#chibnal crit

[kendrixtermina]

Another Thing Chibnall can't do right: Audience Surrogates

I'm going to start this last rant with one illustrative question: Why isn't Ryan Sinclair popular?

He is consistently considered the blandest out of a cast of terribly bland, flavorless characters, but why?

Cause let's look at a purely 'theoretical' description of his character: He's a warehouse worker who experienced dicrimination & frustrating shit because of his disability & racism, he has a messy complicated family situation that he's salty about, he likes videogames, experimental music and making youtube videos.

On paper, he sounds like Mr. Relatable Millenial. Why didn't ppl eat his character up? Cause it's not like there isn't an appetite for it, ppl had been clamoring for black main characters, disabled peeps, more working class protags, what have you. There's demand.

Now I generally consider 'Relatable' a a false god & I'm the first to get angry when someone argues all characters need to be 'relatable everymen'. RTD loved that trope a lot & then ppl got mad when Moffat wasn't RTD and loudly proclaimed that no real person would relate to Moffat's characters (I guess I don't exist then...), it always pisses me off when ppl claim their experiences are universal or that they will only care about characters who are similar to them as if experiencing the PoVs of other wasn't the point of storytelling.

So the issue is NOT that I think all characters need to be Relatable Everymen. The issue is that Chibnall tried to write one & failed spectacularly.

I wanna argue that the reason for this is that he doesn't know who the audience is, and that he treats the supposed audience with mockery & condescension.... though really, most of all, he's simply out of touch with it. To make an audience surrogate type character & have it land, you need to correctly understand the audience.

Notice what tone is present when something from pop culture is referenced - for example, when Tzim Sha's victim is listening to affirmations on his headphones, its looking to be mocking ppl who do that.

Ryan shows more emotion about things being deleted from his phone than his life being threatened, landing on an alien planet or finding a desolate future earth. "Haha millenials obsessed with phones!" ...who is that joke FOR? What feelings is it likely to evoke towards Ryan?

'Climate Change Bad' is treated like it would be a totally new idea to Yaz & Ryan, who are supposed to be part of a generation that grew up with climate anxiety all their lives as a reason to be cynical

The Doctor needs to lecture them about who Nicola Tesla is, they're treated as having no clue... even though there's, like, a car brand named for him & loads of tumblr posts.

Likewise, Ryan needs to be lectured by everyone about who Rosa Parks was

etc. etc.

The same refrain all over again: Young people are dumb, young people are silly, we wrote these characters as dumb & silly because that's what we think YOU GUYS are like.

Does anybody LIKE being called dumb & silly? Are people likely to like the character used to represent their dumbness & sillyness?

I get the need to maybe exposition things for young viewers, but that can probably be contrived in some way without making the characters you're supposed to like seem dumb. With the Nikola Tesla thing, for example, how about having Graham have no idea who he is? I don't mean make him ignorant, but genuinely interested to learn.

By contrast, let's look at some other 'relatable youngster' characters & how they're treated:

Rose Tyler very much evokes a typical mid 2000s mainstream pop culture, with her bleach blonde hair & bleached flared jeans etc. You can easily imagine that she probably dyed her hair to copy Britney spears, Kylie Minogue or Christina Aguilera, like a lot of girls back then. She effectively winds up in one of the fantasy romance stories that were popular back then. She gets what's kind of a wish fulfillment story of finding out she has the potential to be badass & make a difference after being treated as a fuckup.

Courtney Woods is a rebellious teen considered difficult by her parents/teachers & labelled a 'disruptive influence'. When she introduces herself as such, the Doctor instantly likes her & respects her rebel cred. She is treated as having great intuition & being unintimidated by effective authority figures such as Clara... and that's cool & an opportunity for Clara to learn. Likewise, when he off-handedly says something that hurts her feelings, it is not played as an an 'oversensitive teen' joke but rather Clara makes the Doctor apologize & make it up to her. We are also told that despite struggling with a rigid environment at school, she becomes succesful later in life because of that same strong personality.

