WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Watching what we have now, I really miss that sort of ambition, even if it didn't always stick.

I would really like to see Jodie with decent material.
Would have also loved a lot more Capaldi without the very wrong companion. Why did he get saddled with carla too thunk it was bad enough that Matt Smith got stuck with her. Really don't like the character beyond being a consciousness trapped in a dalek.

But god the way that things fall in the wrong direction. would have hoped for a lot more from the first female doctor and not getting it.

Unverified potential spoiler link

Argh

The source said she will follow co-stars Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole out of the door later this year, but ­showrunner Chris Chibnall is to remain.

Lol sorry I put the closing h tag after the closing i tag honest

cool homage to 2018's "Jodie leaving after one season" rumours, and 2019's "CHAOS IN CARDIFF" rumours, from a real source who speaks exactly like normal humans

Some Twitter doctor who nerds think this one might be more legit, but who knows

she probably is leaving, because she will have done three seasons in four years, which has become the standard across the last three Doctors

but anyone with a calendar could write a tabloid gossip piece saying so

Just remembered that the last time Chibs wrote for the show before taking over, he put a fifty-something grandad in those episodes too.

This one got the equal ninth-lowest Audience Appreciation rating of nu-Who:

76: "Love & Monsters" (RTD, these people are plainly wrong)
77: "Orphan 55"
78: "Sleep No More" (Gatiss found-footage Capaldi ep)
78: "Praxeus"
78: "Can You Hear Me?"
79: "The Tsuranga Conundrum"
79: "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos"
79: "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror"
79: "Revolution of the Daleks"

Ellard & Sandifer writeups good as usual.

Ah, ta - Ellard reliably great on suggesting tiny elements that could have vastly enhanced the intended themes, eg

Because once again the first female Doctor is introduced as passive. For most Doctors, those lines on her cell wall would be a tally of escape attempts…

and finding little things that let down the intent, like

What’s funny is that she’s reading Harry Potter from memory. A story about an adopted kid whose parents abuse him, who’s told he has a destiny but finds that being who you are and making your own choices are what matters.

Did she not notice the parallels?

(Let’s be honest, the nod to Rowling in Shakespeare Code was about grabbing for the biggest thing in kids’ imaginations in 2007. To be doing the same nod 13 years later is more a callback, and an easy reference. It’s not about what kids are into in 2020.)

Not because Rowling is a TERF—that wasn't well enough known in 2019 for me to be bent out of shape about it. Just because the setup of the Doctor talking to herself and telling herself "one of the classics" as a bedtime story in an episode shot not long after August 2019 was so obviously the setup for her to begin, "Through the ruins of a city stalked the ruins of a man..."

Enjoying the discussion and the links from more invested fans as to the current Who quality. Continuity and characterization issues expressed well are great to read, coming from a perspective of seeing potential squandered.

Not that group consensus provides a better product, but it's sad that Chibnall has enough ego not to pass scripts through Whovians for logic, errors, improvements, etc. Not sure how the writing credits would work then, but if proofreading works for books, why not here?

The new Dalek design was very in sync with the Dark Troopers in The Mandalorian. Probably not intentional, just coming from the same Terminator-uninspired cul-de-sac. Not as bad as then giving them what felt like only five minutes of action and dialogue.

60th Anniversary team-up of the 9th and 13th Doctors preview

it's sad that Chibnall has enough ego not to pass scripts through Whovians for logic, errors, improvements, etc. Not sure how the writing credits would work then, but if proofreading works for books, why not here?

He already has episode script supervisors, a series producer, a production executive and an equal-with-him executive producer to give feedback

(though they dropped the Series Script Editor role after S11. which might be noteworthy by comparison with Moffat shouting out one script editor ).

accidentally posted mid-type:

He already has episode script supervisors, a series producer, a production executive and an equal-with-him executive producer to give feedback. Adding rando nerds to give their opinions is unlikely to have a salutary impact.

(though they dropped the Series Script Editor role after S11. which might be noteworthy by comparison with Moffat shouting out one script editor's improvements on twitter the other week, and having appointed another one as his equal-level exec prod for the last four seasons of his run).

Thanks for clarifying. The example I've been thinking of was the Russo brothers gathering input on any flaws in the second Captain America's script and how it resulted in a stronger movie. Chibnall's writing could benefit, based on the excerpts itt.

