WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Ah well then, never mind me

sontarans are a good fit for chibnall. lots of fun to be had. who cares if they can be defeated with rugs now.

i don't care for mr. and mrs. edgelord. their outfits are fab though.

Watch out or she’ll kill another triangle

Evil Dan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HvcECaE6k

that is fantastic

Speaking to Doctor Who Magazine, executive producer Matt Strevens teased Chapter Three: Once, Upon Time, revealing that the episode is an “ambitious” one for the long-running sci-fi drama.

“In terms of form, and structure, especially in Chapter Three – it really does take the show in a new direction,” he said. “It’s very ambitious, and it credits the audience with sophistication and intelligence.

“Which is something we always do, of course, but with this, it’s very much asking you to trust the show and go on a ride. Not everything is given to you in the moment. As with a lot of television now, it credits the audience with a degree of patience – that they’re not going to know quite what’s going on.”

He added that the third episode explores a form of storytelling that the show hasn’t done before, comparing it to Marvel films.

“For me, it was reminiscent of some of the shows that I love – of the way that Marvel Studios are telling stories; the way they’ll parcel out the information, and things can seem incredibly random and abstract, but they’re not in the end.

“They’re part of a very cohesive whole, but you don’t get served straight away.”

do i need to read a description of lungbarrow to understand this one?

Lungbarrow is utter crack, so wouldn’t surprise me to see Chibnall use it.

Cack, not crack

I'd be surprised if Chibnall read any New Adventures novels; I'd be startled if he read Lungbarrow.

do i need to read a description of lungbarrow to understand this one?

If it's true then there'll be a 5-10 minute exposition scene to explain it for you so I wouldn't bother.

Remember that time I asked Chris Chibnall if Lungbarrow and looming would ever become canon? #TheTimelessChild pic.twitter.com/1BPzCxDoIA

— Adam Lance Garcia (@AdamLanceGarcia) January 5, 2020

Have any of you actually *shudder effect* read Lungbarrow?

Oops here’s the actual video tweet, with Chibnall doing some excellent (and presumably well-practiced) fan-question-polite-face

A lot of people are asking whether #DoctorWho will (finally) dive into "The Cartmell Master Plan," Lungbarrow, and looming.

Here's how Chris Chibnall answered that EXACT QUESTION in 2018. pic.twitter.com/EhuEFOJVeo

— Adam Lance Garcia (@AdamLanceGarcia) January 28, 2020

I read it about seven years ago. It was a fun, baroque way to sow some wanky confusion at the end of an entire era of Who, the way Platt had been largely stopped from doing at the end of the previous one, about seven years earlier.

Capaldi's doing press for a new album this weekend:

It wasn’t until he was in his fifties and cast as the 12th Doctor that he achieved household-name fame. “My job was to go into work in the morning and battle Daleks. It was fabulous. You get to inhabit the skin of this charismatic, magical creature. Kids look at you and you can see their jaws drop. That’s an extraordinary position to be in.”

"(...)I wanted to be a more distant and alien Doctor. Because that’s how I remember William Hartnell, being a kid in Glasgow on dark winter nights when this strange figure with the white hair and slightly irate voice could open this portal to a magical world. The default now is a kind of cosmic imp. Which is great. But I wanted to touch the dark winter nights. I’m not sure whether the brand supports that any more, but that’s what I was interested in.”

Dunno why Lungbarrow has this reputation as being a franchise nadir. Compared to "The Timeless Child" it's a masterpiece.

Anyone thinking it could ever possibly be incorporated into the continuity of the current show is deluded though. It will never happen.

I read Lungbarrow and enjoyed it fine. IIRC for all its “origin story” splaining, it actually did a good job of asking more questions than it answered - leaving plenty of places for the curious mind to wonder and play. Which - although I have enjoyed it only in recap from - seems like the actual opposite of the shit reductionism of The Timeless Child.

Unrelatedly, I watched an old Sarah Jane two-parter, The Curse of Clyde Langer, a couple of nights ago. All the eps are on britbox now. Not a big fan of the show but it’s a solid, silly episode - a cheapo Cardiff take on the Hitchcock “innocent man on the run” story - fun if you’ve got a spare hour!

Is the Capaldi quote a subtweet of anyone in particular?

Sure feels like it!

Re Lungbarrow, there are definitely worse Who stories. I just hate it when they make the Doctor special because s/ he’s the Chosen One, ie for who they’re born as, rather than because of what they chose to do, ie nick a TARDIS, run away and start interfering. The second is interesting, the first is boring.

Yeah that's fair and OTM - and I definitely feel that the fan-industrial drive to unnecessarily fill in backstory is overall DUD. But yeah just Lungbarrow not the worst example I guess.

It's probably not a great sign that I enjoyed all of the bits of this week's episode where the Doctor isn't on screen.

"Sorry we haven't given you much to do this week, Mandip - would you like a go of one of the other roles?"

Because I'm not very observant, my better half had to point out that yes that is meant to be the same Lupari that is attached to Dan, because the reason Yas and the Doctor were talking to him in the first episode is that he's the last reachable member of Division.

Yeah I thought this was another decent episode - I guess this was Chibnall’s attempt to “do a Moffat”? Ok, none of the flashbacks worked as self-contained stories, and Yaz got forgotten again, and the pregnancy reveal was a real groaner, and the sci-fi elements were bollockry of the highest order - but, I dunno, it was still pretty fun? The light-switch planet was even - shockingly - an actual good story idea that deserved more time. And I believe at one point there was an alien character name without a ‘k’ in it.

