not her home now." "India's a home to all of us. We didn't change when a line was drawn," Prem replies. "But we did," Manish insists. Manish's prejudices still have an unfortunate resonance today, with nationalism and its problems on the rise, and it makes the piece more effective, because it's not a problem the Doctor can solve with a sonic screwdriver. And by choosing to focus on, essentially, an ordinary couple located on the border and caught up in events, Patel makes the history come alive in a real, tragic way, with a family torn apart first by differing opinions, and then by prejudice, and ultimately by violence, with Manish leading soldiers to their land in order to deal with Prem and his new family.

It's not all dark, though; Amita Suman (as Umbreen) and Shane Zaza (as Prem) do a great job of showing their characters' affection for each other, and the interactions with the others, before it all goes sour, are quite nice as well. I also like Graham's little speech, after Yaz gets upset that her nan never told her any of this: "Yeah, but maybe she just didn't want to tell you everything, you know. The woman's allowed to have secrets, even from her granddaughter. ... And I honestly don't know whether any of us know the real truth of our own lives, 'cos we're too busy living them from the inside." Really, if there's any complaint to be had, it's that despite the focus on Yaz's family, it still feels like maybe we're getting shortchanged a touch in learning more about Yaz herself. None of this is meant as a slight against Mandip Gill, mind, who's wonderful in the role of Yaz; it's more directed at the general trend of the writing this season. I guess this is just a way of saying give us more Yaz!

Now I said earlier that the aliens were a bit of a red herring, but that's not strictly true; while it is the case that they're initially shown to be sinister before being revealed as witnesses to those who would otherwise die alone, in some ways that's the theme of the episode. The Doctor and her companions (and, through them, the audience) are present to also bear witness to these events, to put a human face on the cost of Partition. Because it's not like the Doctor or her friends have any significant bearing on events here; they can't stop Prem's death, they can't change Manish's mind... the most they can do is to observe and to remember, just as the Thijarians are doing. But sometimes that's enough. And that's the point of the episode; to remind us that these historical events that we may not even know about have a human face, that real people were caught up in history (people who may still be alive today). It's to show us or remind us that Partition had real, lasting costs, issues that are still present to this day (witness the recent events in Jammu and Kashmir, India, just north of Punjab), and it encourages us to remember the past and to learn from it. (Coincidentally, this episode went out on 11 November: Remembrance Day.) Patel provides a beautiful and thoughtful script, shot and acted with great skill. "Demons of the Punjab" is thus probably my favorite episode of series 11.

And I quite like the Punjabi-style arrangement of the theme tune that plays over the end credits.

August 25: "The Tsuranga Conundrum"

After getting hit by a sonic mine on a junk planet, the Doctor and company arrive on a hospital ship (although, slightly oddly, the Doctor keeps thinking it's a building rather than a ship -- maybe she's seen hospitals that look like this?) run by an organization called Tsuranga, where their injuries are treated. But while in flight, the ship is intercepted by a dangerous alien that threatens to destroy them all...

I know that a lot of people have been rather down on this episode (it was the least favorite on the recent Doctor Who Magazine season survey, for instance -- although they didn't list the average scores this time around, so we don't know how far down the scale this actually was for people), but it's not clear why. I mean, fine, it's not the most exciting episode ever, but I feel like it does a good job at what it sets out to do.

The Pting watches as the Doctor tries to scan it. ("The Tsuranga
Conundrum") ©BBC

Continuing the traditional theme a bit, this time around we get a base-under-siege tale, the last one since, well, "The Doctor Falls", I suppose (although you could probably make an argument that last time was also a base-under-siege tale). But this time around, almost uniquely for Doctor Who, the threat isn't a monster trying to kill the people inside or hijack the ship or anything like that. Instead it's just an alien lifeform that was attracted to a food source: a food source that just happens to be keeping everyone alive. The Pting is incredibly dangerous because it has toxic skin and it feeds off of energy, but it has no malicious intent.²⁸⁶ It's a conscious effort to show that, while aliens can be deadly, they're not necessarily evil. (Between this and the spiders last week, it sometimes feels like Chris Chibnall is trying to make up for the rampant xenophobia that characterized much of the two seasons of Torchwood that he showran.) And once again we get some educational content, with the Doctor and Yaz talking about the particle accelerator running the ship and comparing it to CERN. And the design of the ship is pleasingly old-school as well, with gleaming white walls everywhere.

Actually, that leads to something worth bringing up. Chibnall has been making an effort to bring the show back to its roots, with a TARDIS crew of four and more educational bits thrown in. There's also a concerted attempt to make the Doctor seem more like she's clever, working things out as they come up, rather than a know-it-all -- witness how she's never heard of the Pting before, for instance. (Although she has participated in events around this time, as the Book of Celebrants stuff makes clear, so she's not a complete novice in the 67th century.) In some ways this is a welcome change, bringing the Doctor back in line with how he/she's been for the majority of the show. However, because Chibnall needs to take the time to establish everything, to show that things are different from how they were in Russell T Davies' or Steven Moffat's eras, it sometimes comes across almost as playing it safe, as if the fact that the Doctor is now a woman means we need to make everything around her more traditional, as if to make it clear this is indeed the same character and the same show as before. It doesn't intrude hugely on things, and I doubt it's intentional (since in some ways it's more about Chibnall introducing the old way of doing things to a generation of fans who don't know the show can still work like that), but it is lurking in the background a bit.

But honestly, this episode is quite enjoyable. It helps that all the characters are reasonably likable -- even Ronan, the android consort of General Eve Cicero, is all right, and he's the one kind of designed to be unlikable. But David Shields plays against it a bit, so that while Ronan is uptight, it's out of concern for the general rather than because he's a jobsworth. They're all so pleasant, in fact, that it's a genuine surprise that Astos, the more experienced medic, dies fairly early on in the episode, as he'd been building up a genuine rapport with the Doctor. And Jodie Whittaker continues to be great as the Doctor; her enthusiasm at the antimatter drive, or her disappointment after the Pting absorbs the energy in her sonic screwdriver, is so much fun. And again we get the sense that this Doctor is more willing to stop and observe customs, to pause and reflect upon those who've died -- look at how she asks if she can also incant with Ronan and Durkas Cicero in remembrance of Eve and her sacrifice for them all. Or consider how she tries to reassure the inexperienced medic, Mabli, and makes an effort to bolster her confidence. This is a Doctor who truly cares and is willing to demonstrate that.

