#weeping angels

Another entry for Draw Everything June. The Weeping Angels were my favorite Dr. Who villains, though I haven’t watched the show in forever.

New Set Pics confirm that the Weeping Angels are returning in Series 13

For the past 58 years, Doctor Who has introduced some novel concepts. The police box that is bigger on the inside. The traveller through time and space who dies and regenerates. But I don’t think we’ve ever had an episode where the title of the story is a direct reference to the fandom. Because isn’t that what we all are at the moment- “Survivors of the Flux”? I’m barely holding on at this point. You’ve seen me go from cautiously optimistic to beat down. I believe that if you were to compare that to stages of grief I’m somewhere around acceptance. I am the antelope saying to the lion- “Fine, eat of me.”

I’m being dramatic, of course. Think of it as a reaction to hunger. I need to “eat,” the Doctor Who equivalent of a Snickers. I’ve definitely run a marathon, and I have a Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe sized thirst. My point is that I’m having a hard time approaching this objectively. I don’t know what’s good Doctor Who anymore. I’m an anaemic mess trying to subsist on more sizzle than steak. But that’s enough with the food puns. I’m stalling. The fact is, I’m not happy, and I don’t want to be one of those internet turds constantly harping on Doctor Who. I also don’t want to be a lyre (I’m moving on to music puns). If you are enjoying where Doctor Who is heading I would like to know who your weed guy is.

They say that if kids are enjoying Doctor Who, then Doctor Who is doing ok. But I don’t know any kids. All I know are stunted adults obsessed with a kids show and we’re all fucking depressed. “Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.” If you know any children, ask them what they thought of last night’s Doctor Who and send it to my P.O. box. Part of my dilemma with objectivity stems from having watched Jay Exci’s eight-minute parody of the 13th Doctor era before last night’s episode. Every time they changed locations with that horrible font, I couldn’t help but hear “This living room is in Hawaii! Wow, what an international adventure we’re having!” It’s sad how easy it’s been to nail the Chris Chibnall era by going with the simplest explanation. I called the Timeless Child in my review for “The Ghost Monument.” I called Tecteun in my review for “Once, Upon Time.” And people are most likely correct about Bel and Vinder.

Going by this rubric, I’m going to predict that the Grand Serpent’s mark is a reference to Jon Pertwee’s snake tattoo. The Division’s brand on the Doctor after the Ruth Doctor regenerated into the 3rd Doctor. Do you think they’ll get Sean to play his dad? I’m assuming this because, much like “I’m half-human on my mother’s side,” the Doctor’s tattoo is definitely something that needed an explanation. We couldn’t, you know, ignore those things. It’s ironic that Chris Chibnall seems to be the retcon guy, considering how much of his era will be retconned. Or, much like the Doctor’s parentage should have remained- simply ignored. Of course, I am still staking my entire objection on speculation, but so far, I’ve been spot on. Every bit of wiggle room we may have left for mystery has been joylessly explained away. Was the Master telling the truth? Yes. Oh. Ok. Is Tecteun telling the truth? Doesn’t matter. Her narrative function has been replaced by a watch.

I mentioned that one thing I was worried about with these cliffhanger endings was that it was going to result in a string of endings that look great visually but are resolved within moments of the next episode. I called the idea of the Doctor transforming into a Weeping Angel new territory, which was exciting. But the moment we see her in the next episode, it’s just a prank on the Weeping Angel’s behalf. If you spent the last week itching to see how the Doctor gets out of this mess, you’ll be relieved to know that is was super easy. Barely an inconvenience. The Weeping Angels were just clowning on the Doctor. They needed her frozen in carbonite so they could safely bring her to the emperor. They put a little badge on the Doctor that stablises her body on a quantum level. On it, is the same tree motif of the Division.

