WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

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

Also a cape is in fairness a costume.

How much Gatiss are we expecting this time round?

zero

suspenders??

lol yeah was going to say, made me double take, but i think that US use is fairly interchangeable with braces these days.

'these days' jesus.

Lol @ hypothetical british person when the first they read about female doctor who's outfit is a 'Murican saying she's in suspenders

O tempora, o mores

"The striped shirt also goes with the retro vibe" the colors are from Baker's scarf

"suspenders??" = braces

My reservations about the new iteration of Who are pretty much all due to Broadchurch, which I did not like. I don't know how you create a show starring Olivia Colman and David Tennant that I do not enjoy watching, but bravo, Chibnall.

iconic multiple characters

The Trial of a Female Time Lord

did he forget that survivors of the flux took place in every chrono trigger zone? that was 4 episodes ago

I think he probably means "this one has more minutes in it than the previous longest one I done"

(there has only ever been one episode longer, in 1983)

things we’ve been feeling since Jodie started

Frustration, impatience, despondency…

Good old Chris, still doing the absolute bare minimum required by his contract to promote the show he's worked on for the last five years.

They should've used this version of the theme for his era, it would perfectly set the tone for everything that followed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQc1weL6MNM

more spine-tingling hype from the master of words:

‘It is different. It’s visually very different. And where it takes place is different. I think I can say that without it being too much of a spoiler. It definitely feels different. It’s not going to take place in the same place as the previous regenerations’.

What cracks me up about that is the commercial letting us know it's the greatest hits of villains - Cybermen, Daleks, and The Master, which is anti-different.

Yes, but there'll be whatever further character-diminishing halfwitted additions to the Doctor's origin story he's determined to shove in before he goes out the door.

Bets on Timeless Child not being resolved and/or making sense by the end of the the finale (just the death of most of the universe never being mentioned again)

*just like

That last quote is clearly the sort of thing Chuck and James are talking about - every single previous BBC Doctor-changes-face-or-body 1966-2017 have been down to Time Lord technology (/potions/yoga), and nearly all in the TARDIS, which was originally established as being the thing what does it. But now he's rewritten it that regeneration is an inherent property of the Doctor, which Time Lord eugenicists stole out of her space DNA, so he's going to do the first nu-Who regen that isn't in the TARDIS and doesn't have laser whips shooting out of her face and hands.

I'm looking forward to it, because at least Flux showed he could deliver something passably fun, if no less dumb than usual. And obvioiusly there's some curiosity about what he'll do with [redacted fan service guest stars], although obvs the answer will turn out to be: (1) give them a bittersweet backstory delivered as an over-expositional monologue (2) get them to do the catchphrases (3) have roughly 2.5 minutes screen time each

Anyway - in summary:

First two seasons: Appalling

New Year's episodes: (1) Okay (2) Appalling (3) Problematically centered a huge creep as one of the romantic leads, but somehow fun!

Flux: I'll happily admit to enjoying most of this; it's maybe the only time the show's been better than the worst epsiodes of the RTD and Moffat runs - faint praise, but still praise!

Sea Devils episode: Maybe one of the worst things I've ever quit watching after six minutes!

My partner, who's happily watched every episode with me, even the one where David Tennant got turned into a CGI parrot, tapped out during Spyfall, when she fell asleep during Stephen Fry's scene and never watched another story.

I'll speak up for the two Vinay Patel episodes in the first two seasons (Demons of the Punjab and Fugitive of the Judoon) and some of the others (The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, The Haunting of Villa Diodati) are still better than say Nightmare in Silver, or Daleks in Manhattan.

On the other hand 'The Doctor watches in horror, as the other side of the portal reveals the ruined Gallifrey, much to everyone's confusion. The Master leaps through, exclaiming that the Doctor should be afraid because everything is about to change forever' so yeah, no arguments with Appalling as an average mark.

... is Tom Baker well these days?

This was fine (service) at least to the point I cba to nitpick. Dhawan really good once again - feel free to do The Three Masters next year RTD.

i watched this in fast forward, plot seemed incredibly convoluted but whatever, got a kind of New Adventures vibe from some of the fan service bits and maybe that was nice? at one point the cybermen masks looked a bit more like the Invasion ones and that was nice too.

anyway glad that's over. what a shame. looking forward to liking the show i like again (fingers crossed anyway).

