WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

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

Doja Who

They already had the Doctor sic* Nazis on the Master, so it wouldn't be a huge stretch

* not you, sic

It's only a matter of time before they start retconning the Doctor into 90s pop culture, like making them an original member of the Durutti Column or something

sorry 80s-90s that is

God, that was terrible. I really liked the Daleks on NYE one, but this was frankly panto.

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

on +7, turned out the #3 for the day, #1 from any BBC channel. The Antiques Roadshow ep ended up outside the top 50.

There was a music hit in the 90s wasn't there. KLF related. Or am I a decade out.

Hope springs infernal, as my dad would say

1988, Stevolende. So not too far out!

redacted is very good imo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0c0krqf

i.e. suzy otm

In case anyone wasn't steaming with anticipation for the grand beebentenary special already, Thrillmeister Chris has released an official PR statement:

"This is certainly the biggest episode we’ve done during our time on the show. The story spans multiple locations and time periods, and there are multiple characters."

(full quote: “This is certainly the biggest episode we’ve done during our time on the show,” says writer and executive producer Chris Chibnall, speaking exclusively to Doctor Who Magazine. “The story spans multiple locations and time periods, and there are multiple characters. A huge amount of love for Doctor Who has been poured into this. But at its heart, this is a very simple and emotional story about things we’ve been feeling since Jodie started. It ends with thematic resonances of where that story began.”)

iconic multiple characters

The Trial of a Female Time Lord

did he forget that survivors of the flux took place in every chrono trigger zone? that was 4 episodes ago

I think he probably means "this one has more minutes in it than the previous longest one I done"

(there has only ever been one episode longer, in 1983)

things we’ve been feeling since Jodie started

Frustration, impatience, despondency…

Good old Chris, still doing the absolute bare minimum required by his contract to promote the show he's worked on for the last five years.

They should've used this version of the theme for his era, it would perfectly set the tone for everything that followed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQc1weL6MNM

more spine-tingling hype from the master of words:

‘It is different. It’s visually very different. And where it takes place is different. I think I can say that without it being too much of a spoiler. It definitely feels different. It’s not going to take place in the same place as the previous regenerations’.

What cracks me up about that is the commercial letting us know it's the greatest hits of villains - Cybermen, Daleks, and The Master, which is anti-different.

Yes, but there'll be whatever further character-diminishing halfwitted additions to the Doctor's origin story he's determined to shove in before he goes out the door.

Bets on Timeless Child not being resolved and/or making sense by the end of the the finale (just the death of most of the universe never being mentioned again)

*just like

That last quote is clearly the sort of thing Chuck and James are talking about - every single previous BBC Doctor-changes-face-or-body 1966-2017 have been down to Time Lord technology (/potions/yoga), and nearly all in the TARDIS, which was originally established as being the thing what does it. But now he's rewritten it that regeneration is an inherent property of the Doctor, which Time Lord eugenicists stole out of her space DNA, so he's going to do the first nu-Who regen that isn't in the TARDIS and doesn't have laser whips shooting out of her face and hands.

I'm looking forward to it, because at least Flux showed he could deliver something passably fun, if no less dumb than usual. And obvioiusly there's some curiosity about what he'll do with [redacted fan service guest stars], although obvs the answer will turn out to be: (1) give them a bittersweet backstory delivered as an over-expositional monologue (2) get them to do the catchphrases (3) have roughly 2.5 minutes screen time each

Anyway - in summary:

First two seasons: Appalling

New Year's episodes: (1) Okay (2) Appalling (3) Problematically centered a huge creep as one of the romantic leads, but somehow fun!

Flux: I'll happily admit to enjoying most of this; it's maybe the only time the show's been better than the worst epsiodes of the RTD and Moffat runs - faint praise, but still praise!

Sea Devils episode: Maybe one of the worst things I've ever quit watching after six minutes!

My partner, who's happily watched every episode with me, even the one where David Tennant got turned into a CGI parrot, tapped out during Spyfall, when she fell asleep during Stephen Fry's scene and never watched another story.

I'll speak up for the two Vinay Patel episodes in the first two seasons (Demons of the Punjab and Fugitive of the Judoon) and some of the others (The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, The Haunting of Villa Diodati) are still better than say Nightmare in Silver, or Daleks in Manhattan.

On the other hand 'The Doctor watches in horror, as the other side of the portal reveals the ruined Gallifrey, much to everyone's confusion. The Master leaps through, exclaiming that the Doctor should be afraid because everything is about to change forever' so yeah, no arguments with Appalling as an average mark.

... is Tom Baker well these days?

This was fine (service) at least to the point I cba to nitpick. Dhawan really good once again - feel free to do The Three Masters next year RTD.

i watched this in fast forward, plot seemed incredibly convoluted but whatever, got a kind of New Adventures vibe from some of the fan service bits and maybe that was nice? at one point the cybermen masks looked a bit more like the Invasion ones and that was nice too.

anyway glad that's over. what a shame. looking forward to liking the show i like again (fingers crossed anyway).

Dhawan as Rasputin was good, but he was as terrible as ever once he was 'The Master' (which is why I'm happy to blame Chibnall).

The main nitpick is what is hell the Master 'being the Doctor' is supposed to be, what part of his plan could he not do before?

The vibe reminded me a lot of The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, which I don't mind. It did kind of underline that the Davies / Moffat doctors are more transformational - they send their companions off spinning into the universe, or dead, or Donna.

Impressive project management, shame about the story

The fan service was a bit insipid - who on earth was it for? (I don’t count) - but Sophie Aldred was v fun whenever she was onscreen.

Straightwashing Tegan was typical Chibnall carelessness

Fingers crossed it’s better next time