Doctor Who Series 13: Goodbye, Mr. Chibs

[Mister Six]

I'm pretty sure 'we' did actually receive previews of her first episode. That must've been the case, in fact, as I reviewed it for my column that ran in the following week's Saturday mag (13/10/2018). Episode one went out on my 44th birthday, Sunday 7th October 2018, when my folks came over to visit. So I must've written my copy at least seven days before that.

Some boring factual information for you there.

Either way, yes. This is no way to run a fucking ballroom.

I meant more in terms of audience previews - adverts, clips, stuff like that. IIRC the only season preview we got was just a bunch of headshots of the various guest stars. There certainly seemed to be a lot less info on the ground, but maybe that's just because we didn't have fucking Biggy in here, cunting the place up with spoilers.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Ah yeah, of course.

[The Roofdog]

I'm pretty sure 'we' did actually receive previews of her first episode.

I was going to ask Ballard, has this ever happened before? Day Of t The Doctor, I assume? This is just utterly inept.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I was going to ask Ballard, has this ever happened before? Day Of t The Doctor, I assume? This is just utterly inept.

Yep, Day of the Doctor was kept under wraps. Quite right too. Apart from that, this is the first time a new series of DW has dribbled out in this way.

[Midas]

Can't help feeling this is damage limitation. I am now morbidly fascinated to see how terrible it is tbh.

It's pretty effective marketing given that I wasn't going to watch any of this series. :))

[Ambient Sheep]

There's probably supporting evidence to be found in Ambient's master list of Who threads, if anyone can be bothered to look. Bags not it!

Easy enough to find, given that the master list explicitly links to the moment it aired. :-)

Ballad's initial reviews were just four pages earlier:

I've watched it.

It was fine.

Jodie is very charming and likeable.

The companions/friends didn't make much of an impression. Bradley Walsh, as expected, is decent.

That's all I can really say at this point.

It's a decent enough reboot, but it never fizzes like Rose and, especially, The Eleventh Hour. It's not as good as that other great reboot, Smith and Jones, either.

My problem with the episode is that it isn't particularly exciting or funny. It's adequately enjoyable, above average at best. A whole series of above average Chibnall-run episodes isn't an inspiring prospect, but I'm still holding out hope. This sounds like the faintest praise imaginable, I know, but the fact that it isn't bad or embarrassing is a relief.

I do think, however, that if you'd never seen Doctor Who before, you'd probably be quite taken with it. Jodie is very good, she's instantly engaging and comfortable in the role. I felt the same way as I did when I first watched Matt Smith in The Eleventh Hour - within the first five minutes, I thought, "Yep, nailed it. Nothing to worry about there."

Other things I liked: the villain is rather repulsive and formidable; the Doctor's new pals are pleasant; those expensive new lenses were a worthwhile investment, it looks great; it's literally and figuratively quite dark, but not in a self-conscious Torchwood way; the score is fairly understated.

I'm still cautiously optimistic. Jodie, as I say, has bags of potential.

Straight off the bat, Chibnall and Whittaker present a consistent character: even while struggling with the usual post-regeneration wobbles, she's funny, charming, brave, inquisitive and humane.

Whittaker has a very expressive face. She never gurns like Tennant, but she displays occasional flashes of endearing goofiness. She plays it straight for the most part, though. Everything you'd want from a Doctor, really - she's as comfortable with drama and moments of subtlety as she is with the wackier requirements of the role.

Just watched it again, and I've revised my lukewarm opinion. I couldn't really relax during my first viewing, as I was in nervy, note-taking critical mode, bit it's actually pretty good.

As expected, it's more in tune with RTD than Moffat, but I think that's what Doctor Who needs right now. No one wants a bland retread of the RTD era, but this first episode gets back to basics - a likeable Doctor with an intriguing, relatably human surrogate family - in a rather refreshing way.

What a shame his optimism wasn't borne out by the subsequent shitshow.


Mind you, the most startling thing I came across while thumbing through the old pages was this:

The theme tune we heard over the ending credits was pleasing too.  It'll be good to see it over the opening titles next week.

Wot, no cutlery drawer? :-)

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

EDIT: Sort of vaguely proud of my 2018 self for being somewhat optimistic.

[pigamus]

I'm actually looking forward to it now - it's like the last few weeks in a really shit school. Soon be over.

[Replies From View]

No. There won't be a clause in RTD's contract dictating that the offer will be rescinded if Chibnall's run continues to tank.

