WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Show obviously not ruined unless it gets cancelled--it has been a lot of different things and this is just the latest iteration. Be a shame if we have to wait years for the next (and I hope better) one. And I really wish Whittaker was being better served, as she has the potential to be a great Doctor with better scripts behind her.

otm

Yeah, the show is the opposite of ruined by having a very popular year with the most consistent ratings it's ever managed. It's gone multiple years of being nearly entirely shitty before, which means that someone with new ideas gets to come in and remake it in a new form. If Chibnall writes less next time, and brings in more new writers (or lets Jamie Mathieson, Sarah Dollard and Peter Harness back in), great! But if he doesn't and loads of kids and grandparents keep watching, that's probably pretty good for the show, too.

(This finale was such a megadud that it might put off viewers, but it's going to be off the air so long that they'll have time to forget it.)

or: the Cartmel era was so good that the BBC had to take the show off the air for 16 years to recover. The Virgin novels era was so bold and varied that the BBC had to take the books inhouse and borify them by 71%. The Moffatt era did so many things, tried so much and dared to overshoot its ability, that we have to have an era that doesn't try or dare anything, just to let the excitement settle down for a while again.

otm

I'm curious about the fact that Whittaker has never really watched the show before; if she takes the interregnum as an opportunity to delve into past versions of the show / character, now that she doesn't have to be afraid of being unduly influences, what will she make of other stories or performances?

Has any previous era been so profoundly uninterested in exploring the possibilities of the show? This makes Stargate Atlantis look pretty fkn ambitious.

This alternate ending of An Adventure in Space and Time is so emotional 😢 #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/2TGzJ8lXOa

— Doctor Who Poop (@DWPoop) November 25, 2018

Has any previous era been so profoundly uninterested in exploring the possibilities of the show?

The Lloyd/Bryant eras are generally six weeks of hiding round a corner from a man in a rubber suit -> six weeks of hiding round a corner from a short man in a cardboard suit -> four weeks of something absolutely fucking mental where the companion turns into a jigsaw puzzle and the Doctor has an evil twin who keeps a secret slave army living in a volcano -> six weeks of hiding round a corner from two men in a woolly suit

But they had to crack out 42 episodes a year in them days, you have to spread the good ideas pretty thin just to keep the cameras rolling

Most of the Saward era was on a strict ration of 1.5 ideas a year, in about 25 episodes; his final year dropped to 14 episodes and no ideas or, indeed, plot. (But he plainly wanted the show to be better.)

His idea to get rid of the sonic screwdriver was a good one.

Yeh I guess the Troughton era might've been artifically elevated in my estimation by cool radiophonic musick, Mirrolon and general spillover from a fairly ambitious time in TV storytelling.

And yes the Saward era was pretty hopeless I s'pose although as it started when I was about 7 which is of course key to my residual fondness for it.

When the current series started I began watching it with my kids who liked it well enough, and I was conscious that the cliches weren't cliches for them. But I stopped making the effort because it was so dull, and they haven't complained.

artifically elevated in my estimation

if loads of those stories weren't missing, I'm sure they'd be extremely watchable just by having Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines in front of a camera together, regardless of how non-boundary-pushing they were


His idea to get rid of the sonic screwdriver was a good one.

the concept of making writers be more creative by removing a get-out-of-jail-free card is alright in theory, but in practice it just meant slightly longer scenes where the guards turn their backs and the Doctor sneaks out behind them

(for all her EXTREMELY DRAMATIC POINTING of the screwdriver this year, I'm not sure that the Doctor ever actually used it for anything practical? *bzzt bzzt* tch, the wi-fi's out, I'll have to google this on a computer instead of my screwdriver)

She opened a lock once!

I'm not unhappy with it as a tricorder.

oh, the big locked door that she loved which we never saw onscreen - lol

actually, fair play, the Sawardian no-sonic effect was probably better felt by the time Colin Baker came along: his arrogant cock of a Doctor was suited to thinking his brain was big enough to get him out of any locked room. (and the Seventh probably would have been written without reliance on a gadget anyway: he always learnt about what was going on by carefully listening and observing, or was secretly 28 steps ahead and may have set the whole thing up millennia ago; but McCoy could have done wonders of physical business & parlor tricks if scripts called on him to pull out his magic lockpick.)

Many Xps Knowing everything and reeling it off, and a) the backstory thus reeled off is some bollocks b) this process is joyless

It's so lazy and an insult to the intelligence of kids and cardamon

The dr isn't clever and perceptive, just knows everything. That the 'science' is all gobbledygook doesn't do much to answer a need for a cool scientific and technical role model for girls imo.

It's so smug, like lol big words are just big words

It definitely feels the least like it is “made by fans” of the series than it has been before

Rusty for all his faults, Tennant, Moffat Capaldi etc were all huge boffins

On the one hand it is cool to clear away all the fanwank & old villains... but on the other hand when there’s hardly any mythos at all, and no “there” there, it’s not really that enjoyable. Or maybe it would be with better writing etc

I'm totally up for a clean slate, non-fanwanky Who - but yeah it would have to be heaps better written than this. There were hints of what that might feel like in the Norway ep I guess.