Rose Noble is sort of the typical image of gen Y, complete with colorful hair & pronouns. She is really into arts & crafts, makes those 'creepy cute' plushies that she sells online, but in her IRL surroundings she experiences bullying. You can easily imagine her having an AO3 or a crafts-themed tiktok. She is in one of those 'found family wholesome hurt/comfort' stories that are popular nowadays & has the protective mom many teens wish they had.

To summarize:

Their experiences are validated & affirmed, not mocked

pop culture references are used to characterize them & connect them to the audience

From the framing it's clear that we're supposed to like these characters and that they're awesome. That doesn't mean that they don't have flaws or insecurities (indeed those are a big part of what make them relatable) but they're the kind of insecurities someone in their life situation would have. (Rose T. is a tad jealous cause she worries about her love interest finding someone more impressive, Courtney doesn't show insecurity but responds by acting out, but has a thing about being unimportant/not special, Rose N. feels alienated from her peers & out of place)

the stories they get cater to wish fullfillment, which is possible due to knowledge of what these groups of people like

It would have taken a half hour google search for Chibnall to find out what the wishes & dreams of someone like Ryan would look like. IDK, find some blog posts by warehouse workers, ppl with dyspraxia, millenials etc.

One thing that's been pointed out for example is that we never really see WHY Ryan wants to learn to ride a bike. If it's just to please his parental figures, wouldn't a better arc be that they realize he doesn't need to be able to do that just to prove he can and appear "normal", rather than 'look he concentrated & climbed a ladder after all!' Like many actual disabled ppl say they're annoyed about 'shaking off the disability' type stories.

Or, he could relate to getting the chance to adventure as an escape from his lowkey dystopian frustrating life where he deals with many unfair things, or latch onto the Doctor as a mentor after losing his parental figures, or maybe worry that someone who struggles with some physical activities isn't a fit for adventuring but then realize that he can contribute in other ways like asking good questions & thinking. (especially when Yaz is a better fit for the action scenes as someone who presumably had police training)

You could have an interesting unique team dynamic this way:

Yaz could be the competent, badass one, but believing in order & authority tends to just follow/ hero worship the doctor eventually leading into the bit where she develops a crush on her, Graham is the caution/common sense similar to Rory or Donna, maybe looking to protect the younger protags but also gradually having his horizons broadened, and Ryan could get to be the heart & emotional core of the group & the one who questions the Doctor more due to being more jaded from his shitty life while also wanting to escape from it...

Like. If you gave the same list of character traits to a more competent writer, you could've ended up with such complex, dynamic & interesting characters that ppl would have been all over.

[cabaretbabe]

the thing that most frustrates me about thirteen (aside from her obvious suffering from poor pacing/writing) is the potential for a sapphic doctor was RIGHT THERE and instead we got some of the worst queerbait like... ever. like supernatural levels of queerbait.

and it would be one thing if censorship was an issue but its not!! doctor who is and always has been a historically queer show (it was created by a gay man) and has continued to raise the bar for representation in network television over the years. why could the doctor have a relationship with rose, river, missy etc, but as soon as its a queer ship she can't handle it anymore?? it doesnt even make sense in the canon of the show.

no fault to the actors, but yaz and 13 were incredibly bland characters that seemed to be smashed together as a last minute thought for queer rep brownie points. hell, steven moffat even depicted the majority of his main characters as bisexual or gay. if moffat is writing better queer/ female rep than you, youve got a problem.

and of course one could argue that every new who doctor has been fruity so whats the big deal?? captain jack, ten and the master, etc. but jodi being the first female doctor opened up so many new possibilities for sapphic rep that were squashed by overcomplicated, hollow plotlines and unlikeable characters. which is just such a damn shame.

i know nothing im saying here is a particularly hot take, the majority of the fandom feels this way. but having rtd back as showrunner (also a gay man!) and a fantastic m/m doctor in ncuti just really highlights how much we've been missing.

anyway, go watch torchwood and cry if you want proper queer rep in abundance. til then, jenny and vastra and bill and stargirl are about all we get.

