prayer circle that rtd keeps up w chibnall's theme of going to places on earth that AREN'T the uk or the usa

if we just go back to switching between different areas of the uk w the occasional usa episode after we got to see actual human diversity and acknowledgement of more than 4 countries for 3 seasons I might actually cry

I finally caught up on Doctor Who

Hhhhhhhh

Season 11 was like, I was all critical and suspicious after the frustrating ups and downs of Moffat's era (and with Kerblam!), and with 12, well, first time I liked it, but watching it again with my partner? SO fun.

But oh my God

The Flux

Holy fuck

There's so much about it that I love. I'm OBSESSED with the Doctor getting split up for a while, though. I can't tell you how seen I feel; we've been obsessed with any kind of media about that kind of thing, even started writing something about being in two places at once like that before realizing we were a system. The way they interacted and argued and shared knowledge, functioning like they were but not unaffected by the confusion—I just... can't explain how familiar that feels? I mean, it's weird, because we don't experience that literally, and her being split up wasn't exactly intended to be anything like multiplicity in real life (especially with being in different places at once physically), but our personal experiences with hyperactive dissociation match up so well with all the interactions the Doctors had with herselves. I dunno, seeing myself where not intended in fiction... I am just, so floored by that small aspect of the last episode.

And I kept thinking... Wow, it's like... Chibnall basically deified the Doctor, and after all these years, it feels... Earned? Maybe because she's a character created and portrayed by sooo many different people, or... I dunno, I lost my train of thought there.

I love all the characters so much. I want more of them. I want to see as many of them as possible stick around for the new Doctor.

I loved that the Sontarans were the most major antagonists outside the existential main conflicts. It feels deserved after so many years of them being used as comic relief.

And the Weeping Angels...

I have a lot of feelings and no straight thinking.

The Flux has to be my favorite season of Doctor Who, uh... ever? What the fuck?

gah, screw it

[ID: A tumblr post from me, reading, “now is probably the time to write my 500-word essay on the politics of revolution of the daleks that gets 30 notes and is never seen again, which i return to in a month to find a lot of typos, otherwise no one will see it, isn’t it,,, “but i haven’t seen jack robertson’s first episode,,,”. End ID.] answer: yes, it is. but im gonna take a while to write this and look up a summary of arachnids in the uk (which i dont wanna watch because i heard its Not Good and you dont have to watch every episode of doctor who to be a fan, ok?) i sometimes talk about politics on tumblr, but rarely do i make political posts--mainly because, as my sidebar bio says, i’m a teenager. i don’t really have a degree in politics, and as much as i have been trying to read up on political stuff, its kinda hard when i dont have access to a college professor to guide me along. still, some things about this episode stood out to me, especially because it’s stuff i’ve noticed in a lot of media. i’m not even sure where i stand politically, but i absolutely love media commentary, and i have so many thoughts i feel like i never get to put out there when im watching movies and tv. obviously, spoilers under the cut (and it probably won’t actually be 500 words. probably.) i’m also gonna assume you’ve seen this episode, because i don’t wanna recap it. if you haven’t, go watch it! tbh, it’s well worth it (my favorite chibs era episode, just ahead of the haunting of villa diodati and demons of the punjab)

Now, um, obviously this episode is political. It’s the in-your-face without down-your-throat type of political we know and love. Still, media can be a direct allegory that wouldn’t bother the average viewer while still having politics that are good, bad, or somewhere in the middle (I mean this extremely subjectively). First, I’d like to address the elephant in the room:

While a Doctor Who festive special would normally film in the summer, this time the episode was filmed well ahead in winter 2019, over a year before it was due to be broadcast in a bid to include it within filming for series 12 (which aired from January to March) and give cast a longer break.

- The Radio Times

I’ve noticed some people pointing out that the episode references the protests that happened this summer. Honestly, I’d love it if that was the intention behind the episode, because then maybe Chris Chibnall’s team really does have a TARDIS, and we can all just time travel out of this mess.

[ID: An image from “Revolution of the Daleks.” A very sleek Dalek stands in front of police who have riot shields. The air is foggy, possibly gaseous. End ID.] However, the protests from this summer and the episode itself do not exist inside a bubble. Police brutality did not come into existence this summer, and it did not end with the autumn equinox. The episode, while featuring a small-scale protest that was eerily reminiscent of the large BLM protests this year, chooses to focus instead on one of the roots of the issue: somehow, capitalism.

I can’t say how purposeful the anti-capitalist messaging in the episode was. Obviously, Jack Robertson is meant to be an American capitalist caricature. Not to mention, Doctor Who is a family-friendly show: you can’t get too overt with what can be considered “radical” coding. Nonetheless, the episode tackles the connection between policing and money, and thus inherently comments on capitalism. 

The Dalek itself only exists to support the police force because Prime Minister Patterson knows that the idea of security will appeal to her constituency. Simultaneously, it could not exist if Robertson didn’t know just how profitable it would be. As they preach security, they create chaos. More importantly, the security they preach is one that bases itself on profit--similar to the weapons of the policeforce, and the prison industrial complex. As a result, the “security” inevitably fails.

[ID: Prime Minister Patterson, in a red coat, listens to Jack Robertson and Leo, in dark neutral-toned clothes both. They stand in front of a brick wall as they discuss the new Dalek plans. End ID.] Unfortunately, while the show presents a clear stance against money in policing, there is never any direct call to action. The political allegory may be straightforward and obvious, but the solution at the end is just to end the Daleks, and watch as Robertson announces his run for President (which, by the way, is very reminiscent of Trump, who does exist in-universe, so that’s weird). Regardless of all that, why am I even talking about this? Well, on the one hand, I love talking about these sorts of things. On the other hand, this post has started to sound like nothing but a rant with some pictures. Earlier, I said that this was something I noticed in a lot of media. For instance, I think of “The Boys,” with its obvious anti-capitalist and anti-military industrial complex messaging. At the same time, the show offers no solutions. Both are afraid of the obvious solution to capitalism: replacing it. To be clear, I say this as a person who is unsure about capitalism. I don’t know where I stand. Like I said, I’m a teenager. However, these shows can’t seem to make a decision either, when they're made by big companies with big budgets and professional adults. Politics in popular media tends to fit perfectly with the popular politics of the time, given that media must do so in order to make profit. Hence, similar to the media we consume, so many individuals seem to recognize that there’s something off with the hand money has in politics, and war, and security, yet no one seems to look for solutions.  Personally, I love talking about politics in the media, and analyzing media in general, because it’s the best way for me to communicate my internal thoughts. Meanwhile, I don’t even know my own internal thoughts. This post’s very existence is ironic. I had said in a very awful post that I wanted to write this when the tag was still trending, because I, in part, want someone else to do the thinking for me. I want people to see this and go, “well, okay, here’s where you’re wrong,” or, “here’s what we do about it.” Do I then have a responsibility to know what I’m talking about? Is the discourse all that matters? Does the media as a whole have to propel revolutionary ideas to get them into the social conscience, or can it just open up discussion?  There is, of course, irony in shows that could only exist in a capitalist world degrading aspects of that system. But no one, not even me, is exempt from the fact that these ideas do not exist in a bubble. The show’s protests look eerily familiar because, as this summer has proven, those protests are profitable (see literally every ad from companies that own sweatshops talking about how much they care about races they don’t represent in their board of directors). At the same time, I exist in that capitalist world, and my opinions have been formed via the capitalist media I was raised with. tl;dr: i know literally nothing. im sure of literally nothing. help, someone tell me about the politics of doctor who. wow, this was a really sad tl;dr, i normally make a shitty joke here. um, uh, EXTERMINATE

The Woman Who Fell to Earth

I stopped watching Doctor Who in 2013 after the 50th anniversary special. Up to then I was deeply obsessed by its reams of stories, hidden subspaces and detailed production histories. It wasn’t just entertainment, it was a case study in a massive shared universe, and a direct function of the times and places it had been written. 

