raggedywhittaker:

This bitch though…he’s been changing the history of Doctor Who ever since July 2017 are we actually surprised?

No one does it like Chibs and that’s a fact.

I’ve had this on my mind and since my brain is like a messy desktop of a computer, I’ve gotta say this so I can clear up some space in my head.

Titled: Not so concise hot take about the 13th Doctor’s Era

I wanted to like it, I really really wanted to. I was *so*excited about 13 being Jodie and I really did do my best to go into it with positivity. But there is a huge problem that doctor who should’ve thought about. changing writers, while also making history by having the first female doctor - that was a mistake.

having the first female doctor was a very huge deal to a lot of fans. it’s the first time fans who are girls could see themselves as the main character and not just the friend. HOWEVER, given how many misogynistic people are in the fandom, it was a very delicate transition. If BBC had thought it through, they wouldn’t have changed the writers as well. This is because if (and it did) go wrong, everyone’s blame would instantly be placed on the fact that the doctor’s a woman. Not even bothering to think about whether or not it’s the writer’s fault or the characters fault. So all of that blame fell on 13. When, in reality, if Moffat or RTD was writing the 13th doctor, viewers would still feel some sense of normalcy. This would’ve keep a lot more fans because they would’ve realized that doctor who hadn’t changed entirely.

But then they added a different writer at the same time. Now you have two massive changes. People have a hard time telling what it actually is about the new seasons they don’t like. But, Jodie and the Doctor being a woman, they didn’t stand a chance of being given the benefit of the doubt. So now no fan will ever trust another female doctor even if the writing is amazing because they hold a grudge against chibnall and Jodie. If they had brought Chibnall in while 12 was still the Doctor - everyone would’ve been able to see the shift in writing and not associate it with the most delicate change that girls and women have been waiting to see for generations!!!

Chibnall can be BRILLIANT but Doctor Who is not his strong suit. He does so much better with dark drama and that’s what he turned Doctor Who into. But that’s not what Doctor Who has been about for years and years before. In past episodes, they always did their best to reiterate hope into viewers. But I realized after watching Orphan 55 (which I’ll never forgive him for) that he wasn’t interested in keeping up that same momentum. But that’s what made Doctor who so amazing!! The hope! The liberation! The feeling of being bigger than yourself and being special!!! Orphan 55 was fear mongering in the worst way because there was no hope at the end. The Doctor basically told 3 humans that if the world didn’t fix climate change, we’d all turn into monsters. What the FUCK are they supposed to do with that??

Not to mention how absolutely bone-chillingly evil it was to hear Benni’s last words and what Kane had to say after that (still gives me nightmares)

I understand that once you’re in a position of power to make change, you should do so. But Chibnall went so hard with the wokeness that it wasn’t even subtle like it was with Moffat which does more damage than help. And ending it on a hopeless note doesn’t motivate anyone to make a difference, it makes us sit there and shrug like why the fuck should we even bother if there’s no hope?

Moffat had a talent for implementing wokeness and awareness into his scripts without making it blatantly obvious. Just enough to put some motivation in your heart and to make you feel able to cause change. The show was stripped of that. It became so obvious. Are you telling me Jack Robertson wasn’t inspired by Trump? And “Can You Hear Me” had so much potential to talk about mental health but it was just a lot of talking and not a lot of making sense. There was no nuances, no subtlety, just too much.

There were a few episodes I loved. I loved Kerblam. I loved Tsuranga. Rosa was beautiful. But maybe it’s because those episodes *felt* like Doctor who. Well, Rosa didn’t but I still loved how that went because it was about damn time they put some emphasis on how incredible Rosa Parks was.

Onto the timeless child: phew. okay. I’ll admit I liked it at first. Or maybe I just liked the cinematography but this goes to my point about having a new writer and a ground breaking character. On top of all of that, chibnall changed the very bones of the entire show with this storyline. And as soon as I started to really think about it, I realized how god damn disrespectful it was of him to do this storyline.

You may be asking: why was it disrespectful Abigail? Well, you think back to 1963. The very first classic Who episode. The person who created that story, created this entire franchise, did that person have this planned? Probably not. They planned for the doctor to be a timelord from gallifrey with 12 regenerations and lives to save. but for the love of god, I can’t imagine how horrible I would feel if someone hijacked a story I came up with, every detail, and changed it without a second thought. If someone flushed all of my hard work and deep thinking down the toilet? holy disrespectful. beyond disrespectful to the original creators. because just like that, the doctor is not gallifreyan. the doctor is not the last of their kind, they are the ONLY one of their species now. In fact, we don’t even fucking know what that species is!!!

If I sat my jolly ass down in 1963 to write out this incredible plot for a show and someone just changed it?? All of my hard work and brilliant ideas? Completely retconned and thrown away as if it wasn’t good enough? I would be devastated. Wouldn’t you? That’s why it was disrespectful. Because Chibnall, who worked on the series for five fucking minutes, came in and used all of his power to wash away everything without even considering the possibility that it was wrong. That storyline would’ve been brilliant for someone other than the Doctor.

AND WE ARENT GONNA EVEN TALK ABOUT HOW FLUX’ MAIN VILLAINS WERE CLEARLY MODELED AFTER DIA DE LOS MUERTOS BECAUSE ILL BE HERE ALL DAY YELLING ABOUT IT

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it became a huge clusterfuck for several different reasons. It was poorly executed because they made so much change so fast that nobody knew what to blame for not liking it anymore. Nobody knew if it was the female doctor they disliked or the writing or the plot changes. And with each change, they tried to manage the criticism with more change. If they kept Jodie on for one more season and did it with RTD’s return, I think it would heal a lot of viewers. I think a lot of them would fall in love with 13 the way she deserved to be loved. I will forever feel bad that Jodie had to deal with this because she was groundbreaking, but too much other ground was breaking around her for her to get proper praise. And because of Chibnall’s writing and the evidence of how hard BBC is working to reverse the problems created, it’s clear that we will likely never see another female doctor again.

Hopefully if you were feeling the same way I have been, this will map out those feelings a little better

Ps. BBC, If you’re reading this, drop the series 10 soundtrack pls I need it like I need oxygen

In a recent interview with the Radio Times, outbound Doctor Who showrunner, Chris Chibnall, stated that he expects Russell T Davies will ignore the changes he made while showrunner. According to Chibnall- “every era contains a contradiction or left-turn from what has come before.” Like when Moffat completely ignored the regeneration limit or the destruction of Gallifrey. Ignore the fact that in doing so, he also took into account the War Doctor and two Tenth Doctor regenerations, effectively making the Eleventh Doctor the Thirteenth Doctor. Or that the War Doctor and his future selves reversed the outcome of the Time War. Steven Moffat didn’t simply ignore what came before, he wrote something that worked within the parameters of the show. You know, like a writer.

It’s odd then that Chibnall should find himself on his second to last episode following a time-honoured tradition in Doctor Who reaching back as far as 1972. That tradition being the making of a Doctor Who story starring the Sea Devils that isn’t very interesting. Because let’s be honest, this isn’t exactly a sacred baddie. To the best of my knowledge, what most anyone likes about the Sea Devils is how they look. The sympathetic redesign of the Sea Devils leaves nothing to be desired, they look great. The good news is that the Sea Devils are no worse off than they were at the end of 1984’s “Warriors of the Deep.” The bad news is, there’s very little worth mentioning about “Legend of the Sea Devils.”

From the outside, this episode should be a winner. A beloved classic villain making its return for the first time in the new series, with pirates nonetheless! The problem here is that, much like the Sea Devils, Doctor Who has never really done a decent pirate episode before. If “Our Flag Means Death,” has proven nothing else, it’s that the pirating world is still rife with possibilities. Yet on Doctor Who, they always seem to fizzle (except “Enlightenment,” which owns ass, and I will not take questions). The pirates never feel particularly campy in this or even “The Curse of the Black Spot.” When you hear about the Doctor on a pirate ship, you want to get terrible dialogue and ridiculous set pieces. What we got instead were terrible dialogue and ridiculous set pieces. But you know, not like that.

Doctor Who has swashbuckling in its blood. Just look at Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker. David Tennant riding through a mirror on the back of a horse in front of the entire French court is as dashing as any pirate. The Doctor is a penniless explorer in a stolen ship crewed by wayward souls. She’s rubbed shoulders with the Corsair and fenced with a spoon. So why does this suck so hard? Probably the pacing, the writing, the plot, the structure, and the everything. I’ve said in the past that all I really wanted from Chibnall’s remaining episodes is that he fly under the radar, and boy howdy did he deliver. It would have been nice to expect some big dumb fun, but what we got was closer to big dumb boredom.

Right away you know something is off because everyone is stupid and vague. We meet “Madam Ching,” the pirate Queen of 1807. We don’t really get the giant obnoxious letters telling the location like we normally get, just the year. A father and son argue about stopping Madam Ching who is currently banging a MacGuffin dagger against a MacGuffin statue of a Sea Devil. It’s no question to the audience as to what is about to happen. The giant statue looks almost too big to be a Sea Devil, which is driven home all the more by the presence of a human figure in the grasp of the creature’s scaly fist. If this creature was frozen into a statue, was the human figure as well? Why didn’t they also emerge from the statue? Why were they so small? Was the Sea Devil killing a child? Did the child not survive the carbonite freezing process? Maybe someone added it later to make the creature more terrifying to ward off potential idiots like Madam Ching.

The entire scene plays out in the dumbest way possible. An older man, Ying Wai, tells his son, Ying Ki, to take over guarding the statue in case he dies. Ying Wai promptly goes off and dies. The Sea Devil, known as Marsisuss strikes him down. The magnetic whathaveyou of Marsisuss being freed pulls the TARDIS off course and draws the Doctor toward the action via her earring. Then, as if lying in wait, a floating pirate ship equipped with floaty green bits emerges from the sea, piloted by Sea Devils. What they had been doing in all that time is anyone’s guess. You would think that if your captain doesn’t reappear for about 300 years, the first mate might take command, eventually. It’s like Marsisuss left the car running with the window cracked and his kids are still waiting for him to return from the bank.

What may have been more illustrative, or even more engaging is perhaps Marsisuss needs to first awaken his troops from the sea. Maybe he needs to blow a conch that signals the reviving process and the Doctor tries to stop him. Instead the ship merely appears in the sky like Bowser’s airship. I say this not just because the ships are similar, but that they both have about as much setup. Despite the abrupt and unlikely appearance of Marsisuss’ getaway ride, it does at least look cool. Up to that point, the special effects had been somewhat lacking, so much so that my wife spent the first five minutes marvelling at how bad everything looked. But I honestly don’t mind when Doctor Who looks a bit naff. Like Nintendo, it’s not about the graphics. You want Playstation 5 quality, go watch The Madalorian. I knew the score though, they were saving most of the effects budget for the Sea Devils and their giant sea monster. It’s pretty standard filmmaking, that. Save the money for the important stuff.

There’s a sort of parallel between the Doctor and Madam Ching. Both are famous women travellers piloting a ship by themselves, which actually should be piloted by an entire crew. The parallel is strained by the fact that Madam Ching is so much better a solo pilot than the Doctor. It’s not a question of skill, but a mere observation of facts. We’ve all seen sail barges in movies. You don’t keep a ship crew for the company, these men all have jobs! No matter how much tenacity one woman may have, nobody could sail such a ship alone. If she is on the hunt for the Legendary Ji-Hun’s sunken treasure, she would need a crew to operate a bottom trawler. We’ve all seen these movies and read these stories. We’ve heard “Raise the flag and hoist the mainsail!” time and time again, so it rings hollow when we see something so physically impossible. It’s like Mr Plinkett says- “You might not have noticed, but your brain did.”

