Season Analysis

Doctor Who

Season 10 Analysis

Season Woke Score

out of 10

Season Overview

The series introduces Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts, and also features Matt Lucas as Nardole. Michelle Gomez and John Simm return as their respective incarnations of the Master. The main story arc for the first half of the series revolves around the Doctor and Nardole occupying themselves at a university while they guard an underground vault containing Missy. Missy later travels with the team in the TARDIS, and eventually partners with her previous incarnation as they battle a Cyberman onslaught.

Season Review

Season 10 introduces Bill Potts, a character whose identity is a deliberate statement, setting the tone for the season's engagement with political and social themes. The narrative frequently uses historical and futuristic settings to deliver pointed social commentary. Episodes explicitly target racism in the past and systemic oppression through metaphor in the future, often framing established institutions or social orders as corrupt or incompetent. Bill's status as a working-class, black, and gay woman is central to her character's uniqueness, and the season culminates in an ending that wholly embraces her non-normative personal life. While the core drama remains focused on the Doctor's struggle with morality, this season significantly shifts the focus toward 'speaking truth to power' and challenging traditional hierarchies across race, class, and sexuality. The critiques of capitalism and historical injustices are heavy-handed and presented without subtlety. The season balances this with a complex female villain, Missy, whose arc is one of attempted moral redemption, rather than simply presenting a perfect 'Girl Boss' figure.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics8/10

The character Bill Potts is deliberately cast as a working-class, black companion, embodying an intersectional approach to diversity. The episode 'Thin Ice' directly addresses systemic racism in 19th-century London, featuring a scene where the Doctor punches a white aristocrat who is exploiting the poor and using racist language. The story 'Oxygen' functions as an unsubtle condemnation of unrestrained capitalism and class oppression.

Oikophobia7/10

Historical episodes like 'Thin Ice' frame a key moment in British history (the Victorian-era Frost Fair) as fundamentally corrupted by racism and exploitation of the poor, which requires the Doctor's intervention and moral judgment. The episode 'Oxygen' acts as a direct critique of a capitalist system taken to its logical extreme, positioning Western-style economics as inherently predatory. 'The Lie of the Land' turns contemporary political discourse on 'fake news' and authoritarianism into a literal alien subjugation of Earth.

Feminism6/10

Bill Potts is a strong, non-romantic female lead who challenges the Doctor's authority and moral detachment. She is not instantly perfect, starting as a novice, which slightly mitigates the 'Mary Sue' trope. The Master is gender-flipped to Missy, a powerful and complex female villain whose primary arc in this season is a moral struggle, not romance or a caricature of a 'Girl Boss,' presenting an overall nuanced female dynamic with the Doctor.

LGBTQ+8/10

Bill Potts is the show's first openly gay main companion, an identity that is explicitly stated multiple times in various episodes to characters who show romantic interest in her. Her sexuality is presented as a normalized, important facet of her life. The finale resolves her character arc with a non-traditional pairing, as she rejects the Doctor's life to travel the universe with her female love interest, Heather.

Anti-Theism6/10

The Monk Trilogy features an alien race that seeks to rule Earth by manipulating human consent, often achieved by playing on the concept of 'faith' and a desire for an overarching authority. The narrative's general theme continues the show's tendency to depict dogmatic faith and unquestioning belief, whether religious or political, as a pathway to tyranny or a tool of villainy. The ultimate defeat of the Monks relies on personal, non-religious truth and memory.