Doctor Who – Series 11

[Lily]

Pretty blobs on lines, for those that are interested in seeing viewing figures in context.

View post on imgur.com

[Berlin]

Very interesting trends there. Most series bar Capaldi’s kick off with approx. 8.5 – 9 million viewers and decrease as the episodes roll on, Whittaker’s run has started with the sea change and viewership pull of a female Doctor and is diving after an 11 million premiere. The 2019 series will likely settle into the 8.5 – 9 trend but decrease after that at a greater rate as seen in the 2018 series with a 2020 series maybe even venturing into Capaldi’s 6.5 million nadir.

What to take from this (and my own reflection) –

People like younger Doctor’s with a bit of zeal about them, they like light-hearted adventures and don’t like to wade through episode after episode of social commentary when you can intertwine that with some real good storytelling at the same time. People give the Smith era a lot of stick but boy was it fun and it didn’t mind wearing its heart on its sleeve. You can go anywhere in the Smith era and not have to worry too much about episodes that have came before. The Whittaker – Chibnall stories feel like commentary first with alien of the week tagged on to help pull together the three acts and it really shows.

So the BBC have a decision to make.

Allow Chibnall to venture on as he pleases in the 2019 series, lose two million viewers and international recognition before replacing him and essentially rebooting the show in 2020 and hoping Whittaker stays for a third series to build a transition to the fourteenth Doctor in 2021.

Or do you ‘Solo’ it, get the clunkiest 2019 episodes whittled out and re-written with stronger and more ‘Who-esque’ stories and build up that transition earlier and cross your fingers that the first Whittaker series will be seen a blip.

[steven87gill]

The Whittaker era should’ve took it back into the stratosphere but it hasn’t and why? The writing, the club around the head social commentary and the distinct lack of adventure and eccentric daftness that we do very well.

I think the lack a real, substantive overarching plot hasn’t helped either. There’s been no reason for those extra eyes who tuned in out of curiosity to keep watching past the first few episodes

I still say Chibbers should’ve gone with a full blown serial, either 6×60 or 8×45, one story spread over the whole series. The idea it needed to be standalones to be more ”accessible” is nonsense, look at the figures for Bodyguard or Broadchurch (that Chibnall created)

I mean christ, Doctor Who was practically *built* on the cliffhanger/serialised format.

[steven87gill]

The Whittaker era should’ve took it back into the stratosphere but it hasn’t and why? The writing, the club around the head social commentary and the distinct lack of adventure and eccentric daftness that we do very well.

I think the lack a real, substantive overarching plot hasn’t helped either. There’s been no reason for those extra eyes who tuned in out of curiosity to keep watching past the first few episodes

I still say Chibbers should’ve gone with a full blown serial, either 6×60 or 8×45, one story spread over the whole series. The idea it needed to be standalones to be more ”accessible” is nonsense, look at the figures for Bodyguard or Broadchurch (that Chibnall created)

I mean christ, Doctor Who was practically *built* on the cliffhanger/serialised format.

[steven87gill]

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[steven87gill]

[steven87gill]

Please, for the love of god, let us edit our own posts.

[Berlin]

But Doc ain’t Broadchurch, what works for one brand of drama doesn’t work for another. Doctor Who was serialised in the classic run but when you look at the amount of ground they covered per serial, it’s clear that you could take two or even three episodes from the ’63 to ’89 era and condense them into one equivalent revived era episode without it feeling rushed which is why the two-parters in the modern era have big consequences and changes for the show and characters, they’re more like films and a plot broom to sweep away the loose threads.

I would hate to see an over-arching plot for a new series of Who, does nobody remember the last two Torchwood specials? You’re gonna annoy the long-term fans who want to see the Doctor come up against new dilemmas and characters and you’re annoy new fans who just want to sit down and put on an episode without having to recall the MacGuffin from episode four and how it plays into the C-plot. Plus over-arching series sag like mad in the middle and once you start building up to the finale, you’ve lost half your audience.

[Dave]

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This post is bigger on the inside.

[Berlin]

You’re bigger on the inside, fatty.

[steven87gill]

”I would hate to see an over-arching plot for a new series of Who, does nobody remember the last two Torchwood specials?”

Children Of Earth was one of the best pieces of television RTD ever penned, & only 5 parts to boot.