It’s never been very controversial to anyone I know to dislike Moffat’s run of the show, and as it drew to a close everything that followed seemed pretty well-telegraphed: Chris Chibnall would become the head of the show, it wouldn’t be very good, reactionaries would blame bad writing on a female Doctor while plenty of others would just lost interest, the ratings would drop and the whole show would become less culturally relevant. It was a Cassandra truth.

But that said, I still wanted to try it. I watched a bit of the Twelfth Doctor and had mixed feelings, and when I watched the first episode of the Thirteenth I found myself taking notes on it. So, without a lot of structure, here are my thoughts.

1. New Who treats first episodes as very important, the first moments that we see new Doctors and their statements to the world. Call it a modern tradition - where “Robot” and “Time and the Rani” play the change for comedy before jumping into the week’s adventures, “The Christmas Invasion” and “The Eleventh Hour” are primarily statements of continuity. By Twelve’s first outing the villains themselves become metaphors for change, and now Thirteen delivers a brief speech about deciding to become different while paying respect to the past.

2. Speaking of that speech, I feel like there must have been an earlier draft that connected the plot to these metaphors a lot better. The villain of the story keeps pieces of his past triumphs with him at all times, but these trophies are body parts taken from the dead, and they disgust the Doctor. At least Twelve’s flesh robots were stumbling towards eternity.

The villain as a whole is just what you’d expect from a low-grade Doctor Who monster, I guess. He’s supposed to be on a hunt, which sounds really cool, but this consists entirely of him walking places and murdering random bystanders by touch. He’s not keeping the masquerade up or succeeding in his goals by doing this, and the rest of the story implies that he’s at least shrewd about getting what he wants. The Doctor’s complaints against him center on him being a cheat who can’t do the hunt fair and square and on his desecrating corpses, but she never seems very angry at him over murdering people. 

The idea of the Doctor stopping a proper hunt actually sounds interesting to me, especially as someone who sat through all of DWAD’s The Most Dangerous Game. There’s a lot of suspense in dealing with an intelligent, directed killer with a small number of targets, be it in Predator or Day of the Jackal, and a villain that stalks, hides or sets up ambushes could be easier on the budget. Or you could keep the villain the same but add a second member of his species to the setting and have them in competition, conflict on conflict. (That sounds like it’d make a good module for TIMELORD, actually...)

3. The Doctor feels simplified. I don’t mean the new personality of this incarnation, although I think the slight amnesia-until-climax is a bit forced. There’s just stuff that comes off wrong. For instance, things are outlawed in “every civilized galaxy” and the villains traveled from “five thousand galaxies away”. Despite ostensibly going anywhere and anywhen, the show’s always respected some species of distance, in that going far enough away or leaving the universe itself is a pretty big deal (especially since so much of it sticks to Earth). This line could’ve been any distance and nothing else would’ve changed, but it kills the idea of space - how can galaxies be civilized? It feels like the setting is shrinking - the word just sounds big and spacey, and this is the part where the Doctor says that something’s out of place, so big, spacey words go there.

This probably sounds nitpicky, but it feels lazy. Where Davies and Moffat both repeatedly made the Doctor or companions into the Most Important People in History, Chibnall seems to take it as read that the Doctor can just do stuff as the plot demands it. The climax involves her making a jump over a dangerous drop to the gasps of all assembled, but her first appearance is after an even longer fall where she breaks through the ceiling of a train car and isn’t even scratched. She "reformats” a phone into some kind of tracking gadget with six seconds of thumb typing and builds a new sonic screwdriver out of random scrap, which then solves basically every issue in the story. And, naturally, she can pinpoint things from a billion light-years away.

My favorite Moffat story is probably “The Eleventh Hour” because it presents the Doctor with a genuine challenge at his most vulnerable. If he had his regular tools handy then it would’ve been a much more straightforward Doctor Who story, but there’s no time to stop and build a new sonic screwdriver, because people are going to die by the time he’s finished. I wish more modern stories had that.

4. I can’t tell how I should feel about the side characters here. Not the companions, although it feels like Chibnall looked at RTD’s companions and thought “why not bring the entire family along?” There’s just this odd tension in characterization between comedy and drama for them, and without a very detailed soundtrack it’s hard to tell what emotions the script’s trying to go for.

One of the hunter’s victims has spent years trying to find his missing sister after another hunter abducting her. Instead of any resolution coming to that story he just gets murdered without ever knowing what happened to her and then the Doctor commandeers his workshop. (It’s even made clear that these human trophies are all still alive, just “in stasis”, so there’s no reason to think they couldn’t save her and presumably several others.) Meanwhile one of the main characters suffers a short fall and dies, taking up most of the final act with a funeral despite us hardly knowing her.

Other victims are worse. A man throws pieces of his salad at the monster for no discernible reason - he doesn’t even seem drunk, and then he dies as the hunter crushes that salad underfoot. A security officer gives a heartfelt goodbye to his family and tells them what a lucky granddad he is, then walks offscreen to be murdered. Neither of these scenes had to happen, and both together don’t even fill a minute of the runtime, so what was the motivation? The first is at least charmingly odd, but both of them feel like bizarre, extremely cheap set-pieces.

The soon-to-be-trophy himself listens to positive affirmations in a crane, then shouts them as he’s being chased. “I’m important! I matter!” The implication would seem to be that this is goofy behavior, and yet the things he shouts are in some ways the themes of the show. Is this self-critical deconstruction, unabashed humanism poorly delivered, a running gag?

5. The other half of a new Doctor, classic or modern, is this shedding of old things. Not always in terms of showrunners, but sometimes in attitudes or fans. The change from Six to Seven was motivated by a desire to change the tone of the show, for instance. Nowadays this is reflected a lot by the fandom - every Doctor has newcomers who jump back out because they don’t want their hero to be replaced, but the jump to Eleven confronted a lot of younger fans with this for the first time. Then Twelve culled some fans who couldn’t stand the Doctor being old and unkissable, and now Thirteen’s wiped out her own contingent of grognards who think the Doctor being a woman is a radical idea invented in the last three years.

That said, I’m not a fan yet. Some Doctors I don’t like as much for aspects of their characters, particularly Five, but Thirteen just doesn’t feel Doctorly. (To be clear, neither did Twelve.) I grew to enjoy Matt Smith’s performance where I thought I wouldn’t, and I’ve found a lot to like in every Doctor, but for some reason both of them still feel like actors playing the role to me, where Unbound Doctors and Mark Kalita have captured whatever the core is.

