Doctor Who - Series 12, Chibnall's Revenge

[Mister Six]

Spyfall clip

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bn_0NXHefpE&t=5s

Time to #YazQuestion: 24 seconds.

Anyway, boring clip but I assume it's one of the few that explains a bit of the plot but doesn't need some post-production shit on it.

I'm also sure that the rest of the episode will be boring, of course, post-production shit or no.

[Cloud]

"She's no longer human.... just a shell with a human appearance"

So exactly as she was before and nothing has changed then?

[Old Gold Tooth]

"Is she in a coma?"
*QI klaxon goes off*

[olliebean]

Spyfall clip

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bn_0NXHefpE&t=5s

That honestly sounds like the dialogue was written by Talk to Transformer or something. Utterly unoriginal.

[Alberon]

#YazQuestions!

[Alberon]

Well, the dialogue is no better.

[Old Gold Tooth]

I tried to be positive after liking the trailer but yeah it's dire. Even allowing for it being out of context it's so flat and lifeless. Imagine being happy with that as your final draft. Pedestrian as fuck.

[Alberon]

Maybe Stephen Fry is playing an alien who can only talk in cliches?

[DistressedArea]

Tryfail

[Norton Canes]

Spaff all (your half decent ideas in your first episode and shoot dust thereafter)

[Camp Tramp]

I decided to run the synopsis through Talk To Transformer to see if it could make a better plot.
TtT decided it would be best to bring back Peter Moffatt is script writer.

When intelligence agents around the world come under attack from alien forces, MI6 turns to the only people who can help — a certain Doctor and her companions. As they travel the globe in pursuit of answers, threats arrive from all sides, leaving Earth's security resting on the team's shoulders. But where will this planet-threatening conspiracy lead them? And who is the Doctor's secret love interest, the intelligence agent known as Madame Vastra? Guest starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Natalie Dormer, the season two finale of Doctor Who is one of the most

[pigamus]

First time in 31 years I might not bother watching it. Depressing.

[Ambient Sheep]

My first thought was: "Christ, when did Stephen Fry get so fat?"

My second thought was: "Bloody hell, Jodie's suddenly looking old, maybe that bottle of wine a day that RFV mentioned [and that I hadn't been previously aware of] is having an effect."

I'm clearly feeling very shallow today.

More constructive(?) thoughts are that it started quite well, then the #YazQuestion annoyed me: "No of course she's not in a bloody coma, she's just lying there chilling out, listening to smooth jazz, and the tracheotomy was a body-mod that she had done for fun".  Still, managed to get past that, and it was all seeming quite promising, until that fucking shite about just being a shell etc.

You can hear the clanging of the tin ear for dialogue from here.  It's just woeful, absolutely woeful, 1950s SF B-movie potboiler stuff.  Fucking hell, I've never written professionally in my life (unless you count vision mixer manuals!), and always found fiction essays a serious chore at school, but even I wouldn't write shite like that.  What is WRONG with him? 

[Camp Tramp]

My first thought was: "Christ, when did Stephen Fry get so fat?"

My second thought was: "Bloody hell, Jodie's suddenly looking old, maybe that bottle of wine a day that RFV mentioned [and that I hadn't been previously aware of] is having an effect."

I'm clearly feeling very shallow today.

More constructive(?) thoughts are that it started quite well, then the #YazQuestion annoyed me: "No of course she's not in a bloody coma, she's just lying there chilling out, listening to smooth jazz, and the tracheotomy was a body-mod that she had done for fun".  Still, managed to get past that, and it was all seeming quite promising, until that fucking shite about just being a shell etc.

You can hear the clanging of the tin ear for dialogue from here.  It's just woeful, absolutely woeful, 1950s SF B-movie potboiler stuff.  Fucking hell, I've never written professionally in my life (unless you count vision mixer manuals!), and always found fiction essays a serious chore at school, but even I wouldn't write shite like that.  What is WRONG with him?

Is he trapped in the role like JNT was?

[Ambient Sheep]

Also, just watched it again, to pick up on a couple of specific things that bugged me the first time and now bug me even more.

