#everyone should have a tardis cookie jar

[mey-rin-is-fabulous]

They should bring back the Tardis cookie jar for Doctor Who's 60th and just keep it available.

I got curious one night found out they do exist but aren't available anymore and I'm just thinking maybe they should be made available again

Maybe that's Doctor Who's problem the lack of DW official things you can buy(I just checked the official site them focusing merch only on the current doctor disappoints me)

Like for the 60th imagine if they release a lego set with all the doctors I think that'd be cool

[mca-attack21]

The Sacrifice part 2

This is the second part of a three part mini-series. Part one is here and my masterlist is here. I hope you enjoy it, let me know if you want to be tagged in the final part! DOOWEEEOOOO!

Eventually, as she always does, River left. The Doctor stared at the space she once occupied. Something felt off… he felt off. He was alone in a way that he had not been since he met Rose all those years ago. Even the idea of reuniting with Amy and Rory did not ease his sense of heartache. There was something missing, something important. Something so important that it was written on his hearts, even if it was out of reach of his mind. He tried to shake the feeling, to bury it and move on, but he couldn’t, not with this. 

Telling himself that it must’ve been some weird after effect of being drugged, he decided to ignore it and focus instead on Amy and Rory who he needed to pick up from Amsterduke. He maneuvered the controls and held on as the TARDIS took off. Finding the couple was easy as he merely had to ask where the humans were. They were both very glad to see him, as they had gotten into a bit of a pickle themselves. Once it was all said and done and everyone had made it back to the TARDIS, they all had a good laugh about it. 

Though even as they were joking around, Amy could see the loss in her friend’s eyes. She wondered what had happened in the short time that they were separated, but decided that it was better that she didn’t ask.

The next morning, the Doctor was getting ready to wake everyone up for the upcoming adventure and doing some light ready as he journeyed through the halls as he had done countless times before. Head still in the book, he reached out for a doorknob that wasn’t there. He looked up to see that he stood before a blank wall. While the TARDIS did like to move things around on occasion, this was peculiar. The Doctor racked his brain but couldn’t remember anything ever being in that spot. Yet, he felt so drawn to it. There *was* something there, there had to be.

“Doctor?” Amy asked puzzled by his attention to the wall.

“Hmm? Yes. Sorry, just had a thought.”

‘That’s always dangerous. Should I start running or hide?’ she joked. 

“Hey!” he feigned offense.

“What? I didn’t say anything,” Amy asked looking slightly concerned.

“Of course not, where were we?” he asked, an unsettling feeling taking over again.

“Are you alright?” 

“Amy, sweet married Amy, in all our time together I thought by now you would have learned better than to ask such a silly question. I’m fine. No, I’m better than fine I’m great! Now go grab Rory and get ready to see Venice.”

Over the next two months, there were many moments like the one above. The Doctor would find himself with certain objects, places, or phrases and feel like there was something off. It was like they should mean something to him other than what they did. Sometimes he’d catch himself having two-way conversation, but whose words came to mind he couldn’t tell. All he knew is that the didn’t belong to him. It always came in short waves, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore. He’d spend his nights wandering through the TARDIS to see if anything would trigger something. He was grasping at straws, but had no choice. He felt incomplete, like whatever it was that he had forgotten or lost was the last piece of a puzzle that he hadn’t even truly been aware that he’d been solving. The problem was that he wasn’t able to see the whole picture without that piece, and he couldn’t find that piece without seeing the whole picture.

Amy and Rory noticed his change of demeanor regardless of how he tried to hide it. They were starting to get worried about him and tried to keep his mind busy. They purposefully avoided bringing it up, not wanting to upset him. That was until one day his distractedness had almost gotten him killed. It was on that day that once they were safely back in the TARDIS that Amy forced him to sit down.

“Okay, talk,” she ordered.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been hiding something from us, and it’s about time you clued us in,” she replied.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Doctor lied. 

