Doctor Who: The Chibnall Years SPOILERS

For me, it’s just that Doctor Who seems to have settled into a rut – a bit like the mid-1980s, it’s not particularly good, or bad, it’s just sort of there. Chibnall seems to lack the sort of vision / shameless self-confidence which is needed to make DW talked about in the playgrounds and offices of the UK. RTD, for all his perceived faults, is an expert showman, who made TV which was hugely popular with the general audience as well as the anoraks. Moffat less so, and definitely a better occasional scripter than show-runner, if the stories of the internal upheavals and personal spats during his time are to be believed. Even he could pull something out of the hat which reminded you of how good he could be when he was on form – the last occasion being that Cybermen two-parter which wrapped up the Capaldi era – it brought back the cloth-faced original Cybermen with all their body-horror implications, and didn’t screw it up. It finished off the Master / Missy redemption arc with a twist, and even made Simm-Master bearable, as opposed to the gurning loon of the Tennant years.

The “big” revelations of the end of the latest season left me cold, mainly because of the way they were handled, but also because they’ve muddied the waters of continuity unnecessarily. If Chibbers doesn’t want the Time Lords in his show, then why not just forget them, instead of having the Master kill them all / turn them into crap looking Cyber-Lords or whatever offscreen (and just how did he manage to destroy the entire race and wreck the Capitol single-handed? Skellybones Master in The Deadly Assassin came closest in the past, and even he had a few helpers.) Between 1969 when they were introduced, and 1989, Time Lords appeared in a grand total of nine stories over the twenty years… and that’s including the handful of occasions where just one or two briefly appeared to send the Doctor on a mission. For great clumps of stories, they weren’t a presence, or even mentioned. Also, killing the entire race in a fit of pique just because he finds out that the Doctor is more important that he is… that’s a little OTT, even for the Master. In The Claws of Axos when the Doctor suggests an alliance with Axos to destroy the Time Lords, the Master’s visibly shocked, and wants no part of it. This new chap seems to be more in the whacky Simm mode though, with a bit more of Timothy Claypole from Rentaghost in the character than there is of Roger Delgado.

Jodie Whittaker’s fine as the Doctor, though it’s interesting that the production team seem to be largely ignoring the implications of change in gender – a case in point, her costume, apart from making her look like a CBeebies presenter, also seems designed with the intention of making an attractive woman (in my opinion, your mileage may vary,) look totally sexless. The only reference we’ve had as such was in the Villa Diodati story where it’s evident that Lord Byron (notorious historical shagger that he was) lusts after her. In the first episode of this season, instead of glamming up to go to Lenny Henry’s party, she’s landed with an oversized tuxedo which made her look like a kid playing dress-up.

The Timeless Child stuff slightly annoyed me, not because of the canon-busting implications of the revelation, but because of the way it was done – almost entirely told to a passive, captive Doctor by the Master (who’s an unreliable source if ever there was one, should a new showrunner wish to undo all this.) I just can’t shake the feeling that Chibnell did it solely because those eight pre-Hartnell Doctors glimpsed in The Brain of Morbius had been bothering him since 1975. On a purely practical level, it does seem to mean that they can now cast any old bugger with an equity card as a Doctor for any occasion.

Jo Martin’s Doctor is presumably pre-Hartnell, so why is her TARDIS a police box (albeit with a much nicer interior than Jodie’s giant Tibetan salt lamp,) and indeed, why does she even identify as the Doctor, when in the original series he didn’t even start calling himself the Doctor until he was Tom Baker (check out any of the first three Doctors’ stories, and they’re always introduced as the Doctor by one of the companion characters, rather than the portentious “I am usually known as the Doctor” or variants thereof of the JNT years.) It’s just a bit of a bodge job, which’ll piss off the fanboys and confuse the general public.

Still, I suppose none of this matters in the long run – until the 1980s the original series didn’t bother much about canon and continuity, which never seemed to hurt it much. I do think that maybe a rest of a few years could do the show good though, then bring it back with a few tweaks and a new showrunner, rather than have it limp to an inconclusive end like it did in 1989, unloved by the TV audience and the BBC 6th Floor alike…

I don't think the series deserves to survive given the state it was in judging by the last two episodes of the series I seen.

That cannon-destroying last episode had to be seen to believed.

I cannot work out which bit was worse...

An adoptive parent torturing her little girl (who is the Doctor) over and over again, so she dies again again, because the parent wants the secret of regeneration.

This makes Time Lords the Doctor's long-term cruel oppressors and she is the victim, who is as old as the Time Lords themselves (must then have fought against the Vampires and been around during the reign of Rassilion [who did those time-scoop games at the dark tower area].

The Doctor acted like a coward by letting the man detonate the bomb (when at least three times before a regeneration has been sacrificed to save someone (Peri, Rose, Wilf), which is even more cowardly, now we know The Doctor has infinite regenerations. This also has a knock on effect making past things confusing - so Matt Smith's Doctor being given a new set of regeneration - can't have happened.