It really does feel like they're trying to get his final batch of episodes out of the way as swiftly and painlessly as possible. So by the time RTD returns with a new Doctor, most viewers will have forgotten that any of this guff ever happened. They're presumably angling for a full bells and whistles relaunch in 2023. It's back!

_{Even though it never actually went away...}

It's this, isn't it.  The BBC don't have any care to promote Chibnall's final wave, because the less present Doctor Who feels now, the more refreshing RTD's return will feel.

Unfortunately Doctor Who's contribution to the BBC 100th will be high profile and utter cack, so there's that obstacle to overcome.

[Ambient Sheep]

EDIT: Sort of vaguely proud of my 2018 self for being vaguely optimistic.

I missed your first version, but I hope you weren't upset by my dragging your old posts up.  I thought, as your edit implies, it was rather sweet.

It's worth remembering that (as I recall, but I could be wrong, I haven't looked) that most of us liked the first episode although some, like me, felt the death of Grace to be upsetting in its pointlessness.

Indeed we quite liked the second and third too, although some felt Rosa to be patronising and too on the nose.

It was only when we got to the fourth (Arachnids), and worse still, the fifth (Tsuranga), that we really gathered what a shitshow (pun not intended, but fitting) it was turning out to be.

Then, after the brief rally that was Punjab, we got Ker-fucking-Blam! and the rest was history.

Although I did quite like the frog on a chair.  Most hated it.

[Alberon]

When Chibnall really pushes himself he can get near acceptable and the first episode wasn't that bad as things go. Grace's death is more important in retrospect as it was made pointless by the eye being taken off the ball in production.

When he reverts to normal level of effort it all falls apart and I'm pretty sure there were complaints with episode 2, but we were more willing to give Chibnall the benefit of the doubt then.

I liked the frog too.

[Replies From View]

Mind you, the most startling thing I came across while thumbing through the old pages was this:

Wot, no cutlery drawer? :-)

I have never been hateful towards the theme tune compared to other aspects of Chibnall's tenure, and I can't remember what I thought when I first heard it, but you don't pick up on all the details the first time around.  My initial impression was clearly positive, but it's always nice to hear Derbyshire's recorded elements after a long bout of absence.

I really do feel the cutlery drawer swamps everything positive about it, though.  There's no rhythm being added, it just sounds like you're trying to hear the theme tune but you're on a train or somewhere and the background sounds are leaking through your headphones.

[beanheadmcginty]

Calling it now: there will be an episode of Doctor Who that celebrates the BBC's 100th anniversary by implying that Doctor Who invented the BBC.

[Replies From View]

Calling it now: there will be an episode of Doctor Who that celebrates the BBC's 100th anniversary by implying that Doctor Who invented the BBC.

I'm fearing something more meta than that, if I'm honest.  Some winks-to-the-camera "if the BBC isn't formed then we can't exist" bollocks without necessarily explicitly stating why, just being annoying in how clever it thinks its being.  Or walking through the BBC corridors in 1963 and the cast of Doctor Who are there, or somesuch shite.  Basically taking the subtle-enough joke from Remembrance of the Daleks and hammering it in with Chibnall's incapacity for nuance and general dunderheaded clunk.  It feels inevitable.


Weird to think that they now need to film somewhere else to replicate Television House because it no longer exists.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Just show Twice Upon A Time again for the 100th. Pretend the Chibnall years were just a fever dream brought on by refusing to regenerate.

[Replies From View]

The fuck

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-yaz-doctor-romance-newsupdate/


"For quite some time, Doctor Who fans have wondered... what's the deal with the Doctor and Yaz? Ever since the first appearances of Jodie Whittaker's Time Lord and her human companion, viewers have questioned if the pair could be more than friends"

Based on what, exactly?  What a load of balls.  Absolutely reaching to find some kind of characteristics within Chibnall's era, just anything because surely it's impossible for characters to have nothing.

But no, I'm afraid these characters have nothing.  They are and have nothing.

[Huxleys Babkins]

There was that one time when Claire Clairmont was complaining to Yaz that she didn't know whether Byron was in love with her or not and Yaz says "I know someone like that", kind of inferring that she was in love with the Doctor, but there was fuck all beyond that. Maybe her living in the second TARDIS, obsessing over the Doctor is another example, but it's a real stretch.

But that's the problem with Chibnall. Is it nothing or does he mean something, but written it so ineptly and thinly that you can barely notice it if at all? Forcing the viewer to make up their own narratives because he's incapable of writing them himself.

