WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Unless you're the third Doctor.

otm. justified paranoia and threat in everyday surroundings. best thing about this episode. krasko fairly unnecessary, other than to have a focus for the villainy, as it could have shown the daily contingent uncertainty about events, with Doctor Who and team attempting to ensure it stays on the tight rope – how history is every day in the balance. an essay in historical materialism!

― Fizzle

i'd argue krasko isn't a focus for the villainy, though! to my mind his presence gives doctor who and team reason to be in an environment where they otherwise wouldn't belong.

I so nearly agree with yr list f. hazel that you not rating Heaven Sent is even more startling!

...in that case I'll sit myself down in the near future and check out Heaven Sent, Oxygen, and Thin Ice!

It seems there's a lot of faint praise or excuse making being used to describe the poor writing thus far, because as far as I'm concerned, the plotting and the dialogue have only been barely competent. I don't think time will see these episodes in much regard, if I can prognosticate.

I do really wish the series would get fun again. Doctor Who should be fun.

as someone who i guess is turning into the chief chibnall defender in this thread, i don't necessarily want to excuse chibnall's hacky writing. i acknowledge and accept most of the criticisms made of his writing. mostly i'm trying to say that there is more to doctor who than clever writing, that chibnall's obvious flaws and limitations do not render the show terrible. that i do enjoy watching the show, and i did think the first two episodes were fun. (last week's obviously wasn't, and also i don't want to tone police here but ugh this is not a good week to complain about how the show should be more "fun".)

i don't know how the show will hold up twenty years from now. i'm not watching it 20 years from now. i like the show because it's doing things the show has never done before. chibnall is changing the show and he's changing it in a good and necessary direction. i get the challenge it poses to fans. of all the ways i've thought of doctor who in the past, i've never really thought of it as "stupid", and the first two episodes of this season were, on reflection, pretty unquestionably dumb. i don't like this particularly, but it's a trade-off i'm willing to accept, because i fully believe that the show will be smart again, because the show is still fun to watch for me and still popular, and because i hope, though i don't know for sure, that he's bringing the show to new audiences without compromising the heart of the show - which isn't, for me, that it's "smart".

i like the show because it's doing things the show has never done before.

prominent role for bradley walsh iirc

however stupid the plots have been, at least i can follow them which is like, good i think?

I'm taking Leee to mean that they shouldn't do an episode about Rosa Parks (or that they shouldn't do a season of them, which seems unlikely) rather than that episode should be fun.

What sort of things do you mean?
― Tuomas

to be frank, doing a historical story that isn't total ass

the production values this season are also excellent. i know it's easier for fans to forgive shit production values than to forgive shit writing, but i want to at least acknowledge that the show has never looked this good. i've seen enough shitty-looking and incoherent big-budget films to know that this isn't simply a matter of budget.

I'm taking Leee to mean that they shouldn't do an episode about Rosa Parks (or that they shouldn't do a season of them, which seems unlikely) rather than that episode should be fun.

― Andrew Farrell

i was being generous and kind of assumed leee wasn't talking about the rosa parks episode at all, because "how dare doctor who do an episode addressing racism" is a bad opinion

to be frank, doing a historical story that isn't total ass

― dub pilates (rushomancy)

ok, that was a little harsh, "human nature" was really good, though this is the first american-set story that isn't an acute embarrassment. look, we're all justly proud of verity, but we are still dealing with a show that has, since 1963, been pretty much been narratively centered on the experiences of white men. chibnall is actively changing that, he's on the vanguard in doing so, and his making that change is both to the show's immediate and long-term benefit.

Did you miss the entire previous season, where the co-star was lesbian woman of colour? And which also had a good historical episode that pointed out the racism of its era through her experiences? (Granted, it wasn't about racism as explicitly as this one... But so far this episode is the first one of the season that actually centered their experience as POC, so I'm not sure the white man's perspective has been completely discarded now.)

i want to at least acknowledge that the show has never looked this good

Adam Smith? Toby Haynes?

(half of Wheatley and Talalay's episodes are visually splendid, but half are stodge)

just changing lenses and aspect ratio doesn't mean that the shots or editing are automatically any better, and the lighting so far has been hack as heck

My "fun" comment isn't specific to "Rosa" (which on its own fails IMO but not because it's not fun), but describes the first two episodes which I've found sour and unengaging.