Now, admittedly, Yoss, the pregnant Gifftan male, is a bit ancillary to the main plot. (Maybe this is what people objected to about this story? And incidentally, why did Chibnall think it was a good idea to name a character Yoss while there's a Yaz around?) He's mainly there to add a little extra stakes/drama to the proceedings. But the benefit of this is that it gives us some opportunities to learn more about Ryan and Graham and their relationship -- particularly as Yoss is planning on giving up his son after he's born, which leads Ryan to reflect about how his own dad left. "He's the same age as me dad must have been when he had me," Ryan tells Yaz. "Same age as I am now. I never really thought about it like that. I wouldn't be able to cope having a kid now. ... He ducked out when I needed him. He's like a... a gap in my life. Even at Nan's funeral..." But as Ryan and Graham help Yoss with his delivery, there's a sense of the two of them starting to bond a bit more, even if Ryan won't return Graham's proffered fist bump.

Of course, this does mean that Yaz fades into the background a bit. This has actually been an ongoing issue this series; it's not that she gets nothing to do (she's not forced to crawl around ductwork for a story while the real plot happens elsewhere, like Tegan and Turlough in Terminus, for instance), and she definitely gets some fun moments with the Doctor in this story, but it frequently feels like she gets ignored a little bit, in favor of the Ryan and Graham relationship. Now part of this might be because Bradley Walsh continually excels as Graham, giving beautifully nuanced performances (watch how he interacts with Ben Bailey-Smith as Durkas, after he catches Durkas trying to hack into his sister's medical records) and being possibly the most relatable of the regulars. It's also the case that they've been giving Walsh lots of character moments for him and Ryan. But Mandip Gill doesn't get paired with Bradley Walsh that much, and so we don't get as much character development from Yaz as we have from Graham and Ryan. It's not an overwhelming concern, at least not yet, but it doesn't really help the argument in favor of having four regulars.

But this isn't meant to be a complaint about this story, just a general observation. I dunno, when I finished watching "The Tsuranga Conundrum" I had a smile on my face. It's not perhaps the most exciting threat, although the Pting itself is well-handled (and I like how they find a way to simply get it off the ship, rather than killing it). But I don't know that I ever felt cheated by the events in the episode; it's not like the neuropilot stuff or even the auto-destruct thing (which is with the "three strikes" thing perhaps the most arbitrary of the problems we're presented with here) comes out of left field, and it always feels like there's a natural reason for things to be there. But ultimately I think it's the relationships and interactions with the characters that really sell it for me; these are people I wouldn't mind spending more time with. I wouldn't be surprised if opinions of this story go up in the future; it's a pleasant, fun tale.

²⁸⁶ Curiously, the credits list the Pting as created by screenwriter Tim Price, rather than Chibnall -- a move usually made when a returning creation is credited, not for a brand-new one.

August 24: "Arachnids in the UK"

Promotional photo for "Arachnids in the UK" (from 11 questions (and
some answers) we have after Doctor Who: Arachnids in the UK) ©BBC

Back to the present with "Arachnids in the UK", with the Doctor finally getting her friends back home, half an hour after they left. But, demonstrating that the thirteenth Doctor is different from some of her predecessors, she's hanging around, not really ready to say goodbye yet -- this doesn't seem to be a Doctor who wants to be alone. And so Yaz invites everyone around for tea, and we get some insight into how Yaz's family is: her father Hakim is well-meaning but a bit conspiracy-theory-minded, while her sister Sonya seems to be constantly taking shots at her sister. And we get some fun moments of the Doctor rambling about sofas as an attempt at small talk ("I thought I was doing quite well. ... Maybe I'm nervous. Or just socially awkward. I'm still figuring myself out") while the Khans behave as a typical family. "I'm going to make pakora," Hakim announces, pleased that Yaz has brought guests over. "Dad, don't," Yaz replies. "He's terrible at pakora," she warns the others. And then Yaz goes to pick up her mother Najia, while the Doctor sees that the neighbor is holding a package for the Khans. "Do you want me to go get it while you make your terrible pakora?" the Doctor asks brightly.

But yes, "Arachnids in the UK" (which is a pretty lame title, by the way²⁸⁵) is all about spiders, grown to great big sizes. They also make them look pretty realistic; we're a long way from Planet of the Spiders and the order to make them deliberately unconvincing. Consequently, this is an episode likely to elicit some feelings of dread from parts of the audience. (I personally don't mind spiders so much as I mind insects and similar things that are too big, so this episode definitely gave me the creepy-crawlies a few times.) Because there are a lot of giant spiders in this episode. But they're not malevolent or alien or anything like that. Instead, this is a tale warning against pollution and lax standards, with improper disposal of special "make spiders live longer and thus get bigger" enzymes leading to the problems in the episode.

The root of the problem is American billionaire businessman Jack Robertson, who's built a hotel on a disused coal mine that his companies have been dumping garbage into. Chris Noth plays Robertson like an unfeeling, unpleasant capitalist, willing to pass the buck when it suits his needs and take the glory when he can. So rather like a competent version of Donald Trump then (or, perhaps more accurately, the public's general conception of Donald Trump before he fully revealed himself to be an incoherent, raging egomaniac) -- which is why it's a little odd how Robertson is framed as being a lifelong enemy of Trump, planning to run for President in 2020. Is Robertson meant to be a Democrat then? Is he going to run as an independent candidate? Or is he trying to replace Trump as the Republican candidate? But in any event, you can tell that Noth is having fun playing Robertson as uncaring and unredeemable, being both overconfident and cowardly. And the script takes great joy in deflating Robertson through the Doctor: "Sorry, I don't know who you are," the Doctor says. "Oh, really?" Robertson sneers. "'Cos you must be the only person on the planet that doesn't." "Are you Ed Sheeran?" the Doctor asks. "Is he Ed Sheeran? Everyone talks about Ed Sheeran round about now, don't they?" "I am not Ed Sheeran," Robertson says indignantly. "I am Jack Robertson and this is my hotel. Just one hotel in an incredibly successful chain of hotels, which is just one small part of my business portfolio, as featured in Fortune Global 500. Does that ring a bell?" "Should I look impressed right now?" asks the Doctor, more bemused than anything. "Is that impressive?"