The Doctor and Yaz go off to have a bit of lesbian processing while Dan and his new friend Ying Ki are caught spying by Madam Ching. The Doctor’s plan is to go to the point where the treasure was lost at sea and rescue it before it falls to the bottom of the ocean, even though the Doctor illustrates that the TARDIS can actually sit at the bottom of the ocean with an air bubble protecting them. While back in time, aboard Ji-Hun’s ship, we see Ji-Hun forcing his men overboard and pledging allegiance to Marsisuss. The ship never actually sank, but was rather taken over by the Sea Devils and decked out with green floaty bits. They must have been proud of this visual because they give the ship three big reveals. It’s like “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” in here. The Doctror and Yaz abscond back to the TARDIS just as a fight breaks out between Ji-Hun and Marsisuss. Landing at the bottom of the ocean, the Doctor finds no sign of sunken wreckage. Using the Little Mermaid ambience, the Doctor chooses this as the moment to flirt with Yaz a little.

At this moment, the ground begins to open and a giant sea monster emerges and captures the TARDIS within its mighty jaws. If only that thing could dematerialise. Luckily, this sea monster is no more than a glorified lift. I half expected a Flintstones gag where monster looks at the camera and says “Eh, it’s a living.” This wouldn’t be the first time Chris Chibnall has taken a big concept and reduced it to a means of safe transportation for the Doctor. They did that with the Weeping Angels too. It’s the worst kind of consistency. Set up without exploration. Your giant monster isn’t even a giant monster, it’s an elevator. Whatever.

Aboard the Sea Devil vessel, the Doctor and Yaz see Ji-Hun, still alive, but kept prisoner in a Tim Shaw type of thing. My guess is that Marsisuss must have been fully conscious while trapped in that statue. It’s the only reason I can think that he would just spill the beans of his entire plan to the Doctor. He was desperate for a bit of banter. His basic plan is to use something called the keystone, which is yet again, another MacGuffin to flood the earth using magnetism or some such nonsense. Ignoring the fact that there’s not enough water to flood the earth, what would be the point? Water covers over 70% of the Earth. Bro, you’ve already won. If you can’t control the planet from the majority of its surface, another 30% isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re dumb and your plan is dumb and you’re a bad leader. Your crew didn’t even know how to appoint a new captain. You’ve given them no guidance on what to do in your absence, so of course, you’re losing.

After realising the Doctor doesn’t know where the keystone is, Marsisuss decides it’s time for her to die. Before he can cut her down, the Doctor pulls a big switch that sends the ship to the surface of the water. During this time, we’re expected to believe that the ship resurfacing is enough of a distraction that Yaz and the Doctor are able to escape unscathed. Somehow, they are able to gain their bearings faster than the guy who actually knows the ship, and are able to swing from ropes to the safety of Madam Ching’s boat. It’s like when Yaz and Dan witness the Weeping Angels killing two old people and then are perfectly fine in the next scene. It’s almost as if they hope that if they throw this crap at you fast enough, you won’t have time to think about how stupid any of it was.

What comes next is arguably the best part of the episode. Finally, some actual swashbuckling! For a brief moment, the story remembers this is a pirate episode and we get some actual swordfighting. The Doctor even gets in on the action, which is great to see. In fact, Jodie Whittaker is on her A-game for this story. Unfortunately for her, the writers, Ella Road and Chris Chibnall were not. I feel sorry for Ella Road because so many of Chibnall’s deficiencies are on display here, that it feels unfair that she must shoulder the blame. We get the Doctor’s weird morality in the form of disgust that Ji-Hun may want to avenge his crew by cutting down Marsisuss. I say weird in that just moments later we see Dan cut down seven Sea Devils in two blows like he was straight from Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Even worse than that is the moment where the Doctor lets Ji-Hun die in her place. Evidently, he deserves to die because he killed the guy who imprisoned him for 300 years. It’s as though Chris Chibnall took none of the criticism from “The Timeless Children,” to heart. The Doctor, who once gave one of her lives to save a companion she’d only just met, allows men to die as doorstops. Their sacrifice affording her a coward’s exit every time. When Steven Moffat received criticism for his writing, you would often see a meta commentary within the show, as if it were Moffat’s way of addressing the issues. There was a conversation going on. Here you see a cowardly writer writing a cowardly Doctor and refusing to admit any wrongdoing. I feel as though any restraint shown by Chris Chibnall at the end of Flux was more of a dictate from above, than any kind of re-direction. It feels petulant and selfish. The only way to redeem this kind of cowardice would be for it to be how the Doctor dies.

Speaking of the Doctor’s death, we get a bit of a glimpse into the future with the Doctor mentioning she promised Yaz a beach. I can’t help but feel this is foreshadowing of the Doctor regenerating on a beach. It’s already been established that the Doctor will not be regenerating aboard the TARDIS. The cynic (or realist who has eyes and has been writing about this shit for four years) in me thinks this is probably going to be some weaksauce attempt to recapture the emotion of Ten and Rose’s teary goodbye at Bad Wolf Bay. Only this time, instead of an established romance, you’ll get the tacked on gay tragedy of Thirteen and Yaz. And I don’t care if you’ve been shipping Thasmin since day one, the relationship has been all in your imagination. Even Chibnall admitted it wasn’t a planned storyline.

As you would expect from an unplanned storyline, the Doctor and Yaz’s romance subplot comes out of nowhere, gets barely explored and is gone immediately. It’s exactly what I’ve come to expect from Chris Chibnall- an idea is presented, they talk about it, nothing happens. That isn’t to say that either Whittaker or Gill do a bad job in this scene. There is a part of me that really enjoyed the Doctor finally saying out loud why she doesn’t do romance. Though you could also argue that it never really needed saying. We already knew it. But I guess Yaz needed to hear it, because the poor girl is about to pop. At this point, all they’ve done is made an argument for the healing power of a quickie.

All in all, I place this episode as the third in a sort of spiritual trilogy of Chibnall episodes. Right alongside “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” and “Arachnids in the UK.” The central theme being that the premises of all three episodes promise big fun, and somehow manage to bore me out of my mind. Not everything was a disappointment, however. The Sea Devils looked great and I loved the costuming. The Sea Devil’s swords reminded me of the knives people make from bismuth on Youtube. It’s a cool way to make something look more natural while still other-worldly. I loved seeing the Doctor do a bit of action and drama. But the characters are so ill defined that I found it difficult care about anyone or anything. Madam Ching is a cool pirate, but other than that, she’s giving me nothing to work with. So when she and Ying Ki ride off into the sunset, I forget about them completely. In fact, I forgot most of this episode the moment it ended.

I wanted to save some room here at the end to talk about the end. Not of this episode, but rather, this era. If you hadn’t noticed, I haven’t written anything since the New Years Day special, and with good reason. I’m tired of writing about being disappointed. Granted, I could write about any other era, but mama needed a break. The tagline on this blog is “One girl talking about the shows she loves,” which is true, but not lately. I point this out because I feel like it’s important to illustrate the journey I’ve been on with Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who. The excitement for a female Doctor inspired me to start writing these articles. Now my lack enthusiasm for Chibnall’s idiotic brand of cruelty has left me drained. In fact, the biggest points of excitement I’ve had for the show have been about things beyond this era. Reading that Russell T Davies intends to return to a new series every spring filled me with joy. Far more than the revelation that one of my favourite companions, Ace, will be returning in October. With any other writer, I would be ecstatic.

Sure, it’s almost over, but we’ve seen the kind of damage Chris Chibnall can do with a single episode. Now he’s dragging one of my favourite companions into his mess? It’s like one last twist of the knife. I have loved writing for you all, but I have not loved writing about Chris Chibnall. I cannot wait to be excited for Doctor Who again. I cannot wait for this all to be in the rearview mirror. I used to speculate as to what certain clues meant, but lately, I just don’t care. Why speculate when it’s going to lead somewhere vague and depressing? Do you really expect Chibnall to give the Fugitive Doctor a satisfying character arc with only one episode left? With the reintroduction of Vinder, do we once again need to worry that bellend is going to introduce the Doctor’s parents?

Showrunners don’t outright ignore bits of Doctor Who that don’t suit their version of Doctor Who, they ignore the mistakes. We should ignore things like the Doctor being half-human on his mother’s side. We should ignore the times the Doctor’s age fluctuates back and forth. We should ignore the Twin Dilemma. But never in all of Doctor Who have I seen a bigger call to ignore an entire era. This is a real damn shame because I love Jodie Whittaker. I’ve heard fans suggest they bring Capaldi back for a new regeneration. I feel like that would be a mistake. Losing both Jodie and Jo as the Doctors would be a great loss, in my opinion. I don’t think it’s fair to the people who are fans of this era to do away with it. But if someone found some way to fix this mess, I would love to hear it. If RTD can’t fix this, I hope he does ignore it.

In 2005, psychologist Barry Schwartz gave a TED Talk in which he posited that perhaps the best way to avoid disappointment is to lower your expectations. It’s a life lesson I’ve found very helpful through the years. Over the course of the Chris Chibnall era, it’s become the only way to watch Doctor Who. Every time I get excited, I end up feeling burned. My zen has come in the form of expecting nothing and being pleasantly surprised when it turns out well. The concept of another New Years Day special with Daleks was not one I met with much anticipation. There were even moments when I forgot about the upcoming episode. Because let’s be real, there wasn’t a lot to get excited over. Another Dalek story for New Years Day? Not exactly breaking new ground. So was I pleasantly surprised? No, not really. But I did have a good time.

If there is any hope I have left in the remainder of Chibnall’s Doctor Who is that he shoots for mediocrity. It’s practically the man’s wheelhouse at this point. That isn’t to say, however, that Chris Chibnall is not an ideas man. He has loads of ideas. The thing is, being an ideas man is the easy part. It’s exploring these concepts deeper than the initial premise that makes something truly thoughtful. So when I heard that the holiday episode would be a love story with a time loop and Daleks, it played out in my head pretty much exactly as we saw onscreen. It’s hard then to temper expectations when the premise is about as deep as it gets. With ideas left this unexplored, premises count as spoilers.

This is why I always go back to my number one litmus- was it fun? And the answer is- “Kinda, yeah.” I kind of had fun watching last night’s Doctor Who, and I am going to chalk that up as a win. It’s been a particularly depressing winter with the omicron variant, and a new Doctor Who episode was very welcome. Ultimately. “Eve of the Daleks,” had very little it needed to do other than be more Doctor Who, and with that, it succeeded. You cannot say that it did not begin and end. The cherry on top is that there were also moments of pure entertainment in this disjointed, but ultimately satisfying episode.

Setting the story within a multi-floored storage facility works for Doctor Who. They did it in the Twelfth Doctor comic “Space Invaders!” and it was about as exciting a location as it was then. But Doctor Who has always been about the mundane meeting the absurd, so I like it. It’s also a rather cheap way to do an episode, which is not at all a criticism. With Sony owning Bad Wolf, our days of quaint low budget Doctor Who may be behind us. We should take a moment to appreciate the fact that Doctor Who comes from a long line of people trying their best on a shoestring budget. We may make fun of it, but if Doctor Who is going into the territory of competing with Disney+, it’s worth appreciating its underdog status.

