Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, gender binary – Unfortunately for fans who hoped his return to the role of showrunner would see the beloved sci-fi series rediscover its story-centric roots, Russell T Davies’ has instead used the first special of his latest run on Doctor Who as an opportunity to annoyingly lecture – or more precisely chastise – audiences on a variety of progressive topics.
Titled The Star Beast and making its BBC debut on November 25th, 2023 – otherwise known as the series’ 60th anniversary – The Doctor’s latest adventure centered on the mystery raised in the previous special The Power of the Doctor regarding the titular protagonist’s till-then-unheard of regeneration into a previous incarnation.
Featuring the return of series icon David Tennant as the Tenth-Doctor-but-actually-the-Fourteenth Doctor, the episode begins with a chance reunion between himself and his former companion Donna Noble – as portrayed once again by Catherine Tate – who shockingly does not remember her time at his side.
Further adding to The Doctor’s confusion is the fact that Donna and her husband Shaun Temple are now parents, as he soon makes the acquaintance of their male-to-non-binary female-presenting transgender daughter, Rose, as portrayed by actress Yasmin Finney.
Notably, Rose’s transgender identity is confirmed by a scene near the beginning of the episode.
Therein, while helping her mother carry some items from their car into their home, Rose is mockingly catcalled by a pair of passing young men with the use of her original name, Jason – “Oi, Jason, you all right?” “Looking good, Jason!”” “Give us a kiss, Jay Boy!” – to which the transgender individual responds by imploring her subsequently enraged mom to “just leave it”.
But before he can discover any answers to either mystery, The Doctor, Donna, and Rose are caught up in the universe-conquering machinations of a small, white-furred creature known as The Beep of all the Meep (itself making its live-action debut nearly 43 years after its original debut in the 1980 comic strip Doctor Who and the Star Beast, as originally penned by Pat Mills, John Wagner, and Dave Gibbons for Doctor Who Magazine).
First discovering it injured in the alley behind their house, Rose, unaware of the creature’s true intentions, brings The Meep to The Doctor for help in bandaging its wound.
Believing The Meep to be a simple, scared creature, The Doctor proceeds to offer him its assistance in returning home, declaring to Donna and her confused family, “Yes, the Meep! I promise I can help him get home. Then you’ll never see me again”.
However, this declaration catches the attention of Rose, who proceeds to passive aggressively chastises the hero, “You’re assuming he as a pronoun? Hmm.”
In turn, The Doctor affirms, “True. Yes. Sorry. Good point,” before proceeding to ask the creature, “Are you a he or she or they?”
“My chosen pronoun is the definite article,” replies the furry guest. “I am always the Meep.”
From there, after being unwittingly tricked by the Meep’s meek act into aiding in its plans, the Doctor, Donna, Rose, and Sean find themselves taken prisoner by the creature’s forces.
But in a shocking twist, while attempting to escape from captivity and stop the Meep, The Doctor discovers – and buckle up non-Whovians, as this section gets a little hard to follow if you’re unfamiliar with the series – that not only was the half-human half-Galifreyan entity known as DoctorDonna still present within Donna’s mind and preventing her from accessing her full memories, but that a portion of the Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis energies which originally birthed her had been biologically passed on to Rose.
Upon this realization, in a call back to his earlier scolding, The Doctor and Donna come to realize that the reason Rose was able to receive the Meta-Crisis energies was thanks to her non-binary identity, because like her, “The Doctor is male and female.”
Realizing that the entity’s extra brain power could be the key to defeating the Meep, The Doctor then proceeds to unlock the power of DoctorDonna from within both Donna and Rose’s mind, allowing both of them to access individual and separate parts of the vast knowledge and processing power possessed by the collective.
The two eventually successful thanks to the assistance of Rose, who uses the information available to her to shut down the Meep’s psychadelic sun mind control machines and free his soldiers from their forced servitude, The Doctor ultimately determines that if the two are to continue surviving, they must expel the aforementioned energies from their bodies.
Informed by his previous encounters with the being, The Doctor then begins to prepare himself for a tough battle in separating DoctorDonna from her hosts.
“We’ve still gotta fix you two,” he explains to the pair as the Meep is escorted off to prison, “but that thing is wrapped around your cortex.”
However, before he provide any further assistance, The Doctor is met by the assertion by Donna that “Yes, we know.”
“We know everything, thanks,” Rose then chimes in, her line delivery once again dripping with condescension.
To this end, Donna then adds, “And you know nothing,” before deriding The Doctor for having regenerated out of his Jodie Whitaker-portrayed Thirteenth Form. “It’s a shame you’re not a woman anymore. ‘Cause she’d have understood.”
“We’ve got all that power, but there is a way to get rid of it,” explains Rose. “Something a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand.”
Ultimately, Donna reveals that the women’s solution to this reality-breaking energy crisis was to simply “Just let it go”, prompting the pair to then solve the entire problem by easily willing it away.
Davies’ next Doctor Who special Wild Blue Yonder, itself ostensibly featuring a similar quality of storytelling, is currently on track to land on the BBC on December 2nd.
NEXT: Opinion: Russell T. Davies Cannot Redeem ‘Doctor Who’