“Yes, you do. It’s been happening for a while now. It’s like no matter where we are or what we are doing that part of your mind is somewhere else. And we’ve tried to give you your space, but obviously, that hasn’t helped, so spill it.”

“I’m fine, you are reading too much into things Amy.”

“No you’re not, and it almost got you killed today, so we aren’t leaving here until you talk about it.”

“Rory, tell Amy that I’m fine,” the Doctor sought help.

“Honestly, Doctor I agree with her. Something’s off and it’s obviously something important if it’s affecting you this much,” Rory agreed.

The Doctor felt like a child who’d gotten caught sneaking a cookie out of the cookie jar. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell them, but what was he supposed to say? He didn’t know what was wrong, not really. If he did, he would have been able to do something about it by now. But there was something missing, or rather someone. And they were important, incredibly important. 

“Doctor?” Amy said voice changing from accusatory to concerned as she noticed a stray tear escaping his eye.

“It’s okay, whatever it is we’ll help you through it,” Rory added.

“That’s the problem,” he whispered.

“What is?” Amy pried. 

“You can’t help me, I can’t even help me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Something happened while you guys were in Amsterduke. I have no clue what it was, but I lost something-someone there. And no matter where I look or how hard I try to remember, it’s just missing. Someone’s missing, someone important, someone I think I loved. But there is no indication that they ever existed except in small traces of familiarity,” he paused for a moment before adding, “It’s like there are all of these memories just under the surface and without the I am but a shell of the person I should be.”

The Doctor was now close to tears. His heart hurt and talking about it didn’t make it better. Amy and Rory probably thought he was crazy. If he didn’t know any better, he’d probably think he was crazy. Maybe he was crazy. 

“Okay, so tell us everything that you remember about that day,” Amy started. 

“That’s just it, I remember dropping you lovebirds off at Amsterduke. Then I remember coming to only to see River. I had no idea where I was, only that I was in pain. She brought me back to the TARDIS and the two of us did our usual banter, she left, I picked you up, we went to Venice,” the Doctor explained.

“And what about these memories? What has been triggering them?” Rory asked.

“Different things, sometimes its phrases, like pieces of a conversation I’ve already had. Or it’s reaching for something or looking somewhere where there is nothing, but that I feel something should be. It’s hard to explain.”

“Maybe this mystery person was erased like Rory was? I couldn’t remember him, but nothing he did changed. The timeline just adjusted. Maybe we can’t remember because we are humans, but they aren’t completely erased from you because you are a timelord?” Amy suggested.

“Amy, the crack in your wall was an anomaly something like that was a one time thing. This is different.”

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a different anomaly. Come on Doctor, even with all of the places and things that you have seen or heard of, surely it is possible that this is something similar,” Rory added.

“Even if you’re right, that doesn’t help. I don’t know where the anomaly was, when the anomaly was. And Amy was barely able to bring Rory back, so....” the Doctor’s face fell as he realized how hopeless the situation was.

“So it looks like we need to find River,” Rory interrupted.

“She’s the only one who can fill in the blanks of what happened that day. Maybe we can go back to that planet and find something or someone who knows something. We can’t give up on this without at least trying. You owe yourself that much,” she reasoned.

The Doctor sat there for a moment thinking everything over. Maybe, just maybe this could work. He had come out against worse odds in the past. It was at least worth a shot. He jumped up and spun around smile reappearing on his face as he readjusted his bowtie, “Off to see Professor River Song!”

TAGS: @cc13723things​ @intothesoul​ 

[fluerallinmylis]

Shoutout to Cosplayblr:

I have to create an 1890’s-ish Female Cosplay and need inspiration.

I am taking 2 Historical Fashion Reproduction courses - 1 semester teaching overview and the next being the BIG PROJECT semester- taught by a thankfully amazing professor who has the Class come in and draw a decade out of The Timey-Wimey Box of Choosing (it’s a Tardis cookie jar) the semester before their BIG PROJECT semester. That way everyone gets time to hand-sew their ensembles to their measurements and space-out their breakdowns. I have been assigned 1890’s-1900’s as my ‘test’ period for final exam. I am required to “recreate a complete ensemble for your person using the period appropriate patterns and methods.”

