Perhaps it’s just the jaded nature of a long-term fan, but the Tour Honchos there’s been only one truly-punch-the-air moment in the whole of nu-Who for us, and that was when the Master was fully revealed in Utopia. In that story, back in 2007, the build-p and building blocks had been laid down going all the way back to Human Nature. Captain Jack, who’d been away for years, was suddenly back–and essential to the plot, a plot which didn’t fully resolve in the end. If that sounds familiar, it’s meant to.
Then again there’s been a bit of the Classic Who Season 20 vibe going on here with elements of the familiar running through Series 12–as remarked upon directly in Judoon. But unlike Series 11 where we, and many others thought everything was a little too ‘safe,’ in Series 12 Chibnall and Co. are definitely swinging for the fences, and there’s no more an exemplar of this than Fugitive of the Judoon. The eponymous Judoon are merely a feint for the introduction of a new Doctor, one which Chibnall insists is not a joke saying …
“The important thing to say is—she is definitively the Doctor. There’s not a sort of parallel universe going on, there’s no tricks,” he said. “Jo Martin is the Doctor, that’s why we gave her the credit at the end which all new Doctors have the first time you see them. John Hurt got that credit.”
Judoon is a obviously a momentous story in the history of Doctor Who, we’re rating it at the top of our Dynamic Ratings, but like Utopia, it’s an incomplete grade. We’ll have more to say about Fugitive of the Judoon later but for now images and caps are online