This is the 4th time the Doctor has regenerated into David Tennant (Eccleston -> Tennant, Tennant -> Tennant, Whitaker -> Tennant, Tennant -> Tennant again) out of 15 lives, so anytime the Doctor regenerates there’s about a 26% chance of him turning into David Tennant lol.
That strange sense of weirdness and confusion is probably the closest I’ll ever get to the feeling viewers in the '60s must have had watching William Hartnell regenerate into Patrick Troughton.
A fun episode for sure, with a lot of turns I wasn’t expecting. Acting as always was top notch, from the Doctors and also NPH as the Toymaker. The episode does feel rushed though. There weren’t many moments to breathe and take in what was happening before being whisked off to the next plot point. All coming to a head when we have this never before seen mythic bi-generation, but we have to whizz past everyone’s reactions so we have time to play catch and wrap the episode up within the time limit. I don’t want to come off as overly negative because there was a lot to like here and I did enjoy it, but it really could have done with being a two-parter.
I also found it immensely funny that the Toymaker had nothing interesting to say about 13’s companions and had to skip past them.
I hope he finds some pants
15 got the pants, 14 got the trousers. Maybe this is the Doctor that rescues the universe in their drawers.
I love a Doctor Who script that understands that time travel screwiness aside, the thing that really works about Doctor Who is giving great actors a place to wax poetic and dramaticly chew the scenery. I felt that this episode did that nicely.
All four lead cast members rose to the occasion, and shared their energy.
I’m not sure I liked how the catch scene was done, but it’s also kind of perfect. That was never going to work without NPH, and I’m not sure anything less silly could have felt right.