{"id":24372,"date":"2022-10-23T22:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1726268"},"modified":"2022-10-23T22:35:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T20:35:00","slug":"doctor-who-the-power-of-the-doctor-review-a-satisfying-finale-to-an-erratic-4-year-chapter","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/doctor-who-the-power-of-the-doctor-review-a-satisfying-finale-to-an-erratic-4-year-chapter\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor review \u2013 A satisfying finale to an erratic 4-year chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Patrick Mulkern\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Sunday, 23 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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<\/div> 4.0 out of 5 star rating<\/span> <\/span> <\/div> <\/div>

The Power of the Doctor does not disappoint. It excites. It surprises. It confounds. It confuses. It brings an erratic four-year chapter of this constantly evolving saga to a satisfying close.<\/p>\n

Showrunner Chris Chibnall started with a clean slate in 2018, deliberately eschewing the trappings of the past, but bows out on a tsunami of the stuff. His frenetic, 90-minute finale is a prime example of what I call \u201ckitchen-sink\u201d Doctor Who<\/a>. Here, we see not just ancient foes but antediluvian Doctors and companions \u2013 characters that one might expect in an anniversary (the 60th is only next year) but who have been revisited for a special to mark the BBC\u2019s centenary. And let it be noted, The Power of the Doctor is the 300th story since Doctor Who began in 1963.<\/p>\n

Despite an abundance of distractions, Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill remain the throbbing heart of the story, as the Doctor and Yaz breeze through a rollicking adventure but must prepare for a sorrowful parting. Chibnall\u2019s script pitches the emotion at just the right level for a show like Doctor Who. No love-in. No smooching. Just a convincing display of empathy between two women who accept they can no longer travel together, despite adoring each other as much as the actors playing them clearly do. The composition of the duo, perching on top of the police box gazing at planet Earth, is gorgeous.<\/p>

Dan (John Bishop) is jettisoned surprisingly early<\/a>, after the well-staged space-train sequence at the beginning. Halfway into the tale, Graham (Bradley Walsh)<\/a> pops up inexplicably in a volcano, and Vinder (Jacob Anderson) crashes through a wormhole conveniently close to the seat of the action but sadly has little to contribute. This leaves the special clear for a broadly female line-up of heroes \u2013 which works in its favour.<\/p>\n

As Kate Stewart, Jemma Redgrave has been a constant since Chibnall introduced her 10 years ago in the Matt Smith episode The Power of Three<\/a>. She is always welcome. More significantly, Chibnall reintroduces 1980s companions Tegan and Ace<\/a> after many decades\u2019 absence. For some fans who\u2019ve followed their adventures in the Big Finish audio dramas (I have not), perhaps they\u2019ve never really gone away. It\u2019s delightful to see actors Janet Fielding and Sophie Aldred stepping with apparent ease back into the mother show.<\/p>\n

Age has not withered their spirit. Now investigating mysteries of their own volition, Tegan and Ace are stronger, wiser and a shade more humorous. The moment when, after decades, they are reunited with the Doctor as a young woman is priceless. \u201cI think I handled that quite well,\u201d shrugs the fractious Tegan. In nods to their heyday, Tegan rolls out her singular cuss \u201cRabbits!\u201d, and Ace is still calling the Time Lord \u201cProfessor\u201d. More than that, though, they relive their greatest hits. Tegan moves stealthily through an infrastructure evading Cybermen in an echo of the 1982 classic Earthshock<\/a>, while Ace dons her old bomber jacket<\/a> and takes a baseball bat to a Dalek, just as she did in 1988\u2019s Remembrance of the Daleks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Sophie Aldred as Ace in Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor<\/span><\/figcaption> James Pardon\/BBC Studios<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

There will always be an appetite for the Time Lord\u2019s archenemies but, after decades of bluster and defeat, I do wish the baddies could gain one victory. The Daleks and Cybermen remain the lousiest shots in the cosmos and are easily dispatched like coconuts in a shy. I enjoyed how Steven Moffat developed the Master, and showed Missy (brilliant Michelle Gomez) seeking redemption, but under Chibnall, the Master has reverted to the ridiculous; his motivation unclear, his disguises daft.<\/p>\n

Why is he bothering to pose as Rasputin with blue eyes and a manky beard in Siberia and St Petersburg in 1916? I remain baffled by the \u201cselective regeneration\u201d that the Master forces upon the Doctor. Is Sacha Dhawan playing a new Doctor, or the Master inside the Doctor\u2019s body and mind? Or both? Sure, he\u2019s an obsessive weirdo and loves dressing up, but now in the middle of a blithering \u201cMaster\u2019s Dalek Plan\u201d, he has time spare to robe himself in a mishmash of former Doctors\u2019 garb, with accoutrements such as Doctor Two\u2019s recorder and Doctor Five\u2019s lapel celery. Mercifully, we\u2019re spared jelly babies. The air of confusion isn\u2019t helped by the Master\u2019s TARDIS being a minimally re-dressed, relit version of the Doctor\u2019s horrible domain.<\/p>\n

I do love the devilish trick he plays on Tegan, though, with the Cyberman figurine in fact being a Russian doll, a \u201ctissue-compressed\u201d but reversible Trojan horse. The attack on UNIT HQ is quite fun if you enjoy a lot of clashing and banging. The Taskforce\u2019s new skyscraper home is an architectural miracle, which can topple into itself, leaving its fleeing personnel safe on the forecourt, merely puffed with dust.<\/p>\n

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Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor and Mandip Gill as Yasmin Khan in Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor<\/span><\/figcaption> James Pardon\/BBC Studios<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

There are various daft ideas in this special, such as a Dalek being able to breach the TARDIS defences to lay an obvious trap. Why hasn\u2019t this gambit occurred to them before? Because it should not happen. Another is the hologram of the Doctor. We\u2019ve seen versions of this since Christopher Eccleston\u2019s last episode, but here the holo-Doc is a tad too interactive. Why shouldn\u2019t a holo-Doc always appear wherever and whenever to talk their companions through a crisis? It\u2019s playful and forgivable, though \u2013 and allows Ace and Tegan to interact with their own Doctors.<\/p>\n