**Warning: contains spoilers for the latest episode of “Doctor Who”**
“Time is swirling around me,” says The Doctor in the latest episode of “Doctor Who” and indeed, it is. The most recent episode, ‘Fugitive of the Judoon,’ is a fast-paced return to classic “Doctor Who” themes. The Judoon have returned, just as you remember them from “Smith and Jones”, with all their legalisms, absolute authority, and deadly weapons to back up their laws. The “police force of the galaxy”, they are on Earth hunting a fugitive. There are references to the Master and his fate, but still, no sign after he was defeated earlier in the season.
There is so much more. Captain Jack Harkness is back; this amazing fan favorite is back with a warning about the lone cyberman. As always, his flair and charm are on display, as he kisses Bradley Walsh, believing him to be The Doctor. There is some typical confusion about The Doctor being a woman in this life, but Captain Jack declares, “This I have to see!”
But it all pales to the big reveal: Ruth. Who is Ruth? We learn Ruth is none other than The Doctor. Could she be a fake Doctor? A future Doctor? A past Doctor? Jo Martin is terrific as Ruth/The Doctor. Her face, body language, and voice are excellent at portraying the “normal person”, just as David Tennant’s Doctor was John Smith when he hid as a human in “Human Nature”. The Doctor’s real memory and personality were stored in a pocket watch in Human Nature; here, we learn they are stored in the glass of a lighthouse. When Jo Martin breaks that glass and becomes The Doctor once again, donning an original, but somehow wonderfully evocative Doctor’s outfit, this viewer believes. My companion immediately blurted out, “The next Doctor!” But is she really The Doctor? Jodi Whitaker’s Doctor seems to accept that she is. The sonic screwdriver and the scanners of the Judoon say they are the same person. But neither remembers the other and assumes the other must be from their own future.
Jodi Whitaker’s Doctor also soon realizes that it is a Time Lord hunting the “fugitive” Doctor. She surmises this Doctor MUST be from her past. Yet even as the episode concludes, she is left wondering why she cannot remember this life as The Doctor, and fans are left asking, “Who is Ruth, really?”
Written by Evan Conroy