Our two new leads, Aisling Bea’s “Sarah,” and Adjani Salmon’s “Nick,” aren’t your typical run of the mill side characters, and I appreciate that about them. Their initial “meet cute,” is still rife with cringey hamfisted dialogue, especially at the beginning. The desire to have the characters simultaneously espouse exposition while developing their awkward chemistry was a bad start that left me with a feeling of unease. Aisling Bea does a good job of lending depth to the apathetic Sarah, who inherited the storage facility as more of a burden than a boon, but even she can’t make exposition sound natural. 

The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan, have finally decided to address the dying TARDIS. Once again, the premise of a dying TARDIS goes left unexplored. Was it to do with the Flux? Did Swarm and Azure sneeze on the console? The answer remains a big fat “Who the hell knows?” What we do know is that evidently resetting the TARDIS back to factory settings is enough to expel the black gunk and white spider-web infecting the TARDIS out from its system. It’s a rather underwhelming solution to what was one of the better mysteries during “Flux.” All this really does is allow for the time loop to exist, which is about as deep as the concept goes. They may yet still address this in Jodie’s final episode, but after Dan confirmed that they weren’t going to explain how the Doctor saved the universe after the Flux destroyed most of it, I very much doubt it. Underwhelming solutions aside, the scene of them leaving the TARDIS as it begins to pull apart was one of the best visual moments in the show’s recent history.

Having sensed the Doctor’s presence, the Daleks have arrived to dish out a bit of revenge for the Doctor’s attempted genocide of the Daleks. Leave it to Chris Chibnall’s Doctor to not only address genocide, but the brag about it. That tracks with the rest of his morality which is mostly all over the place. The Daleks have trapped the Doctor and everyone else in the storage facility with a sort of force field. But as it would turn out, the Daleks are also trapped in the time loop, and thus, also forced to repeat the events of stalking the humans within the building, and lighting them up with their new fancy guns. Though these Daleks died, they died living the Dalek dream of killing the Doctor over and over. Had they survived, they’d have been legends among their kind. Every Dalek wants to plug the Doctor, but getting to do it over and over? Priceless.

Truth be told, I found a lot of the time loop confusing. It took piecing it together with friends for me to even realise it wasn’t the Daleks making the loop happen. We came to the conclusion that we’re pretty sure it was the TARDIS repairing itself that was creating the time loop. Though it doesn’t seem to play by it’s own rules. At one point, the worry is that Nick won’t survive another loop if he dies before the next revolution. They keep losing a minute per revolution. But they’re not losing minutes from the future, but minutes from the past. It’s always one minute ahead. So how exactly would dying within the first minute not be more catastrophic than dying within the last minute? Even more, why do the Doctor and the TARDIS crew always appear right outside the TARDIS and not where they were a minute or two minutes from the TARDIS? How are the Daleks able to teleport into the facility to whatever location they choose, and not their initial location? If a Dalek is able to teleport into the building, how come they can’t teleport past a storage unit’s shutter? I take it this has something to do with the fact that the Daleks were reacting to the position of the Doctor and thus teleporting in after the fact, but if they’re losing a minute every time, it would catch up to their position.

These questions are as useless as any with Chibnall’s writing. We’re just supposed to be impressed because time loop. Which in some ways I am impressed. I like when anyone tries to do neat things with time in Doctor Who. One of my favourite First Doctor stories is “The Space Museum,” simply because it’s one of the few early stories to play with time as a concept. Never mind that the last half of the story is a bit of a snoozefest, it’s still cool to see them experimenting. Doing a time loop/Groundhog Day/Russian Doll storyline is exactly the sort of thing I like to see them do in Doctor Who. It’s still a bit of a Dr Strange meets Dormamu moment, which is in keeping with Chibnall’s penchant to copy the MCU’s homework. That man just really cannot catch a break.

You have to hand it to Chris Chibnall, though. He said no more Christmas episodes, and he really meant it. The decision to move the holiday special from Christmas Day to New Years Day has not gone without controversy. I myself have always sided more with Chibnall, which is weird to say. I find the idea of seeing the Doctor regenerate on Christmas, acting their ass off while a robot Little Drummer Boy terrorises Cardiff or wherever, a bit distracting. But I also see the reasoning behind it being nice to watch a little Doctor Who after all of the presents have been opened. A bit of daft entertainment is appreciated. The day after New Year’s Eve doesn’t feel as special. A bit of the Doctor while you nurse a hangover feels more like a bank holiday. What’s even weirder are the Christmas elements such as the belaboured “elf storage,” joke on the signage.

Speaking of jokes, it was reported that this episode was meant to be a sort of comedy. Other than the “elf storage,” gag, I can’t remember much comedy. No more than usual, at least. In the words of Homer J Simpson- “I didn’t hear anyone laughing, did you?” If Aisling Bea’s dialogue was meant to be funny, I think I now understand Chibnall’s morality, because for the most part, she was awful. It’s all well and good that she’s multi-faceted, but I found her extremely unlikable. Nick is presented as a guy who’s supposed to be weird in a quirky way, but it comes off as creepy. This isn’t becuase he clearly turns his exes into lamps, but because he is able to form a crush on a woman he sees once a year. I can buy that he is too nervous to talk to Sarah, but if I went into ASDA once a year, I’m not going to form an intense crush on the girl at the customer service counter. I feel like Chibnall is the kind of guy who thinks “Love, Actually,” is this really wholesome classic. Nick and Sarah behave like people from a romantic comedy, and I hate that for them.

Not to be left out, the Doctor gets one badass moment to counterbalance her genocide brag. I loved her delivery of the line when she says “Daleks answer to me.” I’ve said it before that Jodie Whittaker has finally found her groove as the Doctor. It’s sad then that they give her the same lame-ass faux inspirational speech at the end of the story. Something about Chibnall’s speeches always feel forced and unearned. He lacks the ability to write a solid monologue that doesn’t leave Jodie sounding like she’s speaking to school children on Blue Peter. There’s a sort of sappy earnestness that rings hollow in those moments. I much prefer the Thirteenth Doctor when she’s a little snarky, if not also a little angry. Luckily, she’s managed to find that within the character, even when Chibnall cannot.

We’re still getting moments where the action stops dead in its place for the characters to say exactly how they feel before moving on. I had begun to think Chibnall had gotten better at these moments, but Dan pulling Yaz aside for a very special Doctor Who moment that gets real about issues and junk, was Chibnall back at his worst proclivities. I do, however, appreciate the line where Yaz says “I’ve never told anyone, not even myself,” simply because it’s real to a lot of LGBTQ+ experiences. We don’t always know our feelings until they creep up on us. That was a better bit of representation than “I’m gay and now I’m dead,” which has permeated Chibnall’s run. Though Yaz’s story remains the same old tired trope of gays cannot be happy. The Doctor will never return her advances because the Doctor never does. I hope Bill and Puddle girl show up last minute and form a triad with Yaz. That’s my headcanon.

Dan easily has one of my favourite arcs throughout the story. The Daleks write him off as a bit of a dullard compared to the Doctor and Yaz. I liked seeing Dan fool a Dalek while avoiding its gun by running around it in circles. I mean, sure, a Dalek would have figured out turning the opposite direction, but I’m gonna give our man this victory. Dan continues to remind me of Jamie McCrimmon in his “simple but not stupid,” approach to life. He adds much-needed levity to the story. He’s the Graham of this iteration of the TARDIS- practical and elevating what is on the page with a charming performance. Dan is by far my favourite thing of this era, and also this episode. John Bishop gives a gem of a performance.

The Daleks continue to hunt down the Doctor and her friends loop after loop. Though they do get in their licks, like when Nick destroys both Daleks with their own crossfire. I guess they learned nothing from “The Day of the Doctor,” when they shot eachother after Gallifrey disappeared. After dying enough times for it to lose all weight, the Doctor begins to piece together a plan. After discovering a part of the building not blocked in by a forcefield, they manage to lure the Daleks toward some explosives left by some mad lad only known as “Jeff.” By the look of things, Jeff works for the storage facility and uses it to store what I can only assume are the components of his highly explosive meth lab. They set up early on that Sarah’s phone can’t be put on silent, which never really makes any sense to the rest of the story. It does, however, remain consistent with Chibnall’s understanding of technology. The phone is used as a means to fool the Daleks into believing there is a human worth shooting behind loads of explosives. Evidently the Daleks can scan for signs of the Doctor within a storage facility, but not the presence of butane in a canister. Sarah’s mum calls just as the clock begins to count down to midnight, causing the Daleks to destroy themselves and the building.

As the smoke and debris dissipates, we see the TARDIS once again in her blue glory. No longer are her surfaces covered in glowing pink cracks. As our heroes open the door, we wonder what we will see inside. Will there be a new console room perhaps? Maybe it has reverted to the original TARDIS console room from the First Doctor era. Well, as it would turn out, nothing has changed. They even kept the obnoxiously obtrusive quartz time rotor. What a total letdown. I didn’t fully expect the TARDIS to get a new console room, considering just how close we are to the Fourteenth Doctor and RTD2. But nothing? I really gotta say, that was a major flop of a reveal. Even using the First Doctor console would have been something. We’re given no new information, and nothing has changed.

This has been a major issue of the Chibnall era. Most of the intrigue derives from the unresolved as opposed to the unexplained. These aren’t mysteries we’re left with to ponder, but issues left unexplored. And it’s true, despite this review, I did enjoy the episode, but I needed to illustrate to what degree. When the bar is as low as “The Timeless Children,” anything above that is enjoyable. Chibnall’s greatest successes are among the mediocrity of other, better writers. To be honest, the part of last night’s episode that left me most excited was the revelation of the Sea Devil for the next story. I’m excited for the next episode, but not because of what came before it, but because I love the Sea Devils. I enjoyed last night’s episode for possibly the worst reason- it was fine.

Last week I needed a bit of a winge. I allowed myself a mask-off moment where I could just say what I felt. For the first four episodes of Flux, I resisted the urge to utterly tear into the show. I deleted so many opening paragraphs. I resisted every urge to write one-line articles simply saying- “I really disliked that.” I drew some ire from a few of you, and that’s fine. This blog is about my experience, and I’m ok with you disagreeing. I like to think that those of you who read these, do so because I take strides not to impose my views as the only true way to enjoy Doctor Who. When other people do that, it really irks me. But I still needed to let off some steam.  I’m glad I did so because this week, I feel a bit better. Not about Flux, but as a fan. I’m glad I got to get all of the frustration out so that I could look at “The Vanquishers,” through sober eyes.

Flux had given me a bit of an identity crisis. I was trying to give Chris Chibnall some room to pleasantly surprise me. This indulgence arose from a genuine desire for the series to succeed. My desire to enjoy Doctor Who put a lot of objections on stand-by. Because of this, I couldn’t tell if I was being unfair, or if it was really that bad. “The Vanquishers,” cleared all of that up for me. I did not enjoy most of that, and a huge portion of it led nowhere. You go through a phase during a bad movie where you stop hoping it will turn out good, and realise it’s actually rather bad. Last night I was struck by a moment of clarity where I found myself thinking “This is how I must have felt watching ‘Batman and Robin,’ in the theatre.” But then I started thinking “No, ‘Batman and Robin,’ was at least somewhat campy and fun.” This was just a mess.

Much like Steven Moffat did in “Twice Upon a Time,” Chris Chibnall has allowed himself a few moments of metatextual commentary for his last series finale. Sadly, I’m not sure all of it was entirely self-aware, like when the Doctor says “It’s quite draining, and confusing, and breaks every known law of every known… everything.” It’s a great way to explain his approach to tying together so many loose ends. Using the conversion plate that had stabilised the Doctor’s body for her meeting with Tecteun, Chibnall was able to split the Doctor into three different bodies in order to tackle this hulking mess of a narrative. Even with three Doctors on the case, the episode still stumbles from location to location, resting long enough to deliver crucial and convenient dialogue. No idea is left explored. 

