Doctor Who Series 13: Goodbye, Mr. Chibs

[Huxleys Babkins]

I do worry that Dr Snakes and the Sontarans are just around now to give Yaz and the Plastic Population something to do while the Doctor spends the whole episode trading exposition with the crystalheads.

Don't worry. Chibnall will never give Yaz anything to do.

[Kelvin]

I do worry that Dr Snakes and the Sontarans are just around now to give Yaz and the Plastic Population something to do while the Doctor spends the whole episode trading exposition with the crystalheads.

Which comes back to my point from last week that The Doctor hasn't actually spent more than a few minutes with any of the companions since episode 1. Episode 2, Dan and Yaz both immediately got warped to different places (the planet Time, and Liverpool) for the entire episode. Then episode 3, they were all separated by their different time splits, and half the time not even playing themselves. Then episode 4 they immediately get separated from The Doctor to look for the little girl. And now, in episode 5, the companions were trapped in the past the whole episode. She has literally shared about 10 minutes of screen time with Dan and Yaz since the end of episode 1. And she knows Dan about as well as she knows the Karvinista or Vinder.

[Huxleys Babkins]

The Doctor was being executed by Dog Man at the start of episode 1 so, technically, she knows him better than she does Dan.

[Replies From View]

Not sure if anyone had picked this up already, but according to some twitter posts, the Grandmaster Flash fella's mucking about with UNIT records may actually be Chibnall's way of addressing a continuity problem known as the UNIT Dating Controversy.

Can't wait to see what parts of Who lore will be clunkily rewritten to explain away minor inconsistencies next!

Maybe Chibnall could come up with some diagrams detailing exactly why Silurians started developing mammary glands.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Could get a good couple of episodes out of explaining how come the sixth doctor looks like Sylvester McCoy in a wig before he regenerates

To be fair, Moffat explained why the 60s episodes were black and white (first two Doctors were colourblind) but that was more of a throwaway joke in a book rather than an entire plot on tv

[Catalogue Trousers]

It's such a non-choice that it seems laughable, but remember that this is from a man who's chosen to make the Morbius Doctors canon at the expense of a narrative that's been delicately constructed over 60 years.

Mate. It's always made it up as it goes along.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Mate. It's always made it up as it goes along.

Yes, but generally with a deftness of touch that doesn't shit over everything that came before it.

[olliebean]

The implication seemed to be that the actions of the Doctor have somehow polluted this universe so much that it has to be ended. It doesn't really hold together, there's no detail of exactly what the Doctor is supposed to have done that is so bad (and presumably we won't be getting any now that Tecteun's been Swarmed).

I'm going to take another run at this having looked up the dialogue, and seen that it does actually specify what the Doctor did wrong:

You inspire. Make people question, and rise up. You give them hope. That can be problematic.

So there it is. Basically Division is the British establishment, and the Doctor is Corbyn. And the Flux is, I don't know, let's say Brexit.

[Replies From View]

A Corbyn that sides with Amazon over the people.



Remember when Rory said that the Doctor was dangerous because he made people want to impress him?  Something that rang true and made sense, and was rooted in character angst.

[Kelvin]

It's just occurred to me that we actually have no idea what Division's millennia long agenda was. On one hand wanting to imprison evil universe-destroying arseholes like Swarm, and keeping Time at bay (maybe?), but also giving a shit about people rising up on their own pokey planets against... their own governments? It makes absolutely fuck all sense for them to care about politics on that scale.

And for an all knowing, time and space spanning threat, is it really just one Timelord and an Ood on a space station?

Even after all these episodes of absolutely nothing but exposition, we still know fuck all about any of the major forces at play; Division, Swarm and his sister, The Grand Serpent. It's unbelievable how little we understand their motives, really. 

[frajer]

One pleasant side-effect of the sheer vague sloppiness of Chibnall's canon is none of it has remotely gelled for me.

