“Okay, kid. I love you. Get out!”: Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials

I probably should have separated these into separate posts but I didn’t have time, so instead you get one long, rambling post about how much I love Russell T. Davies

“Once upon a time…”

With those immortal words, Russell T. Davies introduces us to his second era as head writer of Doctor Who. As someone who wrote her master’s thesis on the relationship between Doctor Who and fairy tales, of course I was delighted, just as I was with the invocation of the Brothers Grimm in “Heaven Sent.” It felt like a nod to me; to the kind of Doctor Who that I prefer. But it’s more than the smug feeling of being validated. (As “The Giggle” will show, the need to be proven right is not humanity’s best quality.) It’s all the things that those timeless words imply. The comfort of a storytelling tradition, of being in a safe pair of hands, of sitting back in anticipation of being told a good yarn. There’s a line in Inside Llewyn Davis that goes “if it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” Fairy tales are like that, and so is Doctor Who. Like the TARDIS it’s both old and new. When you step inside you both know and don’t know what to expect. Paradoxical. 

Look, it’s obvious that I didn’t have much to say about the Chris Chibnall era. If you love the Thirteenth Doctor and/or Chibnall’s tenure, no offense is meant. I certainly mean no disrespect to Jodie Whittaker, who did her best with what she was given. Every era of Doctor Who is for someone, which means that each is equally and emphatically not for someone else. The most wonderful thing about the Doctor is that they contain such multitudes. I am going to resist the temptation to give Chibnall a hard time throughout Davies’ second run. But I’m afraid that I have a few frustrations to get out of my system, and so there will probably be a disproportionate amount of comparison-contrast in this post.

And boy howdy, the contrast feels stark. Did every single thing in these three specials work for me? Of course not. Davies has always been a bombastic, broad, and at times messy writer. And that’s good — he makes you feel things. But within the high emotion and spectacle, there’s a core simplicity. You know who his characters are. One season and a few specials with Donna gave her a clarity and a strength that we never got in three seasons and more with Yaz. You know the purpose of each story, what it’s doing to further the overall theme and character development. His episodes are about something coherent: the fraught relationship between appearance and identity; the Doctor and Donna’s relationship; our violent and tribalist culture war. I’m not saying there are no Chibnall era episodes that achieve that kind of dramatic unity, but by the end of each season I always felt lost in the weeds of technobabble exposition, incoherent plot mechanics, and general purposelessness. Though Steven Moffat could get carried away with the cleverness of his plots, they also always stemmed from and informed character. It’s not easy to avoid the impulse for more. The Reality Bomb was no more plausible than the Flux, but Davies always brought things back to the characters. The stakes are in what happens to be the people, never what happens to the universe. Indeed, in a kind of alchemical process, what happens to the universe at the end of each Davies or Moffat season merely reflects and reiterates the transformation within. Davies spoke of needing to have “words with [himself]” over “Wild Blue Yonder”: “Just stay true to the idea […] Stick to the idea.” While Davies is not a simplistic writer, there is a simplicity to his ideas that gives them strength. The result is a welcome synergy of theme and content across the three specials.

But rather than wander all over the place aimlessly, let’s look at each episode in turn.

The Star Beast

I don’t spend nearly enough time in this post talking about the hilariously sinister Beep the Meep.

“The Star Beast” is an excellent case study in this synergy. The core theme of the tenuous relationship between outward appearance and inner reality is mirrored in everything in “The Star Beast” from Rose’s gender identity to Donna’s sneaking sense that her outwardly normal and happy life masks an inner emptiness, and of course the wonderful Beep the Meep’s cute and cuddly exterior masks the true megalomaniac within. The Fourteenth Doctor himself is questioning this relationship as well: An old face has returned. Surely that must mean something. Sometimes outward appearances can distract or mislead us; at other times they point to a deeper truth.

Thematic neatness aside, “The Star Beast” is an efficient and brisk reintroduction to the world. The slightly awkward direct-to-camera prologue, recapping the events of Series 4, makes me wonder what a new viewer would make of all this. The timing of the move to Disney+ before resolving the dangling DoctorDonna threads is slightly odd, but Donna’s missing memories and Rose Temple-Noble as the young, curious, starry eyed companion a la Rose Tyler make for a smooth enough reentry. More than anything, what stands out are David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s performances and insane chemistry. Their genuine connection, evident in both life and art, lights up the screen. They draw emotional depths and comedic heights from each other in a really unique way. 

Tennant has talked about this Doctor being more human than the ones before (which will pay off in “The Giggle”). The Tenth Doctor was fairly human anyway, but I agree that there’s a further modulation in the Fourteenth. He’s no less melancholy than the Tenth but definitely less troubled and angry. It’s actually a lovely, emotive performance, and it’s kind of great to see Tennant’s take on the Doctor unburdened by the tragic flaws Davies gave him the first time. I’ve always seen Ten as the tragic hero of the New Who Doctors – he begins his tenure by deposing a world leader, climaxes as the Time Lord Victorious, and endures an anguished and ambivalent regeneration (“I could do so much more,” “I don’t want to go,” etc.). It’s a complicated and rich character arc but not really a happy one. But much has been, if not healed, at least confronted since then.

This is why coming back to Donna makes sense. Naturally the thought of coming back to what I thought was a pretty satisfying end for Donna (on a narrative level if not a personal one) made me a little nervous. I’ve never been as angry at Davies for Donna’s ending as some others have. I enjoy a tragic ending now and then. But if Donna represents a key piece of unfinished business for Tenth Doctor, then he had to come back to find resolution. Rachel Talalay’s excellent direction of the climactic scene mirrors the Doctor and Wilf in “The End of Time” – separated by glass, powerless to stop the inevitable. The Doctor has to allow her the thing he denied her in “Journey’s End” – her choice. “Best fifty-five seconds of my life,” she declares, joyfully choosing to sacrifice herself for the world. Naturally, she is eucatastrophically saved by Rose, who siphons off the extra Meta Crisis energy and shows the DoctorDonna a third way between the binaries of death and Time Lord immortality (what Tolkien would call “endless serial living”), Rose and Donna embrace their normal human lives and show the Doctor how to “let go.” I’m not sure if Rose is correct that all “male-presenting” Doctors need to learn this lesson, but Tennant’s Doctors certainly do.

