The first ofDoctor Who’sthree 2023 special episodes released last week, bringing back the fantastic duo of the Doctor and Donna Noble. Titled ‘The Starbeast,’ the episode marks Russell T. Davies’s return as showrunner, something fans are extremely excited about. David Tennant gets to play the Doctor once more, and Catherine Tate returns as Donna.
The episode picks up from Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor’s regeneration into the Fourteenth Doctor, although he now has the Tenth Doctor’s face again. He stumbles into an adventure with Donna and her teenage daughter Rose (Yasmin Finney). They go through some ups and some downs but in the end, Donna and Rose are both revealed to have a part of the metacrisis inside them. This is the thing that would have killed Donna if she ever remembered her adventures, but at the end of the episode, both she and her daughter are alive and well. Here’s an explanation of how they survived.
What Happens in ‘The Starbeast’?
‘The Starbeast’ kicks off with the Fourteenth Doctor landing in London not long after regenerating back intohis old face. A few minutes later, he bumps into none other than his old friend Donna Noble and her daughter, Rose. An explosion occurs in the sky, and they all watch a spaceship seemingly crashing into Earth. While the Doctor investigates, Rose comes across a creature called the Meep. The team works to help the adorable, furry alien, but ends up having the tables turned on them. TheMeep is the villain here, and he plans to destroy all of London to power his spaceship and leave to cause more havoc.
At a crucial moment before the Meep’s escape, Donna and the Fourteenth Doctor are in the spaceship’s control center, but get separated by a glass wall. The Doctor can’t stop the ship with access to only half of it. Millions of people are in danger, including Rose. And the only way to save everybody is to activate the metacrisis in Donna. Reluctantly, the Doctor triggersDonna’s memories to come back. Flush with Time Lord knowledge, she and the Doctor shut down the spaceship and foil the Meep’s plans. But it leaves Donna with only 55 more seconds to live before her mind burns, and she collapses to the floor.
Donna Survives The Metacrisis
Let’s face it: we all knew this was going to happen. Audiences everywhere trustedRussell T. Daviesto come up with a loophole to save Donna. After all, she has two more episodes to play a role in. The only question was how. As it turns out, the loophole is a fairly simple, yet believable one — Donna had a daughter, and part of the metacrisis in her was passed down to her child.
With part of the metacrisis out of her own mind, what was left in Donna wasn’t lethal anymore. While Rose was unaware of the metacrisis herself, the metacrisis made itself known through fragments of memories the Doctor and Donna shared. This is why Rose’s garden shed resembled the TARDIS, andy why the stuffed toys she made looked like actual aliens: Daleks, Adipose,Cybermenand more. The Doctor also speculates that it’s why she picked the name Rose for herself when she transitioned: she unwittingly named herself after Rose Tyler.
When the Doctor triggers Donna’s memories, the metacrisis in Rose is activated as well. While her mother stops the spaceship, Rose steps up to save all the UNIT soldiers possessed by solar psychedelia.The Meeploses control of his minions, and ends up getting rightfully arrested by the Wrarth Warriors.
Donna and Rose Let Go Of The Metacrisis
The problem doesn’t quite end with the Meep’s departure, though. The Doctor reveals that the metacrisis may have slowed, but still poses a threat to both Donna and Rose. That’s when the two women come up with yet another simple solution. They hold hands and simply “let it go.” Wisps of Time Lord energy are expelled from their bodies and dissipate into the air. It’s a solution they claim that amale-presenting Time Lordwould never have thought of.
The episode doesn’t offer any further explanation for this, and moves on to setting up the next adventure the Doctor and Donna will find themselves on. But some fans might find themselves confused about how Donna and Rose were able to simply let go of the energy. At this point, most explanations are speculation, but one possibility is that the sharing of the metacrisis between Donna and Rose means that each possesses a smaller part of it. This makes it a more manageable quantity of Time Lord energy, allowing them to exercise more control over it and thus release it.
One point that can’t be ignored is the reference to women knowing how to let things go. The episode hints that the lived experience of women in a sexist world makes them more adept at relinquishing such power. This is a nice sentiment, but when seen alongside the episode’s trans inclusiveness, it comes across as a bit of mixed messaging. On the one hand, the episode celebrates transness and going beyond the gender binary. At one point, the characters even say thatRose is non-binarydue to the metacrisis:
We’re binary. She’s not, because the Doctor’s male. And female. And neither. And more.
It’s a uniquely sci-fi way to affirm Rose’s gender. This is why some find it a bit odd that Davies would go on to include a more gender-conforming statement like this. However, the characters don’t specifically state that it’s just women who know how to let things go. Rose isn’t just feminine in a sexist world; she also bends gender roles in a world that often doesn’t accept those outside the gender binary.
Doctor Whohas often used solutions that border on Deus Ex Machina. The Series 3 finale, for example, has a weakened Doctor restored to his full strength by the collective psychic energy of people on Earth thinking about him. In “The Big Bang,” a time loop allows the Doctor to help himself escape the Pandorica, even though the only thing that can open it from the outside ishis own sonic screwdriver. In “The Rings of Akhaten,” Clara faces the memory-eating Akhaten and holds up the leaf that brought her mother and father together. She says it represents the infinite possibilities of her mother’s life, had she not died. This “infinity” feeds Akhaten, and puts him back to sleep for good.
Ultimately, the focus is not just on easy solutions, or about explaining the scientific details. It’s also about the power of sentimentality. Love, kindness, and empathy have always played a huge part inDoctor Who,and “The Starbeast” is simply follows in those footsteps.