I sure there are more consequences for these changes, if you look back across the series (I expect fans are compiling long list as I speak their tears smudging the ink on the page).

The Ruth doctor is problematic. She's never seen a sonic screwdriver before (which first turned up with what-we-used-to-call-the second doctor) but her TARDIS is in a police box form, which got stuck after the what-we-used-to-call-the first Doctor used it. So where does she fit in the line-up?

Is she Doctor 1.5?

I'll stop the list now, otherwise it will become a rant.

I've complained about the low-quality writing to the BBC. I think many people have by the amount of statements (two) they've issued. I can't see the BBC fixing this, I think the next series will be just more of the same.

So Star Trek, Star Wars and now Dr. Who have all suffered similar fates of appalling writing by people who don't understand the brand and history of their product. This is a very depressing time to live in, when some formerly-brilliant escapism programming is trapped in the tractor beam of horrible writing. It may seem an easy thing to dismiss (it's only TV), but some people lead stressful lives, or are depressed and such programs are a real-life line, the chance to escape from everyday problems.

If Doctor Who is not a dumpster on fire then I don't know what is.

I've not returned to the series again but I've been keeping an eye on what has been happening and checking on the ratings. The most concerning thing about the latter is that with Countryfile restored to 1900 last night the overnight rating for that BBC One slot went up 1m viewers over the DW finale. That's with much better weather than we've experienced for the past few weekends and up against the final of Dancing On Ice. It's very hard to see any argument for DW retaining such a protected slot when it returns. If the Cloister Bell isn't ringing now then it ought to be.

Anyway, I think there has definitely been an improvement this year, although all the criticisms of the writing are still valid enough. I think I've come to terms with the fact that Chibnall's Who is what it is, but at least some of the problems with last season seem to have been addressed- there's something of an arc this time, there's more of a sense of threat, and Jodie is getting to play some quieter, more somber scenes. Whether this will all pay off in a satisfying way or not remains to be seen, but this feels more like the Who I enjoy. Things could be a lot better, but they could be a lot worse too. If the Moffat years were like the new show's answer to the Hinchcliffe era, then I think we're currently in a sort of Graham Williams zone, with occasional leanings towards a JNT vibe. Let's just hope we don't lean too far in that direction...

I apologise for the 'fuck off's. Or do I?

And I'll say it again, coz it doesn't get said enough these days: FUCK OFF!

Are we really objecting to new Who based on flaws of plot logic? Coz of course, that was all tight as a drum in the 60s and 70s. Fuck off.

As a long time eejit I'm lovin' it. Mainly for the hatred it's generating. Like Cats.

I agree with Mal, I really lost hope with Resolution, and have only been dipping in occasionally this series, every time I do so I am regretting it.

It's been awhile since I watched Resolution.

Please tell me, is my memory correct...

A Dalek mutant that is cut into three pieces and stored away from it's tank-casing is able to teleport itself back together?

I can't have remembered that correctly.

Orphan 55 and Kerblam! both had things teleporting in and out of the TARDIS, I thought that was a no-no.

I used to get annoyed at some of Moffat's run, but I could put up with a few Hell Bents for a Heaven Sent or two a series.

Regarding 'pleasant incidental characters' being bumped off, I think if there were fewer people in the TARDIS then there were be more lines to spread around, and this might also allow development of some of the guest actor characters. I don't mind them being bumped off, but build them up a little more (a mini character arc if you like), so you feel the loss.

I think Jodie could be so much better if only the writers wrote to her strengths as an actress (and took away that Sonic Screwdriver).

Is it still mainly set on 21st century Earth?

I'm still watching, and I think things have definitely improved, starting with the second episode. Fugitive of the Juddoon is one that will probably appeal mostly to fans as it mucks about with the lore of the show, and that's always welcome, if you're a fan. I also sense that there's more of a sense of threat, stakes, consequences this year, and it's nice to see Jodie getting to be a bit grumpy. I was starting to worry that she only had one mode as the Doctor, and that was 'daft'. Of course, Mal is right that none of the stuff we get is remotely original, and all of Chib's big surprises are basically recycled from previous stories in the RTD and Moffat eras. But I'll take recycled surprises over none at all, which is what we get last year. As with most Nu-who arcs, how this all stands up in the grand scheme will depend on how Chib resolves it all and based on his track record, my hopes aren't high. But he might surprise us. Even if it's a recycled surprise...

Quite right, mal. The surprises throughout were pretty entertaining as you watched, and well-concealed too (or at least I'd not heard about them), and I was shocked by the matter-of-fact way in which rather pleasant incidental characters were bumped off. But none of it held up to five seconds of scrutiny, and of course it will be another classic example of the familiar nu-Who trait, 'write ourselves into a corner that we can't possibly get out of', limping along to an unsatisfactory conclusion.