The Division is a sort of… time variance authority. They’ve got a guy who stands outside of time that hides behind a giant cloud of destruction. It’s not at all a Marvel show. They don’t own the multiverse, ok? I saw an article last night that said “Survivors of the Flux,” confirmed a fan theory about there being a multiverse in Doctor Who. Yeah, it’s a totally new concept. We never saw the Brigadier with an eyepatch. And Rose definitely didn’t find herself on a beach in an alternate universe. This is all new, evidently. The beauty of Chibnall enmeshing the Timeless Child so deeply into a multiverse is that that’s where we can leave this story in the future. In some B-universe where stupid idiot things happen.

Another issue I am having is that I don’t know who the villain is and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. Two of the big baddies- the Weeping Angels and Tecteun have both been neutralised. Tecteun was reduced to dust while the Angels have been reduced to underling agents of chaos.  I mentioned that the Division has Swarm and Azure, but I was just using that to make my snarky MCU joke. Tecteun actually seemed rather bothered by their presence on her swanky space station. I know that David S Pumpkins dude is part of it somehow. He’s now infiltrating UNIT, which is a part of this already heavily bogged down story. By episode five, we should be getting a lot more answers, not introducing brand new concepts. Not since the Star Wars prequels have I seen such an ambitious plot completely get lost in its execution. But hey, at least we got a shot of Kate Stewart for the trailer last week. 

Kate’s main function in this episode is to explain everything we just saw the Grand Serpent do and to resist his toilet snakes with a force field. It’s always nice to see Jemma Redgrave make an appearance, which is why it’s a bit of a letdown that she’s only in it for about 5 minutes. An aspect of Chris Chibnall’s writing I’ve praised in the past is how he makes little nods to the past. But anymore, they’re starting to feel like those Memba Berries from South Park. “Memba the Ood?” “Yeah I memba!” It’s like when a DJ plays snippets of good songs in one big mess of a remix. Nothing is enjoyable, only a reference of something that was. Flux is playing Doctor Who’s hits, but not fleshing any of them out enough to be satisfying. What if the Doctor was a Weeping Angel? We’ve got no time to explore the concept, but here’s what it would look like.

The Doctor’s past memories are stuck in a fob watch, much like they were in the two-parter-  “Only Human,” and “The Family of Blood.” The chameleon arch is a well established bit of Doctor Who lore that can be used to great effect. When Professor Yana was revealed to be the Master held in a fob watch, it was a grand reveal. Knowing that the fob watch held by the Division contains the entirety of the Timeless Child storyline, I wonder if we might not instead just throw it into the Flux. The only one who cares about the Doctor’s past at this point is the Doctor. I certainly don’t. At least, not like this. We’re watching the systematic removal of mystery from the core of a show with a question at its centre. Please stop trying to explain things nobody has the right to answer. 

Yaz, Dan, and Jericho are off having an adventure in the year 1904. You’ll know it’s 1904 because every time we change locations, that ugly font tells us it is. How about you just let us know if it becomes 1905. If you recall from last week, they were sent to 1901, which has given them 3 years for Yaz to find the perfect hat. It really goes to show how much cheaper stuff used to be. I’ve been living in the same timeline for 38 years, and I still can’t afford to travel the world. They find a cup in Mexico, which leads them to Constantinople, a place known for deciphering the writing on ancient Mexican cups. Someone tries to dynamite them, so Yaz decides to cover up the dynamite with some rugs as opposed to pulling the wick out. Quick thinking there, Yaz. They end up talking to some Yogi in what I assume was supposed to be a funny scene. Their goal is to decipher the cup because it’s supposed to tell the exact date of the end of the universe. Why they need to know this day is anyone’s guess.

Their entire “international adventure,” is rendered pointless by the sudden entrance of Jospeh Williamson, the “Mad Mole,” tunnel digger. Williamson’s appearance conveniently corresponds to the moment when Chibnall was out of ideas for this part of the episode. Now Dan can figure out that they need to go see Williamson in Liverpool. It’s all a bit convenient. Like Jericho being zapped to the exact location of Dan and Yaz, where the plot was taking place. Or when Vinder gets absorbed into a Passenger and the first person he meets (at the entrance, no less) is Dan’s girlfriend Diane. There’s too much stuff going on for any of this to be earned, or developed, or built up. It’s a big confusing mess. 