The Doctor also gets some other great lines, such as, in an important tone, "I eat danger for breakfast," followed, less importantly, with "I don't, I prefer cereal. Or croissants. Or those little fried Portuguese... Never mind, it's not important." Or, a couple moments later, after Robertson tells her she's trying to enter a restricted area: "Dude, I've all the authorisation I ever need. (to Yaz) I call people 'dude' now." It's good fun, and Whittaker does a fabulous job with delivering the lines in a way that makes them part of her character, rather than awkward or clunky.

The other regulars get some character-building of their own; Graham's palpable sadness at being back in his house, now that Grace is gone, is gorgeously played, while Ryan gets to deal with a letter from his absent father, apologizing for not being around while offering Ryan a home, much to Ryan's irritation: "Says that I can live with him now, being that he's my proper family. ... I don't like that he put that. 'Proper family.' He's not proper." It's a small moment, but it does give some insight into Ryan, as well as hinting at the developing closeness between Ryan and Graham. Oh, and thanks to Ryan and this episode I learned about the music genre called grime! (It's a kind of club music with rapping mixed in, although this description doesn't quite capture what it's like.)

The spiders respond to the vibrations. ("Arachnids in the UK") ©BBC

But yeah, the main attraction is the giant spiders, and they're definitely creepy, with the CG effects being very good indeed. And once again we get some educational content, such as how spiders "smell" with their feet, or in the scene between the Doctor and spider researcher Dr Jade McIntyre, describing how spiders keep growing until they die, or how there are 21 quadrillion spiders on Earth. But this all means that we don't really have an enemy here; the spiders are just trying to live, same as ever. It's not their fault they got so big. Robertson is the closest thing to a villain, and even he manages to be a bit sympathetic at times (due more to Noth's performance than the scripting, it must be said). But the ending feels a bit off; it's not clear why luring the spiders into a room to starve to death is somehow more humane than finding a way to put them down, or why Robertson shooting the enormous mother spider is somehow worse than letting it suffocate to death. (Although that one might be more due to intent; Robertson shoots the mother without knowing that it's dying, and while he frames it after the fact as a mercy killing that wasn't the reason he shot it.) It's like Chibnall couldn't quite come up with a way to deal with the spider problem, and he just hoped that no one would notice that his solution doesn't really work as intended. What's more, once the spiders are dead that's it; we don't see any indication that Robertson is going to take responsibility for anything, or that any consequences will result from this. We don't even know if they're going to actually clean up the garbage dump under the hotel that caused the problems in the first place.

So there are definitely some good moments in this, and it's suitably unpleasant to watch in the ways they intended, but it does feel a bit unfinished. The character moments are therefore the best things about this story; the plot itself, with its unresolved aspects, feels less outstanding and more just competent. It's not really bad, but it's not that exciting a storyline either. "Arachnids in the UK" is thus a reasonable story that sometimes falls flat. Not terrible, but not spectacular either.

But at least they handle the "we've decided to come with you" bit at the end really well. "Look at you," the Doctor says happily. "My fam. No, still doesn't quite work. Team TARDIS? ... Welcome aboard. Properly."

²⁸⁵ And what's up with the rock puns for episode names this season? "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", "Arachnids in the UK"... Surprised they didn't give "Kerblam!" the title "Rock the Warehouse".

August 23: "Rosa"

A present-day story, then a future story (well, an alien planet, at least), and now a story set in the past. At least some things remain the same. (Although I suppose you could argue that this has been the case since the very beginning of the series if you wanted.) And now we've headed to the United States again (in reality more of South Africa), to 1955 Alabama and the day before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus.

When Doctor Who announced that they were going to do an episode about Rosa Parks, a number of fans (myself included) were slightly worried by this. Given that the show doesn't really do pure historicals anymore, this would mean there would be an alien or time traveler somewhere mucking things up -- would this therefore mean that Rosa Parks was going to encounter an alien? Or, worse, that the Doctor would somehow be the inspiration for Rosa to refuse to give up her seat (thus taking away from the courage the real life Rosa Parks exhibited that day)? But fortunately, the subject is handled with a great deal of care and thoughtfulness, thanks to writers Malorie Blackman (Doctor Who's first non-white scriptwriter, after only 55 years) and Chris Chibnall. And while it's not a pure historical, this is about the closest the show has come in a long, long time (a distinction it shares with upcoming story "Demons of the Punjab").

Yaz, Graham, the Doctor, and Ryan outside a "Whites Only" motel.
("Rosa") ©BBC

And to their credit, "Rosa" spends a good deal of time directly confronting the issue of race and racism in 1955 Alabama. Doctor Who's track record on race isn't great, to be honest, and the tendency, particularly in recent years, has been to brush it aside when it comes up (such as in "The Shakespeare Code" or "Thin Ice"), but we get nothing so glib here. The Doctor is now traveling with two non-white companions, and the color of their skin puts them in just as much danger here (if not more) as on a hostile alien world. "Are you crazy?" Rosa demands, after Ryan gets slapped for trying to return a white woman's glove. "...Don't you read the newspapers? You know what they did to young Emmett Till." "We're from out of town," the Doctor replies. "So was Emmett Till, on vacation from the North," says Rosa. "Couple of words to a white woman in Mississippi, and the next thing, they find his body in the river. You want that to be you?" And so Ryan and (to a lesser extent, Yaz) are constantly being watched with suspicion and hatred, purely because of how they look. And, smartly, the script makes a point of making it clear that racism didn't end in the '60s, that people of color still have to deal with it today:

