Star-Crossed Lovers

Spoiler Alert: Full-on lesbian processing about the finale of “Doctor Who” Season 10 is about to happen. And, yeah, don’t watch that video is you don’t wanna feel the feels.

I’ve been terribly behind on my TV watching (having nightly panic attacks about the rapidly declined state of our country and rage blackouts at having to beg Republican congressmen not to kill us just so they can give millionaires tax cuts is really cutting into my leisure time, you know). But last weekend I finally caught up on the most recent season of “Doctor Who.” And, after thinking about it and thinking about it and rewatching some epsiodes I’ve decided – I like it, I really liked it.

Because of the delay between me watching the first episode and then the last, I had forgotten exactly how things were left between Bill Potts and Heather/The Sentient Oil Puddle. So I rewatched the finale, and then I rewatched the premiere back to back and, goodness, it works, it really works.

For those who didn’t watch this season, here is lightening recap of the story arc: lesbian chips server Bill meets a girl named Heather with a star in her eye who dreams of going places and then disappears into a sentient oil puddle that then chases Bill through space and time because, you know, insert lesbian U-Hauling joke. Bill convinces Heather/Puddle to let her go and then travels through space and time with The Doctor instead. But then she gets turned into a killer robot/Cyberman (which is bad – and kind of kills her) and Heather/Puddle returns to save her and turn her into a sentient puddle and then travel all of space and time together instead. The end.

So, technically – Bill dies-ish. So you could considered this a Bury Your Gays/Dead Lesbian Syndrome candidate. But it was also something more. I remember when I watched the season premiere it felt so melancholy. We’re meeting Bill at the same time she is losing this girl who just might be the one. So in the finale it all comes back around in the most unexpected and unexpectedly welcome way. Sure, Bill isn’t human anymore. But we’re all just atoms that can be rearranged any way you like now she is something else. And that something else gets to travel all of space and time with her girlfriend.

I’d place the finale of “Doctor Who” Season 10 in the same realm of “San Junipero.” That’s another story with the quite literal burying of the lesbians (like, for real, you see a burial). But the two women live happily ever after in the great virtual hereafter. A computer simulated reality, all of space and time. Whatever it takes to get our lesbian happy endings, hey, I’ll take it.