Miracle Day was an overcooked mess, thanks largely to being about 5 episodes too long, & having a chaotic behind the scenes American/British co-production.

[steven87gill]

And Russell T Davies stated he preference for the miniseries format whilst writing Children Of Earth, feeling the format more ambitious & intelligent.

[Berlin]

Children of Earth and Miracle Day were each three-parters at best, a miserable end to a show that was starting to get interesting.

[steven87gill]

I do recall the end of Children Of Earth being a rough watch. I mean the whole serial is fantastic, & i love TV painted in darker hues, but the end is… too much, even for me. I mean it’s bold, but in the process it sort of ‘spoils’ Torchwood & forever taints the character of Jack.

I get the impression RTD was not in a good place when he wrote that. I think the closest Moffat ever got to that level of grim was probably Extremis.

[Warbodog]

You can go anywhere in the Smith era and not have to worry too much about episodes that have came before.

I don’t know, series 6 got a lot of stick for being “too complicated” and Smith’s lore-heavy Christmas Day finale must have been off-putting to casual viewers, or even fans who hadn’t reminded themselves of certain dangling plot threads the series hadn’t touched on for 2 to 3 years. Overall, there are definitely fewer back references and continuity nods in Smith vs. Capaldi though, one reason I prefer it.

The Smith/Moffat era started out like the current era, making a clean break with hardly any holdovers – just Moffat’s own River Song and Angels and the classic enemies (which usually had disappointing episodes and I could have done without). I like the clean break approach and self-contained eras, it just needs someone exciting in charge!

[Ben Saunders]

BANG.
BANG.
[pause]
BANG.

Children of Earth was incredible, but probably an episode too long. Miracle Day was about five episodes too long, but that episode where they show Jack having a [seemingly] random relationship with that Italian man was just stunning, really unexpectedly brilliant.

[Berlin]

If Chibnall was an ice cream flavour, he’d be that fucking bland ice cream from Farmfoods your gran always had which was barely vanilla and had the texture of cardboard.

While a half dozen ethnic minorities watched you eat it and tutted.

[Warbodog]

ethnic minorities

I thought we were dissing the failings of the Chibnall era, not the good stuff?

[Berlin]

Don’t mistake me mentioning that term in a flippant fashion for a negative outlook on it all. The casting and use of non-white actors in recent Doctor Who has been great but it does veer on Chibnall pointing at them and going ‘ain’t this marvellous, look at how broad the palette is now, look how we’re tackling the issues of the day’.

He’s as subtle as a sonic screwdriver up the rear.

[Warbodog]

Diversity can’t really be subtle when you’ve only got four leads to spread it around, but I still think representation for the sake of it and “doing it because you can” or because you haven’t before is good enough reason. Yaz is still a nothing character right now, but having a South Asian British / Muslim companion (who only brings that up when relevant) is great, and not just because it’s fun to think of how it pisses off some people.

[Dave]

That was largely pretty dull I thought, and bringing back the underwhelming comedy baddie from the first episode was maybe not the best choice for a big series finale.

And while I was glad to see them return to the idea of unintended consequences of the Doctor not being decisive enough in her method of dealing with villains, it felt like a thread that never went anywhere.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I was again, just bored by the way Chibnal writes. There was a lot in this episode that if it had been written by someone else it would have been a lot more interesting to watch. The dialogue is so dull and repetitive. “Don’t kill people” – ok we know that, but let’s stop and have a quick philosophical discussion on why killing bad people is bad. Rather than the cliched “you’ll be just like them”

Let’s take that conversation onwards a bit. Sure Graham might be “just like him” if killing 1 bad guy is the same as kidnapping and wiping out the life on 5 planets. Let’s have a brief discussion on consequentialism, isn’t it better to kill the genocidal maniac than let him live and carry on killing, rather than getting bogged down in utilitarianism.

[Berlin]

What she really needs is a quirky hat

[Lily]

I can’t help feeling a little underwhelmed. It felt like there were ideas that were big and impressive, but were treated with so little care they just rushed past. Big battles, hundreds of crashed ships, whole planets in a bit of perspex, people that live thousands of years, chambers full of stasis people, ‘the planet’ wiping memories. So many things that were thrown in, maybe to try to make it seem epic, but just ended up feeling a mess.