RYAN: I'm sick of this place already.
YASMIN: I know. But to be here just as history's taking place.
RYAN: This ain't history here, Yaz. We're hiding behind bins. I'm having to work so hard to keep my temper, every second here. I could've slapped that guy back there as soon as we arrived. Thank God me Nan taught me how to keep my temper. Never give them the excuse.
YASMIN: Yeah? My dad tells me the same.
RYAN: Yeah, see? It's not like Rosa Parks wipes out racism from the world forever. Otherwise, how come I get stopped way more by the police than my white mates?
YASMIN: Oi, not this police.
RYAN: Tell me you don't get hassle.
YASMIN: Course I do, especially on the job. I get called a Paki when I'm sorting out a domestic, or a terrorist on the way home from the mosque.
RYAN: Yeah, exactly.
YASMIN: But they don't win, those people. I can be a police officer now 'cos people like Rosa Parks fought those battles for me. For us. And in 53 years, they'll have a black President as leader. Who knows where they'll be 50 years after that? But that's proper change.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Rosa)

But yes, the main storyline here isn't about inspiring Rosa Parks or anything like that; it's instead about stopping another time traveler, Krasko, from altering history such that Rosa Parks isn't in a position to refuse to give up her seat. Krasko is an ex-con from the Stormcage (where River Song was held) who's traveled back to 1955 to change history, essentially because he's a racist: "Parks won't be asked to stand, she won't protest, and your kind won't get above themselves," Krasko tells Ryan. "...Stay in your place." It's a bit sad to think that racism will still exist even in the future, but it's also depressingly plausible here in 2019, where we read about acts of hate crimes and white supremacy terrorism here in the United States with distressing frequency. But that also means that's all the motivation Krasko needs, and since he can't just kill Rosa Parks (because of a "no violence" implant in his head), he instead has to make small changes to derail history. So we're a long way from "But you can't rewrite history! Not one line!" in The Aztecs.

But in other ways this story feels a lot like a Hartnell historical, with lots of opportunities not just to show the audience what life would have been like in 1955 for black people, but also a detailed description of what Rosa Parks did and the events that led to it. They add some jokes in to help it go down (such as when Graham protests at the Doctor scribbling on the motel wall with a marker: "Pack it in. You ain't Banksy." "Or am I?" the Doctor replies, a mischievous glint in her eye), but this has a heavy educational bent to it. Of course, describing the facts of Rosa's life are one thing, but then seeing the way the police officer treats the Doctor and Graham with suspicion because they've been seen around with Ryan and Yaz, or the way everyone stares at the four of them in the restaurant, makes it a lot more clear just how openly prejudiced society was then. It's very powerfully done. (That said, I adore the way the Doctor stares somewhat disgustedly at Graham's hand after he puts it on the Doctor's shoulder, to convince the cop they're a happy married couple.) I also appreciate the confusion surrounding Yaz, where she's treated as both less-than-white but also almost white, with people calling her Mexican but also allowing her to use the bus as a white person. "The driver let me on at the front of the bus. What does that mean for where I sit?" Yaz wonders. "Obviously not a lot of Pakistani heritage around here. Does 'colored' just mean black in 1955?" It's a good way of showing how the lines ended up blurred.

Rosa Parks refuses to move. ("Rosa") ©BBC

Plus we also get opportunities to see Montgomery through Rosa Parks's eyes, just by how she treats those around her, and in the conversation she has with Yaz, as well as with Ryan at a little meeting at Rosa's house, where Ryan gets to meet Martin Luther King, Jr. (Vinette Robinson, playing Rosa Parks, looks an awful lot like the real Rosa Parks. Ray Sesay, playing Martin Luther King, only kind of looks like King, sad to say.) It all builds up to paint a picture of life back then, in a way that puts most of the other BBC Wales historical stories to shame. This isn't a story about aliens or time travelers; this is a story about Rosa Parks, and what she did.

And so we get a lot of running around, trying to undo all the changes that Krasko has made, which allows for some fun moments in a rather heavy story, but ultimately this story is about Rosa Parks, her struggles, and her decision to make a stand. The episode doesn't take away from that decision in any way, and it's all the better for it. "Rosa" is a standout episode not just of series 11, but of possibly the entirety of Doctor Who. This is a historical story about something that really matters, handled in a caring way, while educating the audience along the way. Would that all the adventures in history could be like this.

August 22: "The Ghost Monument"

Finally, we get the opening titles properly at the start of the episode. (The very start, as it turns out; bucking the previously established norm, none of series 11's episodes have a cold open -- they all begin old school, with the title sequence.) I have to confess to being a touch disappointed that Jodie Whittaker's face isn't in the titles, though.

So we carry on from last time's cliffhanger by having our four regulars picked up by a couple passing spaceships, who are on their way to a planet that's not where it's supposed to be, for reasons that are never adequately explained. "I tracked my TARDIS here, but the planet had fallen out of orbit. We landed where the planet should've been," the Doctor tells the others, as if planets fell out of orbit all the time, and that's all we hear about it. They arrive on a desolate planet named, appropriately, Desolation, becoming involved in the last leg of the final Rally of the Twelve Galaxies, where the last two remaining contestants, Epzo and Angstrom (the two who picked the Doctor and company up), have to cross dangerous terrain to the location of the "Ghost Monument" -- quickly revealed (thankfully, for those of us who had already worked it out) to be the Doctor's TARDIS.

"The Ghost Monument" was filmed mainly in South Africa, and consequently it's the vast scenery that's the real star here. We get lots of sweeping vistas and gorgeous, very-definitely-not-in-Wales backdrops that really give the episode an open feel. And director Mark Tonderai takes advantage, with lots of shots that show off the vastness of the location, really making it feel like we could be on another planet. That's definitely a plus, because the story itself isn't particularly exciting: it's basically just get from point A to point B, with some incidents along the way. There's no real twist or shift in the narrative; they take a while to get to the Ghost Monument, and then they do.

