13th Doctor Announcement.

I’m worried about this…but not for the reason you think.

Sooo…a woman.

I think it’s pretty clear that this was going to happen. The build up to it has been “hinted” throughout the latter stages of series 10, with all the subtly of a club hammer.

In terms of Doctor Who’s survival, this change up would seem a logical step in the right direction. However, I remain pessimistic about the likelihood of it’s success.

And it has nothing to do with Jodie Whittaker.

My issue is with Chris Chibnall. Frankly, I have found most of his Who episodes to date…well…boring. I’ve reviewed most of them and the common theme is that he doesn’t have an eye for filler. Say what you will about Moffat, but at least his chit-chat and somewhat glib humour give you something to watch. Chibnall has never really been able to balance the action side of Doctor Who and the talky side of Doctor Who.

The other massive issue I have with him comes from his other work. I consider series 1 of Broadchurch amongst some of the best drama of the last 10 years. However it’s two sequels…well let’s just say I kind of felt like I missed the timeframe for reviewing them, but this seems like a good opportunity.  Series 2 completely removes the suspension of disbelief with a courtroom scene in which a judge orders a jury not to consider someone’s confession. Evidence in a criminal trial is subject to a pre-trial hearing so if defence had an issue with a confession they would have had to raise it prior to the trial. The judge would then decide if the confession was admissible as evidence. If the judge agreed with defence, the jury would never hear about the confession so it couldn’t prejudice their view at all. What does this have to do with Doctor Who?

Well if Chibnall is willing to throw both legal research and common sense out the window in the name of drama, how bad is it going to get when he’s working with a time travelling phone box?

Moving on to series 3 of Broadchurch…well…let’s discuss sexual crimes…I mean let’s discuss all of them. That’s what Chibnall tried to do with this series, to disastrous effect I might add.

The series follows the story of a character who’s been the victim of rape and then tries to build subplots around other characters who are either involved in or victims of other sexual crimes. The fact that DI Hardy’s daughter just so happens to be one of these victims seems too coincidental to be believed. Linking obtaining violent pornography to committing sexual crimes is a significant oversimplification of the issue. And most importantly, dotting those elements around the periphery of the main story doesn’t allow enough time to develop any of them. The issue of consent (that has become the centre of a national discussion) is what was at play in this series. The idea is that someone who would steal a nude photo of another person and distribute it has the same attitude towards consent as a rapist. This is, however, never explored by Chibnall (or any of the writers), as there simply isn’t enough time.

This is a problem. The BBC likes to use Doctor Who as a vessel for morals as well as entertainment. A head writer who likes to shove as many lessons onto the screen as possible and not leave enough time to explain any of them just isn’t going to work.

This becomes distinctly important, when you consider that Chibnall is invariably going to have to deal with issues of misogyny and women’s rights. I personally don’t think that Chibnall is up to the task.

His work on Who has shown a lack of ability to hold the audiences’ attention and his work on Broadchurch has shown a lack of longevity to his story arcs.

When doing something as radical as changing the Doctor into a woman (a move that will alienate a chunk of the audience) the show needs a head writer who can handle it.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s not Chris Chibnall.

Jodie Whittaker will have to be judged (as all who’ve played the Doctor) on her performance. But even the best actor in the world can’t work in a part if the writing isn’t good enough.  

Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls

Did Steven Moffat see an advance copy of Logan?

I say that, as this episode mirrors the tone of that film. As Bob Chipman put it, “a [story] about disappointment that isn’t afraid to disappoint you.”

That’s not a criticism; I liked this episode and I think it’s a pretty good ending.

All the story arcs run to their conclusion and end not where we’d been hoping they would but where they should. Specifically, the Doctor doesn’t have a way of reversing Bill’s condition as a Cyberman, Missy’s journey to becoming an ally is ended early by herself/himself and the Doctor does not come up with any awesome plan beyond die in a horrible explosion.

The Master/Missy’s story is the most prominent example of this. Everything right down to the trailer for this episode said she was going to fight along side the Doctor. But when it comes to it, she’s shot in the back by herself/himself after stabbing herself/himself in the back. This also nicely mirrors the theme of the Master being the dark parody of the Doctor. The Doctor will team up with himself and will normally have some sort of epiphany about himself. The Master will literally kill himself/herself if he doesn’t like what they have to say. The most tragic part of this arc is that the Doctor will never know that Missy tried to come back to help him.

Bill’s story arc is similar with the Pilot returning to save her at the end. There’s a throw away line about the Pilot being able to make Bill human again, which I wish wasn’t in there. I get that she has to have something close to a happy ending, but I think it would have been better if her story arc paralleled Missy’s.

Even Nardole gets a look in on the story theme, going to live on a floor with some farmers, safe in the knowledge that one day they’ll all be killed by the Cybermen.

The Doctor of course gets the lion’s share of the story, but I still wish that more time had been spent establishing his desire to remain as he is. Don’t get me wrong, Moffat writes the reluctant regeneration far better the Davies did. When Davies did it, it was basically, “I like my hair and Converse, please don’t make me change.” Here, we learn that the Doctor wants to stay the same because he’s afraid of the man he might become. This makes sense, given that one series before this he became the Hybrid and broke every rule that he’s ever lived by. He learnt his lesson from that and even used it to try and make the make the most dangerous creature in the universe (Missy) a better person. But given how strikingly different he knows himself to be from his predecessors, how can he be sure that the next Doctor will remember the lessons he’s learnt.

It’s also quite neat that the episode harkens back to the Doctor’s statement in Hell Bent. Bill now thinks he’s dead, but just because his body is dead doesn’t mean he’s not regenerating. “That’s why [Timelords] prefer to die around our own kind; they know not to bury us too soon.”

