I finally watched “The Witchfinder” and read the review on io9 and the comments. I cannot comment there for various troublesome login reasons, so I thought I would blather over here.
The io9 review points out that this is the first story where the now-female Doctor is being held back because of her gender. There is no reason to expect the stories set in the future or present-day would set this limitation on her. “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” and “Arachnids in the UK” are modern stories and nobody really questioned a woman taking charge (except Robertson who didn’t think anyone but he should be in charge of anything). The historical stories (“Rosa” and “Demons of the Punjab”) so far passed over it. Yes, there was a bit of Graham being considered “the man of the family” in”Rosa”, but the gender thing wasn’t an issue until “The Witchfinders”.
There comments on the io9 article also mentioned a lack of rage in Thirteen. One of my favorite moments with Twelve was in “Thin Ice” when he talked about managing the racism of the times, then slugged someone for being a racist. We don’t see that in Thirteen. My initial comment (that I couldn’t post) was based in Twelve’s goodbye speech, which was not the best pontification Twelve had, but still a good one in which he emphasized kindness. When Twelve started he was not kind. Remembering back, Eleven spent 900 years on a single planet without the TARDIS, growing old and expecting to die a natural permanent death. Facing this, probably not feeling well-loved or appreciated, he regenerated into a crankier older persona, perhaps one a little too much like his first incarnation with not as much puckish tendencies (which came back). Twelve learned what it was to be Kind again (or at least how his lack of kindness caused trouble), and his goodbye speech perhaps locked that in, so Thirteen doesn’t let loose with the rage.
Granted, it is also possible that Davies (a Welshman) and Moffatt (a Scot), are generally more aggressive and have some cultural anger than Chibnall (who grew up in Merseyside, close to where the Beatles started) and so Chibnall, not being from an historically oppressed nation, doesn’t have anything to work out in fiction.
It also may be a decision Chibnall made to put a cork on the Doctor’s rage that allowed previous actors to do some real scenery-chewing monologues.
And for the most part, Thirteen is kind. She wants to help out, she wants the baddies to turn good, she doesn’t seem to want to kick ass. She also, oddly enough, doesn’t seem to get too upset when people do kill and when people die.
- She’s disappointed in Karl for throwing Tzim-Sha off the crane. Not upset, just disappointed.
- She’s okay with Ryan zapping Krasko back into time. She did give Krasko a chance to repent, of course.
- I don’t recall her saying anything about Kira, killed so heartlessly by the Kerblam system, and she doesn’t seem all that upset that Charlie died in the same episode.
As I write this, there are two more episodes to go this series and a New Year’s Special to watch, so I don’t know if she will uncork or not.