But on some level Chris Chibnall realizes this, and to his credit he gives us some good character moments. There's the Doctor's declaration that she never uses guns, and that brains are always better than bullets -- and, countering that, Ryan's charging at the SniperBots (™, one presumes) with a laser gun because he's played Call of Duty, only to panic when he realizes his "just shoot them" plan isn't working, is a lot of fun. We also get some good moments with the guest characters, Epzo and Angstrom, with Epzo's story about how his mom failed to catch him when he jumped out of a tree at the age of four giving us a nice insight into his character. But the best moment is between Ryan and Graham, as they're trying to fix the boat that will take them across the flesh-eating-microbe-infested water, where Graham tries to get Ryan to open up a bit by talking about what Grace would say to them. "You talk about this stuff way too much," Ryan says dismissively. "And you don't talk about it enough," Graham replies. It's a nice, understated exchange.

But as I said, the episode itself isn't the most exciting thing ever. They also slightly put a foot wrong by making both the race that destroyed Desolation and the race that attacked Angstrom's race the Stenza. This might have worked better if the only Stenza we'd seen up to this point hadn't been Tzim-Sha/Tim Shaw, who was shown to be a cheat but also the future leader of the Stenza. Taking care of Tim Shaw didn't seem like that much effort for the Doctor (despite the cost of Grace's death), so this attempt to make the Stenza seem like a really powerful, super dangerous race falls a bit flat. Maybe Chibnall's got plans to make the Stenza a lot more impressive that we just haven't seen yet, but as of writing Tim Shaw's the only one we've got to go on, and he doesn't really impress. There's also a slightly odd moment where the weird talking pieces of cloth (the Remnants, according to the credits) look into the Doctor's mind: "You lead but you're scared, too, for yourself and for others," the Remnant says. "Afraid of your own newness. We see deeper, though, further back. The Timeless Child." "What did you just say?" the Doctor asks. "She doesn't know," the Remnant replies. "We see what's hidden even from yourself. The outcast, abandoned and unknown." It feels a lot like setup for the overarching theme of the series (much like, say, Harold Saxon in series 3 or the Hybrid in series 9) -- except (again, as of writing) this doesn't come up again. So consequently with hindsight it actually feels more like a weird draft artifact, a bit of mystery that got injected before being ignored in favor of something more compelling (kind of like Captain Jack's missing two years' worth of memories in "The Doctor Dances").

But countering that artifact of new-school Who that doesn't go anywhere (yet), "The Ghost Monument" has a sense of old-school Who that runs through this episode beyond just the lack of a cold open. The Doctor isn't shown to already know everything that's going on; she's discovering things at the same time we are. We also see everything through her eyes and those of her friends: no "meanwhile" sequences where we see villains plotting or anything like that. That's a rather a Hartnell-feeling move. Similarly, the moment where they run through the characteristics of acetylene (lighter than air, smells like garlic, etc.) also has an educational vibe to it that would presumably make Sydney Newman proud. It feels like Chris Chibnall is deliberately taking the show back to its roots, bringing it more in line with the original vision of the show than what Davies and Moffat had done. It's kind of a welcome change, although it's not a super-flashy or thrilling one. It's more that the emphasis has shifted, but not in a bad way.

The new TARDIS interior. ("The Ghost Monument") ©BBC

And so the episode ends with the Doctor finally reclaiming the TARDIS, which has undergone a redesign both inside and out. The exterior changes aren't that dramatic (a black plate for the "Open to the Public" sign instead of the old white one, a slightly different color of blue, the loss of the St. John Ambulance flash, slight changes to the windows), but the interior has undergone a definite overhaul. In some ways it resembles the "coral" look of Eccleston's and Tennant's TARDIS, only with crystals instead of coral, while the central console is round instead of hexagonal (again, like the coral version), with a giant hunk of crystal replacing the time rotor. Meanwhile, the walls are covered with overlapping metal hexagons with circle cutouts, giving it a feel of both roundels and the hexagons from the other BBC Wales versions. I don't know that I like this design that much, to be honest, but part of the issue might be that it's incredibly dark inside -- this may be the darkest a TARDIS console room has ever been, so it's kind of hard to see what it actually looks like. The overall impression is a murky one, which isn't my preference. Having the full police box shape (three of the four walls, at least) grafted onto the wall of the console room is a nice touch, though.

So "The Ghost Monument" has some good moments, and generally speaking it looks great, but it's not a terribly memorable episode. There's not really anything particularly wrong with it, and there are some admirable attempts to liven up the proceedings, but this is ultimately another one for the "pleasantly average" column, likely to be best remembered for the reveal of the new TARDIS than anything else going on in it.

August 21, 2019: "The Woman Who Fell to Earth"

It's the start of a brand-new era of Doctor Who: new showrunner, new Doctor, new companions, new composer, new director, new night (Sundays instead of Saturdays)...even the filming equipment is new, with the show now being shot with 2:1 anamorphic lenses (instead of the typical 16:9 framing for most modern TV), in order to give the show a more cinematic look. But perhaps the biggest shock is that, like "Sleep No More" before it, we don't get a title sequence of any kind at all. (Actually, even "Sleep No More" at least had a short title card announcing the name of the show.)

There is admittedly a subtle texture to the picture that makes things seem a bit more like a film than a television series, with a more colorful feel on display than we've gotten before. This is apparent from the first scene, up in the hills above the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield, where we meet Ryan Sinclair, a 19-year-old male with dyspraxia (a neurological condition that impairs coordination), who's trying to learn to ride a bike with his grandmother, Grace, and Grace's husband Graham O'Brien. After he gets frustrated and throws the bike off the cliffside, he discovers while going to retrieve his bike a strange glowing symbol in the air that he touches, which then produces a weird giant blue teardrop-shaped thing. So he calls the police and they send out a probationary police officer, Yasmin Khan, who Ryan went to school with. Graham and Grace, meanwhile, have left Ryan behind and are taking the train back home, when a strange ball of tentacles smashes into the train, sparking and being generally weird and spooky as it approaches Graham, Grace, and a third passenger, Karl... And that's when a woman suddenly crashes through the roof into the train.

Up to this point you can see how the episode is being set up as a case of "strange things happening in Sheffield"; in some ways it feels like any number of opening episodes of similar genre shows, taking time to introduce the characters before it starts introducing the elements that are going to send things into typical sci-fi territory. But, as with all good Doctor Who, the arrival of the Doctor distorts the familiar tropes, changing the direction of the story. And Jodie Whittaker makes one hell of an entrance, crashing in and then immediately taking charge against the weird sparking ball (which she later calls a "gathering coil"). Instead of trying to ease both her and the audience in to this brand-new Doctor, writer and showrunner Chris Chibnall smartly has her hit the ground running (so to speak), immediately having her take charge even while she's not 100% certain who she is.

Because yes, Jodie Whittaker is our first bona fide female Doctor (since people such as Joanna Lumley in The Curse of Fatal Death or Arabella Weir in Big Finish's Doctor Who Unbound series don't quite count), which means that there are a lot of expectations being heaped upon her. And she confidently shatters them all. There's never a sense that this was a mistake or that making the Doctor a woman is going to change things in some fundamental way; instead, it's clear that this is the same Doctor we've always known. It helps that this isn't one of those regeneration stories where we spend time waiting for the Doctor to revive (such as Spearhead from Space, Castrovalva, or "The Christmas Invasion"). This is one more like Robot or "The Eleventh Hour", where the Doctor regenerates and then more or less continues as he/she means to go on. So the thirteenth Doctor gets to spend time investigating and being clever, with the "still cooking" stuff only occasionally intervening. And we see that this Doctor is a kind, caring Doctor, with a touch of the tenth Doctor in there (the way she sort of rambles on about things -- "Right then, troops. No, not troops. Team? Gang? Fam? –I'm distracting myself"-- has a definite Tennant flavor), but still with some definite traits of her own. When she thanks Grace for thinking of covering the body, for instance, we get a sense that this Doctor cares. (One wonders if this Doctor was in fact informed by the twelfth Doctor's dying speech.)

And standing alongside her are a whole cast of characters: we get Mandip Gill as Yaz, Tosin Cole as Ryan, Bradley Walsh as Graham, and Sharon D. Clarke as Grace, all of whom are willing to help this strange woman deal with the gathering coil and the alien pod. Bradley Walsh in particular does a great job as Graham, not really thrilled to be involved but nevertheless choosing to muck in. (Walsh here making his second appearance in the Doctor Who universe: he'd been Odd Bob the clown in the series 2 Sarah Jane Adventures story The Day of the Clown.) Really, if there's any downside to this large supporting cast (the largest number of regulars since 1983) it's that it does mean some of the others don't get perhaps quite as much screentime as we'd like -- although they also get an equal share of the action here and there's plenty of time to explore their characters down the road, so it's not the greatest sin.

It's interesting, though, how in some ways this feels a lot like a Steven Moffat series opener, with lots of action and rushing about and such, but with the emphasis tweaked a bit. So instead of dealing with an invasion or something similar, it's just one person, Tzim-Sha, on a hunt, and while Tzim-Sha is built up as a threat, he's also deflated in some ways -- most notably in how everyone (even the credits) refers to him as "Tim Shaw", but also by showing that he's cheating at this "noble" hunt meant to determine the leadership of the Stenza. So instead of saving the planet we're just saving one person, Karl: the stakes are smaller scale. And this also seems like a more self-reliant Doctor: the sequence where she makes her own sonic screwdriver (rather than just being provided one by the TARDIS, as both the eleventh and twelfth Doctors were) shows that she's smart and capable, just getting on with solving the problems at hand.

But in some ways the biggest shift is at the end, where the Doctor stays for Grace's funeral, after the show goes and kills one of the best people in it. Grace is absolutely wonderful ("Is it wrong to be enjoying this?" she asks Graham happily at one point), and so it's heartbreaking to see her die, even if it is a noble death. It also gives Ryan's YouTube video, which opened the episode, a new meaning: the greatest woman he ever met isn't the Doctor, like we were initially led to believe, but instead is his nan, which is a really nice move.²⁸⁴ But yes, the Doctor stays for the funeral, in what feels like a unique aspect of this Doctor (compare, for instance, with the seventh Doctor quietly pulling Ace away from Mike's funeral in Remembrance of the Daleks). That just reinforces that this is a Doctor who is kind, who cares, who's willing to stay and deal with the consequences sometimes. (Unless you want to think she was forced to stick around because she still needed Graham, Yaz, and Ryan's help, of course, but I'm personally not that cynical.) This isn't a Doctor who's a lonely god, or a figure of legend; she's simply a wanderer: "I'm just a traveller," she tells Yaz. "Sometimes I see things need fixing, I do what I can." It's part of a move this series to bring the show back to its roots somewhat (in addition to having a full TARDIS complement, just as they did in 1963), and we'll see more of this as series 11 progresses.

And so after a new outfit gets selected ("That's what you're going with?" Yaz asks, somewhat disbelievingly) -- although, it must be said that Jodie Whittaker looks fabulous in Peter Capaldi's old outfit as well -- it's time to find the TARDIS and to say goodbye to her new friends. Except she ends up accidentally transporting them with her, into the depths of space, unprotected: how's that for a cliffhanger?

And so we finally get a chance to see the new title sequence and hear the new theme arrangement from Segun Akinola. (Unless you were watching on BBC America, which for some reason believed we would rather watch Wil Wheaton and a bunch of nameless "celebrities" discuss the episode we'd just seen instead of getting to hear the new theme.) Akinola's theme kind of feels more like a remix of the Delia Derbyshire original than a brand-new envisioning, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Plus this version of the credits (which includes a slightly odd trailer, highlighting upcoming guest stars rather than upcoming scenes) gives us the middle 8, which is pretty great. I don't know that I would say it's my favorite rendition of the theme, but it's not the worst one I've ever heard. And the titles aren't bad, although they do seem quite visually dark. I do like the approach of essentially making a color, CG version of the old howlround graphics from the 60s though, even if it sometimes looks like we're actually underwater.

So overall "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" is a confident series opener, showing us a group of likable new companions and an outstanding new Doctor in Jodie Whittaker. The threat isn't the most compelling (and this'll come back to bite them a bit in later episodes), but the fact that this episode is built up on relationships between characters -- both new regulars and characters we've only met a little bit (such as Karl, or Rahul, the man who lost his sister) -- means that a smaller threat isn't a bad thing, because it's not really the focus: the focus is on the new thirteenth Doctor, and Jodie Whittaker more than delivers. This is the Doctor, the same as ever, no substitutions required: "I know exactly who I am. I'm the Doctor. Sorting out fair play throughout the universe." Let's hope the series can keep it up.