Overall, this is a pretty good ending to the series and the ending stinger of a team up with the First Doctor is pretty good.

Personally, I really hope that they don’t announce the new Doctor and that it’s revealed in the actual Christmas episode.

Doctor Who: World Enough and Time.

Well that was pretty damn good.

Steven Moffat gets a lot of flack for his writing, some it deserved, but most of it misplaced. The common complaint I’ve heard is that he’s obsessed with self-aware humour and fan service references.

In terms of the self-aware humour, I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t annoy me sometimes. This episode in particular goes overboard on it, with too many winks to the camera to a scene. I’m fine with Missy and the Doctor acknowledging that neither of their back stories make any sense and that throwing out lines like “He’s called Doctor Who; look at all the screens” but it’s just that they all come too close together. It’s difficult to engage in the episode when the self-aware dialogue is removing you from it every few seconds.

As far as the fan service references go, I’ve always seen them as secondary to the stories he’s building. They’ve never really bothered me and I always liked that Moffat is clearly a fan of the show and wants you to know it.

This episode it a showcase of Moffat’s ability as a writer. While it does have a significant development for Bill, the episode is actually about the Doctor and Missy.

This is a fact that you don’t really realise until the end. Bill’s transformation into a Cyberman is ultimately a distraction, from really delving into who Missy (and the Master) really is.

The Master is a dark parody of the Doctor and that’s the point that the story builds up to. The Doctors motivation in trying to help Missy is that she’s the only other Time Lord who’s ever seen the universe as he has.

I especially like the way that this factors in to her not recognizing her predecessor. In the same way as the Doctor appears to disregard memories from his previous incarnations (Twelve only ever feels de-ja-vu when he see’s something that we know Ten or Eleven already dealt with). Where all incarnations of the Doctor will cross their own timeline in order to save just one planet out of billions, the Master will cross his because he’s worried that his future incarnation isn’t killing enough people.

It’s not perfect; John Simm’s make up job isn’t really good enough so you guess it’s him as soon as he turns up and the time difference thing with the ship (while necessary) is really annoying.

But overall, this is a showcase of character driven story and definitely recommended.

Regarding the opening stinger with the Doctor regenerating, I don’t think that they’d do two fake outs in one series.

Moffat has said that this year’s Christmas special is going to be unlike any other in terms of the Doctor. Personally, I think that means the Doctor will be in a pre-regeneration state right up until the climax of the episode, possibly with the new Doctor surfacing in time to beat whoever the villain is.

Doctor Who: The Eaters of Light

Filler.

From the lame duck set up to end twist, this episode is purely something to do before John Simm comes back.

Rona Munro takes over writing duties in this one and while her dialogue isn’t bad there’s just too much of it. This is probably a symptom of a small special effects budget; with the main monster being all CGI it, the action has to be kept to a minimum.

This is no more evident than in the scenes where Bill hangs out with some Romans. Firstly, there’s an extended bit about her figuring out the TARDIS is translating everyone’s speech. I can’t see why this wouldn’t have come up before and why it’s only now that she’s even thinking about it. Secondly, she’s shocked to find that the Romans had a very fluid attitude towards sexuality, with bisexual being the general norm. Except the whole set up for the episode was that the Doctor and Bill had had an argument over who was the better expert on the Romans and the Ninth Legion. If she loves the Romans so much, why does this come as a surprise to her?

With these factors in place, this comes across as an excuse to bring up Bill’s sexuality again. “Look everyone; we’ve got a black, gay woman in our cast; please stop being upset that we didn’t cast Helen Mirren as the Doctor.”

In general, I think that Russell T Davies (for all the flaws with his tenure over Who) handled the issue of sexuality so much better. He had a casual attitude to the issues of who the characters were attracted to and more importantly, was secure enough in it not to contrive ways to bring who had what sexuality every five minutes.

Other than that, there’s not a lot to say about this episode.

It treads water until the anticipated return of two popular villains next week.

Doctor Who: Empress of Mars

A reptilian queen from 1881 tries to impose her will on the masses without mandate…how topical.

This episode is a welcome surprise. It’s far better than it’s trailer made out, largely because it’s trailer neglected the B story (which is incidentally more significant than the a story).

The A story sees the Doctor and Bill stranded on Mars in 1881, with a battalion of British troops, who have declared Mars part of the Empire and an Ice Warrior who claims to be the last of his kind. Right from the off you can pretty much see where it’s going, but it still remains fun to watch.

The B story focuses on Nardole as the TARDIS decides to reverse to the Doctor’s study and park there refusing to move.

Nardole is eventually forced to go to Missy for help in getting it working again. Like I said, the strength of this story is that it was left out of trailer. It works to kill two birds, but removing the Doctor’s easy escape route and building on the suspicion surrounding Missy.  She has the know-how to remotely control the TARDIS, but also pilots it back to save the Doctor and seems concerned about him. The downside to this, is that it’s completely out of character for Nardole to go to Missy for help. He’s berated the Doctor for leaving Missy’s cell unguarded for a matter of hours; it’s difficult to see him releasing her for any reason regardless of the stakes. It would have made more sense for Bill to have been the one to let her out as she’s the least cautious around Missy. On that point, aside from a female empowerment moment, Bill is slightly wasted in the A plot; she really doesn’t have anything to do besides exist.

The titular Empress of Mars is good as both a character and villain. Once again, the writers make it slightly political by having a female ruler who’s (literally) disconnected from the age in which she’s operating and in desperate need of figuring out how to get along with others.

Overall, this is a fun (politically satirical) episode, but the B story comes across as far more significant than the A.