Half way through this truncated season and I feel it’s necessary to take a metaphorical step back and look at the big picture.
I was looking forward to this season. I really was actually. Look, lets be honest here Steven Moffat had run out of steam by the end. Season 10 was an improvement over the previous two, but nowhere near as great as season 5. I blame Sherlock, it’s difficult enough to run one epic series, let alone two that become that amazingly popular and that ingrained into popular culture.
Both shows suffered because Moffat was torn between them. Still, I’m not here to go into that right now. We’re looking at Who. Now Chibnall cleared house behind the scenes as well as in front. This was going to be a fresh start for them. And Doctor Who needs to do that every so often. The show's been around for fifty five years, to keep up with the times it needs to change.
If it didn’t it would become stagnant. It would die off, much like Star Trek did in the early 2000’s. If you don’t innovate you lose viewers to those that do. Without viewers you fail and your show is gone. Especially in Science Fiction TV where they can cost more than smaller programs and the audience often demand more.
So with a new, fresh, show runner and a new Doctor things were looking up for the program. I was actually quite excited when I saw we were getting our first female Doctor. Of course there were people who didn’t like the idea, there’s always people objecting when the Doctor regenerates. I thought it was worth a chance.
There were also people at the time that called Chris Chibnall a hack writer, I didn’t particularly agree with them. I was never that impressed with Chibnall’s previous work on Doctor Who and Torchwood, true, but he was brought on as staff. Shackled by the guidelines imposed on him from the screenwriter. Now he was captaining the ship he could set the course.
So we’re half way through the first journey on this captaincy. Where do we stand? Well the important thing to remember is it’s never too late to improve. You just have to know what the problem is. That said I announced in my last review that the gloves were off. I’m not going to be polite here. Chibnall has proven to be an incompetent, mediocre and stagnant writer.
One of my favourite writers is David (& Leigh) Eddings. I love his (their) Belgariad and Mallorian tales. Bear with me a moment, you’ll see my point. Both Belgariad and Mallorian are examples of what is known of the Mono-myth. The traditional fantasy story where the hero is raised in obscurity, discovers their destiny to weald immense power, struggles with that responsibility, fails, grows as a person, succeeds and eventually triumphs. This is one of the first things you learn when writing fantasy novels. This pattern is everywhere. From Avatar the Last Airbender to Star Wars this simple plot repeats.
What Eddings did was, in my opinion, write the road map. He (they) didn’t try to subvert it. Didn’t try to put a new surprise spin on the story. Eddings went out to write the ultimate Mono-myth and succeeded. It’s a fun, exiting tale, with creative characters. This is shown through great dialogue, wonderful interactions between them and strong individual personalities. A sense of drama, of passion, seeps through the story. Not only is it about the big universe changing developments, but it’s also about the people.
Chibnall lacks the ability to do that. His plots are pedantic, repetitive and vapid. What originality there is to be found is subsumed in the endless plodding cliche that drowns the stories. Eddings didn’t reinvent the wheel he (they) did their best to perfect it. In comparison Chibnall doodles a wheel on a napkin and calls it art.
The real reason I brought up Eddings though is the characters. Chibnall’s supposed strength is his characters, and while the new Doctor and the team made a good impression at the beginning nothing positive has happened with them since then. In someways its gone backwards.
Stop and really think about it for a moment, as there been any change between Ryan and Graham? Have we seen a hint that their relationship had developed? Nope. Ryan’s always one step away of screaming “You’re not my real dad! You’re too uncool!” and Graham’s repetitive “I’ll take care of you lad” got on my nerves about halfway through the second episode. You can just sense before the season’s end this will finally be resolved.
Probably about ten minutes before it’s revealed that Graham’s cancer is back. You just know that’s coming too. Why else bring it up? Chibnall’s plots and developments are paint by numbers storytelling. I swear we’re one step away from the butler did it.
Then you’ve got Yaz. At first she seemed interesting, an actual police officer but longing for something more. More than just walking the beat. You could have real fun with that character. Her problem is she’s done the square root of bugger all since the first episode. Honestly, you could remove her from every story and lose nothing! She takes up dead air. In the last two episodes there were perfect opportunities for her to do something, from arresting a criminal to taking charge when needed. Both times nothing happened.
The only possible, possible reason I can think she’s around for is a lame romance plot with Ryan. Now I’m all for a good romance, but if you’re going to signpost it that much why not just have it there in the first place? At the moment all she’s doing is the standard Companion trick of asking questions for the Doctor to answer, but that’s it. Questions that can be asked by just about anyone else.
