I Like the New Doctor

            After the food bank on Saturday I took my food home, put it away and headed out to NoFrills. As I was leaving my building my second floor neighbour Nickie called down the stairs from her apartment to ask me if someone was waiting at the door. I looked out up and down the street and told her “No” but after I closed the door and was about to walk to the curb, someone called to me. It was my former neighbour Greg who was friends with Nickie before she moved in and helped her get the place. Greg wanted me to open the door for him. He was rolling a big suitcase and I asked if he was moving back in. He said he was just bringing some luggage for Nickie. It’s been over a year since Greg lived here but I kind of miss hearing him sing along with Celine Dion while cleaning his place on Sundays. He wished me a merry Christmas and I headed off again.

Just ahead of me going in the door of the supermarket was the tall blonde woman who always says what she is thinking as soon as she thinks it. As soon as we were inside she descended on the salad vegetables and declared in a very loud voice to the manager, who happened to be passing by, “Oh! Red peppers! I love red peppers because they taste so delicious!” The manager nodded politely.

Half pints of raspberries were on sale for $1.99 so I got three. When the tall blonde woman saw them she called out, “Such a good deal! I better get two!”

I got purple grapes and black grapes. I bought a jar of garlic pickles and some zero alcohol mouthwash. I grabbed a pack of three stainless steel scrubbers because I find they don’t last long before little slivers of stainless steel wire break off and I always worry that one of these days I’m going to eat some. I also purchased a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips because I’m impressed with how long Miss Vickie has resisted becoming Mrs. Vickie even though she’s rich enough to land any husband or wife she wants.

My checkout girl was pretend-flirting with the manager as they told each other, “You complete me!”

When I got back Greg was just leaving and he commented on the coincidence of me opening the door for him and now him opening the door for me. Nickie was waiting at the top of the stairs for me to bring my bike up so she could leave with Greg. “You’re strong!” she exclaimed. I said, “I haven’t seen you for a long time!” and it had been at least two months. I asked if she’d gone to Mars and back. She told me that she’d been away working. Maybe she’d gone to Jamaica where both she and Greg are from.

I put my groceries away and went back out to the liquor store. In the cold beer room at the back a middle-aged woman was on her phone saying, “I’m getting scared again! I need you to come!” Cell phones sure have helped people in many ways. What would she have done if she were having a panic attack in the days before mobile phones?

To beat the Christmas rush I bought a case of eight cans of Creemore instead of the usual two tins.

For lunch I made a sandwich with hot Italian sausage, some cheese and a couple of garlic pickles.

After a siesta in the early afternoon I spent the rest of the day writing about my Food Bank Adventure of earlier that day. I finished it that night.

During dinner I watched the first episode of Doctor Who that featured the first female Doctor. First of all we meet all of the characters that become her companions before she comes crashing through the roof. The story begins with a pastoral scene outside of Sheffield. Grace is trying to teach her grandson Ryan how to ride a bike. Ryan is an adult but he has some kind of coordination disorder that makes it so he falls off of a bicycle within seconds. The condition doesn’t seem to affect anything else he does. It’s kind of a pathetic scene and it seems that it’s meant to be so as his step grandfather Graham is standing several meters away with his arms out, waiting for this 20 year old man to ride to him. It’s pathetic because it would normally be a child on a bike and the child’s parents at either end of the little journey. Ryan falls and in frustration throws the bicycle over the cliff. Grace and Graham take the train home while Ryan goes looking for the bicycle, which he finds up in a tree. But suddenly something alien appears. It’s a crackling, glowing geometric shape like a square window that’s been flipped to look like a diamond. More shapes appear in the middle with a small circle in the middle that he reaches out to touch. When he does so the whole shape shrinks to a single point and takes off. He turns his back briefly but hears a sound and turns to see a large object appear that looks like a giant blue macaroon that’s big enough to hold one adult. He reaches out and it’s super cold to the touch. Ryan calls the police. Yasmin is a rookie cop looking for more than just resolving parking disputes. Her superior sends her to investigate Ryan’s claim. It turns out that she and Ryan went to high school together.