“The Star Beast” ends on a giddy high, with the Doctor and Donna squeeing over the new TARDIS, the Doctor running laps around its vast circular ramps, and Catherine Tate performing what might be the funniest bit of physical comedy in the series so far. 

I want to note my friend Tom Hillman’s wonderfully observed mention that the scene of the Doctor and friends escaping the Zogroth by crawling from one attic to the next is of course a nod to C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew. My favorite recent homage to The Magician’s Nephew comes from Susanna Clarke’s brilliant Piranesi, and we know from that novel that Clarke is a fan, or at least has working knowledge of Doctor Who (she references “Blink” and Steven Moffat by name). So I will take this as a hint from Russell to me personally that my fantasy of a Susanna Clarke-penned episode will come true in 2024. She’s writing again. She’d be perfect.

Wild Blue Yonder

There’s so much open and physical affection in these specials: The characters hug and hold each other, kiss each other’s hands and foreheads, etc.

There is a slight breakdown between theme and content at the end of “Wild Blue Yonder” that holds me back from loving it unreservedly, and it’s one of Davies’ few major missteps in these specials. The episode went to some fairly dark places and flirted with pushing the Doctor and Donna’s relationship to a breaking point in their initial anger and blaming each other for their predicament. It’s very much in the vein of “Midnight,” “Heaven Sent,” “Listen” – episodes that push the Doctor to his limit. It’s no mistake that all of these examples, “Wild Blue Yonder” included, take the Doctor to the limit of his knowledge of the universe – at the end of known time and/or space. Davies’ natural salesmanship undermines him a bit when he suggests that the Doctor has never had an adventure like this before, but nevertheless it’s a type of Who episode that I generally love.

Clearly this is what the episode wants to be about: The Doctor and Donna have jumped back into the TARDIS as if no time has passed at all, when lurking underneath is the reality that their relationship ended in a kind of betrayal, with the Doctor wiping her memories despite Donna begging him to stop. So here at the edge of everything, they’re confronted with the most terrifying monsters of all – themselves and each other. After all this time apart, Donna deprived of her memories and the Doctor having lived through several more million years of loss and trauma, how well do they even really know each other or themselves? But it’s more than the old “humans are the real monsters” theme, a la “Midnight.” Instead I’m reminded of Tom Bombadil’s question, “Tell me, who are you alone, yourself and nameless?” Deprived of her history, Donna describes feeling adrift. Her existential crisis finds its mirror in the formless, chaotic, ahistorical No Things who drift about the void of space looking to approximate a superficial, outward resemblance to humanity.

“Listen” suggested that the Doctor’s endless quest against the monsters is due to a plain old fear of the dark. “Midnight” depicted the Doctor as powerless when deprived of his ship, his friends, and most crucially his voice. I can feel “Wild Blue Yonder” wanting to finish with a similarly core conclusion about who the Doctor is, whether or not the revelation is a happy one. Ultimately, the scariest thing is that the Doctor doesn’t recognize Donna. He chooses the copy; and he only realizes his mistake, not by anything in her nature or character, but by her ever-so-slightly-too-long wrist. It’s a disappointingly technical solution to what is an otherwise emotional story. Maybe, as Donna suggests in the following episode, the Doctor is just tired, but if I was her, I would be a little disturbed by that. Davies writes fabulous ambivalent endings. It’s a shame we had to go straight into the climactic third episode, when the ending of episode 2 could have used a bit more time to sit with the consequences of this error. I could imagine a more fulfilling version of this story that reaffirms their friendship when the Doctor realizes the copy’s sense of humor is not quite right. Equally, a more challenging version would culminate in Donna’s anger or hurt at the Doctor’s mistake. Instead, we kind of rush past it, merely relieved to have narrowly escaped. Perhaps they’re afraid to look too closely at the implications. It reminds me of the Doctor’s words at the end of another episode in this mode, “The Satan Pit”: “I think we beat it. That’s good enough for me.” Best not to think about it too much. 

This might be one of those stories that grows on me, and I may change my mind entirely after I read some other takes. Critiques of the ending aside, “Wild Blue Yonder” is one of the weirder episodes in the show’s history and an absolute hoot. In fact, all three specials looked fabulous, from the blessedly practical Meep to the disturbingly cartoonish No Things to the demented glee of the Toymaker. The Disney money has not come at the cost of the show’s inherent camp. There’s a humor to all three that feels welcome and invigorating (and if the upcoming Christmas special’s goblins are any indication, it’s not going anywhere for the time being). Given the pace of the first and third episodes, it’s a welcome change to spend an hour in the middle simply indulging Tennant and Tate’s talent. I could spend this entire post gushing about their performances. What a joy to watch them be heroic and evil, smirking and sincere, dragging along giant prosthetic arms with complete commitment.

There’s another talent of Davies’: iconic names and phrases. Bad Wolf. The Nightmare Child. “There’s something on your back.” Yes, he could create a euphonious or memorable alien name when he had to (see Raxacoricofallapatorius or the Ood). But mostly he plants these ideas in your mind with mundane words. It’s no wonder Moffat latched onto the Moment as the central mythic concept in “The Day of the Doctor.” So, welcome to the club, “My arms are too long.” Like “Don’t blink” or “Donna Noble has left the Library,” I can totally see using this to creep someone out. (Moffat is good at this, too.)

There’s much to love here, even if I wanted to sit with the consequences of the ending a little bit longer. Perhaps this otherwise excellent episode is a slight victim of the brevity of the Fourteenth Doctor’s run. 

The Giggle

Where to start with this one? What a wild ride. I’m hugely impressed by the deftness of Davies’ weaving the disparate themes together into a coherent whole. We get a story about the invention of the television which implicates the role of media in the hysterical and reactionary frenzy which characterizes the 2020s. Not that TV invented anger, lies, or self-righteousness, the Doctor hastens to add. “Using your intelligence to be stupid, and hating each other, you never needed any help with that.” And yet, the creation of mass media carries with it an original sin from its inception.