Let’s pick up with Diane and Vinder, still stuck in the prison form. I think it’s important to mention that despite their wish.com masks, I rather like the concept of the prison form. And my objection to Diane being precisely at the doorway when Vinder walked in was slightly quelled by the revelation that she was the last remaining person inside. Where they all went is never really explained, but it does at least explain why she’s the only person Vinder might meet. What she was doing hanging out by the entrance is still anyone’s guess. Vinder and Diane have a clever sequence where they use the edges of the artificial environment to escape. I say clever from their standpoint, not from a designing an inescapable prison standpoint. Evidently, this is a bit of a design flaw to the point that escaping a prison form was part of Vinder’s training.

One of the Doctor’s three forms allows her a moment to meet back up with Yaz, Dan, and Jericho after their three years of travel. She even got a moment to see Kate Stewart and the Mad Mole. Did they ever explain how the Weeping Angel town went from floating in space to back to normal? If they didn’t I have questions about how the three of them were able to travel the earth in search of the dumbest line of dialogue ever. Kate is no longer working as the leader of UNIT, but rather as the leader of Human Resistance Against Sontaran Occupation. Evidently, the Grand Serpent was infiltrating UNIT in order to remove them from the equation, so that the Sontarans could meet humanity with little resistance as possible. I guess they forgot the power of a drywaller with a wok.

The Sontarans are a weird readdition to the storyline. Who would have guessed that after “War of the Sontarans,” they would show up again, and as the biggest villains, no less? Chris Chibnall had said he planned to make them more fearsome, and he somewhat delivered. When they weren’t stupidly sleeping at the same time, getting their asses handed to them by pensioners with cookware, or going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, they were pretty formidable. As it would turn out, the story Flux was telling was about the Sontarans. Who would have guessed? No seriously, who would have guessed this was all leading to that? All this addition to the storyline really did was explain why the Sontarans were there in the first place. Their plan was basically to draw the Daleks and Cybermen to the Flux under a false truce. The Flux would destroy their greatest enemies while they remained shielded by the Lupari ships. With their competition out of the way, the Sontarans would be able to reign supreme.

The Sontarans use both Claire and Jericho in order to find out the exact time and date of the Flux for their little plan to work. Evidently, both of them have enough psychic ability to foresee this event, which is weird considering the Flux has been going on outside the Lupari shield for six weeks now. None of this holds up when you think about it for more than five seconds, which screams “first draft.” What are the Lupari ships made of that they can ward off the Flux? Why do the Lupari give a damn about humanity? How was Vinder’s planet left in ruins when we saw the Flux destroy entire planets in the first episode? Why do the Lupari ships block the Flux, but not the sun? If the Flux is anti-matter why does it put things into flux? Also, and this is a personal gripe, why use anti-matter and the beginning of the Time Lords and never once mention Omega?

The way in which the Flux moves only further illustrates how ill-equipped Chris Chibnall is at writing the science part of science fiction. We’re supposed to believe that this Flux has eaten so much of the universe that only a small portion of the universe remains. The speed at which the Flux travels vs. the size of the known universe leads one to wonder just how long the universe had been dying. This storyline would take so long that it would have been present during every incarnation of the Doctor. In series four, we got alien invaders after their planet was stolen by the Daleks. Where are the refugees of the Flux? Why is nobody freaking out? What do the people on earth have to say about the fact that the planet is surrounded by Lupari ships? Where are the shots of people coming out of their houses and looking up into the sky? It’s almost as if the concept wasn’t properly explored. Hence, my implication of this being the first draft.

The Grand Serpent’s place in all of this is to benefit from the Sontaran plan. In other words, he’s a bit of a write-off. The Doctor implies during a scene with the Grand Serpent that he must have been some genocidal dictator in his past. This is rich considering that the Doctor aids in a total of three possible genocides in the story. We’re led to believe that the universe is now empty, so any Daleks or Cybermen present are presumably the last, as are the Sontarans. But not only is the Doctor willing to let the Daleks and Cybermen die, she’s also willing to use them as bait to take care of the Sontarans. She even gets Jericho, a person who witnessed the Holocaust, to aid her in triple genocide. It’s Chris Chibnall’s weird mean spirited writing rearing its ugly head again. This is the same Doctor that left a brown man in the hands of the Nazis. All of this is justified because of a fourth genocide of the Lupari that happened off-screen.

Reviewing this episode has proven to be a challenge, as it is so awkwardly paced that it’s hard to remember when certain things happened. Not only is the Doctor jumping around from story to story, but so is the pacing. You could argue that the lockdown was a contributing factor to the mess that is the Flux. Chris Chibnall had originally planned to pace this story over ten episodes, rather than six. I would say he did his best, but nothing about this feels cut for time. Had he edited out the superfluous excess, we would never have met Bel and Vinder, because, let’s face it, their storyline was ultimately as useless as it was boring. While I think they’re fine as characters, did we really need to spend so much screen time watching them do nothing? What about any of their story couldn’t have also been done by Yaz and Dan? Why was Kate Stewart involved? Why was John Williamson there? Why was the Grand Serpent involved? What narrative function does Diane perform? Wouldn’t suggesting the Doctor feed the Flux with the matter inside the prison form make more sense coming from Yaz?

I had read that the Grand Serpent came about from Chibnall’s desire to work with Craig Parkinson. But why introduce a whole new character? Why not just have him play a Sontaran? Why bog down an already bloated script with yet another complication? This isn’t like when David Lynch changed Twin Peaks forever with the late addition of Killer Bob. This is just irresponsible writing. The only thing the Serpent truly manages is to pull UNIT into Chibnall’s web of broken canon. UNIT wasn’t formed in the ‘60s by Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart after the events of “The Web of Fear.” No, it was evidently formed in the ‘50s by General Farquhar. Having this many unresolved plotlines in the final chapter of your epic adventure is a bad sign. Each new storyline should elucidate upon what came before it, but instead, we’re just left with questions. I’ve touched on this before, that Chibnall’s writing leaves you with all of the wrong questions. These aren’t questions pondering the greater mysteries of the story, but rather what the hell just happened and how any of it was important. 

Swarm and Azure’s storyline was also a bit of a write-off. As much as I really enjoyed their performances throughout their series, they never really achieve anything and spend the whole time posturing like cats. Their desire to destroy the universe over and over seemed like a good way for them to put the universe back at the end, but instead, they just die like dust at the hands of what I’m guessing was the personification of time. This isn’t before they tease the Doctor with her fob watch, which also doesn’t behave like its supposed to. In the past we’ve seen these fob watches open and restore the Master, the Doctor, and Ruth all back to Time Lords. But when the Ravagers hold it up to the Doctor’s face, it’s just a bit of torture. For some reason, when they threaten to dissolve the “Cabin in the Woods,” poster house, this also causes the Doctor to dissolve, which I guess makes sense. It doesn’t really, but once again, whatever.

The best part about the fob watch is that the Doctor drops it down into the bowels of the TARDIS. When she did that, I said out loud- “Oh thank God.” I couldn’t wait for them to destroy that damn thing and the misguided narrative that comes with it. Steven Moffat teased that he would reveal the Doctor’s name, only to pull back at the last moment. You get the impression that that’s what Chibnall thinks he’s doing here. While I am grateful that he allowed some mystery to remain, it feels less like character development, and more like damage control. After “The Timeless Children,” any restraint on his behalf feels more like a mandate from on high than any sort of artistic integrity. In this way, Flux feels less like the latest thrilling chapter in the Doctor’s adventures, and more like a “what if,” scenario. What if the majority of the audience had wanted to see more of the Timeless Child storyline? What if lockdown had never happened? What if Chris Chibnall had never been sacked? They’d have opened that watch, is what.

Like much of this series, it reduces the bulk of the Chibnall era to a write-off. What’s most frustrating is that, once again, we’re left with yet another finale that explores none of the things in which many of us are even remotely interested. We got close to no new information about the Ruth Doctor. I expected her story to come into focus, but she was completely missing from the story. On top of that, the TARDIS remains infected. The promotional art for the holiday special implies that the TARDIS is still broken and that maybe the Doctor is going to finally do something about it. Though I must say, the TARDIS’ infection was about as consistent as Ryan’s selective dyspraxia. In one story, the TARDIS door’s dimensions are grossly out of whack, and in other moments, it’s running like a finely tuned machine. Diane and Dan don’t end up together out of plot convenience, completely undermining Diane’s agency by turning her into a heartless jerk. Jericho was sacrificed for the cause of genoicide. Looking back, last night’s episode has completely disabused me of any notion that Chris Chibnall has improved as a writer.

One area of improvement across the entire show has to be Jodie Whittaker. This was easily my favourite season with her. And I will admit that Chibnall did give her better dialogue. It’s just a shame that it was bogged down by so much stupid exposition and questionable morality. That being said, I really enjoyed her in this episode. She really feels like the Time Lord we know and love. There were even moments where she was reminding me of Tom Baker’s alien weirdness. I hope that people who hated the concept of a female Doctor can now see this. From the memes and reviews I’ve seen online, the general consensus is that she’s a great Doctor who has sadly been bogged down with some of the worst writing in the show’s history. She’s modern Doctor Who’s Colin Baker, and I can’t wait to hear her absolutely rock shit in her audios.

Usually, I have more positive things to say about a story, but really, my favourite thing about this storyline was that it wasn’t as bad as I feared. It was bad in that it was a poorly written piece of mediocrity, but it wasn’t bad in a way that does lasting harm. “The Wedding of River Song,” was a jumbled mess, but it doesn’t ruin Doctor Who. I’m glad that Chibnall was kind enough to walk back some of his concepts in a way that allowed them to re-establish some of the mystery. This doesn’t change the fact that the Doctor being the first Time Lord is already far more information about her past than I ever wanted to know. My friend Taryn refers to it as “an idiot’s idea of clever writing,” and I can’t help but agree. That being said, it is nice to know that the way in which it ended leaves open a couple of different ways to retcon this mess into something salvageable. If Chibnall plays the next three episodes safe, then they might actually end up enjoyable.

We’re left now with a universe in tatters (in more ways than one). Evidently, the Daleks aren’t all dead because they’re going to be the villains of the holiday special, again. That’s about as exciting as the prospect of someone digging that fob watch out again. We managed to miss a few bullets, for which I am pleasantly surprised. Bel and Vinder aren’t the Doctor’s parents, yet, which was a great relief. And yet I find myself in the same position I was before “The Vanquishers.” It’s hard to rest with three episodes of Chibnall’s Doctor Who left. There are still too many balls in the air for me to feel like we’re past the worst of it. Part of me hopes that the reason the Ruth Doctor hasn’t been fully explored yet is that she’s set to become the Fourteenth Doctor. Part of me worries it’s because Chibnall is saving it for yet another unfulfilling finale. All I really want from Chibnall at this point is to do what he does best- aim low and fly under the radar. Please, Chris, leave quietly.

Hello, friends! Apologies for the delay. If you caught my last post, you’ll know I have been ill with a nasty cold. While I could have written while unwell, I didn’t want it to influence my writing. For instance, back in 2011, I lost $200 just before going in to see “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.” I’ll never know if I hated that movie because it was an unfulfilling yawnfest written by a transphobic anti-semite, or if it was because I lost two-hundred dollars prior. Either way, it didn’t help my mood. That being said, I should mention that I did watch Sunday’s episode through a wall of stinging sinuses and cold medicine. I’ll try my best to remember the details. And before we get to it, I would like to take a moment to wish Doctor Who a happy 58th birthday!

