Seven Days #57
19th November 2023
Part of me thinks I should start here with some thought about the comments Russell T Davies said about Davros on Doctor Who Unleashed. But as I sit here typing this I’m not really sure anything I say will add to the debate. I’ve seen plenty of disabled Doctor Who fans slating Russell for his decision, and as they’re the ones with the lived experience of being disabled, it’s probably more important that its their voices which take primacy, rather than mine. And there’s more than enough people piling on to Russell already. You don’t need me to add to the chorus of voices saying just how wrong Russell is.
The Children in Need Doctor Who sketch itself was quite fun anyway. The Doctor arrives at a point in Skaro’s history before the genesis of the Daleks, and inadvertently influences their development. We get to see an earlier version of a Dalek - a Mark 3 travel machine (the earliest we saw before was Mark 4) - and a version of Davros that upon initial watching appears to be one before the incident that led to his appearance from his first story.
Like I say, it’s quite fun. Take a look here;
Meanwhile, over on Quantum Leap, it’s doing something quite intriguing. In the original run it was quite rare to have sequels to earlier episodes (at least until the fifth season!). We get here a rare instance of Ben helping out someone he only just helped the leap before last. For him, not much time has passed, but for her it’s a few years. And Ben does something Sam never did… he tells her he’s a time travel, and explains all about leaping. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. She understands it all, and they bond. They’re both sure that they will see each other again, and I have a feeling they are right.
I’m also reasonably sure they’ll probably keep seeing each other in order as well; but the question is, how often? If it’s done too frequently it’ll get in to the realms of implausibility; I mean how many times in one lifetime would a person need their life put right by a leaper?
Earlier in the season - the first episode in fact - there was the episode with the mysterious crate that was a decoy. I reckon this new friend of Ben’s will turn out to have something to do with the real cargo, and that this will tie in with the origins of Project Quantum leap itself.
Only bad thing about this episode, though, was the complete absence of Magic… hopefully that will be resolved in the next episode, whenever that might be…(not this week or next… grr….)