Doctor Who Series 13: Goodbye, Mr. Chibs

[Ambient Sheep]

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.

Delving into the archives again...

Apparently the 'Arachnids in the UK' title was suggested by Vinay Patel, even though he didn't write that episode.

I hope Patel phoned him up afterwards and said, "Err, you do know that I was joking? It's a shit pun, mate, don't call your episode that."

:-)

But it doesn't work on any level. "Arachnids" isn't a clever play on "anarchy" - it's literally just another word that begins with the same letter. "Arachnids in the UK" sounds like a boring report from the Department of Agriculture or something.

[Mister Six]

Haha, your knowledge of these threads is incredible, Sheepy.

[Norton Canes]

Even 'Arachnidy in the UK' would have been better

[Ambient Sheep]

Haha, your knowledge of these threads is incredible, Sheepy.

I didn't remember the details, I just remembered a lot of moaning about the pun. :-)  One google of
Arachnids in the UK pun site:cookdandbombd.co.uk later and, for once these days, it found the page immediately.

[lipsink]

Imagine this Doctor's regeneration "speech"

"Ooh, this feels weird. Oh well, I'll miss everyone. Righto. Ta ta."

(Regenerates into Michaela Coel)

[mjwilson]

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.

When this happens I want my share of the credit:

Just realised that the special for the BBC centenary is going to revolve around the Doctor travelling back to the founding of the BBC (and probably coming up with the idea herself).

[pigamus]

Well the most obvious dullard's idea would be to have her meet Lord Reith. So put your house on it.

[Ambient Sheep]

Imagine this Doctor's regeneration "speech"

"Ooh, this feels weird. Oh well, I'll miss everyone. Righto. Ta ta."

(Regenerates into Michaela Coel)

:-D

[BritishHobo]

I don't think I'll mind if

Spoiler alert

the Doctor kisses Yaz

[close]

, because at least it'll mean a display of some form of emotion, in an era where most interactions feel like you're watching a play about two repressed academics going through a chilly divorce. Even if it's shit, it's something.

[Cloud]

There were highlights?!

Well, to be fair, I did like that bit where he fell off his bike

[Mister Six]

Episode 2: WAR OF THE SONTARANS

The Doctor has an unexpected encounter with one of her deadliest enemies when the Sontarans become a new faction in the Crimean War. As the British army goes into pitched battle with the warlike aliens, the Doctor and her companions seek the help of renowned nurse Mary Seacole (Sara Powell), while an ancient temple hides mysterious secrets.

Was just thinking about that plot description, and what sounds like another crowbarred-in educational element, and remembered something that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago. I think someone else on here might have said something similar, and if they did I'm sure Sheepy will find it soon enough, but sod it - here we go!

Recently I've been re-reading Roald Dahl's kids' books, and greatly enjoyed the bit in James and the Giant Peach in which James and his newly enlarged, talking insect/invertebrate pals all take turns to tell him about their unique abilities. It's obviously educational stuff, presumably intended to spark wonder at the natural world - kids learn about worms making soil suitable for plant life, how grasshoppers "sing" (and how some of them have ears on their knees) and so on - but it's fun an charming, and as the insects sing and joke and bicker, it all feels like an organic part of the story.

And then Dahl yeets all the factual stuff into a bin and James and his pals have to fend off snowmen who live in the clouds and hoist rainbows up into the skies on winches, because he knows his job is fundamentally to entertain kids.

Unrelatedly, I've also been rewatching RTD's earliest episodes, and was delighted to note a few similar moments in the first couple of episodes, in which he slips a little fact-nugget in among the action and quips.[nb]To be fair, RTD's seasons also had some absolute clangers, like the Empire State Building being a dreadful example of wealth during the Depression, even though it was a huge source of income for working-class people and paid well, and it being "impossible' to orbit a black hole (it isn't).[/nb]

And then you have Chibnall's supposedly more educational historical episodes, like Rosa, Punjab, and very possibly War of the Sontarans. As much as I thought Rosa and Punjab were decent enough, how many kids would really have been thrilled by those episodes? How many kids would be more excited to learn about Rosa Parks and watch The Doctor engineer her famous act of rebellion[nb]Putting aside how problematic it all is.[/nb] than to watch shop mannequins massacring people on the streets of London, or Rose trying to avoid being fried alive by sabotaged satellite sun-shields?