Continuing from last week’s episode, we’re back with the Doctor and her companions riding as passengers in a TARDIS hijacked by an angel. That’s actually a pretty cool sentence to say. I really like that concept. The TARDIS has not at all felt like a safe place this series, so this is pretty par for the course. I was surprised to see that the audience numbers had dropped between this episode and last week’s “Once, Upon Time.” Critics weren’t very kind last week, but even still, the Weeping Angels are a bit of a crowd favourite. You would think they would pull people back in. You certainly get the impression that’s what the BBC was hoping. Personally, I have never found the Weeping Angels as effective as they had been in their first episode- “Blink.” We’ve seen them go from silent predators to the Statue of Liberty. So going in, my bar was pretty low.

One unique aspect of this story is that it is the sole chapter of Flux not written completely by Chris Chibnall. This time there is Maxine Alderton, who you may remember as the writer of “The Haunting of Villa Diodati.” Oftentimes when a showrunner shares writing credit with another writer, it’s because they added a scene where the overarching plot of the series comes into play. However, Chris Chibnall has top billing, so I have no idea who wrote what. My inclination is to assume that Alderton wrote the bulk of the Weeping Angels story, while Chris Chibnall wrote the bulk of the Bel and Vinder storyline. It’s impossible to say without asking, but it seems a safe bet.

An aspect I really like about the opening scene with the Doctor is that it gave her a chance to do something clever. Rewiring the TARDIS to eject quantum entities reminded me a lot of the Fifth Doctor. It felt like something he would do. Any time the Doctor feels like the Doctor in this era is nothing short of a miracle. I’m pleased to say that we got a lot of great Doctor moments like we did in “War of the Sontarans.” I felt like the character totally did a backslide into bad habits last week. Emoting everything with huge emotion and every line expository. I had a feeling seeing her back into a simple monster of the week storyline would focus her character a bit. That isn’t to say this was a paint-by-numbers storyline. However, it does jive with my predictions about the structure of the series with one episode being a setup followed by an actual story.

The Angel may be expelled from the TARDIS, but it got the Doctor and her pals where they needed to be. We’re now back with Claire, a character from the first chapter of Flux. I rather like Claire. While I barely mentioned her in my review for “The Halloween Apocalypse,” she was one of the elements I found most intriguing. Perhaps it’s the fact that she has an interesting look about her, or the fact that she was tied to the Weeping Angels, one of the few non-Timeless Child elements of the story. Claire is being experimented on by a Dr Jericho, who is interested in Claire’s psychic abilities. Notably different is the time period from when we first met Claire in present day England, which is now 1967. This of course due to the fact that Claire had a run-in with a Weeping Angel.

One of the things I disliked when Steven Moffat brought back the Weeping Angels was the introduction of the concept that the image of an Angel becomes an Angel. I never liked this because it felt like an overcomplication of what was already an effective villain. I would rather see different stories than new powers. Sometimes I think modern Doctor Who forgets this to a degree. One of the strongest aspects to Doctor Who is how it juxtaposes completely different elements to a positive effect. If you don’t want to rehash the Weeping Angels, just change their location. You don’t need to give them new powers. I don’t mean they should never develop, they’re quantum beings after all. But it does feel as though there was always more of an emphasis on expanding their powers over creating interesting situations. Regardless, I rather liked how they use the idea of the image of an Angel becoming an Angel. Having an Angel hiding in Claire’s mind from the image of a premonition is peak Doctor Who. I’m into that. Totally.

One way I was less into the idea was the drawing of the Angel coming to life. I kind of wrote it off in my head at the time of “Well, that drawing was specifically of a Weeping Angel by someone with a psychic link.” Because I went to Sunday school and I’ve drawn some angels. I don’t think just any drawing of an angel in the Doctor Who universe is going to come to life. That would be silly. Though the EKG drawing of an Angel went surprisingly nowhere. While pushing one aspect of the Angels forward, one element that seemed like a step back was literally how little else of the Weeping Angels’ lore was actually considered. The Doctor is in a room with two other people and nobody. not even the alien Time Lord, thought to say “Let’s close our eyes in shifts.” It’s the Sontarans’ sleep schedule all over again. “You blink while I keep looking. Now I’ll blink…” Amy Pond figured this shit out immediately. This was a really bad sticking point for me throughout the episode.

The village has all come together in search of a missing young girl named Peggy. I’ll not say much about Peggy other than that she’s carrying on the fine tradition of terrible child actors in Doctor Who. After being zapped to 1901, it’s Yaz and Dan who find Peggy who was also zapped by a Weeping Angel. While there, they see Peggy’s guardians who were also taken by an Angel. This time they know better, but they totally don’t. They get too close to a Weeping Angel only to discover that you can only survive the Weeping Angels once. The result of being touched by an angel twice is that you turn into stone and then explode. Unless you’re Rory Williams and everyone else in the Winter Quay from “The Angels Take Manhattan,” where the whole point was that they kept people as batteries by sending them back through time, over and over. If you’re going to write a Weeping Angel story, you could probably stand to watch the four major Weeping Angels episodes. This isn’t like when Maxine Alderton ignored the fact that Mary Shelly was a companion of the Eighth Doctor. That was from the audios. But this was an actual episode. Come on, Maxine!

You may think to yourself “Oh damn, how are Yaz and Dan going to get out of this tight spot?” Well, you’ll be happy to know that the episode doesn’t share your concerns. The next time we see Yaz and Dan, they’re fine. I guess that Weeping Angel killed those old people and said, “Peace out.” There is a point in the episode where it mentions that the angels are cruel and like to leave a witness, but that’s hardly an explanation for letting three people live. It feels like a scene that was cut for time, which is ridiculous because you could have fit twenty minutes of extra storytime in by cutting out the scenes with Bel. I’ll get to that in a moment. Along with discovering the Weeping Angels have been sending people in this village back to 1901, Yaz and Dan also discover that this village has been ripped out of existence where it floats freely in space. That’s pretty cool I guess.

The Doctor decides to talk to the Angel living inside Claire’s head by making contact. I don’t care how I old I am, I will always get giddy at the sight of the Doctor saying “Contact!” right before sharing minds with someone. Claire keeps a gentle and breezy mind, which honestly I’m pretty jealous of. While in there, the Doctor learns that Claire has a fugitive Angel hiding in her head. The Angel is asking the Doctor for her help, which I am always into. She asks the Doctor for help, and in return, promises to tell her what the Division knows about her past. I love when the villains of the Doctor become uneasy allies. It’s like when Batman and the Joker share a laugh at the end of “The Killing Joke.” You know the peace won’t last long, but it’s a fun space to explore. While all of this is going on, poor Dr Jericho is drying his damn eyes out keeping a lookout on the Weeping Angels. I really loved returning Doctor Who veteran Kevin McNally in this role. Judging by Twitter, I’m not the only one. Throwing a cup at the Doctor to wake her from her psychic contact with Claire was the icing on the cake.

The Doctor discovers a secret tunnel out of the manor, only to find that there are Weeping Angels growing out of the walls. It’s like a game of Operation watching the Doctor and her new friends avoid reaching hands. Dr Jericho is less lucky when a bit of dust from a Weeping Angel sends him conveniently to Yaz and Dan’s location in 1901. The whole idea of the dust reminded me of the bit in “28 Days Later,” when Brendan Gleeson’s character goes rabid after a single drop of zombie blood lands in his eye. One might even say it was lifted wholesale. Another thing this does is put an end to the argument about breaking a Weeping Angel with a hammer. You’re just adding deathly dust to the air. The Doctor and Claire make it out just in time for the Doctor to understand why. They were being funnelled into a trap. The rogue Weeping Angel used the Doctor to offer her as a trade. She helps them capture the Doctor, and they leave her alone.

The Doctors friends, now trapped with 66 years between them, can only watch as the Doctor is transformed into an alicorn… er… Weeping Angel. You can hate the Chibnall era all you like, it’s rather warranted at this point, but that moment where the Doctor transforms will go down as one of the highlights. It truly is new territory for both the Weeping Angels, and the Doctor, so kudos for that one. I would be more excited for this development, were it not for the continuing fear that all of this is going to relate back to the Timeless Child. But there’s a whole other part of this episode that I’ve neglected to mention, and that is the Bel b-plot. The Bel-plot. My reason for this is because in between “Once, Upon Time,” and “Village of the Angels,” I read the most distressing fan theory- Bel and Vinder are the Doctor’s parents.

Usually, while watching Doctor Who, I don’t miss a whole lot. I’m invested in the story. But ever since “The Timeless Children,” my interest has waned massively. I’m no longer watching for clues or piecing together disparate pieces. I’m merely enduring the show. It’s hard to get excited when even the interesting parts of the series are in service of what I consider to be a ruinous angle for the story to take. I do not want to know who the Doctor was, and I certainly do not want to meet her parents. After the disastrous reaction to “The Timeless Children,” I am astounded that anyone at the BBC allowed Chibnall to continue down such a careless path. I’ve tried to remain positive and hopeful, but I can’t pretend anymore that continuing down the line of this horrible story only does more lasting damage to Doctor Who. Whether I can endure the show is less of a concern than whether the show can endure Chris Chibnall.

What’s ironic is that Bel and Vinder being the Doctor’s parents actually negates the arguments of people who were pro-Timeless Child. Everyone said “It doesn’t really change anything. It’s still a mystery as to who and what the Timeless Child is.” That mystery is as short-lived as its justification. We’re right back around to the idea that it is killing the initial concept of the show- Doctor who? The Doctor has gone from being a slacker who barely skirted through Time Lord academy, to a chosen child from the stars. The Doctor is no longer unique by virtue, but rather by providence. The aspect of the Doctor that makes her relatable is being replaced by a teenage fanboy’s power fantasy. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again- Chris Chibnall owes Pip and Jane Baker an apology.

It’s really a bummer to end this review like this. I liked most of the Weeping Angel storyline. But that turd keeps floating in the punch bowl, causing all of us to nurse our cups instead of swigging them down in victory. I feel like we’re past the point of good stories for Flux. My only real surviving interest in the story is seeing the TARDIS get put back to normal. I’m not implying that I’ve made up my mind, but my hope for this all to come together in a satisfying manner is at an all-time low. The word “retcon,” has been tossed around more than ever lately, and I can see why. I joked the other day that they should do as Community did with season four and just claim that the Timeless Child storyline was the result of a gas leak. The TARDIS has been sick this whole time and made everyone think the universe was suddenly devised by the mind of mad sixteen-year-old. Regardless, I hope this isn’t the last we see of Maxine Alderton.

After last week’s episode, I joked on Facebook that Chris Chibnall must have read my letters. I said this because it seemed as though “War of the Sontarans,” was a concerted effort to address a lot of the problems people like myself have been writing about for the past three years. You wouldn’t know it by reading the reviews, but a lot of fans had a positive reaction to the episode, which, in my circle at least, was the predominant response. One friend of mine asked where this Chris Chibnall had been hiding for the last two series. Most of us were in agreement that despite any reservations or Wish.com masks, the story felt like a proper episode of Doctor Who. So how did “Once, Upon Time,” fare with the same audience? Not great, friends. Not great. 

