WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Since you missed THE ACTUAL FUCKING TITLE of the Gizmodo story, it's pointless interfering with your crusade.

You win, drink your weak lemon drink NOW!

Bye.

“Doctor Who Season 13 Will Be Just 8 Episodes Long” is the headline on the page as it loads for me, but again, I’m on a phone and can’t check the browser header if that’s different.

Browser header (on Chrome) is also:

Doctor Who Season 13 Will Be Just 8 Episodes Long

the less the better tbh

hope dan's ok

y'all makinf me feel nostalgic for the days when I studiously avoided rec.arts.drwho

also, I would watch a season where the Time Lords punish the Doctor by forcing him to look after the real-life Kevin Sorbo for a year

Nothing really matched the day I went back through the legendary RADW flame wars and realized that even though he was a massive cock about it 95% of the time, Azaxyr was more right than wrong

Woof:

Doctor Who: Russell T Davies returns as programme showrunner

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58682472

Whoah. Glad to see him leave; now surprisingly happy to have him back.

Fire up the Olly Alexander rumours again, I guess!

Yeah, was bored by the end of his first run, but after the turgid Chinballs era, this seems like really good news.

xp That would almost certainly mean a musical episode, not sure how I feel about that.

shows he's run since DW have been mostly fantastic so this is as good as news can get, IMO

So wait this is pretty much a guarantee that if Yaz and/or Dan stays on, one of them is gonna fuck the Doctor after regeneration, isn't it

maybe they will both fuck the doctor

she will regenerate during orgasm

RUSTY ALL IS FORGIVEN, and all it took was a couple seasons of the worst possible showrunner.

I mean by any sane metric a cowardly backwards move, but as you all say, the awfulness of Chinballs has pissed all over the metrics.

When Chibnall signed on, he was so unready to deliver that his predecessor had to be called back to fill in for two years with a full series and a special. Six years later, Chibnall’s eked out two reduced-length series, with the equivalent of one more due by the end of his eighth year. And the BBC are having to bring back the predecessor’s predecessor, as well as that guy’s co-producer/showrunner from 2005-09, and the commissioning executive from 2005, to do another fill-in two years of a special plus a series.

Six years of nobody in charge apparently bothering to look for or develop a head writer with new vision and real energy. Even if RTD doesn’t re-up, by the time he goes it will have been ten years since Moffat quit, an exhausted 54-year-old, but also the last new person to sign on with ideas about making the show fizz with energy and keep trying different things.

my takeaway is that McG should have been the new showrunner

Even with covid shutdown, we could have had three seasons of Mathieson and two of Dollard by now. After giving it to a 40-year-old, a 47-year-old, and a 45-year-old, they’ve shrugged and given it to the first bloke again, who will be SIXTY by the time his first ep airs. Letting tumblr teens plot a season and McG (48 in 2015) direct would have been entertaining for sure.

(obv if it’s the writer of It’s A Sin, Years & Years, Cucumber, parts of Banana, and A Very English Scandal that shows up to work, I will insist on OVER 55’s ONLY from now on)

RTD pitching the new series of Dr Who

https://i.gifer.com/Bjpt.gif

is mcg mcgann or the charlie's angels director?

mcgann is quite a bit older than 48

I wouldn't be surprised to see eccleston back now for an episode

mcg is patrick mcgoohan obv

this is… good? like, yeah safe and cowardly, agreed - but a strong intervention and course correction with a bit of succession planning sounds pretty cool - i had given up on the show and felt cancellation was probably the kindest move, but this is pretty interesting.

wouldn't be surprised to see eccleston back now for an episode

surely this would make eccleston far less likely than before

Erm yeah.

“I left because my relationship with Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson completely broke down during the shooting of the first series. I think it’s fair to say… that the first series nobody knows what they’re doing and the politics are raging. The shooting of the first series was a nightmare. I agreed with Russell that I would go, quietly and respectfully, and I would look after the show publicity-wise, in terms of publicising it. And then, without saying anything to me, they announced that I was leaving. They didn’t tell me they were going to do that. I was walking down the street and suddenly I got quite a lot of aggression. And more importantly… they created a quote, and they attributed it to me, which said I was tired. Now the thing is about that, ‘Oh I found it too tiring’, I didn’t find it too tiring. I found it too tiring working with Russell, and Phil and Julia. I didn’t find it physically too tiring. When they said that, any other producer reading that would go ‘Oh, we’re not going to employ Christopher Eccleston because he gets tired’. So it was a lie, and it was in quotation marks, and I’m from Salford, you don’t do that to me. So they issued a kind of apology, but it’s not enough, so no."

Have to admit though that the fact it slams the door on an Eccleston return (which was super unlikely anyway no matter who took over) is the only thing I don't like about this news. RTD's writing has only got better since his first run.

(That quote's from Dragon Con at the start of this month btw so it's a pretty fresh "I still hate these fuckers").

I've been thinking about Rusty's writing obsessions and I think they're focusing on the wrong collaborator for the role. His big thing is weak relationships with mothers, it's in everything he does, and he might well look at Chinballs' work and think he'd be better at writing a female Doctor.

So not Olly Alexander, but Lydia West. And the 60th Anniversary to feature the return of Susan, and to look at how dysfunctional a grandmother the Doctor was to her.

writes down "do not lie about people from Salford" in his immigrant's guide to Britain notebook

Looks like the production staff have been lumping money on Olly Alexander, betting suspended yesterday. Ladbrokes only one back open with him odds on.

Everyone focusing on the potentials for same-sex romance with Olly, but have we also considered the possibility of a "once more with feeling" style musical episode?

I'm sure Rusty mentions that in The Writer's Tale as something he would have loved to have done.

Maybe I'm conflating it with the Torchwood/ABBA musical.

Apparently all the money went on Lydia West, which is why you can't place a bet on her any more. The words "leaked email" have been thrown around.

Entirely coincidentally, and I'm sure not a harbinger of anything, all the official Who social media went offline about two hours ago.

there is now a phone number to call, ending in 3110 (ie Halloween TX), with a recorded message of Jodie saying "if you're hearing this, enemies from across the universe have blah blah etc."

fake-deleting all the social media channels means that the latest blu-ray trailer was only on youtube for a few hours. great work, Chris.

Five of the six episodes in the soon-come Doctor Who: Flux miniseries are by Chibnall solo, ep 4 is an Alderton co-write.

Fuck

Chibnall, the lame duck era. Deep breath and let's get over with it

I saw someone saying the BBC announcing Chibs leaving was a fuck you to everyone who worked on this season. I see it as the BBC knowing it'll be shit and giving fans some positive news to tide them by.

Don't hold your breath too long, there's still eleven months (three episodes) of Chibs after this season ends!

At least he's taken on feedback, after Timeless Child, that having the characters stand still and recite wikipedia lists is not dramatically compelling:

The Flux is Coming... pic.twitter.com/UmvY5rXJbW

— Doctor Who: Flux (@bbcdoctorwho) October 9, 2021

she’s not looking at the camera

lol flux: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flux

she’s not looking at the camera

at least he's consistent

lol flux

at least he's consistent

i've run out of flux to give

at least he's consistent

oh COME ON