And for the record I definitely think it's important for the show to broaden its experiences and representations, but I want its stories to be good stories too!

Did you miss the entire previous season, where the co-star was lesbian woman of colour? And which also had a good historical episode that pointed out the racism of its era through her experiences? (Granted, it wasn't about racism as explicitly as this one... But so far this episode is the first one of the season that actually centered their experience as POC, so I'm not sure the white man's perspective has been completely discarded now.)

― Tuomas

i missed most of it because i got fucking sick and tired of moffat, i plan on getting back to it later. i think i saw the one you're talking about though- that's the one where the doctor punched the racist in the face, right? yeah that was a good episode. i think it's definitely worth thinking about the differences between last week's episode and the episode where doctor who punched a racist in the face.

you know what i love most about doctor who, more than anything else? it's run by fans, people who grew up watching the show, loved it, and grew up and got their own successful tv shows. russell davies, steven moffat, chris chibnall. and then other fans and writers for the show got their own tv shows too - mark gatiss, toby whithouse. i think it's great that so many doctor who fans have gotten the chance to make their mark on british television.

at the same time, i am wondering where the contemporary bbc tv series made by women and non-white fans are. i'm glad that doctor who has a lot more women fans since davies started running the show. i think that's a great thing. i don't know how much of that is down to davies, how much of that is down to julie gardner, but it's wonderful. i hope to see these fans get inspired and get the opportunity to run their own tv shows, because it's abundantly clear to me that they have the ideas and the potential. i think that chibnall, not just by making a woman doctor who, but by giving people other than white men the chance to tell their stories, is setting a precedent, giving them a space. i consider this not just a good thing in the present but essential for the survival of the show in the future.

i want to at least acknowledge that the show has never looked this good

Adam Smith? Toby Haynes?

― Eighty Big Ham Tents (sic)

here's where i sheepishly admit i don't actually do a thorough comparison of this week's episode to every past episode and do tend to get caught up in the moment. i duly apologize for any hyperbolic praise i might dish out.

And for the record I definitely think it's important for the show to broaden its experiences and representations, but I want its stories to be good stories too!

― Is Guardians of the Galaxy worse than it used to be? (Leee)

of course, we all do. i also, honestly - i want to like this show. i mean, really, i'm probably not a great critic of the show, i liked the fucking tv movie when it came on. you know, i've been a fan for more than 30 years now, and i've seen a lot of bullshit on the show. i've forgiven a lot of bullshit, though by no means all of it. i've forgiven farting aliens, i've forgiven jokes about getting blowjobs from paving stones, i've forgiven davies destroying the universe and then undoing it at the end of every goddamn season, i've forgiven that episode that suggests chronic mental illness is some sort of superpower, i've forgiven the allegation that the moon is an egg, i've forgiven moffat killing off clara approximately once every episode and then bringing her back the next episode - and that's just in the new series! i don't see find it any more difficult to forgive chibnall for being an incurable hack.

that’s fair.

i liked the moon is an egg one.

I loved the moon being an egg, hated single-celled giant spiders leaping and hissing in no atmosphere earlier in the episode ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

look at his li'l face

https://78.media.tumblr.com/e7e0bdb7e3c8f58b5c0d09152d5250db/tumblr_nd13m1GYx91sk2rnjo4_250.gif

It was shit because it wasn't called Cook The Egg.

Hatch The Goog.

i liked the moon being an egg too! i loved that episode. a lot of people didn't. a lot of people, and i'm sorry for even using that phrase but i'm too lazy to do the research, looked at that episode and said "that's fucking ridiculous, the moon obviously isn't an egg, and even if it _was_ an egg, how on earth does it get to immediately lay a new moon exactly the same fucking size as it immediately after hatching, that's physically impossible". this is a fair criticism, and it is all true, every word of it. and i didn't care. this probably says something about me and i will leave it up to the reader to decide what.

If you liked it, you'll love the episode of Super Friends from 1980 called "Man in the Moon"!

I loved the moon being an egg, hated single-celled giant spiders leaping and hissing in no atmosphere earlier in the episode ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

― It begat eight hymns (sic)

thinking about it this does actually make sense. spiders leaping and hissing in no atmosphere is bad sci-fi. "the moon is an egg", on the other hand, is just out-and-out fantasy, the sort of not-even-wrongness that epitomizes doctor who at its best and worst.

and i guess it also therefore makes sense that chibnall doesn't bother me, because i've come to the conclusion that doctor who is basically a fantasy show and i'm evaluating it by fantasy standards. in reality he's probably more plain old bad sci-fi, but i find the show much less fun and much less interesting to watch that way.