It may be slightly ironic for me to imply that I go by the reactions of my friends over those of a critic as I write a review of Doctor Who. You and your friend group may have a positive reaction, and that’s fine. In my friend group, I have at least three friends whom I can talk to about Doctor Who on the same level as I think about Doctor Who. My pal Taryn and I joke that there is no one else in our lives with whom we could have a conversation about “…ish,” the Big Finish audio with a funny title. But it’s not just about people who know the show, it’s people who know the show, and aren’t also shitty about it. I started this blog to talk about Doctor Who in a positive manner. So many videos on YouTube just look like a cesspool of gatekeeping reactionaries that I often don’t find the good ones because I dare not go there. Understand then, that three years of writing about disappointment is not fun. I don’t relish this. 

Reading this introduction may lead you to believe that I’m about to lay into the episode, but I’m not disappointed. I’m frustrated. I stayed up until 4 a.m. last night watching YouTube videos or talking to Taryn on the phone. My mind gets a lot of cross-chatter because I have ADHD, which is also a source of hyper focus in my life. My fixation last night that left my mind overclocked was “Once, Upon Time.” I find the episode absolutely perplexing, but not at all for the right reasons. For starters, that title? Woof. I thought I was having a stroke. It’s like one of those memes where they write “the the,” and you don’t pick up on it because your monkey brains aren’t reliable. I get that it’s a very Moffaty pun, and Chibnall loves him some puns, but it hit the part of my monkey brain that senses a typo more than the part of me that groans at puns. And to think, I thought Chibnall was getting better at naming stuff.

Puns aren’t the only things on which Chris Chibnall seems fixated. If you watch any showrunner’s era long enough you’ll start to see recurrences of their proclivities. Moffat is to women dressed like a Mary Poppins dominatrix as Tarantino is to women’s feet. But after last night, I believe I’ve pinpointed one of Chibnall’s own hyper fixations- swarms. It’s like when Bender said, “You guys like swarms of things, right?” So far in Flux, I’ve counted four different swarms. There are the weird little blue things that turn people into little purple things, there’s the Flux itself, there’s the time storm, and there’s even a dude named Swarm. If that fourth one doesn’t count enough for you, then perhaps consider the way in which he and his sister kill by turning people into little swarms of dust. Maybe Chibnall thinks swarms are cool. Maybe swarms are easier to animate on a COVID-19 budget. Maybe Chris Chibnall has a bee beard fetish. We’ll never know the true reason.

As you recall, last week ended on a cliffhanger. In wack ass fashion, it picks up just in time for the Doctor to do something. Instead of rendering Yaz into a sexy swarm of dust, Chibnall reigns in his base instincts and has the Doctor fall into a big ol’ time storm, complete with giant stompy gold ladies. Chibnall is the man who introduced both furries and vore into Doctor Who, so of course, he gave the giantess fans something to glom onto. For a guy who doesn’t understand youth culture much, Chibbers is all about that fursona. Clearly, I’m joking but it does amuse the hell out of me. Speaking of furries though, we’re given a bit of a Beauty and the Beast story in the form of Bel and Vinder. The whole thing plays out like a fairy tale, which is most likely the influence behind the episode’s title. Think about it. Vinder is exiled in a prison of his own making, represented metaphorically as a rose. Bel’s name is like Belle, and she spends the majority of her story talking to an anthropomorphic appliance. That works, I guess. Bit of a stretch?

It’s been an itching sensation at the back of my mind for the past three weeks that Chibnall wasn’t writing two companions, but rather three including Vinder. Perhaps Vinder’s role was originally supposed to go to John Barrowman before all of that sex pest business. That would require the audience to fall in love with a new guy right away. I can’t think of a single character who could maybe have benefitted from a bit of that screen time. Nope. Nobody at all. We get about 20 minutes of Vinder’s backstory that tells us more about him than Yaz has gotten in three seasons. If Chibnall really has read my letters, then he definitely heard me say “Show, don’t tell.” I’m big on that concept. But did we really need an entire backstory devoted to learning about why Vinder was exiled to the Rose space station? Does anyone even really care? This is one of the few times I would have thought to say “Tell, don’t show.” The payoff for Vinder had better be worth it because the introduction of Bel throws out Yaz’s hopes of shagging. Or maybe it doesn’t. You, and Yaz, and baby, and me makes four. That’s how it goes, right?

Vinder’s whole deal is that he’s part of some freakishly loyal military on his home planet. He holds allegiance to a guy who goes by the Serpent. The Serpent’s whole deal is looking like David S Pumpkins if he went through an Ed Hardy phase. He hangs out with a couple of people who look like Sun Ra but don’t get any dialogue. During a meeting, the Serpent orders Vinder to turn off a recording device so that he may speak candidly about murder. Vinder carries a lot of guilt for having turned off the recorder, thus aiding in destroying evidence of murder. This is part of his and the other companions’ greatest hits being played out in the time storm. The Doctor protects her friends by hiding them from the Ravagers within their own lives. During this, she keeps popping into their realities to scream exposition at them while she fixes things. Seeing her floating there like a disembodied ghost made me laugh because she reminded me of Stuey Gluck from “Freaked.” 

There’s a weird cartoonishness about the Doctor in this episode. At times it’s amusing, such as seeing her as a policewoman talking to Yaz. Seeing Jodie’s Doctor in a uniform of authority is like a Vincent Adultman “two kids in a trenchcoat,” vibe. And while she does momentarily, if not metaphorically, don a cool darker coat, a lot of the intensity from last week gets undercut. For starters, we lose a bit of her enigmatic nature when we hear her inner thoughts as a voiceover. The thoughts that did leave her mouth, with equal amounts of intensity were mostly exposition. You could easily have turned this story into a Big Finish audio based on how the Doctor is constantly explaining what’s in front of us. But why so much explanation when you are simultaneously showing it? It all leads back to the writing. There are too many ideas going on at the moment that none of them has any time to breathe. We need to be told what we’re seeing because it doesn’t make any sense otherwise. The best way I can think to describe it is an absolute clusterfuck.

Already we’ve seen people on social media defending the episode by attacking people’s intelligence. There’s a flippant implication that if anyone left this episode feeling confused, that it is some sort of failing on their behalf. It reeks of “Was Poop Dragon supposed to be hard? I beat him on the first try.” And like ProZD also said- “Siri, how do I delete all of Twitter?” You see, sometimes stuff is confusing on purpose, like a David Lynch movie. Or Ingmar Bergman. Or Andrei Tarkovsky. Maya Deren. Derek Jarman. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Chris Chibnall. Wait, how did he get in here? Because other times, it’s confusing on a structural level. I was able to give a decent plot synopsis above. I’m not confused by the story. It’s the pacing, the editing, the directing, and, of course, the writing.

One of the points I made in my review for “The Halloween Apocalypse,” is that Chris Chibnall seems to never know when to divulge information and to what degree. He keeps long-running plot threads looming over his entire run as showrunner which do more to frustrate than tantalise. He likes to stop the action dead in its tracks so that characters can sit and talk about their feelings. There’s a herky-jerky start-stop rhythm to his work as if he is never quite sure how far he wants to take a concept. Take the Ruth Doctor, or “Fugitive Doctor,” for instance. We really needed to see more of her at the end of “The Timeless Children,” so last night was the perfect opportunity to showcase her more. We could have finally gotten some much needed screentime from Jo Martin. While we get some decent dialogue between her and the Doctor, we missed a great opportunity to give a Doctory speech to the Ravagers. What should have happened is we see the speech start as Jodie and end as Jo. Instead, the bulk of the monologue is delivered by Jodie with flashes of Jo to remind us this is one of her memories. What should have been the best scene in the episode is undercut by the fact that they gave the bulk of the dialogue to the wrong actor.

You could argue that this is the Thirteenth Doctor’s era and that she takes precedent. But she’s not really is she?  It’s a symptom of the Doctor being saddled with another Doctor. Hell, she doesn’t even get her own comics. She shares that honour with the Tenth Doctor. What’s worse is the Fugitive Doctor is currently the more compelling of the two, due to her air of mystery. She embodies the Who of Doctor Who far more than Whittaker. The sad part is that it’s all leading toward solving that mystery. Leaving no question left unanswered. No room to dream. No room to wonder. The Timeless Child. If Chibnall wanted to show some real swagger, he would never fully explain her. Let us bunch of nerds argue about it as he walks away, not looking back at the explosion. 

One thing we learn about the Ravagers is that they have a rather blasé attitude toward genocide. While killing one person and killing one person full of millions of people is exactly the same, visually, it does up the ante a bit. Learning that those big beefy Wish mask dudes weren’t actually security muscle, but rather walking prisons, was actually pretty cool. I joked last week that Chibnall was ripping off Faction Paradox stories, but now we’ve got people who are bigger on the inside. The reason I like this is that it was a fun idea. It’s a quick and easy way to demonstrate the cruelty of the Ravagers. Swarm and Azure get described as a sort of virus of existence. Sadly, explaining them has also defanged them a bit. As they left defeated, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had hissed and swatted like kitty cats as they backed away. But that’s fine. That egg had to crack sooner or later. 

After talking the gold ladies into joining up to defeat the Ravagers, the Doctor is able to repair the triangle’s little machine that… I dunno, tempers the time storm? Is the time storm the same thing as the time vortex? Is it the same thing as the Flux? It’s hard to say. These questions have yet to be answered. Or maybe they have and audio mixing has been that bad. Seriously, I have missed at least 30% of the dialogue this season due to muddy sound design. The Doctor saves time and her companions. She very reliably pilots her unreliable TARDIS to drop Vinder off on his homeworld which was also hit by the flux. This explains why Bel experienced time fluctuations in her story, and why she was running away from Cybermen and bad CGI Daleks. What it doesn’t explain is why they tried to sell this episode as a Cyberman story. The Cybermen are so inconsequential to the story that I forgot them as I forgot about Joseph Williamson or the weird floating house. Remember the lady watering plants? She’s new! There’s just too much going on.

Mr Williamson’s addition is a rambling incoherent mess, which tracks with the rest of this story. What wasn’t drowned out by the poor sound mixing was nonsense as far as I was concerned. Also mostly forgotten are the companions. We get a bit of interest as Dan’s relationship with Diane gets explored, but it’s all a bit of a smokescreen as it’s all happening within the time storm. Even the scene we get with Yaz isn’t real, which explains why her sister claims nobody calls video games “video games.” What the hell else would you call them, Chris? Televised interactive computer programs? Or is it just “games,” now? Did you learn that from your kids, Chris? Did you come in like “Are you winning son?” while your kid is into hour 800 of Roblox and they looked at you and said “They’re called games, dad. Jeez!” He then did a kickflip and skated away. As I said, this episode is perplexing for all of the wrong reasons.

Not to go unforgotten is the TARDIS, which has mostly gone forgotten. I get that due to the cliffhangery nature of this series, the Doctor hasn’t really had the time to tend to her time machine, but yeah, it’s due. The reason for this probably has something to do with the fact that Chibnall probably wants to save this for episode six. Judging by the preview of next week’s episode, it’s going to be a monster of the week story like last week. I’m sensing a pattern. One episode is a sort of bridge episode to a normal episode. You go from a mess, to a story, to a mess, to a story. I get it, really I do. Some episodes are setups for the next episode. While “Dune,” is a great book, its follow-up “Dune Messiah,” acts as more of a bridge to get to the third book “Children of Dune.” Perhaps the Weeping Angels are to blame for what’s happening to the TARDIS. They seem to have infected Yaz’s life, why not the TARDIS as well?

