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Meta on "The Giggle."
I know I am odd, and come at fandom from a cockeyed point of view much of the time. But--I've admired Moffat and Chibnal for trying to do for Doctor Who what "regeneration" did for it--added options that permitted it to go on and on. By opening race, gender, multiple possible time lines, mysteries, they *opened the gate* for more stories. They got dissed for it. Even then I wondered what would have happened to the original show if current fans had hissies that regeneration wasn't part of canon and changed everything and altered the meaning of the show, and on and on and on.
It looks like we are in luck: most fans seem to love what biregeneration has done, if only because it redeems Donna's brainwash and handles a lot of aftermath. But there are always fans who can't bear anything that fails to make perfect logical sense or be announced from the start or at least be calcified ancient canon. Me? I think Davies got the honor of truly saving Doctor Who a second time. He opened new gates, he added new layers, he framed it differently, and BECAUSE of that he's able to send in a new energy and excitement that was slowly being choked out of the show. Ncuti, as shown, is going to be a wonderful, hi-energy, enthusiastic new Doctor. A predicted new Unit spin-off is going to allow the use of "old" actors without breaking rules -- and suggests a lot of the Earth-based shows that might once have happened on Doctor Who, such as those with Doctor 3, who was in exile on Earth, will be managed by Unit and other old-timers, with Ncuti free to come win a round or not, based on what they want to do with him at any given time.
I'd like a Unit show, too--bring back Torchwood characters in a non-Torchwood setting, bring back any and all of the previous Companions, even folks like the Paternoster gang. Folks like Donna and Mel as regular guest stars. It looks like FUN, not blasphemy.
I do understand how fiction becomes near-scripture. I understand that audiences love having the feeling of being in the know, having "the Knowledge." But--I am uneasy and a bit annoyed at how easily it all drifts into fundamentalist, clinging, rigid information that can't be challenged, changed, altered, or even overturned. You HAVE to have narrative crowbars to keep a canonical story going on for long. Regeneration was one such crowbar. But so are arguments opening up what and who you can regenerate to, and when, and how many, and so on. I'd like to work out a way that permits it to act like the very, very first amoeba...that split. And split. And split. And split WHILE changing, producing two different amoeba. And then we get to here and now, and in some sense the very first amoeba lives on, and in another sense gazillions do, and it's never changing and ever-changing...and amoebas will outlive us all. Because crowbars. Because fannish rigidity is good for a show in the short run, but it's a walking heart attack for a show in the long run. You've got to permit change, and enjoy it, or it does and you mummify it.