Is the light-switch planet A Planet Called TIME? I have to admit I missed the good story idea because I was too busy wincing every time someone mentioned A Planet Called TIME.

Nice to see an weeping angel doing something other than going 'Boo!' though.

The character in the introduction – the daytime switches on and off while she’s on the Dalek planet. I thought it was a cool effect/idea, maybe Chibnall’s first ever! (“The idea came from having used a light switch.”)

Oh I thought that was just time fuckery, the first hint that something is happening to Time much as the Flux is happening to Space - the line when it happens is "because the maps definitely don't make any sense any more, nor the days <light changes> - everything is disrupted"

Yeah I thought that was meant to indicate that time wasn’t really a linear concern anymore

i thought the timy wimeyness was an excuse to for some character building but then dan and yaz had scenes where nothing happens.

all characters talk the same way so any character can be any other character.

For all my bitching, I should acknowledge my 8yo daughter is loving this, and that is how you create new Whovians.

Time to show her some highlights of Saward (Chibnall's formative era) and then get her properly into Sylv 'n' Soph!

There's an utterly fanwanky rumour doing the rounds this morning that has been dismissed by all corners as ludicrous and I would piss myself if it turns out to be true because I can just about see it and don't expect any better of Chinballs.

Aw c’mon you gotta share

Ok...

That the actual regeneration was Capaldi into Jo Martin but due to some unknown future trauma there are false memories about which Doctor did which stories and that's why Jodie can't remember Jo and glitches into her in the last ep.

So Jodie is a Doctor from *some point * in the future - might even be the next one but will be short lived.

You've got to admit, it would be a hilarious end to this series to see Jo regenerate into Jodie, only for her to regenerate again in the specials. It's actually that part that makes me most think it could have a grain of truth, that some writers could imagine that as an "I'm an AMAZING WRITER <mic drop>" finale.

it would also be an extremely cheap way to get the credit for making the doctor a black woman, like bond making a black woman into 007 for approximately 1.5 hours

This week set a new record for the lowest AI score ever received by Doctor Who: 75.

(Flux ep 1 equalled the previous record, 76, previously given to Love & Monsters. Last week bounced up to 77. Nu-Who has only had 13 episodes rate below 80; ten of those are from the last 21 aired.)

i have a 12 yo and a 10 yo and neither of them have even mentioned this series to me, i don’t think they’re aware it’s on.

A friend's teenage boys are pretty into it. My brother ignored it entirely when I first watched in the late 80s. One thing I'll say for it so far is the show doesn't look like it was at all affected by the pandemic (apart from the typography department).

Football sticker wall chart: collect them all!

https://i.imgur.com/28mogZq.jpg

(screen doctors only)

If there was a competition for most doctors introduced, would Chibnall win it?

After Jodie I don't know #2 and #3. Is #2 the beekeeper?

Mr Popplewick from Trial, and Dr Moon from Silence in the Library (who apparently Moffatt intended to be River's memories of "her" Doctor, the 45th. then he forgot all about it until RTD told him in an interview how much RTD loved and still thought about the idea).

most Doctor competition:

Chibnall has ten by this fan's chart ^^, but dozens or hundreds more implied.
Hinchcliffe and Holmes have eight, including themselves
Moffat has five Fatal Death doctors, plus Smith, Jones, Hurt, the Curator and Capaldi for ten - but you could count the second Tenth Doctor retcon, the kid from Listen, and David Bradley, if you want.
JNT has Davison, The Watcher, Colin, the Valeyard, Popplewick and McCoy. Throw in Meglos Tom if you like.

RTD put a bunch of bonus, Timeless Child-inspired Doctors into the novelisation of Rose, on top of Eccleston, Tennant, Tennant, Tennant and Tennant.

Everyone else only gets one telly Doctor, I think?

Like the fact they've included three versions of the first Doctor and Peter Cushing - although if they were being that specific they could've included the Edmund Warwick version as he was technically a screen Doctor (he doubled for Hartnell in one episode after the latter had an accident and couldn't appear).

I like the idea of having one First Doctor with his back turned on the chart. But then you'd have to add Terry Walsh after both Pertwee and Tom, and probably dozens of nu-who stuntmen.

Needs David Burton standing next to his car.

This was enjoyable...mostly good even. Just something still lacking from the Doc and companions in all this.

a competent chapter that didn't answer its own mysteries

it's good when characters have distinct personalities and the words aren't the first cliches that pop into the writer's head

Yeah, Yas was holding the relay baton this week, so it's Dan's turn to say "what's that?"

The idea that the Timelord's Dirty Tricks Squad also included a Weeping Angel was good, (as was the cliffhanger) but he can't leave well enough alone, so we're told that Division is all of them and everywhere and everyone.

Also good work from the supporting cast in general, including a giffer to love and a giffer to hate.

(The polygraph drawing an angel is another of these "it's a good idea but only if you connect it to something else in the script" moments)

Bah, Timelords', though who knows - we may find out in two weeks' time that they're all actually The Doctor after all.

I'd like to see an Angel try to travel from paper it's recorded on but then get stuck because the drawing is too shit.