Chibnall's never really been one for a romantic/sexual undercurrent or letting relationships naturally develop in any of his work. It's like an on/off switch. Torchwood's Owen and Gwen shagging out of nowhere being a great example. Anyone else would have written them getting closer over time, bonding over the double life she now had to lead, the tension this caused with Rhys, etc. Not here. Gwen just turns up out of nowhere in Owen's flat for a seeing to.

[Replies From View]

That article reckons it's been there since day one, which is barking.

[Alberon]

Yaz has barely been there from day one.

[Replies From View]

It's the worst of all worlds, because by all means have well-written asexual characters who have a strong platonic relationship, or neuro-diverse and/or introverted characters who struggle to interact socially - any of this would be meaningful and truthful.  And would actually be very welcome in this television landscape in which currently all sexuality is validated except asexuality.


But Chibnall wants it both ways - very shit dialogue, no character development or chemistry between characters, then lo and behold some shagging.  Well pick and choose, Chibnall.

[Mister Six]

There's a line somewhere in the first season, maybe Arachnids, where (I think) Yaz's mum asks Yaz if The Doctor is her girlfriend and The Doctor says "No, I'm not. [Turns to Yaz] Am I?"

Something like that. I think it's one of those things that Chibnall had in his head when he was generating[nb]The only appropriate word for his weird, inorganic approach to character creation.[/nb] the core cast, but then forgot to put in most of the rest of the show because he's got no idea how character arcs or even fundamental writing works.

[Ambient Sheep]

Yeah, I think it's been well-enough implied that Yaz has a soft spot for the Doctor.  Vaguely at first, then a little bit more strongly as the episodes went on.

I think there was another time or two as well as the two examples given above, but like most of his run, I struggle to remember them.

Should it be consummated?  Fuck no.

So, given Chibnall, it'll probably happen.

[A Hat Like That]

I'm fearing something more meta than that, if I'm honest.  Some winks-to-the-camera "if the BBC isn't formed then we can't exist" bollocks without necessarily explicitly stating why, just being annoying in how clever it thinks its being.  Or walking through the BBC corridors in 1963 and the cast of Doctor Who are there, or somesuch shite.  Basically taking the subtle-enough joke from Remembrance of the Daleks and hammering it in with Chibnall's incapacity for nuance and general dunderheaded clunk.  It feels inevitable.


Weird to think that they now need to film somewhere else to replicate Television House because it no longer exists.

This,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ6SIaVwUpA

but shit?

[Replies From View]

Yeah, I think it's been well-enough implied that Yaz has a soft spot for the Doctor.  Vaguely at first, then a little bit more strongly as the episodes went on.

I don't get it, I honestly don't. 

If I was hanging out with Yaz and assumed from those examples of her behaviour that she was into me, let me tell you from experience that she'd warmly but firmly say, "I'm sorry if you think I've been leading you on, but I've very carefully been an utterly empty vessel with no distinct characteristics whatsoever.  But I'd like us to remain friends."

[frajer]

"I'm sorry if you think I've been leading you on, but I've very carefully been an utterly empty vessel with no distinct characteristics whatsoever.  But I'd like us to remain friends fam."

If I never hear the word "fam" spoken by a Doctor again that would be just grand. I'm sure it'll be trotted out in Thirteenth's regeneration speech but then never again please.

[Mister Six]

I don't get it, I honestly don't. 

If I was hanging out with Yaz and assumed from those examples of her behaviour that she was into me, let me tell you from experience that she'd warmly but firmly say, "I'm sorry if you think I've been leading you on, but I've very carefully been an utterly empty vessel with no distinct characteristics whatsoever.  But I'd like us to remain friends."

That doesn't sound like Yaz. Where are the question marks?

[Huxleys Babkins]

If I never hear the word "fam" spoken by a Doctor again that would be just grand. I'm sure it'll be trotted out in Thirteenth's regeneration speech but then never again please.

Would love it if she had a 5-to-6 style regeneration and all of her companions appeared, egging her on, and Ryan just did a Father Dougal.

[mothman]

OH. "Arachnids In The UK" - I just got it...

[Mister Six]

Chibnall went on about that pun (which was devised by the bloke that did Punjab, I believe) and how clever it was.

But it's not, is it? Anarchy doesn't sound or look like arachnids at all, and there's no deeper meaning. It's shit.

[JamesTC]

Even modern Simpsons, which repeatedly use some of the most embarrassing puns in episode titles, can do better than that.