6. I feel like I’m getting old. So much of the beauty of Doctor Who just feels transparent now. After Moffat the maximalist decades of worldbuilding can never convincingly pretend to add up to a coherent universe and they can’t escape into the freedom of canon-indeterminacy any more than they already have. Even Big Finish, which I used to adore, feels strangled by a mandate to realize and box-set every possible combination of whatever actors they can summon from the show, no matter how many tedious hours they have to fill with cardboard characters and back-of-the-napkin monsters.

There’s no excitement in the adventure for me, because I know the route and the destination. And I don’t know if that’s Doctor Who being formulaic or disenchantment from seeing the patterns too much, or some personal lack of spark and imagination. I feel like there must be some drive I don’t have, one that would re-energize my own perspective in the face of concrete understanding, that would see it as a good thing that I understand another layer of what I enjoyed so much without sacrificing that enjoyment. But if it’s there, I just don’t see it.

But hey. While there’s life, there’s...

Doctor ... WTF?

An impassioned rant about the steady decline of Doctor Who, the trajectory of the Thirteenth Doctor, and the righteous indignation after The Timeless Children, not only as a Whovian, but as a woman-

I love how certain people are spinning The Timeless Children as being good, yet the BBC has released (2)TWO statements basically telling fans the following:

“Doctor Who is a beloved long-running series and we understand that some people will feel attached to a particular idea they have of the Doctor, or that they enjoy certain aspects of the programme more than others. Opinions are strong and this is indicative of the imaginative hold that Doctor Who has – that so many people engage with it on so many different levels.

We wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers and we feel that creating an origin story is a staple of science fiction writing. What was written does not alter the flow of stories from William Hartnell’s brilliant Doctor onwards – it just adds new layers and possibilities to this ongoing saga.”

Creative freedom, huh? Ask Joe Hill about it. Or Gaiman. The writers, including Chibnall, are only free to do what the Beeb and the other show investors tell them. 

They go on:

“We have also received many positive reactions to the episode’s cliff-hanger. There are still a lot of questions to be answered, and we hope that you will come back to join us and see what happens, but we appreciate that it’s impossible to please all of our viewers all of the time and your feedback has been raised with the programme’s Executive Producer." 

Uglylaughing.gif

There is a huge, monumental difference between 'not being able to please everyone all at the same time' and basically making a whole fandom, New and Classic, young and old, come together with the same level of disgust and disappointment.

I also find the people arguing "Canon? What canon?" about the Doctor now being the Lord and Savior of the Shining World of the Seven Systems to be foolish at best, and disingenuous at worst.

No canon?? So what have I been steeping myself in for years  - a vague approximation of a tale? Please. Of course, writers have embellished and alluded, but tampering with the unspoken but well-known 'no touch' rule about the Doctor's origin is ... well, it's canon, in and of itself...

...which Chibnall completely wrecked, and I can't imagine why. Hubris? By all accounts, he was a fan. I thought Moffat was a dick for bringing back Gallifrey, but now, to me, my disappointment then vs now is like comparing a fart to a shitstorm.

Please excuse the scatological references, but I'm using it deliberately. It is a swirling turd, which I and many others wish we could flush down and forget forever.

In another RadioTimes article - which basically is the BBC - amongst the usual apologetics, Huw Fullerton drops this little gem:

“The glory days of David Tennant et al were in a different TV landscape, and if the Tenth Doctor touched down now it seems unlikely he’d command anything close to the ratings he did over a decade ago.”

Yeah, you can all take a break to have a hearty laugh. Or throw up. Whichever. Did they just hint that, basically, the incarnation of the Doctor who continues to get as much love (if not more) than Four, who still consistently gets thousands of butts in seats in conventions worldwide, and has made the BBC hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling in merchandising “wouldn’t command the ratings he did in 2008?”

As Gary Buechler of Nerdrotic said in his response to this article: “Actually, if David Tennant had been given as many chances as Jodie Whittaker, it would’ve had Game of Thrones-level ratings.”

And I agree. Not because I’m a Tenth Doctor stan, but because it’s just ... categorically true. His seasons consistently got average rating of 7.5 to 8 million viewers - and this in a time before BBCiPlayer, so 7-day catch up ratings meant nothing. It was butts on sofas then, which, to me, speaks of a massive, sustained interest.

But Huw goes on to say that such things mean nothing. And that the huge, telling sink in both overnight and 7-day ratings between the 11th and 12th seasons, and the dismal 4.69m 7 day ratings for The Timeless Children - the lowest for a NewWho finale since its reboot - shouldn’t be taken as a loss of interest from the fandom.

Then, pray tell goodman, what does it mean? Does it mean that fans are following the Thirteenth Doctor’s adventures in spirit? Ratings are tanking. Outside of the precious few who blindly tweet and write articles about the show solely based on its now female protagonist, people are notoriously furious, especially after the execrable season finale.

Yet BBC’s Piers Wenger, who once produced the show, says “I don’t think it’s been in better health, editorially. I think it’s fantastic and I think that, the production values obviously have never been better.”

Right. Okay. So, putting Tom Ford makeup on a pig makes it haute couture, huh? The writing is appalling, and after two excruciatingly painful to watch seasons, the Doctor has failed to appear - all I’ve seen is borderline sociopathic navel gazing from an ‘alien’ wearing a pastel duster.

How dare you besmirch the unfailingly cool reputation of the long coat, Chibnall? Jodie? How?? 

I will not let someone piss on my head and call it rain ... ‘because it’s a woman.’ Assuming I’ll accept it just adds insult to injury. Who do they think we are, as female fans? I will not cosign garbage to further an agenda that is ultimately damaging one of my favorite things ever, Doctor Who. I agree that politics, and a positive moral, have always been a part of DW, but at it’s best the writing was so good that it only added to the entertainment. Now, the BBC is feeding us all the bitter pill, without the kindness to hide it in a piece of tasty cheese. It gives the impression that they believe we are already so indoctrinated that we no longer need artifice!

Well, not only am I not indoctrinated, but I refuse to ingest.

I refuse to allow people to silence me because the Doctor is now a woman, and so am I. That, I shouldn’t say anything, or complain, because it’s an act of rebellion on womankind, not only in entertainment, but in general. Well, to that I say ... er ... I disavow.

Disavow. Disavow.

And this from a woman who once criticized Peter Davison for saying that casting a woman was “a vital loss of a role model for boys,” taking it as a sexist comment when in truth, it was just a relevant narrative concern about gender-swapping the traditionally male-presenting Time Lord. Just changing a character from male to female doesn’t do anything but demonstrate a tone-deafness about the emotional and physical differences between men and women, which exist whether we want to address them or not. This is why genderswap reboots are terrible. They are trying to further the feminist agenda, while surreptitiously painting traditional, every day femininity as weakness, and something to be avoided at all costs. I reject the modern Hollywood representation of what a ‘strong woman’ is meant to be. I can be clever, yet sensitive enough to comfort a friend when they confide their fears about a cancer relapse. I can be funny, and not at the expense of the man in the room. I can be brave, but not at the expense of my friends. The mind boggles as to why they thought their current tack with the Doctor was going to be any good. The Doctor is a woman, but more importantly, she’s a Timelord. Where are they? Is the alien that we’ve known and loved for the last 60 years truly gone away, and Thirteen is from a whole different timeline? If so, I don’t want to know her. 