Then we have the Doctor. Or we would, if this was actually the Doctor we were getting.
Okay. Here’s the thing, I have nothing against Jodie Whittaker, she is a good actress and I don’t think she’s been mis-cast. Honestly. She’s got the quirkiness, the off the wall odd ball personality and the acting skills to be a great Doctor, but she’s not been given the chance. The Doctor is one of the most complex and multifaceted characters in fiction. They’re a war hero, a philosopher, a poet, an explorer, a romantic. What’s Jodie’s Doctor? The only description I can come up with the often used ‘child like wonder.’
Yes, the Doctor has always had joy at learning, but there’s more than that. You can’t just hang everything on a “wow look at that” mentality and hope you’ve got the Doctor. If there was one line that I think sums up the Doctor perfectly it comes from the Second, in the adventure The Moonbase. ‘There are some corners of the universe that have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought.’
The Doctor has faced some of the most evil creatures in all of fiction. Not just the Daleks, but cybernetic nightmares of flesh welded to metal. Eldritch abominations from the dawn of existence. Vampires, Lunatic dictators, masters of vast inter-galactic empires. Werewolves. Embodiments of pure evil. The devil himself! At one point the Doctor is reported to have reached into the sands of a desert battlefield, pull out the bones of fallen warriors, carve them into chess pieces and then challenge Fenric, the end of existence itself, to a game.
The Doctor won. Can you see Jodie’s version of the Doctor doing any of that?
How many times have we heard the Doctor announce that they were the one to walk away from the Time War? How often have we seen them swat whole armies away? How many speeches have we witnessed? Now I will admit that they do get boring after a while and the more low key villains are a nice break from the near constant end of the universe peril. but where is Time’s Champion? Where is the Doctor that the gods themselves fear?
And I admit I was thrilled when I heard we wouldn’t be getting any of those tired old villains that the Doctor had defeated time and time again. Something new was coming, Something epic. Then you’ve got to remember that it was Chibnall behind this mess and this was back when I knew what hope was.
There was no arcane sorcerer threatening the future of the galaxies. No sadistic power hungry madman hunting Team TARDIS down across time and space. No threatening monster reviving hordes of the countless dead to do their twisted bidding. Not even a deranged scientist toying with the laws of nature in defiance of god and man. Instead we’ve had dodgy Donald Trump knockoffs and a rejected Disney cartoon character.
This is my biggest problem with the season. A hero is defined by their villain. What is Batman without the Joker? What is Optimus Prime without Megatron. Sherlock without Moriarty? What is the Doctor without the Master? Season 11 provides the answer to that last one. This is why I feel Jodie is not the Doctor yet.
She’s not been given the chance to prove she can do it. She’s just been told to stand there wide-eyed at everything and point her sonic screwdriver liked she’s waving a flag. Where is the fire? Where is the passion? Where is the Doctor?
Season 11 is a waste. It’s a limp, mediocre waste. And that’s what makes it bad. To compound the issue we’re only getting ten episodes. We wait ten months for ten measly episodes and they don’t even have the decency to be comically bad. Episodes like Love & Monsters and Kill the Moon are comically bad. You can at least laugh at them for how awful they are. There is nothing to laugh at here. Not even ironically.
Series 11 is dull. Any writer half asleep could do a better job. You have a powerful cast, an obviously skilled production team, an in built audience and fifty five years worth of examples on how to do the job. Somehow, someway Chibnall has missed all of this.
I said above there is always a chance for improvement and the second half might be better, but I doubt it will be enough to pull back the audience that is leaving in droves. It’s gone from nearly 11 million viewers to just over 8.2 in four episodes. On average that’s nearly a million people less per episode. What more can I say? There was always going to be a dip, but this is a plummet. Approaching free fall and if the rumours are true and we’re not getting season 12 until 2020 then we can wave bye bye to the Doctor. Probably this time for good.
So what is the solution? What is the improvement? Quite simple. Chibnall needs to take risks. Not boring, predictable, risks like casting a woman, which is something a good number of people were already asking for, or more companions. Again people were asking for that. No, he needs to take a risk, a challenge in writing. A suggestion, if he can’t be bothered watching the classic Who adventures, it might be a good idea for Chibnall to take a page out of the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits.
If you’re going to focus on one off monsters you can do far worse. But I don’t think he’s got the talent needed. I want Chibnall to leave after this season. He’s had his chance and he’s blown it. Personally I’d pull someone new into the show. Charlie Brooker would be a good choice. He’s got the experience with Black Mirror.
At best Chibnall is a caretaker, and he's not taking very good care of the show.
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