Friday, January 31, 2020

"Fugitive of the Judoon" Review

This past Saturday, "Fugitive of the Judoon" aired and after watching it, I still don't know what I think. I enjoyed certain things, certain things depressed me and other things made me think, "What if".  I'm sure you all have seen it, so I'm not going to tell you much about the story but instead just give you my thoughts. So let's try and dissect this pivotal episode of the series.

There was a lot that I enjoyed about this episode. This was probably the biggest part of any episode that the Judoon have had since they first premiered back in "Smith and Jones". The Judoon are one of the best new series creations that there are. I have been wanting to see them player a larger role since I first saw them many years ago. How could you not love a space police rhino? It was nice to see them play such a large role in this episode for at least the first half, then they were forgotten about.

The other thing I enjoyed immensely was the return of Captain Jack Harkness. Jack is back. Well, just for this one episode. Producer Chris Chibnall has come out and said Jack won't be in the rest of this season. Which is kind of stupid, but it's what we come to expect from Chris. Come on, we all want to see Jack meet this new Doctor. Jack gives a warning to the Doctor about the "Lone Cyberman". Well of course a lone Cyberman is dangerous , just like a lone Dalek is dangerous. All it takes is one Cyberman and they will start popping up like rabbits. 

Now let's talk about the elephant in the room. The introduction of a new Doctor, played by Jo Martin and the revelation that neither Doctor remembers the other one. If you go back and ready my first review of "Spyfall", I talk about the rumor that the Doctor had a whole set of re-generations before William Hartnell and that the Doctor was originally a Female. I think you just saw the groundwork for this. Chibnall has already come out and shot one theory down, that this a Doctor from a parallel universe. Which actually is kind of a cool idea, but no he wants to rewrite the whole story of the Doctor. Which I think will ultimately turn even more people away from the show and speed up its demise. There is one saving grace from cannon. In the "Brain of Morbius", the Doctor battles Morbius with his brain and on the screen flashes the Doctor's previous re-generations but some of them are re-generations we have never seen before. Could they be from a past series of re-generations? Maybe.

At the end of this episode, I got to thinking "What if they had cast Jo Martin instead of Jodie Whitaker?" Jo Martin's Doctor was such a breath of fresh air compared to the current Doctor we are stuck with. Isn't it great to see the Doctor use some violence occasionally, reminiscent of Jon Pertwee, in order to defeat an enemy? That was so bad ass when she ripped the horn off the Judoon. If there were to be a female Doctor, this is the character and actor we needed. Sorry to say Jodie, but you are officially only the 2nd best female Doctor now.

So time to give this episode a score. This is hard. I'm still conflicted. I don't want to give it a good grade, because I know what this episode is going to lead to, but it wasn't too bad. I'm going to give "Fugutive of the Judoon" a 3 Tardises out of 5. This season is starting to remind me of the last season of Sylvester McCoy. They went all out that season, bringing anyone and everything back to the show in order to get a jump in the ratings. They brought the Brigadier, the Master and even even the Doctor's car, Betsy back in order to save the show. Let's hope this does not turn out like that season did.