Williamson’s tunnels appear to be acting as conduits between different dimensions. His central hub is a sort of room with doors leading to different tunnels. One door leads to death rays, another leads to Christmas Town, and the other I’m assuming to Halloween Town. Jack Skellington would have a field day with this guy. It’s because of these conduits that Williamson has been able to pop in and out of scenes and randomly spout gibberish and disappear just as quickly. How Dan was able to derive anything from that nonsense is a miracle. I have a feeling these doors are going to play into the multiverse aspect of the story. I’ve learned to put very little stock in anything in this series. Nothing gets any time to breathe, so who cares?

Speaking of “Who cares?”-  Bel is back, still searching for Vinder. This time she’s fighting Karvanista over the Lupari ship she’s commandeered. Judging by the ship’s console, the Lupari are into some sort of weird bondage stuff. That’s the only explanation I can think of for adding spiky bits to the edges. Could you imagine those in Star Trek? The Enterprise takes a good hit from a Romulan Warbird, and we lose Geordi because he fell over onto the console, impaling himself. Where are Health and Safety for the Lupari? Were their ships designed by the same guy from the Star Wars universe that flagrantly ignored the need for guard rails? This is a small nitpick of mine, but it also implies my level of investment in Bel’s storyline.

Whether Bel is or isn’t the Doctor’s mother, it was established that the Doctor doesn’t remember her parents, which is already more than I wanted to know. It’s also hard to ignore what that would be setting up- the Doctor’s parents. I feel like Chris Chibnall thinks this is going to be one of those heartwarming moments like when Amy and Rory are revealed to be the parents of River Song. Instead, much like the rest of his big reveals, it’s going to be several episodes too late and not at all something the show needed. So far, Chris Chibnall’s writing has proven to be painfully predictable, and very seldomly exciting. He has a week to pull it out, but I feel as though we’re going to be disappointed. My hope for the sick TARDIS storyline was dashed the day after I wrote about it when the BBC revealed a photo of the TARDIS cracking for the Holiday special. Not even that storyline, the only one I was still interested in, will be resolved by the end of series thirteen.

One aspect I did rather enjoy this week was the acting. Robert Bathurst was brilliant as General Farquhar. Despite my lack of interest in the character, one of the biggest stand-outs in the episode was Barbara Flynn as Tecteun. She’s a damn good actress. She has a nice low-level menace to her that I think played off well with Whittaker’s subtle performance as the Doctor. If I drowned out the knowledge that this was all relating back to the Timeless Child, I was able to enjoy the performance of two talented actors playing off one another. Knowing that it was all in service to such an ill-advised storyline really put a damper on everything, as it has this entire series. You would think after the reaction to “The Timeless Children,” they would have course-corrected to something less obtrusive. But instead, they appear to have doubled down. This episode was not the big shocking reveal they wanted. It was many of our worst fears confirmed. 

For the past three years, Doctor Who has been like a pit in my stomach. It hasn’t felt like it has been in safe hands, and I’m starting to see why. Chris Chibnall seems more interested in leaving his mark on Doctor Who than being its caretaker. I joked with my pal Taryn last night that I would rather have Gareth Roberts in charge at this point. She joked that she would take Michael Grade over Chibnall at this point. At least that way the show would only be off the air. I’ve tried so hard to put a positive spin on these articles, but this one broke me. If you’re enjoying this series, more power to you. Any hope I had is now gone, and my only solace at this point is that there is an end in sight. I’m not looking forward to the thrilling conclusion of the Flux saga, but rather the end of mediocrity. October can’t come soon enough.

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.

Hello friends! My review for “Village of the Angels,” won’t be up until tomorrow. I am currently ill and have spent most of my day sleeping. I strongly considered pushing through and putting out an article, but I can’t focus very well at the moment. Please accept my apologies as I have not had the energy to do any writing. I would rather be a day late than put out a substandard article. Thank you for understanding! And thank you for reading. -Natalie

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.