It's like when Snake Parkinson rocked up and spent 70 years working in UNIT. It was so lazily thought-out and badly implemented, my head-canon just automatically went, "no he didn't."

[Natnar]

Don't worry. Chibnall will never give Yaz anything to do.

She should stand up for her lore rights.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

This isn't Craig Parkinson's fault, but Jake the Snake is basically just the Master isn't he? That's how he's written, so that's how Parkinson plays him.

I guess even Chibnall wouldn't rewrite history to the extent that the Master was manipulating UNIT all along - as that wouldn't make a lick of sense, and yes I know this is Chibnall we're talking about here - so he came up with this blatant facsimile instead.

However, is it merely a coincidence that the Master could transform himself into a CGI snake in the TV movie? Makes you think, doesn't it? You just never can tell with Chibnall! He's full of wild ideas.

[Replies From View]

I hope and pray that we will get plenty of footage in the next episode of a Time Lord impregnating a human just to quickly deal with that side of McGann's incarnation

[Kelvin]

People talked about RTD and Moffat making The Doctor too important to the universe, so feared and influential that Moffat eventually tried (and failed) to roll it back a bit. But it's nothing compared to how important Chibnall has made the character.

Not merely the entire basis for all time lord society, but now a figure so influential that the people overseeing the universe had to reset the entirety of creation, just because The Doctor had caused too many rebellions. All of time and space, billions and billions of years, endless galaxies... and the Doctor has completely broken the natural order of things by giving people hope? Not because she's interfered with time too much (which might have tied in with the other plots), but because she's just helped people too often that existence needs restarting.       

[Natnar]

I don't think making The Doctor the most important thing in a show centred on The Doctor is too far fetched myself. He literally is the centre of the Who universe, it would'nt exist without him.

[Kelvin]

I don't think making The Doctor the most important thing in a show centred on The Doctor is too far fetched myself.

The most important thing in the entirety of the universe? And as always with these arguments, its a straw man anyway. The issue isn't simply that The Doctor is the most important thing in her show, it's that the entire universe has to be rebooted because she has helped/influenced too many people. A completely nonsensical reason. 

[notjosh]

I don't think making The Doctor the most important thing in a show centred on The Doctor is too far fetched myself. He literally is the centre of the Who universe, it would'nt exist without him.

Porridge wouldn't exist without Fletcher but that doesn't mean he should be the most important person in HMP Slade. Harry Grout would never have it.

[Cloud]

Hmm yeah definitely don't want Mary Sue as the Doctor!  They've all had their flaws and limitations.

[Natnar]

The most important thing in the entirety of the universe? And as always with these arguments, its a straw man anyway. The issue isn't simply that The Doctor is the most important thing in her show, it's that the entire universe has to be rebooted because she has helped/influenced too many people. A completely nonsensical reason. 

Isn't it all down to Mummy Doctor having such a gigantic ego that she assumes The Doctor has "contaminated" the universe so much that it's down to her to step in and destroy the mess that the Doctor has made but she didn't count on Honeycomb Face and his Blue sister turning up and fucking things up.

[Psybro]

Chibnall doesn't have long left to explain where the disembodied hand on Sutekh's throne came from, and how the Master escaped from Castrovalva.

[Kelvin]

Isn't it all down to Mummy Doctor having such a gigantic ego that she assumes The Doctor has "contaminated" the universe so much that it's down to her to step in and destroy the mess that the Doctor has made.

If we're being generous, I assume that's the idea. But we don't actually have any pre-existing relationship between the two of them, or any real understanding of what motivates Mummy Doctor as a character. Shouldn't we know by now that she has a maternal obsession with The Doctor? That's the sort of thing the characters should talk about, the actual substance that makes the big sci-fi ideas hang together.

And of course by the end of the episode, Mummy Doctor is asking The Doctor to join her in the next universe, despite the fact that the only issue in the current one was (according to her) that The Doctor helped people too often. It's just a complete mess of fragmented, half arsed ideas, none of which are fleshed out, none of which get a chance to breathe, and many of which directly contradict one another. 