As Davies said, the presence of a puppet implies a puppet master. So the historical accident of Stooky Bill inevitably pointed Davies to the Toymaker. He joins these themes (games, toys, and play; hateful polarization; and the influence of TV) through the idea of “winning.” When all that matters is winning, life becomes a game of one upmanship. Right and wrong don’t matter when all one cares about is being proved “right.” “Your good and your bad are nothing to me,” says the Toymaker. “All that matters is to win and to lose.”** And this is the irony of tribalism. For all that it claims to care about truth and morality, in the end all that matters is the game itself, and being on the winning team.

Is it subtle? Not really. But it’s smart and insightful. Cheekily, Doctor Who escapes Davies’ implication of visual media. Not because the Doctor is above self-righteousness, and he admits it in this episode (“I’m always so certain.”). Rather, it’s the broadened perspective afforded by the TARDIS, our stand in for the imagination. Davies is really embracing the fantastical and imaginative aspects of Who, and I’m loving it. Though I have argued that Davies’ original era did its own spin on the fairy tale genre, it was equally grounded in the dramatic soap opera. These specials almost feel like a blend of Davies’ grounded approach with Steven Moffat’s more overtly whimsical tone. 

On that note, I’m also enjoying watching Davies respond to Moffat who was responding to Davies. To go back to the theme of games, there was always a sense of (friendly) competition between them. Each of them trying to “beat” the other often led to creative highs. While I love both eras (and I think they truly love and respect each other), the Toymaker’s puppet show feels like a direct response to Moffat’s implicit critiques of Davies’ storytelling tendencies, particularly in “The Day of the Doctor.” While “Day” essentially undoes the destruction of Gallifrey (while respecting its function in the narrative and character development), Davies’ pokes at Moffat’s tendency toward transhumanism in the pseudo-happy endings of each of his companions. The Toymaker shows Donna how each companion died with increasingly hollow protestations from the Doctor: Amy died of “old age;” Clara (“killed by a bird!”) “survives in her last second of life”; Bill’s consciousness survives. Neil Patrick Harris’s increasingly sarcastic “well that’s all right then!” after each equivocation was perfect and made this Moffat fan laugh out loud. (The Chibnall companions, lacking satisfying or dramatic endings, are politely avoided. A few references to the Flux and the Timeless Child aside, these episodes engage much more directly with the former Davies and Moffat eras than they ever do with Chibnall. Which makes sense. I’m still not really sure what the Flux was.) 

But neither Davies or Moffat take cheap shots for the sake of it. They both know how to blow up the narrative when it suits their larger purpose. Davies had to destroy Gallifrey to kickstart the new series. Moffat had to restore it in order to move the Doctor into the next phase. Ten years on, Davies is in much the same position. Tasked with reintroducing Doctor Who once again, no wonder he had the tension between rules and play on the brain. Every game lives in this tension. Without a playful sense of fun, games become mere exercises in pedantry. But without rules, a fun game devolves into chaos. We all know it is infuriating to play a game with someone who changes the rules arbitrarily. The rules of “canon” (to invoke that dangerous and probably inappropriate word) are something like this. Should we break the rules? Well, the question is: Does it make the story better? Tolkien, maybe the best retconner who ever lived, found a way to keep the original story of Bilbo’s finding of the Ring while completely rewriting the chapter to fit The Lord of the Rings. Rather than discard the old story, he devised a way in which both versions could be true.

I’m not sure Davies is quite that good, but he’s pretty close. He puts it all together – the Time War, the loss of all his companions, the burden of long years, and yes, even the Flux – and concludes that it’s just too much. How can any character, even the Doctor, bear the weight of all that history and mythology? And so, with the Doctor superstitiously throwing salt everywhere and the Toymaker turning people into balloons with the power of thought, Davies takes advantage of the loosening of the rules by literally splitting the show in two. It’s a paradox: the Doctor stays home and retires while the Doctor flies off to start a new adventure all over again. It’s slightly ironic, given Davies’ critique of Moffat just a few minutes ago. You can imagine the scene: 

FAN: Russell, you made the Fourteenth Doctor retire to Donna’s garden.

RTD: But the Fifteenth Doctor flew off in the TARDIS!

TOYMAKER: Well that’s all right then!

Hannah Long suggests that Bi-generation is a direct response to Chibnall’s Timeless Child mythology: “Chibnall broke the canon of the show in such a way that it feels like it’s retiring its old self for good.” That may be the case, although this isn’t the first time we’ve had this kind of reset. The Time War served as a similar blank slate. The Cracks in Time essentially ate all the Davies era continuity so that Moffat could start fresh. The Twelfth Doctor was pointedly said to have forgotten Madame de Pompadour, or so he claims. It’s not even the first time Tennant’s Doctor has left a comparatively “human” version of himself behind with a companion. (His Doctor is just lousy with doubles, isn’t he? Not that I’m complaining.) How far reaching are the implications of “The Giggle” remain to be seen in the new season. But I’m willing to buy that this represents a fundamental shift in Who, even if we’re not quite sure how yet. Maybe it’s a shift in tone, or a break in continuity. Maybe it’s just setting up Tennant and Tate for a spinoff. Who knows? (On that note, I do love the notion that the Fourteenth Doctor ends up as the Curator.)

Fans who found the Tenth Doctor’s petulant final moments disrespectful to Moffat and Matt Smith will probably hate this. And while I take their point, I think that reaction misunderstands Davies’ intent. Like Donna, Davies knows that people are capable of believing two completely opposite things at the same time. You can feel excited for the new Doctor while mourning the old one. Having been a workaholic who left Doctor Who and settled down for a comparatively quiet period of domesticity, Davies surely knows what it feels like to wish you could clone yourself. Half of you wants nothing more than to retire to a quiet garden with friends and family. The other craves mad adventures in time and space. Whereas Moffat poked fun at Ten’s final words (“he always says that”), Davies fulfilled them. With the Tenth Doctor’s face returned (a bit older and wiser), having redeemed himself by restoring his best friend, he accepts that “it’s time.” (Even though they’re not his final words, “allons-y” is perfect.) He surrenders himself and accepts his loss. He’s finally at peace.