Dhawan as Rasputin was good, but he was as terrible as ever once he was 'The Master' (which is why I'm happy to blame Chibnall).

The main nitpick is what is hell the Master 'being the Doctor' is supposed to be, what part of his plan could he not do before?

The vibe reminded me a lot of The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, which I don't mind. It did kind of underline that the Davies / Moffat doctors are more transformational - they send their companions off spinning into the universe, or dead, or Donna.

Impressive project management, shame about the story

The fan service was a bit insipid - who on earth was it for? (I don’t count) - but Sophie Aldred was v fun whenever she was onscreen.

Straightwashing Tegan was typical Chibnall carelessness

Fingers crossed it’s better next time

the master's dalek plan was literally "i'll explain later"

the plot in a nutshell: daleks capture doctor at gunpoint, master absorbaloffs doctor, random guy shoots master, hologram of doctor unabsorbaloffs doctor, master shoots doctor

A few nice touches, but also mostly a shambles. I hope that's the last of Sacha Dhawan's Poundland Joker routine. A shame we will never get the much better idea that was Matt Berry as the Meddling Monk as Rasputin.

I didn’t quite follow why there were 2 or 3 Masters in different timelines and what happened to each and what was the point of the Rasputin one? Anyway yes he is terrible. Also: whither Peri

I suppose she’s a slug queen or a princess something somewhere off earth

I’m psyched about the new era but am kind of hoping I can skip this one.. my kids don’t need to see this regeneration in order to understand what’s happening later do they

OH YES!

dammit

It was so much fun. Do watch it!

I guarantee your kids can pick it up by you just saying she's David Tennant again

I am stuck in Frankfurt Flight cancelled and tomorrows flights all booked HELP I need to get back to the UK urgently Any advice welcome

— Colin Baker (@SawbonesHex) October 23, 2022

ah colin, i remember walking past him bawling at his daughter down the street “well what time *will* you be back then?!”

felt he could have solved that question quite easily.

At least the Master didn't tie up the Doctor and monologue at her about his plan, from a separate day's shooting across the room again.

Official BBCS DW website now says the Tennant/Tate run is three 60th Anniversary specials to air in November '23. Assuming no new-year-related double-bluff: from his announcement to his successor's first ep, Chibnall's tally will stand at 31 episodes in 8 years and 11 months. That is, to be fair, more than twice as many as Moffat's 14 in the same era, but they were all in the first two years, and from three standing starts after having left the show twice.

I can’t say it feels particularly great to have a Blsck min announced as the next Doctor, eagerly await his regeneration, and then have David Tennant pop back up and find out it’s an entire year until it’s actually the Blavk actor’s turn

Aside from that this was surprisingly coherent

See also bringing back Graham without Ryan

I bet that was the actor’s choice, Chibnall would have reunited the ICONIC TEAM if he could.

On the subject of ICONIC, I did really enjoy the (admittedly predictable) bit of Ace grabbing her leather jacket and baseball bat from under the floorboards at UNIT. Chibnall being nonsensical in a good way for once.

Would happily give Ace a Sarah Jane-type show on the back of this (although not written by Chibs obvs)

Sophie Alfred was way better as middle-aged Ace than as young Ace, I enjoyed her more in this return than I did in pretty much the entirety of her original tenure.

Janet Fielding was as awesome as she always has been

Dan, it’s over a year until the Tennant run - Gatwa tbc after that.

(Guessing no full series until 2024.)

this may not embed from Sunday morning but

Hey everyone! Want to feel very old? Millie Gibson wasn't even born when they announced Billie Piper was playing Rose Tyler. Happy travels, Millie! #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/WKEc1zbKcw

— Pip (@pipmadeley) November 18, 2022

really going for the facebook mom crowd there

Then I spent a long time thinking about body-swapping - so the Master becomes the Doctor and vice versa, which would give us Evil David Tennant. That would be fantastic, especially in his swansong. But again, it's predictable. And they'd only end up swapping back. Also, in David's swansong (why's it called a swansong?), I want to see the Doctor, not an evil version. I want him in all his wonderfulness, centre-stage.

RTD, 2009.

I just stumbled across this parody and I cannot stop wheezing

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