In the hopes of using this for more than “Look What I Did!” Dopamine, I want to create something I can wear to Cons (should The Plague ever lessen enough). I am having major creative block when it comes to characters I can base the outfit around.

Can I get any suggestions for female characters from any series/shows/genre?

[rainbow-filmnerd]

Another Top 5 Favorite Sanders Sides Videos (5/5)

In honor of the one-year anniversary of me watching Sanders Sides for the first time and becoming a Fander, I’ve decided to count down ANOTHER Top 5 Favorite Sanders Sides videos! If you didn’t see a video you think I should have discussed, be sure to check out the first list!

#1, the top video in this list, is... “Selfishness v. Selflessness” 

(Just a note, I probably would’ve considered “Healthy Distractions”, but this list is made for videos from the main series, and also considering there’s only one Asides video as of May 2020)

GENERAL THOUGHTS

This video was going to be on the original list, but “Embarrassing Phases” edged it out by a hair. So, this second list was an opportunity to bring this one in a Top 5, and “Putting Others First”, which proceeds this video, helped part 1 of SvS take the top spot!

I remember that this was the last video I saw before being all caught with the series. I can’t recall how long it took me to get through the series the first time before “Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts” dropped. This video was just fun to watch, and at the time, I wasn’t aware that there was going to be a follow-up to it. I was “Team Wedding” the whole way through, but that was before I knew about the whole mental health situation. I know that this one is a Fander favorite, and this video is one of my favorites as well.

FAVORITE PARTS/LINES OF DIALOGUE (in no particular order)

Virgil before the opening. That has to be one of my favorite dual Thomas shots in the entire series to date!

“Wha-?! He...! He tampered with the evidence!” *Deceit laughs like a chaotic idiot as he backs away*

Roman unwillingly giving Deceit advice on better disguising. Still a little wary about this information intake, but it did come in handy for Part 2...

“Yeah, when I think of trustworthiness, I immediately think of someone who consistently disguises themselves like a member from Team Rocket!”

Not only do I like how “Psycho Godfather Wars” was an improvised line by Joan, but it was a huge nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Francis Coppola’s The Godfather, and George Lucas’s Star Wars. Where did you guys think “Alfred Hitchcoppolucas” came from?

Deceit’s monologue when he’s at the stand is intriguing. I really want to know what he’s talking about...

“Okay, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that is so edgy and over-the-top. We’re talking about a wedding here!”

Patton doing his absolute best at being a Lawyer for Thomas.

“Deceit, standing in the spot of one of my four best friends!”

Logan raising his hand, desperately wanted to be called on like some kids in a classroom.

Deceit’s sarcastic comment about not knowing anything about words.

“Maybe Mary and Lee will understand!” “Uh, it’s actually Mary Lee and Lee.” “Not confusing at all.”

A frustrated Virgil throwing his hood over his head.

Poor Logan getting benched by Deceit, but he still provided some input during the case.

Deceit’s failed attempt to impersonate Logan.

“LIES!” That’s the dictionary definition of “falsehood”, so that’s not too far off.

“*hissing* Sssssuck up!”

Virgil’s raspberry noise when Deceit called him to the stand.

The “liar liar” shirt color test.

Roman, after pounding his gavel and freaking the daylights out of Virgil: “*in a calm voice* Go ahead, Patton.”

Patton taking “kangaroo court” as a literal thing.

“Logan, that’s a statement, right?” “Yeah, that’s a statement. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Patton saying “hi” to Virgil before he questions him at the witness stand.

“Oh honey, the truth hangs out in the courtroom? Ha! That’s a laugh and a half.”

Virgil’s reaction shot of Logan recalling when Thomas was informed of the wedding.

“No further questions. Smirk.” “Did he just say ‘smirk’?”