It’s always in these moments of quiet surrender, poised between hope and despair, that we get the best eucatastrophes in fairy stories. The villain betrays himself and does good that he does not intend. Having suspended the normal rules of the universe, the Toymaker allows the Doctor’s regeneration to be governed by a different set of rules – those of story and play. An unexpected and unearned grace is given to the hero. The Doctor does a thing which is only possible in myth. The narrative doesn’t so much break as separate, like drops of liquid mercury. Having played by the rules of the Toymaker’s game and accepted the outcome (in contrast to the earlier Time Lord Victorious who declared, “The Laws of Time are mine – and they will obey me!”) the Doctor unexpectedly levels up and gains an advantage. This time, there’s two of him. The two Doctors team up and beat the Toymaker at his own game. (Though their victory is almost undone by Ncuti Gatwa’s capricious Fifteenth Doctor who momentarily loses himself in the game and forgets whose side he’s on. Can’t wait to see more of him.) Having won the game, each Doctor gets a prize: a TARDIS and the life of his choosing. In a sense, Davies gifts Tennant’s Doctor what he always wanted fifteen years later: He doesn’t have to go. He gets to stay. 

Cruel though the Toymaker is, Bi-generation is a fitting use of his powers. The Doctor appeals to an underlying potential for good: “You can turn bullets into flowers.” The Toymaker may choose to use his powers for evil, but his powers are not necessarily evil by nature. After he’s defeated and bound in salt, the Fifteenth Doctor speaks of them still being in a “state of play.” “What if…” he says right before duplicating the TARDIS, as though about to initiate a game of pretend. Yes, TV can be used for manipulation and provocation. But it’s also a storytelling medium, which means that it has the potential for creativity, imagination, and empathy. This playfulness has always informed Davies’ approach to the series. “Doomsday” is largely the fulfillment of childhood dreams of the Daleks fighting the Cybermen. Like all great writers of speculative fiction, Davies sits down to write each episode, considers the range of toys at his disposal, and thinks to himself, “What if…”

So the 60th Anniversary ends with a kind of wish-fulfillment. I very much doubt it’s a permanent fix for the Doctor’s wounds. Nothing in this life completely insulates us from loss and pain. If I’m troubled by anything, it’s the memory of Frodo’s words to Sam: “You cannot always be torn in two.” The Fourteenth Doctor still has his TARDIS. He’s already sneaking off to Mars with Rose and building force fields around the local moles. But regardless of how quickly he becomes restless or whether or not we see Tennant’s Doctor(s) again, the episode ends in a warm affirmation of what is worth fighting for. Family. Peace. Home. With the knowledge that the Doctor is out there defending the Earth and exploring the universe, he’s no longer alone. He Doctor can let go and rest. At least for a bit. Donna echoes the Doctor’s words to Rose in “Doomsday” when she describes the adventure of living life day after day – “The one adventure you’ve never had.” It’s a conscious echo of the ending of Peter Pan, when Peter observes the Lost Boys being adopted into the Darling family: “There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.” The Fifteenth Doctor gets one kind of joy; the Fourteenth Doctor another.

Donna said that “games don’t have a memory” – “the dice don’t know what the dice did last time.” The laws of story dictate that Doctor Who must regenerate and carry on. Ncuti Gatwa has the fresh face of every new Doctor. The show must shed its old persona and create something new if it’s to survive. It must always in a sense forget what came before if it’s to start over. But with the strangely human Fourteenth Doctor, Davies gestures at the more fundamental laws of human nature. The need for memory, healing, and stability. Our toxic tendency to just power through grief and pain, always moving on, afraid to look back. It’s a poignant statement from Davies who lost his husband prematurely to brain cancer in 2018. In “The Giggle,” the Doctor goes to therapy (albeit slightly out of order). Like G.K. Chesterton, I love a good paradox. In accepting his grief, the Doctor finally exorcizes it. He sees himself, embraces himself, forgives himself… and lets the burden go. Even after all he’s suffered, the Doctor is able to say that he’s “never been so happy.” Only by sitting still with his grief (surrounded by a supportive family in a beautiful garden) can he finally leave it behind and fly off without it, free as a bird. It’s a fitting and moving culmination to the story that Davies initiated back in 2005.

Undies, jukebox, wheelchair ramp… he’s perfect.

And now Davies gets to initiate a new era. Don’t get me wrong, I love the weepy and sensitive Fourteenth Doctor, but there was something cathartic about Fifteen’s frank, “OK kid, I love you. Get out.” What kind of story will he tell this time? Paradoxical as ever, it appears the Christmas special will feature the Fifteenth Doctor meeting his new companion in a nightclub as well as singing goblins a la Tolkien and George MacDonald. Even more than usual, Doctor Who contains multitudes. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or in the Mythgard Institute’s upcoming Doctor Who themed Pub Night: On January 14 at 6:00 PM Eastern Time, Curtis Weyant and I will host an informal and virtual chat about the 60th anniversary specials and the upcoming Christmas special. You can register here. Bring your thoughts, corrections, and (respectful) rants along with you.

**I’m not going to weigh in too much on the racist undertones of the Toymaker. For compelling arguments for and against those (intentional or not) undertones in the original Classic Series story, I recommend googling El Sandifer’s TARDIS Eruditorum essay on “The Celestial Toymaker” and @AMadmanNotABox’s recent Twitter thread. But whether the racism was inherent in the original episodes or entered the conception of the character later on, there’s no doubt that it’s part of the popular idea of the Toymaker now. By having the Toymaker flip between various accents and costumes, Davies lampshades and incorporates this aspect of the character and aligns these problematic characteristics with his villainy. Instead of saying, “The Toymaker is villainous because he’s Chinese,” it’s staying, “The Toymaker is villainous because he play-acts and mocks cultures and identities at a whim.”

