Elizabeth Sandifer

And so, at last, we come to the end of the Whittaker era of TARDIS Eruditorum. In the wake of recent events, I’d like to stop and offer a special and deep thanks to my Patreon backers, who allow me the security and flexibility to keep doing what I do in spite of everything. This is all absolutely terrifying and dismaying, but it would be infinitely more so without them. I’ve got a few things that’ll go up on the site over the next few weeks, and obviously Joy to the World at Christmas, but I’ll mostly be over there until Last War in Albion returns in 2025.

It’s October 23^rd, 2022. Sam Smith and Kim Petras are at number one with “Unholy.” Beyonce, Lewis Capaldi, Stormzy, and Nicki Minaj also chart. In news… fuck, man, there’s been a lot. We’re two days out from the end of the Liz Truss vs Lettuce race. Let’s just leave it there and move on to the entry.

Two months after Legend of the Sea Devils, while Penn and I are at a comics convention in North Carolina, I get the call that my father has had another stroke. The news meanders back and forth between bad and worse over six weeks until, at the end of August, he finally passes. I never go and see him, deciding that my week taking care of him in the spring is a better last memory than him stuck full of tubes, no longer even there enough to straightforwardly recognize the people around him. My mother doesn’t begrudge me this decision, recognizing, I think, that her and my sister’s need for hope is not compatible with my need to accept the inevitable and start processing it. A week later the Queen dies, and I turn forty.

Unsurprisingly, I crash into one of the worst and longest burnouts of my life and career. The handful of things I do write are stuff I’m proud of—a sprawling mystical poem called Ithaca a Saga (which I’m actually posting next week) and a blistering (affectionate) review of Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, which, perversely, Penn and I listen to in the car on the way down to bury my father. But everything else just craters. The novel I’m writing dies on the page. The fourth volume of Last War in Albion stalls out completely (a lucky break in hindsight, but agonizing and humiliating at the time). Leaning into the midlife crisis vibe, I indulge in a complete wardrobe refresh, ditching nearly everything I own in favor of a futch-leaning aesthetic based primarily around jackets.

By the time the Chibnall era limps over the finish line I’m in New York to give a talk at NYU about Neoreaction a Basilisk. I get in shortly after this finishes airing, pulling out my phone as we check into the hotel to see if it’s Gatwa or Tennant. I don’t actually get around to watching until late that night, after we get back from a nice dinner with Christine.…

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It’s April 17th, 2022. Harry Styles is at number one with “As It Was.” Jack Harlow, Dave, and Cat Burns also chart. The biggest news since Eve of the Daleks is Russia invading Ukraine. The Gray report on Boris Johnson’s COVID parties emerges, and Boris Johnson is subsequently fined for his breaking of the law. Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Platinum Jubilee, Microsoft buys Activision, and the state of Florida outlaws telling children gay people exist.

Somewhere in there I download and watch this. I don’t really remember that, though. What I remember is a few weeks earlier, on April 2nd, when the trailer drops. I’m in Connecticut again, called in to take care of my father while my mother and sister go to a family wedding. It was over a decade on from his stroke now, and he was just frail and couldn’t safely be alone that long. Penn and I loaded our computers into the back of the cars—Wacom tablet and all for Penn—and we unpacked in the old office where I used to log onto rec.arts.doctorwho via the VAX and spent a few days just working there and taking care of him. I wrote a bunch of the Big Numbers chapter of Last War in Albion, and Penn drew issue 3 of Britain a Prophecy—the scene with Queen Elizabeth.

I watched The Sea Devils itself in that house, on tapes he made off PBS. I can’t remember how that tape worked. I think The Sea Devils was the thing labeled on it, and then there were probably two or three unlabeled bonus features—something like the poorly tracked version of The Time Warrior, or one of the Peter Cushing movies, or part four and only part four of The Caves of Androzani. But it could have been the other way around. I don’t know. The room where I watched them has long since been gut renovated, turned into the apartment where I spent some time living with my wife while writing the chunk of the blog from late Tom Baker into the Wilderness Years. It was where I lived when the shooting happened. Penn stayed in that apartment once too, dogsitting for me with the abusive ex-boyfriend he these days describes as the transmasc equivalent of joining the army to get the girl beaten out of you.

It’s wonderful to spend time with my dad. I cook for him—I remember chicken parmesan and steak au poivre. We watch a movie every night—CODA, But I’m a Cheerleader, Knives Out, and Annihilation, in his ranking. We leave and vow that we should just do it again some time, to give my mother a break from the constant caregiving, because it’s just so nice to see him.

It turns out to be the last time I do.

Legend of the Sea Devils, meanwhile, turns out to be another iteration of the Chibnall era’s paranoid recreation of the Nathan-Turner era—an episode of television that can, rather astonishingly, be described as Warriors of the Deep done wrong.…

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It’s January 1^st, 2022. Ed Sheeran and Elton John are at number one with “Merry Christmas.” Wham, Mariah Carey, the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, and a variety of other Christmas classics also chart. (The one mercy of the Chibnall era’s abandonment of the Christmas Special turns out to be that at no point have I had to talk about Ladbaby.)  In news, large amounts of stuff in the UK has shut down again because of the massive spike in COVID due to the Omicron variant. The Guardian publishes a photo of Boris Johnson having a wine party during lockdown. Big Ben is reopened, the James Webb space telescope launches, and the first Starbucks in the US is unionized in Buffalo, New York.