Curious as to whether abolishing the script editor role has any correlation with three out of six non-Chibnall scripts in S12 acquiring Chibnall co-write credits within days of TX.

(RTD did drafts, and sometimes shooting scripts, on every freelancer except Moffat, but didn't take co-credit until the final year of Tennant specials needed his name to sell as a standalone package. Moffatt also rewrote everyone, though to a lesser extent, and took a few co-credits in the Capaldi era after Smith's S7B had been a time-crunched production disaster that he'd not had time to rewrite on. (He framed his one late-added co- credit in S10 as being because the ep turned out so badly that he didn't want ppl to blame the original writer, who'd been given a brief in the first place.))

1987 followup to teenage Chibnall criticising Who writers Pip & Jane Baker to their faces on Open Air in 1986:

Chris Chibnall reviews Time and the Rani Part 1 😳 pic.twitter.com/zYH96F5V6o

— Joey Morgan (@JoMo___) January 11, 2021

Revolution came in as the tenth most-watched programme of the week, after the New Years live special, A Perfect Planet, The Masked Singer, two episodes of BBC News and four eps of Corrie.

i swear there used to be a post here where sic logistically dismantled chibz' squandering of doctor who's precious christmas day time slot but now i don't see it??

ah found it:

Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

Almost no +28 viewers on Revolution Of The Daleks* - most of Who's catchup is usually frontloaded, but a final figure of 6.6million across screens and devices only added 234k after the first week.

A year ago, Spyfall part 1 got 7.40 million (and ranked #32 on the chart for all channels for the whole year - Dracula's premiere on the same day ranked #23 for the year on 7.93m).

Given the very low AI figure, word of mouth / lack of enthusiasm probably contributed to the short tail. But overall the viewing decline is pretty on par for linear seasonal telly, and it only slipped from #10 for the week to #11 on 28-day figures.



* also still no indication of what their revolution actually is. he really is titling these 100% as not-even-injoke references to stories from 1985.

The Revolution was them turning 180 degrees to try to get back out of the murdered TARDIS.

instead we get john bishop

― koogs, Wednesday, January 13, 2021 11:22 PM (three weeks ago)

“I’ve always got my eye out for performers who are loved, and wondering how good they might be as actors ... John’s somebody I’ve been keeping a beady eye on for years. He’s quietly built up a body of work, through working with people like Jimmy McGovern and Ken Loach, while also doing a dozen other things like stand-up, autobiography, interview shows, podcasts and travel documentaries.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ1qntu2Nzg

"daleks say rels during countdowns, might as well put any odd number in there"

A critical essay: https://them0vieblog.com/2020/03/06/the-unlikely-validation-of-steven-moffats-doctor-who-by-chris-chibnall/

good piece. loved the “timey wimey” bit at the tail. god knows how he found the energy to critically engage with the chibnall era at any length, just burn it all down. i am enthusiastically looking forward to pretending it never happened.

On youtube there's a 5-hour video essay by Jay Exci on the Chibnall era. There's certainly enough bad writing in the era to pick it apart Star Wars prequel style.

That piece sic linked is good, yeah. In retrospect, most infuriating Chibdoc moment: the Doctor saving Shelley because he is a Great Man who will Create Works, the Doctor weaponizing nazi racism or the Amazon is Good, Actually episode?

The terrible terrible revision of the Doctor’s history makes me angry every time I remember it.

It'll hopefully never be mentioned again - I have a nasty feeling that it'll be locked away as something regrettable during that bit when there was a female Doctor and a non-white Master. There must surely be a conspiracy theory somewhere that the powers that be approved Chris Chibnall so that afterwards we can continue with white men in both roles for another 50 years?

Whitaker should share some blame for being lousy in the role. She’s likeable and cosplayable, but, pivotally, not actually good at acting. There are bearable Smith & Tennant episodes with scripts as poor as Chibnall’s. I think that’s a key part of the show’s recent failure — not the continuity wank, which can be improved upon, retconned or glossed over by better writers in the future, if it has one — but Chibnall’s disinterest in performance. The show is essentially just an expensive panto of plot-focussed overacting. But it’s hard to think of a standout performance matched to a standout character — the Pting? Jo Martin’s fine but her comic timing is rotten. Bradley Walsh is the best performer on the show - a lucky accident of charisma.

And when the best you can say about a show is the lucky accident of hiring Bradley Walsh...

