David Tennant and Catherine Tate return to their Doctor Who roles after fifteen years, alongside showrunner Russell T Davies, and give us a bold, beautiful new hopping-on point that manages to be both a gentle character study and an all-out action epic.
Based on the 1970s Doctor Who Weekly comic strip of the same name, The Star Beast sees the fourteenth Doctor and Donna (don’t worry about how or why they’re back, we’ll get to that in a couple of weeks) up against a crashed alien rocket, an intergalactic hunting party, and possibly the cutest little war criminal ever to grace our screens.
The Meep is a wonderful creature, voiced to perfection by Miriam Margolyes, that is both funny and frightening. It’s an exceptional combination of puppetry and CGI that never feels out of place. You absolutely believe the Meep is there in the room with the cast.
Central to the story — a fairly basic prisoner-on-the-run caper — is new character Rose, Donna’s daughter, played by Yasmin Finney. Finney is wonderful. It’s good to see trans representation on-screen done so unapologetically: very often “trans storylines” on television can veer towards “debating the issue”. Not here. Doctor Who says Trans Rights Are Human Rights. Get over it.
Tennant and Tate are on usual stellar form, and the rest of the cast are great too. New UNIT Scientific Advisor Shirley is a favourite of mine and I hope we get to see much more of her in the future. Likewise Finney’s Rose. There really isn’t a duff performance in this one, to be honest. Everyone brings their A-Game.
And oh boy. That new TARDIS interior is beautiful! You can see from the sets and from the SFX that the extra cash from Disney as part of an overseas distribution deal has been spent well. Russell always said “put the money on the screen”. The entire episode is stunningly shot, too.
The plot wrap-up was fine, the way the DoctorDonna Metacrisis was resolved was fine… For the most part the sci-fi story takes a back seat for a big celebration of inclusivity, warmth, and balls-out fun. The episode, at 56 minutes, flew by and held the attention of both me and my wife and our six year old son.
I can’t wait to watch it again. If this is the quality we are to expect from the remaining specials and the series that follows then we really are in for a treat. Top notch stuff. Roll on next week! We know next to nothing about the next adventure on offer.
If I have a criticism it’s that occasionally Russell’s scripts can Labour their point a little, though not in a way that spoils anything. I just wish he’d trust his viewers a little more, but that hand-holding is par for the course with family TV like this. But meh, who cares. I loved it.
★★★★
gabundy.blog 