Doctor Who: The Witchfinders

King James wants to shag Ryan…okay then.

The plot:

The Doctor accidently ends up in Lancashire in the 1700s, whilst trying to get to Elizabeth I’s coronation.

She and her companions then find themselves embroiled in the murderous plans of Lady Becka Savage who’s been branding every woman she sees a witch and killing them.

The story is serviceable, if a little patronising. This is ironic, as it’s most patronising moment came when the Doctor pretty much looked at the camera and said ‘I’ve just been patronised because I’m a woman in the 1700s.’ I mean, was that supposed to be a self-aware joke; I just saw that happen, the Doctor’s visible frustration is enough to convey that. Visual story-telling; Show, don’t tell.

There were some funny moments, mainly based around Alum Cummings’ performance as King James. In particular, his poorly disguised infatuation with Ryan calls back to the old days of Russell T Davies’ comedic use of sexuality.

Another thing that’s back from the T Davies era; really bad audio management in the post-production. I actually said out loud to turn the music down during the Doctor’s witch trial. As budgets go for BBC series, Doctor Who gets a shedload, so there’s no excuse for this amateurism.

The witch-zombie things are pretty effective as villains, but the big boss (Evil Becka Savage monster queen) kind of strips away their creepiness, given that she looks like the monster of the week.

Overall an improvement on story, but a poor effort by post-production…looking at you sound guy.

Doctor Who: Kerblam!

Sports Direct is bad…and terrorism is good, so long as you direct it at the right company.

That’s the message of this episode, which is slightly confusing as far as responsibility goes.

So, the plot.

The Doctor receives fez from the titular delivery service that was apparently ordered by Eleven. It contains a note calling for help that the Doctor acts on in order to progress the plot.

The episode is alright even if it does carry over some of the ham-fistedness of last week.

The message is obvious and adequately delivered, but for the Doctor spelling it out right at the end which was unnecessary. Why work the message into the themes of the episode, if you were just going to run through it in dialogue later.

Lee Mack also has a cameo in this episode, contrary to what the post-credit guest star run down from episode one would have you believe. He gets to tell a few jokes and I suppose it’s an improvement on the last time they just threw a comedian into an episode.

Everyone is given something to do in the episode, with clear roles for all the cast to occupy. Ryan has another piece of back-story added, as he used to work for Sports Direct. I’m a little bit worried that this is going to become a habit of the writers, in terms of just throwing things into Ryan’s past. What happened to his vlogging?

The Doctor finally manages to wrestle back the limelight after being overshadowed in both the preceding episodes. Although, her moment is slightly undermined by the fact that she’s written to be unsure of herself. She can’t be the moral authority of an exchange and simultaneously unsure if she’s saying the right thing. It seems that writer Pete McTighe has taken more than a fez from Matt Smith’s run. But the reason that Smith could pull off the mad man in a box routine was that he dropped it when a serious moment arose. That sort of thing ensured that the tone shifted at the right time.

Aside from that, the Doctor’s stage presence is massively improved, but it’s too far into the series for her to still be trying to figure out her personality.

The special effects are…clearly “within budget” particularly in the massive distribution scene.

Overall, an improvement, but the bar wasn’t exactly high.

Doctor Who: The Demons of The Punjab

Ham-fisted and patronising.

This is the second episode of this series to address historical events and the repercussions thereof.

Like ‘Rosa’ a guest writer has been brought in for this one; Vinay Patel. Unlike ‘Rosa’, Patel cannot match Blackman’s writing talent and so misses the mark entirely in terms of conveying the consequences of carving up a  country.

Every issue is exposited through dialogue rather than visual representations. This means that we essentially have characters saying “this is really bad” over and over again. First rule of screen writing; show don’t tell.

The supporting cast in this episode could have done with some refinement. Hamza Jeetooa is completely wooden as Manesh; a person supposedly filled with religious/culturally motivated rage. It would lend credibility to his character, if emoted he every once in a while. Amita Suman is similarly without emotion throughout most of the episode. It was impossible to take either of these characters seriously when they were played as though their lines were being read of a teleprompter.

The fact that the titular demons turn out to be nothing is also annoying. A red herring has to be earned, else it’s just a cop-out. This is no different from ‘Kill the Moon’ where there was actually never a threat.