I watched a couple of videos from that Jay Exci series, which of course are edited to look as dumb as possible, but still I gotta say I can't imagine Laurence Olivier saving those lines. Whittaker is fine imo.

Bailed after watching half of the second part of the Exci thing tho because while he makes some great points it still felt a like too culture war-y.

I will grit my teeth and sit through this because if I could endure the nonsensical McCoy stories, I can endure this, but it’s extremely difficult to tolerate

McCoy did 12 stories in three years (42 episodes), and 7 of them were in the show’s best 30 stories to date.*

Chibnall has done 21 stories (22 episodes) in six years, and managed to get at least 18 of them into the show’s worst 30 stories to date.** At least the dumbest late-60s base-under-siege serials have Troughton & Jamie adorably clutching each other in terror, & such.

* (Two are quite bad.)
** (Trial Of A Time Lord is a single story.)

Most of the McCoy stories are garbled nonsense that use narrative shortcuts and deus ex machina to resolve the plot. Three of them were very good despite this but most of them are fucking terrible. I liked more of the 6th Doctor's tenure.

The 7th Doctor really only worked in prose.

Here’s how good the 7th Doctor is: Sophie Aldred is a far worse actor than not-an-actor Sylveste McCoy, but 7 & Ace is a top 3 TARDIS team of all time. OF ALL TIME.


y-wimey.

Classic-era teams I would rank above 7/Ace:

4/Leela
5/Tegan/Turlough
4/Sarah Jane(/Harry)
3/Jo
4/Romana I
2/Jamie/Zoe
1/Susan/Barbara/Ian
6/Peri
3/Liz

The only nu-Who team I wouldn't rank above 7/Ace is 10/Rose.

Barbara / Ian / Vicki >>>>>>>>>>> Susan / Barbara / Ian

i think the one thing we can all agree about the McCoy era is that it is Not For Everyone - i know some people love it and i have made multiple good faith attempts to engage with it and can only assume i have some kind of allergy because i find it genuinely unwatchable

Adric/Cybermen is definitely top ten for me

For the McCoy stories, I'd say (bearing in mind I haven't seen some of these since the 80s):

Unequivocally great:
Remembrance of the Daleks
The Happiness Patrol
The melting face in Dragonfire

Great but flawed:
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric

Fun:
Paradise Towers
Silver Nemesis
The Greatest Show In the Galaxy
Battlefield
Some parts of Survival
McCoy's bits in the movie

Terrible:
Time And the Rani
Delta And the Bannermen
The other parts of Survival
Everything in Dragonfire that isn't the melting face

That's about right I think. Paradise Towers maybe worthy of promotion to either of the two above it, everything else in 'fun' I could easily put in 'terrible'.

Paradise Towers scared the shit out of me. I was... 9, I think.

Paradise Towers is the most astounding leap in quality from the previous story in all of Who. (Also the first story that Cartmel commissioned.) Every problem with it is down to JNT, but none of them completely obscure how it goes "after-school show for kids? How about a riff on JG Ballard that is explicitly pro-anarchy, anti-masculinity, and says that society is structured for old people to destroy younger people and collective ideas in order to maintain their personal comfort, no matter how unsustainable."

The original score on the DVD, that JNT scrapped in favour of his mate with one keyboard, is an improvement you can apply.

Battlefield fills me with joy every time I watch it, I just adore it

Paradise Towers really shouldn’t work but it absolutely does

btw I remembered Delta & The Bannermen as terrible too, but rewatched abt nine years ago and it's fine. Silly fun that kids can enjoy with gran, a cast having a great time*, a decent spaceship and a few seconds of the very worst alien costume in Who history.

*the first of JNT's budget-stretching shot-on-location stories, which all seem to have created great vibes amongst the workers.

Delta has the best 'should have been a companion', even better than Shirna in Carnival of Monsters. It has lots of ideas but none of them really land well.

I actually rewatched Paradise Towers last week (despite it being on the next blu box) and finally spotted that Pex actually does save Mel from the Ressies the first time, just nobody realises because the plot hasn't got there yet.

Paradise Towers scared the shit out of me. I was... 9, I think.

― Chuck_Tatum

Yeah, same. I was obsessed with it when it was being serialised, drawing collages of the characters etc. Rewatched it maybe ten years ago and the tone was... not quite as sinister as I remembered.