Maybe there'll be more exciting war than Mary Seacole action... but can anyone honestly say that the Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan bits of Spyfall Pt 2 didn't kind of drag a bit? That they didn't feel like perfunctory, dry history lessons rather than compelling additions to the main story?

So who the fuck is Chibnall writing this for, I wondered?

Then I remembered that I'd found myself asking a very similar question when walking past the kids' section of Barnes & Noble a while ago, and seeing this shite:







I dunno, maybe there are a bunch of 8-year-old policy wonks out there. But I get the feeling that those books are mostly targeted not at parents who actually have to entertain kids, but at aunts and uncles who want to be seen doing the right thing for future generations.

And that's Chris Chinall's Doctor Who in a nutshell: "education" written for people who want kids to learn, rather than the kids who require teaching. I don't think it's a coincidence that RTD and Moffat both began their careers in kids' TV, whereas Chibnall's began with an adult drama series set in the 1950s.

I think making Who more educational than it was in the RTD/Moffat years could be a good thing, but by god, Chibnall is not the man to do it.

[Replies From View]

Moffat is telling us how brilliant the trailer honestly is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYhfS5gJwj0

[Deanjam]

"It was the best trailer ever for Doctor Who", said with all the enthusiasm of a child regaling its parents about how much he enjoyed his nan's beetroot cake.

[Replies From View]

It's funny as well because he can't say the episodes themselves will be good, because he hasn't seen them.  All he can do is promote a trailer which we've most likely already seen and have made our own minds up about.

So in the end it reads like one of those personal messages you sometimes get celebrities doing to each other in public.  "Happy Birthday Keith Robinson mate.  Sorry you couldn't make it to the oscars but we're all here wishing you get well soon."  [cut to All Saints, who are speaking in unison] "HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEITH!  GET WELL SOON, NEVER EVER HAVE I EVER FELT SO LOW ETC"  [cut to dame judy dench]  "Keith, you will be dourly missed here at the oscars.  Get well soon love, bye bye"


"Alright buddy sorry to have messed up your Weeping Angels reveal, but it's all fine anyway because you put them in the trailer.  Good trailer by the way, ok, good luck with the last few episodes before you pass on the baton, cheers"

[cut to RTD] "Chibnall you absolute valve what have you fucking done this time.  Why can't you learn from what's happening around you?!"

[canted_angle_again]

It's possible even Chibnall hasn't seen the episodes, he just handed his box of fag packets in / scripts, and said 'no, no, no, no, don't show me anything, I want it to be a surprise!' and then skipped of merrily to watch some traffic.

[Mister Six]

Why did Moffat and RTD keep giving Chibnall work? Is he just a really, really nice guy? It must have been agonising playing ping-pong with drafts of his scripts, writing polite emails that say things like "Hm, yeah, I like this character but maybe you could add some things like an interesting voice, or some kind of motivation, or a consistent belief system, or a personality. Yeah, yeah, yeah... no, not like that."

What did the first draft of that Silurians two-parter look like? I shudder to think.

[M-CORP]

That little bit from Moffat had me laughing out loud earlier. Isn't it remarkable - just 40 seconds, shot on a smartphone in his garden, and it's funnier than many of Chibnall's attempts at humour put together. Love how Moff can take the piss out of himself, for something that was DEFINITELY human error. Probably.

[canted_angle_again]

I'm sorry if this comes across as horrible and a bit insulting to anyone with a mental handicap. But, I think he may have a mental handicap and that's why he's still given work. I'm not a psychologist so I can't diagnose what it is but he doesn't understand basic human interaction and the ramifications of events and actions. It's really like an alien trying to write humans as a human and that 2 layers of separation really shows. Not that people with mental handicaps are aliens, I just get the feeling that he is kinda mollycoddled by the people he knows because they know something we don't.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I missed your first version, but I hope you weren't upset by my dragging your old posts up.

Not at all! But you can tell I was sort of forcing myself to be optimistic. However, I still think The Woman Who Fell to Earth is a decent enough episode, and Whittaker did make a good, promising impression.

[Replies From View]

I'm sorry if this comes across as horrible and a bit insulting to anyone with a mental handicap. But, I think he may have a mental handicap and that's why he's still given work. I'm not a psychologist so I can't diagnose what it is but he doesn't understand basic human interaction and the ramifications of events and actions. It's really like an alien trying to write humans as a human and that 2 layers of separation really shows. Not that people with mental handicaps are aliens, I just get the feeling that he is kinda mollycoddled by the people he knows because they know something we don't.