The whole scenario Patton set up for Roman when he’s at the stand.

“And now, I would like to call Thomas Sanders to the stand...ers. Nailed it.”

Patton cross-examining himself at the stand.

“Stay with me here. Say you had a stereotypical relationship between a man and a woman.” “You lost me.”

Deceit, don’t you freaking dare say something to upset my favorite stormcloud.

“Why is he still here?!” “Why am I still here?!” “I meant Deceit!” “Whose underwear is this?”

Also the callback/Deceit’s impression of Virgil from the Valentine’s Day video. One of the many reasons I love Sanders Sides is Thomas’s acting range.

“But will they punish Thomas?” *Roman? someone yells offscreen* “How old are you?”

Poor Logan being so out of the loop when Deceit called him to the witness stand.

“I would have stayed in my room if I knew Dad was gonna take us on a guilt trip.”

Butterfingers. And that endcard scene.

“Ooh, said with the confidence of a man who has his hand stuck in a cookie jar, in a cookie factory, and his pants are down, and they’re on fire.” “We get it.” *Deceit cackles like the chaotic idiot he is*

Patton encouraging Judge Roman to do his best.

Deceit trying to get everyone to focus on the philosopher part of Striner when he talks to Patton on the stand.

“The best thing for us to do is sit with a crowd of strangers, watch two people shove cake into each other’s mouths, make out, and tell each other how much they love each other, while dressed up like a butler and a princess.” “You’re darn right!”

Roman manipulating Thomas’s left arm.

“Sorry, he’s still bummed that I went back to brown hair. I said I might dye it again soon!” Regardless, I always give Virgil the purple hair in anything post-AA.

“Objection! Judges don’t object!” “Objection, neither can the jury.”

Roman laughing at Patton’s innocent question on rescheduling the callback.

“I find Thomas winning the callback-. Winning the callback? Is that how that should be phrased?”

Roman spelling his name. He’s so egotistical, but I still love him.

“I’m gonna do a handstand. That’s what I’m gonna do.” *stumbles*

Deceit losing his cool after the courtroom scenario has ended.

“Attack the pinata?” “I believe he’s suggesting that you beat up someone and rob their unconscious body, right?” “... NO!!!!”

Patton’s Max Stirner pun, and Virgil’s reaction shot.

“Okay, so we kiss now, or...?”

Thomas turning to Roman for a nickname for Deceit.

“Glad he didn’t leave it at Dr. Trickle...”

Patton accidentally hurting his hands.

“I don’t feel anything.” Logan, you liar. You do feel emotions.

Virgil interrupting Deceit’s introduction.

“Well, your face ruined my day! So, we’ll call it even.”

Deceit’s multiple arms! Uh... that’s a bit freaky but cool at the same time.

“So, Deceit... If that is your real name.” “It is.” I freaking knew he lied about that!

“He just said he was a liar!” “I didn’t say ‘liar’, I said.... ‘lawyer’. Totally different.”

Roman scolding Deceit to stop lying.

“I’m too emotionally unstable for jury duty. Can I be excused?”

Roman breaking his gavel.

“Count five, did leave his dirty underwear all over the gosh-darn floor, like a gosh-darn animal?!”

Thomas admitting he’s a liar. This poor man, and everything else that followed in the scenario.

“Well, your Honor. What’s your sentence?” “Sentence? I don’t know, the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

The extreme close-up shot of Thomas opening his eyes and the sound of Roman pounding on his gavel.

Deceit revealing his emblem and Patton’s first response is to comment on the snake tongues.

“Do you think some logic could be employed to assist with this dilemma?” “Yes, there’s always room for me.” *coughs loudly* “Sorry, there was something in my throat there.”

The fact that Thomas was sitting on the couch with his eyes closed the entire time.

“Oh, for the love of Archimedes, I will never intentionally make a pun!”

Patton and Roman making snake puns together.