These are small questions I have leading into chapter four. But unlike last week, where my interest in the story stemmed from investment, my interest now stems from confusion. I’m now watching on autopilot. I’ve lost interest in the overarching storyline and am only really interested in the possibility of the spooky Halloween episode I originally wanted from the actual Halloween episode. An episode with the Weeping Angels in a big creepy house sounds a damn sight more interesting than watching the Doctor float around and scream at everyone. The scary thought is that the Weeping Angels may have as much to do with that story as the Cybermen did with this one. I no longer trust Chris Chibnall to deliver any kind of closure in any kind of timely manner. We’re either going to learn about the Fugitive Doctor in chapter six, or we’re going to have to wait until Jodie Whittaker’s final episode. Neither would surprise me at this point.

With just three episodes left, it’s easy to think we’re in the homestretch with Chibnall, but then you remember the holiday specials and that we’re only a third of the way there. I’m assuming the BBC ordered an episode of Doctor Who for their 100 year anniversary, which means we might not even see an ending to this era until October of next year. Ideally, I would like to see “Flux,” resolve not just the Ravagers storyline, but also the Fugitive Doctor. It would be really nice to be able to put a lid on this Timeless Child malarky. To borrow from John Mulaney, having Chris Chibnall in charge of Doctor Who is a lot like having a horse in the hospital. It’s hard to rest or feel confident when there’s a horse in the hospital! While it’s still ongoing, every new episode is a potentially ruinous story that could undermine the integrity of Doctor Who. Last week I would have been a little more generous. But after watching Chris Chibnall backslide into bad habits so spectacularly, I’m no longer cautiously optimistic. I’m just cautious.

One of the bits of writing advice you hear the most is “Don’t write about not knowing what to write about.” It’s good advice when you consider just how self-indulgent pieces like that can be. Unless you’re Charlie Kaufman, it’s best to leave it alone. But what about when the lack of inspiration is a genuine reaction to something? For the last two series of Doctor Who, I have written articles before each of them aired. In said articles, I speculated about the rumours, casting choices, and changes in the production crew. But leading up to series thirteen, I find myself hard-pressed to care about much of anything. My anticipation for new Doctor Who is at an all-time low, and I’m not the first person to say this.

If you go back and look, you’ll see that I have been more than fair to Chris Chibnall’s vision of Doctor Who. Possibly even more than it deserves. I always try and take an optimistic stance toward Doctor Who because, at the end of the day, I do want to enjoy it. History has shown us that Doctor Who has its ups and downs. Even within bad eras, you will find the occasional gem. These gems make sorting through the rough worth it. However, a number of my friends have said to me that they have no plans of watching until the Chibnall era has passed. These are people who survived “The Twin Dilemma,” and intimate relations with pavement stones. It would appear then that “The Timeless Children,” has done lasting damage.

With my series eleven preview, I speculated about what a Chris Chibnall and female Doctor dynamic would look like. In my series twelve preview, I talked about the strengths and weaknesses of series eleven and how they could be improved upon. But going into series thirteen, I haven’t much to say other than “I’m glad it’s short,” which is something I would have never expected to say about Doctor Who. Thank Ood that it’s only six episodes long. However, considering the damage that can be done to the history of Doctor Who with one episode, six seems almost too many. But this has been a tradition for the last two series, and therefore I will continue with tradition and give you my impressions leading to series thirteen.

Chris Chibnall

It’s genuinely hard to care about Chibnall at this point. He claims he always planned on leaving after three series, but his lack of a plan for series eleven makes his claim dubious at best. The fact that they have already wrapped filming on his 2022 specials reeks of having been sacked. The BBC just wanted him gone. My only hope for him at this point is that the BBC have done damage control. You get the impression that the BBC is aware of the damage he has done to the show’s history. You don’t break out Russell T Davies when the show is doing well. Clearly, there is a desire for a return to form. At the same time, bringing back RTD also shows the same lack of understanding for the property that got Chibnall hired in the first place. The BBC doesn’t seem to know what works about Doctor Who, but Chibnall looked good enough on paper. They don’t know why RTD was successful, only that he was successful. 

Aside from betraying the mystery implied in the show’s title, Chibnall broke one of the biggest cardinal sins of being a showrunner- being boring. I imagine even his parents call him “Chibnall.” I’ll give the man credit that you can tell he actually tried to make series twelve more exciting and even succeeded in places. But this is also the man who managed to make dinosaurs in space and giant spiders boring. I would venture to say that what makes Chris Chibnall’s writing so boring is how utterly depressing it can be. His version of Doctor Who is clearly Broadchurch with a Doctor Who skin. For a man who seems to think he is expressing open-minded and liberal opinions, he’s actually fairly mean spirited with his writing. He’s going to portray gay characters long enough to kill them. The Doctor speaks out against guns in favour of bombs. She even sells a brown man out to the Nazis. In Chibnall’s Doctor Who, man is the greatest monster of all, and it’s tired as hell.

In my time as a Doctor Who fan, I can think of at least five occasions where I have reacted to the show with emphatic cheering. I cheered when the Eighth Doctor showed up in “The Night of the Doctor.” I cheered when the Twelfth Doctor’s eyebrows made an appearance in the 50th anniversary. I cheered at the announcement of a female Doctor. And I cheered when it was announced that Chibnall was leaving and again when I learned his replacement would be Russell T Davies. Doctor Who has fallen so low that its highs are no longer found in narrative triumphs, but in firing bad writers. The only real joy we have left is knowing that there is an end in sight.

Chris Chibnall promises to “blow up the universe,” in episode one. I find this claim weird because he already effectively did that in “The Timeless Children.” Every promise he makes feels like more of a threat. He’s done so much lasting harm to Doctor Who that at this point, less is more. Each episode under his watch is yet another possible disaster in the making. I would take no Doctor Who over more of his Doctor Who. Seeing set photos of RTD and the Fourteenth Doctor would be more exciting to me than anything Chibnall has planned. Most everyone I know is more excited for the return of Russell T Davies than the return of Chris Chibnall. Series thirteen feels more like something to get past rather than experience. My only real hope from his remaining episodes is that he leaves quietly.

One Season One Story

The pandemic has given Chris Chibnall the ultimate excuse to churn out even less Doctor Who than usual. Already they had been reducing the number of episodes and the frequency at which they were produced. Now we’ve got what is essentially one story spread among six episodes, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s closer to classic Doctor Who with its serialised format, but with fewer stories overall. The closest thing we have to compare it with from modern Doctor Who is series nine where the episodes were mostly two-parters. Consequently, I find myself returning to series nine the least. I don’t always have time to dedicate to two episodes. Combine that with subpar writing and I’ll probably never return to series thirteen again.

From what I can tell from the trailers is that some episodes may focus on one baddie at a time. There’s the chance that one episode will be dedicated to the Sontarans and the next to the Weeping Angels. Maybe the only way Chibnall can understand the concept of a season arc is to refer to it as a single story. Whatever gets you there in the end, Chris. The real issue I have with “Flux,” being one continuous story isn’t really that it’s fewer stories, but rather that it means more Chris Chibnall. It’s been revealed that every episode has been written by Chibnall himself - a man whose name on the title screen is as welcome as a positive result on a COVID test. Only episode four offers a possible respite from Chibnall’s cruel brand of Doctor Who in the form of co-writer Maxine Alderton. Even so, the episode is still co-written by Chris Chibnall, so my expectations are still rather low.

Dan the Companion Man

The introduction of John Bishop’s “Dan,” has never excited me. I was excited to see Yaz and the Doctor alone for a change. Finally, we were going to get to see some much-needed character development for Yaz, but no. Part of me wonders whether the inclusion of Dan stems from BBC execs worry that the complete lack of a male presence in the TARDIS would further alienate the misogynist portion of their audience. It’s some small brain energy and I’m not there for it. This isn’t to say John Bishop is going to be good or bad. I know nothing about the guy. He’s a blank slate at this moment. I just find the move cowardly.

One aspect to Dan’s character that I’ve heard rumoured is that he’s supposedly the son of a previous companion. My initial guess would be probably Jo Grant. Under another showrunner, this concept might actually excite me. But under Chibnall, it’s yet again another promise that feels like a threat. Instead of being just another companion, Dan threatens to be an element that could retroactively tarnish a pre-existing companion. Not an auspicious start for Dan, sadly. I’m sorry, John Bishop, it’s not your fault. You inherited this mess, possibly in more ways than one. It’s not your fault that you’ve been yoked with one of the worst showrunners in Doctor Who’s history. As the Thirteenth Doctor effectively said to Graham’s cancer concerns- “Sucks, brah.”

Returning Classic Baddies

When Chris Chibnall threatened before series eleven that there would be no classic baddies returning, it felt like a misstep. Certainly, series eleven suffered from a deficit of memorable villains. But now, much like Dan, the inclusion of classic baddies feels more like a threat than a promise. While I think the redesign of the Sontarans looks cool in its throwback to the classic series, I also think “Oh goody, now he can ruin the Sontarans too.” We also get the return of the Weeping Angels, who have never gotten better through more development. Even Moffat struggled to make them more effective than their first appearance in “Blink.”

However, I find myself slightly hopeful in one respect. The redesign of the Sontarans looks as though Chibnall is interested in re-establishing them as dangerous again. One of my complaints with Moffat’s Doctor Who was how he constantly undermined the threat of villains. Perhaps Chibnall could restore a little menace to both them and the Weeping Angels. This is, of course, hoping against hope, but like I said, I want to enjoy Doctor Who. I will try and remain as fair and optimistic as possible. However, if the rumours of the return of Davros are true, I worry then that Chibnall lacks the gravitas required to capture what is good about the character. If he can’t get the Doctor’s morality right, I doubt he can nail Davros. We’ll see I guess.

Publicity

One of the most undeniable facts of the Chibnall era of Doctor Who has been its lack of promotion. The number of books and merchandise have plummeted. Webisodes are at zero. Not even Doctor Who Magazine was doing the comics properly. It was nice to see the lead up to series thirteen’s trailer marked with little clues within emails. Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen glimpses of the Doctor glitching into advert bumpers on BBC. All of these have been nice little bread crumbs for a show that has gotten surprisingly little coverage over the last couple of years. The BBC doesn’t seem to know what to do with Doctor Who lately, so anything has been better than nothing. Their faith in the Thirteenth Doctor is so low that they don’t even allow her to have her own comic book without also inserting the Tenth Doctor at every chance they can get.

On top of the lack of promotion, the promotion we have gotten has all been rather lacklustre. Shots of Jodie Whittaker doing the hands out Doctor Who pose in front of a colourful background has been the norm for all three seasons. The promotional image for Flux is somehow even more boring. I will say, however, that the new trailer for series thirteen has gotten me mildly excited. The shot of the battlefield, in particular, has caught my interest. I’m wondering if Chibnall isn’t returning to the War Games from the Second Doctor era. And yes, that does worry me in the same way Davros and Dan worry me, but it also piques my interest, which is something. I’ll take any point of interest over any feelings of dread. I, like you, would like to enjoy Doctor Who despite who is writing. Sometimes the actors and the production crew can elevate substandard material. Sometimes things are just weird enough to be fun. With series thirteen my plan is to hope for the best and brace for the worst.

*The following article contains possible spoilers for the upcoming 60th Anniversary Special and beyond.*

Recently, here on Tumblr, a user reblogged my post about “Beep the Meep,” the Doctor Who Magazine comic character who many believe was spotted on location in Cardiff this last week. What stood out about this particular reblog was what was hidden within the hashtags. They had mentioned that the inclusion of a character from the comics was the first thing about the 60th Anniversary special that has them excited. While I don’t necessarily share their lack of enthusiasm, I do understand it. Why just a few months ago the rumour of them bringing David Tennant back as the 14th Doctor made me rather upset. It felt like a step backwards for a show that’s always been about innovation. So how then did I come around to the idea?