Firstly, would the Doctor really consider "her DNA's been rewritten, every strand corrupted and reshaped" to be "impossible"?  Really?!  I'm sure something similar's been done before... I mean for a start the nanobots in Eccleston's The Doctor Dances must have come close, and didn't something similar happen in the original series let alone the revival?

Secondly, and this really annoyed me: not only is she "just a shell with a human appearance", but also "there's nothing of her TO live... it's like she's been erased."  O RLY?  Then what the fuck is that beeping heart monitor picking up?  Stupid.  Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

Fuckssake.

Can't we shine a Moffat-lantern onto the clouds, or something?  Get him back in as a script doctor whilst Chibbers just deals with all the tedious admin side of the showrunning?  EDIT: not saying Chibnall can't still be in charge of the overall plots and his vision of the show, just don't let him be the last person to touch the scripts, FFS!

Is he trapped in the role like JNT was?

It's tempting to see it that way, but the horrible thing is that he seems to be enjoying it.  Perhaps those that hang around OG would have a better idea about that than I would.

[olliebean]

Firstly, would the Doctor really consider "her DNA's been rewritten, every strand corrupted and reshaped" to be "impossible"?  Really?!  I'm sure something similar's been done before... I mean for a start the nanobots in Eccleston's The Doctor Dances must have come close, and didn't something similar happen in the original series let alone the revival?

It's literally what the Chameleon Arch, a major plot MacGuffin in season 3, does. (I don't think they described it in those terms, but it is nonetheless what it does.)

[The Roofdog]

Firstly, would the Doctor really consider "her DNA's been rewritten, every strand corrupted and reshaped" to be "impossible"?  Really?!  I'm sure something similar's been done before... I mean for a start the nanobots in Eccleston's The Doctor Dances must have come close, and didn't something similar happen in the original series let alone the revival?

The hospital conversation with Richard Wilson was the first thing that came to mind for me: an almost identical infodump to get us into the main adventure really, but I can still quote that scene almost word for word: even if it didn't have Constantine transforming at the end it would still be a masterclass of building mystery, suspense and creeping horror. Chibnall couldn't give a gnat's chuff about any of those things. And he thinks this is the scene to use as a *trailer*, fuck me.

[daf]

The Federation starship TARDIS, under the command of Dr Who, encounters an alien ship. Upon approach, the mysterious "Q.I." appears in the Console room. He stuns the entire crew then examines each of them, taking particular interest in the Police Officer Yaz. When the crew awakens, Chief Dyspraxic Officer Ryan finds Yaz in sick bay with her bum surgically removed. Because of her unusual Yorkshire physiology, Yaz's body can be kept alive in this state for twenty-four hours, giving Dr Who that much time to recover her stolen bum.

[Ambient Sheep]

It's literally what the Chameleon Arch, a major plot MacGuffin in season 3, does. (I don't think they described it in those terms, but it is nonetheless what it does.)

Yes, of course!  That was the other new series example that I was struggling to remember but couldn't.  And you're right, that IS exactly what it does, and I'm not even sure that they didn't actually SAY that it rewrites the owner's DNA!

Seems to me that at this rate they're going to need a continuity expert to be Ian Levine to Chibnall's JNT.  *shudder*

[H-O-W-L]

The hospital conversation with Richard Wilson was the first thing that came to mind for me: an almost identical infodump to get us into the main adventure really, but I can still quote that scene almost word for word: even if it didn't have Constantine transforming at the end it would still be a masterclass of building mystery, suspense and creeping horror. Chibnall couldn't give a gnat's chuff about any of those things. And he thinks this is the scene to use as a *trailer*, fuck me.

Just remembering that scene and mentally dissecting it for a moment gave me fucking fantastic shivers.
"They're... not... dead."
"The. exact. same. injuries."

Also, might sound a bit wrong of me, but I sort of hate how the Doctor's lost her capacity for menace and fury in the Chinball era. Am I just misremembering (since I haven't watched it since first airing) or have they just stopped writing in moments for her to actually be the Oncoming Storm tier motherfucker she was capable of being prior? That was one thing I really loved about the later Moffat era and Twelve as a whole; the capacity for some startling, Fourth/Fifth Doctor level cruelty toward right evil bastards.

