WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Straightforwardness very refreshing after the Moffat years

I dunno, I thought it was tonally all over the place and really fucking dour to boot. Of course Capaldi's opener was a stinker too, so who knows

Enjoyed this! Dark but v exciting & fun as well

Tim Shaw (lol) — god that teethface makeup was outstanding and SO GROSS D:

Lots of people who have been in other Chibnall things, some people I've never heard of, Art Malik, and Mr Big from Sex & The City.

Quite enjoyed it tonight. Scene setters are always a bit clunky, and it did seem a bit more violent than usual, but thought it was fun and scary in good measures (salad-throwing guy was great) and the dynamics of the new companions seems promising.

Mask wearing ugly alien hunter sent to hunt on Earth as rite of passage. Mutilates itself to mark every trophy, Cheats.

https://bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/predator.jpg

Of course Capaldi's opener was a stinker too

Not of course. It was better than this and this was just OK. Good ending though, absurdly long list of forthcoming guest stars aside.

One of my sons (4yo) insisted on watching this with me. He was enraptured. I call that a success.

(I also thought it was great.)

Ditto, this is the first time mine’s watched a whole episode and she really seemed to like it.

i don’t get near this until tomorrow night due to ~commitments~ but people who had lost interest seem to be coming back, so… success?

*won’t

I already like all the new companions which is an immense plus.

yeah i like the conceit btw the kid & his step-grandad

*conflict

The companions rule and how they end up with the Doctor is so perfect

Not a Who fan, but found it quite enjoyable. Though there were things about it which didn't ring true such as the policewoman not calling in after they find a dead body or that there'd be guys working on a crane in the middle of the night. Though given that an alien is wandering around Sheffield with teeth embedded in his face maybe those are minor quibbles.

Though given that an alien is wandering around Sheffield with teeth embedded in his face maybe those are minor quibbles.

i dunno if it's that uncommon a sight in sheffield tbf

The guy throwing his salad at the robot was good though

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 8 October 2018 7:46 AM (twelve hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The most Sheffield response to an alien invasion, ever.

That was pretty good all through. Music was a definite highlight, New end credits theme is pretty awesome.

Please count me amongst the Moffat-era hatas who has returned to the fold and thoroughly enjoyed this one. Dr Who always at its best when the violence feels a little bit too much for tea time.

We watched The Eleventh Hour on iPlayer straight after thiis, which didn’t do it any favours either. I hate being the lone grumblebum about this, and the leads were all fine, but the writing was just so, so bad, like bottom-end season 2 bad. Like Chris Carter’s last X-Files bad. I guess I’ll watch it again...

As someone who bailed halfway through Smith, this wasn't enough to bring me back (Whittaker's Horrocks-isms grated, amongst much that felt strained) - but nevertheless, a HUGE YAY for the dyspraxia meltdown; I get those too, but have never seen them represented in any drama before.

Well yeah the alien plot was kind of bollocksy and derivative (some nice ideas though), but I don't really care when everything else was so much fun. It's rip-roaring family entertainment, not hard SF. Honestly, it lifted me right out of the Sunday doldrums.

xpost

HUGE YAY for the dyspraxia meltdown; I get those too, but have never seen them represented in any drama before.

I related massively as I was 38 when I finally learnt to ride a bike!

I didn’t feel the family fun elements to the multiple deaths, the funeral, the cancer, the dour tone, the casual killing of the brother and sister (not sure why they needed to mention he had a broken jaw - that’s grim).

... less torture porn than perky sadism

I didn't find the tone dour at all is the thing. Who has never shied away from death n violence, it's supposed to be scary. Whether or not those things have a place in family entertainment is a whole other discussion, I think.

Yeah, the legacy of Pigbin Josh is a proud one!

Also some of the tell-not-show was stuff we needed telling - after watching that, I think I have a fair idea of how the three companions would react differently to stuff.

I don't mind violence in Who! I still have thrilling emotional scars from the kitchen waste disposal monster in Paradise Towers.

But last night just felt too morose and real. The brother avenging his sister and then being killed himself - and not just killed but mutilated - edged into misery porn for me. I was looking forward to a little light joie de vivre returning to the show - if anything, this felt grimmer than Moffat.

I'm sure the more dedicated than me Whovians on this board can provide examples of nastier stuff than that!

Speaking of sic, wondering what he thinks...

Probably avoiding in case we spoil the identity of a forthcoming episode key grip or something...

this is my kids' first Who

- on seeing the pod in the forest: "that looks like cardboard" ✅ VG

- 7-year-old LITERALLY hid behind the couch during the train zapping and then intermittently throughout ✅

- at about the 30-minute mark: "daddy this is good"

- when we see crane operator fella: "oh he's gonna die"

"Not a Who fan, but found it quite enjoyable. Though there were things about it which didn't ring true such as the policewoman not calling in after they find a dead body or that there'd be guys working on a crane in the middle of the night. Though given that an alien is wandering around Sheffield with teeth embedded in his face maybe those are minor quibbles.

― Dan Worsley"

honestly, watching as an american the thing that really didn't ring true to me was a black guy calling the police. maybe things are different in sheffield, i don't know.

"I related massively as I was 38 when I finally learnt to ride a bike!

― chap"

congrats! i've concluded it's just not something i'm going to ever do. i did eventually learn to tie my shoelaces though!

"I don't mind violence in Who! I still have thrilling emotional scars from the kitchen waste disposal monster in Paradise Towers.

