The Doctor Who Special, “The Giggle,” is now available to watch on the Disney+ streaming service, and my first reaction after watching it happens to be, “WTF did I just watch?”
The episode is wild as can be, it’s completely insane, and it’s also not as bad as I thought or as bad as the previous two specials.
I really wanted to like the episode, and I did, but there is still a lot of cringe material, so I am a bit torn.
The good
Let’s start off with the good, which is Neil Patrick Harris who plays the villain, The Toymaker. He’s awesome!
Neil Patrick Harris plays an omnipotent being who hails from another realm. He can do anything he wants, so he is more than a formidable foe for the Doctor. The Toymaker actually comes off quite terrifying even though at the same time he is really goofy. It works. If you didn’t catch it, Neil Patrick Harris also uses three accents, a German accent, a British accent, and an American accent. I thought it was brilliant. Great actor.
I also liked what I saw with UNIT, which is supposed to get a spinoff. The special effects look really good. UNIT now has a worldwide presence, and their home base is basically Avengers Tower. Cool.
Love Catherine Tate as Donna. She’s always been a favorite. Of course, David Tennant has always been a favorite, too.
Now onto the spoilers.
So what’s cringe?
Well, the episode starts off with white dude Neil Patrick Harris as The Toymaker, a German who owns a toy shop in England. A guy walks in to buy a doll who has a darker complexion. The Toymaker makes some remarks about the guy’s skin color or something and where he is from. Well, the guy was born down the street or something. Why it’s cringe is because The Toymaker isn’t some white German dude, he’s some sort of being from outside the universe that likely doesn’t even have a form. Why would he be racist? Wouldn’t he be racist toward everybody? I laughed.
How about The Doctor? Yep, he’s an idiot. Donna tells him so herself. The girls in the show also manage to outdo The Doctor and figure everything out. Eyeroll.
UNIT is also entirely made up of women, with the guy soldiers who all die simply serving as their stooges and underlings. Surprise.
The wheelchair stuff is also cringe. Donna gets scolded for a remark, the new Tardis has a ramp, and the wheelchair lady gets yelled at that she can really walk… we get it. Is the wheelchair the only thing that makes her who she is??? Hello.
How about the plot?
The plot? I liked the plot. The Toyman decides to give the humans what they want: they all get to be right — at the same time.
So it’s like the entire world is a living Twitter (lol). The plot is a satirical representation of current times, and hits some nails right on the head: people are on their screens constantly, kids are stuck in the house playing games all the time, there are extremes on both sides (Barbie has a similar theme), etc. I dug it.
So to save the human race, the Doctor challenges Toyman to another game, as they first met way back in the 1966 series.
On to the ending…
What an ending, and this is where it gets f’n insane and wild!
I liked how they came up with the idea to “kill” off the David Tennant Doctor, that a third Doctor has to play the game. I also liked that they had to do a rubber match, lol.
I liked how The Toymaker foreshadowed a lot to come with bad guys, too. He said something about how his legion was on the way. He also seemed frightened of some other being he didn’t want to play games with! Woah! Who could that be?
So the David Tennant Doctor gets blasted. Donna and returning companion Melani are at his side. He’s glowing gold! Boop. Nothing happens!
The Doctor then tells Donna and Mel to pull him apart?! Out comes the Ncuti Gatwa Doctor Who! It’s the first bi-generation?! WTF? LOL! I couldn’t help but laugh. Also, the Doctor said the universe is not binary or something. Bruh…
Also, WTF, why is Ncuti Gatwa in his underwear? Because he’s a gay man, so he’s in his underwear to show off his package to the world? Weird. Update: It’s because they split the clothes. Still weird. Update #2: The “regeneration” comes from their penis area. Yeah, WTF weird.
I also thought it was funny that Russel T Davies failed to pull the trigger, meaning he didn’t kill off the David Tennant Doctor Who. Was it to appease the fans? Are there more plans for him (hope so!)?
So one could argue the Ncuti Gatwa Doctor Who isn’t a real Doctor! dumdumdumdummm….
Another cringe moment? When the Ncuti Gatwa Doctor came out of the Tardis with the circus clown hammer and hit the Tardis and produced a second one? WTF, lol! Also, he mentions something to Tennant that he gets a prize or whatever. Well, I thought the prize was that The Toymaker gets banished from existence. Okay, I guess they each get a prize then.
Oh, gotta mention The Master. Super cool that The Master lost and got imprisoned in The Toymaker’s gold tooth! When The Toymaker was disappearing at the end, I was wondering what they were going to do. We see that the gold tooth is there lying on the ground. Who picked it up? Does the nail polish look familiar?!
What did I think of the Ncuti Gatwa Doctor Who? I’m going to give him a try. As long as they don’t push the woke garbage in my face like they did with the two previous specials, I’ll watch.
The end with the David Tennant Doctor Who settling down with Donna’s family? I was okay with it. And as they teased, let’s be honest, The Doctor didn’t exactly settle down.
What I also found interesting is that if you watch with subtitles on, once the Ncuti Gatwa Doctor Who shows himself they refer to the David Tennant Doctor as the “10th Doctor.”
One last thought: I am wondering if Davies went super woke with the first two specials and then toned down the wokeness for Special 3 hoping people wouldn’t catch what he is doing and would settle for liking it? Something to think about.
Watch the Christmas trailer for the next episode “The Church on Ruby Road”:
