Which left Matt Smith with no regenerations in a town called Christmas, on a planet called Trenzalore, surrounded by Daleks, dying of old age, until…..SPOILERS

Watched the first episode of Castrovalva earlier. It seems vaguely familiar, but in these days of YouTube stockpiles of small clips, it’s hard to be sure if I’ve ever seen the entire episodes. Time will tell.

As I’m watching, they haven’t gone to planet Castrovalva yet, but the weird and irrational topology of the TARDIS interior is a part of the plot already. The newly-regenerated Doctor (maybe that’s why I bought this particular series) and his companions wander at length through the interior, marking their way with yarn and bits of clothing. Naturally, they find their goal will still mostly clothed.

This reminds me of yet another distinctive feature of the latest incarnation: The TARDIS becomes more of a character in its own right, at one point even…well, spoilers. But the bigger-on-the-inside and shifting topology schtick gets worked effectively into a lot of action deep in the bowels of the machine.

Whoever worked on that episode was a huge fan, perhaps even an Escher scholar. It was steeped with references, visual puns, homages. I don’t remember them all, but I remember being struck that it was very rich.

Yeah, seeing The Impossible Girl and The Immortal Girl gallivanting off to Gallifrey the long way round in their own TARDIS stuck in Clara’s Diner camo…you just say “wow” and maybe a little “wtf?” over and over…but you realize you’re smiling like a fool.

I have to generally admire Moffat’s skill in crafting Clara’s story, especially at the end. Though I’m sympathetic to complaints that Clara was somehow wasted or not given a chance to live up to her full potential. But as I’m beginning to digest what happened, I’m seeing the Sorcerer’s Apprentice story starting last season, when Clara first started behaving like she was The Doctor’s understudy and more than “just” a companion. Moffatt loves to play the long game that way; this isn’t the first time.

There have been rumors of a spinoff around not necessarily Clara, but the iconic school where she worked. But I agree he definitely set up a dynamite origin story for Thelma and Louise in a TARDIS, and the Coal Hill School spinoff could go its own way as a YA like the Sarah Jane Adventures.

I observed to ER below that the modern Who spends a lot of time torturing the Doctor, and in the finale, the thing that really squeezed my empathy gland raw and bleeding was the thought of the Doctor forgetting Clara. What a hole that leaves in the Universe. It’s always been the case in the past that the sadness of the mayfly lives of the Companions compared to the Doctor, was somewhat offset by the notion that “they would always live in the Doctor’s memory”. Except Clara. Moffat plays rough sometimes. Doctor Who stopped being a kid’s show a long time ago.

Over exposing the back story as a full-tell origin story is dangerous for a an arc this old. The Doctor must remain un-explainable or he loses his power. Aliens remain mysterious or they stop being alien.

I could go on…

First, though, the damnedest thing: “Castrovalva” didn’t ring a bell, not surprising since I’ve lost track of how many hundreds of episodes there were in the 20th, a tragically large fraction apparently lost. So I started researching it, read a few synopses, wondered where to view it, nowhere free, idly shopped for it, stopped by vudu.com…and found that I own it. Already. It rings no bells. And the vudu player says I’ve never watched it. But vudu (a subsidiary of Walmart) gives away nothing for free. If they say I bought it, I bought it.

Damn, ER, I’m really looking forward to seeing four new episodes of 20th century Dr. Who I’ve never seen before (I think). That I own. Unexpectedly. Thank you very much for mentioning just that episode, which I might have lost for not knowing I had it.

Anyway, back to the subject: Sorry I got tangled in the metasubject of how latter-day Dr. Who is produced. Forget that…let me put it a different way. It’s still the Dr. Who you enjoyed back in the Tom Baker days (and the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, is something like him [Doctors never repeat, but they sometimes rhyme]). But the BBC woke up and took it seriously this time around, gave it support, top-notch talent at launch, and even money…though they were wise enough to never abandon the tactile physicality of Dr. Who…very little green screen except for the large backdrops of planetary surfaces. Lots of very material Daleks and Cybermen, and a TARDIS interior that’s fractally richer. All at high resolution.

Maybe that’s the only real difference: It’s a higher-resolution Doctor Who.

No, I neglect plot and character development still. Maybe you wanted to know: Yes, the new Who is in line with the modern style of exploring the dark side of a superhero. These new Doctors are wracked with guilt and self-doubt, and a good fraction of the stories pick at the Doctor’s scabs and reopen old wounds. The second-to-last episode of this season consisted, in fact, of The Doctor confined to a “bespoke” torture chamber for several billion years. Billion with a “bee”.

