WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Only 9 more Chibnall stories to go? Yay! But how much of the furniture can he piss on on his way out?

Mr Veg just said re Stracynski "yeah that's exactly what Dr Who needs - a smaller fanbase that's 50 times more rabid" and i lol'd

but also i am not much of a bab5 fan anyway so

Only 9 more Chibnall stories to go?

Only four more stories, over nine more episodes.

Babylon 5 had an episode where there was some sort of interfaith day and the different alien races were introducing their religions to everyone, and the hooman station manager had to think about who would represent humanity in this. At the end he decides to bring in representatives of all the different earthling faiths.

Dunno why I got so offended on behalf of the fictional alien races that the show just assumed of course humanity would be the only ones amazing enough to have multiple religions but god it's so stupid.

JMS's run on amazing spider-man was notoriously bad. I don't trust him with existing properties.

He tried to retcon the radioactive spiderbite with some nonsense about spider gods granting their blessing. A combination of "who cares" and "NO" which was a lot like Chibnall's Forgotten Child arc.

I mean, he did also write one of the best (and one of the first) multi-year storylines on a sci-fi tv series, but I'm not sure that's a skillset that Doctor Who needs right now?

So after being announced as 8 parts the other week, and the regeneration specials as a trilogy next autumn being announced a couple of days ago, it's now being announced it's a 6 part series with a New Year special, a spring special and an autumn regeneration special to tie into the BBC Centenary celebrations.

It's almost like they're making it up as they go along.

The trailer was a masterclass in showing and telling viewers practically nothing.

Look, the next Doctor is going to be James Corden and you all need to just accept it now.

Kevin Sorbo IS The Doctor

The Kris Marshall omnirumour has got to be right one of these times.

On a more serious note, my money's on a Jed Mercurio/Vicky McClure combo for a deal to go up to the 50th Anniversary celebrations.

The trailer was a masterclass in showing and telling viewers practically nothing.

You think doing that for the length of a trailer is impressive, you should try watching some of the whole episodes from the last couple of years wocka wocka

So after being announced as 8 parts the other week, and the regeneration specials as a trilogy next autumn being announced a couple of days ago, it's now being announced it's a 6 part series with a New Year special, a spring special and an autumn regeneration special to tie into the BBC Centenary celebrations.

It's almost like they're making it up as they go along.

"announced as 8 parts the other week" definitely didn't happen, and I haven't seen a "regeneration specials as a trilogy next autumn" announcement, and the fact that the series has already been shooting for eight months suggests that they have written it already.

Actually, the 8 part story is much older

https://gizmodo.com/doctor-who-season-13-will-be-just-8-episodes-long-1845647549

a length that persisted until very recently

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who-series-13-jodie-whittaker-leaving-rumours-the-next-doctor-and-the-future/

Oh actually here's 8 episodes even in a story about the Jodie announcement

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-who-star-jodie-whittaker-23255685

The trilogy of specials was read out on radio 4. I'll concede it may have just been the highlighted bits of this BBC report:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57940451

"three specials, the first of which will be broadcast on New Year's Day 2022, with another later in spring 2022.

Whittaker's final feature-length special, where the 13th Doctor will regenerate, will transmit in autumn 2022 as part of the BBC's Centenary celebrations.

But hey, you do you.

The Gizmodo story does not say anything about an eight part story at all, and Chibnall does not even commit 100% to the production run resulting in eight episodes in his quote. The Den Of Geek story contains no announcements of any kind, or even any original reporting. I’m reading on my phone on a bus, but I didn’t see anything in that aggregation about an eight part story. It does, however, explicitly says that the production run of eight episodes is likely to be split between a six-episode 2021 season, a New Years Day 2022 special, and another 2022 special, which turns out to be what is happening. The Mirror story cites an anonymous “insider,” and claims that the does not claim that the full eight episode production run will air as one series, but not that it is a continuous eight-part story.

And I didn’t click through to the BBC story, because the bit you quoted already doesn’t say trilogy, and specifically says that the specials will be spread out through the year!

(ie there’s plenty to be annoyed by with IRL Chibnall, you don’t need to also make up a guy to get mad at)

Since you missed THE ACTUAL FUCKING TITLE of the Gizmodo story, it's pointless interfering with your crusade.

You win, drink your weak lemon drink NOW!

Bye.

“Doctor Who Season 13 Will Be Just 8 Episodes Long” is the headline on the page as it loads for me, but again, I’m on a phone and can’t check the browser header if that’s different.

