WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

have at it, folx

So are we looking forward to this? I'm liking the new-broom approach to the casting/costume, and much as I enjoyed the last series (a lot), the fact that it ended with two incarnations of the Master in a Cybermen origins story that culminated in a surprise appearance from the Hartnell Doctor indicates a freshen up might be in order.

But jesus, Chibnall's previous Doctor Who sits on a spectrum of bland to poor - some of the most unmemorable episodes in recent memory. Or am I being pessimistic?

(cheeky plug: we review Chibnall's Silurian two-parter on the most recent edition of my Doctor Who podcast - http://www.illexplainlater.com/post/166422653503/episode-27-land-of-make-believe - where we discussed some of this stuff...)

v much looking forward to seeing how jodie whittaker plays it, v much apprehensive about everything else

The whole show has been feeling very tired and in need of a new injection of ideas for quite some time now. On the other hand I've never seen Broadchurch and most of the episodes Chibnall had written have felt like mid-series filler so I dunno if he's the guy to provide them.

The incredibly shoddy photoshopped TARDIS behind Whitaker's Mork cosplay in the promo photo sets the tone for exactly the level of quality I expect from ol' Chinballs.

Boring writer doesn't neccessariy mean boring showrunner, I'm hoping.

I am excited the same way I am excited for any new actor who takes on the role of the Doctor. I'm also looking forward to the Doctor-companion interaction and which parts will change and which parts will stay the same. I also enjoyed most of Chibnall's Who stories and think his worst work appeared in the first season of Torchwood.

I did read somewhere that he was planning to have more season-long storylines, which is the opposite direction things should be going in imo. A series of only very loosely connected, straighforward one and two parters each written by a different good writer would do the job fine.

I get that on the one hand, but on the other hand the current Golden Age of Television is really strong on bingeable serialized stories that last the whole season, plus his biggest critical praise came from doing that with Broadchurch.

I think the problem with recent Doctor Who arcs is that they're neither fish nor fowl - an awkward mix of 'arc episodes' and deliberately less important standalones that fails to really build to any sort of dramatic crescendo or are rushed at the final stages. I'd be fine with either 10 completely discrete episodes or a single 10-part story (an updated spin on The Daleks' Masterplan would suit me very nicely).

I think RTD's first season was the only to really pull off its "arc" - unless you count the Riversong episodes as a single story (and why not - at least "Wedding..." finally gave it a satisfying ending).

S1 barely had an arc, just some flash frames of graffiti shot later on and inserted into episodes months after they'd been written

S5 had a fantastic, coherent, satisfyingly complicated plot arc (only undermined by Rory's prop badge), and the first two Capaldi years together pulled off successful parallel character arcs

TBH I'd be happy to settle for the show being fun again and it hasn't felt like that for ages.

^ x1000000
i may try again now

Maybe I read too many Virgin/BBC novels but I can't point at a single season of the reboot that I would say is anti-fun, including Tennant's first season (which is the only one I haven't seen every episode of despite owning multiple copies of it)

lost me with matt smith, tried again with capaldi and still found it a slog

Can we count the 2008-2010 specials?

xp ulysses you crazy, Matt Smith's first season was the best yet.

i agree, first matt smith season is one of the most classic

I demand much less from Who then all of you. I'm happy if it's marginally entertaining which it consistently is. I don't care for her suspenders, but I like her coat, and I think she'll be an interesting doctor. I'm more concerned with three full time companions; that pushes this too far into an ensemble which makes me wonder if they will let her carry the show or not.

the ONE thing I did grow tired of under Moffatt was the manic pace of every episode though. LIke, 1000 things would happen in some of those smith episodes and they just got impossible to follow. Broadchurch, like it or hate it, has a much more staid pace that I hope he brings to the show.

I look at it as back to basics with the caveat that the show has often struggled to juggle story arcs for the Doctor and three full-time companions (the most notorious example I can remember being "Kinda", where Nyssa spends the entire story napping in the TARDIS and pops up at the end asking "hey, did I miss anything?")

If they do it with Bradley Walsh every week I'm all in.

Hot take: Bradley Walsh will be good in this.

Whooch.