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #7: “Simply Let the Work Proceed” (Episode 8 “Alloyed”)

Eregion

So I won’t spend this entire post saying “I told you so” (okay, just the once). Though my Halbrand = Sauron argument wasn’t necessarily the most articulate or persuasive, I do feel validated to have perceived which way the wind was blowing. It’s interesting to learn that Charlie Vickers found out who he was really playing around the third or fourth episode, because I think that’s around when my suspicions started, particularly with Halbrand’s very astute advice to Galadriel on how to manipulate people. So ultimately, I don’t think this twist came out of nowhere. As I said in the post linked above, it’s been clear since the first line of the series that they are engaging with the theme of originally good beings falling and being corrupted, and the phase of Sauron’s ostensible “repentance” fits within this framework. As I also predicted, the deeply silly and frustrating plot surrounding the dying tree of Lindon and the magical mithril glow turned out to be legit and not fabricated by Sauron, thereby leaving Sauron free to appear elsewhere in the story. However, I was also totally prepared to eat my words. Sauron already at work in Eregion would have made sense of the mithril story, and as I freely admitted, there are several ways in which the Halbrand being Sauron does not satisfy. (Why was he on that raft in the middle of the ocean? What has he been doing since Adar “killed” him? Why did he save Galadriel from drowning?) I no longer hate the idea as much as I did earlier in the season, but neither do I totally love it. I’ll try to work through my reasons below.

First of all, I completely agree with Corey Olsen that Halbrand as the King of the Dead was just way too cool a theory. The anti-Strider parallels would have totally fit this shady King of the Southlands, who swears fealty to the Last Alliance with the best of intentions but fails when it comes to the final test. That would have been wonderful and I hope we still get that character in the future (though I’m not sure if anything the writers do can top the fanon in this respect — have they missed their chance?). Secondly, I worry that Charlie Vickers, who did his best to sell Sauron’s menacing turn in this episode, was cast more for those very Striderish qualities than as a future Annatar. I suppose Vickers qualifies as a “hot Sauron,” but not in the way I would have imagined. He feels more like the rogue, wandering ranger than the seductive Lord of Gifts. I certainly want and expect a transformed Sauron in season 2, but I do fear that in order to sell us on Halbrand they may have handicapped the character in future seasons. Maybe I’m not giving Vickers enough credit, and I am definitely interested to see his approach. I really hope he can pull it off: One of the things that’s excited me most about this project is the opportunity to explore Sauron as a character rather than just as an idea, an archetype, the personification evil manifested as a flaming eye in a tower.

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #6: “Too Dim to See” (Episode 7 “The Eye”)

After the relative bafflement of episode 5 and the relative high of episode 6, I am back to my default position with Rings of Power (ROP) with episode 7: I liked it much better on rewatch. Yet again, the things I disliked (and there were a few) softened when I knew they were coming and I was able to better appreciate the parts that worked. One thing that really crystalized for me in “The Eye” is a persistent obviousness, a lack of subtlety, that at times undermines the potential greatness of this series. I really feel for the writers here. They must by necessity serve two wildly different and even contradictory audiences and impulses. One is the general audience who knows little to nothing about the books. Anecdotal evidence has shown that most non-Tolkien fans have had no problem with plot devices that fans have found close to intolerable (the mithril story being the biggest so far). Bear McCreary pointed out on twitter that even some folks who have seen the movies multiple times still have no idea of the significance of characters like Isildur, and so might be very worried about his fate. Fair enough. Those folks deserve to enjoy this story. I do not want Tolkien Gateway: The Series.

To the extent that the show is serving this audience, I can grit my teeth and forgive decisions that otherwise drive me crazy. Choices that seem thunderingly obvious to me may not be obvious to the majority of viewers. The Southands = Mordor title card felt entirely unnecessary to me. I’m trying to imagine the hypothetical viewer who knows the name Mordor (and so knows the story well enough to have an emotional reaction to that name) and yet hasn’t figured the significance of the volcanic eruption from the previous episode. However, I have been assured that such people exist. So that’s fine. Some things must be spelled out in a way that I find grating, I can look past that. The thing that really bugs me about it isn’t that not all viewers know as much as I do. To blame them for their lack of knowledge would be the worst kind of smug gatekeeping. Every fan is new at some point in their lives. What really bugs me is the aesthetics of it, the lack of artistry. The clunky title card overlay. The desire to tell the audience: “This is how you should feel,” without finding a way to communicate that within the story itself. In case the spewing volcano, red sunless sky, and ash-covered wasteland weren’t enough, let us make no mistake that you know that this is the Bad Place. It’s consistent with a trend of hand-holding in pop culture which is by no means limited to RoP.

Other significant moments in this episode followed a similar pattern, and we’ll get to some of them below: Otherwise strong and nuanced scenes are immediately undercut by hamfisted teases, references, or reveals. I sense a pattern here, and it seems to have to do with trust. At the risk of Crit Fic, and acknowledging that I could be completely off-based in my armchair analysis here, I feel a lack of trust in the intelligence of the audience and in the clarity of the writing. The transformation of the Southlands into Mordor, the ambition of the Dwarves leading to their own destruction, the complex history of Galadriel and Celeborn… all of these are excellent and worthy ideas for a Tolkien TV series, and we’ll get to each of them in turn. Their presence in the narrative suggests deep reading and thinking about Tolkien’s themes and how to bring them to the screen. Some storylines this season, most notably Adar and the Orcs, have even transcended their origins as mere adaptation and contributed something new and exciting to the Tolkien corpus. But in many cases, the writing has sabotaged itself by driving home its point with a hammer rather than letting it sit and grow in the mind. The bummer of it is, these moments also undermine the excellent work of the actors. The intensity of Adar, the wistfulness of Galadriel, and the passion of Disa were done a disservice by the writers’ need to make sure I get it.