Browser header (on Chrome) is also:

Doctor Who Season 13 Will Be Just 8 Episodes Long

the less the better tbh

hope dan's ok

y'all makinf me feel nostalgic for the days when I studiously avoided rec.arts.drwho

also, I would watch a season where the Time Lords punish the Doctor by forcing him to look after the real-life Kevin Sorbo for a year

Nothing really matched the day I went back through the legendary RADW flame wars and realized that even though he was a massive cock about it 95% of the time, Azaxyr was more right than wrong

Woof:

Doctor Who: Russell T Davies returns as programme showrunner

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58682472

Whoah. Glad to see him leave; now surprisingly happy to have him back.

Fire up the Olly Alexander rumours again, I guess!

Yeah, was bored by the end of his first run, but after the turgid Chinballs era, this seems like really good news.

xp That would almost certainly mean a musical episode, not sure how I feel about that.

shows he's run since DW have been mostly fantastic so this is as good as news can get, IMO

So wait this is pretty much a guarantee that if Yaz and/or Dan stays on, one of them is gonna fuck the Doctor after regeneration, isn't it

maybe they will both fuck the doctor

she will regenerate during orgasm

RUSTY ALL IS FORGIVEN, and all it took was a couple seasons of the worst possible showrunner.

I mean by any sane metric a cowardly backwards move, but as you all say, the awfulness of Chinballs has pissed all over the metrics.

When Chibnall signed on, he was so unready to deliver that his predecessor had to be called back to fill in for two years with a full series and a special. Six years later, Chibnall’s eked out two reduced-length series, with the equivalent of one more due by the end of his eighth year. And the BBC are having to bring back the predecessor’s predecessor, as well as that guy’s co-producer/showrunner from 2005-09, and the commissioning executive from 2005, to do another fill-in two years of a special plus a series.

Six years of nobody in charge apparently bothering to look for or develop a head writer with new vision and real energy. Even if RTD doesn’t re-up, by the time he goes it will have been ten years since Moffat quit, an exhausted 54-year-old, but also the last new person to sign on with ideas about making the show fizz with energy and keep trying different things.

my takeaway is that McG should have been the new showrunner

Even with covid shutdown, we could have had three seasons of Mathieson and two of Dollard by now. After giving it to a 40-year-old, a 47-year-old, and a 45-year-old, they’ve shrugged and given it to the first bloke again, who will be SIXTY by the time his first ep airs. Letting tumblr teens plot a season and McG (48 in 2015) direct would have been entertaining for sure.

(obv if it’s the writer of It’s A Sin, Years & Years, Cucumber, parts of Banana, and A Very English Scandal that shows up to work, I will insist on OVER 55’s ONLY from now on)

RTD pitching the new series of Dr Who

https://i.gifer.com/Bjpt.gif

is mcg mcgann or the charlie's angels director?

mcgann is quite a bit older than 48

I wouldn't be surprised to see eccleston back now for an episode

mcg is patrick mcgoohan obv

this is… good? like, yeah safe and cowardly, agreed - but a strong intervention and course correction with a bit of succession planning sounds pretty cool - i had given up on the show and felt cancellation was probably the kindest move, but this is pretty interesting.

wouldn't be surprised to see eccleston back now for an episode

surely this would make eccleston far less likely than before

Erm yeah.

“I left because my relationship with Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson completely broke down during the shooting of the first series. I think it’s fair to say… that the first series nobody knows what they’re doing and the politics are raging. The shooting of the first series was a nightmare. I agreed with Russell that I would go, quietly and respectfully, and I would look after the show publicity-wise, in terms of publicising it. And then, without saying anything to me, they announced that I was leaving. They didn’t tell me they were going to do that. I was walking down the street and suddenly I got quite a lot of aggression. And more importantly… they created a quote, and they attributed it to me, which said I was tired. Now the thing is about that, ‘Oh I found it too tiring’, I didn’t find it too tiring. I found it too tiring working with Russell, and Phil and Julia. I didn’t find it physically too tiring. When they said that, any other producer reading that would go ‘Oh, we’re not going to employ Christopher Eccleston because he gets tired’. So it was a lie, and it was in quotation marks, and I’m from Salford, you don’t do that to me. So they issued a kind of apology, but it’s not enough, so no."

Have to admit though that the fact it slams the door on an Eccleston return (which was super unlikely anyway no matter who took over) is the only thing I don't like about this news. RTD's writing has only got better since his first run.

(That quote's from Dragon Con at the start of this month btw so it's a pretty fresh "I still hate these fuckers").

I've been thinking about Rusty's writing obsessions and I think they're focusing on the wrong collaborator for the role. His big thing is weak relationships with mothers, it's in everything he does, and he might well look at Chinballs' work and think he'd be better at writing a female Doctor.

So not Olly Alexander, but Lydia West. And the 60th Anniversary to feature the return of Susan, and to look at how dysfunctional a grandmother the Doctor was to her.