I 100% know Bradley from The Chase (not the Doctor Who story) - what is he like when not being really annoyingly anti-intellectual all the time?

in cases like this (like with james corden, when he appeared on Who) I'm glad I'm not english and don't have the full context of how annoying this person is supposed to be (I liked corden's turn on who a lot. now that he's inflicted on the US with his own show, I see why people are tired of him though)

CHURCHWOOD

"an updated spin on The Daleks' Masterplan"

The Master's Dalek Plan

^irl giggle

CHURCHWOOD

it was early in the day and i have... no idea what i meant by this

re chibnall: i'm excited that it's essentially a minor ~reboot~ (god knows this show needs it) but chibnall's writing has never done anything for me. cyberwoman was one of the worst things that has ever happened, although to be fair it was a really long time ago.

Bradley Walsh is a decent actor. He'll be fine.

I worry that being Bradley Walsh gameshow host who's never off the telly might overshadow his acting ability.

re chibnall: i'm excited that it's essentially a minor ~reboot~ (god knows this show needs it) but chibnall's writing has never done anything for me. cyberwoman was one of the worst things that has ever happened, although to be fair it was a really long time ago.

"Cyberwoman" was terrible but "Exit Wounds", "Countrycide" and, to a lesser degree, "Fragments" were great. I also think his weakest Who story is "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" which I still enjoyed a lot because of how silly it was.

He was chirpy never-off-the-telly gameshow host while he was doing Law & Order UK and it didn't seem to have much of an impact on him then.

xpost

dan otm, chibnall's writing didn't stay at "cyberwoman" level thank god. also yeah, it feels wrong bagging "dinosaurs" because it was only ever meant to be the thing that it was. moffat/the bbc clearly wanted silly escapist quasi-blockbusters and that's what the writers delivered.

How much Gatiss are we expecting this time round?

i have seen a lot of lols about the new Doctor’s outfit on FB & elsewhere & it is making me annoyed

her look is on point & awesome
the short trousers with tall boots is such a great look esp with her height & propotions etc, and stripes are great & suspenders are cool wtf is wrong with ppl arg

don’t you get it veg she’s feeeeeeemale

grrr

suspenders are a 'little' costumey and it felt a bit like we were past costumey with capaldi, but I like her coat alot and I'm not sure what people have against culottes, I think they are cute on women.

suspenders are great on those who are shaped to accomodate them and horrific for everyone else, any suspender backlash is just indicative of the 90% of the population who can't wear them or who tried and failed
if you can pull them off (and Jodi Whittaker definitely can) I say put the pedal to the metal and go for it

otfm

(to whittaker pulling off the look)

Otfm

(to me wearing suspenders)

The coast is very Took Baker but with some Davison styling, especially around the lapels. The striped shirt also goes with the retro give.

*coat

*Tom Baker

*retro vibe

lol

“Took Baker Coast”, the new contribution from Mark Gatiss

didn’t david tennant kill a bunch of raknoss babies? tbf he felt properly bad about that.

not really genocide if you feel bad about it?
& also not if the parents are known to be alive? I thought the babies were airlifted out and it was just the project manager who got messed up. Plus they were cannibalised from human so maybe that makes it ok.

I thought the lupari were individually murdered by the Sontarans, really how shitty .

Come a long way since Baker couldn't stem the rise of the arch genociders at initial point since it would be genocide innit?

genocide valley in france, like

genocide region in france was the better citation I think.

When they mentioned the genocide of the Lupari, I assumed that, considering that the previous scene had Swarm pressing play and rewind on the Doctor's death, it'd get reversed by the end. Not the case!

Like Dan + Yas + Jericho Gibbs, Bel + Vinder + Karvanista seemed to be another spin-off being set up - again I'd rather watch it than the next three specials.

yeah all of that otm

so the finale was certainly the worst episode of the season AND YET it wasn't quite as bad as i expected. i didn't mind it! like the rest of the season, it sucked, and was also kind of fun and fine at the same time.

I VERY MUCH DID NOT LIKE the odd way jodie pronounced "cornershop" in front of yaz

https://i.imgur.com/SOyWtZz.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/c1DxfEZ.jpg

from

Sweetness
Sweetness I was only joking when I said
“The end result of Chibnall’s ‘tell, not show, storytelling style would be him sitting down and explaining the plot of a Doctor Who story”

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt

#DoctorWhoFlux pic.twitter.com/ORGtPK1pFf

— ß¡|| Evenson (@BillEvenson) December 6, 2021

dismal, who thought an entire episode set in a fucking storage facility would make for vibrant festive television? this would be a grim regular episode but as a new year’s eve special it is ultrablaaaagh

i thought it was ok. probably chibnall's best written episode as solo writer. at least it wasn't a globe-trotting episode where every location looked suspiciously like somewhere cheap in britain.

streaming service here suggested Time of the Doctor as a follow-up watch, for me there was more charm and invention in that episode’s pre-credit sequence than in the entire Chibnall era - and I don’t even remember that ep as a particular highlight!