And it breaks my heart.

Why continue to support a corporation who thinks of me, the fan, as no more than a heartless, thoughtless consumer? A drone? A sheep who has no conscious idea of what I like or need?

I’m done. It’s been two seasons of absolute dreck, with absolutely no sign of a course-correction due to the overwhelmingly negative response. I may be many things, but I’m no masochist - even in the name of love. And Chibnall, knowing that many fans would go back to the classic stories to cleanse ourselves, went back to the beginning and took a giant shit there too. 

Oh, the cleverness! the absolute schadenfreude of not only tampering, but rewriting the Doctor’s origins! I suppose that tells me he truly was once a fan. But no longer. Even if it turns out that the Master is as full of crap as Chibnall and it’s all an orchestrated lie, I don’t care anymore. Every inexplicable, terrible thing that happened before has already exhausted my patience with the narrative.

As veteral DW writer and script editor Terrance Dicks said:

If you’re concentrating on putting forth a political message, rather than on doing a really good show, I think there is a danger, maybe, you can do both but it would be hellish difficult, and I think that there’s maybe a danger that the show wouldn’t as be as good as it could or should be, because you’re not looking at the right aims.”

It seems like all that has been lost in time. Big corporations are buying up beloved science fiction properties, and systematically destroying them by trying to mix their politics into the mythos. [see ‘the fandom menace’]

I say, don’t support things that make you unhappy, in the name of nostalgia. That’s how they continue to upset us, while lining their pockets with our hard earned money. Complaining amongst ourselves, writing emails, or making angry Youtube videos no longer works anyway. Now is the time to just ... let it go. No more special edition DVDs, novelizations, or pretty action figures. Hit them in the pocketbook. We will still have fond memories of better times. I will not let them hijack, retcon, and retool them too.

There is a telling paragraph hidden in the depths of the article, which makes my DW fangirl sink:

It’s not as simple as “the ratings are down so Doctor Who will be cancelled,” as for the publicly-funded BBC there’s an interesting question about exactly what ratings are for beyond bragging rights. Obviously they need to make TV that people want to watch – but which people?

Not us, Huw. That’s who.

I found my original idea for All the Time in the World, my Thasmin fanfiction! This was a project that I actually had an outline for before I wrote it - it wasn't the first one, but it did help me establish the direction I wanted to go on and define the direction of the story.

To this day, this is still my favorite story that I've ever written. I love it so dearly. I've bolded some points of interest, and I'm going to talk about them at the end of the post - so with that out of the way, here's the initial pitch and plot outline for the story!

---

"doctor who fanfic idea

Yasmin confesses her interest in the Doctor. The Doctor is flattered and happy, but she turns Yas down with a mention of her previous love affairs and how she feels personally responsible for the safety of her, Ryan and Graham. In essence, the memory of companions past who the Doctor has failed - those who she had loved romantically and platonically - keep the Doctor from necessarily reciprocating Yas' feelings.

Later, the Doctor and Yasmin are lying in their beds. Yas is a bit shaken, feeling small because The Doctor rejected her and that she had not been the first person to express interest. A part of the TARDIS magic wears off, and she considers going back to Sheffield and resuming her old life - partially out of embarrassment and partially because she feels like putting roots down in one place and building her rank the long way would be a way of building character, coming back to the Doctor as a more worldy, self-developed person. Basically, sudden low self-esteem and maddening awkwardness clash due to a failed romantic endeavor.

Meanwhile, The Doctor agonises over having rejected Yasmin and not fully explaining the nature of her existence. 2+ millenia of life, 13 very different lives and faces and a considerable amount of romantic partners has taken its toll - Yasmin is a nice girl, but with The Doctor's prior experiences, she's not sure if she can be the sort of person Yasmin wants her to be. She decides to take some time the following morning to talk to Yasmin and fully explain herself and hopefully come to an amicable resolution - see where things go.

Lots of double hand-holding ensues, The Doctor shows some of her older faces in a "Rememberance Hall" (which she flippantly calls "the photo album")."

---

So, first up - Yaz's arc changed a bit. This part of the story is my least favorite bit of the final product, mostly because I conveyed it in a really poor way. I skimped on the angst, and I mostly just focused on Yaz working through her emotional state after being rejected and going over her first crushes. And eventually she was able to stretch out and let the tension out of her shoulders, and enjoy the lovey sort of feelings for what they were, rather than feel stifled by the rejection. That's all good on paper, but parts of it feel like they come off as weird and skeevy. And then there's a bit of forced conflict in the second to last chapter, but it did help convey the Doctor's arc.

But on the flip side, the direction I took this plot point had me exploring Yaz being bisexual rather than being gay. Either interpretation is fine, and anything beyond the scope of these interpretations is fine too, and I was planning to make Yaz gay when I started the story, but I got caught up in the idea of her finding different aspects of different genders appealing. This was the biggest deviation from the plan, and I was really satisfied with how I did it.

I'm kind of glad I didn't implement this plot point fully. Like, Yaz is gonna go back to Sheffield for 25 years and improve herself for the Doctor? That's a lot of baggage for one person to shoulder to try and make a relationship work. I don't think Yaz should be expected to commit to something like that, just for a shot at romance with a time travelling alien lady - I like the Doctor, but making a character wait for years is such a Moffat trope. And relationships are mutual - The Doctor has her own baggage, but I don't think it's equivalent to spending a quarter of your entire, limited lifetime trying to prepare yourself for a prospective romantic partner. It's not equal.

So yeah, I'm glad I tinkered with this idea a bit.

The Doctor's conflict kind of got glossed over in places too - that, or I'm just unhappy that I didn't get to write long, morose essays about it. The portrait idea just stuck around in my head, I imagined a rope hanging from the ceiling holding a paint-splattered Thirteen by the waist, who's holding her thumb out in front of her with an eye closed.

Double hand holding is my favorite romance cliche. Getting your hands and holding someone else's hands between you both, ideally while asking them to trust you or asking them incredibly sappy, romantic questions. It's funny to see it crop up in the plot outline, because I remember re-reading the story and going "oh god, here comes the hand holding again". And it's a similar case with the Rememberance Hall and the comment about it being a glorified photo album - it cropped up in the draft!

I made a series of oneshots just as series 12 was wrapping up, and ever since then, the creative well has run dry for Doctor Who. I'm hoping that I'll be in a good place next year, or the year after that, to write some fanfic alongside series 13. The Chibnall era has been rocky at times, but I am loving the fanfic side of things and I like being able to talk about the show without the words feeling like ash in my mouth. I really didn't like Moffat's run, and even with Orphan 55, I would still much rather Chris Chibnall trying his hand at running the show.

The Doctor Who showrunner wars is still in full swing despite the three Doctor Who showrunners being friends IRL, and some things they’ve done and implemented can all boil down to preference.

I wanted to weigh in with my thoughts on this.

