It’s been years… thirteen since writer Russell T Davies last penned an episode of Doctor Who, but only five since his last substantial Doctor Who story. Not a televised episode – the story in question was Rose, a novelisation of the Davies pilot that relaunched the BBC behemoth back in 2005. A novelisation that feels nothing like a Greatest Hits: while the original saw our time traveler butt heads with the Autons (an army of walking shop window dummies), the book takes this premise and pushes it a thousand times further: adding murderous baggies, deadly laminated sheets and living microplastics into the mix. And it’s spectacular. To read this story, therefore, is to learn something surprising about Davies. To learn that all his acclaimed work on the show; all those far-flung fantastic storylines… those were Russell T Davies writing to a budget.

‘The Star Beast’ has no such issue. With a shiny new partnership between the BBC and Disney injecting Who with some much-needed funds, this episode (the first of three 60th anniversary specials) basks in a newfound creative freedom. Its plot (hulking bug-men hunt down fuzzy fugitive; Earthlings get caught in crossfire) seems almost secondary to its real raison d’être: to reunite the talented team that shot the show to its original stratospheric heights. The team in question: actors David Tennant and Catherine Tate, plus behind-the-scenes producing crew Davies, Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson. Now equipped with far more resources than they ever had the first time round.

And you really can see every penny. Veteran Who director Rachel Talalay (the brain behind all three of erstwhile lead Peter Capaldi’s finales) imbues the episode with reams of Hollywood flair. Fears of Disney interference seem (at least for now) unwarranted: the money has only solidified the qualities that were always there. The way that you thought the show looked when you were younger: that’s how it actually looks now. While the MTV-inspired flash of the show’s Eccleston era will always serve as the show’s stylistic peak, Talalay undeniably succeeds at dragging this big beast into the streaming era – without too much of a fight.

Quibbles aside, ‘The Star Beast’ is still right up my alley… it’s so far up my alley that it practically has a Converse-clad foot on my welcome mat. Davies’ savvy script makes the most of its increased budget and places its monsters front and centre. Gone are the days of bug-eyed vampires spending 98% of their time in boring old human form in order to… uh… maintain their cover; in ‘The Star Beast’, freakish aliens pop up in suburban locales on a near-constant basis, with pitched battle never far behind. Wisely, Davies plays these bizarre interactions largely straight – for maximum camp! They don’t call him the ‘Gay Michael Bay’ for nothin’…

But new stars are also born. Heartstopper (2022-) favourite Yasmin Finney shines as Rose Noble, the plucky teenager who discovers a lost alien; proving that trans joy and the joy of saving Planet Earth from space invaders may – in fact – be one and the same thing. Years and Years (2019) actor Ruth Madeley also excels as straight-shooting scientific advisor Shirley Anne Bingham. If both women end up becoming permanent Who fixtures, the show will be much improved for it.

So, with one eye on the present and another on its six decades of history, Doctor Who’s future looks brighter than ever. Far from a Mouse-mandated scale shift, Who’s new direction seems more like the result of beefed-up BBC budgets finally catching up to Davies’ galaxy-sized imagination. Though just a taste of things to come, ‘The Star Beast’ indicates that (once again) Doctor Who is in safe hands.

Rating: 4/5

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