[khruschevshoe]

Thasmin & How the Changing of Showrunners Handicapped Their Story

You know what? I'm going to rant about it. I've been thinking about Doctor Who from a Watsonian versus Doylist point of view on a constant basis, especially when it comes to showrunners and how the doctor is handed over from showrunner to showrunner and how the exit of Yaz from the show is it possibly the clearest example in the world of this feeling of a showrunner being switched. I'm not talking writing differences, I'm not talking stylistic differences, I'm talking the way that she left the show. Because I would put all of my life savings on the fact that if Thirteen and fourteen had the same show runner, Yaz would have been able to stay around for 13's regeneration. You can feel the writing of the show STRAINING to justify why Thirteen would dump her/leave her behind. It feels abrupt because it IS. Rose got to continue her story with 10 until its organic end. Same with Clara. Hell, even River, though her circumstances were slightly different. There is literally no reason why Fourteen wouldn't go after her the moment the 60th specials end except for the fact that for some absolutely weird reason RTD didn't mention Yaz ONCE despite 14 being more "emotionally open" than the Doctors before him.

Like, I'm going to be honest. I'm mostly ambivalent on Thasmin. I think they're sweet and had potential and got screwed in the build up in seasons 11 and 12 (up until Revolution, even). But if I was y'all I would be PISSED. Because that kind of treatment of Yaz and Thasmin as a love story sucked from both the Power of the Doctor AND the 60th anniversary specials. No closure. No real explanation. No acknowledgement of the main love story of the last showrunner. (Even Steven Moffat name-dropped Bad Wolf/Rose in the 50th special, though he did also have the whole 10th Doctor running around with Elizabeth I thing so maybe that cancels itself out.) The mechanics of the show and how it's run screwed you over. And I'm sorry. I hope y'all get some acknowledgement in 15's Era. I'll be pleasantly and happily surprised if we get a cameo (or some miraculous wrap-up of the storyline ala Husbands of River Song), but seeing how the most logical place for a mention (the toymaker) came and went without a peep I'm not hedging my bets.

(Going to go check out some fanfic, though- and imagine that fourteen took off towards Sheffield the moment the 60th anniversary wrapped!)

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

In the end, what really gnaws at me about how Yaz was written is that she never once drives the story in any way. Even with Thasmin she is nothing more than a participant and not a very active one at that. Nothing happens there because of anything she says or does. Dan pushes her to admit her feelings, he tells the Doctor about them (dick move, mate), and then the Doctor tells her they can't be together, and Yaz just nods along with all of this. She was the main companion of that era, the one who was supposedly closest to the Doctor, and her primary role for three seasons was to just stand there and nod along while everyone else was speaking.

[quantumshade]

okay actually i rewatched potd the other day and. i have so many gripes with that episode. so many. but what really got me is how like. inconsequential 13's death feels, and not inconsequential in the right way.

honestly 13's regeneration feels a LOT like 10's, but missing all of the beats that made 10's work. let me explain:

(under a cut because HOLY SHIT this got long. don't let classicists write dr who meta)

both 10's and 13's regenerations are prophesied to them. ten gets the woman in planet of the dead, carmen, who says "he will knock four times." thirteen gets the Literal Incarnation Of Time telling her, "beware of the forces that mass against you. and their master."

both their regenerations happen after a short-ish period of time, at least for a time lord. 10 regenerates after only a handful of years, a decade at most, and 13 spends the majority of her life in prison for decades. that's nothing!! 11 and 12 both had centuries.

ten cheating regeneration with tentoo and then regenerating a few episodes later anyway 🤝 thirteen cheating regeneration after being forced into being the master and then back again and then dying almost immediately after anyway

they both almost make it out!! but they don't, and it's heartbreaking!

what's different between them, to me, is their reactions to their deaths. a lot of people who don't like rtd era/ten complain about the scene where he has a breakdown before saving wilf, complaining that he's being whiny or whatever, but in my mind, he has every right to be whiny and upset. regeneration is a death, as established earlier in the episode. it's hard, starting over again and again and again, becoming someone new, especially when he's only had this body for a couple of years AND he believes his next body is his last.