Having said that, if it is truly experiencing a renewal in terms of audience/non-fan public enthusiasm then I'm pretty happy to sit out until it gets proper weird again.

yeah if other ppl are super into then yay

It definitely feels the least like it is “made by fans” of the series than it has been before

Rusty for all his faults, Tennant, Moffat Capaldi etc were all huge boffins

omg Veg :D get ready --

Chibnall is such a massive spod that as a schoolboy he went on TV, representing his Dr Who fan club, to tell two writers of Dr Who that they were terrible and had made the show really uncreative and boring that year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irIqTPQqgvQ

(to be fair, they were indeed terrible, but this is the "there's always a tweet" of criticising Dr Who writers)

LOL

welp

I saw that video before but I didn't find out it was Chibnall until halfway through this season. (and having recently suffered through the 6th Doctor seasons, I must say Pip & Jane deserve the roasting)

Just found that the first 50 Big Finish stories, plus various other releases, are on Spotify. Allegedly the new series soundtrack should be on there, but can't see it in Australia.

OK that is interesting. I never thought to check music streaming services for audio plays.

I mean, my limited personal experience suggests Big Finish is more the scheme for providing Nicholas Briggs with full employment rather than providing quality Doctor Who, but sic is your expert guide to the gems amongst the dross.

finally, something to listen to on spotify

Jubilee is respected, isn't it? I'm starting with that one.

Quality sic-summary here: Sea Devils And Die: GeroniMoffat's Doctor Who In The 2010s

i stopped watching this after episode 4. having a hard time getting up the will to watch the rest of the series due to the lack of enthusiasm even here. DJP? What do you think?

there's lots of good Big Finish audios! it's a good medium for Doctor Who, you can do low-stakes storytelling and experiment a little, not worry about special effects.

So I'm coming in this season as completely new to nu-Who. I've been meaning to join back in for years, but finally made the effort with the new doctor. Previously my Who was limited to a few novels back in junior high and whatever random reruns I caught on PBS back in the mid-to-late 1980s.

I thought the show looks great and I really think Whittaker could be great, but she seems thinly drawn so far. I like the companions quite a bit, would have liked more of Yas's story though. It Takes You Away was easily my favorite episode, was hoping for less time spent on earth tbh.

My wife had never seen a second of Who before and she really enjoyed it, typically more anxious for a new episode than I was.

I didn’t hate the finale as much as you lot, it was good for Chibnall at least. Not great by objective measures, of course.

Have we ever done a proper poll of nu Who? We could do it in the long interregnum, and also to get this season out of our minds.

i stopped watching this after episode 4. having a hard time getting up the will to watch the rest of the series due to the lack of enthusiasm even here. DJP? What do you think?

I thought "Rosa" was excellent and the stretch from "Demons of the Punjab" through "It Takes You Away" were all very good to excellent. I enjoyed "Arachnids in the UK" primarily because giant spiders are inherently terrifying. "The Tsuranga Conundrum" was the worst story of the season and I'd still call it enjoyable enough; I wouldn't actively choose to rewatch it, mostly because it's the one episode without a clear "oh, that was great" moment. Also, as I said before, the overarching season story focusing on Graham's grief, particularly to the exclusion of Ryan's, got under my skin.

I wouldn't say this was an essential season of Doctor Who but I would say it was worth watching. I would definitely go back to it before any of the episodes from nu-Who season 2, including "School Reunion" and "The Girl in the Fireplace" which I'd say were objectively "better" but have pretty much zero rewatchability for me based on how much I hate and despise the 10/Rose pairing. (I've never done a faster about-face on a companion than I did on Rose, who I absolutely love in nu-Who S1.)

hey Jon! I'd recommend watching nu-Who Season/Series 5 next, especially if you post along as you guys make your way through it :D

ha ha, I watched the clip again, and here's Chibnall in 1986, on the 1986 series:

"It doesn't seem to have much to it. It hasn't improved that much since it went off the air. It could have been a lot better. It could have been slightly better written, especially the last story."

"Not only that, but it was very cliched. It was very routine, running up and down corridors, and silly monsters."

"Did you not feel that the story with [monster] was perhaps a little too routine Doctor Who: very much what the audience is expecting, it's not very challenging for them to watch?"
"The story itself has been done in different ways in the past few years, very much a whodunnit upon a space liner. Very much a traditional sort of thing that people will expect Doctor Who to fall into."

The interviewer closes by asking 16-year-old Chibnall if he doesn't feel silly being into Doctor Who, as he's really too old for it, and asks him whether he thinks he'll still be at it when he's 50.

(I've never done a faster about-face on a companion than I did on Rose

For me it was Donna, in the opposite direction: hated her in The Runaway Bride, groaned when I heard she was returning, but found her really likeable, and in both Turn Left and her departure, really affecting. Of course RTD had to go and fuck about with that in the interminable Tennant departure...

even in exile, i shall lead

Donna ruled, what they did to her was dramatically satisfying and really, really awful and terrible

and yet, you falter

Don't think I can be bothered to watch the finale. Does Ryan learn to ride a bike?

no, and it's easy to avoid the finale -- nothing happens.

He gets to run around shooting a space gun the size of his torso at incompetent robots again, except this time it’s cool and heroic for some reason. I couldn’t hear the dialogue to tell why.

no

Just a disregard for the most basic storytelling rules. I would've liked the entire last episode to be about getting him to stay on his bike.

Break the rules, don’t break the rules, just *be interesting*

Some decent write ups here - https://medium.com/@ellardentI

Can't remember what the floating rags in ep 2 told the Doctor, but that never paid off, did it?

I don't think anything has paid off in this season.

That’s where not watching the finale lets you down: in episode 1, Ryan doesn’t want to call Graham “grandad”. In ep 9, he still doesn’t want to call him grandad. In ep 10, this detailed emotional arc is brought to a triumphant close by having an adult man say “grandad” to another adult.

I haven't watched any of them since the spider episode and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything at all.

After you get past the ones written by Chibnall, which includes the first five, there are some good ones. Demons of the Punjab is great. It Takes You Away is fun.