But last night just felt too morose and real. The brother avenging his sister and then being killed himself - and not just killed but mutilated - edged into misery porn for me. I was looking forward to a little light joie de vivre returning to the show - if anything, this felt grimmer than Moffat.

― Chuck_Tatum"

after six years of moffat's "nobody dies" aesthetic "oliver twist" would feel overly violent. honestly at this point i'm mostly refreshed by the acknowledgment that sometimes bad things happen, sometimes people die and don't come back. i'm not a fan of the violence, but i didn't think it was gratuitous - we didn't see any of the predator's victims after he killed them, for instance, which _would_ have been gratuitous. "csi" this isn't.

that said i'll grant that there definitely is an american influence to chibnall's work which i don't find entirely welcome. that's how he's always been - his first "who" episode was a riff on "24" - but as long as he can keep it in check i can live with it.

- on seeing the pod in the forest: "that looks like cardboard" ✅ VG

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand)

https://dragon-quest.org/images/thumb/9/93/DQ_Slime.png/250px-DQ_Slime.png

The crane operator got a brief ticking off from the Doctor for pushing an already dying Tim Shaw off the crane but that seemed oddly perfunctory and without more consequences for him to the point where I hope he shows up again.

I liked it. Fine with the dour tone - isn't that what stuff set in Sheffield is supposed to be like? - though I did think one particular death was bordering on fridgeing.

Didn't particularly MIND the baddie being a Predator rip-off, but if the chat about them leaving the classic villains alone for a while is true they need to get a bit more original from now on.

the long list of who-gives-a-shit guest stars at the end.

Yep, this was quite funny - I recognised maybe 4/5.

Pretty sure the intent behind this was "look at the amount of non-white and non-male actors, suck it!" rather than "there's not a star in the sky tonight because they're all on Doctor Who".

If so, might have worked better if they hadn't given Chris Noth the top billing there

The crane operator got a brief ticking off from the Doctor for pushing an already dying Tim Shaw off the crane but that seemed oddly perfunctory and without more consequences for him to the point where I hope he shows up again.

Yes, this was an odd beat. Perfectly reasonable reaction to an alien super-hunter who's got it in for you.

The crane operator would have made a much better companion than Bradley Walsh fwiw. I like the idea of a Tardis entourage but I'm not sure there's ever been a successful older companion?

I was skeptical of Walsh, but he was very likable in this.

I'm not sure there's ever been a successful older companion?

Unless you count Romana?

Ian and Barbara.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/08/doctor-who-jodie-whittakers-debut-is-most-watched-launch-for-10-years

Didn't particularly MIND the baddie being a Predator rip-off, but if the chat about them leaving the classic villains alone for a while is true they need to get a bit more original from now on.

― Daniel_Rf

i get what you're saying - i like originality too - but you know, i gotta be realistic here. the show's been on the air, off and on, since 1963, with innumerable (well technically numerable, but i can't do it) spinoff comics, audio plays, novels, sky ray lollys. even considering the exceptionally wide scope of the premise - the doctor can travel anywhere in space and time and even change her appearance periodically - there's a limited number of genuinely new ideas likely to come up at this point.

more to the point, doctor who is a show that _thrives_ on being unoriginal. many of the best doctor who episodes are pretty much flat ripoffs of better-known stories with space aliens hastily swapped in. since 1963, what are the best-known adversaries the show's come up with to face the doctor? well, there's space nazis, killer cyborgs, and an evil doppelganger of the doctor with a goatee (sometimes).

i don't need "doctor who" to be original. i need doctor who to be entertaining and to be true to the character and values of the show. yesterday's episode accomplished that. i'm happy.

I suspect the 'no classic villains' is a bit of a fake-out. Aren't they legally obliged to feature the Daleks in each season for some reason?

i mean, they already lied about no two-parters, so i'm assuming something will turn up?

also, yesterday felt pretty fan-servicey even with no new baddies

This isn't a two(+)-parter necessarily but a single season-long story of sorts, with or without a grand unifying mystery. Or at least I really hope so.

Liked Whittaker as the Doctor, and the new companions are solid, also the music was great! But yeah... the story in this was hot garbage. Like, the Doctor finds out the guy's sister is still alive in the Predator trophy room and is like "well, fuck it... no point in trying to save her, send Predator guy home and we'll call it a day". Maybe it's just the way shows are edited now, but they always seem to make an episode feel both frantic and tedious. No moments ever get to breathe... I remember really liking Boom Town back in Ninth Doctor times, because while it had some other issues, there was that great scene with the Doctor and the baddie in a cafe just having a conversation, not aiming for nonstop pithiness or serial memeability.

I'd assumed they're going to catch up with the Predator trophy room later on in the season. If not then that was a stupid thing to throw in, yeah.

I was also happy the episode was so Yorkshiriffic!

Speaking of sic, wondering what he thinks...

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, October 8, 2018 11:17 PM (yesterday)

Probably avoiding in case we spoil the identity of a forthcoming episode key grip or something...

― chap, Monday, October 8, 2018 11:19 PM (yesterday)

Avoiding cos he doesn't want to spoil anyone's fun 😊

I suspect the 'no classic villains' is a bit of a fake-out. Aren't they legally obliged to feature the Daleks in each season for some reason?

― chap, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 1:16 AM (two hours ago)

no, this (like most generally-known facts about Dr Who) is a fan myth