I’m at home, Christmas plans having gone the way of Thanksgiving in the face of Omicron. We have Alex and Meredith over for a Boxing Day dinner to use all the food we bought for a more elaborate option. Somewhere in this general space we also switch to a days schedule for the first time in ages as my wife gets a major promotion at work. And then, to ring in the new year, this.

Which as fine, really. The thing about Eve of the Daleks is that it’s not actually that bad. Indeed, it’s pretty comfortably the best Chibnall-penned story of his era. This success arises in part out. of circumstances that have proven to be reliably good for Doctor Who in the past, namely having to bang something together quickly and with neither time nor money. The story goes that this was written in two weeks after some previous script fell through. It was shot something like six months ahead of broadcast, leaving little time for VFX. They blatantly have nothing save for a warehouse, two Daleks, and five actors. And they’re still shooting under COVID restrictions. All of which helpfully forces Chibnall to abandon his doomed epic instincts and do a small scale story without grander stakes beyond having Daleks in it. Add in a premise that forces structure onto the episode and you have…

Well, there’s the problem. See, when I sat down to watch this, a few minutes in I found myself grabbing my laptop and banging out a quick paragraph, because I had an idea I didn’t want to forget:

Aisling Bea manages the remarkable feat of making scenes funny despite a complete lack of actual funny bits. It’s quietly one of the most impressive feats of comedy I’ve ever seen. Like, any comedian can make a good joke funny. I’ve seen plenty who can make bad jokes funny. But there is perhaps no purer demonstration of the art of comedic acting than making the complete absence of jokes funny. Not even Stewart Lee goes that far.

It wasn’t until I opened the computer back up the next day to start writing the essay proper that I realized that this was supposed to be the “Chibnall gets one right” essay, and that it really had no real use for a paragraph written in what an editor recently and charmingly called my “usual acerbic” style.…

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The week of The Vanquishers brought a unique blend of sounds and events to the airwaves and headlines. As audiences eagerly tuned in to witness the climactic conclusion of Doctor Who’s Flux arc, the charts resonated with an eclectic mix of musical offerings. The rhythmic beats of ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa and the catchy melodies of ‘Stay’ by The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber dominated the pop charts, captivating listeners with their infectious energy. Meanwhile, the alternative rock scene saw the haunting melodies of ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals captivate the hearts of music enthusiasts. In the realm of news, global conversations were sparked by breakthroughs in renewable energy as solar power reached a record-breaking milestone, illuminating the path towards a sustainable future. Simultaneously, the cultural landscape saw vibrant discussions on the impact of diverse representation in media, with thought-provoking films and television series driving conversations on inclusivity and social progress.

Against this backdrop, The Vanquishers premiered, inviting audiences to explore the intricacies of time and space while reflecting on the world they inhabited. When diving into the penultimate episode of a Doctor Who series, one typically expects a crescendo of narrative threads, a melding of character arcs, and a coherence that suggests the writers have been plotting a masterstroke from the outset. The Vanquishers, however, delivers a cacophony of convoluted storylines and rushed conclusions that feels more like a chaotic patchwork than a climactic resolution. Chibnall’s ambition to weave an intricate tapestry of storylines is evident, but the execution falters significantly. The multiple Doctors are a gimmick that overshadows rather than enhances the narrative, creating an experience akin to sketching a landscape while surfing a tsunami: it conveys a profound sense of hopelessness, futility, and the near-impossibility of achieving any meaning.

Central to this bleak meditation is the Doctor herself, whose quest for agency and resolution amidst the chaotic Flux is rendered futile by the very mechanisms of time and space that mock her efforts. Each victory is pyrrhic, each moment of hope ephemeral against the backdrop of a multiverse shaped by entropy and cosmic indifference, where endings are foregone conclusions and triumphs are mere illusions of progress. The return of fan-favorite characters, including Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and the Daleks emphasizes the toll of witnessing countless iterations of history and the futility of attempting to impose order or meaning. As the Doctor navigates the swirling currents of the Flux Jack disrupts conventional plans and expectations, while the Daleks capture the Time Lord characters and subject them to a continuous cycle of regeneration and re-capture, creating a nightmarish scenario where these characters repeatedly experience the trauma and pain of regeneration without the release of death.

The Daleks’ plan raises philosophical questions about the nature of mortality and immortality. The Daleks deny the Time Lords the ability to maintain a stable identity or sense of self. Their insidious influence extends beyond mere physical threats, penetrating the temporal fabric itself. Mortality, which is fundamentally tied to the progression of time from past to future, becomes murky.…

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It’s November 28^th, 2021. Adele remains at number one, where she’s joined by two new Adele tracks, along with the Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift from last week. For variety, D-Block Europe featuring Central Cee sneaks in at 8^th. It’ll be back out of the top ten next week though. Don’t worry.