²⁸⁴ Of course, that means that there were two people who watched Ryan talking about his now-deceased grandmother and still chose to downvote his video; people really are the worst.

August 20, 2018: "Twice Upon a Time"

It's been almost six months since "The Doctor Falls" left us with that double-cliffhanger of both the Doctor refusing to regenerate and meeting the first Doctor in that snow-covered landscape, but now it's Christmas 2017 and we can finally learn what happens next, here at the final episode of both Peter Capaldi's tenure as the twelfth Doctor and Steven Moffat's tenure as showrunner.

If you've been following my blog up to this point (and if you haven't, hello and welcome!), you'll have noticed that I've generally been pretty satisfied with Steven Moffat's run on the show, and even when he doesn't quite get it right there's enough there to satisfy me for the most part, and I can usually see what he's getting at. But with this episode, I think I started to see what his detractors were talking about. There's definitely a sense of Moffat being too clever and knowing that's running through this episode.

That's not to say that there aren't some great moments, because there definitely are. I love the confidence of opening the episode with footage from a 51-year-old black-and-white story (The Tenth Planet, in case you need reminding), which ends up blending rather well into footage of David Bradley, doing his own version of the first Doctor. (It seems they had a go at restaging the relevant bits of The Tenth Planet with Bradley in the whole time, but wisely, they decided to stick with the original footage until halfway through, at which point most of what we see is from the now-missing episode 4 anyway.) And as I mentioned last time, making David Bradley an official canon Doctor actor, rather than just in the Adventure in Space and Time docudrama, is really lovely as well. And Bradley, unsurprisingly, does a good job as the first Doctor, making his version similar to William Hartnell's but still distinct. (Although his speech patterns do occasionally feel more like William Shatner than Hartnell.)

There's also some fabulous interplay between the first and twelfth Doctors. Watching the two of them somewhat warily circle each other, metaphorically speaking, is fun, and you get the sense that these two are equals, despite the experience that the twelfth Doctor has on the first. It's also fun watching Twelve being delighted at how One calls the TARDIS the Ship, and trying not to let on to him just how much he's changed in the intervening years, wincing as the first Doctor watches the "Doctor of War" stuff that Testimony shows him. And the first Doctor gets some nice moments in criticizing the new boy's various sonic devices -- and it's great how Moffat makes sure that the first Doctor is just as clever as the twelfth at times, such as by observing that the glass avatar must have been based on a real person. "Her face, it's very slightly asymmetrical. If it were computer-generated, it wouldn't produce that effect," he notes.

But I don't know if it's because they've decided it's a Christmas special and they need some jokes, or if it's Steven Moffat being Moffat, but there are some problematic elements with the first Doctor as he's portrayed here. It starts with the first Doctor describing the twelfth to the Captain as his nurse, going on to say that elderly gentlemen can be made useful. "OK, well, he's just rationalizing it for the Captain," I thought. Then he makes comments about how dirty Twelve's TARDIS is, so obviously Polly's not around anymore. "Well, Polly wanting to dust things actually would be in character for her," I thought somewhat desperately, "so that's just about all right." But then he starts talking about women being fragile and being surprised that Bill likes girls and it becomes too much. It's infuriating mainly because that's not how the first Doctor was. Was William Hartnell the actor like that? Sure -- but the first Doctor wasn't. It doesn't even make sense for him to be that way, given that he comes from the advanced and enlightened society of the Time Lords, as the twelfth Doctor would occasionally mention during series 10. And crucially, there's virtually no evidence on-screen that the first Doctor was any less enlightened than the twelfth.²⁸² But no, this is how a generation of children are going to think the first Doctor behaved, just so they could make some cheap shot jokes. And it's particularly frustrating because when David Bradley doesn't have to deal with this and can just be the Doctor (such as his discussion with Bill about why he went out into the universe), he shines, making his Doctor very likable. But the "haha, the '60s were so backwards" material casts a pall over things, making it not as enjoyable as it should be.

Balancing that, though, is Mark Gatiss's very enjoyable turn as Captain Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart (although they don't reveal his identity until the end, thus fooling almost no one). I love the stiff-upper-lip approach Gatiss gives him, and the speech to Bill about no longer being ready to die is really well done. I also adore the way he responds to the Doctor, after the Doctor points him out as a World War I captain. "Yes, but what do you mean, 'One'?" he asks. It's a great performance, and I liked it a lot more than his last major role in the show, as Professor Lazarus in "The Lazarus Experiment". And plus it's always great to have more Pearl Mackie, even if she's a memory of Bill rather than the person herself. (Yeah, think I'm on the Doctor's side on this, no matter how much she protests otherwise.) Ooh, and we get to see the inside of the first Doctor's TARDIS, and they've scaled everything properly this time (versus the similar look in "Hell Bent") -- and the extra props like the elaborate clock and the astral map are great too.

So it's not all bad by any means. But it does sometimes feel on some level like Moffat's just running through some of his greatest hits, and not as well as the first time around. The enemy that's not actually evil was done far better in "The Pilot" at the start of this year, because there at least it seemed like there was an issue with communication; here it looks more like Testimony is being deliberately obtuse, just to make sure the Doctor gets the wrong end of the stick. "We take from you what we need and return you to the moment of your death," the glass avatar tells him, rather than something more useful like "we record their memories before they die so that we have a record of their lives and experiences". It's like Testimony wants to fight the Doctor of War. (Well, maybe they do; maybe they engineered the whole thing so that they could talk through Bill to the first Doctor, to find out what he was looking for when he left Gallifrey.) All this just so the ending can be about a happy misunderstanding about New Earth historians from 5,000,000,012 doing some research, instead of something sinister.²⁸³ And then there's the pointless inclusion of Rusty the Dalek from "Into the Dalek", who's here...just because? It's not like they're making a thematic connection between the two episodes, so it feels tacked on, like Moffat felt the need to tie up a loose thread that no one was that bothered by. Then there's how the first Doctor's comments about his future (particularly regarding the sonic stuff) feel like a bit of a retread of the War Doctor's in "The Day of the Doctor". And even the inclusion of the first Doctor's TARDIS, while lovely, loses a bit of its impact because we'd already seen something like it at the end of series 9.