Meanwhile something stops the train and the power dies. All the other passengers get off but Grace, Graham and a young man named Karl and the doors lock so they can’t leave the dark train. Grace calls Ryan to tell him something weird is going on with the train and then they are cut off. On the train and advancing towards Grace, Graham and Karl down the aisle is a large, undulating mass metallic looking tentacles that are spitting lightning. As it draws closer and they can’t back away any further, suddenly something comes crashing through the roof of the train between them and the creature. It’s the Doctor. She’s on her feet immediately but disoriented. She sees the looks on their faces and says, “What?” They point at the creature and she instinctively shoves a hanging electrical cable from ceiling into the creature and it retreats.

Anyone that saw the last episode of the previous season knows that shortly after the Doctor regenerated she fell out of the Tardis and was plummeting to Earth. This is obviously where she landed.

The creature returns and the Doctor is trying to figure it out when Ryan and Yasmin arrive. The creature sends out a sudden burst of energy causing pain to everyone’s left collarbones and then it flies through the roof. As the Doctor walks past Yasmin and down the aisle, Yasmin says, “Hold on Madame, I need you to do as I say!” The Doctor asks, “Why are you calling me Madame?” “Because you’re a woman!” “Am I? Does it suit me?” “What?” “Sorry! I remember! Half an hour ago I was a white haired Scotsman!” Yasmin asks, “Can I have your name please?” “When I can remember it!” “You don’t know your own name?” “Of course I know my name! I just don’t remember it! It’s right on the tip of my …” She puts her finger on her tongue and asks, “What’s that?” Ryan says, “Tongue?” “Tongue! Smart boy! Biology! Are you a doctor?” “No.” “Shame! I’m looking for a doctor!” Yasmin tries to take charge but the Doctor asks her a few logical questions that show that she’s in no position to do so. The Doctor talks with Grace and Graham and tells them the creature is alien. Graham says there’s no such thing and if there were they wouldn’t be on a train in Sheffield. The Doctor says, “Why not? I’m alien and I’m here!” Graham says, “Grace, we’re goin”. Grace says, “She just saved our lives!” Karl says he doesn’t want answers. He just wants to go to work and so he leaves.

The Doctor wants to know if anything else strange has happened that night and so Ryan takes them back to the pod that he’d found in the woods. It’s gone and the Doctor wonders where.

Meanwhile a van pulls up at a machine shop. Rahul, the owner unloads the pod from the van to the shop and then he sits and waits for it to open.

The Doctor suddenly feels faint and collapses. Grace and Ryan take her to their place. As the Doctor sleeps on the couch they see golden energy swirling around her hands and neck. Grace is a nurse by profession. She checks the Doctor’s pulse and finds she has two separate ones. Some of the energy from the Doctor’s neck flies gently away.

Back at the machine shop the pod opens.

The Doctor suddenly awakens and asks to see everyone’s collarbones. Under the skin on each collarbone is a flashing purple light. The Doctor says they are DNA bombs. She says it’s hard to think because her brain and body are still reformatting. When she thinks of reformatting she asks if she can borrow Ryan’s phone. Within seconds she reformats Ryan’s phone. “But all my stuff’s on there!” “Not anymore!” She uses the phone as a tracking device to find the alien.