I like some things RTD did in his time in Doctor Who, I am very grateful to him for bringing the show back from the war but I also remember slowly getting disgruntled with his writing.

He is a drama writer, and one of the best; RTD has a way of turning a phrase that just fires up the imagination like:“Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been-King with his army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres.”

He has also written and help re-write my favorite two-parter of Revival!Who Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, Midnight, Turn Left, and Children of Earth. The problem is as much as he loves both camp (sometimes the results can work, sometimes it doesn’t), RTD’s cynicism does leak through.

He tried to fight against those instincts in Doctor Who but you can see the strain show as he struggled to keep that cynicism away from the show.

There’s also the part where his frequent joke targets are middle aged women. And TBH, I was tired of Ten’s God Complex (“I am the final authority!”) and how the narrative rarely call him out on it. Unlike Nine, he started to believe his own press and the press of other people

I wasn’t keen on the way he joked about appearances of women above thirty, and tbh, I was tired of Ten’s God Complex (“I am the final authority.”) and how the narrative refused to call him out on it.

Ten believing his own press could have been interesting if the narrative didn’t think he was right. For example, The Water of Marscould have been interesting but I thought WoM resolved Ten’s Time Lord Victorious moment far too soon and easily.

I thought they could have explored more about the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ moment for at least another episode, or have The End of Time comment on it.

Apart from series 1, all of RTD’s series finales were heart-wrenching; each finale I ended up feeling like I was going twenty rounds against a meat grinder.

It was why I loved and will continue to love series 5 and how refreshingly happy the ending was.

No one was trapped in another dimension! No one had to single-handedly stop an apocalypse and have their family enslaved, or mind-wiped.

In the scheme of things, I think in certain aspects, Moffat’s storytelling style is more on line with my tastes. The fairytale seasons. Even Twelve becomes a fairytale Doctor, and I wager that his arc in series 8 is remembering the joy and becoming the fairytale Doctor again.

Another reason why I love series 5, coming directly from Ten’s Lonely God thing, was that a lot of people called out the Doctor on their God Complex and made their self-loathing a lot more text. I also loved the fairy tale aspect of his seasons.

But like with RTD not everything Moffat’s done is my favorite, there were some stories that had missteps, and one of those missteps was Moffat trying to out clever himself. Credit to him for swinging for the fences but he also started to spread himself too thin working on two shows, and the seams showed.

One of the criticisms about Moffat’s writing is character work, and he had no interest in the Companions’ families.

I’m in the middle. I have issues but also (especially after rewatching) I was more forgiving, as an example, in the end I didn’t care as much about the state of Amy’s parents.

No, that’s wrong, I did care.

I cared the first time I watched Angels Take Manhattan, I cared so much that when Amy and Rory disappeared I was so angry because all I could think about was Amy’s parents and Brian (Rory’s dad). I cared to the point that it was one of the reasons why I stopped watching.

On subsequent rewatches, I’ve reconciled with the idea that Companion families and family dynamics (the Companion’s parents) isn’t something Moffat was interested in. It took Chibnall to give Rory a dad (interesting that parent-child dynamic is really something Chibnall is drawn to).

Honestly, if family dynamics isn’t something he is interested in, that’s fair. Also, Amy’s parent’s weren’t a factor since series 6 and Amy’s parents might have well fallen back into the Crack for all we know.

Rewatching also helped me come to terms with some narrative choices I wasn’t fond of. Binge (re)watch tended to sand down any rough parts and I find rewatching can help me hold the shape of a story more.

Still, it took a while to realize Eleven acting big and bombastic was deliberate. Moffat needed Eleven to be big and loud, and full of himself so he can also go crashing down. It falls in line with what River describes the Doctor she knew: “Now my Doctor, I’ve seen whole armies turn and run away. And he’d just swagger off back to his Tardis and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.”

One of the things I wasn’t satisfied with Moffat’s writing (and there were plenty) was how series 6 dealt with child loss. Or, how s6 initially didn’t deal with child loss. The writing would eventually address it, and most prominently in The Wedding of River Song in a fantastically chilling scene between Amy and Kovarian.

But even then I felt it wasn’t enough. Emotional continuity during this time was very low.

This brings me to River. I loved her the moment she stepped on screen in Silence in the Library but my love for her character cooled because of series 6. My theory is Moffat wrote himself into a corner trying to out grand series 5.

For those taking notes at home, I watched Doctor Who sporadically during series 7 and then stopped watching at Angels Take Manhattan. I stopped watching until Day of the Doctor happened.

**DotD* reignited my love for Doctor Who! So much so that I went back and binged series 7.

I liked s7 well enough except for how Amy and Rory left, that still sticks in my craw. I would have been okay if the Ponds left at the end of the Power of Three. Unfortunately, for Revival!Who, there’s an expectation now that Leaving Stories should be hard and tragic, and breaks your heart. I don’t always need grand leaving stories.

TBH, with the exception of The Day of the Doctor, Series 7B is one of my least favorite Moffat seasons.

One of the many factors was the way the writers kept giving Matt Smith big speeches. The writers know he can do big speeches so they kept writing big speeches for him. It was their default.

Also, as one podcast speculated series 7B could have been where the writers realized (belatedly) that Smith was actually quite hunky. This and Moffat being too busy to manage the next half of the season because of The Day of the Doctor can explain the disaster that was the Time of the Doctor.

TotD remains as one of my least favorite Doctor Who episodes ever. (Well, not ever, there are some series 2 and 3 episodes that stand above it).

And then the Capaldi era.

This was the turn around where I started loving Moffat’s work again. It wasn’t easy to get to that point though, and like the previous series, there was a time I fell off the Doctor Who wagon because the first half of Capaldi’s season didn’t click with me.

I found him far too mean and unlikable which broke my heart since I loved Capaldi.

But a binge, again, sanded down all sins (well, notall) and now the difficult and prickly series 8 is something I really enjoy because knowing where Twelve ended up in his character journey helped.

This is why, I don’t mind getting spoiled about a show, as long I only get the broad strokes but not the details. I love finding out what his journey was and I don’t think I would have come back if I didn’t know where he ended up.

I think I saw snippets of Zygon Inversion speech on YouTube, and then I decided to give Husbands of River Song convinced me to finally watch all of Twelve’s run.

And now Twelve is my favorite Doctor.

Moffat’s writing didn’t magically become perfect (to me) but I loved the themes he chose to tackle for Twelve. Twelve is another PTSD!Doctor but unlike Nine, he had an opportunity to grow from that trauma. (And get fresh ones — thanks Time Lords!).

I love that Moffat used Twelve’s stories as a way to interrogate Ten’s stories culminating in Heaven Sent/Hell Bent.

IMO, Twelve’s relationship with Clara is similar to Rose and Donna. Twelve and Clara developed quite a co-dependent relationship by the time series 9 rolled around. They never quite achieved the height of smugness that was the first minutes of Impossible Planet nor have they ever been as obnoxious as Ten and Rose were in Tooth and Claw. Possibly because the Doctor’s older at this point and knows the perils, and similar to Donna because of how Donna kept Ten grounded. And, of course, because of the mindwipe argument that was definitely Moffat’s answer to the mindwiping of Donna, and as Moffat said in the War Games commentary, to the mindwipe of Zoe and Jamie.

