WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

This week's ep got the second-lowest audience Appreciation Index figure of all nu-Who (77, above 76 for Love & Monsters in 2006).

Rated in 25th place for the week on +7.

croatian actor playing serbian historical figure, close enough.

Beats having a white actor playing a Chinese character.

Bradley Walsh getting to grips with fandom.

I'm caught up now - Orphan 55 was terrible of course, but I did like the implication that when humanity returned to Earth and set up a holiday camp in Russia, they saved some money by reusing the snack machine that they found there, with the Made in China sticker, in English.

Still on Orphan 55 -

Rated in 25th place for the week on +7

the 24 places above it were filled by 12 different programmes, including five Coronation Streets, 6 Emmerdales, two Silent Witnesses, two 6pm BBC newses and ITV's Bradley Walsh: Breaking Dad.

Looks like word-of-mouth on this episode had a significant hit on catch-up viewing during the week, adding just 1 million viewers, or 22% of the overnights. Last season consistently added 25-30%, and the final Capaldi season, whose overnights were battered by moving around from week to week, airing during spring and summer daylight, and being scheduled against popular live events, was adding up to 60% on catchup in the summer.

btw Camaraderie's Pertwee photo is the best of the genre I've seen since someone on the KLF mailing list in the 90's attached a pic of himself and his brother both wrapped in a Williams-era replacement Tom scarf that his mum had knitted for the production, before it left their house and went to the BBC

However, current version of the theme song is by far the best in nuWho

I agree!!

The theme song sounds like it’s being played in my neighbor’s house over here. BBC America have somehow cut the high end out almost completely, leaving a muddy mess. I’ve much preferred the music overall in this era, I think we discussed looking forward to the change of composers a few years ago? Glad that panned out.

re a show for kids: the Colour Out Of Space flick totally feels like a 1975-77 Who story, but made with the resources of the current show and starring some kids (if you cut out 1.5 seconds of Nic Cage yelling "cocksucker"). make Richard Stanley the showrunner, you cowards.

And what Joely Richardson does in the kitchen - although you could save that by being less graphic and doing it in cutaway - but apart from that, yeah, give it to Richard Stanley.

Seeds of Doom is as Lovecraftian as it gets (possibly because it rips off The Thing for the first half) but there are lots of other candidates.

Yeah, the old and new show have plenty of scenes with vastly worse injury, they just use less fake blood (or make it green)

next half dozen episodes are non-Chibnall-written!

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Sunday, January 12, 2020 11:55 AM (one week ago)

Chibnall now taking writing credits on the other episodes by returning 2018 writers

Was it ever revealed what Chibnall changed in "Rosa"? Because I thought that was a mostly good episode let down by a crap racewar villain and some slapstick scenes. and rosa parks being happy that there's a cop in her house.

well well

Finally a good one!

i was hoping nashwan meant chibnall got fired, but i'll take it

what a shame, I have been enjoying the time out

Is it a must-watch or merely "not totally dispiriting"?

I enjoyed tonight's for the most part.
INtrigued by the new character and wondering if it will reappear.
Other cameo is hopefully going to not be a one off though maybe he looked like he had aged a little. THough guess that may be inevitable just thought that character wasn't supposed to show it.

Noticed that Watch had the original shows with the Judoon in this afternoon, and wondered if that wasa coincidence. Since it was where they would be if they were showing things in order anyway. THink that's the original appearance anyway, Martha's debut.

As enjoyable as it is important you could say xp

Fanwank but pretty enjoyable and unpredictable for a change, albeit wrapped in Chibnall’s usual flaws (boring companions; inability to write a decent joke; too much murdering; a doctor who lets the bad guys get away with said murdering). A shame the other lead actress was kinda wooden too.

But worth watching for sure.

"Better than Leee" hmmph well I never.

It was certainly unexpected in the middle of a terribly pedestrian series. Ryan, Yaz and Graham's finale Greek chorus of explanation and grounding was unnecessary (seriously, we absolutely don't need Yaz at all, three companions are too much and I've decided she's very much the weak link), but I genuinely went a bit "woah, this is more like it" at several points during the episode.

On reflection, I think the blindsiding of not being anywhere near as shit as the rest of Chibnall-era Who made it seem better. It would have been average in a Rusty or Moff series, it was outstanding in the Chibnallverse.

I genuinely want to watch next week to find out what follows. This is the first year we've just been recording and watching whenever we can be bothered. That's a step forward at least.

I dunno, that was thoroughly rollicking despite the obvious anti-Lee propaganda, and I laughed at the jokes! Mainly I just told myself that everything I liked about the episode were written by Vinay Patel.

