WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

What was the time thing re regenerations. I think Chibnall can't have more lasting legacy can he. Hoping that Davies turns things back to worthwhile. Or somebody does.

maybe that should be Time since it was the embodiment of time saying it

I would really, really like for the 6th Doctor to meet this incarnation so he can be completely aghast

"I accidentally knocked someone into an acid pit, you go out of your way to murder entire species multiple times! You're a monster!"

Does just seem odd that Chibnall is trying to set things up now doesn't it? Is the New Year's special the last episode by him?
THough I guess there are other media that can be inserted in the timeline. Or does that work like that?
JUst not engaged with either books or audio outside of the main show in ages.
& has there been a lot more near continuous action recently?

The BBC’s charter forbids material essential to the plot from taking place in for-profit third-party projects. Chibnall has three specials left in 2022: New Years, spring and October or November.

The general care and attention taken is exemplified by the scenes showing an Earth, completely surrounded by a spere of interlocking spaceships admitting not a single tiny gap, that somehow still has the sun shining on it.
https://i.ibb.co/SRD32c3/Untitled.png

*sphere

she did two genocides (for the price of one) in the previous story

Just realized this is also two stories in a row where the resolution is “trick a dalek invasion fleet into flying into a living being that is bigger on the inside, in order to genocide them.” except this time they immediately showed you that the next story would also have daleks invading in it, again

What are all the genocides so far?

A. of the C.: humanity
Timeless Children: cyber-timelords
R. of the D.: daleks
Flux: lupari, daleks, cybermen

did I miss one?

sontarans yesterday

it's possible she burned every single member of the talking bedsheet species alive in her second ep, we've never checked back and she didn't investigate anything beforehand

bonus points in R² o. t. D. for discovering that there were two, not one, surviving members of the species that has sheltered her, shaped her life, and actively brought her back from death at least seven times, and promptly murdering the new one in order to genocide the D.s

didn’t david tennant kill a bunch of raknoss babies? tbf he felt properly bad about that.

not really genocide if you feel bad about it?
& also not if the parents are known to be alive? I thought the babies were airlifted out and it was just the project manager who got messed up. Plus they were cannibalised from human so maybe that makes it ok.

I thought the lupari were individually murdered by the Sontarans, really how shitty .

Come a long way since Baker couldn't stem the rise of the arch genociders at initial point since it would be genocide innit?

genocide valley in france, like

genocide region in france was the better citation I think.

When they mentioned the genocide of the Lupari, I assumed that, considering that the previous scene had Swarm pressing play and rewind on the Doctor's death, it'd get reversed by the end. Not the case!

Like Dan + Yas + Jericho Gibbs, Bel + Vinder + Karvanista seemed to be another spin-off being set up - again I'd rather watch it than the next three specials.

yeah all of that otm

so the finale was certainly the worst episode of the season AND YET it wasn't quite as bad as i expected. i didn't mind it! like the rest of the season, it sucked, and was also kind of fun and fine at the same time.

I VERY MUCH DID NOT LIKE the odd way jodie pronounced "cornershop" in front of yaz

https://i.imgur.com/SOyWtZz.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/c1DxfEZ.jpg

from

Sweetness
Sweetness I was only joking when I said
“The end result of Chibnall’s ‘tell, not show, storytelling style would be him sitting down and explaining the plot of a Doctor Who story”

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt

#DoctorWhoFlux pic.twitter.com/ORGtPK1pFf

— ß¡|| Evenson (@BillEvenson) December 6, 2021

dismal, who thought an entire episode set in a fucking storage facility would make for vibrant festive television? this would be a grim regular episode but as a new year’s eve special it is ultrablaaaagh

i thought it was ok. probably chibnall's best written episode as solo writer. at least it wasn't a globe-trotting episode where every location looked suspiciously like somewhere cheap in britain.

streaming service here suggested Time of the Doctor as a follow-up watch, for me there was more charm and invention in that episode’s pre-credit sequence than in the entire Chibnall era - and I don’t even remember that ep as a particular highlight!

While not brilliant, if this had been the general standard of the Chibnall years I would have been a lot happier.

If nothing else, pleased the returning creatures in the next story haven’t been unpleasantly modernised to look more human.

Daleks were huge arseholes in this - I thought it was good! Agree it was Chibnall’s best solo script, albeit with the usual asterisks.

There’s a reason Davies and Moffat never went full Saward with mean-spirited violence but i don’t mind it occasionally - I imagine this was scarier than usual for the kids, so job done.

I liked the non-belaboured covid reference too (I’m guessing it was a Covid reference) - Aisling Bee’s “I’m so tired” moment was a really good bit.

I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to. I was amazed that it a) largely made sense, and b) had characters (even if they were Daleks) call the Doctor out for genocide

I also liked that they pulled the Yaz subtext out into the open and that the Doctor seems hellbent on stuffing it back into the closet; I suspect this mindless papering over Yaz's questions/protestations is going to lead to her regeneration somehow (or at least I would if this was being run by Davies or Moffatt; with Chibnall, it's just as likely that the Doctor will trip over her sonic and break her neck falling against the TARDIS console)

fwiw I went to DOCTOR WHO: TIME FRACTURE yesterday with my kids and it was very good fun although it had a rubbish anticlimactic ending that made no sense HOWEVER as we know time is non-linear, and, like, timey-wimey so no bigs. chib's contract says he gets sign-off on all ancillary IP so i do blame him. i'm guessing the good bits were mainly the actual theatre company that produced it.

they have an amazing number of props and set detail that you can just wander and explore at your leisure after the show including K-9, and that actual timey wimey wobbulator thing that looks like a red boom box and 'goes PING when there's.. stuff' - a line i loved at the time but which now reminds me of all the worst parts of whittaker's doctor. she pops up on screens from time to time saying things like 'close one eh?? don't worry - you've got this!' and it's just such crap

I liked the Eve of the Daleks tbh, despite the world's worst rasta accent - by dialling the comedians up to 50% of the cast, it shows that they can be well deployed if they're Irish good. Also no mentions of Gallifrey, and a Dalek taking the doctor to task for genocide.