And then we have Bill with Twelve, showing the very final form of the Twelfth Doctor. Twelve as a grown-up, feeling settled with himself, finally. He learned a lot of lessons and committed himself to stay in one place.

I love the relationship he built with Bill and while I do love, love, love Jodie Whittaker, I was sad to have only one season of Bill and Twelve. Especially since after Lie of the Land Missy’s story began to have more prominence over Bill’s.

(And there’s the whole Missy thing which tbh would make this a longer post than it already is!).

TLDR. Both showrunners aren’t perfect, sometimes their views don’t align with mine. I loved series 1 because it was my entry point into Doctor Who but there are also things about RTD’s run I wasn’t happy with. Same with Moffat there were things I adored and things that really didn’t sit well with me.

There were points during both showrunner’s time on the show I had to take time off.

Now with Chibnall, the same thread runs through: I like most of his stories in series 11 but it also isn’t perfect and has a lot of room for improvement.

/EDITED

aight so I have a lot of (mostly non-positive) thoughts on the new episodes of Doctor Who so lemme rant for a bit because I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.

(if you enjoyed the new episodes and liked the storyline/execution/whatever or you just don’t want to get into The Discourse TM, I wouldn’t recommend reading this post, but do what you want):

This rant is mostly for myself to rant a bit, but also to see if anyone else feels the same way, which, is kind of the point of Tumblr anyway but akshjajsa 

this isn’t an attack on Jodie as the Doctor or a “Chibnall ruined Doctor Who!!!!1″ type of post, but a measured critique on the aspects of the premiere of Series 12 that I really didn’t like.

This is only discourse on Spyfall Part 1 and Part 2, as I haven’t watched Orphan 55 yet.

Here we go.

First things first, the things I actually did like:

I actually only watched a few episodes of Series 11, so I’d just like to note I love Team TARDIS with my whole ass heart ahsjahsja they are great companions and have a great dynamic

I liked the concept of the mission they had to deal with it, even if I didn’t like the execution

Sasha Dhawan was EXCELLENT in this. The way his demeanor changes completely when he stops pretending to be O, his portrayal of the Master, everything about him here was great

The plot twist scene was great. The Doctor’s reaction, the Master’s child-like attitude and excitement, Team Tardis being confused af, it was really good from start to finish and Jodie and Sasha’s acting truly made it click. 

Jodie was also really excellent here btw. The way she portrayed the Doctor’s feeling of being frozen during the reveal scene perfectly, her finally getting to show off the Doctor’s darkness, her dynamics with the Master, her seeing Gallifrey in shambles, etc. She killed it

Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan were GREAT additions and I kinda wish they were full-time companions lmao. Also I ship Thirteen and Ada a lot tbh

The whole scene with the back-and-forth between the Doctor’s message and Graham and Graham landing the plane was hilarious. Graham used to be my least favorite new companion but I think he’s one of my faves now

Part 2 was overall much more fun than Part 1, and the characters were more entertaining as well

I mentioned this before when talking about Jodie’s acting, but seeing Thirteen finally go dark is great. I’m excited to see where this is heading towards, and from what I’ve seen, it’s gonna cause Team TARDIS some conflict, which was kind of overdue. I just really hope Chibnall can lower his ego and allow other writers to execute these concepts in ways he can’t throughout the series

I was also left genuinely intrigued by the whole Timeless Child thing and am looking forward to that so. Yeah.

Now, what I didn’t like:

First of all, it’s written by Chibnall himself and he’s the only writer. ‘Nuff said

The episode seems to take a bit too long to introduce the characters once more and show their daily lives before we get to the point or even first see the Doctor. Maybe that’s just me but idk

Like I mentioned, I like the potential of this mission. A CSI-esque episode but make it sci-fi/Doctor Who. My problem lies with the execution. It wasn’t a fun storyline, and after the Master reveal, it just feels like it’s sidelined and simply there as “oh look Doctor, you looked away and the Master started using ANOTHER alien race to get your attention AGAIN”. It didn’t feel fun either, since there was just. So much info-dumping and not enough answers. The problem isn’t that it was unoriginal, it’s that it was uninspired and boring

Not to mention the Kasaavin ended up being sidelined so much that everyone was just ??? kind of confused about them. Also I’ve seen some people say they are literally just the Cybermen 2.0 and I kind of agree

I got the vibe that “O” and Yaz were flirting and just. Ew. I do not fuck with that

Part 1 in general just felt completely boring and the storyline was so generic you could replace the conflict with literally anything else and keep the twist and it wouldn’t change a thing lol

Also, as happy as I am that we have a POC incarnation of the Master, I’m...conflicted. I am going to miss Missy a whole lot, and the Master going back to being a man is...kind of boring, but that’s not my issue. I understand that, after what happened with her, Missy might’ve given up on redemption and decided to go back to her old Master-y ways, specially with the whole Timeless Child thing, that was so traumatizing the Master felt obligated to destroy Gallifrey, BUT it feels like it just inutilizes Missy’s entire character arc during Capaldi’s run and introduces a new plot element just to make the Master go back to their old villanous ways. It’s sorta cheap

Speaking of cheap plot elements just introduced to retconn things Moffat did, we’ll get back to Gallifrey later

The scene with the Master telling the Doctor to kneel made me uncomfortable. Having Thirteen be the first female Doctor (and arguably the gayest Doctor at that) and then have the Master, her antagonist, be a man...meh. But then have him tell her to kneel and to essentially humiliate her by telling her to call him “Master”, that had my stomach a bit uneasy. Like, yeah, Simm!Doctor did much worse to Tenth, but the implications are much, much, different in this context. Idk, I personally was left uncomfortable by that scene

The Doctor turning the Master over to the N*zi officers was so, so fcking shitty like. I’m not mad at the Doctor, I’m mad at Chibnall for putting that in the fcking script. WHY DID HE THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?????

The Doctor wiping Ada and Noor’s memories just felt so...unnecesary. Like, the Doctor has interacted with historical figures in the past and kept their memories intact (Agatha Christie comes to mind as an exception, though that was accidental). And besides, what for? Ada and Noor having memory of what happened interfered with nothing (I might be wrong on this as I kind of erased anything the Doctor said in that scene from my mind involuntarily lmfao but even so, I can’t come up with any good excuses that could be used there anyways, but if I am missing something notify me in the notes) and they don’t seem like the type to tattle about it or smth

Ah, and now we get to Gallifrey, or what I like to call, both the best and the worst example of what a retconn is. Listen, it doesn’t matter whether you liked Moffat and/or his decision to bring back Gallifrey, but you have to agree this is ridiculous. Chibnall didn’t want to have to deal with what Moffat left him with (a restored Gallifrey and the implications of that) so he had The Master just destroy Gallifrey by himself and discarded it like a chess piece, like. Am I the only one legit dumbfounded by this???? First of all, it took the Daleks an entire war to attempt to destroy Gallifrey, and they actually failed in the end, and yet the Master destroys it by himself, no stress. I legit don’t get it. Listen, I have mixed thoughts on Moffat’s decision to do so and I hate Hell Bent as much as the next person, but this is Chibnall discarding yet ANOTHER arc. That’s two arcs in one premiere. Wow. It legit sealed the deal for me that this premiere was a hot mess.