In the past twelve days since my last update, I have been dancing around the idea of writing a follow-up article. While I think it was fairly obvious how I felt leading up to series thirteen, I felt as though I hadn’t quite captured what I was trying to say. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy writing about how unenthused I have been for more Doctor Who. It’s not a great feeling, furthermore, I dislike the idea of adding to the vitriol on the internet. Despite my reservations, I kept coming back to one question- what if we’re wrong? What if all of this is leading somewhere exciting? Ultimately, I decided against the article as I felt that it would not be long enough to justify writing it. But the question persists. It wasn’t until last nights episode when I finally was able to put into words what’s been bugging me- one of Chris Chibnall’s biggest failings is also the thing that keeps me returning.

“The Halloween Apocalypse,” starts with a bang. I want to say that upfront. I loved the Doctor and Yaz’s banter. Both Whittaker and Gill seemed to be having a great time. The special effects were pure cheese like something from a Power Rangers episode, and I appreciated the effort. Seriously, I loved how dumb it was. Because first and foremost, the one thing I’m looking for from Doctor Who is that it be fun. The Doctor and Yaz hanging over a pit of acid is daft, and cute, and fun. I also liked that the Doctor even somewhat planned everything to the point of setting up a trampoline to catch her and Yaz. That moment gives the Doctor some agency and makes her feel a bit crafty and for lack of a better word- Doctory. 

I also really loved seeing Yaz with some much-needed personality. It almost illustrates immediately that maybe three companions was too many. Since we last saw her, Yaz has been given a little bit of a shot in the arm. She’s no longer with the police, and she’s fallen into a groove as a companion. I was reminded of Rose’s character arc wherein she goes from a young shopgirl to a Doctor in training. Yaz is shown punching buttons and giving directives. There seems that she has been given a more definitive character, and I am hoping that it doesn’t disappear in chapter two like Ryan’s dyspraxia. If it can remain consistent, I will be very excited.

Along with Yaz’s characterisation, it feels as though we’re finally seeing Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor take a little more form. I liked seeing her being a bit more assertive and comfortable with herself. There was a bit where her weird morality comes into play where she talks to Yaz as though showing her wondrous things excludes her from having to be honest. It felt a bit like when the Doctor failed to meet even the most basic of requirements for comforting a friend afraid of having cancer. But on the other hand, it reminded me a bit of moments when the Tenth Doctor threw his weight around and acted selfishly. I’m ok with the Doctor not being a great person, so long as the writing understands the implications. This seemed ok to me.

The problem I had with this episode, I now realise is the problem I’ve had with all of Chris Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who- there’s not a lot of resolution to be found anywhere. Clearly, the first episode of a greater six-part story is allowed to end on a bit of a cliffhanger, but on its own, very little happens. It’s a lot of set-up for chapter two. I only hope that chapter two isn’t, in turn, a lot of set-up for chapter three. You see, we’ve been given a lot to go off of, but very few postmarks that allow us to trace our journey. Yes, we’ve met the Ruth Doctor, but who is she? Is she even actually the Doctor? The way in which the Doctor side-eyes her in “The Fugitive of the Judoon,” makes me wonder if she might not be the Doctor. Everything thus far has been a lot of promise, with not a lot of payoff. We should have learned more about the Ruth Doctor by the end of series twelve, but we were only left with more questions.

Not even the resolution of “The Timeless Children,” elucidated much for us as the audience. Nothing about the storyline played into the action beyond being an info dump. Compare this to the end of series four. Throughout all of series four, we’re constantly hearing about planets that have gone missing. It’s such a basic science fiction trope that you’d barely even notice it as it’s happening. Of course, the Adipose breeding planet went missing, that’s the kind of thing that happens in sci-fi. Davies took this basic trope, seeded throughout series four, and built it into one of the best series finales. Not only had these planets gone missing, but they were also being used by the Daleks to create the reality bomb. The most the Timeless Child does to inform the story is to give the Master motivation to destroy Gallifrey. Knowledge gained in this way doesn’t further a plot, it just vomits information at us.