Also, since I don’t see trailers or any promotional material if I can, I was totally expecting Graham to be killed off today. Especially since he had his deathwish grudge match. So in all honesty I feel a little cheated that he just shot Tim in the foot and was fine and dandy. Not even the Ux died. Doesn’t feel like a finale unless -someone- dies.

I guess to give some credit, it wasn’t a BAD episode. Just, could do better. Which is a shame.

[Berlin]

It’s been announced that the next series won’t air until 2020. Not entirely unsurprising but it does allude to growing production problems.

[steven87gill]

Also, BBC have confirmed no Doctor Who in 2019, with the next series coming ”early 2020”. Bradley coming back is great news, at least.

I’m just… meh at this. Considering how underwhelming this series has turned out (after starting out so promisingly) I’m not as bothered as I thought I’d be when this rumour started circulating.

I want to say this will harm momentum, but if we’re being honest the momentum’s already gone, Chibnall pissed it away after the 3rd episode & deep down we all know it, if the 8-9 million consolidated ratings had continued past the first few episodes, I’m certain we’d be getting at least at least *some* of series 12 next year.

[steven87gill]

I do worry that he’s squandered the incredible viewing figures of the first few episodes. They knew the world would be watching when this series started, & it should’ve been seen as a golden opportunity to bring the show back into the zeitgeist in a way it hasn’t been since 2009.

And they fucked it.

Badly.

[Warbodog]

Better than some of the cringeworthy finales we’ve had, but definitely the dullest. Felt like the villain was transplanted from Stargate or something. New Year will be the proper finale since it’s so soon, hopefully that’ll leave things on a more hopeful note.

[Warbodog]

It’s been announced that the next series won’t air until 2020. Not entirely unsurprising but it does allude to growing production problems.

Not growing, just not being fixed (even after cutting the episode count again). Series have been released around 18 months apart since 2015, “early 2020” still fits that. 2014-15 is the only time in the past decade that uninterrupted runs have aired a year apart (13 months).

[Pete Part Three]

I wish Chibnall would fuck off, frankly. That reminded for of his godawful Silurian two-parter from Series 5. Supposedly grand ideas muted by plodding execution. No wit, no panache, no translation of stakes. Even the episode title was awful; the sort of stock sci-fi title that deserves to be parodied. And the dialogue? Argh… Straight from the top:

BORING WOMAN : Finally. This is where our journey stops.

BORING MAN : You’re going to make this the place?

“Here?!” would have conveyed that, if it was really fucking necessary. But it wasn’t, was it? It’s just shitty exposition which isn’t even trying to be actual dialogue. RTD would have loved that, I’m sure.

His DW scripts range between bland and shite, the vision for the show is questionable, there’s at least one companion too many (Yaz’s turn to sit this episode out) and his producing abilities seem distinctly lacking if he can’t even deliver the episode quantities at the start of his tenure that the previous showrunners were capable of. Children seem to like the show right now, but 18 months will be a lifetime for them.

[steven87gill]

”and his producing abilities seem distinctly lacking if he can’t even deliver the episode quantities at the start of his tenure that the previous showrunners were capable of. Children seem to like the show right now, but 18 months will be a lifetime for them”

Yeah, a gap year after just one series is taking the piss, quite frankly.

To this day I’m impressed with how quickly Moffat managed to get series 8 in the can, they filmed 1×75, 10×45 & 1×60 in just seven short months. And then came back a month later & filmed an hour long christmas special. I can’t imagine how stressful that probably was, but It’s taken Chibnall nearly 3 months longer to produce less content.

”Yeah, but the episodes look super polished”

Yeah, but the problem is that most of the scripts… aren’t.

[Warbodog]

”Yeah, but the episodes look super polished”

It looks drab and colourless now. I know they’ve upgraded the camera hardware, but I don’t remember being struck by many iconic shots this series – mainly the TARDIS on the hill, because it was used in promos, and the frog because it was funny. Everything was in neutral tones with a bit of yellow and most of the aliens are just humans now, because they think we’re too racist to empathise with the plights of blue people.

[Flap Jack]

Overall I enjoyed this series a lot, but it didn’t exactly wow me as I was hoping it would. Love both Doctor and companions though. It was nice to get a series of Doctor Who whose episodes were largely self-contained and unpretentious for a change, even if that’s a low bar to clear.