That’s it (that’s it, she says, after writing a whole essay). Again, this is not an attack on Chibnall’s Doctor Who, Jodie as the Doctor or me telling you how to feel about this episode. My opinion seems like an unpopular one from what I’ve seen but I stand by it lol. 

As a closing statement, fingers crossed that Chibnall lets other people write too this series lmfao.

(This is my first indepth critique of anything here so, hum, if you disagree, please be kind akhjahsjahs I doubt this will get much notes anyways but)

Heartless

I’ve seen some of the new Doctor Who and it’s kind of terrible. Once, when i was younger, I’d be on the edge of my seat whenever i tuned into this smart, snarky, surprisingly well executed indie-like show. I adored the first few series of the revival run. Eccelston was a decent Doctor but the show took off once David Tennant got the role. 10 is my favorite Doc of all time, no disrespect to Matt Smith or Tom Baker but, for me, it’s 10 all the way. He had the best stories, the best development, the best pathos. He was written brilliantly and i adored every second of it. And that’s the rub; 10 was WRITTEN beautifully. There was creativity and passion and love in his stories. All of that was driven by Russell T. Davies, a brilliant creator in his own right. This cat was the driving force behind shows like Queer As Folk and The Grand. He had a way to ground his storied in reality by focusing on the characters and their motivation. For Davies, the devil was in the detail and his almost auteur sense of showrunning made sure of that. I understand why Eccelston left after one series. Davies wasn’t budging on his vision and Eccelston, being the same way in front of the screen, woulld, invariably, do nothing but clash. It was sad to see him go but we got Tennant in tow, so it wasn’t all bad. I was born in the 80s so, until the revival started, my Doctor Who was Paul McGann. It’s a shame he didn’t get a fair shake. I think he could have been incredibly special in the role. Unfortunate. Eventually, Tennant left, like Eccelestson, but on different terms. Cats had to pry David off the set, he loved the character so much. In comes Matt Smith, all young and gang, instantly warming our hearts to his cool ass bow ties. Matt Smith brought Steven Moffat with him as showrunner and this is where things took a turn, I think.

Steven Moffat is a huge television person in Britain. He’s produced fantastic shows like the BBC Sherlock, Jekyll, and the current Netflix Dracula run. He is not Russell T. Davies. The difference in their writing is wildly apparent. I’m not saying it’s bad but it’s definitely less. Or so it was after Davies left. See, Davies had a cache of writers on his staff while he ran his portion of Who. Moffat was one of those cats. Davies says he never changed a single script submitted by Moffat, and I’m inclined to agree. When you have strict parents, you know to stay inline and put your best foot forward. When Davies bowed out and Moffat got the big chair? That’s when sh*t started to slide. Don’t get me wrong, the show was still entertaining. Moffat hit the jackpot with Smith and Karen Gillan. Their chemistry was amazing. I, personally, enjoyed the episodes with Rover Song as well, although, that seems to be a point of contention among the fandom. However, You can see cracks begin to form when Gillan left. Now, i absolutely adore Clara Oswin Oswald. The idea of her character was great. The execution, not so great. That becomes a theme in Moffat run. By the time Peter Capaldi got to throw on his sonic shades, Moffat was phoning sh*t in left and right, which is absurd because Capaldi is an excellent actor. How do yo outright waste such talent? There were a few sparks of amazing, a few brilliant episode, and f*cking Missy, ultimately though, Moffat went out with a fart instead of a bang. I think, toward the end there, Moffat was tired of the vehicle that made him a star. This brings my to current Who. The BBC installed one of the worse creatives in their social conscious to helm what could arguably be the biggest shift n Who since the first hiatus; A female Doctor.

Now, i was never one of these cats who cared if the Doctor had a Johnson or a Virginia, they’re immortal interdenominational aliens who regenerate their bodies after death. They can be whatever the f*ck they want to be at that point, except ginger, apparently. o be so butt-hurt that their precious Doctor now has boobies is ridiculous. Be upset about who they cast, bro. We’ve had excellent actors portraying the good Doctor for decades. Is this new one, female or not, going to carry that torch? Do they have the ability to do this legacy justice? That’s what should have been the focus, but it wasn’t, so the BBC was able to slide Chris Chibnall into the big chair. That is the problem with this show. A lot of Chibnall’s catalog seems to be crime serials. I’m intimately familiar with Broadchurch and i can make pretty accurate assumptions about Law and Order: UK. He was head writer fir Torchwood, but that ain’t Doctor Who. That’s a different show with a different feel. He’s actually written some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who in the new run, itself. Who’s favorite episode is f*cking “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship?” And the BBC put THIS guy in charge? No wonder the ratings are in the sh*tter, dude can’t write outside of crime dramas! There is a distinct lack of imagination there and it shows in his filmography. Just because you have a tenuous connection to Doctor Who, doesn’t mean you should be in charge of the entire goddamn show! Which is a shame because Jodie Whittaker is an amazing actor!

Jodie is the saving grace of this terrible run and it’s hard to see that with how drab her scripts have been. This feels a lot like how McGann got burned in the 90s but in a different way. Whittaker’s pedigrees is unassailable. Ma can act. She was great in attack the Block and the best goddamn thing about Broadchurch so stepping into the role of the Doctor; a role historically chock full of freedom for the actor to craft any sort of personality for the character, should have been a dream come true. it wasn’t. Whittaker was almost immediately boxed in by the BBC and Chibnall, forcing this weird, focus grouped, visage all over her. She was immediately expected to impersonate a cross between Smith and Tennant, something that sound awesome on paper but is absolutely impossible to pull off once you have a deep understanding about those two characters. 10 was a Doctor who had to live with the knowledge that he committed genocide on his own people. While he was able to smile and interact with others on a personable level, he kept people at an arms length. He abandoned the woman he loved in another dimension because of this fact. Because he feels he doesn’t deserve to be happy. 11 is the opposite. He forgot the number. He stopped counting. He allows himself to love again, both platonic and romantic. He doesn’t care about the Time War and it’s casualties, not anymore. This juxtaposition is impossible to reconcile and it makes for a sh*tty character with no tone, no agency, and no heart. And that’s the problem with this run of Doctor Who so far; There’s no heart.

It seems Chibnall has a rather short leash with this run of the Doctor. Not that he minds it, dude comes across has kind of an executive bootlicker from what I’ve seen. He’s a creative who isn’t all that creative; a writer who has good ideas and not a lick of understanding about how to execute them properly. I could be wrong, I’m not British, but i am observant and it appears to me that Chibnall is at his best when he’s adapting some sh*t or has a framework to build upon. Crime serials have that.They have a structure to their narrative. It you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all that’s why they’re called “serials”. Even with Torchwood, there was a world to build upon and cats to edit his scripts. Being the showrunner for Doctor Who has none of that. There is no structure. There is no framework. There is just pure possibility, awash in the fantastic. You have to have imagination to be in charge of Who and, as far as i can tell, Chibnall is lacking that aspect. He’s lacking heart. Doctor Who feels like Broadchurch, in more ways than one, and that i absolutely a sin. Who should feel like Who. It would be whimsical and tragic and uplifting and heartfelt and genuine. What Chibnall has created in these two series so far, feels like a product. This sh*t was pressed out, manufactured, with not even an ounce of love and that sucks. How can he be so jaded and he just got the job?