[VelourSpirit]

If Steven Moffat wrote a scene like that Spyfall shit... well, he wouldn't, but if he did you would immediately know you were in for a complete subversion afterwards. You'd be fully aware he was completely taking the piss. Spyfall will at most be tongue-in-cheek but offer nothing of substance.

[Replies From View]

Is he trapped in the role like JNT was?

I mean... he's been a fan of Doctor Who all his life and this should be his dream job.  He's done all of one series so far.  It could possibly be argued that Moffat was trapped like JNT was, in the sense that he intended the Christmas Special 'The Husbands of River Song' to be his final contribution to the show, and managed to stay for two more specials and another series after that while all the admin around his successor was ongoing.

If Chibnall is now experiencing an idea-deficit and struggling to hold it together after only one series, after being a fan of this character and premise since childhood, then he must be one of the very very shittest humans to ever have graced this earth.

[Zetetic]

Secondly, and this really annoyed me: not only is she "just a shell with a human appearance", but also "there's nothing of her TO live... it's like she's been erased."  O RLY?  Then what the fuck is that beeping heart monitor picking up?  Stupid.  Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

And it speaks to a horrifying genetic essentialism about what qualifies you as human, or a person, or a particular person.

[lipsink]

The Federation starship TARDIS, under the command of Dr Who, encounters an alien ship. Upon approach, the mysterious "Q.I." appears in the Console room. He stuns the entire crew then examines each of them, taking particular interest in the Police Officer Yaz. When the crew awakens, Chief Dyspraxic Officer Ryan finds Yaz in sick bay with her bum surgically removed. Because of her unusual Yorkshire physiology, Yaz's body can be kept alive in this state for twenty-four hours, giving Dr Who that much time to recover her stolen bum.

Well, I'd chug to that.

[mjwilson]

Just remembering that scene and mentally dissecting it for a moment gave me fucking fantastic shivers.
"They're... not... dead."
"The. exact. same. injuries."

Also, might sound a bit wrong of me, but I sort of hate how the Doctor's lost her capacity for menace and fury in the Chinball era. Am I just misremembering (since I haven't watched it since first airing) or have they just stopped writing in moments for her to actually be the Oncoming Storm tier motherfucker she was capable of being prior? That was one thing I really loved about the later Moffat era and Twelve as a whole; the capacity for some startling, Fourth/Fifth Doctor level cruelty toward right evil bastards.

She has a moment in the Battle of whatever I think, although I forget the details. And there's that callous bit in The One With The Frog where she writes "his daughter's probably dead" on the blind man's wall. (Again I'm hazy on the details so I might be a bit off.) But that's about it I think.

[Old Gold Tooth]

She also got needlessly self-righteous with the poor lad on the crane after he disposed of the evil alien that had been hunting him. Where was that fire on Kerblam.com planet, Doc?

[Malcy]

https://cultbox.co.uk/news/doctor-who-series-12-spyfall-cast-and-character-names

[Alberon]

Looks like they've remembered Yaz is a police officer. And her family is back.

Joy.

[Thomas]

Just watched 'The Unquiet Dead'. Lovely proper moral conflict between the Doctor and his new companion, and Rose gets her attitude slightly knocked and reshaped by her experience with Gwyneth. Good companion development ep (and the closest Eccleston came to a Christmas special, which is why I've rewatched it. Excellent turn by Simon Callow).

The Doctor's position on the Gelth's use of dead bodies is great ethical material. The sort of thing discussed upthread, the tough and righteous morality of the Twelfth Doctor.

Remember when the Tenth Doctor stomped through New New York banning those emotion patches? Bit more Jeremy Kyle, that.

Anyway, MI6. The last we saw of the security services in the Whoniverse was MI5 in Children of Earth, complicit in the supply of children to the 456. RTD could be a great cutting writer, harsh and gloomy.

[Old Gold Tooth]

That article just reminded me Chibnall scrapped UNIT for a cheap joke about government funding cuts. Sigh.