When I saw the first season with Peter Capaldi I decided I was done with Doctor Who, but then I decided to give Doctor Who a second chance and I have not regretted that decision!
This season with Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts was just great and one of the best of the franchise ever.
This Christmas Special introduces us to the concept of 'The Testimony', a mysterious organization from the future that takes beings just shortly before they are about to die and records their memories so that their essence remains preserved for all time. It kind of echoes the 'Nethersphere' of Capaldi's first season and the Tessalecta from season six, but here it is something quite wonderful. They travel in spaceships capable of stealing ships as advanced as the TARDIS and their agents appear to be humanoids of glass.
The Testimony is after a captain of the British Army in World War One, in the trenches of Ypres, but because Doctor Twelve and Doctor One both are reluctant to regenerate, a paradox causes to let the good captain wander outside his own time and into the Antarctic.
Both Doctors try to keep the captain from falling into the hands of the antagonist and after the TARDIS of Twelve is taken they make their getaway with the TARDIS of One. Joining them is Bill Potts, who explains to Twelve how she was saved by Heather at the end of the last season.
In the search for the identity of the antagonist they even go to a Dalek called 'Rusty' who was once programmed to hate other Daleks, to access the Dalek database.
With that information and with the realization that Bill Potts is an agent of The Testimony, they decide The Testimony is not an evil organization. The captain is returned to the time and place where he's supposed to be. According to Twelve that is! The good captain, as it turns out, is an ancestor of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart! And the moment he is returned to is the moment of the Christmas Truce of Ypres.
German and British troops start singing Christmas Carols instead of killing each other. One of the sanest moments of the war!
Both Doctors are now mentally in a place where they are ready to regenerate. One into Two and Twelve can say goodbye to Bill Potts, Nardole (also now data in the Testimony) and even Clara Oswald! Doctor Twelve had forgotten about her (reverse variant on the Donna situation) but now gets to say goodbye.
Then Doctor Twelve regenerates into Doctor Thirteen, played by Jodie Whittaker!
As the episode comes to an end, the inside of the TARDIS starts to explode and Thirteen is thrown out, plummeting to an unknown depth.
I very much look forward seeing Jodie in her adventures as The Doctor!
This season with Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts was just great and one of the best of the franchise ever.
This Christmas Special introduces us to the concept of 'The Testimony', a mysterious organization from the future that takes beings just shortly before they are about to die and records their memories so that their essence remains preserved for all time. It kind of echoes the 'Nethersphere' of Capaldi's first season and the Tessalecta from season six, but here it is something quite wonderful. They travel in spaceships capable of stealing ships as advanced as the TARDIS and their agents appear to be humanoids of glass.
The Testimony is after a captain of the British Army in World War One, in the trenches of Ypres, but because Doctor Twelve and Doctor One both are reluctant to regenerate, a paradox causes to let the good captain wander outside his own time and into the Antarctic.
Both Doctors try to keep the captain from falling into the hands of the antagonist and after the TARDIS of Twelve is taken they make their getaway with the TARDIS of One. Joining them is Bill Potts, who explains to Twelve how she was saved by Heather at the end of the last season.
In the search for the identity of the antagonist they even go to a Dalek called 'Rusty' who was once programmed to hate other Daleks, to access the Dalek database.
With that information and with the realization that Bill Potts is an agent of The Testimony, they decide The Testimony is not an evil organization. The captain is returned to the time and place where he's supposed to be. According to Twelve that is! The good captain, as it turns out, is an ancestor of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart! And the moment he is returned to is the moment of the Christmas Truce of Ypres.
German and British troops start singing Christmas Carols instead of killing each other. One of the sanest moments of the war!
Both Doctors are now mentally in a place where they are ready to regenerate. One into Two and Twelve can say goodbye to Bill Potts, Nardole (also now data in the Testimony) and even Clara Oswald! Doctor Twelve had forgotten about her (reverse variant on the Donna situation) but now gets to say goodbye.
Then Doctor Twelve regenerates into Doctor Thirteen, played by Jodie Whittaker!
As the episode comes to an end, the inside of the TARDIS starts to explode and Thirteen is thrown out, plummeting to an unknown depth.
I very much look forward seeing Jodie in her adventures as The Doctor!