The store of The Doctor’s old wounds is deep and rich, and another thing about 21st century Dr. Who is that it spends a lot of time mining the rich backstory and lore that develops over half a century. It sometimes lends depths, but every once in a while there’s an episode that seems like one long inside joke for the fans. So the show in its maturity frequently strays into navel-gazing.

Am I doing any better? I’m not sure it’s possible to really explain Doctor Who, or even what it’s become to a fan from last century–damn, it’s like talking to somebody who’s been in a coma! Maybe you’d better just binge-watch the last nine seasons and then make up your own mind.

*****SPOILERS************

Unleashing these two “immortals”, both tutored by the Doctor, upon time and space with their own TARDIS creates an origin story for these characters and adds clues to the Doctors’s beginnings. Moffit carves in stone new elements to a 50 year old story arc.

A cross-over with Sherlock might tear a hole in spacetime, but it’d be worth it. The two of them ego sparing would be entertaining…like the Robin Hood episode. Pivot off Watson to go to Middle Earth and…well…nevermind.

I was an MC Escher fan, and knew that was one of MCE’s lithographs done when he was studying in Italy. Castrovalva is a town there. The style of the print was similar to the famous “impossible buildings” series Escher did about that time.

I’ve always understood there’s a lot underneath the surface there, and only occasionally do you catch a glimpse at what lies beyond.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/aa/Castrovalva_%28M._C._Escher%29.jpg/300px-Castrovalva_%28M._C._Escher%29.jpg

There’s a wide consensus that “Vincent” is a great way to introduce people to Doctor Who, new or old. Outstanding choice. That’s a beautiful and very accessible episode–you need only grasp the concept of time travel to get it, no knowledge needed of the Doctor’s universe or incredibly complicated backstory.

That tendency toward ever-greater complexity is another thing that to me characterizes new Who. A “series” in the 20th century Who concept was a single story told over two to a half-dozen half-hour episodes, classic serial style. But the show’s modern producer, Stephen Moffat (I know you know this, pod, I’m writing for ER too) seems to have set himself the challenge of coming up with ever more complex story arcs spanning multiple seasons.

Apropos last night, right? Jeez, Clara started down the road to [SPOILER] terminal Sorcerer’s Apprentice last season, and witness how Moffat teased and twisted out the last three episodes into a plotline moebius pretzel. And he expertly tugged at the heartstrings (or ripped the hearts out of) the most devoted Whovians. I wonder how many Whovians are still down in their parents’ basement shaking in a corner?

So the prominence of the producer is something unique in this century, as is the way the creation of the show has itself become a kind of public performance art. The epiphenomena of Who has become as important as the phenomenon. Britons are, in their wonderfully eccentric way, insane for the show. Each selection of a new actor to play The Doctor is covered by the media like the impending birth of a royal baby. There’s a yearly concert in the Royal Albert Hall, part of the BBC Proms series, devoted to just playing the soundtrack music from Doctor Who. By the London Symphony Orchestra.

Oh, and speaking of new actors and regenerations, you didn’t ask ER if he remembered the fact that Time Lords are gifted only twelve. So what does it mean that Peter Capaldi is the Twelfth? Regneration was the slick trick that saved the show half a century ago; they threaded the needle in the 50th anniversary story by doubling down.

Does The Doctor now get a gross of lives? [oops, sorry that was a spoiler]

Back briefly to Moffat: I think another factor is crosstalk/synergy with “Sherlock” channeled through Moffat. There’s talk, of course, of some kind of crossover episode, because of course, The Doctor having a TARDIS, he can cross over in to any fictional TV universe he wants to, so why not? But more seriously, writing for Sherlock Holmes must have helped complexify Moffat’s writing and story editing in Who, too.

Done for now.

When the show rebooted after its interregnum, the writers created a backstory of how the Doctor, after participating in a brutal war between the Time Lords and the Daleks, decides the only way to end the war is to destroy them both. This has haunted all of the new incarnations, with various effects. Sure, he is still inscrutable as hell, but now he is much older, darker, and careworn. By this point, he has lost so many companions that this haunts him too. Despite this, he is can still be silly, even childish, but prone to an anger that can destroy worlds.

Also, the Master is now Missy.

If you have 77 minutes to spare, watch the 50th anniversary special, The Night of the Doctor. Excellent episode, even if you haven’t been caught up for decades.

Another very good episode is Vincent and the Doctor. I coerced Mrs P., who has never seen a single episode of Doctor Who, to watch this episode, knowing well her fondness for Van Gogh. The final scene had her in tears. If were you to watch only one episode of the New Who, make it this one.

PS EDIT:

Yes, he’s been married, but she moves in time backwards to him. His first kiss is her last. “Spoilers….”