I feel like a lot of Chibnall’s writing would go over better if he gave the audience more moments of resolution. It reminds me a lot of Trenzalore, a concept drawn out by Steven Moffat to the point where it became more annoying than intriguing. Just tell the story you want to tell, stop implying that we’ll get there someday. Davies wasn’t afraid of peppering in clues or hints, but they all led to a finale. Both Moffat and Davies understood that while you could tell an overarching plot, each individual episode had its own sort of arc. They would leave room for further intrigue, while still giving us clear resolutions to individual episodes. In this way, the structure of “The Halloween Apocalypse,” worries me. It’s about the dissemination of information. I mentioned in my last article that I figured one episode would be the Weeping Angels episode, and one would be the Sontarans episode, and while they would be a part of a greater story, they would also stand alone as individual stories. What we got instead was an hour of set-up. I was looking forward to a spooky Halloween episode filled with Weeping Angels, but instead, we got a glimpse at the Weeping Angels and a mountain of exposition.

This seems to be a recurring problem in Chibnall’s writing. Not knowing when to give information. Not knowing when to let something be its own story. Take “Revolution of the Daleks,” for instance. We get a pretty good concept of the UK government using Daleks as the police and another good concept of the Doctor’s prison break. Both concepts could have been an episode on their own, but are instead dropped together in the same story. The consequence of which is that neither story is properly explored. “The Halloween Apocalypse,” suffers from this lack of breathing room. So much information is dropped up front that by the end, you feel more overwhelmed than informed. And look, I get it, if you’re constantly being called the boring guy, you would want to put as much excitement and promise into that first episode as possible. That’s totally fair, but I know I’m not the only one who felt overwhelmed by the info dump. The fact that the sound mixing was muddy didn’t help either.

The closest thing we’re given to a plot is in the form of newcomer Dan’s run-in with Kavanista, a Lupar soldier who could best be described as a Chewbacca-spaniel. The Doctor and Yaz have been pursuing him so the Doctor to could learn more about her past. As it turns out, Kavanista’s mission is to rescue Dan from the Flux, a devastating force in space, threatening to wipe out the entire universe. The Lupar race is evidently a kind of companion race to humanity, and each of them has been assigned a human to protect from the Flux. Their big plan is to wrap the planet earth in a network of ships like they were the Nova Corps. I think. Don’t quote me on that. How their ships could handle the Flux where whole planets failed is anyone’s guess.

My current theory is that the Flux is somehow related to the new baddies in town- Swarm and Azure. As villains go, they’re not bad. There’s not a lot to go off of this early. Swarm has been imprisoned since the beginning of time but has spent the entire time planning and growing. He reveals himself to the Doctor while revelling in the fact that she doesn’t remember them. One can probably assume that he’s the reason the Doctor doesn’t remember being the Ruth Doctor, which is not exactly exciting as it all ties back to the Timeless Child, a storyline in which I have consistently shown very little interest. My initial reaction to Swarm and his sister Azure is that they feel a lot like Chris Chibnall took Tzim-Sha and mashed him up with the Eternals from “Can You Hear Me?” Swarm stands out, however, due to the strong performance given by Sam Spruell.

Throughout the episode, I was struck with the feeling that Chibnall was trying to evoke the experience of a classic Doctor Who serial. Oftentimes, classic serials would opt for a cliffhanger episode leading into the next. You could go a whole six weeks for certain elements to resolve. The difference is that the old serials didn’t also drop close to every possible story arc in the first episode. They allowed the story to tell itself slowly, over time. I’m willing to give that a lot of good faith, however, mostly due to the reasons I’ve already stated above. The main reason is that it’s only chapter one. That being said, I would have liked to have seen some of these story elements spread out a little more. Even “Game of Thrones,” with its many characters and plotlines took the time to parse out the information. As I said, I hope episode two is allowed to be a story arc on its own.

