Post by MS on Nov 27, 2023 3:30:35 GMT
First 60th Anniversary Special.
Full debut by David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor, the return of Catherine Tate as Donna Noble and introducing Yasmin Finney as her daughter Rose and it is explained why she has the same first name as that of Rose Tyler's
Written by returning showrunner Russell T Davies and it is based on the comic strip story which was published in Doctor Who Weekly in 1980.
The comic strip story was written by Pat Mills and John Wagner with art by Gibbons.
For the television adaptation Mills and Gibbons but not Wagner received an on-screen credit of "story by".
Whereas the TV episode is with the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna, the comic strip story was with the Fourth Doctor (as he was the incumbent Doctor at the time of its release) and original comic strip companion Sharon Davies.
In between the comic strip story and the television adaptation, Big Finish did its own adaptation of the story that was released in 2019 and directed by Nick Briggs.
However despite Briggs having provided work on the TV series including voicing the Daleks and Cybermen, he apparently wasn't involved in the TV The Star Beast.
The TV adaptation was directed by Rachel Talalay and this is her first episode since the Peter Capaldi finale Twice Upon a Time.
In fact this is the first time that she has directed an incumbent Doctor other than Capaldi.
Tennant is the third Doctor, Talalay has directed due to David Bradley as the First Doctor in the aforementioned Twice Upon A Time.
Intriguing start with a narration by the Doctor and Donna.
Love the new title sequence that came afterwards especially the way the TARDIS is presented in it.
The Doctor soon arrives in town and where by chance he bumps into Donna and I was surprised that nothing happened to Donna upon seeing the Doctor's face.
However as the Doctor pointed out to Sylvia, Donna would die if she remembers him not if she sees his face.
It was at this time of reuniting with Donna that the Doctor meets Donna's daughter Rose, the name of which certainly took him by surprise.
When the Tenth Doctor last saw Donna in The End of Time he had given to Sylvia and Wilf for them to give to Donna, a winning lottery ticket.
However the Fourteenth Doctor now finds out, with Russell T Davies finding an excuse here to mention Nerys, that Donna didn't keep the money from the ticket as she gave it away to charity and therefore she and her family are living a life within their means.
Just as the initial meeting between the Doctor, Donna and Rose took place a spaceship suddenly crashes and everyone, but typically not Donna as she misses out on these things, saw this.
Looking into the crash are UNIT and we their scientific advisor Shirley Anne Bingham and she is played by Ruth Madeley.
Madeley had previously played Sixth Doctor companion Hebe Harrison on Big Finish.
On Big Finish, Madeley as Hebe travelled with both Colin Baker as Sixie and Bonnie Langford as Mel and the latter two appeared as their characters in the Jodie Whittaker finale The Power of the Doctor, the episode that immediately preceded The Star Beast.
Shirley soon introduced herself to the Doctor as she had read his files from UNIT and thinking he is the Tenth Doctor before the Fourteenth Doctor told her where he is at in his lifetime.
Shirley says she is UNIT's 56th scientific advisor whereas the Doctor says he was the first.
The spaceship was piloted by a small creature that looks cute and cuddly who is known as the Meep, actually named as Beep the Meep in the original story but apparently the TV version did not mention the Beep name, only refer to as the Meep.
Meep gets picked up by Rose and brought into the Noble household which eventually brought the Doctor there.
Not long after Sylvia sees the Doctor again she, in an attempt to stop Donna from seeing him, slaps the Doctor.
As far as companion mums go, after Jackie and Francine, Sylvia finally gets to slap the Doctor although Jackie had slapped Eccleston not Tennant.
With the Doctor in the Noble house, he noticed Wilf wasn't there.
Wilf actor Bernard Cribbins had died on July 27 2022 but was seen on a Doctor Who filming location prior to his death.
The Doctor asked why Wilf wasn't there, Donna said he is not with them anymore.
Like the Doctor, I thought this meant that Wilf had passed but instead he is alive and is now, due to his advanced age, living in a sheltered accommodation by UNIT and this arrangement was made by Kate.
Looks like RTD could not bring himself to kill off Wilf to reflect on Cribbins' passing.
Kate isn't in The Star Beast but she is in the trailer which means she would be in at least one of the remaining two specials.