So the overall feeling of "Twice Upon a Time" is one of frustrating unevenness. Because when it works, it really works. Capaldi and Mackie continue to be a delight, the non-sexist first Doctor stuff is great, and while setting the World War I stuff immediately before the Christmas Day Armistice is a bit obvious, they pull it off by playing it so sincerely. (Oh, and I wonder if the timeline error related to the Captain was not the presence of two Doctors at the South Pole, but the fact that he was supposed to die but didn't, due to the Doctor's change.) It's also fun how they cast writer Toby Whithouse as the German opposite the Captain in the crater, and I like how, if you know a bit of German, you know that he doesn't want to kill the Captain anymore than the Captain wants to kill him, but because neither can understand the other they would have ended up shooting each other anyway, had the Doctor not intervened. And the part where Testimony restores the Doctor's memories of Clara is lovely -- and I like the farewell scene between the Doctor, Bill, and Nardole (hooray, Nardole!), as they get to say goodbye one last time. But at the other times I've already mentioned, the episode just falls flat. It's like they needed one more pass at the script to take out some of Moffat's self-indulgence. "Twice Upon a Time" could have been a winner, a fantastic send-off for the twelfth Doctor, but as it is, it's just somewhat middling.

But yes, here we are at the final moments of Peter Capaldi as the twelfth Doctor, as he finally decides to regenerate after all. "I suppose one more lifetime wouldn't kill anyone," he says. "Well, except me." And so after a speech that honestly seems a bit overwritten (and just largely restates things better expressed in the 50th anniversary special) but that Capaldi does the best he can with, the end comes: "Doctor, I let you go," he says, and then the regenerative energy explodes from him, destroying large parts of the TARDIS as the thirteenth Doctor arrives. And this really is a big change: for the first time ever, the Doctor is now a woman. "Oh, brilliant," she says happily, seeing her reflection in one of the console screens, before the doors fly open and she's sucked out of the ship and into freefall above a planet. (Honestly, given how often this keeps happening (every regeneration since the War Doctor's, and that one might have been the same way too, we don't actually know), you'd think the Doctor would have learned by now to land the TARDIS before regenerating.) And so Jodie Whittaker and the thirteenth Doctor awaits us...

But before we get there, there are some farewells to make, not the least of which is to Peter Capaldi. I know some people were put off by his initial portrayal as a darker, less caring Doctor, and while I didn't mind it too much, it felt like he really came to his own after series 8, as he became far more relaxed and fun in the role. Capaldi had some truly excellent moments, and it was while I was rewatching series 10 that I fully realized just how perfect he is as a Doctor. Each Doctor finds a way to make it their own, to make it clear that you're not watching an actor but the character, and Capaldi was no different; in fact, I found myself believing he was the Doctor almost more than the other modern Doctors, he embodied the character so well. I wouldn't be surprised to see people's estimation of his Doctor go up as they come back to these stories and find just how good he really was. And so it's sad to see him go, but he definitely made his mark on the show. For me, he was the Doctor.

It's also time to say goodbye to series composer Murray Gold, who's been here since the beginning of the BBC Wales run. While I'd sometimes found his scores a little too on-the-nose, I also think he really matured as a composer over the last ten series; there are some really wonderful and imaginative scores and orchestrations in some of his later stuff, as he became more comfortable with taking risks, using electronic instruments and backwards music and such. I don't think it's unfair to say that his music defined Doctor Who over this period as much as the actors or showrunners did, and it'll definitely be different without him.

And of course, this is the final story for Steven Moffat as showrunner. As I noted above, not everyone loved what he did. But I thought he brought some (to me) welcome elements of magic and fairytale to the show. Doctor Who under his tenure became more about exploring the universe again, about seeing what else is out there, instead of being as focused on Earth as Russell T Davies' era was. He also had a more relaxed view toward continuity than RTD had, which meant offhand mentions of things like the message box from The War Games and Alpha Centauri could coexist along more modern references to things like the fate of Gallifrey and "The Next Doctor"'s Cyber-king. Some people didn't care for this, but I didn't mind; I like how it made it feel like all of Doctor Who was fair game and anyone or anything could pop up if they really wanted -- with the Mondasian Cybermen only being the most spectacular realization of this.

But the main thing about Moffat's Doctor Who is how confident it feels. There's always the sense that they know exactly what they're doing and that the audience will come along, and that means that even when they want to try something as complex as series 6's arc, there's that feeling that this is precisely what they want to do. Moffat's Doctor Who is not a show that talks down to its audience, but nor does it hold their hand all the time. And even when they don't pull things off (*cough*iPod Daleks*cough*), you get the sense that the production team is glad they tried it, rather than just choosing to play it safe. For me, this is a period of the show with far more hits than misses, and I'm glad that Steven Moffat got the chance to put his mark on the show.

But Doctor Who is a show about change as much as anything else, and now it's time for the next big one: Chris Chibnall is the new showrunner and Jodie Whittaker is the new Doctor, and I can't wait to see what they get up to. I'll be back on August 21, 2019, to discuss this exciting new beginning; hope to see you all again then!

²⁸² Moffat tried to justify this by noting that the "jolly good smacked bottom" line is lifted straight from The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Well yes, but he's addressing his granddaughter Susan at that point after she's just buried the TARDIS, and I'm pretty sure being annoyed at family members who you've helped raise is different from just general sexism. And the thing is, this is basically the only example of anything like this at all during the Hartnell years. The only other thing (unless you want to count things like his being annoyed at Dodo's slang) is a moment at the end of The Gunfighters, when he smacks Dodo on the butt with a rolled-up poster to get her to enter the TARDIS, but frankly it's very easy to envision him treating Steven in exactly the same way.
²⁸³ Do you suppose Testimony was wiped out by the Bliss virus from "Gridlock", seeing how that episode is set after the year five billion and twelve?