Time, Death, Nostalgia, oh my! (Awaiting Flux)

Time has a very nasty habit of not moving when you're aware of it, it's sneaky like that, moving at a snail's pace at the very moment you need it to do the exact opposite. Then you blink, and all of a sudden, the best years of your life are gone, you're on your death bed surrounded by the people you love, the people you like, and the other dying people in the hospital who you hold a great indifference towards - your mind is racing, you've known this moment would come, you've known it your whole life, but now is the time to worry about if it was enough. Religion as a whole has bashed into everyone's head that your life is the rehearsal for the grand performance of passing away, I hope you've learnt your lines because the almighty is in the front row and he's ready to be entertained, he's watching your every move so you best not stumble or make any mistakes - he'll be watching, and he's a very harsh critic. So now you're worrying about your final words, what will they be? You've come up with loads of funny ones, some real stingers to leave them all with, a grin and a nod, or perhaps something poetic? Something sweet? Something to give them food for thought as you drift off into the ether. Time's funny like that, it's fast and unempathetic, it allows no room for optimism or pessimism - it just flows at its own steady pace from your own personal perspective. So as I sit here in wait, for the moments ahead, I sit and I wait, watching the clock, knowing fully that I will feel every tick and tock of its little hand - the second hand will go fast, giving the illusion that I won't be here for very long, the minute hand will go at a steady pace in reminder that perhaps my patience is not so thick after all, and finally the hour hand will be used to slap me in the face every time it moves, which will only take a millennium or two. That's time for you, it moves when it wants, which is incredibly unpredictable and it always seems to do it out of spite. Time doesn't fly when you're having fun, it flies when it's not being observed - like a Weeping Angel...

This finally leads me onto the subject of this blog post. The new series of Doctor Who (Series 13, Doctor Who: Flux or Series 39 if you want to show how really clever and funny you are) is on its way, in fact, it starts next week, time has been kind this time around - and boy am I excited? Yes. Yes, I am. Very excited. So excited in fact, that I'm writing this whole blog post in advance, with the assumption that I'll write many more alongside the new series' episode releases - providing my thoughts on each one, most likely being very erratic and anxious about what will come the following week. Due to that assumption, I realise now they probably won't be as well structured as this blog post or the others that came before it, mostly because I like to edit things to what I deem to be perfect, and I won't have as much time to do that if I'm releasing them weekly. Perhaps that's what I need, an exercise in not being such a neurotic perfectionist, maybe that will do me good - or maybe it will do me badly and it'll all end in tears - only time will tell, or perhaps it won't, it's incredibly rude like that.

Series 13 (Or Series 39, again, if you're cool), mysteriously titled Doctor Who: Flux is right on the horizon, I can see it, rearing its head over the hill, trying to be all sly, it thinks I can't see it, but I can - I can see Sontarans and Weeping Angels, I can see a man with a gun and jazzy space hair named Vinder as well as a man named John Bishop who's holding up a large cardboard sign with the word "Dan" scrawled across it in paint. I can see six whole episodes and a few more following just behind, they're all linked up in arms, telling one big story in a serialised format, just like how Grandma used to make them. I can see the Timeless Child, all eighteen billion of them in varying shapes and sizes, asking questions about the past, present and future, every question they ask is responded with thousands of torches and pitchforks, and amongst them are the happy few simply hanging about for some more sci-fi hijinks. I can see Chris Chibnall, crossing his fingers and toes, his eyes clamped shut, curled up into a ball, hoping you can't see any of what I just described, and praying to the Gods that no one knows anything about the next couple of weeks - should someone tell him?

With this series, we will say many hellos and quite a lot of goodbyes. This will tragically be Jodie Whittaker's final bow, or at least her penultimate bow because we'll have to go through this series, and then next year will have to deal with the trauma of multiple specials before FINALLY, on the BBC's 100th birthday, will we witness Jodie's graceful goodbye. We'll also be saying goodbye to Chris Chibnall, or Christopher to his friends - well I'll be saying goodbye, I imagine some other people will be providing him with some very obscene gestures, which isn't very nice but that's just people - I for one have had a lovely time with Christopher's Doctor Who, he's shown us a different flavour of the show as well as exploring some very deep dives into the universe, and of course the controversy! If you're a Doctor Who showrunner, you can't NOT have controversy, if you're not causing controversy you might as well just give up now, or start causing some, pronto! Make the Doctor their own parents, or even make Susan the Doctor, have the Doctor give birth to themselves, and then become their grandaughter - why not? I'd watch that, I'll watch anything if it's Doctor Who, I'm sad like that.