The Fourteenth Doctor produces his two sonic screwdriver. The comic strip story Liberation of the Daleks which took place immediately after The Power of the Doctor showed what happened to the Thirteenth Doctor's sonic hence why 14 no longer has it,
Funny when the Doctor produces a barrister's wig and held a trial to determine what is going on in a car park! I got reminded on TARDIS Wiki, the Fourth Doctor too wore a wig (perhaps it is the same one) in The Stones of Blood. Maybe to reflect the fact that this story was originally a Fourth Doctor one in the comics.
It was at this trial the Meep revealed that it is not cute and cuddly as it seems and it is instead truly evil. What a horrifying revelation this turned out to be.
Surprised that Shirley who is in a wheelchair produces weapons from it!
After efforts that were made to prevent Donna getting back her memory of the Doctor dating back to the end of Journey's End, Donna finally gets back those memories with regeneration energy coming out of her to reflect this memory restoration.
Donna saves London due to the Time Lord memory being restored to her.
Donna then seems to have died because of this but comes back to life because as explained on TARDIS Wiki, Rose absorbed aspects of the Doctor's mind that were too much for Donna both as she was born and as the mental block fell away.
It is because of the Donna's said memories that was stored somewhere inside her mind is how Rose got her name with memory of Rose Tyler.
Donna then realises that Rose's shed is shaped like the TARDIS and the toys Rose made are in the shape of the monsters that the Donna encountered with the Doctor.
The Meep then gets arrested by the Wrath Warriors but the Meep tells the Doctor about someone called "The Boss".
No doubt we will get see who this Boss is.
This ends with everyone getting to the TARDIS with Donna refusing to allow Rose to get inside it. At this moment I thought of the end of The Poison Sky when Martha unwilling became a passenger as the TARDIS suddenly took off with her in it as a leadup to The Doctor's Daughter.
However Donna was convinced by the Doctor to have one last trip just to see Wilf and I got a huge sense that it was not going to be as simple as that.
The door was opened a little and there was a preview of what the new TARDIS interior was going to look like and then comes the full reveal of it.
Oh my what a stunning look of this new interior.
Surprising that this new TARDIS interior now has a coffee machine and the Doctor makes Donna coffee.
Unfortunately this is where things went wrong as Donna accidentally spill coffee causing the console to spark fire and making the TARDIS take off with the Doctor and Donna in it!
Full debut by David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor, the return of Catherine Tate as Donna Noble and introducing Yasmin Finney as her daughter Rose and it is explained why she has the same first name as that of Rose Tyler's
Written by returning showrunner Russell T Davies and it is based on the comic strip story which was published in Doctor Who Weekly in 1980.
The comic strip story was written by Pat Mills and John Wagner with art by Gibbons.
For the television adaptation Mills and Gibbons but not Wagner received an on-screen credit of "story by".
Whereas the TV episode is with the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna, the comic strip story was with the Fourth Doctor (as he was the incumbent Doctor at the time of its release) and original comic strip companion Sharon Davies.
In between the comic strip story and the television adaptation, Big Finish did its own adaptation of the story that was released in 2019 and directed by Nick Briggs.
However despite Briggs having provided work on the TV series including voicing the Daleks and Cybermen, he apparently wasn't involved in the TV The Star Beast.
The TV adaptation was directed by Rachel Talalay and this is her first episode since the Peter Capaldi finale Twice Upon a Time.
In fact this is the first time that she has directed an incumbent Doctor other than Capaldi.
Tennant is the third Doctor, Talalay has directed due to David Bradley as the First Doctor in the aforementioned Twice Upon A Time.
Intriguing start with a narration by the Doctor and Donna.
Love the new title sequence that came afterwards especially the way the TARDIS is presented in it.
The Doctor soon arrives in town and where by chance he bumps into Donna and I was surprised that nothing happened to Donna upon seeing the Doctor's face.
However as the Doctor pointed out to Sylvia, Donna would die if she remembers him not if she sees his face.
It was at this time of reuniting with Donna that the Doctor meets Donna's daughter Rose, the name of which certainly took him by surprise.
When the Tenth Doctor last saw Donna in The End of Time he had given to Sylvia and Wilf for them to give to Donna, a winning lottery ticket.
However the Fourteenth Doctor now finds out, with Russell T Davies finding an excuse here to mention Nerys, that Donna didn't keep the money from the ticket as she gave it away to charity and therefore she and her family are living a life within their means.