If you liked it, you'll love the episode of Super Friends from 1980 called "Man in the Moon"!

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel)

thank you for your recommendation. i tried to watch this but youtube wanted me to pay two dollars to watch it, which i don't think is remotely a fair price. so i wound up watching a gentle giant tribute band play a song called "the moon is down" on one of those prog rock cruises. i didn't think this video was very good. i like gentle giant's "acquiring the taste" album and all, but too much of the music was programmed, and it was also a poor quality cell phone video. if it helps i don't hold any of this against you, it was a genuinely good suggestion i think.

thinking about it this does actually make sense. spiders leaping and hissing in no atmosphere is bad sci-fi. "the moon is an egg", on the other hand, is just out-and-out fantasy, the sort of not-even-wrongness that epitomizes doctor who at its best and worst.

yeah, that's the only level on which the egg bugged me - the moon as an egg was One Big Magic Thing to accept as a premise for this science-fairy-tale episode, but every bit of played-as-real science had been wildly nonsensical up until then so they'd eroded the benefit of the doubt.

(obviously I also got very cranky later about "the entire world" voting by turning off their lights when it was daytime in the southern hemisphere. FP'd Peter Harness good and proper.)

the overall difference is that Harness was telling a fable about human behaviour and self-interest and ambitions as a species, and he put things in the plot that shape and interrogate that story. Chibnall's stories don't even set themselves the aspiration of being about anything, so you expect the plot details to at least support the plot, but he can't be bothered to do that either.

(similarly, In The Forest Of The Night opens with a little girl getting lost in the woods and finding a wizard in a magic cabinet to come and help her, so ppl complaining that it seemed more like a fairy tale than a hard SF story about how to fight climate change hadn't been paying attention before the credits)

The reason people didn't like "Kill the Moon" was because it was an allegory for abortion.

different people liked or didn't like it for different reasons.

the allegorical elements of letting a woman make a moral choice on her own, despite the hectoring of government, got somewhat confused by the production design illustrating that by having her smack a giant button saying ABORT, which both didn't match up with the decision being made, and wasn't the allegory Harness had intended.

Yeah but Doctor Who has been an unabashedly too-life show since its inception; it seems a little churlish/nonsensical to get all mad about it now.

That said “pro” but my phone decided that wasn’t a word

It's more of a pro-life attitude in, say, a Catholic context, and not specifically about abortion, right?

Also hi dere.

to me, doctor who is at its best when it works on multiple levels. "kill the moon" was a fascinating and convoluted allegory, but it doesn't really work on a straightforward level. not everybody watches the show to parse out the allegorical meaning of it. (there was also a certain amount of unfortunate ambiguity in the allegory that apparently led some people to the conclusion it was about abortion?) and then of course the allegorical implications of "in the forest of the night" w/r/t mental illness were just bad. that's the issue with allegories - the more complicated they are, the more abstracted they are from the thing they're allegorizing, the easier they are to fuck up. i'm also reminded of the way moffat, having caused the show to go through a total narrative collapse in the season leading up to the 50th anniversary special, nevertheless managed to botch allegory of the "b" story in the special badly enough that he had to retcon it shortly thereafter.

i don't agree with your assertion that chibnall's stories "aren't about anything". he makes big, obvious statements. the details don't always support those statements, but they're generally mistakes of thinking of everything in human terms with human cognitive biases. human cognitive biases can be pretty fucking awful, but about the worst we've gotten from chibnall thus far is the doctor wantonly slaughtering a race of sentient scarves. maybe it would be more defensible if she spent a whole episode fruitlessly trying to communicate with them before making a big dramatic speech like she did with the stick figures, but i'll give chibnall a pass on this. i can't see too much harm coming about from him dehumanizing scarves.

The Ghost Monument isn't about anything, it's just some stuff happening for a while in between the Doctor not having her TARDIS, and having her TARDIS again. every other element of the story literally vanishes offscreen in time for her to get it back!