The Flux scripts are up! The Flux scripts are up! Christmas has come ea-

We move across space, to find, hovering, brooding, battle-worn
and magnificent: a SONTARAN CONTROLSHIP!

CAPTION: THREE TRILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY

Darkened, moody control deck of a Sontaran ship. Sontaran
Commander RITSKAW stands with his helmet on, checking the
screens. Brooding, late at night, nursing a metaphorical
whisky.

The Sontaran on the hologram takes off his helmet: an old,
weary Sontaran, flecks of white hair, on face and sides of
head. A Sontaran wizard, if ever there was. KRAGAR.

Now Ritskaw takes his helmet off. Strong, rough and tough mofo.

-- oh ok then.

old and weary Sontaran = mid-late teens?

Sensitized by a previous post, here are the hits on "iconic"

S13EP1 - 8 (incl. 2 in same paragraph: "We're moving across the Mersey and up to reveal the iconic skyline. The Mersey ferry in shot. Dynamic, striking, cinematic image that makes Liverpool as iconic as Chicago or New York.")
S13EP2 - 10 (incl. "ICONIC: heroic Dan, with wok.")
S13EP3 - 5 (incl. "THE DOCTOR's boots step through the sand. She stands iconic, magnificently alone..."
S13EP4 - 1 (Just one! "And at the front, all alone, iconic -- THE DOCTOR is frozen. The Doctor is stone. THE DOCTOR IS A WEEPING ANGEL.")
S13EP5 - 3 (incl. "The woman turns -- iconic reveal: it's AWSOK.")
S13EP6 - 7 (incl. "Close in on Yaz as she looks around -- ducking from laser fire -- SEES! A length of rope with a hook at the end! TURNS! To look at the nearest door. On Yaz, iconic, heroic -- so Indiana Jones --")

There were 32 (Beat.)s in the first script alone.

with wok

genuine lol at “iconic reveal: it’s AWSOK”

- across 17 Chib-era stories with new aliens in, we've had

Tzim-Sha, of the warlike Stenza
space racist Krasko
pilot's brother Durkas *
alien tree monsters the Morax
amnesiac pilot Paltraki vs the religious Ux in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
interdimensional Kasaavins
spider monsters the Skithra
plastic virus Praxeus
nightmare werewolf monsters the Chagaska, created by fear-eating gods Zellin and Rakaya
and what is Ko Sharmus?

imagine Chibnall's terror everytime he meets a Keith or a Cassie or a Max, running and hiding under his desk because K and S sounds in names invariably mean "alien baddies" to him

* (not a baddie but caught hacking into medical records)

― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Monday, February 17, 2020 6:48 PM (one year ago)

the planetary surface of Fintleborxtug

― Dollarmite Is My Name (sic), Thursday, March 26, 2020 9:33 AM (one year ago)

in one single story, we added:

The FLUX, a cataclysm of unknown proportions or patterns.
A laser axe is on his back. KARVANISTA.
RITSKAW, strong, rough and tough mofo, nursing a metaphorical whisky.
A Sontaran wizard, if ever there was. KRAGAR.
Teacher and pupil, EN SENTAC and K-TOSCS
On the Doctor's horrified face! As then, coming through the centre, on a horse (!) is their
Commander SKAAK
AWSOK. 70s, female, imperious, kind, hard.
Reveal who he's talking to -- SONTARAN COMMANDER STENCK! (nb: this is his first appearance)
TECTEUN, now revealed to be secretly Awsok.
Scientist SENSTARG shuffles up. Possible he’s wearing a scientist style white coat! (Ray will have a better idea)

The New Doctor has arrived. it's been an absolute joy to be involved in this! pic.twitter.com/kymGN4oCNS

— Rob Ritchie (@Robritchie409) April 1, 2022

oh god i want that to be real in the worst way

spared myself the sea devils one but just saw the trailer for the “centenary” ep and lol what a catastrophe

Nice they celebrated the return of a Third Doctor-era villain by also going with Third Doctor-era special effects, stuntwork and pacing.

villain

fp'd for racism

The poster I'm seeing around for yesterday looks like it should be a pantomime.
Really not hot on Danny and still wondering what the convincing argument for him dressing like a pantomime pirate was. & if swimming in pirate boots is an inherently bad choice . Likely to add weight and things.
Actually seeing him in that overly white shirt had me wondering about laundering things on 17th/18th century ships so the state of a navy uniform over that time. Think things might wind up a tad grubby.

Did like the look of the pirate ship but not remotely convinced of practicality. Is my suspension of disbelief suspended.

Everything looked cheap and fake as fuck. Also the way the Sea Devil masks obviously had no movement built into them, so all the “expressions” were done in post using the “spherize” filter, quite badly.

This was really dire — like surprisingly dire, even by Chibnall standards — and I had to switch off after ten mins. Agree re: really rotten special effects I guess this was an attempt to make amends for Weng-Chiang but still seemed pretty appropriative & exploitative.

I couldn't find a copy yesterday and watched half of Big Trouble in Little China instead. It was a good choice.

very meta to do bad special effects badly

for Tracer: just missed the top ten on overnights, edged out by a repeat of Antiques Roadshow on BBC2

The Juno Dawson ‘Doctor Who: Redacted’ podcast is excellent, though. Cracking joke about TERFs in it right from the beginning.

I kind of didn't care about this while I was watching it and then I saw the cameos for the next episode and lost my fukkin mind

Doja Cat is the next Doctor