Just as the initial meeting between the Doctor, Donna and Rose took place a spaceship suddenly crashes and everyone, but typically not Donna as she misses out on these things, saw this.
Looking into the crash are UNIT and we their scientific advisor Shirley Anne Bingham and she is played by Ruth Madeley.
Madeley had previously played Sixth Doctor companion Hebe Harrison on Big Finish.
On Big Finish, Madeley as Hebe travelled with both Colin Baker as Sixie and Bonnie Langford as Mel and the latter two appeared as their characters in the Jodie Whittaker finale The Power of the Doctor, the episode that immediately preceded The Star Beast.
Shirley soon introduced herself to the Doctor as she had read his files from UNIT and thinking he is the Tenth Doctor before the Fourteenth Doctor told her where he is at in his lifetime.
Shirley says she is UNIT's 56th scientific advisor whereas the Doctor says he was the first.
The spaceship was piloted by a small creature that looks cute and cuddly who is known as the Meep, actually named as Beep the Meep in the original story but apparently the TV version did not mention the Beep name, only refer to as the Meep.
Meep gets picked up by Rose and brought into the Noble household which eventually brought the Doctor there.
Not long after Sylvia sees the Doctor again she, in an attempt to stop Donna from seeing him, slaps the Doctor.
As far as companion mums go, after Jackie and Francine, Sylvia finally gets to slap the Doctor although Jackie had slapped Eccleston not Tennant.
With the Doctor in the Noble house, he noticed Wilf wasn't there.
Wilf actor Bernard Cribbins had died on July 27 2022 but was seen on a Doctor Who filming location prior to his death.
The Doctor asked why Wilf wasn't there, Donna said he is not with them anymore.
Like the Doctor, I thought this meant that Wilf had passed but instead he is alive and is now, due to his advanced age, living in a sheltered accommodation by UNIT and this arrangement was made by Kate.
Looks like RTD could not bring himself to kill off Wilf to reflect on Cribbins' passing.
Kate isn't in The Star Beast but she is in the trailer which means she would be in at least one of the remaining two specials.
The Fourteenth Doctor produces his two sonic screwdriver. The comic strip story Liberation of the Daleks which took place immediately after The Power of the Doctor showed what happened to the Thirteenth Doctor's sonic hence why 14 no longer has it,
Funny when the Doctor produces a barrister's wig and held a trial to determine what is going on in a car park! I got reminded on TARDIS Wiki, the Fourth Doctor too wore a wig (perhaps it is the same one) in The Stones of Blood. Maybe to reflect the fact that this story was originally a Fourth Doctor one in the comics.
It was at this trial the Meep revealed that it is not cute and cuddly as it seems and it is instead truly evil. What a horrifying revelation this turned out to be.
Surprised that Shirley who is in a wheelchair produces weapons from it!
After efforts that were made to prevent Donna getting back her memory of the Doctor dating back to the end of Journey's End, Donna finally gets back those memories with regeneration energy coming out of her to reflect this memory restoration.
Donna saves London due to the Time Lord memory being restored to her.
Donna then seems to have died because of this but comes back to life because as explained on TARDIS Wiki, Rose absorbed aspects of the Doctor's mind that were too much for Donna both as she was born and as the mental block fell away.
It is because of the Donna's said memories that was stored somewhere inside her mind is how Rose got her name with memory of Rose Tyler.
Donna then realises that Rose's shed is shaped like the TARDIS and the toys Rose made are in the shape of the monsters that the Donna encountered with the Doctor.
The Meep then gets arrested by the Wrath Warriors but the Meep tells the Doctor about someone called "The Boss".
No doubt we will get see who this Boss is.
This ends with everyone getting to the TARDIS with Donna refusing to allow Rose to get inside it. At this moment I thought of the end of The Poison Sky when Martha unwilling became a passenger as the TARDIS suddenly took off with her in it as a leadup to The Doctor's Daughter.
However Donna was convinced by the Doctor to have one last trip just to see Wilf and I got a huge sense that it was not going to be as simple as that.
The door was opened a little and there was a preview of what the new TARDIS interior was going to look like and then comes the full reveal of it.
Oh my what a stunning look of this new interior.
Surprising that this new TARDIS interior now has a coffee machine and the Doctor makes Donna coffee.
Unfortunately this is where things went wrong as Donna accidentally spill coffee causing the console to spark fire and making the TARDIS take off with the Doctor and Donna in it!