Before it aired, it was announced that Billie Piper would be returning to the 50th Anniversary Special. My attitude was closer to the one mentioned previously. I was at the peak of my toxic Rose Tyler hate. I was tired of fans saying “They should bring Ten and Rose back permanently.” I was tired of people still hung up on one version of a show that had already gone through numerous identity crises. The idea of bringing Rose back felt like fan service. Rose had come and gone and her story had a fairly conclusive arc. Then Steven Moffat did something interesting- Billie Piper was not playing Rose Tyler at all. And like that, I was on board. All it took was something new.

Now, much of what I am about to say is based upon a lot of fan speculation. However, along with speculation have come photos and descriptions of scenes as witnessed by spectators. What I am about to go into may be incredibly off-base compared to what makes it to the screen in November of 2023. That said, I feel it’s safe to say that this inclusion of David Tennant is not simply the return of the Tenth Doctor. What I think we’re getting is something almost completely new to the series. I say almost because, well, we’ve seen this happen before. We’ve seen Tom Baker return as a future regeneration known as “The Curator.” And even further back, we’ve seen Romana do it as well. When Lala Ward first steps into the spotlight as Romana, the Doctor turns her away. After “trying on,” numerous bodies, she reemerges with the face of Lala Ward once more. In their own ways, these two instances act as a sort of proof of concept for the idea that the Doctor can revisit old faces.

The reasons to suspect this is a new iteration of the Tenth Doctor are numerous. For starters, the TARDIS that David Tennant has been spotted with matches the one from the Jodie Whittaker era. His new suit and coat have never been seen in any medium. He has a brand new sonic screwdriver, which makes no sense for his previous incarnation, as his original sonic had found its way into the hands of the Eleventh Doctor. Furthermore, the Tenth Doctor said his goodbyes to Donna. Seeing her with her daughter Rose implies that this is after his farewell tour. My hope is that this is a sort of hiccup regeneration sent to fix Donna’s human-Time Lord metacrisis once and for all. In the same way that the TARDIS often puts the Doctors where they’re needed (as opposed to where they want to go), perhaps the Tenth Doctor has popped back long enough to deal with some unfinished business.

Smartly, Russell T Davies introduced us to Ncuti Gatwa before filming got underway. I say smartly because if we had seen David Tennant on set, people may have gotten upset. Going to David Tennant long term would have been like an admission of failure on the show’s behalf. After the divisive Chibnall era, choosing to return to the fan favourite David Tennant would have felt like they were out of ideas. Fans claim that they should bring back David Tennant but don’t realise that what they’re asking for would be terrible. If creators gave fans everything they thought they wanted, it would be boring. Letting us know that Ncuti had been cast in the role was a way of saying “Bare with us, we promise this is going somewhere.” In this way, RTD and co are asking us to go out on a limb and entertain a brief moment of indulgence. But it’s not just indulgence, is it?

While many people may disagree with me about the Chibnall era, I don’t think it would be productive to pretend the show isn’t in the toilet. The ratings are at an all-time low and people have simply lost interest. With the show at what many consider its lowest point in 58+ years, there is a lot of room to shake things up. People expect so little from Doctor Who at the moment, that there’s a decent amount of room to challenge the status quo. This, of course, could backfire with those in the audience yearning for something familiar. For many, the Chibnall era brought too much change at the same time. On a surface level, bringing back David Tennant and Catherine Tate feels like pandering to those fans. In some ways, I too would like a bit of the familiar, but I also want to see the story progress forward. Strangely, this feels simultaneously like both.

In giving us a bit of the familiar while still feeling new, Russell T Davies has allowed the 60th Anniversary to act as both a celebration of the show’s past and a glimpse into its future. We’ve been given something familiar to stand upon while being asked to imagine new possibilities. Just how weird can the Doctor’s life get? How wibbly-wobbly can this Time Lord’s adventures through the space-time continuum be? The only way to know for sure is through innovation. And innovation requires bold choices. For better or worse, the Timeless Child was a bold idea. Mind you, for many, it was as bold as the Sixth Doctor choking Peri Brown, but it was an experiment regardless. Historically, Doctor Who was built upon such experiments.

Since its inception, Doctor Who has needed to be innovative. It’s not just the initial premise of a time-travelling phone box that’s bigger on the inside, no. Doctor Who had to be innovative to overcome limitations. As Plato said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” David Whitaker was tasked with writing a cheap bottle episode and ended up turning the TARDIS into a living being. The need to replace William Hartnell with Patrick Troughton was a gamble that paid off. What could have ended the show ended up being the thing that gave it longevity. It’s the reason we’re here talking about it today. Doctor Who has grown from a series of innovations with each new change acting as a proof of concept. Missy and Sarah Jane (particularly from the Sarah Jane Adventures) both acted as a proof of concept for a female Doctor. The new series even has to reintroduce classic baddies as proof of concept that they still work with a modern audience.

Doctor Who has always been a bit odd. Some of its innovations come from the fact that it was often trying things no other show was capable of achieving. Throughout the years, showrunners have broken the rules, thrown out the rules, or simply invented new ones. In the years since, many different shows, movies, games, plays, books, and comics have been created by people who grew up on Doctor Who. And while a show like “Loki,” was arguably doing Doctor Who better than Doctor Who was at the time, it’s impossible to discount the influence our favourite Time Lord had on its concepts. Russell T Davies said recently that his goal is to compete with Netflix and Disney+. Chris Chibnall was also tasked with competing with Netflix, but could never have anticipated the spectacle Disney had planned for their Marvel and Star Wars shows, let alone, the budget. The thing is, however, I believe if anyone could keep up with Disney+ and Amazon Prime, it’s RTD.

According to a few different sources, the plan is to expand upon the show with an extended universe. This is nothing new, as Doctor Who has had multiple expansions. But what is most interesting, at least to me, is the inclusion of comic book characters in the show. They flirted with this notion previously with a brief reference to “Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer,” in the 2014 episode “Time Heist.” But you can trace this intermingling of the expanded universe even further back to the Eighth Doctor mentioning the names of his Big Finish audio companions in “The Night of the Doctor.” Even characters like Fitz Kreiner, Trix, Grace Halloway, and Bernice Summerfield have made appearances across multiple forms of media. However, having Beep the Meep and the Wrarth Warriors in the 60th Anniversary is the furthest they’ve ever taken this concept.

If keeping up with Disney+ is RTD’s goal, I would say he’s off to a great start. It seems like everyone these days is getting into the multiverse. From the MCU, to “Rescue Rangers,” to “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” people seem fascinated by the idea of infinite possibilities. Seeing characters like Cad Bane or Ahsoka Tano in the main Star Wars universe is the kind of stuff that has the kid in me jumping for joy. I always loved expanded media, but could never understand why characters from cartoons, books, or comics never made their way into the main universe. Beep the Meep is exactly the kind of character Doctor Who should be embracing. It’s the Doctor Who equivalent of introducing Rocket Raccoon. Judging by the fan reaction to the evil little fuzzball, I have a feeling he’s going to be a hit. We have an embarrassment of riches on the way, and I couldn’t be any more excited.

Another way in which I believe the new RTD era will compete with Disney+ is through actual queer representation. Both the Moffat and Chibnall eras felt regressive in their depictions of LGBTQ+ relationships, despite some occasional successes (e.g. Bill Potts, Vastra and Jenny). Long gone were the days of pansexual Time Agents and sexually fluid Torchwood operatives. Meanwhile, Disney likes to sneak in a gay kiss that is easily edited out for foreign markets. Depictions of this kind do less for representation, and more to highlight our disposability. Considering Davies’ comments condemning Loki’s declaration of his bisexuality as a “ridiculous, craven, feeble gesture,” I think we can expect the future of Doctor Who to be aggressively gay. The “go woke, go broke,” brigade have already shit themselves stupid over the casting of Yasmin Finney, and I say good.

Ultimately, the most telling evidence that the show is on the up and up is the fact that the fandom is abuzz in a way I’ve not seen since maybe “The Fugitive of the Judoon.” People are excited. Fan theories are once again the main topic of discussion. You could compare my own theorising within this article to my reaction to the Grand Serpent which was something akin to “who cares?” It’s hard to feel enthusiasm for something that consistently lets you down. If you were to go back and look at my articles from the beginning of the Chibnall era, you could plot my journey from a hopeful Whovian to a totally defeated Dalek. Not enjoying Doctor Who has been an awful experience. Doctor Who brings me so much joy. During some of my darkest moments, it was all I had. Now, for the first time in a long time, there’s sunshine on the horizon. If that doesn’t get you excited, then it might be you.

thymelord:

the bbc: y’know people think a female Doctor is a bit PC, so i hope you’re not going to make any political statements in the episodes

chibnall, sipping a martini and writing “arachnids in the UK”: why ever would you think such a thing 

themadmanwithablog:

Arachnids in the UK

As my bodyguard,

Your job is to be eaten

By spiders for me.

It’s weird how, while the show has gotten bigger in visual scope, the stories have actually scaled down 12, by his second episode, was taking out Daleks in interstellar wars. 13 is more “let’s grab some newspaper clippings and fishing poles and do some science kids”.

Thasmin is adorable said I ship it. Time and space travelling queers is everything.

I mean, I’m not surprised at all? Chris Chibnall was the head writer of S1 and S2 of Torchwood and wrote some of the most iconic scenes between the canon gay couple in it and everyone in that show was queer. I’m not giving up hope.

Every one is queer and nothing hurts.

(FYI, I use queer as anything other than cishet)

user-2-electric-boogaloo:

This is a repost of the one I did a few weeks ago but I’ve added Chibbers cause he deserves equal attention. I’m tempted to make this a series. Also yes I am slightly biased against Chibbers but I’ll try to be as fair as possible.

So for this analysis I’m going to compare when Chibbers, Moffat, and RTD save the day well and when they save it poorly. There are a few bits of criteria I need to explain.

First I will only be including main series, no Torchwood, no spin-offs, and no mini episodes.

Second, I have to define what makes a good and a bad ending (my examples will come from episodes written by neither of them):

Bad endings include when the sonic saves the day (see The Power Of Three) (there are exceptions, see below), when a character spouts some useless technobabble that doesn’t make any scientific sense/when it doesn’t make logical sense in general, when the Doctor invents/presents a machine/equipment that miraculously stops the baddy and is never referred to again (see Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS), and any other ending I deem to be bad (see The Vampires of Venice).

Because I’ve added Chibbers to the selection, I’m increasing the criteria for a bad ending, these include times when the Doctor goes completely against their established morals, this will mainly occur when they aren’t the head writer as when head writer they’re allowed to give the Doctor whatever damn morals they like.

Good endings include when the sonic activates a device that has been well established to save the day, when technobabble is used that actually makes some scientific sense, and just generally when the baddy is destroyed in what I deem to be a creative manner that makes sense with all the things that had been set up in that episode (see The Unquiet Dead).

There will also be cases where there isn’t really a day to be saved, however this happens more often with Moffat.

Let us begin (obviously there will be spoilers but the last episode in the list aired 3 months ago so what you doing with your life).

RTD:

Rose: Bad

What even is anti-plastic?! Like seriously, he’s faced the Autons loads of times and has never thought to use it any other time.

The End Of The World: Bad

The Doctor just goes up to the appearance of the repeated meme (ha meme) and rips its arm off. He then just summons Cassandra back by twisting a knob which apparently everyone can do if “you’re very clever like me”.

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