While not brilliant, if this had been the general standard of the Chibnall years I would have been a lot happier.

If nothing else, pleased the returning creatures in the next story haven’t been unpleasantly modernised to look more human.

Daleks were huge arseholes in this - I thought it was good! Agree it was Chibnall’s best solo script, albeit with the usual asterisks.

There’s a reason Davies and Moffat never went full Saward with mean-spirited violence but i don’t mind it occasionally - I imagine this was scarier than usual for the kids, so job done.

I liked the non-belaboured covid reference too (I’m guessing it was a Covid reference) - Aisling Bee’s “I’m so tired” moment was a really good bit.

I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to. I was amazed that it a) largely made sense, and b) had characters (even if they were Daleks) call the Doctor out for genocide

I also liked that they pulled the Yaz subtext out into the open and that the Doctor seems hellbent on stuffing it back into the closet; I suspect this mindless papering over Yaz's questions/protestations is going to lead to her regeneration somehow (or at least I would if this was being run by Davies or Moffatt; with Chibnall, it's just as likely that the Doctor will trip over her sonic and break her neck falling against the TARDIS console)

fwiw I went to DOCTOR WHO: TIME FRACTURE yesterday with my kids and it was very good fun although it had a rubbish anticlimactic ending that made no sense HOWEVER as we know time is non-linear, and, like, timey-wimey so no bigs. chib's contract says he gets sign-off on all ancillary IP so i do blame him. i'm guessing the good bits were mainly the actual theatre company that produced it.

they have an amazing number of props and set detail that you can just wander and explore at your leisure after the show including K-9, and that actual timey wimey wobbulator thing that looks like a red boom box and 'goes PING when there's.. stuff' - a line i loved at the time but which now reminds me of all the worst parts of whittaker's doctor. she pops up on screens from time to time saying things like 'close one eh?? don't worry - you've got this!' and it's just such crap

I liked the Eve of the Daleks tbh, despite the world's worst rasta accent - by dialling the comedians up to 50% of the cast, it shows that they can be well deployed if they're Irish good. Also no mentions of Gallifrey, and a Dalek taking the doctor to task for genocide.

The Flux scripts are up! The Flux scripts are up! Christmas has come ea-

We move across space, to find, hovering, brooding, battle-worn
and magnificent: a SONTARAN CONTROLSHIP!

CAPTION: THREE TRILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY

Darkened, moody control deck of a Sontaran ship. Sontaran
Commander RITSKAW stands with his helmet on, checking the
screens. Brooding, late at night, nursing a metaphorical
whisky.

The Sontaran on the hologram takes off his helmet: an old,
weary Sontaran, flecks of white hair, on face and sides of
head. A Sontaran wizard, if ever there was. KRAGAR.

Now Ritskaw takes his helmet off. Strong, rough and tough mofo.

-- oh ok then.

old and weary Sontaran = mid-late teens?

Sensitized by a previous post, here are the hits on "iconic"

S13EP1 - 8 (incl. 2 in same paragraph: "We're moving across the Mersey and up to reveal the iconic skyline. The Mersey ferry in shot. Dynamic, striking, cinematic image that makes Liverpool as iconic as Chicago or New York.")
S13EP2 - 10 (incl. "ICONIC: heroic Dan, with wok.")
S13EP3 - 5 (incl. "THE DOCTOR's boots step through the sand. She stands iconic, magnificently alone..."
S13EP4 - 1 (Just one! "And at the front, all alone, iconic -- THE DOCTOR is frozen. The Doctor is stone. THE DOCTOR IS A WEEPING ANGEL.")
S13EP5 - 3 (incl. "The woman turns -- iconic reveal: it's AWSOK.")
S13EP6 - 7 (incl. "Close in on Yaz as she looks around -- ducking from laser fire -- SEES! A length of rope with a hook at the end! TURNS! To look at the nearest door. On Yaz, iconic, heroic -- so Indiana Jones --")

There were 32 (Beat.)s in the first script alone.

with wok

genuine lol at “iconic reveal: it’s AWSOK”