I don't like your choice of words, but what you're describing is most likely an autistic spectrum condition.  Many people with autism are attracted to Doctor Who, and I include myself in that category.


I don't believe that somebody would just be 'given' a writing/showrunning career as part of an equal opportunities scheme, though.  That makes no sense.

[canted_angle_again]

I don't like your choice of words, but what you're describing is most likely an autistic spectrum condition.  Many people with autism are attracted to Doctor Who, and I include myself in that category.


I don't believe that somebody would just be 'given' a writing/showrunning career as part of an equal opportunities scheme, though.  That makes no sense.

I don't like my choice of words either, and I'm also on the spectrum. But doesn't the BBC have an inclusivity clause? Anyway, it's murky road to go down. I'm just trying to make sense of it all.

[Mister Six]

Yeah, I especially can't see then letting him run Torchwood and then Who just because he's autistic or something. Although I suppose being a nice bloke who's mates with RTD doesn't make a lot of sense either.

I do think he's unable to properly understand human behaviour or morality, if his Who scripts are anything to go by, but I've stopped speculating on the reason as to why.

More fascinating to me is what motivates clearly genuinely talented people like RTD and Moffat to repeatedly hire him - with a clause that says they can't directly edit his scripts, no less!

[canted_angle_again]

I really dislocated myself from him as a worthwhile writer during the first episode of Broadchurch series two where he subjects the audience to about 15minutes of a police officer interviewing a woman in a horribly clinical way with regards to her recent rape. It wasn't anything but gratuitous and I can't think of what he thought it was, it just felt like those gross 'torture porn' movies like Saw, or Hostel but presented through an 'ITV Drama' lens. I really do not understand anyone who likes that show.

[Kelvin]

Why did Moffat and RTD keep giving Chibnall work? Is he just a really, really nice guy? It must have been agonising playing ping-pong with drafts of his scripts, writing polite emails that say things like "Hm, yeah, I like this character but maybe you could add some things like an interesting voice, or some kind of motivation, or a consistent belief system, or a personality. Yeah, yeah, yeah... no, not like that."

What did the first draft of that Silurians two-parter look like? I shudder to think.

I've always assumed the most likely explanation is that his work didn't require much rewriting back then, because he was only writing one or two episodes per series, and could therefore pour his heart and soul into producing something that was passable. Unlike other, better writers that were maybe late finishing scripts, or didn't have the Doctor's voice down, Chibnall was presumably reliable, well versed in the show's history and consistently adequate.

I suspect it's only now that he's spread more thinly between multiple scripts, rewrites and other showrunning roles that things have nosedived into this level of complete ineptitude. 

[Replies From View]

More fascinating to me is what motivates clearly genuinely talented people like RTD and Moffat to repeatedly hire him - with a clause that says they can't directly edit his scripts, no less!

This does baffle me.  Chibnall was only hired once for RTD's version of Who, but he was then given head writing duties for Torchwood.  Moffat hired him for a two-parter in series 5, two standalone episode in series 7 (originally planned to be four), as well as the short episodes 'Pond Life' designed to expand on the world of Amy and Rory in the gap between series 6 and 7 (this is when I started to suspect Chibnall was being trained/tested for future showrunning duties).

My guess is that RTD, Moffat and Chibnall all share some kind of obsessive nature in common, have a shared history of Doctor Who fandom together, and from very early on they sensed deep down that the showrunner torch would be passed from RTD to Moffat, and then to Chibnall.  And on that basis, gave Chibnall the opportunity to improve as a writer by repeatedly hiring him.  This is all I can really think.

However, what they perhaps didn't appreciate was that Chibnall's obsessive nature isn't quite like theirs.  If his teenage persona is anything to go by, his obsessions lead more to an aloof complaining mode than to perfectionism or some kind of care regarding the show.

[Kelvin]

I'm sorry if this comes across as horrible and a bit insulting to anyone with a mental handicap. But, I think he may have a mental handicap and that's why he's still given work. I'm not a psychologist so I can't diagnose what it is but he doesn't understand basic human interaction and the ramifications of events and actions. It's really like an alien trying to write humans as a human and that 2 layers of separation really shows. Not that people with mental handicaps are aliens, I just get the feeling that he is kinda mollycoddled by the people he knows because they know something we don't.