yknow why he's upset in that scene? because he could just walk away. he could just let wilf take the fall, let one, inconsequential old man die, and go off and have adventures forever. but it's not a choice for him. because he's the doctor, and the doctor would never, ever take the other choice. he was always going to save wilf. there's no world in which he didn't.

but he's scared of dying. he's scared of change. he's lost everyone he's ever loved in this body, often in horrible, unchangeable ways. and it's a sad story. but it's an incredibly narratively satisfying one, because it's a culmination of ten's entire arc. he lost his way, broke all his own rules, and was punished heavily for it, but in the end, he still does the right thing, because at their core, the doctor is a good person.

there's a running theme in just about pretty much all of doctor who from 1963 onwards that every single person is important and every life matters. 9 dies to save rose, but is also prepared to die permanently to save the human race. 10 dies to save wilf. 11, after centuries of running away from responsibilities and problems, settles down to protect one town on one planet, accepting he will die for good there. 12 dies to save a handful of people on a ship--"maybe not many, maybe not for long"--accepting all of this might be for nothing, but he does it because it's the right thing to do. because it's kind. the doctor does these things, lays down their lives one right after another because they are fundamentally a kind person.

13 lets people sacrifice themselves for her. multiple times. like. four different people she BARELY knows sacrifice themselves for her (i.e. the derry girls grandpa in "the timeless children" and the one pirate guy in "legend of the sea devils"). and she LETS them. i'm not saying this as a gripe against her, but rather, the writing that doesn't consider those lives important.

people sacrifice themselves for other doctors, of course, it happens all the time. to keep using ten as an example, river is one, and that prickish kid from the sontaran episodes, but he doesn't LET them. they don't give him that choice. and when he IS given that choice, to let someone "inconsequential" die in his place, he doesn't take it.

and then the way 13 does die just feels so... nothing. the master's angry at her, so he aims a large and slow moving Beam at her, and she basically stands there while it hits her. and that's it. honestly i would have been much happier with it if they said it was a product of the forced regeneration from earlier. that would have made a lot more sense. but the whole thing with the qorunx (is that what it's called??) just feels so... last minute. like they forgot that she needed to die at the end of the episode so they just shoved something in. it feels like an afterthought.

yaz's exit feels the same way. you're telling me she fought for four years in the past to get back to the doctor, and now she's just leaving because the doctor is regenerating? it feels like yaz and the doctor both had endings because the narrative said they needed endings, not because their character arcs had come to a satisfying close.

they deserved better. yaz deserved an exit that was fair to her as a character. the doctor deserved a death that mattered. and she deserved to be more upset about her death.

she gets a little bit, just a taste, of an emotional moment: "No. No. That's not right. I need more time. I want more time!", before immediately accepting her death and coming to terms with it. "And I have loved being me," she says. but me, as a viewer who cares about characterization and storytelling, asks, "have you?"

because 13 spent more time of this life IN PRISON than out of it. her life outside was never easy, either, she rarely got moments of true happiness. hell, in this regeneration, she found out her entire life was a lie!

...but she loved being her?

i think 13 should have gotten to be angry and upset that she wasn't given those moments of peace or happiness. she didn't get a lot of time being her, and the time she did get was fraught and difficult and painful. she should have gotten to be upset about not having more time for more than 0.2 seconds. she should have been allowed to be afraid of dying. or at least upset about dying.

i don't know. i don't know if this post is at all coherent but i'm just really disappointed in potd and my rewatch really cemented that. it didn't have the emotional resonance that i wish it did. it felt rushed, overstuffed, and, much like the rest of chibnall era, not well thought out.