Here’s hoping next series they bring back multi-parters, work out how to make room for all 3 companions in each episode, come up with some more memorable villains, and generally just improve upon Chris Chibnall’s overly expositional and shallow writing style.

Also, Series 12 is “early 2020” so I guess that’s more of a gap six months than a gap year. It’s still disappointing to wait so long after they got such good momentum going. It’s bad enough we only got 10 episodes rather than 12 or 13!

I wonder if they’re doing a Christmas special in 2019, or a another New Year’s special in 2020… or neither?

[si]

My guess is neither. Though I agree a 2019/20 seasonal would be great. ‘Tint going to happen though. Think we’re probably looking at about May 2020.

[si]

My guess is neither. Though I agree a 2019/20 seasonal would be great. ‘Tint going to happen though. Think we’re probably looking at about May 2020.

[Dave]

I wonder whether they’re planning a New Year’s Day debut for season 12. That would actually make the gap smaller than the gap between seasons 10 and 11.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’ll be a shrove Tuesday special as Chibnall will have run out of New Year’s Day ideas by then.

[Dave]

RESOLUTION (mild spoilers follow)

I thought that was a pretty good episode in the ‘Dalek’ mould – until the last five or ten minutes when it turned into a massive load of old guff.

I was a bit surprised that such a complex functioning Dalek device could be constructed by a woman with her bare hands, but I guess if they made it look any more low-tech it could have been laughable. I was happy to suspend my disbelief on that front – less so with that focused vacuum tunnel (?) business at the end.

[Pete Part Three]

I just get the feeling Chibnall is being pigheadly contrary for his own amusement now. After a series of non-returning monsters, he brings back arguably the most iconic alien threat in TV history and dispenses with the one thing that made them iconic for much of the runtime and then sticks them in a deliberately shit realisation of that for the rest. This really could have been any monster. A waste of a Dalek, frankly.

Then there’s the “three companions” thing. That wasn’t crowded enough, so let’s throw in another 3 non-characters. In this week’s episode: Yaz got to escort two of them out of a buillding. That was pretty much her entire contribution to the proceedings. Bearing in mind Charlotte Ritchie’s character managed to make it through proceedings without any lasting damage, couldn’t they just have lumped all the things that happened to her onto Yaz. You know, just to give her something to do.

Just mediocre, forgettable. I knew I wasn’t in for a good time, when we had a crappy voiceover narration opening the episode. Not sure that was required, and if you’re going to get someone with a very deep voice to do narrative, maybe sort out the audio levels of the background music so it’s actually discernible what is being said. Like the stupidly large captions, was it really necessary?

The Microwave thing was signposted with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the Doctor’s final plan was complete stupidity. So…she opens the door on a supernova and just expects the Dalek to fly out…but no one else? I mean, fair play it worked; but only because Chibnall decided it had to. It would have been more believable if Ryan’s Dad had sacrificed himself…but I’m glad we were spared of that as that would have been ghastly, and we’d probably have another 10 episodes of living under a grief cloud.

What purpose is the continual mourning of Grace, a character we barely knew, actually serving?. Is this the only drama Chris Chibnall knows how to write competently? Dealing with the aftermath and consequences of dramatic events, rather than actually showing dramatic events? It worked for Broadchurch Series 1, it’s worked for fuck all else.

Bleugh. The most interesting thing was the moment when the Doctor phoned up Laura Evelyn, interrupting her Bandersnatch coding to ask about UNIT. OK, that wasn’t really what happened, but it would have been slightly more interesting.

This show has taken massive steps backwards. It’s neither cerebral enough to be interesting, nor quirky enough to be fun. The worst insult I can give it is that I will not miss it at all in 2019.

Cack.

[Stephen Abootman]

Hard to disagree with any of that. Can see why there isn’t many attempts at humour in it these days if the best on offer is ‘the wifi’s down’ ‘what do we do?’ ‘we’ll have to have a conversation’.

[Warbodog]

I’m sure it was fine for kids, I find pretty much all Dalek episodes a waste of time anyway, so didn’t get anything out of it. Just talked over the boring family drama bits. I was hoping that oven was going to end up saving the day in an amusing way, must have briefly forgotten who was writing it.

stupidly large captions

I’m watching Killing Eve at the moment and it has those, so maybe just another attempt to make Doctor Who look respectably trendy rather than distinctive.