Speaking of Game of Thrones, one of the elements that worked the least for me was the inclusion of the character Vinder. From the space station “Rose,” Vinder is either stranded or maybe even exiled from his people, out in deep space. Vinder’s main role in the story is to passively watch as the Flux passes through and destroys planets in its wake. This is all fine and good, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand how fast the Flux moves. It appears to be engulfing planets around Vinder left and right, but never really encroaching on him or the space station. Vinder’s actual location in relation to the Flux is never quite clear. You think at times that he is about to die, but then the Flux seems lightyears away. Yet simultaneously it destroys planets all around. It reminded me a lot of when Whittaker’s Doctor bumps her hip to send her sonic screwdriver inexplicably into her hands, defying all laws of physics. The portrayal of Vinder and his position in relation to the Flux is poorly defined. I’m not even sure when or where Vinder is, but hopefully, that will come with time.

Judging by the movement of the Flux and the size of the universe, the human race has anywhere between 5 minutes and 75 billion years before it utterly annihilates the earth. It’s hard to tell, because, you know, space is massive. The Doctor pilots her TARDIS to Halloween, the day on which the Flux arrives to Earth. This comes after some weird behaviour on the TARDIS’ behalf. I really like the idea that the TARDIS is possibly dying. That’s a very cool concept for a story. My only fear stemming from that storyline is that they may use it as an opportunity to replace the TARDIS. Why this worries me (beyond the fact that the TARDIS is an institution and a character in her own right), is that I’m nervous they’re going to use this as an opportunity to replace the blue box. There have been really dumb rumours that they may change the police box because police aren’t that popular these days. Doing so would not only fix a problem that never existed, but it would also be the ultimate act of performative wokeness. Seriously, nobody wants that. The part of that storyline that is interesting to me is in seeing how the Doctor might save the TARDIS. It’s ok to put the TARDIS in peril, but at the end of the day, it’s not ok to kill her. Even Steven Moffat knew he couldn’t actually say the Doctor’s name. Some things, no writer has the right to change.

Next week is looking like it’s going to be the Sontaran episode. My hope for stand-alone stories may yet be fulfilled. Though we didn’t get our spooky Halloween episode, which was a major disappointment, we may still get some good self-contained episodes. As an American, I have always wished they would do a Halloween episode. I figured it would never happen as Halloween isn’t as big a deal here in the UK. It’s funny how Chris Chibnall seems to give me things I’ve wanted to see in Doctor Who, but his execution is so often lacking. I was hoping that they were going to try and add a little menace to the Sontarans, but instead we got more of the painfully unfunny humour about their appearance from the Moffat era. Sigh. You would think a Sontaran would wear his battle scars like a badge of honour, but here it’s a source of derision. It’s a disappointing choice, that, but I guess he’s trying to lean into what’s popular.

There’s a lot of setup in this story, culminating with the Doctor looking deep into the Flux, about to die inside an unreliable TARDIS. It’s not a bad place to be considering my attitude leading up to the episode. Obviously, some of my previous concerns remain, but most importantly, I had fun. Watching the Doctor and Yaz hold onto rockets like witches on brooms was a genuine delight. I also loved the Doctor hitting the Flux with the might of the time vortex only for it to do nothing. It nicely illustrated the inherent threat of the Flux. While I’ve not said much about him, Dan is a very sympathetic person. John Bishop’s accent may be a bit of a put-on, but he’s so damn charming that I hardly care. Lots of the acting was very strong. Much like Bradley Walsh, I feel as though both John Bishop and Sam Spruell are going to elevate what is on the page. This is a better place than where a lot of people are with the show at the moment. My friend Taryn told me that the only solace she has in the Chibnall era is that now there is an end in sight. She compared it to waking up three-fourths of the way into surgery and thinking “Well, at least it’s almost over.” It hurts, but it won’t hurt forever. For me, however, the most notable difference between my feelings before and after this episode is that now, I’m actually looking forward to the next one. Considering my pessimism just twelve days ago, that’s a hell of a turnaround.

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.

Fun games for whovians to play!!