[icedsodapop]

Moffat!DW stans vs RTD!DW stans vs Chibnall!DW stans fighting in the parking lot while I sit in my deckchair eating popcorn cos they all sucked in their ways

[moonlitlex]

chibnall!who making huge strides for equality and human rights by having messages like "racism is bad" and "climate change is bad" and "trap the murderer in the torture chamber because killing him would be bad" and "space amazon is morally correct"

[sclfmastery]

#the doctor gets a break (several! in fact!)#and the master just suffers constantly#🙃🙃🙃#dw spoilers

@jewishjanetandco I love the Doctor with all my heart but THANK YOU, sometimes I feel like the only person who is sad (and a little angry) about this. <3

[innocet]

I don’t even like flux all that much but so much of empire of death felt like a poor man’s flux

[spydoclovr69420]

SPOILERS Series 10-12: Ok I'm back with another anti-chinballs take. The destruction of Gallifrey, off-screen, AGAIN was so SHIT. Honestly I'm so ;-; because time lord backstory is almost entirely put off into classic who and spin-offs. I desperately desire the Doctor running into other time lords out in the wild, especially ones who know the Doctor and can give the companions some funny/interesting information that they wouldn't tell the companion otherwise.

[malicenthightower]

for some reason i never followed this up but this took all of two weeks to become true lmao

chibnall’s improvements in diversity behind and in front of the camera vs. his obsessive valorisation of hero cop narratives

[kendrixtermina]

One last rant.

I dunno how Chibnall even got the job, because when they picked Moffat it was because he'd produced a string of fan-favorite episodes.

When I look at episodes Chibnall has written before taking over, they're for the most part... there? Okay? Fine? I don't think 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' was anyone's favorite.

Imagine if we got Jamie Matthieson or Sarah Dollard as the next showrunner! Someone whose eps actually stood out for quality.

[khruschevshoe]

The cognitive dissonance in the Timeless Children when Jodie Whittaker is acting her ass off, winning all of the hypothetical awards, embodying every cell of the Doctor's body, and the dialogue about the Time Lords (have made universe-spanning careers out of secrecy, keeping things from other species, lying about their real goals, forcing the Doctor out so he can't tell people the truth, literally planning to burn the universe to ascend to a higher plane) is literally "Why would they lie?"

Like, bro. Dude. Doctor. My pal. Friendo. Regardless of the Timeless Child twist, That is literally all the Time Lords have ever done.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Just baffling that Chris Chibnall thought it would be a great idea to do an episode about Rosa Parks that treats her like a prop as the Doctor, a blond white woman, stage manages her racial persecution and takes special care to highlight the pain of the modern white man at having to partake in a racial persecution for the greater good.

Oh, and has Yaz "not all cops" Ryan when he complains about racial profiling not two episodes after she racially profiled him.

Christ this era never had a chance.

[walks-the-ages]

Update: Don't remember how it ended or was resolved to even take the survey? Here you go!

Here's how the wave of Flux was neutralized-- note how the Doctor says "you may have just saved what's left of the universe." Confirming the earlier statement that the region directly around Earth is all that is left in existence.

Immediately after that scene is the final 10ish minutes of the episode that ""tie up all the loose strings"" including ones I forgot were even plot......... except for the biggest loose end of course, which doesn't even get mentioned.

I am curious to see how everyone thinks the Doctor Who Miniseries ended, since I've watched it twice now all the way through (second time with subtitles) and I am still mystified as to how it was "resolved"

view the results as they come in Here

Like all my other Doctor Who surveys, there's no time limit on this, so spread it around as much as you want amongst fans and friends without worrying about it ending.

[leikeliscomet]

(Resposting from twitter)

Out of all the crit Thirteen gets, the idea she was bad female & sapphic rep bc she 'wasn't horny enough' is 1 I'll never support.

Room for ace/aro queerness is good actually. Variety in women's sexuality is good actually. Seeing queerness different to yours is good actually!

Bringing up compulsory sexuality over & over bc fandom would rather Thirteen's sapphic identity be a 'failure' instead of expanding their idea of what sapphic identity is.

If you only support sapphic identity when it caters to you, you don't actually support sapphic identity:

I'm not a Chibnall stan etc etc but when it comes to this 1 specific 'criticism' in the 'discourse'... yeah Thirteen sistah get behind me!