And trust me: We get it. Because they are also serving an audience of fans here, and, not to be too smug about it, but it’s a smart audience. I enjoy a clever Easter Egg, but they alone are not enough. I would rather have a good story that makes sense than a clever nod to the lore any day. Is every fan going to get every subtle nod they throw in without the hand-holding? No, definitely not. But that’s what we’re here for: to make podcasts and YouTube shows and to write blogs and tweet threads explaining these subtleties to each other. It is not the job of the writers’ room to make sure that every single idea comes across to everyone. I don’t object to exposition for the benefit of the audience. This series should be clear and easy to follow, not a convoluted attempt to replicate the intricacy and detail of Tolkien’s Appendices on screen. But I do object to being asked to cheer at the mere appearance of a Balrog, or to swoon at every random allusion to Beren and Lúthien.

As I said, the writers are in a tough spot. The anxiety of influence is real. I have often balked at the mere idea of writing about Tolkien, let alone trying to tell stories set in his world. We are judging against a very high bar, and no series is perfect. But if I could give them some unsolicited advice, it would be this: Trust yourselves and your audience more. If you are engaging thoughtfully with Tolkien’s texts, trust that we will see and recognize this. Focus on telling a good and sound story and the rest will take care of itself.

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #5: “Transformed by Darkness” (Episode 6 “Udûn”)

Well that was certainly an improvement on last week. Having watched it early Friday morning, it only dawned on me slowly how much this episode accomplished, and how elegantly, beyond the staging of some impressive action and effects sequences. Some general points. First, I am on the record as saying that I want this show to embrace its nature as a television show, and this episode definitely did that. The pacing of the series has slowed and its focus narrowed since the frenetic first few episodes, and that really paid off here. Going against the trend of the streaming era, in which whole seasons of TV blend together and the art of the episode has been largely abandoned for the “ten hour movie” approach, I absolutely loved Rings of Power’s (RoP) decision to focus solely on the Southlands plot, while also dovetailing it with the Númenoreans. This was An Episode of TV, and I loved it for that. While action-heavy, it was also well paced with plenty of breaks for character, story and dialogue. (Peter Jackson’s Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers is a clear influence in its visual cues, its pacing, and in Jackson’s careful avoidance of “battle fatigue” via well-timed cross cutting and editing).

Halbrand = Sauron

Kat, if Halbrand turns out to be Sauron, I will be coming to you for help in reconciling myself to the notion. That's your job now.

— Tolkien Professor (@tolkienprof) September 30, 2022

I have been tasked with explaining to Corey Olsen, the Tolkien Professor, why it makes sense for Halbrand to be Sauron, something of which I am now pretty firmly convinced. While I admit that I could be completely wrong about this, and there is still time for my confidence to move in either direction, I figured I’d get started on that now so that he can begin the coping process. If I’m wrong, then Corey’s theories are likely correct and I will be very pleased and happy for him. If I am right, I will feel very smug. Either way, I win. But I’m also somewhat conflicted. While I don’t hate the idea as much as I used to, I’m still not sure I entirely like it and I will also need some time to reconcile myself to the idea. However, despite Corey’s assertions to the contrary, I do think that this is where the narrative is pointing us. All I’m doing here is saying which way I think the wind is blowing. I’m not saying that everything about this theory works or makes sense, but there have been so many red herrings and misdirects around Sauron that I’m not sure any resolution they offer will be entirely without contradiction. So let’s break this down point for point, both why it works and why it doesn’t.

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #4: “The Light in the Tower No Longer My Home” (Episode 5 “Partings”)

The Myth of Mithril

In an interview with Charlie Rose upon the release of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino explained why, despite its non-linear, puzzle-box structure, he felt it important that his new film be “easy to follow”:

QT: The thing is, I know as a viewer, the minute I start getting confused, I check out of the movie. Emotionally, I’m severed. [He motions a big pair of scissors.] … I think an audience almost has an umbilical cord to the screen and it gets severed when confusion comes in.

CR: And therefore you lose them.

QT: Exactly. And the thing is, most of the time, when I get confused and that [cord] is severed, it’s basically because I’m not supposed to be confused. It’s a mistake. However, there’s no problem with being momentarily confused if you feel you’re in good hands.

Quentin Tarantino on Charlie Rose, 10/14/1994 (14:55)

I’ve always found this image of the emotional umbilical cord a useful and memorable metaphor for the reader’s/audience’s connection to a story. Tarantino’s craft as a writer-director gave him the confidence that Pulp Fiction, for all its twists and turns, would be watchable and easy to follow. His experience as a viewer, on the other hand, taught him why that was important. The most interesting point is not that stories shouldn’t be unnecessarily confusing. That’s obvious. The real danger that Tarantino identifies is that, as a result of intellectual confusion, an emotional connection can be severed. What he’s really talking about is trust; trust between the artist and the audience. If the audience doesn’t feel they’re in “safe hands,” it can make them emotionally distant from the story they’re reading or watching.

This “emotional umbilical cord” came to mind when watching this week’s Rings of Power (RoP). We’ll get into the specific problems with the mithril origin story below, because I do want to get to the bottom of why it’s problematic beyond the basic “it’s non-canon and therefore wrong” knee-jerk reaction. But whatever ends up being the truth of the matter, and beyond it’s innovations or deviations from Tolkien’s legendarium, I think the real root of the problem is that it felt confusing. It didn’t make sense. Something doesn’t add up. Now, TV is not the same as film. You don’t have to wrap everything up by the end of the hour. Trust can be restored; this is only one subplot out of many and we’re only five hours into a fifty hour story, so I’m not saying that this misstep is fatal or a deal-breaker or anything like that. (I’m not very interested in deal-breakers as a concept in long-form storytelling, to be honest). We may end up resigning ourselves to this story line, theorizing it into submission, or even liking it in retrospect, but in observing my own reaction and those of Tolkien fans online, it seems that in that moment an invisible umbilical cord got severed. And while I am in this show for the long haul, and have really enjoyed it so far and am sure I will keep enjoying it, I can’t pretend that it doesn’t shake my trust a little.