Heartless

I’ve seen some of the new Doctor Who and it’s kind of terrible. Once, when i was younger, I’d be on the edge of my seat whenever i tuned into this smart, snarky, surprisingly well executed indie-like show. I adored the first few series of the revival run. Eccelston was a decent Doctor but the show took off once David Tennant got the role. 10 is my favorite Doc of all time, no disrespect to Matt Smith or Tom Baker but, for me, it’s 10 all the way. He had the best stories, the best development, the best pathos. He was written brilliantly and i adored every second of it. And that’s the rub; 10 was WRITTEN beautifully. There was creativity and passion and love in his stories. All of that was driven by Russell T. Davies, a brilliant creator in his own right. This cat was the driving force behind shows like Queer As Folk and The Grand. He had a way to ground his storied in reality by focusing on the characters and their motivation. For Davies, the devil was in the detail and his almost auteur sense of showrunning made sure of that. I understand why Eccelston left after one series. Davies wasn’t budging on his vision and Eccelston, being the same way in front of the screen, woulld, invariably, do nothing but clash. It was sad to see him go but we got Tennant in tow, so it wasn’t all bad. I was born in the 80s so, until the revival started, my Doctor Who was Paul McGann. It’s a shame he didn’t get a fair shake. I think he could have been incredibly special in the role. Unfortunate. Eventually, Tennant left, like Eccelestson, but on different terms. Cats had to pry David off the set, he loved the character so much. In comes Matt Smith, all young and gang, instantly warming our hearts to his cool ass bow ties. Matt Smith brought Steven Moffat with him as showrunner and this is where things took a turn, I think.

Steven Moffat is a huge television person in Britain. He’s produced fantastic shows like the BBC Sherlock, Jekyll, and the current Netflix Dracula run. He is not Russell T. Davies. The difference in their writing is wildly apparent. I’m not saying it’s bad but it’s definitely less. Or so it was after Davies left. See, Davies had a cache of writers on his staff while he ran his portion of Who. Moffat was one of those cats. Davies says he never changed a single script submitted by Moffat, and I’m inclined to agree. When you have strict parents, you know to stay inline and put your best foot forward. When Davies bowed out and Moffat got the big chair? That’s when sh*t started to slide. Don’t get me wrong, the show was still entertaining. Moffat hit the jackpot with Smith and Karen Gillan. Their chemistry was amazing. I, personally, enjoyed the episodes with Rover Song as well, although, that seems to be a point of contention among the fandom. However, You can see cracks begin to form when Gillan left. Now, i absolutely adore Clara Oswin Oswald. The idea of her character was great. The execution, not so great. That becomes a theme in Moffat run. By the time Peter Capaldi got to throw on his sonic shades, Moffat was phoning sh*t in left and right, which is absurd because Capaldi is an excellent actor. How do yo outright waste such talent? There were a few sparks of amazing, a few brilliant episode, and f*cking Missy, ultimately though, Moffat went out with a fart instead of a bang. I think, toward the end there, Moffat was tired of the vehicle that made him a star. This brings my to current Who. The BBC installed one of the worse creatives in their social conscious to helm what could arguably be the biggest shift n Who since the first hiatus; A female Doctor.

Now, i was never one of these cats who cared if the Doctor had a Johnson or a Virginia, they’re immortal interdenominational aliens who regenerate their bodies after death. They can be whatever the f*ck they want to be at that point, except ginger, apparently. o be so butt-hurt that their precious Doctor now has boobies is ridiculous. Be upset about who they cast, bro. We’ve had excellent actors portraying the good Doctor for decades. Is this new one, female or not, going to carry that torch? Do they have the ability to do this legacy justice? That’s what should have been the focus, but it wasn’t, so the BBC was able to slide Chris Chibnall into the big chair. That is the problem with this show. A lot of Chibnall’s catalog seems to be crime serials. I’m intimately familiar with Broadchurch and i can make pretty accurate assumptions about Law and Order: UK. He was head writer fir Torchwood, but that ain’t Doctor Who. That’s a different show with a different feel. He’s actually written some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who in the new run, itself. Who’s favorite episode is f*cking “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship?” And the BBC put THIS guy in charge? No wonder the ratings are in the sh*tter, dude can’t write outside of crime dramas! There is a distinct lack of imagination there and it shows in his filmography. Just because you have a tenuous connection to Doctor Who, doesn’t mean you should be in charge of the entire goddamn show! Which is a shame because Jodie Whittaker is an amazing actor!

Jodie is the saving grace of this terrible run and it’s hard to see that with how drab her scripts have been. This feels a lot like how McGann got burned in the 90s but in a different way. Whittaker’s pedigrees is unassailable. Ma can act. She was great in attack the Block and the best goddamn thing about Broadchurch so stepping into the role of the Doctor; a role historically chock full of freedom for the actor to craft any sort of personality for the character, should have been a dream come true. it wasn’t. Whittaker was almost immediately boxed in by the BBC and Chibnall, forcing this weird, focus grouped, visage all over her. She was immediately expected to impersonate a cross between Smith and Tennant, something that sound awesome on paper but is absolutely impossible to pull off once you have a deep understanding about those two characters. 10 was a Doctor who had to live with the knowledge that he committed genocide on his own people. While he was able to smile and interact with others on a personable level, he kept people at an arms length. He abandoned the woman he loved in another dimension because of this fact. Because he feels he doesn’t deserve to be happy. 11 is the opposite. He forgot the number. He stopped counting. He allows himself to love again, both platonic and romantic. He doesn’t care about the Time War and it’s casualties, not anymore. This juxtaposition is impossible to reconcile and it makes for a sh*tty character with no tone, no agency, and no heart. And that’s the problem with this run of Doctor Who so far; There’s no heart.

It seems Chibnall has a rather short leash with this run of the Doctor. Not that he minds it, dude comes across has kind of an executive bootlicker from what I’ve seen. He’s a creative who isn’t all that creative; a writer who has good ideas and not a lick of understanding about how to execute them properly. I could be wrong, I’m not British, but i am observant and it appears to me that Chibnall is at his best when he’s adapting some sh*t or has a framework to build upon. Crime serials have that.They have a structure to their narrative. It you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all that’s why they’re called “serials”. Even with Torchwood, there was a world to build upon and cats to edit his scripts. Being the showrunner for Doctor Who has none of that. There is no structure. There is no framework. There is just pure possibility, awash in the fantastic. You have to have imagination to be in charge of Who and, as far as i can tell, Chibnall is lacking that aspect. He’s lacking heart. Doctor Who feels like Broadchurch, in more ways than one, and that i absolutely a sin. Who should feel like Who. It would be whimsical and tragic and uplifting and heartfelt and genuine. What Chibnall has created in these two series so far, feels like a product. This sh*t was pressed out, manufactured, with not even an ounce of love and that sucks. How can he be so jaded and he just got the job?