#this goes to all the rational and undecided fans

[bookishtheaterlover7]

Needs to be shared.

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who Series 11 Review: Epilogue

Before this series started, I said that I would see how Jodie Whittaker does in the series (as the Doctor) before I made any judgements. It’s time for me to share my final verdict on this series as a whole and answer the questions I posed for myself in the prelude. In general, the new series and cast were okay, but the writing could have been better.

Before I go in length about my thoughts on this series, I thought I might share a quick summary about my thoughts on the post-revival Doctors (9 to 12) and their episodes.

Predecessor Overview

After being shown an episode or two of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, which I forgot about soon after, I started really getting into Doctor Who in 2011 with the Eleventh Doctor. I’ve watched all the post-revival episodes at least once and I’ve dabbled in some Classic Series episodes as well, with the first such episode being The Five Doctors.

I don’t have a lot of complaints about the Russell T Davies episodes because I wasn’t there to watch them when they first aired. Were it not for The Day of the Doctor, I would have liked to see the Eighth Doctor regenerate directly into the Ninth Doctor, since it was implied that both of those incarnations fought in the Time War.

As for the Steven Moffat episodes, I thought there should have been a few changes or improvements. For the Eleventh Doctor, I would have liked to see The Day of the Doctor go more in detail regarding the Time War and maybe The Time of the Doctor was a bit rushed. The splits in Series 6 and 7 kind of made the series a bit dragged out.

For the Twelfth Doctor, I thought that there wasn’t enough to the Series 8 Neversphere arc - I thought Missy was gathering an army of dead people who would actually return in the finale (which ended up being a bit like that, but not what I was expecting. The mysteries seemingly “introduced” in Listen weren’t addressed following the episode - I thought they were going to be part of this series’ story arc. Regarding Series 9, I don’t know what the Hybrid arc was trying to do and in Series 10, the Vault arc felt underwhelming once it was revealed that Missy was inside.

Final series rating and verdict

It’s time to tally up my ratings for the whole of Series 11!

Episode 1: 8/10

Episode 2: 7/10

Episode 3: 7/10

Episode 4: 7/10

Episode 5: 6/10

Episode 6: 8/10

Episode 7: 6/10

Episode 8: 5/10

Episode 9: 9/10

Episode 10: 10/10

First half mid-series total: 35/50 (70%)

Second half mid-series total: 38/50 (76%)

Final series total: 73/100 (73%)

I’ve got no problem with this score, which makes this series good, but not great in my eyes. There were still some flaws in the series, but these are mostly attributed to the writing rather than acting skill or agenda pandering.

I’ll factor in the score for the New Year’s Special once I’ve reviewed it.

Answering questions from the prelude

Since there won’t be a new series of Doctor Who until early 2020 (tentatively), I’m going to be making my judgements based on Series 11 alone. I’ve answered these questions once in my mid-series review (after Episode 5), but this time, the answers will be more detailed and different.

Question 1: “How does Jodie Whittaker’s performance set the bar for other Doctors after her, male or female?”

After watching the series, I think Jodie Whittaker is an okay Doctor. Her Doctor doesn’t have anything that is unique to her (apart from the fact that she is female) because her character is mostly a rehash of David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors. I’m not entirely surprised about that since Jodie was in Broadchurch with David Tennant, so she would have gotten some inspiration from him.

Question 2: “Will the so-called “SJW/feminist/diversity agenda” affect the way I see and think about Doctor Who?”

Look, I know one of the series’ underlying themes is social justice and political correctness; before this series, these themes were more subtle and less satirical. To name a few examples, New Earth was about the use of animals to test medicines, The Lazarus Experiment was about immortality and “playing God”, The Beast Below was about torturing and euthanising animals, while The Zygon Invasion and The Zygon Inversion were about radicalisation and the consequences of war.

