WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

This one had an intriguing story even if the execution was as shoddy as last year’s finale. But that’s some sort of improvement I guess.

Otherwise felt very Colin Baker-with-a-budget. Disappointing that the inevitable cameo at the end was _____ not _____

Some people have linked the Trig Point that ___ and ___ were standing at in the finale trailer at the end to the one in the "Introducing Jodie" trailer that she finds the TARDIS key one and speculating Chibbers' long game is better than people thought.

Based on a now-deleted tweet by Mandip of a filming shot (and particularly since ___ is visible in the background), there's now mad speculation that ___, ___ and (most bizarrely ___ are actually ___, ___ and ___ (!) respectively.

gonna assume at least three of those blanks are "the Rani," based on the previous 15 years of online speculation

pretty confused by the Garda/Cyber thing

Rise Of The Cybermen
Ascension Of The Cybermen
coming in 2034: Elevation Of The Cybermen

Why did partial cyberman start molesting the cybermen in storage for no apparent reason?
How did spaceship that was missing foo many parts to fly get going with about 30 seconds of work?

Also some big assumptions that ___ is ___ based on some throwaway dialogue in The Hand of Fear and The Invisible Enemy.

gallifrey is kind of like Movie Australia in that you can always see that one building from everywhere.

Where are you guys seeing this speculation? the only other who boards i look at are on reddit and they're a mess.

chinballs lol

I thought this was Chibnall's best episode of Who yet (faint praise, 7/10). This season he did manage to set some ideas up then pay them off in later episodes. Too bad the set-ups were mostly shit -- mind-raping ada lovelace, jack harkness doing nothing in one room, etc.

I actually enjoyed this! Remarkably competent, the mystery is actually mildly interesting, some actual ideas and such. The quips were all duds, however.

some actual ideas

o rly?

Yes.

I would enjoy reading a longer post about them if you have the time.

Be fair, there are definitely ideas in this. I'm not sure Gallifreyans being descended from the good people of County Cork will turn out to be a GOOD idea, but it's an idea.

If local garda Brendan ends up being Doctor Who’s mum instead of The Lone Cyberman, I will doff my cap to his chibs

God ok maybe actually watching this is less dispiriting than merely reading about it from a safe distance?

The idea of Chibnall using crayon to scrawl his Big Ideas all over the show's mythos is... dud

Reading the novelisation of Day Of The Doctor, and enjoyed a new joke in (the completely rewritten version of) this scene so much I looked it up to compare & contrast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUjH-ksc2Z4

and god, the amount of visual & audio storytelling in this two minutes outdoes the average Chibnall episode in total. It's bonkers that so many Moffat eps got injuriously filleted down to 43 minutes when Chibnall gets 49 every week, and just fills it with three members of the cast describing what's happening to each other, instead of using moving pictures and editing to communicate to the audience

The novelisation of Day of The Doctor (and audiobook of same) is one of my very favourite Doctor Who things.

Despite having watched DOTD several times I only just noticed the totally intentional and acceptable joke of how they got from the Tower of London to Trafalgar Square so quickly in that clip.

He’d guessed what had happened the moment the TARDIS had been lifted off the ground, and he’d dashed straight for the phone when itstarted to ring. As he threw himself out of the door hundreds of feet above London, he’d reflected, not for the first time, that wiring your principal communications device to the outside of your spaceship was not always practical. He managed to grab the phone, and Clara his ankles.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, the head of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. ‘We had no idea you were still in there!’
‘You phoned me!’ screamed the Doctor, hoping Clara would manage to keep hold.
‘You’ve listed this number as your mobile.’
‘It’s the TARDIS — how much more mobile do you get?’

btw

Just to be perfectly clear, there's no breed of Irish woman who, when her husband returns from town with a baby that he didn't leave for town with, will rush towards him with silent wonder.

(I thought the character moments were better than usual, though the plot script was much much worse)

Why did partial cyberman start molesting the cybermen in storage for no apparent reason?

That would be the ascension, the exact import of which is yet to become clear.

How did spaceship that was missing foo many parts to fly get going with about 30 seconds of work?

Very poorly!

But they only molested two or three of them. Very odd.

Only three of the Lone Cybermens, and one drill. Guess they don't have time to do the thousands of tinned Cyberpeople in one episode.

A friend has pointed out that this is the first sight of Ireland in Doctor Who - obviously if we're a race that can turn the last Timelord into the last Cyberman, some buildup was required!

turn the last Timelord into the last Cyberman

Did I miss something?

Just speculation - the puzzle of the episode is "who is Brendan?" - he could be the Da out of Derry Girls, but he might also be Ashad.

Ah okay - even if he's a Time Lord, there are two others in this episode, another one in this series, and an entire planet of them onscreen in this ep though, which rather threw me

That Matt Smith clip feels v bittersweet

I mean, even the throwaway ravens line is better than 99-100% of the past two seasons

Otm re the novel by the way. It’s like all good Moffat and very little bad Moffat (ok, Osgood chapters notwithstanding)

yeah that clip mercilessly drove home the diminished circs of the current show

man jenna coleman was so so so good

novelisation of Day of The Doctor is one of my very favourite Doctor Who things.

Just read “Chapter 10” (the fourth chapter) and yeah, this is definitely the best Who novelisation ever, probably the best Who novel ever, and maybe the best piece of Dr Who ever

Sooooooo...

Ehh.

Pretty impressive that they got JJ Abrams to write, and Barry Letts to direct, an episode in 2020 though

just thought i'd check. y'all get back to hatin', i'm out again

ngrrgh

Interesting: the Doctor being special because of how they choose to act
Dull: the Doctor being special because they're some sort of chosen one

Who is Ashad? they implied that he's the timeless child due to the same flashback events in a different setting, but then he's not, so idk
Who is the Timeless Child? the cartmel masterplan
Why where the Cybermen torturing other Cybermen? no explanation
What was the lie of the Timeless Child? the timelords never mentioned the child, so this lie didn't exist
How did the Doctor save humanity from the destruction she herself created? she didn't

The purpose of the Cartmel plan was to add more mystery to the series. That's not going to happen when all of the details are dumped out in expositional speeches that don't affect the current story. Impressive that Chibnall's been at it so long and he's still writing for radio.

Chibnall still doesn't understand the nonviolence idea. It's OK to make a genocide button, just as long as you hand it over to someone else to push it. I got A.E. van Vogt vibes from that weapon. Next stop, NRA.

It's bonkers that so many Moffat eps got injuriously filleted down to 43 minutes when Chibnall gets 49 every week, and just fills it with three members of the cast describing what's happening to each other, instead of using moving pictures and editing to communicate to the audience

This week Chinballs got 70 minutes - just seven minutes less than global event & massive multi-platform profit centre Day Of The Doctor - and filled 87% of it with one character standing still against non-existent backgrounds, being told exposition that doesn't actually affect the story in any way whatsoever.

--

((oh lol xpost, I had the tab open from abanana's previous post))

http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-timeless-child-review/

that ranking!

Enjoyed this mostly but Catweasel coming in to take the Doc's place while the Master just stood there was pretty poor. Maybe I'll rewatch to understand the point of the Irish popo thing because still don't.

My biggest grian was reserved for the reveal of the title of the next episode.

What happened to all the humans catweazle had already put through the portal?

They fell into a plothole

They just go to random places in the universe, possibly dying in the process iirc

So after a while, the portal was like, "fuck it, i'm only sending people to galifrey from now on?"

Yeah I was thinking the portal wasn't always linked to the same place.
But the Master had lined it up to go along with his plans. Seemed to be that the old guy who was left as the last person watching it had been there alone for decades or something like that.