One other big picture thing I want to touch on, somewhat related to the emotional umbilical cord, is Mystery Box storytelling. The term was popularized by J.J. Abrams’ 2007 TED Talk, and has since become identified with him and the kinds of stories (especially on TV) that he has written and produced, specifically Lost and its imitators. In a talk I gave at Mythmoot V about Lost and The Leftovers (both mystery box shows largely written by Damon Lindelof), I wrote:

[The Mystery Box is] a vessel of the imagination where anything is possible. [J.J. Abrams] had this magic mystery box since he was a kid [given to him by his grandfather] which he never opened because nothing could be as good as wondering what was inside it. And this is how he talked about [Lost] when creating the show: as a container of wonder and infinite possibility. So it’s interesting to me that even though Abrams effectively left Lost after the pilot, Lindelof (who continued on as showrunner) not only kept this theme alive but really ran with it throughout the series. Most of us that love the show will argue that the real emotional stakes stem from the characters, but it would be disingenuous to say that the mysterious nature of the Island didn’t play a huge role in the show’s addictiveness. Questions drive the story forward, like: Why did the plane crash? What’s in the hatch? Who are the Others? What is the Dharma Initiative? What is the monster? Whenever you learn an answer, it raises more questions. “The Pilot” famously ends with a question when Charlie asks: “Guys, where are we?” And we even get some Question Mark imagery in the question mark leading to the Pearl Station, represented on the map of Dharma Stations. Mystery boxes within mystery boxes.

Joanna Robinson recently pointed out on the Ringer-Verse podcast how strange it is that RoP functions like a Mystery Box show. For many Tolkien fans, questions are fueling much of our online engagement between episodes. Despite the fact that fans, in theory, know what’s going to happen, we are all caught up in the buzz of theory and speculation that fueled shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, or Twin Peaks. I can totally see why they’ve taken this route: It puts the fan audience on the same footing as the naive, non-book-reading audience. For an uninitiated viewer, it’s enough to wonder what will happen next. But to engage the book-reading audience in the same kind of anticipation and speculation, they have introduced a number of mysteries that invite deep research into Tolkien’s lore to solve. It’s been incredibly fun. Many of these mysteries surround the identity of characters, which is a smart move. Damon Lindelof, on The Storm (another podcast hosted by Joanna Robinson), said that “the best answer to a mystery is a person.” (This is why the answer to “What’s in the hatch?” is so satisfying on Lost.) And so we wonder week by week and gather data on questions such as: Who is the Stranger? Who is Halbrand? Who or what is Adar? Where is Sauron? Which characters will become Nazgûl? What is Gil-galad not telling us? How will the Harfoots factor into the larger narrative?

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #3: “The Creation of a New World” (Episode 4 “The Great Wave”)

Halfway through the season and The Rings of Power (RoP) is still finding itself, which is only to be expected. The quality of the dialogue varies wildly from scene to scene (with the ritualized chanting from Episode 3 being perhaps the most banal to the truly striking and evocative speech from Adar in this episode at the opposite end of the spectrum). The story writing, however, is continually fascinating and endlessly fun to discuss and debate, which is exactly what I was hoping for from this series. We knew this would never be Tolkien’s Second Age: He died almost forty years ago. As long as this continues to be a thoughtful and interesting engagement with his ideas for the Second Age, I’m all in. The writers are continuing to show themselves more “faithful” (to use a loaded word) to Tolkien’s texts than one might have expected, while also willing to introduce bold innovations which are at least based on Tolkienian ideas if not directly extrapolated from the text. It’s a very intriguing balancing act and while I’m not sure how it’s working for an audience unfamiliar with Tolkien’s entire published corpus (I’d love to hear from more of those people to get their perspective), it’s certainly been an entertaining and thought-provoking ride for me. Every single day I see dozens of tweets quoting directly from Tolkien’s works, theorizing about the series, and sharing our love for this world, and that makes the endeavor worthwhile.

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #2: “Your Father’s Cloud” (Episode 3 “Adar”)

I have noticed what might turn out to be a pattern with my viewing of The Rings of Power: on first watch I find myself concentrating so hard on details, references, adaptational changes, etc. that I come away unsure of how to feel. Entire lines of dialogue get missed; I don’t know what to make of certain choices; I have an emotional resistance to what I initially (in an admittedly knee-jerk fashion) perceive as “wrong.” What I have found both times is that I enjoy myself and the episodes much more on second watch. Without the element of surprise, whatever bugged me the first time bugs me less, and not only am I able to appreciate the craft and enjoy myself more, I also am better able to pick up on subtle details and appreciate the ways in which they are adapting the story successfully. It’s a fun way to experience this show, but it means that I sort of have to get the first viewing out of the way before I can sit down and really see what they might be trying to do.

First, a few big picture thoughts that jumped out to me about the third episode, “Adar”. First, I noticed more explicit callbacks to the Peter Jackson film trilogy this time around. The sweeping introduction to Númenor (complete with lighthouse beacon) paralleling Pippin’s journey up through Minas Tirith on the back of Shadowfax; Sadoc’s speech to the Harfoots; Halbrand as a cracked-mirror Strider; even the hollow pommel of Elendil’s sword.

“Adar,” definitely feels like a more surefooted episode of television: The pace settles down and we focus on three story lines, rather than trying to cram everyone in (not surprising that the premiere had to cover more ground). Indeed, we even get an overarching theme which is announced in the title of the episode: “Adar” is the Sindarin word for “father,” and the theme of fatherhood threads all the disparate plots together. Adar, of course, is the incongruous name of the Orcs for their mysterious leader. (I’ve seen much speculation that is somehow the father of all Orcs; perhaps an ancient and corrupted Elf?) But the fatherhood theme as it applies to the Orc plot is superficial; it’s much stronger in all the others. There is Elendil’s troubled yet caring relationship with his three children. There is the peril inherent in Nori’s father’s injury. There is Míriel’s father (Tar-Palantir), the deposed King of Númenor who, Elendil tells us, remains loyal to the Elves and whiles his years in confinement, a political prisoner in his own kingdom. There’s also the symbolic aspect of kings as the “father” of a people: Not only Tar-Palantir and Queen Regent Míriel, but an allusion to the founding king Elros, and potentially Halbrand, too. (Speaking of Halbrand and fatherhood, another theory names him as Theo’s mysteriously missing father.)