Back at the machine shop a large armoured humanoid creature has emerged from the pod. Rahul asks it, “Where’s my sister?” The creature comes forward and says, “You will never know!” It puts its hand to Rahul’s face and kills him with blue energy. It removes a tooth from Rahul’s mouth. The Doctor arrives outside the machine shop and sees the armoured creature leave. They find Rahul’s body and the broken pod. The Doctor wants to analyze it but can’t without a sonic screwdriver. Suddenly she realizes she can build one there in the machine shop and so that’s what she does. While she’s working she explains regeneration to Grace and Graham. She says, “There’s this moment when you’re sure you’re about to die, and then you’re born!” She finishes the screwdriver, which she says is more like a sonic Swiss army knife without the knife. After analyzing the pod her first guess is that the tentacle creature and the armoured dude are two alien species at war with each other. The Doctor finds the tentacled creature on a rooftop and they use electrical cables to overload it and knock it out. She discovers that the creature is actually several information-gathering creatures bound up into one super creature. As she is about to access what information it has gathered the armoured creature arrives. He says to the Doctor, “You’re not human! Who are you?” She says, “I’m … Oh! That’s so annoying! I almost had it a minute ago!” She asks, “Why take a tooth?” He removes his helmet and we see he decorates his face with a tooth from each victim. His face is covered with teeth. He says his name is “Tim Shaw!” “Tim Shaw?” “Tim Shaw!” “Tim Shaw?” “Tim Shaw!” He reveals that he is collecting a trophy to return to his world and earn the right to be leader of his race.  He says he is required to come without weapons or assistance to complete his hunt. The Doctor says she thinks Tim Shaw sent the tentacled creature ahead of him to track his victim, so he had assistance and is in fact a cheater. Tim Shaw downloads the information that his device gathered and teleports away. The Doctor realizes that Karl is the trophy. Meanwhile we see Karl at work as a crane operator. They arrive at the shipping yard and find Tim Shaw climbing up to Karl’s crane. The Doctor tells Grace and Graham to clear the area and not to come back in. She has Yasmin and Ryan follow her up another crane. Yasmin asks if the Doctor has a plan. “I will have by the time we get to the top!” Karl sees the creature climbing to him. The Doctor shouts for him to climb across his crane to hers. Ryan is still climbing and struggling with his disorder, almost falling. Ryan and Yasmin reach the top. The Doctor tells them she’s going out to the end of the crane arm and they are going to swing it to meet Karl’s, then she’ll get Karl and be down in time for a cup of tea and a fried egg sandwich because she’s really craving one. Grace disobeys the Doctor and returns to help her and Graham follows, protesting all the way.  After some trial and error Yasmin figures out how to occupy the crane and lines up the arms but they’re about three meters apart and Karl’s is two meters higher. The Doctor says for Karl to jump and she’ll catch him. The creature is fast approaching Karl along the arm. Karl starts to jump but the creature grabs him by his collar, pulls him back and begins to drag him back along the arm. The Doctor backs up, begins to run and takes a flying leap. She just manages to catch the bottom of the end of the other crane arm. As she’s dangling she says, “These legs definitely used to be longer!” She pulls herself up and shouts for Tim Shaw to let Karl go or she’ll destroy the recall device from the pod he travelled in. Without it he can’t get home. She asks, “What do you do with your trophies?” He says they are held in stasis on the cusp between life and death. Tim Shaw says, “Give me the circuit or I detonate the bombs placed in your friends!” The Doctor says she knows he won’t detonate because he’s a cheat and he knows he’s unworthy. But then she tells him that he can change because everyone is capable of doing so. He asks again, “Who are you?” She smiles and says, “A bit of adrenaline, a dash of outrage and a hint of panic knitted my brain back together! I know exactly who I am! I’m the Doctor!” Tim Shaw pushes the detonator button but is suddenly racked with pain. She says she removed the DNA bombs with her Swiss Army Sonic and planted them in back into the tentacled creature. She throws the recall device at him. He falls from the crane and teleports back to his world. Halfway up the crane the tentacled creature is still there. Grace has climbed up with a cable to try to knock it out again. She gets it but she falls. Graham has a brief moment with her before she dies and she tells him not to be scared without her. After the funeral Graham explains that he had cancer that is now in remission. Grace had been his chemo nurse and that’s how they fell in love. Yasmin tells the Doctor she really needs to get out of those clothes. She’s still wearing the clothes that her previous self wore. She says, “It’s been a long time since I bought women’s clothes!” Next they are all in a shop and from behind a curtain the Doctor keeps throwing things out and saying, “Not that!” She finally emerges wearing a long open grey coat, blue skirt-pants, brown boots that look like Doc Martins without laces, a striped shirt that looks something like what Mork from Ork wore and yellow suspenders. She says she needs their help finding her Tardis. They go back to the machine shop. She builds a teleportation device with some of the alien technology left behind by Tim Shaw and has Ryan, Graham and Yasmin each do something at the same time so it will work. She sets it off with her sonic device but they all disappear and in the last scene we see them all floating in space.