“Well, unlike our tardy teacher, I don’t have an issue for strong language.” *Patton covers his ears* “I freaking hated everything about this!”

Patton’s monologue and his exit being like he’s going down in an elevator.

[tenpin-boleyn]

Rebellious Parr at School!

These were thought up by @wolfies-chew-toy and I- mostly MB- because Cathy going through teenage rebellion is I C O N I C

There are some teenage Anne in here too but mostly our girl Cathy P 🖤

Also I’m sorry about the length- I’m on mobile so I can’t add a read more :)

•Anne got her heelys confiscated, so she decided to sandpaper the bottom of her shoes so she can slide around like a penguin. No wheels? No problem.

•Catherine being the feminist icon that all teachers fear:

“NO I AM NOT READING ROMEO AND JULIET AS ITS A DEROGATORY REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH”

Then Catherine promptly gets removed from the class.

“Catherine don’t you have English right now?”

“Don’t you have your funeral!!.... oh my god Mrs lynn I’m so sorry” because Cathy is a badass but she still has feelings

•Confusing the teachers on a daily basis:

"Hitler is kinda like Kim Jong Un dont you think?"

"Miss Parr and Miss Seymour what are you talking about?"

"Miss, isn't Kim Jong Un rather like Hitler?"

"Please stop discussing your Kpop idols in my class."

•The school has different colors led name tags for the different years, eg. Seventh year, yellow, eighth year green etc.

You can bet your ass Parr has a name tag in each colour and wears them all at once. It ranges from her actual name to Catradora. She has a name tag that just says CatParr420 and wears it everywhere.

And 90% of the time she wears a blank one and carries around a marker

“Umm excuse me what’s your name?”

Which prompts Cathy to draw on a fake name.

“Anita Willtolive”!

•She draws penises on all the whiteboards of every class she enters in permanent marker.

•One time the school used a drone to film the morning assembly and the noise annoyed Cathy so much she picked her book from morning reading up and h u r l e d it at the drone.

All you can hear before the recording stops is “YEET”

Did she get detention? Yes

Was it worth it? HELL YES

•You can bet your bottom dollar that Anne is in that detention too.

Anne's reasons for detention range from stuff like chatting to general shenaniganery but Cathy is just oPEN DEFIANCE

•She only is nice to her classmates

•And selected teachers

•She's a dick to everyone else

•But if she sees a kid on their own she’ll go out of her way to be lovely to them and to that one annoying teacher she hates, she’s a hell raiser

•She once moved the empty table next to her desk away to the other end of the class to stop teachers from sitting next to her- whilst the teacher was trying to sit at said desk.

•Catherine openly questioning EVERYTHING

“But if everyone is only nice to get into heaven surely that defeats the purpose and they’re being fake”

•She would fall asleep in front of the teacher

She'd just yell goodnight really loudly and knock out on her desk

•Honestly it’s a wonder she hasn’t been kicked out, but Jane thinks it’s because her grades bring up the school average

•She does her homework the moment she gets it and is finished by the end of the day

•Anne just puts in her file and lets it rot

•Parr gets in trouble for handing in Anne’s homework that Parr did but Anne has no idea. Cathy just wanted to make sure she didn’t fail

•Anne teaches Parr how to get discounts in the cafeteria, because Parr needs free cookies.

•Parr is Anne's defender when it comes to detentions

•She gives the teacher her Stare™️ and they instantly clam up

•Their detention desks are side by side and they have like those partners in crime necklaces but instead of two halves on their necklaces they’re carved into the tables

They they put them together they just line up

“Parr scares all the teachers except the German teacher who is literally Satan.