In news, a boat of thirty migrants capsizes in the English Channel, killing twenty-eight. The newly designated Omicron variant of COVID-19 causes Johnson to reimpose restrictions, with masks required on public transport and in shops again. In the US, it’s Thanksgiving weekend. We have Christine over for our first proper holiday together, and I do a hopelessly elaborate multi-course menu over the course of the day that leaves me gloriously dead on my feet by the end.

And on television, Survivors of the Flux, which notably contains two Vs in its title. In this regard it’s similar to Everything Everywhere All at Once, which came out four months later. There are other similarities, of course, though it’s easy to fall into the familiar fandom trap of declaring that any science fiction that engages in any sort of genre hopping or dramatic context shifts is aping Doctor Who. Indeed, one could readily argue that Everything Everywhere All at Once, which uses the conceit of a multiverse to endlessly iterate upon the same setting and characters, is in fact the precise conceptual inverse of Doctor Who, which would be better described as “everything everywhere in well-differentiated sequence.” Still, there’s something to the comparison—they’re both sci-fi stories operating in a comedy drama register fueled by an ability to take ostentatiously big swings like throwing in a giant talking dog or giving people hot dog fingers. And, obviously, the Vs.

The big difference is simply that Everything Everything All at Once was a massively successful film that romped to a Best Picture win while Flux was, as I believe I may have mentioned at some prior point, unwatchable garbage. Although, of course, those two things are in no way mutually exclusive—just look at Green Book. What’s more notable to say is that Everything Everywhere All at Once was a massively likeable film. Indeed, this was largely key to its success—it was a proper word of mouth hit, emerging from indie powerhouse studio A24 with a slow three week rollout from an initial ten screens up to thirty-eight and finally into wide release, where it sat in the middle of the box office pack for months without ever pulling more than $6m in a single week.

And no wonder. The film is a delight. I already mentioned the hot dog fingers section, but it’s worth stressing just how side-splittingly funny the sequence is—a proper “struggle to breathe from laughing so hard” moment. Or, really, a succession of them. We get a piss joke, Michelle Yeoh offering an absolutely top notch moment of physical comedy as she flaps her hands ineffectually at her daughter, the basic visual gag of the actual hot dog fingers, the line delivery of “she appears to be in a universe where everyone has… hot dogs instead of fingers,” the arrival of Jamie Lee Curtis with manicured hot dog fingers, a 2001: A Space Odyssey parody, and then the visual of the fingers spurting ketchup and mustard all in about ninety seconds of screen time.…

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It’s November 21^st, 2021. Adele and Ed Sheeran remain, but they’re joined this week by Taylor Swift’s ten minute expansion of “All Too Well” along with Sam Fender and Switchotr featuring A1 and J1. In news, Russia nearly fucks up the International Space Station by blowing up a satellite, the UK government ditches large swaths of its high speed rail plans in the north, and the US government passes the Build Back Better Act, a massive post-pandemic spending bill. Alex Jones is found liable for defamation against the parents of Sandy Hook children, while Kyle Rittenhouse is found not liable for murdering people in Wisconsin. Two days later, as this airs, another right-wing terrorist drives an SUV through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin, killing six.

On television, meanwhile, Village of the Angels, which, as the saying goes, if I had a nickel for every time in 2021 the BBC aired a program about Doctor Who and psychic messages sent across time via analog media I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. The other time came back in May, when BBC Four aired Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes. This is a strange film—a hybrid of an older short film by director Caroline Catz (who portrays Derbyshire) that has been expanded with a swath of talking heads footage (David Vorhaus, Peter Zinovieff, Madelon Hooykaas, and, most notably for Doctor Who nerds, Brian Hodgson) and a separate thread tracing Throbbing Gristle alumn Cosey Fanni Tutti’s creation of the film’s soundtrack via manipulation of the eponymous legendary tapes—a collection of 267 found in Derbyshire’s attic following her death in 2001 and subsequently housed at the John Ryland library in Manchester. The result is strange, surreal, and ghostlike, which is to say utterly appropriate for a study of Derbyshire.

Catz’s Derbyshire is a sort of frustrated visionary, seeking only, as she explains in her job interview for the Radiophonic Workshop, to “create sounds that have never existed in the world before.” Which, of course, she did, and spectacularly, most obviously with Doctor Who theme, which the film devotes a sizeable chunk of time to.  It starts from Ron Grainer’s scant account of the tune—the film depicts it as a hastily scribbled score and a set of adjectives like “wind bubbles” and directions that it should sound “familiar but different,” and be comparable to the well-funded twenty piece French ensemble Les Structures Sonores. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, to be clear, is a bunch of low paid weirdos in a basement with a bunch of aging radio equipment. Derbyshire volunteers for this plainly nightmarish job, and, of course, absolutely crushes it.

But what the film does a remarkable job of highlighting is the scale of how she accomplished this, creating individual pieces of tape for each of the notes she wants to use, at times calculating both the setting for her oscillator to produce the note she wants and the amount of tape needed for the duration.…

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