I was hoping that another guest writer might create a spike in the quality again, but sadly the story remains firmly on the Chibnall-level. Although the clearly low budget for this episode may be down to the head writer himself blowing a chunk of the cash on the terrible previous episode.

Another carry over from last week’s episode is the Doctor being completely without presence. She’s along for the ride in her own show and comes across like a side character.

Even when Moffat chose to focus more on Clara, the Doctor would still steal every scene. This probably has something to do with the fact that people are tuning in to watch Doctor Who. Not to view a patronising, poorly paced, GCSE level lecture on recent history.

If this lack of quality continues, we’ll have no choice but to forgive Moffat for ‘Twice Upon a Time’ and get him back on the writing staff.

Doctor Who: The Tsuranga Conundrum

A masterclass in how to waste a good cast and an inflated effects budget.

That was boring; plainly, simply boring.

Chris Chibnall takes over once again to deliver a snooze-fest out of something that should be an action romp.

Separated from the TARDIS and floating through space, the Doctor and friends must fight to survive, a small, poorly rendered (legally-distinguishable-from the-Warner-Bros-owned-Fantastic-Beasts-creature) ship-eating monster.

You’d actually have to work pretty hard to make that dull, but Chibnall manages.

Like The Ghost Monument, Chibnall’s weaknesses as a writer are on full display. Not only does he write the Doctor as a bit whiney but makes her out to lack all gravitas and authority. He did this in the Ghost Monument, by having her consistently try to gain the attention of people who ignored her without issue. In this episode, there’s a scene where Suzanna Packer literally steals the scene, as her character takes control of the situation. The Doctor is completely dwarfed in the space of two seconds, undermining any confidence in her.

The usually solid Whittaker plays her part in this as well. You could accept the Doctor would be brash whilst recovering from an injury, but the ease with which other characters steal the limelight, shows that she’s playing the Doctor at entirely the wrong pitch.

Getting back to the main issue with the episode (the writer) we have the return of Chibnall pacing, which could be used as a brilliant sleeping aid. It’s actually pretty incredible that someone can make so many action sequences lack all tension. His inability to write filler dialogue comes out in full as well, with some very forced and in fact shoehorned character development for Ryan. It’s completely out of place.

The music is similarly dull throughout.

Overall, this episode is a poor indicator of where this series is going. Chibnall is maintaining a grip on it and is not the right man for the job.

Rosa marked a significant improvement in the writing quality, so hopefully with Vinay Patel at the helm of the next episode the same will happen again.

Doctor Who: Arachnids in the UK

An up and down Halloween Special.

This episode falls into the category of okay. It’s thankfully absent Chibnall’s normal issues with pacing, but that appears to come at the expense of character development. It seems that if Chibnall can’t do character development through boring dialogue, he just doesn’t do it at all.

Story-wise, the Doctor manages to get, Ryan, Yas and Graham home, only to find that spiders in Sheffield have been acting weird and growing huge.

We get introduced to Yas’ family; her sister owns a phone, her dad is bad a cooking and her mum wants to know if Yas is seeing anyone. Like I said, the character development isn’t strong, but in terms of these characters this isn’t much of an issue.

Where it does become an issue is with the smart science lady whose name I’ve already forgotten. She is an entirely disposable character, but appears to get some of the Doctor’s dialogue when they discover what’s caused the giant spider problem.

Bradley Walsh continues to impress with the presentation of Graham’s grief and survivors’ guilt. The Doctor also gets some development, but her misunderstanding of what ‘seeing each other’ means feels borrowed from something Eleven would have said.

On that point, I’d usually bash the awful “science” that used to explain that a genetically engineered spider could mutate if exposed to toxic chemicals. Things that are toxic kill or injure you; they don’t make you stronger. However, I’m going to give Chibnall the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was a deliberate Halloween cliché of toxic waste creating a monster.

Now to the massive weakness of the episode; the Trump parody. I mean they even directly reference Trump when they talk about the hotel owner. Rather than being a character, he’s a caricature of an American businessman. He’s entirely cartoonish in his villainy, which really removes the suspension of disbelief.

The ending is also a bit stupid; I get that you have to get a “more scared of us” line in for the kids, but the radical shift to political commentary is just weird and out of place.

Overall not a bad episode, but could have done with focussing on being a Halloween special and not cramming an “important message” in at the end.