So I did see Fugitive of the Judoon today, and I must admit I enjoy this still a year later. Jo Martin is a fantastic choice to play the Doctor, and while my recent marathon made me appreciate Jodie Whittaker a touch more (not crazy about the incarnation itself, but Jodie's on-point and would like to see her interpretation evolve into a more proactive, confrontational Doctor), Martin owns the character from the moment she restores her memories. She's a commanding presence in a way the Doctor should always be.
... However. When I watched it the first time, the Ruth Doctor was a fascinating concept as a secret Doctor we didn't know about. But, here's the thing, and I might veer a bit to the Timeless Children episode even if I'd not seen it, but its impossible not to refer to it anyway. The Doctor will always be William Hartnell. Period. To me, calling him the First Doctor is more of a useful descriptive term than an actual "designation" because in reality, everyone else that's followed was a recast. But regardless, the Time Lord who left Gallifrey with a broken TARDIS with his granddaughter and whose materilization circuit broke down and has since permanantly looked liked a 1950's police call box ever since is the Doctor. Everyone knew how to be the Doctor after him. Patrick Troughton might be the most definitive, influential Doctor of all of them, certainly, but he's a recast of Hartnell. Not even saying he's played the Second Doctor, those terms really do come to be when they've left their reign really. He, and everyone after him, got to mold the Doctor persona but Hartnell is the man who had to be the Doctor before them. He had to be the one who ventured out in the galaxy and find out how to be a hero, how to fight evil and how to be, in essence, his true self, which is the Doctor we know and all. Going in Fugitive without the foreknowledge of the series finale is an exhilirating experience because there's seemingly a past Doctor who never knew about, but it couldn't possibly be pre-Hartnell, cause Hartnell was the Doctor before anyone else. He's the Time Lord whose TARDIS looked like a police call box first. And yet, the finale audatiously implies that wasn't the case, and that's inherently wrong, in my mind. Mainly because, for all intents and purposes, it ruins the lyrical simplicity of the core appeal of the show.
That its about a guy (sometimes a gal) who actually stole a spaceship and run away. And has been running away since, saving lives and making friends. What more do you want?
So, with the foreknowledge of The Timeless Children upon us, the idea that the Doctor had multiples bodies before is an inherently hindering experience. Not because he had different bodies before Hartnell, that's not the main problem, although it is deeply, unnervingly problematic - certainly the prospect of him/her never dying ever is a wasteland of possibilities and an inherently wrong approach, but it has nothing to do with the essence of the Doctor's character. The problem is, and I can't stress this enough, there was no Doctor before William Hartnell. The idea of there being multiple, even infinite Doctors before the one who actually left Gallifrey and made a difference while we were watching is, to put it as a viewer who's now been experiecing an almost all-inclusive Doctor Who run from the Seventh Doctor onwards for almost a year now (not having listened to Stranded, to be more precise) is simply offensive. Its incredibly insulting to introduce the notion that the progress and process the Doctor went through these 55 years as inessential to the show and character's growth and expansion and evolution. It makes a mockery to the achievements of those actors, and indeed the producers/writers of the show, who painstakingly kept the show alive through actual pain and suffering and personal detriment.
I love the Ruth Doctor, but the episode is forcing me to give a unique dual rating. So to end the rambling, here it is:
****1/2 out of ***** without The Timeless Children factor
**1/2 out of ***** with The Timeless Children factor