Yeah, but I remember it being rollicking a lot more frequently. This very much came out of left field, given that pretty much all the Who chat I've seen, not just on this thread, was about how everyone was considering never watching it again it was so dull. That seemed to magnify the rollick factor. Remember the old days when we were all so jaded at the "oh, the entire universe is in peril? *Again*? Yawn". We've *earned* this one.

This was MUCH more like it. Not perfect, sure, but if this was the basic standard these days I'd have no complaints at all. Liked a certain someone's outfit.

GREAT outfit. Shame about the performance underneath it.

Decent lore episode with a pace that worked. No resolution but I'm OK with that.

I assume Chibnall wrote the lines about the cyberman and the ending chorus, because when they were spoken the speakers lost all their personality. the singular "cyberman" was another clue (see torchwood episode 4)

this was the first one i’ve watched in aaaaages, and apart from the absolutely dire companions, an odd tedium to the progression of events (like, a blank gravestone is a scary thing - foreground that mystery at the beginning maybe?), and a pathological and presumably directorial obsession with making our own world look as dull as possible*, i thought “come now, that wasn’t so bad. maybe people are being harsh about the whole thing”. clearly an anomaly.

* i recognise there’s a decent logic there: horrors occupy the same space as we do - see daleks over westminster bridge - , and a general relatability of the topography, but the picturesque, dramatic and atmospheric is also available in our world. (cathedral and shoreline did partly manage this)

ok in real terms i think that was probably a about as good as the shitful RTD one with the Sontarans and the GPS and the boy genius ie not terrific

but yeah the bar has been so low under chibnall that it seems like a near-masterpiece

i keep getting flashes of a potential actually good version of Doctor Who during this era - i think it shines most when it's on contemporary Earth, not necessarily storywise, just tonally I think the characters and visual style actually kinda work in that context IMO

there's hints of a sort of Life On Mars meets 80s DWM comic strip atmosphere that i wish they'd build on - it could actually be interesting and cool, a sort of kids' thriller version of earthbound SF

A blank headstone seems like a poor disguise. Was it psychic granite?

If you’re jewish most headstones are blank for the first year, it’s not weird at all

[Spoilers obvs]

Curious how chibnall will resolve this. If this new doctor is real, he’s broken continuity for good, which is fine but sort of a shame as DW is best as a continuity-light show. (Moffat’s gets a lot of stick for complexity but he was also very good at disguising exposition, or ignoring it entirely if it made the story more fun).

On the other hand, if this is a fake/alternate reality doctor, chibnall’s effectively delegitimised the first WOC doctor.

Or, you know, neither of those things, but it’s hard to have faith based on his previous work

On an unrelated note: I'm rather pleased at how many South Asian actors they've had this season! (Even if I'm not entirely on board with their acting.)

I'm assuming it's an incarnation between Troughton/Pertwee, fits with the being an unwilling Time Lord agent, the look of the Tardis control room. Doesn't really break continuity any more than 1000 other things that have happened in this show.

I'm assuming it's an alternate dimension/timeline Dr since they bothered to load different versions of alternate dimensions/timelines into the first three episodes this year. But I would absolutely prefer it to be a mindwiped CIA agent Dr from a hitherto unimagined Season 6B(b), just for how much it would annoy fanmen and racists.

chibnall’s ability to annoying fanmen and racists is basically his only positive contribution to the show

I fear sic is right but I hope I'm right.

As in so much of life, really.

Regarding her being a black married woman. Was Chibnall hoping fans would think of the Torchwood episode "Sleeper" instead of the actual Who episodes that inspired this one? That's a deep cut.

With numbering I suspect they'll say the person was so unlike the Dr that they get a different title, like with the war doctor.

she referred to herself as The Doctor and was credited as such in the end titles (with an "and introducing as" in addition to her regular credit as Ruth)

there are plenty of unnumbered alt. Doctors already, like the second Tennant and the third Tennant and Hurt (omg anagram of Ruth! another clue), whatever The Watcher was, the pre-Hartnell Brain o' Morbius faces, the additional fact that four different people have played the ostensible First Doctor onscreen... the more confusion the better imo.

maybe she's who Peter Cushing's Doctor regenerated into..

footage of human Earth scientist inventing regeneration serum

Chibnall speaks:

“The important thing to say is – she is definitively the Doctor,” he explained. “There's not a sort of parallel universe going on, there's no tricks.

also Barrowman has been back in the papers launching another smear campaign against Moffat for his conspiracy to suppress the most beloved character in Who history, Captain Jack

Didnt moffat try to have jack in a goid man goes to war, but barrowman was unavailable?

Good man, even

That is correct

Moffat also created the personality, backstory and irrepressible hornitude of Captain Jack, when writing his first two appearances

and five years after Moffat invited him back, Barrowman started publicly claiming that Moffat was personally blocking Torchwood from returning, resulting in bemusement from and hate-mail for Moffat.