(there is nothing at all inherently wrong with episodes of a family adventure show not being about anything btw)

nevertheless managed to botch allegory of the "b" story in the special

the mindwipe version of M.A.D.?

still don't agree! "the daleks' masterplan" isn't about anything - they just run around for twelve episodes chasing after the mcguffin until everything blows up. "galaxy four", on the other hand, is about something, specifically that being beautiful doesn't make you good and being ugly doesn't make you evil. i would say that "the ghost monument" is about something (people should work together and not try to kill each other) in the same sense that "galaxy four" is.

and yes, being about something doesn't make it good - galaxy four is one of the worst stories the show ever made - and not being about something doesn't make a story bad.

i don't know what you mean by "the mindwipe version of m.a.d.", sorry!

Will I be the first to say that was utter shite?

• Plot rehashed from part of The Green Death
• Trump analogue DYS
• 'Murkins love guns DYS
• Return to mother and daughter politics
• Return to fathers being useless and socially inept
• Hints of Yaz's romantic feelings for The Doctor AGENDAR
• Handy expert scientist also investigating the same mystery
• Same scientist somehow not companion material because reasons
• Disco Dad in extremis

There was loads and loads wrong with it and I still bloody loved it. I think it's helping me identify the real reason I watch this show. I just want to see the doctor being funny and odd and doctory, and for all it's other faults, last night did that bit really well (I think this might also explain why I find it easy to forgive the hundreds of flaws in the 9th doctor's run).

"Loads wrong with it but i still bloody loved it" is a pretty fair reaction to most Doctor Who - it's often terrible! But still somehow loveable - most of the time.

With respect to Leee's comment about faint praise, that was pure bollocks but I enjoyed it, and it seemed to me that Whitaker's finally relaxing in the role.

Having said that - did I miss something, or did they basically just let all the spiders die at the end? Chibnall's inability to come up with a creative conclusion to his episodes makes the Doctor seem a bit cruel and useless.

I guess the question isn't "Can Chibnall make an episode as good as Blink or Bad Wolf or The Big Bang?" (of course he can't) but "Can he make an middling-but-fun episode like Gridlock or Turn Left?" (possibly).

Isn't it from GMoz's Animal Man, the whole bit about insects being too big for their respiratory system to work properly? (From memory he says it about a giant ant?)

I think this might also explain why I find it easy to forgive the hundreds of flaws in the 9th doctor's run

Still the best run since the reboot, if only because it all felt so fresh.

xpost - yep! it's in issue 2:

https://imgur.com/a/e5G9Zbo

Dug that one out of the grey cells.

I actually rate Turn Left pretty highly, I watched it back to back with Midnight and enjoyed both of them a lot (though I appreciated its bargain-basement Children of Men vibe, where I can see it would be annoying to some).

Anyway, this was a lot of fun. I was near Canary Wharf on Saturday and remembered fondly RTD's playfulness in claiming that the reason it was built with nobody to move in was that it was surrounding a space-time anomaly. That and the appearance of the 'ghosts' on Eastenders was good not bad, and while Mr Big impersonating Alec Baldwin impersonating Trump wasn't as good, I did like it. And he's another escaping villain!

I'm assuming there'll be no more Sheffield for a while, then?

'Murkins love guns DYS

But... Americans DO love guns.

(I liked this episode, which had a nice Third-Doctor-trapped-on-Earth vibe to it)

I agree with aldo, this was another turd.
- Why did they spend half of the episode explaining what was going on in multiple ways? It's like a Stephen King book with an Indian burial ground and a government conspiracy and also solar flares. Jesus it's a bunch of GIANT SPIDERS, this doesn't call for rocket science. Also, this breaks the streak of episodes that did special effects well.
- Why establish that the spiders are all over the place then have the Doctor think they are only in the hotel?
- There was ADR of people saying spiders don't attack humans, but apparently all their other behavior is the same.
- The act that shows a character being evil is the killing of a dying spider. The Doctor's calls for non-violence ring hollow when the monsters are house spiders.
- another female character whose only personality trait is that she's a lesbian. and then she gets killed off.
- Chibnall thinks all living things have an instinct to come back home -- followed by all of Doctor's companions wanting to leave home at the end of the episode.
- It's apparently an obvious idea to use a phone for its loud bass. Oh wait, they did show speakers -- but they didn't show a subwoofer, wtf.

I mean if you want something else to be annoyed about thers's also the fact that the doctor bought a blue t shirt with rainbow stripes from a charity shop, then somehow also magically owns a matching red t shirt with rainbow stripes which they haven't bothered to explain AT ALL.

But c'mon.