And yes, these themes continued into this series as well. Rosa was about racism in 20th century Alabama, while Arachnids in the UK was a lampooning of Donald Trump, environmentalism and gun laws. What is different about the themes in these series is that they revolve around (straight) white males being villains, particularly white Americans, whereas the earlier series used alien species and concepts as metaphors to teach social justice. Yes, I know Kerblam! had an SJW-like villain, but the theme behind that episode was still on representation and quotas.

As far as I know, I don’t have a problem with these because they haven’t tried to redefine logic as dictated by nature. Frankly, throughout this series, I was more worried about looking for tokusatsu references than SJW red flags.

I won’t deny that the recent changes to these series, and the fans’ reactions and counterreactions to them, have changed the way I see and think about Doctor Who. I’ve started to become less interested in this series than I used to be and by now, I’ve essentially downgraded myself to being a casual fan. The Steven Moffat era inspired me to develop a personal project of mine that is largely based around Doctor Who, but I’m preparing to move on from that because I think that it is time for me to do so.

In short, it wasn’t entirely the “SJW agenda” alone; it was the way that people reacted to it being implemented in the series (on top of the other problems in this series, including the writing quality).

Assumed biases

There’s a reason why I don’t want to go back and elaborate in detail my thoughts about past episodes. By now, I would have seen many people give opinions on these episodes in reviews, forums, comments and whatnot, which sways my opinions away from what I actually felt after watching the episode for the first time. This is why for this series, I try not to take the opinions of other people into account while writing my reviews for each episode.

In the lead-up to this series, I’ve been watching Bowlestrek’s videos about how this series is falling into SJW pandering and political correctness. Yes, I know some of you may think that his opinions are exaggerated and divisive, but I can’t help but agree with some of them because like it or not, even the opinions of some fans (particularly fanboys) are misguided and divisive as well with their gatekeeping notion that anyone who complains about anything in this series is not a “true fan”, as it were. Take it from me as a former fan of Koei Tecmo’s Warriors games who wanted to hear English voice actors reprise their roles in later games instead of recasting them or not dubbing them altogether.

If you don’t agree with Bowlestrek’s opinions, then take them with a grain of salt because your view of the series is obviously different to his. The same goes to the opinions of fanboys and reviewers that are related to the BBC and/or the Doctor Who production crew.

During this series, I’ve also been following the reviews of The Oldest Nerd, a new reviewer who states that he has been watching Doctor Who since the mid-70′s. I can’t really compare his opinions to that of Bowlestrek’s, but at the very least, The Oldest Nerd offers a calmer and more rational tone of reviews compared to Bowlestrek.

Final thoughts on the cast

Like I said earlier, Jodie Whittaker is an okay Doctor. Mandip Gill was okay as well, but at some points, it felt like her character, Yaz, was being showered with favouritism by the Doctor.

Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole’s characters, Graham and Ryan, had more character development and I think they were great in the way they handled it.

In the prelude, I compared Jodie Whittaker’s voice to that of an older Fifi Forget-me-not, played by Jane Horrocks. After getting used to her voice, I’ve slowly stopped seeing the comparison between the two.

Looking forward to Series 12

So, it’s been confirmed that Jodie Whittaker will be coming back for Series 12, but it won’t premiere until early 2020. We’ve been suffering from these droughts since 2011, with either split seasons or 9-month/year-long gaps between specials and/or seasons. A lot of people coped in different ways, including myself as I found time to keep developing my personal project. However, a lack of inspiration compounded by recent events and commitments in my life have led me to start moving on from the project and with the recent issues and criticisms surrounding Series 11, it has led me to start losing interest in Doctor Who altogether.

For the time being, it is likely that I will be reviewing Series 12 when it comes out, but my intentions may change before then. Whether or not I will continue reviewing the rest of Jodie Whittaker’s run is still undecided because even then, it will depend on whether she intends to stay after Series 12.

I’ve already answered the questions I want to answer for this series. There may be new questions that come up for the next series, though it would be nice to refine my current answers if there is a stark difference in the writing quality of the episodes.

Once again, stay tuned after New Year’s Day when I review this year’s special, Resolution. Otherwise, that’s it from me until Series 12, so thanks for reading.