The king is dead. Long live the queen

So it’s goodbye to Peter Capaldi and welcome to Jodie Whitaker. When the news first broke about the identity of the new Doctor I was disappointed. I reckoned Doctor Who needed a shake up and I liked the idea of a change of dynamic with a female Doctor, but I wasn’t sure about the choice.

 

If the new showrunner wanted an actress from Broadchurch, JW wouldn’t have been in my top 3 choices. Phoebe double-barrelled something, the bookies’ favourite, was tall and quirky enough to pull it off, Vicky McClure’s eyebrows are just as watchable as Capaldi’s, and Olivia Colman is great in anything, but having seen Jodie being the Doctor for a few seconds I reckon she’ll work – provided she gets some decent stories.

Seeing PC try his best to spark life into yet another plot-free story just showed that a new take on Doctor Who is long overdue. PC should have been the greatest ever Doctor. Heck, he’s Malcolm Tucker. The guy can do comedy, tragedy, menace and drama, often all at the same time, and yet he just never got the chance to let rip. The ending brought this home to me when his nostalgic look back on his achievements only produced a sick dalek from an episode I’d forgotten about and a couple of dopey assistants looking sad.

I watched David Tennant’s regeneration episode over Xmas and his prolonged death scene is annoying, but I have to admit it was deserved as he did have numerous great call backs to be nostalgic about, but sadly PC just didn’t have any epic moments. He was a brilliant Doctor trapped in a poor run. So as even his closing monologue was pedestrian, I thought I’d recall Malcolm Tucker’s closing monologue (edited for language) from The Thick of It, as curiously it works for the Doctor, too. Now that’s how a character should leave a show with his head held high.

"You know Jackie effing Chan about me. You know eff all about me. I am totally beyond the realms of your effing tousle-haired effing dim-witted compre-effing-hension. I don't just take this effing job home, you know. I take this job home, it effing ties me to the bed, and it effing effs me from arsehole to breakfast. Then it wakes me up in the morning with a cup full of piss slammed in my face, slaps me about the chops to make sure I'm awake enough so it can kick me in the effing bollocks. This job has taken me in every hole in my effing body. "Malcolm!" it's gone, you can't know Malcolm because Malcolm is not here. Malcolm effing left the building effing years ago. This is a effing husk, I am a effing host for this effing job. Do you want this job? Yes? You do effing want this job? Then you're going to have to swallow this whole effing life and let it grow inside you like a parasite, getting bigger and bigger and bigger until it effing eats your insides alive and it stares out of your eyes and tells you what to do. I'm going to leave the stage with my head held effing high. What you're going to see is a master class in effing dignity, son. The audience will be on their feet. "There he goes!" they'll say. No friends - no ‘real’ friends. No children, no glory, no memoirs. Well, eff them."