The fact is, though, that I honestly don't care about the plot that much. I can overlook a stupid plot if the dialogue and characters are good - hence why I like a lot of RTD and Moffat's episodes, despite many of them (like Moffat's Impossible Astronaut) really not standing up to scrutiny. The fundamental problem with Chibnall is that his ideas are incredibly stupid and prosaic, but there's nothing else beyond that; it's all just crooked bones. 

[Natnar]

And of course by the end of the episode, Mummy Doctor is asking The Doctor to join her in the next universe, despite the fact that the only issue in the current one was (according to her) that The Doctor helped people too often.. 

 

Maybe she was just saying that to keep The Doctor from going back into our universe.

[canted_angle_again]

It's just stuff happening isn't it, like with no real reason? Just fucking shit stuff happening.

[canted_angle_again]

So The Doctor, doesn't like the idea of 'the division' manipulating time because that's everything the Time Lords stood against. So what has the Doctor been doing for her entire TV run, and why did she leave the Timelords if she respected their ethos?

[Kelvin]

Maybe she was just saying that to keep The Doctor from going back into our universe.

Maybe some of this should be in the script instead of pulled from our arse.

[Kelvin]

So The Doctor, doesn't like the idea of 'the division' manipulating time because that's everything the Time Lords stood against. So what has the Doctor been doing for her entire TV run, and why did she leave the Timelords if she respected their ethos?

As I suggested upthread, it would probably make more sense if it was the other way around; The Division believe the Doctor has tampered too much with time and predestination, and so they decide the universe has to be restarted to avoid the same thing happening again.

This would seem more logical for an extreme Time Lord faction, would seem like a relatively logical threat to the universe (The Doctor has tampered too much with history), and would pose a more challenging question to The Doctor's own morality: are there long term implications to her interference? It would also link that storyline more thematically to the various issues with time happening elsewhere in the series.

Suddenly several disparate threads start to feel more personal and interconnected.   

[Mister Six]

Honest question: did they explain how Yaz and chums got from the village in the middle of a void to 1905 or whenever? And was there any indication of what happened to the lass who was possessed by an Angel from last episode?

I really enjoyed all the Yaz & co scenes, except maybe the hermit bit, which seemed like it had been piped in from another show entirely. There's an air of sweaty-palmed desperation around so much of Chibnall's comedy, isn't there? The dramatic momentum, such as it is, just grinds to a halt while the episode enters a sort of weird, pantomime-tinged fugue state in which everyone blankly stares at one another and stands stock still as they enter ＨＵＭＯＲＯＵＳ ＤＩＡＬＯＧＵＥ ＭＯＤＥ. Not always - the pulley stuff this episode got a chuckle, and the handcuffs gag in the opening of episode 1 was solid - but often.

The rest of it was meh (Bel and Vinder) embarrassing (Dr Snakes) or just plain shite (Tecteun).

Another question: why does Tecteun bother with the Flux, or any of that shite? Why not just bugger off to the next universe over? Who does she think is going to follow her? Who'd even know? Just pull all your Division agents, stick 'em in the space station with the "DNA from the previous universe" (eh?) and zip over to the next one. Are the Time Lords going to give a toss, assuming she doesn't even know they're all dead?

Imagine writing an "origin story" for U.N.I.T. which is some bloke we've never seen before standing in a field saying "Lads, I've been asked to form U.N.I.T.". Edge of the seat stuff.

And then it's all in aid of... the cocking Sontarans invading Earth for the second time in the same serial (having been defeated last time by a single middle-aged Scouser and a surly terrier).

[H-O-W-L]

I've not watched an episode since that shit one with the daleks in a hotel or whatever, or maybe it was spiders, but reading this thread since has been great. Trying to figure it all out.

[Natnar]

I quite like the idea that the whole Doctor Who cannon turns out to be

"Mummy says you've been a naughty girl, now go back to your room whilst i take away all your toys"

"BUT MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMM!!"