•Anne looks scary but she is basically harmless

•Parr looks like she wouldn't hurt a fly but given the chance she would 100% bite her teacher's hand off

•Anne has like five piercings and the messiest uniform in existence while Parr has only one piercing in each ear and the neatest uniform in existence but the moment Parr opens her mouth you better run

•She once bit a first year because they got in her way

•Cross any of Parr's friends or Parr herself and you might as well drop out because you'll be on a hit list for your whole education career

•She’s got a little black book of people that’s annoyed her because eventually she forgets but she’s too petty to let her memory get the better of her

•Anne has been on it at least once but Parr always strikes her name out

•She once kicked Parr in the stomach trying to show off her sandpapered shoes

•The shoe flew off and hit Parr in the stomach

She would have screamed at Anne but Anne’s puppy dog eyes are irresistible

Especially at 12 years old because she’s literally a baby

Like not even in a sexual way, you just can’t say no to those eyes

•Seymour has also been on the list once

But Parr got her revenge

What did Seymour do? She keeps taking Parrs highlighters

So Parr makes her pay money for every time she uses her highlighters

And one day a teacher sees and thinks it’s a drug deal

Every late payment is + 1 quid

Jane knows better than to accumulate late payments because Parr is ruthless when it comes to money

•When a classmate lost Parrs calculator and didn't pay her back, Parr literally carved owe money pay money onto her desk and got that person's friends to remind them daily till they paid her back

•Every time that person saw Parr in the hallways they'd turn around and head the other direction

•Tardies don't matter when the most trigger-happy person in school is out for your blood

•The day that she’s sat next to Parr in the seating plan is the day she moves schools

•Even then Parr still tracks her down

•She waits for them at the school gate with the most murderous smile on her face

•You just see Anne behind her chewing gum, snapping her fingers and doing jazz hands

•And the person is rapidly dialing their parents while screaming MOM COME PICK ME UP I'M SCARED

•Suddenly Aragon pulls up with the others and shouts at the pair “get in losers we’re going shopping”

"How the hell did you even find them Cathy?"

"I just followed the smell of crippling debt and it led me here."

“No seriously how?”

“Anne never turns her snapmaps off”

•Also Parr made the PE teacher cry more than once. More than twice. Okay it was 27 times.

•Parr has a pen knife and people try to confiscate it but she just brings out a printed sheet of paper that says that “a knife may be carried as a self defence weapon if it is under 9 inches and is retractable”

•She made the history teacher quit.

•One time she threatened to give someone salmonella because they were giving Anne and Kat a hard time

•Both Anne and Kat are in special ed and someone thought it'd be funny to bully them cuz of it

•She was skipping class in the toilets and two girls walk in and start bad mouthing Anne and Kitty so she kicks open her door and looks at them whilst sucking a lolly pop “hello bitches say goodbye to ur eyebrows”

•Parr is super defensive of the two of them

•She teases them sure but if anyone else tries, they have to sleep with one eye open

•Anne and Kat don't understand why people keep coming up and apologizing to them

•When they ask Parr, she just shrugs and smiles

•Parr used to be super motivated back in year seven. When year eleven rolled around, she became a little more rebellious, first the name tags, then the mouthing off. Then it escalated further and further. No one else but Parr and Anne knows what happened to cause this change

•Parr is soft for Anne and Kat and Anne and Kat alone

•She roughs up Aragon, Seymour and Cleves bc she knows they can take it. She's soft when she needs to be and not many people see that side of her

•Her favourite teachers rarely see that side either. Only during teacher's day when she sneaks into the staffroom to give them homemade cookies

•Parr wears leather jackets to class and no one dares question her.

•Anne learnt Chinese and how to play the guitar during detention so that she could sing for Parr the next time they had a session together

•Anne singing Unchained Melody exactly like in ghost the musical, and does the little elvis riff too

•Parr and Anne facetime and do Kahoots together because they need to study aka theyre competitive as shit

•Cathy gets excited in class and stands on her chair and yells "I KILLED SIRIUS BLACK I KILLED SIRIUS BLACK. U COMING TO KILL ME???" And promptly gets removed from the class.

•Parr gets a "Little Miss Adventurous" award for having the most travelled converstation.

BONUS:

•The queens doing that egg project where they have to bring an egg home and keep it for a week

•Anne calls hers Eggward Eggburt.

•Aragon drops it the moment she gets it

•Anne brings the egg home and makes it into an omelette

•Jane does well till the sixth day where she goes fuck it and uses it to bake cookies.

•Cleves breaks it during lunch after Anne called her a name and she threw it at her

•Kat gives hers to Jane and it's baked into chocolate chip cookies

•Parr shuts hers in the fridge for a week and takes it out at the end of the week

•Anne gets asked where her egg is and she pats her stomach which results in Kitty yelling “YOURE PREGNANT?!”

•Jane gets asked where her egg is and she holds up this cookie jar and offers the teacher one

•Parr is praised for being the only one in class for having an intact egg and then she grabs the egg and breaks it on the teacher's head cuz she 'needed to shut up'

[the-desolated-quill]

Dinosaurs On A Spaceship - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I’m sure most of you are aware by now that I really don’t like Chris Chibnall very much. He has yet to write a single good episode since he first joined the Doctor Who team. 42 was a cliched load of bollocks, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood was an incompetent retread of the original and far superior Silurian story from the Jon Pertwee era, and the less said about his work on the god awful Torchwood, the better, Why the fuck he would be chosen to be the next showrunner, I don’t know. Frankly I’d rather see Tommy Wiseau take the helm over Chibnall. Based on his previous track record, putting Chris Chibnall in charge of Doctor Who would be the equivalent of hiring a cowboy builder to redecorate your front room.

So you can probably imagine my reaction at the time when I discovered that Steven Moffat was subjecting us to not one, but TWO Chris Chibnall stories this series. Oh joy-bunnies! What orgy of bullshit has Chibnall concocted for us this time?

Dinosaurs On A Spaceship is about as silly as you’d expect it to be. A spaceship full of dinosaurs is about collide with the Earth and the Doctor has to steer it away before the Indian Space Agency blows it out of the sky. To be fair, it’s not the worst thing Chibnall has ever written. In fact there were moments where I found the episode to be, dare I say, entertaining (Yeah! That’s a first for a Chibnall episode!). Though I imagine the kids will probably get more out of this than us cynical grownups will. They’ll be the ones getting excited about the pterodactyls chasing the Doctor, Rory and his dad while us adults will be questioning why the pterodactyls are chasing them when pterodactyls were supposed to be fish eaters. And while the kids are laughing at the Doctor’s hijinks with the triceratops, the adults will be the wondering how the Silurians are capable of things like spaceflight and teleports and artificial beaches when there has been nothing in the past to indicate that the Silurians were ever that technologically advanced (also why do they keep casting the same actors to play Silurians? They’re not clones). But hey ho. It’s dinosaurs. Everyone loves dinosaurs, right? Just go with it.

There are some things that I thought were genuinely good. The biggest gem of all is David Bradley as the villain Solomon. While the character is about as one dimensionally evil as you can get, it’s the performance that sells it. In the hands of a lesser actor, Solomon’s irredeemable sadism and malevolent speeches about profits and ownership of animals and people would have become grating, but Bradley manages to inject a lot of nuance into the part. While the character itself is about as complex and interesting as a pantomime villain, it’s David Bradley that makes Solomon come across like an actual human being, thus making him a more credible threat.

I also really liked Rory’s dad, played by Arthur Weasley from the Harry Potter movies (or Lister’s friend Peterson from Red Dwarf depending on your geek levels). Again, not a particularly interesting character. He’s basically every stereotypical, old fashioned, middle aged British dad you’ve ever seen (he even carries a trowel and a flask of tea around with him), but it’s Mark Williams’ performance that makes it work. He’s a very pleasant and charming character, I like his relationship with Rory a lot, and you can’t help but find the final scene of him looking at the Earth from the TARDIS whilst drinking a cup of tea incredibly endearing.