I've countered this fairly offensive argument before. If you go online and look at amateur fiction / sample scripts set in existing worlds, the vast, vast majority are as bad or far worse than Chibnall's work. His inability to write believable dialogue / characters / plots does not indicate autism or any other condition. It simply indicates being a terrible writer who can't translate his ideas into engaging fiction.   

[canted_angle_again]

Yeah, I guess I just had a moment of a lazy thought process. Truly sorry if I offended anyone that wasn't my intention.

I just can't understand how someone can chose to be a writer when they don't understand humans, or basic cause and effect. The Graham with his cancer thing should have had a payoff, the way she chose to dismiss him. But nothing came of it. How do you write the Doctor being such a twat and not salvage it? More importantly, why would you write the Doctor like that? Just to say that she's 'aloof and doesn't care about basic human problems'? Well that's against what the Doctor is because she goes out of her way to make humans exceptional on her sliding scale of 'worthy existence'. I know 'The Beast Below' gets a lot of criticism but that is a case of the Doctor being a dick for a very solid reason and there's a resolution.

Also doesn't Dinosaurs On A Space Ship (Chibnall) have him almost gleefully killing an old guy whose trying to escape an explosion?

Chibnall writing the odd episode here and there wasn't too offensive because his lack of understanding of the character and their actions kinda added another layer to them which could be explored in the future. As a show runner it's just inconsistent substance free guff with zero moral compass.

 

[Replies From View]

Yeah, I guess I just had a moment of a lazy thought process. Truly sorry if I offended anyone that wasn't my intention.

I just can't understand how someone can chose to be a writer when they don't understand humans, or basic cause and effect. The Graham with his cancer thing should have had a payoff, the way she chose to dismiss him. But nothing came of it. How do you write the Doctor being such a twat and not salvage it? More importantly, why would you write the Doctor like that? Just to say that she's 'aloof and doesn't care about basic human problems'? Well that's against what the Doctor is because she goes out of her way to make humans exceptional on her sliding scale of 'worthy existence'. I know 'The Beast Below' gets a lot of criticism but that is a case of the Doctor being a dick for a very solid reason and there's a resolution. 

I think he was trying to write the Doctor as exactly what she told Graham - socially awkward.  Writing her as unable to process these kinds of human things because she's alien, but funnily enough he always unintentionally writes his characters as detached anyway.  But when he wants to do it consciously, he can only tell-not-show.  "I AM SOCIALLY AWKWARD SO NOW I AM GOING TO DO WHAT I HAVE SEEN SOCIALLY AWKWARD PEOPLE DOING, BECAUSE I CANNOT BE SOCIALLY AWKWARD WITHOUT SELF-CONSCIOUSLY APING SOCIALLY AWKWARD BEHAVIOUR THAT I HAVE SEEN, AND COMMENTATING AS I DO IT BECAUSE THE SCRIPT NEEDS TO BE TRANSCRIBED ONTO WIKIPEDIA AFTERWARDS"

[canted_angle_again]

'Socially awkward' passes when it's a decorum faux pah but not when it's someone you call 'fam' trying to engage with you about something that is a huge shadow on their life.

I mean if he'd said - I think there's a big beetle on my back slowly draining my life, would she have been 'right on it'!?

Why bring up something as 'real' as cancer if you are going to have this character who is meant to inspire kids flippantly dismiss it? It's ghastly.

[Kelvin]

I just can't understand how someone can chose to be a writer when they don't understand humans, or basic cause and effect.

This is my point, though. We have no reason to believe that Chibnall doesn't understand humans, or basic cause and effect. We only know that he can't incorporate those things consistently/effectively in his writing.

The Graham with his cancer thing should have had a payoff, the way she chose to dismiss him. But nothing came of it. How do you write the Doctor being such a twat and not salvage it?

Because he's a terrible, incompetent writer. Being a terrible writer doesn't mean you can't understand people or don't have empathy, it usually just means you can't translate those observations / experiences into your chosen art. It's just unusual to see such fundamental mistakes from a professional writer, least of all one showrunning one of the countries flagship tv shows. That's why it stands out.     

EDIT: Not trying to be a pain in the arse. I just think this is an important distinction.