#series 11

Ryan & The Doctor were such good friends.

I'm not just saying that they were good like two people who get along. They were good for each other. Honestly, after how RTD wrote Ruby and Belinda's relationship with The Doctor, the whole Fam is that much more refreshing. They're a support network!

Wow is that why so many people hate on this era?? Are you just not entertained by people who legitimately help each other become the best versions of themselves? Lol oof pocketing that one for later... 😂

These two are truly underrated for their chemistry. They share plenty of comedic moments together and Ryan's scene with The Doctor in his last episode, The Revolution of the Daleks, is so candid. He shows so much maturity. It even becomes clearer that after he leaves, his reason for leaving is having found purpose in the time since being parted with the Tardis.

He knows he is needed by his friends. He feels important to the planet. He sees an opportunity to help in a way that flying around on the Tardis feels a bit like...running away from it all. He found purpose and he's going to run in its direction not the other 'round.

I love you, Ryan Sinclair.

Woah, whoops...how'd that picture get uploaded right here? 😳 *clearing throat; knocking things over in a rush*

This guy was an adorable ball of energy when he wasn't being Mr. Cool standing behind his Granddad taking in the whole of the universe. Just seeing sights and winning at FIFA against his mate. 😄

His most notable moments aside are definitely being the object of King James's affection, his big brother moment with Ada, when he emotionally supported a man he'd only just met give birth (so help me if y'all don't see the beauty of that moment from a science fiction and queer perspective), his conveyor belt moment in Kerblam!, his cute and dorky reaction to meeting Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, the gadget bit in Spyfall, and the time he blew up a bunch of Cybermen on a dying world stranded in time and space.

Hey, I get it if you don't have taste and wanna be like "but he wasn't that well written" or "he was such a background character for most of the show" but I think it helps to pay attention to moments when they happen on screen. I'd say erase your biases too but that's not as easy of a solution. They're not exactly visible or easily perceived. Ryan Sinclair's bright and shining face, however, is right there! Clear as can be 😉 Just look at it!

Did you look?

...lol okay I'm done being a goober.

Here's to you, Ryan Sinclair (and Tosin Cole for playing the role)!

Bonus points for his last scene with Graham in their finale. He keeps trying; he keeps fighting to conquer his dispraxia. He isn't magically gifted with the ability to overcome it as a result of having traveled with The Doctor or anything like that; he simply has to keep at it. That's a highly motivating and emotionally validating subplot and it neatly coalesces with the grief of his grandmother. He's never weighed down by it because he and Graham learned how to open themselves up in their time with the Doctor. That vulnerability and the community that strengthens us in sight of grief becomes their parting gift.

Well, I just watched 'The Woman Who Fell To Earth' for the first time, and...

actually let's compare this in more depth. because both the zygon inversion and kerblam feature revolutionaries who are presented as extremists who have "gone too far". but i still love the former story and hate the latter.

kerblam has charlie. inversion has bonnie. both are explicitly framed as rebels who want to overturn what they perceive as oppression. and both are framed as extremists whose ideologies are quickly dismissed as irrational and dangerous.

neither story meaningfully explores the root cause of rebellion. charlie’s automation-focused ideology is undercut while bonnie’s grievances are left vague or incoherent (treated like cattle how, bonnie? the story doesn't care enough to ask).

kerblam ends with vague reforms and no structural change. judy may propose the organisation becomes majority-organics, but there’s no guarantee anyone will listen. all of the worker characters die. the two bosses survive.

the background worker characters get one month off but only paid for two weeks. and instead of the horrible minimum-wage jobs being automated, they'll just hire more human workers to inflict further misery upon.

meanwhile; inversion sees the doctor enforce a fragile truce that resets the same failed peace repeatedly. kate’s memory has apparently been wiped multiple times. people keep getting slaughtered. each time, the doctor resets it to more or less how it was at the start.

both feature climaxes with the doctor confronting the antagonist; in both, the terrorist gets an appeal to emotion and neither seriously proposes alternatives to the existing system. radicalism is treated as inherently flawed or harmful, not a potential source of systemic change.

so, where do they differ?

first of all: kerblam addresses real-world issues like amazon-style capitalism, automation, and labor exploitation head-on. inversion uses metaphor.

zygons can never truly be about isis or refugees or imperialist wars or dysphoria, but it can orbit that territory. which lends the story to ambiguity, multiple possible readings, and prioritising a more coherent moral purpose.

inversion follows a clear moral arc with bonnie’s redemption paralleling the doctor’s trauma. she’s equated with him in the time war, framing her feelings as valid. she just needs to find a non-lethal third way, which ends up being stepping into the role of the missing osgood.

charlie gets no such treatment. he is killed off with no emotional payoff, no redemption, and framed as a generational pariah. he’s radicalised by being a millennial.

kerblam is cynical. it lacks any emotional sincerity. it undermines its initial setup with a confused message. but inversion is constructed with nuance, ambiguity, and clear intent by harness and moffat the entire way through with a coherent, optimistic moral.

it also helps that inversion is a major narrative climax in series 9, led by capaldi and coleman, who are the two greatest lead actors in the history of the show. they both deliver all-time nuanced and emotionally devastating portrayals.

so; the main difference comes down to empathy. the zygon inversion has deep empathy for bonnie even if it doesn't have an interest in her specific motives. it has deep empathy for the issues it explores. it has deep empathy for its audience. moffat (+harness) prioritizes empathy.

kerblam has no empathy for charlie and randomly kills him off in a blaze of fire. it has no empathy for the issues it explores and actively inflicts further misery on even more workers. and chibnall (+ mctighe) seems to despise the disaffected youth that is its own audience.

so, where does the interstellar song contest land? well, sort of in between.

there's nothing as explicitly fascist as "the systems aren’t the problem", it does have empathy for the oppressed, and it does end its story with giving the group a voice at eurovision.

naturally; none of this is enough. the story is still about how one individual person of a genocided group went "too far for his good cause" instead of being a story about the oppression.

the doctor still tortures this "evil freedom fighter" but does nothing about the corporation that is behind their oppression (if he's even aware of it).

and the liberal solution to the problem doesn't imply that the material reality of their home planet has actually changed at all, so the killing will likely just continue.

it's a horrible move to write this sort of story in this current political climate. rtd's entire modern doctor who era is deeply cynical in how it tries to faux-appeal to its liberal audience.

The plot: