#maybe chibnall's writing of the doctor's character was so off i just got used to it and gave up on the whole idea until watching new eps

[tacagen]

gotta say, the new dw intro really scratches my brain just the right way

[sclfmastery]

Quickfire hot take but, even though I totally grasp each of us having favorite regens of the doctor and the master, both individually and together, as symbols of their ever-evolving positions along their personal and relationship journey.... I will never ever understand fan (or canon...) portrayals that draw such a sharp line of favoritism from the characters themselves.

Missy said "they're all the Doctor to me" when recalling a memory to Clara, and to me that encapsulates the enduring nature of their intense bond. To me that is THE line. Regeneration is a form of death and rebirth, but certain core traits are immutable, particularly to two people who are narrative foils, who have known each other for centuries (or possibly millennia) and keep being thrown together by fate again and again and again.

Bottom line is, every Doctor is the same person, and so is every Master. Acting as though one of them only cares for select versions of the other is just so strange to me. They aren't us. To them, it's just like loving (or hating, or both) someone through the eras of their life. Their same life, broken down into stages od evolution and devolution. It's the same person.

I can point to the exact episode (a lol very polarizing episode in Series 10) where I think this "they're not the same person from face to face" trend got exponentially more pronounced, but anyone who knows me knows what that episode is. I truly believe it's a disservice to every version of every Doctor and Master involved.

And I really don't think that Spydoc, which came soon thereafter, is just the playing-out of the consequences of a MASSIVE miscommunication between soul mates. It IS that, but not JUST. I think all of the writing about Thoschei that followed the exacerbating episode was trying to force this inaccurate distortion, this illusion of separateness, which is part of what made the events in Power of the Doctor so painful to Thoschei fans. The Doctor walked away from the Master (literally and figuratively, ironically inviting his inevitable despair--and her own demise) partly out of understandable hurt and rage and caution, but also out of a cold, repulsed misunderstanding: "Missy was willing to change and you regressed, you're a different person than she was, and you have angered me to the point of indifference; I am able to turn off caring about you because you are unrecognizable from her, the version of you that I could control save."

Maybe Whittaker's response is intended by Chibnall: we're supposed to recognize that she's wrong but HAS to be in order to survive another betrayal by the Master, which is what makes it all so tragic.

But I think fan reception has taken the whole thing ( "each Doctor and each Master is an entirely discrete self-contained being") too far, and it bothers me, so much, I think, because it's a trope that enforces the idea that love is transactional and contingent (in such a way that also perhaps unwittingly targets the socially, culturally, and economically marginalized). If you're the "good, small, manageable version" of yourself, then you're easier to love, and it's worth the investment. Otherwise, "you gambled and you lost," and you deserve to die lying in the filth of your own poor decisions. I get why that's an appealing, vindicting plot device, from the POV of an audience member who has felt hurt or even abused IRL. I understand it, I've BEEN the Doctor many times. It just doesn't sit well with me. Maybe that's just me. I could be at peace with that, as a Whovian :P.

But, in-universe, it's based on a premise that's factually erroneous! Dhawan's Master IS Missy IS Delgado IS Simm IS Jacobi IS Ainley IS Roberts IS Beevers etc etc etc. Just as Whittaker's Doctor is a RESPONSE to Capaldi's, but ALSO still IS Capaldi's. And Tennant's. And Baker's (x2). And Eccleston's. And Gatwa's. And Pertwee's. Etc etc. Dhawan's Master was the Prime Minister of the UK and also made chairs that eat people and also cried remembering the names of people she killed. It's the SAME PERSON.

Lol, not quickfire at all. It's an old bone to pick, I know. I just can't stop finding the whole trope...very itchy.

(ok to reblog...dunno if anyone would, LOL, but feel free to reblog and to comment).

I'm gonna tag some ppl I know I've chatted about this with before to see if there are new insights. And feel completely free to disagree with me on any count. @natalunasans @mostincrediblechange @drummingncise @modernwizard @nickcagestrufflehog @rearranging-deck-chairs @koschei-no-more @likeacharacterinamusical

[omnisvirlupussicfiatdraco]

Any canonical final death of the Doctor means that whoever decided to write that is either putting a moratorium on the one piece of media that should by definition never have one, which, really why would you do that? I can think of two reasons why, off the cuff;

You're in dire need of a cup of tea and a blanket, some cake, maybe a hug. In which case I will up to and including the cake, tea and blanket.

You think that someone is going to fuck up your favourite show by taking it in a direction you don't like. Which, how do I put this politely? It's Doctor Who, it's supposed to go places you wouldn't expect, that's the point, deal with it or stop engaging.

Before I go any further or hijack this post any more (which I'm going to) @silvermaple6 one hundred percent best ending.

@type-40-nightingales awesome post, I love all of it, I wanna add this but if I'm wrong or have misread I don't want to ruin your post so all props it is awesome.

"A doctors falls was the perfect ending for their charecter-" Seriously who said this? It's a brilliant ending for the 12th Doctor, in my opinion it's one of the peak episodes of NuWho and Doctor Who in general. It nails exactly what and who the Doctor is behind all the faces, I reckon. But if the suggestion of ending the character on that is just... bonkers. I didn't like a lot of what Chibnall wrote with the Timeless Child et al. but one thing I think is absolutely fantastic is that it said "We Can't Kill The Doctor In Any Way That Matters, As An Idea." We can have an Infinity of Doctors now. (Pun fully intended, come at me.)

The only reason I can see someone on the fan side wanting to end this is because they're scared of the direction someone is going to take the Doctor and by extension, Doctor Who. Now I can see why someone on the production side would be worried about it, because they've got demographics to cater to and targets to hit and budgets to account for, but us? We're fans.

Before I was even born they tried to kill Doctor Who and it got even weirder and more brilliant than the TV show ever could have been on it's own and now we've got OCEANS of content; deep, complex, clashing continuities that ebb and burst and just don't stop. Audios, Fanvids, Books on Books on BOOKS. I nearly cried when I found out about the Classic Series, and I was floored when I found out about the Wilderness Years, Big Finish took me out at the knees. When I met older fans who'd read the Virgin New Adventures when they came out I was so jealous I could've wept. There's a picture somewhere of Kylie reading Camera Obscura! Sorry I'm rambling now but this in brief is my point; If you want the Doctor to die a final death, then you want Doctor Who to stop.

If you want Doctor Who to stop, then it seems to me what you actually want is to stop it changing. If you want to stop it changing then you have missed the point.

It was said best when it was said first; "Life depends on change and renewal"

The Second Doctor 05-11-1966 "Power of the Daleks", Patrick Troughton

"A doctors falls was the perfect ending for their charecter-" why?? I dont care how good or bad the episode is if the doctor ever truly dies or quits travelling permanently its gonna suck??. The doctor is not designed to die!! If they die, what's the point!!?? The doctor is a symbol for hope. Like if they die thats not exactly hopeful. And it means no new media can be created about the doctor past that point or the canon will have to be a lot more convoluted from there on and yes the canon is messy but it will jsut be like annoying ykk?? Any canonical final death of the doctor is gonna detract from the story!!

[gotyouanyway]

13 in general seems to have such warped morals compared to some other doctors like she lets a dude blow himself up where she wasn’t willing to in the Timeless Children and way back in Aracnids in the UK the american business guy is like “i’m going to shoot the big monster spiders” so she’s like “no these are living creatures and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect; i’m going to lock them in a room and starve them to death instead” queen of having no morals

ok i put this off because i wanted to fully catch up and then go back and recontextualize a bit and this got really long and maybe not that coherent but YEAH here we go ----

i totally agree, her morals are very shaky and i think i actually like it! at first i didn't like it because i had gotten so used to the doctor being obsessed with morality, sometimes to the point of overcompensation (mostly 10 lol). and with the thesis of 12's final season being "without hope, without witness, without reward" etc. and goodness being the thing he died for, it felt kind of like a betrayal for 13 to equivocate on her morals so heavily

i mean, i personally love when the doctor isn't perfect and it made for some really interesting character moments like letting that old guy do the dirty work AND die for her in the timeless children. but i wasn't sure about it as a writing choice because it seemed weird after all of that. but then i started rewatching season 1 and like.. there she is though! it was obvious when it was 9, fresh out of the time war, still thinking like a soldier and not as ashamed of it yet as he would be. definitely not as interested in hiding it (or hiding from it). 9 let multiple people die for him without too much protest or guilt, he did his best and he felt for them but he didn't obsess over every loss or take all the burden on himself the way he would later on. he was going to gladly take the slitheen woman home to be executed, he had to be physically stopped from killing the last living dalek on sight LOL. a soldier, and nothing like the goodness-obsessed person we see later. and THAT is the morality i see in 13.

so that could definitely be a lapse in character continuity and i (petty) don't really want to praise chibnall for anything. but to give the benefit of the doubt for the sake of having a good time here: the things that 9 and 13 have in common are that they've both just experienced recent, devastating, violent loss of [checks notes] literally everyone they knew and cared about, and they didn't want to regenerate and keep living at all (or likely didn't want to). basically if we're talking about patterns of behaviour here, i think in both 9 and 13 we're seeing the doctor at low points, and specifically low points where they're doubting their morality and their identity as the Doctor. they're both literally born out of experiences where their morality failed them (12's goodness failed to save anyone he cared about - in fact, it specifically got bill and missy killed) or it failed period (the war doctor was not Good in the doctor's usual sense). so i like to think, again mostly for the sake of enjoying the show lol, that consciously or subconsciously 13 is going through something similar to what she went through after the time war - extreme distress and an identity/morality crisis, leading to her making some very questionable choices :)

the fun thing about 13 though imo is that this time she's trying to hide it from herself and from others a lotttt more. she's gone right back to being bouncy and fun to hide the distress (like 10/11) but she's also very clearly hiding it from herself and equivocating TO HERSELF. 9 took this stance of basically "war is hell, people die, i'm not god". now though, after spending a few hundred years reforming that mindset until he basically became a saint and martyr, 13 feels much more guilty about making questionable choices and she has to lie to herself about it. y'know, "maybe i let that old man get the blood on his hands and die so i could escape this situation, but at least i didn't stoop to the master's level".. ma'am you're fooling no one <3

anyway sorry this got so long i've been thinking about it for like 2 weeks love u xoxo

[dippersbirthmark]

doctor who under chibnall was actually not written well, and thats very disappointing. the show had some very interesting episodes but the execution is just not it. (for example, i was really pissed off about fhe ancient syria episode because the whole plot or resolution or whatever had nothing to do with ancient syria lol??)

but i love thirteen okay? i love her fam. i love team tardis. as cheesy and slash or awkward as it can get (mainly because of the writing). there was promising character development for everyone, including the doctor herself. but it fell short, lots of telling not much showing. not enough balance between character arcs as things to drive the overall plot and the episodes' individual plotlines. and why the fuck would anyone write about ancient syria, but there was nothing ancient syrian about the whole fucking episode. and you could have done something more with the conscious universe, fit it in the whole timeless child arc or something right?

bro speaking of, i actually love the timeless child arc. it just brings a whole differrent dimension and huge possibilities for who the doctor is. it brings extra flavor of pain (lol sorry) to the fact that the doctor always felt lonely, but always hungry to explore and run and help.

they could have done so much with thirteen and ryan and graham and yaz. lots of opportunities for representation! ryan with his disability and his disastisfying deadend job in a warehouse, graham as an aging man who lost his wife recently, yaz as a pakistani woman who isn't being taken seriously in the workplace. my god, thirteen and her thing with being unable to be fully open and vulnerable to her friends. you know, maybe, learning to be vulnerable again to a group of people and finally seeing that she isn't alone even through all the stuff about the timeless child thing and about timelords and all that stuff. she's always got her companions, as with her past lives too.

so disappointed. i still love the show. i love ryan, graham and yaz. and i fucking love thirteen.

(also i think the show did daleks and the cybermen a great terrifying take. i used to not get excited when new who episodes were about daleks or cybermen because i found them way too campy if that is the right word for it--although i did love the thing in previous series where they humanize daleks and cybermen. it was tragic and heartbrwaking, but not scary. but thirteen's episodes with daleks and cybermen actually terrified me!! hello? they actually showed how fucked up frightening the daleks and cybermen were! wow?!)

[pilotheather]

hey i never really watched or followed the chibnall era what was wrong with his writing that made people happy he’s gone

i think this will get you different opinions based on who you ask.

a LOT of people were extremely unhappy with the s12 timeless child plot twist. which, if you don't know: basically he redestroyed gallifrey, and revealed the doctor is not a timelord at all, but was instead the progenitor OF the timelords (a child that kept regenerating, even when they died) and that she was tortured on as a child, being repeatedly killed to realise the secret behind her regenerative abilities, to create the timelord race and then had her mind wiped.

which, im not a fan of. some ppl are? but mostly it panned: lots of ppl are unhappy, bc theyre saying it's "ruining the lore"; personally i dont mind since dw is fast and loose with its canon - and im moreso unhappy about centreing the doctor as, like, the big important chosen one in the universe (like blech) bc its just such a stale narrative decision.

but even before that there was a lot of criticism of chibnalls writing. and again: ur gonna get different opinions on who you ask. there's, uh, for example... a LOT of ppl (off tumblr, mostly) who tout it as sjw bullshit (yawn) bc of jodie and the diverse tardis team. that's bs outrage over nowt, ofc. but like- other than that its just... the writing. yeah, some ppl like it but ik a lot are unahppy with it for different reasons.

and to, like, summarise my own thoughts on chibbers writing: there's LOTS of little things that sort of build up for me. but at the crux of it? personally i dont think the man can write sci-fi - like, at all. thats my own personal main gripe with him. i hear he's good at straightforward drama: whilst ive never seen broadchurch myself, a lot of ppl whose opinions i trust liked it well enough; and furthermore, when it came to torchwood, he did have one or two eps in there that i liked in premise. however, when it comes to sci-fi, i respectfully think he just flounders. like he just cant integrate those other skills he has into a scifi story. the tardis was super overcrowded in s11&s12 (and that brought its own issues) but even still it was sort of... laughable, how much development the companions got. a lot of the time they'd sit there like pints of milk and just?? not really do anything? it got a little better in s12- but its like... he doesnt know how to handle a sci-fi storyline, whilst also exploring the characters in tandem and its like theyre just theyre as objects to move things along. its really fuckin weird.

like, in the most recent episode (last years NY's special, Revolution of the Daleks) the pacing was so strange. there's this whole section in the middle of all the action, where they just STOP and talk inside of the tardis. and don't get me wrong - i dont mind a heart to heart! but a lot of the companions are, like, purely telling and not showing their personality msot of the time - and thats it! its so... stale. they just stand around, state something about themselves and then just do nothing half the time? bc he just doesn't know how to use them in the stories. unlike in rtd or moffat era, where you'd have the companions jumping in and actually interacting with stuff- you'd know its just... like theyre being swept away by the plot. and you could frankly cut them out of almost all of the episodes, replace them with a sonic screwdriver or some other technobabble and it just wouldnt make any damn difference to the vibe of the ep, which is a shame bc they had PROMISE as ideas but they just don't pull their weight.

and i think that's just... super unfortunate. bc a lot of the pull with nuwho especially IS the companions and their personalities and when theyre just flat cardboard cutouts its got no energy. not to mention, like, the companions really facilitate a lot of the plots themselves- not the other way round! having companions ask questions, explore, and make decisions and react to stuff... that's IMPORTANT to really realising a lot of it. there's been a lot of times in eps where i was watching it and i just WANTED desperately for one of them to do something, to ask the doctor about it but like... she kind of just stands around and talks to herself? then there's a canned comment abt how theyre the #fam? its like. ok.

and then its like- maybe if they were being pushed to the side, and the show was servicing plot over characters that would be ONE thing but its also like i get a LOT of insecurity in general from chris when it comes to sci-fi writing, too. which ok, dude. but its like- he'll introduce a concept, but never fully explore it; he'll just drop it, and introduce something else; and then drop that and move on. and its like... we dont get any actual playing with whats going on? its like-

its just all... ultimately very superficial. like ai generated doctor who. i dont want to say it hasnt got heart, but sometimes it really feels like it you know? and a lot of it is just.. flat. because you can bring in lots of cool stuff (visuals, bring back jack, build a found family type, give us a fun quirky doctor) but if you just don't actually put work into making it all happen then its just going to be like, pretty wrapping paper on an empty box, yeah? and so its like- its like theres PIECES in a lot of s11 and s12 that are right, and they're fine, and they could make for good stories but he just doesn't know how to use them. like, at all.

and there's honestly like. a lot of other... smaller things that i could mention. i feel like theres just like... lots of little issues wrong with it all, but theyre all so fundamental and they all just build up and its just- it just culminates in bad writing, man. not moffat type of bad. but just... nothing interesting at best; frustrating at worst.

ofc theres ppl who will disagree with me and like it and thats fine. and theres also ppl who will have other things they dont like abt it that they can bring up. i would advise lookin thru ppl talking abt it on here more, omg. get a nice lil crossection of all the little messes ppl babble on abt.

[ishouldreallybeelsewhere]

Review: Episode 1: The Halloween Apocalypse.

Spoilers under the cut

Okay, so, a lot is happening in the opening sequence with Yaz and the Doctor, and not a whole heap of it is spectacular. First things first, the special effects look really quite good this season, so unless everything is about to get a whole lot worse, they've bumped up the budget (or maybe it's cuz they're no longer paying Bradley Walsh). As far as a season opener goes, it's nice. Leaves you with 'How did they get there?' and maybe the answer will be told through a flash back or natural sounding dialogue or perhaps the villain would be like 'And you thought you could get past my guards? As if they wouldn't get you' or something that sounds threatening but at least tells us everything we really need to know in a natural sounding way.

Nope Yaz just lists out all the events that we know both of the characters know. So... I've gotta say, it was kinda natural sounding, so the dialogue has improved a bit, but a lot of it sounds very first-draft-y, which isn't really what you're after in a released episode of TV, but that's okay. Following the exposition dump, we have a pointless timer. If the person who captured the two of them knew anything about the Doctor, you'd think the last thing they'd do would be to prolong the amount of time she has to escape. Regardless, they did, and then the Doctor was able to come up with a plan and let them escape. The plan was fine, I guess, I mean, trapeze? Really? (I think it was a joke, just not a very funny one). The voice activated hand-cuffs are really stupid, on the same level as the clicking-activated cigar, especially because the person who's cuffed can activate them, instead of it being only the person who cuffed them.

I'm not going to go scene by scene, mainly because that would take forever and I didn't manage to memorize the whole episode and I only wrote three pages of notes. I promise not all of them were complaining about mediocre dialogue. Alright.

Dan's introduction was fine. It set up, uh, not a whole heap about his character. He likes the museum, loves Liverpool, has a few friends, and is struggling. I have a feeling that Chibnall isn't going to go too deep into class struggles, based on what we saw in Kerblam. However, the character himself is pretty nice. I'm looking forward to learning more about him. I hope we do. He's kind, not taking anyone's shit, and is, uh, not that shocked to be on a space ship. I mean, there was a reaction, sure (which is a nice change) but it still feels very lacking. Maybe that'll be a character trait or maybe he's got something in his past. Either way, Chibnall really underplays what it's like to just randomly end up in space. (Not that I would know. I've, uh, definitely never been to space). The dog thing is unique, but kinda weird. Hopefully there'll be more of an explanation later.

The split between the 5 (???) different settings was a bit off-balance. Some of them felt very much chucked in there for set-ups sake without having much to do at all. Though I did like the Sontaran's disgust at one of their own growing old, because it's likely that dying of old age is not honourable at all, as that's no war, so I like the idea of old Sontaran's being looked down on, because why haven't they died in battle yet? And also sets up Sontarans as absolute assholes. I mean, not that the Sontarans need setting up. It's clear that this season is not at all new-fan-friendly, so there'll be plenty of nostalgia bait old villains turning up again. As long as it's not the Daleks, cuz Chibnall can't write good Dalek stories.

Parts of the dialogue felt like the characters were talking down to the audience somewhat, like I can see what's happening, you don't have to describe absolutely everything this is not an audio-only medium. That's a real issue with Chibnall, cuz he forgets that yes, we can see the Flux changing course and Dan doesn't have to describe everything he can see.

The pacing was pretty alright, well, it was fast, and had a lot of action which was good. Only there was really only one instance of character time (because for some reason there can't be character time and plot time happening simultaneously) which was Yaz telling the Doctor that the Doctor had been obsessing over following one alien, which I would assume the Doctor would do pretty often if they were a danger to Earth. Anyway, the way the dog guy stated where he was going was reminiscent of the Demons of the Punjab, which is to say, giving no indication that their actions are anything other than hostile. Like saying 'The final hours of Earth' instead of 'saving the human race' to the one person who's likely to get in the way of the former.

Overall, there was a lot of action, a lot of set-up, and not much else. The dialogue and writing had improved, somewhat, but the relationship between Yaz and the Doctor feels pretty weak, like Yaz still questioning if they're even friends (also did Yaz quit the police? I hope so), which seems very out of character, since the Doctor is usually pretty clear that they care a lot about their companions. The Doctor herself was still slightly too nervous to be fully in character, which is unfortunate. Also when things start messing with the TARDIS, showrunners have to be very careful, which Chibnall often is not...

Also while a lot of good stuff was set up (yes I'm completely ignoring the Timeless child I still think it's stupid) I feel like it's gonna all fall through. I think we're gonna get more questions than answers, and none of the answers will be the ones that really matter. Also why are the angels back? Who let that happen? Let them die in the only episode they were good in, Blink.

The direction and cinematography was still very odd and didn't feel like it was conveying much more than to look cool, which isn't what you want at all. Lots of close-ups that weren't necessary, and weird shots which meant the scene didn't feel quite there.

While there was a lot of set-up, not all of it was informative, or helpful, or seemingly relevant at all, and I would've liked it if Dan had more of a reaction than pointing out the obvious. I won't be able to look at the characterization properly for a few episodes yet, but my hopes aren't high. Not at all.

[xxmisty]

My Big Humiliating Torchwood Confession - Part 1 :P

Warning: this will be a LONG post, and i’m sorry about that! 

Lucy is sat opposite me asking me repeatedly if I’ve started typing yet because she knows how desperately i’m putting off making this post!!1

This is awful, this is.... probably the most embarrassingly intimate confession i’ll have made since the day I opened up about my fetish way back at the start of 2013. And on the surface of it it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal but IT IS TO ME! And a big chunk of the trauma i’m about to express is tongue in cheek but it’s genuinely been - and continues to be - a huge bundle of DISTRESS AND HUMILIATION AND UTTER RESENTMENT!!! Because this year has been.... one hell of a personal journey and i don’t even mean anything to do with the pandemic.

It all started on New Year’s Day. I was feeling horrendously ill; the miraculous medication that had started to give me my life back had run out and thanks to the festive postal delays my new lot hadn’t arrived yet. I was in agony, I had a horrible headache, I felt sick and I could hardly move. We spent the day watching a bunch of muppet stuff, and that night we watched the first ep of season 12 of Doctor Who and, y’know, it was a pretty damn good episode (plus thirteen in the suit.... fuuckkk) 

So afterwards we started having a discussion about Chris Chibnall - we’ve long held criticisms about some of his writing (not all of it, but it’s a mixed bag) and Lucy told me I still hadn’t seen his worst writing because that was for Torchwood...

Which I had never seen. Which I had been desperately trying not to see, although I didn’t know why. I just always had this vibe like a big “NO ENTRY!” sign at the idea of ever watching it. It’s not as though I had a logical reason for it, it’s not like I’d read up about it and thought, ‘naahhhhhh, I don’t fancy watching that’. I just had a big WARNING sign in my head, telling me not to go there. 

Several years ago Lucy made me watch the first episode (after i’d been avoiding her threats of showing it to me for like 2 years) and like... it wasn’t horrible? It wasn’t... great either... but it didn’t kill me. Then a couple of years ago she showed me Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang because we were having a big Runaways phase so she wanted to show me an episode with James Marsters in. Again, it didn’t kill me. It wasn’t horrible. But I still had those big NO ENTRY!!! signs up in my head. I was still trying desperately to avoid actually being shown Torchwood as a show.

And the the new year happened and I was too WEAK AND DEFENCELESS to know what was happening when Lucy and I cuddled up in bed that night. I was too sick to really comprehend what she was doing or to fight back when she announced she was going to show me the very worst of Chris Chibnall’s writing... and put on Day One followed by Cyberwoman.

Oh. My. God.

All day I had been in a state of physical agony. Suddenly my mental and emotional state was far, FAR worse!!! The sex gas alien was bad enough, then by the time she put on Cyberwoman my brain was trying to shut down. I used to suffer blackouts and, god, I kept blacking out all the way through it, and instead of being her usual loving, wonderful self she KEPT FORCING ME TO COME ROUND TO WATCH IT!!!

By this point it was gone midnight and I was in a state of utter distress!! This was the worst double helping of tv I had ever sat through in my life and I sat up and let forth a tirade of absolute distress! This, I decided, had to be the reason I’d been avoiding Torchwood. Because it was more like.... Torurewood :P 

Yep, that had to be it. Couldn’t possibly be anything worse, could it? 

At least now lucy had shown me those two terrible Chibnall eps I would NEVER EVER HAVE TO WATCH THEM AGAIN. Or ANY Torchwood episodes. Yes, my ordeal was over. Had to be.

Nope. We went back to bed and she put on Out if Time. And i’ll admit, the story was much stronger but goddddd I had issues with the endings! And my level of despair started to rise even higher. I HATED Torchwood! This was the most distressing night’s viewing ever and I just wanted to go to sleep and be done with it all! Lucy put one more episode on afterwards: They Keep Killing Suzie. And that was much better but halfway through we finally fell asleep - so surely my trauma was over with.

Nope.

I had horrible nightmares of a very thirsty Gwen coming onto me all night, over and over again and it was HORRIBLE!!! Like, you have no idea how distressed I was! And when I woke up I blamed lucy whole-heartedly and she very sympathetically laughed at my plight!

But yeah. My trauma was over. No more Torchwood. I’d suffered the night from hell. Now it was time to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and move on! My medication arrived that day, I started work on some new pet portraits and life went back to normal.

Until that night, when I saw the telltale sign of Lucy putting a video on and turning her iPad around and then there they were - the opening titles of Torchwood - and I wanted to jump out the boat and into the canal and swim as far away as possible!!!

But the episode she put on was Fragments. She said she wanted to show me Chris Chibnall’s finest episode. And y’know what? It was really pretty fucking good. And god, I was fURIOUS about that!!! When we went to bed she pulled a real double whammy though by putting on Adam - which became instantly one of my favourite episodes of ANYTHING, EVER. And I looked at my wife, shook my head, sighed and told her, ‘nice save, Lucy... nice save...’

Over the next couple of weeks we also had a major Doctor Who rewatch and revisited most of the New Who era, and - to my mixed feelings - she dotted various other episodes of Torchwood in around them. I was conflicted - after the Adam and Fragments double bill I was no longer in brain-screamy hatred territory. I did however keep having flashbacks to that godawful night. Plus i’d had several further nightmares about a thirsty Gwen and I did NOT like it! But by a couple of weeks into January I’d seen a fair bit of Torchwood. Some of them twice. 

Around this same time I’d started back in testosterone after not being able to afford it for the last 3 years. And then I started to notice I was getting some..... urghhhhhh..... unusual... and very uncomfortable feelings... about certain.... things... and characters.

And I started falling headlong into a great big gay panic :P

And here’s where the whole story becomes a HELL of a lot more embarrassing so i’m going to put it under a read more :P

Did ya click on that read more? Wh-why? there’s nothing to see here... especially not a long tale of shame and distress :P ugggghhhhhhh ok, FINE;

Basically there were two things happening at the same time. One was that I started to feel something I hadn’t felt in two decades. When I was a kid/teen we didn’t have the phrase ‘hyperfixation’ so I just called them obsessions. I always had obsessions, at any given point there was always this ONE THING that was my entire life. i lived it, breathed it, became it. It was my whole world, my whole personality, my focus, my lifeline. 9 times out of 10 it would be a tv show. Between the ages of 12 and 15 I would generally change my obsession about once a month. There were several ‘usual suspects’ that would cycle around over and over - Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, Sonic the Hedgehog, Halfway Across the Galaxy, Parallel 9, Out of this World... 

late in 1995 I became obsessed with The X Files and - bizarrely - that obsession just ran and ran. I was so used to my obsession changing around once every month that it was bizarre to still be absolutely hyperfixated on it almost 9 months later. And then, in June 1996, my longest ever obsession took its place, a little known uk fantasy show called Bugs. 

That... was my longest running obsession. And oh my god, was I ever obsessed with it. I have no idea how that one obsession kept going for 3 years. i’m sorry this is particularly wordy but this is kind of personal and I want to explain this right.

If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll probably known that one of the most defining moments of my life happened in the summer of ‘98. My cousin’s husband sexually assaulted me and my life spiralled into total despair. While that night was bad enough, the slow breakdown I went through over the course of the year that followed was harder to recover from. And eventually I came out the other side to some degree but i’d lost my love of three things that made me the person I was: writing, drawing and being obsessed. All three were so closely entangled with that night and surviving afterwards that it changed something that had always been a fundamental part of me.

I was no longer able to feel obsession. To hyperfixate the way I previously had. It was like something was broken inside me. And that was like a loss unto itself. It was SUCH a big part of me. It had been the only way i’d survived years of depression when I was young. My obsessions were what kept me afloat. 

In the last decade there are a few things that I called ‘obsessions’ and I thought were as close as I would ever get to the way I used to feel. I thought maybe it was because i’d ‘grown up’ (pah). That’s not to say that i wasn't thoroughly into Ashes to Ashes, FNAF and Homestuck, for example, because of course I was! I even called them obsessions, but there was something that just... wasn’t the same, no matter what I did.

And over time, I got back the other things I’d lost. I started writing my A2A fics in 2010 and Lucy helped me to start drawing again in 2018 and god, both times it was like finally having a piece of myself returned after so long! As for my ‘obsessions’, I just thought I wasn't able to feel the way I used to because I wasn’t a kid any more.

But then, I thought that about Christmas Eve too, and then lucy came into my life <3

Still, the last thing I was expecting was... for *those* feelings to start sneaking back in my life. Feelings I hadn’t been able to experience since the summer of 1998-9. And to my further distress I discovered that they were relating to a certain show that I’d had a traumatising introduction to on new year’s day...

Suddenly it was all I could think about; TORCHWOOD! TORCHWOOD! Aargghhhhh and yet I still hated it! It was still awful! And yet... at the same time... it was so goooooooood.... arghhhhh, every time we watched an episode there was a  knife twisting in my guts, reminding me that I hadn’t even felt these feelings over things we’d been HUGELY into... the fandoms we’d met through, the fandoms we discovered together. Nope. It was Torchwood that brought back my ability to hyperfixate! And I have SO MANY ANGRY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS!!!! Grrrrrrrrr!!

And believe me, I kept thinking it was going to stop and go away BUT IT HASN’T! It’s only gotten worse! And as of yesterday Torchwood officially became my second  longest obsession ever!!!

I. AM. FURIOUS!!!

It’s... urrghhhh I hate this fact but it’s almost like I have a crush on the *show*??!!! I... can’t explain it better than that??? It’s like, if I could throw Torchwood on the bed and make sweet, sweet love to it I would :P and yeah, i’m saying all of this tongue in cheek but i’ve had a fucking sky high libido ever since I went back on T (ohhhhh and believe me I am LOVING it!!! 💙💙💙) But it’s like... there are elements of Torchwood itself that are so fucking hot that I get.... reactions that I am SO FUCKING EMBARRASSED ABOUT for so many reasons deidjdhdggjhaaahhhhhhhhh

Lucy literally only has to say ‘Torchwood’ at me and I end up in a gibbering heap half the time - I am not even kidding!!!

This, however, is NOT the worst thing that happened as a result of Lucy making me watch this god damned show.

But honestly this post has gone on WAY too long already so i’m going to save that for part 2.

Oh god... my shame.... my total and utter shame....

To be continued :P

[fangirlingquietly]

Ok, time to talk about Doctor Who's Revolution of the Daleks. There will be spoilers below, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, steer clear for now. (I'm an international stan, so VPN and iPlayer were my best friends. Hope this helps you too.)

I live in the future, somewhere about 7 hours ahead of London, so I had no plans of watching the show's broadcast live, but for some reason, I was still up when the show went live and I was like, "What the hell - let's do this."

Despite watching the episode at around 3AM in my side of the world, it was definitely entertaining and enjoyable! I like 13's era, and I think Jodie Whittaker's amazing, but I do share some of the other stans' feedback about how Chibs' mostly expository dialogue drags out episodes, mostly telling what we should know instead of showing it to us. Having said that, I think Chibs' took some of the constructive feedback because RotD is an emotional, action-packed, and exciting return for the Doctor and the fam. It will go down as one of Chibs' best-written episodes, definitely.

Plot-wise, it's really interesting. The stakes couldn't have been higher. The fam is stuck on Earth while the Doctor is trapped in what she calls Space Prison. What's worse is that Daleks are back on Earth, working for the British government as security drones. It's reminiscent of 11th Doctor's Victory of the Daleks set in WWII, but at the same time, it feels errily like the present. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but living in the time of Black Lives Matter and distrust in law enforcement is at an all time high, it's hard not to draw parallels wherein people in power use technology to spread hate and divide for personal gain, oftentimes, at expense of everyone else. While the Daleks represent the real and imminent threat of the episode, I think Chris Noth's Jack Robertson is a hidden and even more chilling villain. A man of immense wealth, power and status who is using all of his privileges for more personal gain; someone who is willing to trade off his race for survival, and despite all that, he comes out unscathed, and can manipulate himself into being celebrated. It's too real, it's scary. I like to think Chibs is not yet done with Robertson and it would definitely be interesting if he'll crop up again in the future Whoniverse.

There was a lot of fan service in this episode, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly. More than a decade since we last saw him, Captain Jack is (properly) back! I love him and Torchwood, so if we're to believe the rumors that his return, the mention, and his albeit off-screen reunion with Gwen Cooper will signal Torchwood's return, I AM ALL FOR IT! His presence also brought an interesting dynamic with the other companions. Let's face it - it's gold when Jack flirted and called Graham "silver fox".

But let's get to my favorite sequence of the episode - Jack's talk with Yaz. I love how raw and emotional it was, and in just a few minutes it showed Yaz' motivation for staying with the Doctor, set up her possible dynamics with 13 in the future and alluded to Ryan and Graham's departure, all done sincerely. When Jack said, "coz the joy, it's worth the pain" my heart just broke. I don't know if it was intentional on Chibs' end, but I think it was a good callback to when Sarah Jane Smith said "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for," in School Reunion and when Madam de Pompadour said, "One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel," in A Girl in the Fireplace. That sentiment just rings true to all of the companions' stories - travelling with the Doctor is amazing, but it's not without it's heartbreak, it's just up to them whether it's worth the risk, before it's too late (A good and very real life lesson to take away, if you ask me).

And for Ryan and Graham, there's more exciting adventures waiting for them on Earth than with the Doctor. I'm okay with Ryan & Graham's departures, though personally, I'm more of a fan of the more tragic companion departures, like Donna, the Ponds, River and Clara. I like that for all of the agency that their characters lacked in the two seasons they were there, Chibs gave Ryan & Graham the option to leave the TARDIS on their own terms, contradicting what Jack said earlier that whoever travels with the Doctor basically had no choice - whether you stay until you die, forget or get sent back in time or the Doctor abandons you. Come to think of it - maybe the tragedy of Ryan & Graham's departure is as subtle as their character developments. It may not be as loud as the other companion's, but it doesn't mean it's not as painful. It made me think that maybe the stoic dynamic among the fam in the earlier seasons was deliberate (and not because Chibs cannot write an ensemble dynamic. That's just BS - the man wrote Broadchurch, and that was a masterclass in writing for an ensemble) , and the regret of losing people important to you before you're comfortable enough to open up to them is the real tragedy for the Doctor. The Doctor's regret of not being able to go back to them in time before they changed their minds will sit in her hearts as heavily as the guilt she feels with Donna's fate or any other companion. Moreover, it's also saying that when Ryan and Graham found a family in each other after both losing Grace is as important and as amazing as Donna saving the universe and becoming the most important woman in the universe. Rory's line in God Complex comes to mind: "I'd forgotten not all victories are about saving the universe," and that made their departure more bittersweet.

Can we also talk about how beautifully shot this episode is? I've always said that I'm a fan of the more gritty, realistic but Broadchurch-esque cinematography for Chibnall's Who. It makes the story, no matter how otherworldly it is, a bit more grounded. There were hits and misses in the previous episodes in this approach, but I think it's in this episode where they've perfected it. Also, the CGI is so good, and his Dalek redesign is sleek and sexy (sorry, Moffat).

This is me probably nitpicking, but I expected that the impact of the Timeless Children will be more explicit in this episode, but the only TC reference gave 13 and Ryan a good heart-to-heart, where Ryan had to remind the Doctor that despite her current identity crisis, she's still the Doctor. Again, I don't know if it's deliberate but it feels very reminiscent of Clara in The Day of the Doctor where she reminded Eleven that "We've got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero... Do what what you've always done. Be a Doctor." I really love callbacks. It just shows so much respect and reverence to the history of the show.

What RotD did very well is give a very entertaining story, but it also set up Series 13 very well. I'm looking forward as to how they'll explore the repurcussions of the Timeless Children. John Bishop's addition to the cast is really interesting. It's being marketed as a new companion, but historically, that kind of end credit introduction was just done with John Hurt's War Doctor. I don't know how they'll play it out, but the possibilities are exciting. On a last note, I do hope that the next season will give Jodie Whittaker her Water of Mars/God Complex moment - an incident that will push her Doctor to the darkest pits and just give her that emotional acting playground that she's so capable of maximizing.

Thank the heavens we don't have to wait long for the next series. BBC's projecting that they'll be back before 2021 ends. Until the Doctor returns, maybe another rewatch?

[ask-the-almighty-google]

Saw a long ask thread someone did where people submitted suggestions of what OP would do if they were a Doctor Who showrunner and I’m pissed off at S12 right now so I figure I’ll just write what I would do if I were a showrunner... feel free to reblog with your own honorable mentions and discuss in chat.

Constantly leave Classic Who Easter Eggs like P. Jackson does for Silmarillion fans in Lord of the Rings. Doesn’t detract anything for non-Classic viewers but makes the Classic fans feel appreciated rather than ignored.

BRING IN IRVING FREAKING BRAXIATEL.

Reference Eight’s Adventures a tiny bit more.

POSSIBLY BRING IN EIGHT WITH LUCIE FOR A MULTI-DOCTOR STORY COME ON GUYS. Plus, Lucie would be a very bad influence on the poor current companion(s) and I am 100% here for it.

Bring in more Classic and early New monsters. Not all the time, as new content is important, but if done right old content can be just as fulfilling.

Trauma would actually get addressed. Maybe not visibly, like a proper sit-down, but you’d see it in jumping at loud noises or previously not having a problem with tunnels and then afterwards not being able to go near one.

UNIT needs to come back. Definitely not be as huge a deal as it was, let’s not have it be the answer to every modern Earth problem, but just being there. Logos on fenced off areas, the Doctor casually saying they got a call to check something out as a favor. Only pull out the big entrances for stories that really, REALLY matter. Background UNIT please.

History where you get to learn something, like the show intended. It’s not just about being tourists of the past. It’s also educational.

The Doctor as a tourist and enjoying not being tour guide every once in a while, or actually getting to relax for at least five minutes once a season. Let the poor thing rest. Part of the Doctor’s character is that they love to explore, to see new things. You don’t automatically know everything when you go somewhere new. And generally...

Perhaps most importantly, I wouldn’t do huge story arcs and not leave things resolved. Loose story arcs are fine, particularly the “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” types, but I had an IRL friend tell me they couldn’t keep up with the show because they got lost in the plot during the Moffat Era and were never able to recover. I want adventuring for the sake of adventuring, that doesn’t need a huge story arc.

Confirming more facts about Gallifreyan physiology by cherry-picking some things from EU so that it doesn’t wreck fandom perception too badly. Confirming things especially related to Respiratory Bypass (as it was never properly mentioned in New but was in Classic), telepathy - drawing especially from Classic and the RTD Moffat years to complete a full picture, and making the six Chapters of Gallifrey canon once again. The Doctor is a Prydonian. Get used to it.

No more resurrecting and destroying Gallifrey. If it’s there again when I take over the show, let it live. If I take over and it’s destroyed, let it die. No more waffling one way or the other.

The Doctor doesn’t have to be special to be the main character, just a Mad Lad in a Box with a complicated past. Companions don’t have to be special to be a main character either, but can become extraordinary if they need to. Making them relatable is what the audience loves about them.

What’s with the dramatic deaths and exits? The traumatic departures? Can we not have the school teachers who want to get back home, or the Uni student who took a “gap year” and now wants to go back to get their degree? We’ve had too many deaths recently and it’s getting old. Trauma, makes sense. With the Doctor’s lifestyle, a given. But just. Stop with the endless death exits. Please.

The Master will never be good, but can we talk about the immense progress Missy made towards being at least semi-SANE that may or may not have been erased without explanation in the Chibnall Era. Off the rails crazy can be sorta fun I guess, but you know what I miss? I miss the Pertwee-Delgado banter. The RIVALRY. Ainsley!Master may have been going a little Cookoo for Cocoa Puffs, but he was still more like an old school rival to the Doctor than a total enemy that needs to be stopped. I got that back with Missy, but it seems to have been erased again, and if the Master shows up - not as villain of the week or even the season ender, but just to make the occasion special in the series maybe a mix-season two-parter only, I’d like to be getting back to that banter.

Showing life inside the TARDIS. Lazy mornings and burning dinner and showing the ship caring for her passengers, especially for her pilot. Just tiny slice of life, like the episode starts with the Doctor trying to figure out what milk brand to by in the store and then something happens outside and they go “eh one of the companions will get the milk later” because they weren’t too invested in the first place.

Ending the episode with everyone remembering that it was the dreaded Laundry Day and or them actually getting to go see that concert they were interested in. Just. Tiny 1-2 minute slices of life as openers or closers to the episodes.

The Doctor having to go by their wits rather than just their screwdriver or psychic paper. Mix it in with the fancy tech as the solution. Keep things fresh.

Getting in, experiencing the local culture... and the Doctor discovering they don’t like it, but the companion loves it. Leading to the companion dragging the unenthusiastic Doctor around the fair or whatever in a role reversal every once in a while.

Letting the Doctor heal too. Trauma doesn’t wash over them like water. It seeps in. It sticks. And they bottle it up. And letting that out, maybe in an ashamed admission or a breakdown or whatever with an old, trusted friend, is not only healing but also part of a well-rounded character development. Let them grieve. Let them be hurt, and cry - even if all of this takes place in the privacy of their bedroom. Let them FEEL, and not be afraid to feel. Why is this such a hard concept for show-writers to grasp??

Tbh the most important thing to me is character development, proper reaction to trauma, and living, breathing characters who FEEL THINGS. Character-driven plot. Not everything has to be flash. The tiny, seemingly-insignificant moments are just as important if not more so as well.

[mymoonjin1]

Chris Chibnall ruined Doctor Who

Doctor Who sucks now. I’m sorry for starting this off with such a blatant statement, but we all know it’s true. And this angers me so, so much, because it used to be one of my all-time favorite shows, and now with a female lead it had so much potential, lost in shitty writing. Here we go.

I have to admit, I used to be one of the people against changing the Doctor’s gender. I thought it would be weird, that they were only doing it for PC reasons, etc. I changed my mind since then, but needless to say, I remained disappointed. I think that a female Doctor would have been a refreshing take on the character, it would have shut up people (like me at the time) and it would have made a lot more people take interest in Doctor Who. Jodie’s era could have been amazing, magical and revolutionary. But alas, here we are.

Jodie Whittaker’s first episode was watched by a little over 14 million people if I recall correctly. But why did the show fail in keeping that number? Simple: the writing sucks. Chris Chibnall is not a good showrunner. He took elements he knew of Doctor Who and tried to copy them, without understanding what made them special.

Let’s start with character development. The Doctor. There was a moment in Spyfall when Yaz says: “what would the Doctor do?”, and for the longest moment I thought… “what would this Doctor do?”, which is NOT something I should be thinking this far in Jodie’s run as the Doctor. It’s all been oh’s, wow’s, unnecessary exposition and not a single truly emotional moment, one that makes me feel like I know or relate to this Doctor. I feel like they tried to make a sort of female Eleven without everything that made him special. Jodie said multiple times “yeah, I can play an alien”, and of course, she could have. But the problem it’s not just about playing an alien. The Doctor is an extremely complex character, with extremely complex emotions. Emotions we are yet to see from her. And I am not saying she isn’t a great actress. I absolutely loved her in Broadchurch, a show that was also run by Chibnall. She is capable of showing emotional range. So why hasn’t she? Shitty writing. My guess? Chibnall is scared of criticism saying that this Doctor (a woman) is too emotional, criticism that wouldn’t have existed in previous Doctors' incarnations. Which is bullshit, and also leads me to my next point: the companions.

Having three companions may have sounded good in paper, but the reality is that none of them has had enough screen time to properly develop as characters. My guess? In the eyes of Chibnall (and probably the BBC, I don’t know), a team would lessen the controversy around the new Doctor. But they didn’t bother with them.

If someone asked you to describe Yaz or Ryan’s personality, what would you say? …Exactly. The only one worth watching is Graham, and even he hasn’t had a proper storyline. They tried to show more of their struggles in Can You Hear Me?, but here’s the thing. It is far too late in their arcs for this. At this point, it just felt way too forced. As someone with depression, It would have been great to see more of Yaz’s struggles with it, but just one episode is not nearly enough. Also, she connected with a police officer who we are never going to see again! Don’t you think it would’ve been better to see this development in her relationship with the Doctor? NONE of them have a strong friendship with her. They just say she’s amazing because she takes them places and shit. Not because they actually want to spend time with her. What are Yaz’s reasons to be there? She wanted to be more than just a cop that gave tickets, she wanted to help people, yet she just…left? And she has mentioned being a cop like, once since then. How does this make any sense?

Ryan was supposed to have dyspraxia, which hasn’t been mentioned since the bike thing, I think. It would have been great to see this being an actual part of his character and seeing him coping with it whilst traveling around in space and having dangerous adventures. But nope, they completely forgot about it, as well as his Youtube channel. Also, what are his motivations, his ambitions? Why is he there? In Can You Hear Me? we learn about his friend’s struggles with mental health, but again, shouldn’t it have had more impact coming from Ryan? A character we are supposed to care about at this point?

As for Graham, like I said, he’s the one with a more formed personality. He’s a goofball, he worries about the “kids” of the group, he’s a father figure. Great. But the problem is they presented him as wanting to travel with the Doctor to get over his grief, but they hardly show any of it. And there wasn’t any hint throughout the first season of him having any sort of thirst for revenge, so him wanting to kill Tim Shaw just came out of nowhere. But my biggest problem this season, was when he was opening up with the Doctor about his fear of his cancer returning and she just… said: “I’m sorry, I’m still socially awkward”???? WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL? There’s been plenty of times that we’ve seen this awkwardness. It is ALL we’ve ever seen from this Doctor. This was NOT the time to say this. This could have been a beautiful way for them to connect, to show more of the Doctor’s emotional side, yet what we got was a “suffer in silence bro, I’m so awkward lol”. REALLY? The Doctor has always shown compassion. Even if they don’t understand what their companions are going through, they are always there for them. Why would the writers think this was a good idea? It’s infuriating. 

I’ve been watching a LOT of Youtube videos talking about why Chibnall’s run has been a disaster. I really liked one called “Is the Doctor a hypocrite?”, by B-WHERE. In the video, they essentially say that this Doctor’s moral compass is a mess. In Arachnids in the UK, for example, she somehow thinks locking up all of the spiders and letting the queen die suffocating is more humane than just killing them quickly, which is what the villain does in the end. Ummm? Okay? Listen, the Doctor has always faced difficult moral decisions, even scary ones, like in the Family of Blood two-parter. But as the video says, they’ve never claimed to have moral superiority. And maybe this could have been a more distinctive flaw in the character, a flaw that maybe her companions saw and disagreed with. Like Ten’s wake up call at the end of Waters of Mars. But no. Again, it’s just plain shitty writing.

Ok. Now... The Timeless Children. Jesus Christ. There are so, so many reasons this was the worst thing to ever happen to Doctor Who, but y’all are probably wishing for this rant to be over, so I’ll just mention two.

In over fifty years, we’ve NEVER needed an origin story for The Doctor. The show is called “Doctor Who” for a reason, the question that should never be answered. And they just go and shit all over one of the most beloved sci-fi shows of the twentieth century in a single episode. Again, this is mentioned in several videos, but I thought the same thing right after watching the episode: making the Doctor another “chosen one” goes against everything the show represented. The Doctor was an ordinary alien who was not very good at the Academy, ran away with a stolen TARDIS because he disagreed with the Time Lords way, and couldn’t even control where the TARDIS would go at first. The Doctor is an idiot in a box. The Doctor helps because he wants to; because it’s decent and kind. ANYONE could be like the Doctor. And now, it turns out he’s always been special. The Doctor is the reason why Time Lords regenerate. The character is basically a god now. Why is this a bad thing? This changes EVERYTHING, and yet, it WILL CHANGE NOTHING going forward. Ruth’s Doctor says so herself, it doesn’t change who the Doctor is. Oh, but it does. It changes who the Doctor WAS. None of it matters now, none of their sacrifices, it meant nothing. That’s what makes this so heartbreaking. And I had so much faith in this season. I actually enjoyed a few episodes, like Nicola Tesla’s Night of Terror. I thought they were going down the right path. But Chris Chibnall has ruined my favorite show in just one episode. My only comfort is that there’s still plenty of Classic Who episodes I haven’t watched. Those will be the ones I’ll look forward to. 

(Also, that’s nOT HOW REGENERATION WORKS! IT DOESN’T BRING TIME LORDS BACK TO LIFE! IT HEALS/PREVENTS THEM FROM DYING WHEN THEY’RE IN PHYSICAL DANGER. GOD, CHRIS, WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID!) Okay, rant over, deep breaths. Thanks for reading!

[valyrfia]

okay so I am a defender of Thirteen and her era but I felt like this episode really highlighted some problems with Thirteen’s era so let’s have a little roundtable meeting

Why is Chibnall so afraid to venture off-Earth?

Let the Doctor off-Earth 2k20

The TARDIS was used as a major MacGuffin throughout the episode. Remember when the Doctor used to get the landings wrong? When landing the TARDIS in the right place at the right time was extremely difficult? Yeah me neither

And the TARDIS can magic up an antidote, and save someone from death by exploding spaceship. RIP Ace

The direction as a whole is just off. It looks beautiful but there are far too many close-up on faces. There were very little group shots and as a result, I never really got the sense of the relationships and dynamics between everyone

Leading on from this the fact that as a whole, the dynamic of the TARDIS team is a failure

hear me out

I felt more connection to Gabriella in this episode than I felt to Yaz, Ryan and Graham in one and a half seasons. That should not be happening. 

Chibnall has a frightening tendency to bite off more than he can chew when it comes to characters. Large TARDIS teams can work, think the Ponds or Bill/Nardole/Missy, but we need to see them grow organically, need to see their relationships with each other. Right now it honestly still feels like four strangers in a box. 

In fact I think it did highlight that Chibnall has major issues with character. Not character-creation itself per se, but the fact that often the plot is driven by external circumstances and not the choices and actions of the characters. Thinking about it, there’s not a single character-choice by the companions that has impacted any storyline in a major way this series. The companions really are just along for the ride.

These huge world-threatening ideas are all well and good, but unless we can emotionally connect to them through the characters involved, they are unfortunately going to have very little impact.

Apart from Grace, Chibnall deals with character and plot very separately and it doesn’t really make for good writing

Yaz choosing to hit the teleport for example, could have come from a growing distrust in following the Doctor’s orders, as a result of the Doctor’s outbursts earlier in the season. Instead it seemed to come from almost a Clara-esque place? I wasn’t complaning but there seemed to be little precedent for this in her character. I want to see Yaz grow to that place, rather than just see her there. 

Combine this with the recurring issue of too many characters at once (another major issue with Praxeus) 

I would have been very happy for example if Praxeus had only followed Gabriella as the extra companion, or Suki, or Adam and Jake. Instead the episode insisted on trying to deal with five new characters and as a result I wasn’t really invested in any of their stories. Gabriella wasn’t given time to grieve over her (girl)friend, Adam and Jake were mad at each other for what 20 minutes before they kissed and made up, Suki was a desperate alien scientist and then she was dead. The story could have maybe worked as a two-parter with more emphasis on the characters (think the time given to the teams in The Satan Pit, or The Waters of Mars)

Chibnall let your characters breathe 2k20

Would also like to see some darker Doctor, or mention of some other wacky shit that’s gone down, just so we can have some series continuity, but that’s more personal preference than anything

Discuss 

[omegangrins]

A Treatise On the Doctor

I don't know how to start this. Because I think of Peter Capaldi's words when he said that the only thing required to be a Doctor Who fan, is kindness.

I like 13 and think Chibnall is doing his best job writing the show.

So I struggle to write this because I am engaging against that very unkindness in the Doctor Who fandom, and trying very hard not to be angry back. "Allways try to be nice but never fail to be kind." But I've begun to wonder more and more if those who speak so loudly against the show really know what the show itself is about.

Enough of talking about other people though, cause frankly they're only important as set-up for this conversation. And again, I'm working kind.

So here's what you're gonna learn from this lifelong fan (and the best Tl;dr you're gonna get):

1. The Doctor sucks. From the very beginning. People complain about character traits now that have been around as long as the show.

2. Due to the Doctor's suckage, they tend to do more harm than good. (And because of this, most of the Doctor's "friends" along the way have been, well, let's leave it at the air quotes for now cause it's a damn big list of "BOOOO!!!".)

3. All of the showrunners and writers and actors and editors and everyone else has allways knows this and has played it this way.

4. And last but not least, since this is a time travel show. If you wanna know what and why stuff is happening now, look it up. Everything that happened before is allways in play.

5. None of this is bad, and in fact, it makes the show morally grayer. It's about kindness at all costs. Even your own.

A. First things first, the hard thing. The Doctor is not grrrreat. I mean, sure they try, but they fail a lot more often. In Extremis, a majority of those fatality index counts come from people the Doctor failed to save. That's why it's worded so specifically as "cause of death". All the death's caused by the Doctor's very interaction with time and lack of saving those around them. And part of it's not their fault, but more often than not, the Doctor says I can save you, and can't, won't, or chooses not to.

And that would be alright, but it took them over 1000 years to realize they should start letting their companions lead lives outside of theirs so THEY DON'T DIE. A bit too long as someone who claims to be better.

Not to mention how many times the Doctor is dismissive of their companions and the people around them only to use them for their help and just bug off again. If they truly cared and wanted to help, they would stay and listen in between adventures. Their lifespan is near infinite anyway. What's a few extra Earth hours with some friends you made along the way. You know, maybe fix some of the psychological and emotional damage created by encountering things behind a human's original scope of reasoning. But nope, we gotta go adventure more, byyyyeee!!

So when people talk about these qualities in 13 in a negative aspect I have to laugh because I'm not sure if they understand the joke. Cause we're talking about an alien that grew up around a species calling themselves Time Lords. I try not to blame them too much for it. 1 had to learn how to be hospitable to humans and it's been a bit of a slow learning curve ever since.

B. After the Doctor survived the horrors of the Time War and happened upon a human companion they felt worth connecting to, what did they do? They took Rose to watch her planet burn in front of her eyes. Great, first date, amirite?

And that's a little bit of companion damage. Do you know that the Doctor is responsible for the almost complete genocide of the Silurian race across multiple occasions. I am legitimately surprised there are any left after all of the ones the Doctor has killed. Like before, they cause destruction either purposefully or accidentally or simply by force of being there.

Remember before how I said that the Doctor just flies away. Yeah, they leave a lot of problems behind when they do (something that I can see Chibnall is planting the seeds of). If you had a time and space machine and practically unlimited capabilities and you choose to just leave after a situation and not check up on them from time to or see if there are any other underlying crises to be solved. But oh no, "gotta follow that rule of time and keep going even though I stopped in the first place because of how interested I was.". This is why 9 has a great arc about this. He thought he killed all the Daleks. They came back. He thought he'd gotten rid of the Slitheen. They came back. He thought he saved Satellite 5 from aliens. But opsies, they came back. And look! They're Daleks. Which he "finally" got rid of.

The Doctor just bounces around all carefree and without an ounce of care for themselves, their companions or consequences unless there's consequences for themselves or their companions. Then they get indignant.

Is that really kind of the person you want flying around fixing things in time and space? Who knows. But at least they are trying. Most of the time the T.A.R.D.I.S. lands somewhere and the authority figures are the most pretentious bull-headed pigs you can find. To me, I laugh cause it seems like both sides end up getting a taste of their own medicine. Usually with the bull charging to death in a sad glory while the Doctor wiles on metaphorically about not being as good as them.

But again, as a "superior" alien with "advanced" technology and "culture" you'd think they'd just know better already. But that's all part of the character. The Doctor may be in flux, but true change is difficult. The real hero of every story is the other people BESIDES the Doctor.

Cause the title is Doctor *Who* . The Who being half of the title, despite having less letters. It's the constant question of "What and why and who is that crazy person that's trying to help?" Why do you think they keep flying back to Earth? (Besides set construction reasons.) They've grown as attached to us as we have to them. And at this point, a lot of their saving us is guilt and embarrassment at having a hand in our timeline.

This is also the same reason the Doctor dumps companions in a fluff. Baggage. Every time a companion gets too heavy to carry the memories of... off they fly.

Except for 13. She's stayed. To this end, we can see how the Doctor changes. Not on our smaller, human timelines, but on the timeline of a god with way too much power.

D. With that in mind, we go Classic. It's the Who you need to consult if you wish to make any critique on what's happening now. Because how can you know how a part operates inside of a whole without seeing the whole part?

Cause I don't know if you've watched it but it can be rough, and I don't mean in the sense of production value (which admittedly they do a fairly decent job of using what money they had. A problem the BBC plagues to Doctor Who to this day.). The 3rd Doctor shits on every one they call friends constantly and then turns around expecting help. 4 did the same. Then 5 masked that contempt with a plucky face and a cheeky word. But it was still there, bubbling out of 6 and 7 as the inability to suffer fools gladly and using their own righteousness to enact change in their companions. A trait that kept going til an entire war and regeneration was used solving the question of "Doctor Who?" Only for them to try and forget twice more by putting on their pretty grinning faces and running away from it.

And I'm only talking from a companion perspective. Each of the Doctors has enacted their own form of genocide on countless species. Sure, it's to "save humans" but at the end of the day you'd have to ask yourself if we're really worth that blood. And this is all in the Doctor's history. As much as they claim better, they're hands are still gushing red.

The Doctor left Jo because she fell in love. They drove Adric to put their life on the line in order to feel adequate. The entirety of the Silurian race has been wiped out fivefold under their watch, with one time by their hand itself. Same for several other singular and unique species you won't be able to find elsewhere in the universe. 7 used time travel to enact a personality change in Ace while simultaneously using her as a pawn in an interdimensional war. The Time War itself. Sure it got erased but the Doctor still did those things ("War" Doctor or whatever nonsense titles they feel necessary to delude themselves). The entirety of Amy's childhood was destroyed by their presence, and Rory got erased. Twice! Sarah Kingdom. We know the list. Hell, the Doctor whisked Barbara and Ian away because they wanted to teach the snobby humans some lessons.

They may have a time machine, but we have the bill of their actions. This is where 13 excels. Because they're trying to be better than themselves. They've learnt the lessons of all those years traveling and the failures they wish they could reverse but don't as a way of keeping a scoreboard of pain. It's not perfect by any means, but look at 12 needing cue cards to understand and react to human grief under duress. They've come a helluva long way. After 50 years, I'm inclined to believe better. After all, it's what the Doctor would want.

E. You know how people like the ASOIAF series because it offers up morally complex characters existing in a morally complex world where black and white are harder to define than grey? Have you ever thought of Doctor Who as the same? Strip past the fairytale and adventure and "wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness and it's just people reacting to situations. We're just harder on the Doctor because they're hard on us. You could go round and round on who's the bigger killer, but at the end of the day Time Lords and humans fight and feel about the same things. It's allways been a joke to pretend otherwise.

That's why I love the Timeless Child. Not for making the Doctor anymore special but for saying that even despite having all of their specialness ripped away and repurposed to create a lie of a society then having the memory wiped of said event, the Doctor broke out of their mold, stole a TARDIS and told the Time Lords to fuck off. That's not a Captain America/Superman hero. That's Batman in space with a society of Lex Luthor's. Gotham and Gallifrey. The Doctor saw what they were a part of and broke free, without even knowing the more horrifying truth. Cause it's the thing I see many fans missing because they're so preocuppied with the Doctor being special. The thing that made the Doctor different was their ability to know the difference and walk away to find better. Now, the Doctor has a reason to go back and find out why they never stopped running.

The Time Lords might be the greatest monsters in the universe. It is in the name. "Lords". Those who would lord over us and impose their will with a banthium fist.

And this is a children's show.

C the thing is, the people who made and make this show all collectively rail against one thing: Hate. Kindness is the way of Doctor's. Even if they're sawing off your leg, it's to do the kindness of saving your life. This is because the people who make this (United Kingdomers) have seen centuries of war and conflict and oppression enacted by their own country in the name of progress. And they want to see it no more. Look no further than any of the Doctor's adventures with UNIT. Allways advocating for peace and being ignored for the comfortable war-cry. It's why it's hard to blame the Doctor when we do very similar and often worse (though we don't have time travel.... yet). The creators of this show know better, see better, and wrote better, to know that the powers that be nipped would nip their creations and sanitize them. So they wrote their messages so strong that you can feel them from the future. They're powerfull enough that even across eras they have all collectively moved me to write this.

That's another point I have to laugh at people saying Doctor Who has never been in your face about progressive politics. The Green Death. Survival. Trial of a Timelord (Yes, all of it. Sit down and power through.) The Happiness Patrol is one of my all time favorite episodes for going there in this regard. People may poo poo but history has its' eyes on you. Doctor Who loves taking potshots at the issues of the day. As long as you don't make the aliens black of course. Make them all the colors of the rainbow but never make them black. That'd be too on the nose (That's something they used to say back in the day! Crazy how far we've come).

So bravoa to Chibnall for continuing the legacy of Doctor Who. From where I'm standing, he's not doing anything different than any other showrunner before him. Cause if you want to argue canon, you at least have to know what created it. This show owes what it is to those Classic eras. And if you think Chibnall is shitting on those years and your childhood.... well, then why did you read this whole thing?

[kendrixtermina]

Sigh. Chibnall.

Jodie Whittaker and demographic realism

So I want to make clear that I have no problems whatsoever with Jodie Whittaker’s performance - the character seamlessly kept walking across the screen, she has great energy, love the steampunk goggles. 

Honestly I’ve always believed that giving existing characters a demographic change is not really as revolutionary or helpful as ppl think; New characters and stories (esp. told by writers of those samedemographics) solve the problem much better. Keeping specificity is often better than losing it, and the character still has a background (from an “advanced” civilization that used to do dirty deeds and is still kind of uppity attitudes, a character who’s decided to be against that attitude but still needs to be knocked own from the occasional uppity moment; It makes sense for them to look like a british dude, and they have the freedom to go wherever problems like sexism and racism don’t exist so... ), and will be linked to its origin.  But at worst something that will look dated in a few years like the 80s outfits, the show’s done dated and crowdpleasing before; There’s no hard reason not to do it and I expected no quality dip. 

It certainly worked as as attention grab, the premiere drew a lot of attention but that only lasted as long as it took for the reviews to go sour. But one of the main good things its proponents said could come of it was to help the lack of female anti heroes. So far she really didn’t get to anti hero much; It’s not Whittaker, it’s the scripts. 

I want to make this clear: Varied demograpics are good; 

This is why I kind of hate the term “diversity” is one of those vague euphemisms if you mean “demographic representation”, “social equity” or “demographic realism” just say that. 

In a way this is a good thing, it used to be only the best boldest writers who could get away, noadays it has become acceptable to have varied casts. And that’s how it should be artshouldn’t have to have to pass some arbitrary quality standard to simply reflect reality. But as the rebootverse and star trek discovery should’ve proved realistic demographics can’t replace good writing. Sometimes lack of realistic demographis is associated with bad writing because both come from play-it-safe more-of-the-same consummerism focussed sameyness, often someone who goes against the formulas has a solid vision which makes them good, and focussing on ignored topics and perspectives can yield new ideas (consider stuff like Wonder Woman, Get Out, Black Panther... which were just good, novel movies) but you could have a super interesting memorable story where everyone is a medieval european monk, but the characters are differentiated by personality, attitude, beliefs, or something where the cast ticks all sort of all demographic boxes but the characters are 1D and the story trite and predictable

On the one hand you get those gamergate adjacent fanboys who make “diversity” and “good writing” out to be enimical opposites and then you have the purists/antis who treat any critique of writing to be founded in having something against realistic demographics. You need both! 

Series 11

There were good things about it: An attempt at leastto do more of your classic thought provoking space operas or going back to the shows’ pulp fiction roots, covering some historic periods/topics other than the classic historical fiction tropes (they got a pakistani writer, had Yaz and Ryan discuss social topics among themselves etc.), the emotional story centered around this family coping with a loss, having Ryan sort of be the “main” companion and the one the rest of the team is protective of

But overall the reason I didn’t rush to watch s12 as soon as it came out is that it was a bit... bland. The team interacted mostly with each other; The Doctor had more charge with one shot characters like King James or the Solitract than she really did with the companions. Graham was such a missed opportunity. Remember how everyone loved the dynamic with Wilfred? No attempt to strike a bond over how they’re the older party members, or the professional xenophile trying to nudge the bilbo baggins like reluctant hero? We’re told the Doctor really likes Yaz, and I believe it cause she always liked people like that, but are we shown?

For all that Moffat and RTD were very different writers with different strenghts and weaknesses, both were very character-driven writers, and that was really missing here a bit. 

Some ppl said they didn’t give Yaz enough screentime or personality - but the thing is, they did try. They just failed. They let her make little remarks here and there about her homelife, they just never really assembled into a whole beyond buzzwords and inspirational platitudes and the Standard Companion Traits. I didn’t get a read on what she’s about or who she’s like until the pakisan episode where she unlike Barbara, Donna etc. immediately accepted that the past can’t be changed. Ah, I finally thought, she’s a very responsible dutiful person.

Everything lacks edges and defining moments. 

So far, I didn’t sweat it. I though, ok, not everything can be the high-concept character driven spec fic epic type of story that is my personal favorite. Every time there was some addition to the mythos in any way someone cried ruined forever. When the time lords first appeared. When the time war was introduced. 

The classics too were lower on the character driven ness; Still good pulp fiction content. (imho the character concepts themselves were often pretty good, just not used to the fullest and some of the actresses were treated crappy backstage)

I thought “okey, it wouldn’t be good to break with the tradition of making the sussequent incarnations contrasting”

I did think that there was much liberty with the additions which the others did do only towards the end when it feltmore earned, but, the addition of say, sisters, isn’t too disruptive

Series 12 and the Timeless Child Nonsense

The frustrating thing about this is that it COULD have been good. 

The Master teaming up with the cybermen to try and take over Gallifrey is precisely the sort of story the classics would’ve done. 

“Your society is founded on a shady secret and exploitation of the innocent” is a good plot twist especially in these times. The Master finding that secret and using it to his advantage - also very him. 

Imagine what it could have been like if it had been approached from the perspective of someone who, for all that they were a rebel, still sort of profited from being part of that society, someone who wants to take responsibility for that past and would maybe have to make some tough choice to let the exploitation victim go because it’s right even if it has cosequences for themselves and their civilization. 

but then you ruin that by immediately taking the protagonist out of that society. They and they alone are the victim. 

like this plot could have been good except for the twist that the Doctor and the timeless child are the same. 

Not connecting it to existing lore about the earlier war game days, everything with Omega and Rassilon, that bit about the Time Lord becoming what they were through exposure to the untempered schism... that might be forgiven. Even if it does stretch the suspension of disbelief that every single piece of sci fi scanning equipment in the show didn’t pick anything up; Not to mention that it destroys the stake on every heroic sacrifice or death prophecy plot, every time a companion or oneshot character took the bullet, the whole “out of regens” plot...

This is not me being mad about things being added or changed, but this being done in such a way that undermines the philosophy, the whole flavor... 

Yes, the MC is mysterious, the 7th Doctor arcs did a lot with this etc. but doesn’t spelling something out this clear not deplete rather than add to that? It#s a definite answer even if the final origin isn’t clear. 

But they’re so much else.

The trickster hero accomplishing great deeds with planning, guile, improvisation and duct tape, the implicit value that ressourcefulness trumps raw power. 

The rebel, different because they chose to be or made themselves to be such through their adventures, sticking to their own values in a close-minded society - who embodies & encourages thinking for yourself in every situation and universal plot, who battles enemies like the Daleks and Cybermen that represent comformity

Yeah they have many names yeah they take out gods... but all this was the result of their actions & path in pursuit of knowledge, and also, as Moffat once stated, the funny part is that behind all the fearsome reputation is wit and duct tape. 

The fish in a small pond who started out a misfit, failed their tardis driving exam... etc. and often made a point that they didn’t want immortality or endless godlike power. That’s meaningless if they had it to begin with. 

The explorer who wanted to see more than their corner of the world. 

The ANTI HERO that’s made alltogether too tragic here, too absolved from their uppity civilization

All that is wiped away if they were this special creature to begin with.

Where WAS the philosophy, rly? The big humanist speeches that made me love the show. 

Going Forward

So I think - I HOPE - that this in particular will be treated like the “half human” thing from the TV movie or the now josses additional origin stories from the audios, or be handwaved under the “you cant get it wrong cause everything is in flux” carpet

It’s the Master effing with her to pay her back for the half broken chameleon arch thing. 

It’s possible the Child actually existed, long dead or trapped somewhere - again, dirty mystery at the bottom of a stck-up society is a good twist. but this shouldn’t be more than another maybe in the multiple choice past not a definite answer. 

Also, i hate this line of thought but I can’t stave it off: Why is is now that the MC looks female that we get this vulnerable, passively victimized tomato surprise rather than something with an ugly but definite choice in it. 

I will probably ignore it - parts of me resents this cause “your civilization is based on a lie” could be such a good plot twist (then again the existing twists to that end from the classics and End of Time do enough rly) but if i have to choose between that and the basic meaning of the character....

[mw-draws]

Hey just got a question cause I've been really concerned for a while but why do you think s12 ratings been so low? I'm very scared BBC might just say "fuck it, this isn't working" and pull the plug on Jodie which would make me hella sad. Think it's because of the time of year? Early January + waiting for long time? Do you think she can pull up with the cyber men episodes and other ambitious ideas they still got in store? I don't want 13 to go if she's gon be replaced again by a man :c

honestly, I have no idea and it's scaring me as well. 3 episodes in and it's scraping by 5 million (1 week consolidated figures), this is what it was like at the end of series 10 (which in itself is an absolute crime). I mean, nowadays, overnight ratings don't matter too much, but seeing that the show is gaining just about a million more viewers in a week is concerning to me as well. I hate seeing that already, series 12 is gonna be the lowest rated series of all who basically and it doesn't deserve that at all. I don't think it's just the fact that the Doctor is a woman, (here we go), I'm placing it on chibnall.

I understand what chibnall is trying to do, honestly. have the fun, non deadly adventures in her first series, get to know the characters and then we get into the nitty gritty, but I dunno why, but his writing just hasn't been strong. he's good with broadchurch and torchwood, but his episodes in series 11 have been the weakest eps. I think, to a lot of people, it just ain't Who anymore and that saddens me. Chibnall should have done better with series 11. I really liked series 11, but it should have been stronger. by half way through the series, it had lost half its viewers, so loads of people tuning in have missed the best episodes of series 11. I think a tonal mix of high stakes and low stakes would have helped series 11 and series 12.

I also think it's down to advertisement. series 11's advertisement? Great. amazing! had series 11 ads popping up on YouTube, billboards, SDCC, NYCC, Build, loads of interviews, lots of hype. but series 12? I have only seen one (1) series 12 advert live on TV and that was for Orphan 55. yeah, I don't watch TV a lot, but I've never seen an ad for the whole of series 12 on TV. with series 11, I saw loads of ads on TV. I remember seeing an advert for The Ghost Monument on TV and I remember seeing loads of adverts for series 11 as a whole. they also had a teaser in the middle of a football game (I think it was in the middle of the world Cup), so it obviously got loads of attention.

also, another thing, the 'next time' trailers for series 12. they're shit. plain and simple. they are shit. literally 15 seconds at the very end of an episode and then we wait like, a day to get a longer one that's like 20 seconds. the next time trailers used to be really long, like at least 45 seconds to a minute long. I think they used to play just before the end credits started so that you don't miss what's gonna happen next, now, they're at the very, very end of the episode, by then, people will have switched over to other channels, or just switched off their TV. I just wish they would prioritise advertising, that's how you get people's attention, y'know? yeah, we had the Judoon in Victoria Station, but that's honestly been the biggest thing. it's just, there's something missing

honestly, series 12 is so good and doesn't deserve these ratings. series 10 didn't deserve the ratings that it got and apart from series 4, the best series are getting paid absolute dust and its just not fair.

will they go back to a man? I don't know, I personally don't give a fuck if the doctor is a man or a woman, at the end of the day, they're still the Doctor. it's just the horrendous bigotry from some of the fans, which is weird, as they are fans of,,, Doctor Who.

also, I think it's also the Sunday slots. I'm not a fan of the Sunday slots. I'm always tired afterwards and I've got school the next day, so the euphoria of knowing Doctor Who is on only lasts for a short while. Saturdays work a lot better imo, it's prime time for Doctor Who and why Chibnall moved it to Sundays, ill never know. I have no idea why he done it and why he thought it was a good idea. People would have less time on a Monday to catch up, rather say than a Sunday. I think that's the biggest thing, Sunday is really not great. for 54 years, Doctor Who had been on Saturday's and this sudden change to Sunday just makes no sense at all.

what I'll say here, anon, is that I don't think you should worry too much. yes, it's worrying, I don't like how the viewing figures have dropped from last series. maybe the year long wait did have something to do with this, but they should have advertised it better. overnights don't matter like they used to. back in like, 2008, we weren't able to record shows and it would only be on iPlayer for a short amount of time. People nowadays watch TV differently. People would watch it on catch up, they'd watch it later with friends, or they'd even wait until the whole thing is out to watch it. 28 day consolidated viewing figures are the ones that matter most, I'm not sure what it's been for Spyfall yet, I think we'll find that out tomorrow, but don't lose hope. my dad keeps saying that the BBC care too much about Doctor Who, just to axe it like that, they definitely won't just cancel it straight out.

[the-desolated-quill]

BBC’s The War Of The Worlds blog - Episode 1

(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 was very much looking forward to the BBC’s adaptation of the H.G. Wells sci-fi classic. How could I not? It’s the definitive alien invasion story that jump-started an entire genre of science fiction  Not to mention this is the first adaptation made by a British film company and actually set in the time period it was written. I was very excited. Nothing could possibly dampen my spirits... until I learned who was writing it.

Peter Harness is a writer I’ve been less than kind to in the past. For those who don’t know, he wrote some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who. Remember that stupid story about the moon being an egg? Yeah, that was him. He also has a penchant for writing painfully forced and thinly veiled allegories with all the grace and subtlety of a ballet dancing rhino in a glow in the dark tutu. Kill The Moon, for example, was a pro life metaphor that portrayed the other side as being irrational baby killers, and his Zygon two parter was about Muslim immigration and integration, with the slimy repulsive Zygons being used as stand-ins for Muslims and non-white immigrants.

Harness’ ability to write allegorical stories about sensitive topics is... under-developed, to say the least. So naturally he’s the perfect candidate to adapt one of the most beloved sci-fi stories ever written. I mean, why not? The BBC have already ruined Sherlock Holmes, courtesy of Steven Moffat. Why stop there?

In all seriousness, while I wasn’t excited about the prospect of Harness getting his grubby mitts on War Of The Worlds, part of me hoped that maybe he could pull something out of the bag. You may recall I held a very similar negative view toward Chris Chibnall, and his first series as showrunner of Doctor Who was an extremely pleasant surprise. Maybe Harness could achieve his own metamorphosis.

He doesn’t.

The first episode of War Of The Worlds was fucking tedious to sit through. It actually looked quite promising initially. We get some nice moody shots of the surface of Mars as Eleanor Tomlinson recites the famous opening lines of the book. But then just after the opening titles, it all goes downhill.

I was sceptical when it was announced that this would be a three parter because that just seemed too much. A feature length film you could do. Maybe a two parter, at a push. But three episodes? Each an hour long? That’s going to require a lot of padding, and that’s exactly what Episode 1 is. We see the Martian cylinders launch from the planet at the beginning of the episode and it’s not until the forty minute mark where we get our first proper glimpse of the Tripods or the heat rays. So what do we get in the mean time? Mostly pointless shit.

The original War Of The Worlds book isn’t exactly remembered for its characterisation. Outside of the astronomer Ogilvy, none of the characters even have names, but to be fair to Wells, the characters themselves weren’t really the driving force of the narrative. The Martians were. The narrator, a journalist, was merely there to relay and facilitate the plot, giving us a first hand account of the subjugation of Earth. Fine for a book, but somewhat harder to get away with in a film or TV series, which is why most don’t even try. Every single adaptation of War Of The Worlds attempts to expand on the central characters to varying degrees of success, and the BBC version is no exception. But where Harness really miscalculates is in anticipating how much the audience is going to care about the characters, to which the answer is ‘not that much.’ We don’t want them to die obviously, but we’re not so interested in who they are or where they come from because they’re not the main focus. The Martians are. So to have a significant chunk of the episode focusing on their day to day lives is quite baffling. Not to mention unbelievably boring.

George, played by Rafe Spall, is living out of wedlock with Amy, played by Eleanor Tomlinson, which causes their neighbours’ tongues to clack and net curtains to twitch. The only person supporting their union is Ogilvy, played by Robert Carlysle, which is how they learn about the mysterious goings on the surface of Mars. This is all established in the first five minutes, but as I said, the Martians don’t properly show up until the forty minute mark. Until then we’re subjected to painfully forced and tediously dull ‘right on’ posturing and irrelevant social commentary that adds nothing to the core narrative.

Here’s the thing. I’ve got nothing against the idea of expanding the characters. I definitely have no problem with giving the narrator’s wife from the book more development and screen time. In fact I’m all in favour of it. What I do have a problem with, however, is when that expansion and development comes at the expense of the plot.

A man and a woman shacked up together in defiance of society is all well and good, but what does any of this have to do with War Of The Worlds? It’s not even as if Harness tries to connect this back to the story’s main themes of imperialism and colonialism. It’s mentioned that Amy was born and raised in India. Maybe if she was an Indian woman, it could have been more thematically relevant, but no. Once again we have a period drama with no people of colour because, as we all know, non-white people weren’t invented until 1962. Also, while I get that society at the time was very strict, I’m not entirely convinced George and Amy’s relationship would have been that scandalous to the point where it would have affected his career as a journalist. That just seems like a step too far and is merely there to add some artificial tension... in a story about Martians invading the Earth.

In the end it all comes down to this. Why the fuck should I care? What’s the bloody point of this? Yes it expands the characters, but it doesn’t contribute anything to the narrative. It just wastes time. Again, I must stress, we don’t get our first Martian until forty minutes into an hour long episode. Previous adaptations never felt the need to bore the audience to death with pointless shit because they knew what audiences came to see. Martians blowing shit up. Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of War Of The Worlds from 2005 didn’t piss about giving us needless exposition about Tom Cruise and his family. We’re given the basic info about the characters and their relationships within the first ten minutes before the Tripods emerge and the action gets going. The BBC version, in contrast, is just painfully slow, dictating every tiny thing about these characters even when it’s not relevant to the plot.

And the thing is, once we actually get to the bits from the actual book (you know? The bits people actually want to see?), it’s actually pretty good. The Tripod looks incredible, as was the scene in Horsell Common where we saw people getting killed by the heat ray. Unfortunately we have to slog through all this other crap before we can get to the good stuff.

Eleanor Tomlinson probably gives the strongest performance as Amy. It’s just a pity the character is so utterly uninteresting. Like I said, I’ve got nothing against giving her a bigger role than she had in the book, but it feels like Harness is more interested in showing off his feminist credentials than actually telling a story or creating a believable or likeable character. Her being an assistant to Ogilvy I think is a great idea, but it soon becomes clear that this was only done so other male scientists could comment on how unusual it is to have a woman digging up a crashed cylinder, which is kind of ridiculous because I’m pretty sure female scientists did exist back then and you don’t exactly need a penis to use a fucking shovel. Then things turn really stupid when George’s brother, played by Rupert Graves, starts blaming her for the Martian invasion, saying that everything was going fine until she came along. Exploring 19th century sexism is one thing, but this is just daft. There’s no interest in actually exploring the root causes of sexism back then. Instead Harness seems content with portraying men as being the equivalent of cartoon caricatures foaming at the mouth.

George, meanwhile, goes from being a fairly boring character to a downright hateful one when it’s revealed that he and Amy aren’t just living out of wedlock, but that he cheated on his missus because she was infertile. So not only do I not care about him, I now straight up want him to die because what the actual fuck?! And this is not helped by Rafe Spall’s incredibly wooden performance. Seriously, I’ve seen corpses with more life in them. When the Tripod first emerges, we see him stare at it in what I assume was supposed to be shock, but instead he just looked gormless. It’s honest to God one of the worst performances I think I’ve ever seen. There’s no emotional range to him whatsoever. He just blunders around wearing a confused frown on his face. It’s as if he had just wandered onto the set by mistake.

The biggest problem with this first episode is that Harness is focusing on all the wrong areas. A large segment is dedicated to George investigating the Dogger Bank incident, which seems to be an attempt at making a parallel between the UK’s tenuous relationship with Russia then and now. What this has to do with War Of The Worlds, I don’t know. There’s so far been no attempt at exploring the themes of the source material as we’re too busy with this shitty romance. There’s even a moment where we see the characters dig up the cylinder and take a photo only for the same exact scene to happen five minutes later. I mean for fuck sake!

And then there’s the pointless plot twists. First we get the cliched pregnancy reveal, then it’s revealed that the scenes we thought were on Mars turned out to actually be a post apocalyptic Earth with Amy and a seven year old kid who is presumably her son. Wait, how long has this fucking invasion been going on for?! It only lasted a couple of weeks in the book! What happened? Did the Martians get vaccinated? This just highlights to me how inept Harness is as a writer. He can’t just do a straight adaptation of War Of The Worlds. He has to engineer these pointless and utterly idiotic cliffhangers to get people to keep watching because the story and characters clearly aren’t doing that.

If I wasn’t committed to reviewing this mini-series, I honestly wouldn’t watch the rest of this. This first episode is legitimately terrible. Boring, poorly thought out and utterly, utterly clueless. Just like everything else Peter Harness has ever written. I don’t understand why he was chosen to adapt War Of The Worlds and I don’t understand why he chose to adapt it in this way. Why so much focus on pointless exposition? Why over-complicate the lives of the main characters? Why can’t they just be a normal married couple living a life of privilege until the Martians come and trample all over it? It makes no sense! Some could defend this saying it was building tension until the Martians emerged, but there’s a significant difference between making an audience nervously anticipate the Tripods arrival and making them wait impatiently for something, anything, interesting to happen.