I must confess I do also have a slight fondness for the two robots played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Two squabbling robots could have been annoying, but in Mitchell and Webb’s hands, they’re actually quite funny. In fact you may be noticing a pattern emerging here. Everything I’ve liked so far is more to do with the acting, rather than the writing. That’s because Dinosaurs On A Spaceship has the same problem as all of Chris Chibnall’s other Doctor Who stories. The script is fucking rubbish.

I mean take a look at the other characters. You have Riddell, a big game hunter and sexist arsehole. God knows why he’s there. Outside from being a misogynistic dickhead, he doesn’t actually have a character and contributes nothing to the plot. Maybe Rupert Graves walked onto the set by mistake. And then there’s Queen Nefertiti. A famous Egyptian Queen who also has no reason to be there and is the latest character to be Pompadoured (that’s the term I’m using to refer to any famous woman in history who’s reduced to a one dimensional sex object and sass machine by Steven Moffat, like he did with Madame de Pompadour in The Girl In the Fireplace. Do you like it? I think it’s quite catchy, don’t you?). Her dialogue is pretty much interchangeable with Amy’s (who’s still her obnoxious self) and she’s yet another example of a ‘strong female character’ in inverted commas. It’s like Moffat and co are stamping them out with cookie cutters. Every single female character in the Moffat era pretty much behaves in the same way. They’re feisty, dismissive of the men around them and flirt with anyone they come across. After Amy, River Song and Oswin, it’s just boring more than anything else.

And then there’s the question of sex. Chris Chibnall clearly thinks he’s making a strong feminist statement by presenting Nefertiti as being sexually liberated, but the trouble is over the course of the episode it begins to backfire spectacularly. Solomon at one point wishes to swap the dinosaurs for Nefertiti, which leads into this whole criticism of ownership and objectification. The problem is the script objectifies Nefertiti just as much as Solomon does. When we first see her, she throws herself lustfully after the Doctor and then she starts flirting with Riddell who does nothing but objectify her. At one point he even says he wants to bend Nefertiti over his knee and spank her, which I think is supposed to be Chibnall’s idea of sexy banter, but is instead just incredibly skin crawling. Riddell is a colossal sexist jerk and yet Nefertiti still flirts with him and ends up in a relationship with him at the end. Chris Chibnall effectively wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to condemn the objectification of women whilst he’s objectifying them.

But by far the biggest problem with this episode is its tone. It’s incredibly uneven and clunky. I’m not saying you can’t have some light and shade. The problem is Chris Chibnall does it really, really badly. It feels as though a child and a psychopath have taken turns writing the script. One minute you’re enjoying the scenes with the Doctor and co riding a triceratops and laughing at the comedy robots, then in the next scene the comedy robots suddenly gun down the triceratops in cold blood. Yes it’s shocking, but not in the right way. It feels incredibly jarring. Also who is Dinosaurs In A Spaceship geared toward? You’d assume it’s children, and yet there’s a whole lot of crass sex references and penis jokes. And don’t get me started on the bit where Solomon implies he wants to rape Nefertiti. That is beyond inappropriate. (And do you know what makes this sexist bullshit all the more uncomfortable to watch? When you remember that Chris Chibnall is the one who is going to be writing the first female Doctor. Be afraid people. Be VERY afraid).

I suspect this is the reason why people have a problem with the way the Doctor resolves the situation. I personally didn’t see anything wrong with what the Doctor does. Let’s face it, he’s done a lot worse in the past and Solomon is clearly irredeemably evil, so I was more than happy to see him get his comeuppance. I think the reason why it stuck out like a sore thumb for a lot of people was because of how blundering the rest of the episode was. What should have been a fun adventure with dinosaurs has been hijacked by explicitly dark material that really shouldn’t be there.

As I say, not the worst thing Chibnall has ever written, but that’s hardly a glowing recommendation. Anything that’s even remotely enjoyable about Dinosaurs On A Spaceship comes from the actors rather than the writing. Plus it’s dinosaurs, which nobody can possibly hate. Other than that, it’s yet another failure from Doctor Who’s future showrunner.