- across 17 Chib-era stories with new aliens in, we've had

Tzim-Sha, of the warlike Stenza
space racist Krasko
pilot's brother Durkas *
alien tree monsters the Morax
amnesiac pilot Paltraki vs the religious Ux in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
interdimensional Kasaavins
spider monsters the Skithra
plastic virus Praxeus
nightmare werewolf monsters the Chagaska, created by fear-eating gods Zellin and Rakaya
and what is Ko Sharmus?

imagine Chibnall's terror everytime he meets a Keith or a Cassie or a Max, running and hiding under his desk because K and S sounds in names invariably mean "alien baddies" to him

* (not a baddie but caught hacking into medical records)

― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Monday, February 17, 2020 6:48 PM (one year ago)

the planetary surface of Fintleborxtug

― Dollarmite Is My Name (sic), Thursday, March 26, 2020 9:33 AM (one year ago)

in one single story, we added:

The FLUX, a cataclysm of unknown proportions or patterns.
A laser axe is on his back. KARVANISTA.
RITSKAW, strong, rough and tough mofo, nursing a metaphorical whisky.
A Sontaran wizard, if ever there was. KRAGAR.
Teacher and pupil, EN SENTAC and K-TOSCS
On the Doctor's horrified face! As then, coming through the centre, on a horse (!) is their
Commander SKAAK
AWSOK. 70s, female, imperious, kind, hard.
Reveal who he's talking to -- SONTARAN COMMANDER STENCK! (nb: this is his first appearance)
TECTEUN, now revealed to be secretly Awsok.
Scientist SENSTARG shuffles up. Possible he’s wearing a scientist style white coat! (Ray will have a better idea)

The New Doctor has arrived. it's been an absolute joy to be involved in this! pic.twitter.com/kymGN4oCNS

— Rob Ritchie (@Robritchie409) April 1, 2022

oh god i want that to be real in the worst way

spared myself the sea devils one but just saw the trailer for the “centenary” ep and lol what a catastrophe

Nice they celebrated the return of a Third Doctor-era villain by also going with Third Doctor-era special effects, stuntwork and pacing.

villain

fp'd for racism

The poster I'm seeing around for yesterday looks like it should be a pantomime.
Really not hot on Danny and still wondering what the convincing argument for him dressing like a pantomime pirate was. & if swimming in pirate boots is an inherently bad choice . Likely to add weight and things.
Actually seeing him in that overly white shirt had me wondering about laundering things on 17th/18th century ships so the state of a navy uniform over that time. Think things might wind up a tad grubby.

Did like the look of the pirate ship but not remotely convinced of practicality. Is my suspension of disbelief suspended.

Everything looked cheap and fake as fuck. Also the way the Sea Devil masks obviously had no movement built into them, so all the “expressions” were done in post using the “spherize” filter, quite badly.

This was really dire — like surprisingly dire, even by Chibnall standards — and I had to switch off after ten mins. Agree re: really rotten special effects I guess this was an attempt to make amends for Weng-Chiang but still seemed pretty appropriative & exploitative.

I couldn't find a copy yesterday and watched half of Big Trouble in Little China instead. It was a good choice.

very meta to do bad special effects badly

for Tracer: just missed the top ten on overnights, edged out by a repeat of Antiques Roadshow on BBC2

The Juno Dawson ‘Doctor Who: Redacted’ podcast is excellent, though. Cracking joke about TERFs in it right from the beginning.

I kind of didn't care about this while I was watching it and then I saw the cameos for the next episode and lost my fukkin mind

Doja Cat is the next Doctor

Doja Who

They already had the Doctor sic* Nazis on the Master, so it wouldn't be a huge stretch

* not you, sic

It's only a matter of time before they start retconning the Doctor into 90s pop culture, like making them an original member of the Durutti Column or something

sorry 80s-90s that is

God, that was terrible. I really liked the Daleks on NYE one, but this was frankly panto.

for Tracer: just missed the top ten on overnights, edged out by a repeat of Antiques Roadshow on BBC2

on +7, turned out the #3 for the day, #1 from any BBC channel. The Antiques Roadshow ep ended up outside the top 50.

There was a music hit in the 90s wasn't there. KLF related. Or am I a decade out.

Hope springs infernal, as my dad would say

1988, Stevolende. So not too far out!

redacted is very good imo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0c0krqf

i.e. suzy otm