I love seeing the writers embrace RoP‘s televisual nature: Slowing the story down to spend time on a few plot lines and tying them all together in a way that feels united and thematic. In a word, it’s episodic. Likewise, this slower pace allows for much greater worldbuilding and it pays off in quality time spent in fleshing out the cultures and characters.

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #1: “Varieties of Good” and the Problem of Gil-galad (Episodes 1 & 2)

Now that everyone has seen the premiere of The Rings of Power, I wanted to expand on my earlier spoiler-free post and talk in more specific detail about these first two episodes. In general, as I said before, I liked and enjoyed the episodes. I have a few points of confusion and even resistance, which I’ll get to below, but for the most part I thought these episodes looked great, the casting and acting were uniformly strong, and I think this series has a lot of potential. I don’t disagree with those who have complained about somewhat inconsistent or stilted dialogue, though I found some of it better than others. But more important to me than a probably doomed attempt to recreate Tolkien’s precise and unique prose style is thoughtful engagement with Tolkien’s themes and stories. That engagement Rings of Power has in abundance; even if I’m not entirely sure I like where they’re taking certain plot lines, I can’t agree with those who say that the series has no relationship to Tolkien’s texts. See the first full episode of Rings & Realms for a pretty thorough list of some of the ways RoP is commenting on and engaging with Tolkien’s themes and stories.

I want to resist drawing parallels to House of the Dragon from week to week, but one other thing that jumps out to me in these first few episodes is that, while HotD is certainly well-made, confident, engrossing, and may even be the “better” show (so far) it is also by miles the safer. The creators have taken what worked best about Game of Thrones (scheming in elegant rooms; Targaryens riding dragons; even the theme music) and hewed as close to those elements as possible. RoP, on the other hand, feels brave. Fail or succeed, love it or hate it, they are doing something audacious by taking the disparate notes, outlines, and chronologies that make up the Second Age and trying to turn them into a functional TV drama; and for that I like, admire, and prefer it (even if I’m enjoying both). Yes, it is also based on familiar material but in delving into the further heroic, legendary, and tragic history of an earlier age of Middle-earth it is tackling material which is far less known in the public imagination and is sometimes not what more casual fans might expect. I think we can see the challenging nature of this approach is the trouble many casual readers of Tolkien, and especially particular fans of the Peter Jackson film adaptations, are having in opening their minds to a new vision of Tolkien on screen. That’s not to say that every choice they make is the right one or that their vision is perfect, but I do think it’s important to resist any impulsive knee-jerk reactions and give these storytellers a chance to show what they’re doing. One of the things I’ll be really interested to track is how RoP functions as a television series, which is also ultimately a different medium from a book or even a movie.

I’ll also say that I enjoyed myself much more on the second watch when I could just sit back and enjoy the story; on first viewing I was concentrating very hard and felt more distracted by following the frenetic pace of the story and trying to understand what the storytellers are doing. While sitting on my couch at home, I was less bothered by the troublesome bits and enjoyed the fun bits even more.

I’m on vacation this week and it’s been a very busy (though exciting week) in the Tolkien fandom, so this probably won’t be my best or most coherent blog post ever. We’ve also got two episodes to cover. But let’s go through this group by group.

Of The Rings of Power and the Second Age #0: Thoughts on the Premiere (Spoiler-free)

Consider this the first in what I hope will be a series of blog posts responding to The Rings of Power episodes as they come out. I don’t know quite what form those posts will take, whether they be traditional reviews, deep dives into points of lore and themes, musings on particular aspects of the show or adaptational choices. I’m interested to hear in the comments if you have any requests for what angle you think I should take. I’m going to try to save most of my specific reactions for after the first two episodes come out this week but I did want to write down some general first impressions. If you really don’t want to know anything at all going in, it’s probably best to skip this and read after the streaming premiere.

To help organize my thoughts, I asked friends on social media what questions I should address.

Jim Vaiknoras: Did you like it?

Way to cut right to the chase! Answer: Yes! It certainly didn’t hurt to be in a packed theater full of enthusiastic Tolkien fans, but I thoroughly enjoyed these episodes. They held my attention and were never dull, slow or boring. (I question the judgment of anyone who says they were slow-paced.) In fact, if they erred it was more on the side of trying to pack in too much a little too fast. There is a prologue (a prologue to the prologue that is this entire show, funnily enough) and while it is probably not much shorter than the prologue in Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring, it covers way more ground and thus feels more abstract. The prologue is less concerned with establishing specific plot points (which was the purpose of Jackson’s prologue) and more so with conveying general First Age Vibes. A newbie will probably not come out with a detailed understanding of The Silmarillion, but a Silmarillion-reader will see many nods and references to that text. And that is probably true in a larger sense of the first two episodes themselves: They are the pilot for a projected five-season TV show and have tons of worlds and characters to introduce. I do hope that future episodes will settle down a bit, both in pace and in focus. The visuals are beautiful, the scope is epic, and the acting was strong across the board. The setup of characters, realms and themes is recognizably Tolkienesque, although (and I feel like I might have to say this a lot) it’s very hard to judge those things based on only two episodes. So much of the discourse around this show, which Corey Olsen has characterized as “gush and outrage,” does not allow for nuance or for the fact that this is a planned 50 hours of story. Does it “feel” like Tolkien? Does it get his themes “right”? Is it faithful to the lore? Does it do his characters and story justice? Such questions can only be answered with time and patience.

The Rings of Power: New York City Premiere, or An Unexpected Journey

In a stroke of unforeseen luck, I was given a ticket to attend the New York City premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. This came about very quickly (I found out less than a week before) and the whole event was a bit of a whirlwind, so I wanted to write down a brief account of the whole experience and some initial, non-spoilery thoughts.

We’re going on an adventure…

My sweet mom kept me company on the train up and in the hotel. Pre-pandemic, we’ve enjoyed going to NYC once a year or so to sight see, take in a show, and spend some time together. My mom is not the super Tolkien nerd that I am (though she enjoys the movies and has patiently indulged me explaining Elven metaphysics to her for the last 20 years) so she was happy to hang out with me and enjoy the city but equally happy to let me go off to the event without her.