Review of The Star Beast by RobynAnarchist
29 April 2024
This review contains spoilers
I was open to giving it a chance, but to be frank - that was utterly f**king abysmal. A completely joyless viewing experience, one that just left me sapped of all emotion by the end. It was like I was watching a parody of Doctor Who; no heart or soul, just an embarrassing attempt to start an era that honestly shouldn't even exist.
It's a bold choice to adapt a comic (which is also supposed to take place in the same universe FYI), sap everything away that made the comic fun and creative in the first place, rush the Meep's reveal of being evil, replace Sharon with Rose but give no time to her reactions to the Meep's betrayal - and then have the audacity to be like: “oh yeah, so now only my version matters now, the Doctor never met the Meep before, so only I'm canon and only this shitty watered down version with characters I didn't even create counts.” Nah, f**k that. That just feels incredibly insulting.
This episode stars the Tenth Doctor; because he looks like the Tenth Doctor, he sounds like the Tenth Doctor, he acts exactly like the Tenth Doctor - so that is what I'm going to call him, because it is silly to say otherwise. If you wanted him to be different; now was the time to show that - but they never do.
It's not exactly Tennant’s finest hour, but to be fair, he isn't really given much to play with here. To be honest, he feels like he's overacting for a lot of it like he's trying desperately hard to bring back how to play the role. He has some nice calmer moments, but let's be real - no one could sell the incredibly embarrassing scene near the start where he has to keep saying “what? what? what?” for no real reason. Do you get it? It's funny, because he used to say that in S2-4! Do you get it?? God, this focus on his face is so embarrassing considering they never actually properly explain it.
This really should've been a Ncuti episode.
He doesn't come across like he's just come off the back of Jodie at all, he doesn't even feel newly regenerated or anything. I don't feel any sense of continuity whatsoever. And for all his talk of wanting to make sure Donna doesn't remember; he is very very blazen and reckless around her.
He just has a new sonic too. OK? Not gonna explain that either? It can just make force fields now too? OK? The TARDIS randomly changes its interior as well. OK? Not gonna explain that either? Did you just forget to explain things in these specials or what?
Everything done with Donna reeks of desperate revisionism. The End of Time is shit, but Donna did have quite a good final exit in it. And the Star Beast just kinda pours all that down the toilet for no reason, making it all pointless. Yeah. Thanks for that. To be frank, she should never have been able to remember at all, her memory wipe is like the only emotion that Journey's End could even muster and I think it's just really cowardly to backtrack on it all.
She just… lets the Meta-Crisis go? Because the Doctor is non-binary…? Also for all the talk of “something” drawing the two back together and that pre titles talking about a storm or whatever - f**king lol, they never explain it (a recurring theme I'm sensing!), it's all just one massive coincidence. I’m not even going to touch the Giggle, but I do know that the explanation for Ten's return is that “the Doctor was mentally exhausted and subconsciously wanted to return to his family to heal” or whatever; despite… the Doctor not even knowing that the Meta Crisis could be reversed when she regenerated? So why would she become Ten again to do that when as far as she knew, nothing could be done? And he doesn't even go looking for Donna, he just happens to accidentally bump into her.
It makes no sense. Embarrassing writing.
Having Rose be transgender is a good idea and all, but wow is she hampered by terrible execution. At least her family is supportive; but she has no real character, she's f**king pointlessly deadnamed in her second ever scene and honestly, Yasmin is just not a good actress whatsoever.
The dialogue in this is so cringe, it's genuinely awful. “Donna Noble is descending”, “That's, er... Sorry about the stairs”, “You're assuming he as a personal pronoun?”, “Something a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand.” It's like a boomer with zero self awareness wrote it, it's so bad. You don't have to keep drawing attention to minority status, you can simply just let them be. That's way more progressive than constantly highlighting and pointing it out.
I think it's blatantly obvious that RTD hasn't watched Doctor Who beyond the End of Time, or if he has, then he's barely registered it cause that last line makes no f**king sense - the Twelfth Doctor could indeed let things go (hello? literally his last words?) and the Thirteenth very much couldn't.
I've jabbered away about this episode for far too long, much longer than I ever needed to. I'm never gonna think of this dumb episode ever again and I'm certainly not gonna bother with the rest of the 60th. It's just whatever man, it just sucks. RTD's return just sucks. We're just stuck in a clique. Who even cares anymore? It's just easier to say Doctor Who ended with the Power of the Doctor, because everything afterwards… yeah. Bleh.