With the cycle readying to reset, the time has arrived to come up with theories on who the next Doctor will be, a tradition I refuse to take part in. I have no perfect choice for who the next one should be, I don't like to think about it, because they'll never be the one who ends up taking the job, the Doctor is always someone I've never heard of, and I doubt that'll change any time soon. The perfect person for the role is the person who has been chosen to be the Doctor, they'll be great, they're perfect, they'll nail it, I have the uttermost faith in them, they're going to be the best and no doubt they'll grow to be my favourite.

My interest lies in whoever will be taking over from Christopher, who would dare pick up the mantle? Mark Gatiss called it a poisoned chalice, who is brave enough to take a sip?
Whoever does take over the showrunning job, they'll have a lot to crack on with, what with 2023 being the 60th anniversary and everything, whoever takes the job will have to face that front on - now that's a trial by fire if I've ever seen one. Whoever can come out of that and survive is a good showrunner in my books, as long as they end up starting some bloody controversy! But who is the right person for the job? Well, we might as well go with an old faithful, someone who the BBC are confident will take the role of the 60th with both hands and do something great with it, reach back into the deep dark depths of Doctor Who's past and pluck out none other than Russel T Davies himself - making an incredibly unexpected return after god knows how many years, after swallowing his suicide pill that was The Writer's Tale, I wonder how things will differ from his last stab at the show, and I wonder what will remain the same, only time will tell. I'll probably think about this more at a later date, being caught in a crossroads between trying to not feel daunted by looking back, while also trying to remain positive about the future, it seems with the return of RTD, the timelines are merging, trapping me in a paradox of nostalgia and soothsaying. I'm sure he has a good reason to be back, the guy's a genius and he knocked it out of the park with It's A Sin, so I doubt he would come back with no idea what he wanted to do - so colour me very excited for RTD2 - but that's not for a while yet, let's reel it back a little.

Whittaker and Chibnall's journey started in 2017, when Capaldi and Moffat saluted us off in Twice Upon a Time, now they must do the same with whatever tale they will be telling next year. We would have moved across six years by then, time really does move when you're not looking, you don't realise it as it's happening, but once it's happened, you look back and you feel a deep sense of depression, a melancholy for a time you should've known wouldn't go by as quickly as it ended up going. You sit there, remembering all of the times the Thirteenth Doctor saved the day, all the times the villain gave away their plan, all the times history was the Doctor's greatest foe, all the times you would sit in front of the TV, getting excited for the next episode to arrive - you just don't realise how quickly time would pass. I should probably be lamenting about all this when the time finally arrives, but then what would be the point? I'm placing my bets, making my points about nostalgia before I end up feeling it, soon enough this blog post will be pushed down the list by the many others I end up writing, and yet it'll still be accurate. I'm even writing some of this blog post in advance, before the actual official Week 0, - because I've been through this before multiple times, looking back and being all sad that it isn't happening right now, but I've learnt it's not important, time will keep on moving and those moments will still exist, it's up to me to decide how I perceive them. Forget time, time is playing a game and refuses to tell me the rules, so I refuse to engage! I'm going to do my best to ignore it and see where I'll end up, probably right where I was always destined to be, because destiny is silent, blind, incredibly poetic and a right bastard.

So with Jodie Whittaker leaving, she'll be facing the many trials and tribulations any other Doctor faces during their last hurrah, where will she regenerate I wonder? What will cause it? What will her final words be? Will it be something funny? A classic stinger? Something poetic? Something sweet? Something to leave us with some food for thought, something that'll be in the hall of fame? Something that'll wrap up her era with a neat little bow? Who knows? Only time will tell, and it will eventually, trust me, it might take a while, it's inevitable, so I suppose that's why I want to do this, make an attempt to document my thoughts on her final moments before she joins Hartnell, McCoy, Smith, Capaldi and all the others in the long line of people calling themselves "Doctor Who". However, going into this new and fresh series, I know it'll be a different viewing experience, this'll be the first time I'll be watching it without the presence of my family - for the past seventeen years since the show came back in 2005, I've been watching the show live with my parents, this year will be different, this year I'll be watching the show from my university accommodation, so instead of sharing my thoughts and feelings with my family, I'm forced to share it with whoever dares read this blog - God have mercy on their souls. Will it go well? Who knows? Only time - there it is again - will tell.

The important thing is to NOT let the exciting news of the future, and the overwhelming nostalgia of the past, affect the current situation we're facing right now. I've mildly enjoyed the journey with Number Thirteen and I want to appreciate her final moments, there aren't that many - only about six episodes and a few specials - we should enjoy them before they disappear, and maybe just maybe in the future, we'll look back on this era as something that maybe didn't deserve all the harsh criticism that it ended up receiving, or maybe we won't, who knows? That's right...TIME. Let's just try to not get ahead of ourselves here.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!