[Ben Saunders]

I’m sure if I gave two shits about Ryan that would have been a pretty touching episode, despite the fact that the forgiveness happens way too quickly and isn’t completely believable. It’s all too nice. More of Chibnall’s “stuff just happens” writing. More of the stupid throwbacks to events we haven’t seen – three or four of them at the beginning of the episode!

Ryan doesn’t have dyspraxia. He just doesn’t. Until the writers decide to remind us that he’s supposed to.
I hope we get another Terileptils story this year and they destroy the Doctor’s fucking screwdriver, god damn it. According to the screw-scan, sirs….

Episode picked up somewhat around about the army scene, 12-year-old me would have found a Dalek with rockets really cool. I guess the Dalek was a part of the network thing they all have going (despite that only being introduced in about series 7 and this apparently being an OG Dalek from way back when) so knew who The Doctor was, otherwise how would it? I was hoping for a little moment where The Doctor tells the Dalek they have been defeated time and time again since it had been asleep, and would go on to be defeated time and time again in the future.

[Ben Saunders]

Oh I skipped the season finale btw and only watched this one because I knew there’d be a Dalek in it and it might actually be a bit Doctor Who-y. I should have just kept watching TNG, reading you lot’s comments on it hasn’t convinced me to go back and watch it.

I’m glad we aren’t getting a series this year, because my New Year’s Resolution is to be less negative, which is impossible when I’m watching Chibnall Who.

[Ridley]

I was into the episode up until Ritchie’s Dalek hug then things started picking up towards the end but the ending was silly. The thought occurs that Nicholas Briggs could have played the archaeologist(?) so the human puppet/Dalek symbiote could have been more effective voicewise.

Ryan doesn’t have dyspraxia. He just doesn’t. Until the writers decide to remind us that he’s supposed to.

Is the dyspraxia supposed to be apparent in the way Ryan speaks? Cause it doesn’t seem to be a condition that is that overt to onlookers unless it’s extreme or pointed out so I’m not sure how much of that scans on screen without Cole looking like he can’t act or Ryan coming across as incompetent in general rather than struggling to keep up with certain ways.

[Ben Saunders]

It just seems like he can’t act and the clumsiness never really comes up except “oh btw I can’t climb this ladder” and “not bad for a boy with dyspraxia eh”, to be fair I had a mate in high school who had it and it never really came up either. Ryan just acts like a normal character 95% of the time and I don’t know why they’ve given him this trait if it’s almost never relevant. It’s a small gripe, though.

If the dyspraxia is the reason he talks like he’s out of breath from all the thinking he has to do with his 68 IQ, I guess that would explain it, but I thought it was because he was trying to put on the accent

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I largely enjoyed the episode. It has it’s faults, but I think there are more positives to focus on. It generally felt like a decent-average Doctor Who episode. Nothing fantastic, and certainly not annual special worthy, but it kept me entertained and not bored like a lot of the rest of the series. Cut out the stuff with Ryan and his dad and the story is pretty solid right up to the resolution (pun intended) but where have we been seeing that a lot recently?? Maybe TV writers have forgotten how to write good endings.

That said, it hasn’t really left me wanting more. Which is a shame. With such a long gap until the next series again, I’d have liked to have been left eager to see what is to come next. In reality I’m happy to patiently wait and hope not to be disappointed by another meh series.

[Ben Saunders]

Something that I noticed is that all the “it’s New Year’s btw” stuff felt really forced, especially the “here’s my resolution” line, and it didn’t feel like a festive or New Year’s special at all, just another episode. So my question is… why couldn’t you have just done the exact same, except on Christmas, to net an extra couple million viewers? A Christmas special doesn’t need to be ABOUT Christmas, it can just be ON Christmas, especially when your substitute New Year’s special has fuck all to do with it being New Year’s.

I wish we weren’t at a stage where “decent-average” was a compliment and not a criticism. We used to rag on Gatiss episodes for being decent-average, which was usually shit in comparison to what surrounded them. Now I would welcome a Gatiss episode where I used to dread them.

The idea of the Doctor and companions celebrating a holiday sort of makes sense if you assume that they keep track of how many hours have passed for the companions since they were picked up – say sixteen lots of 24 hours have passed, now it would be “Christmas” from their point of view. Not that you wouldn’t get horrific jetlag from travelling through time and space and going on sometimes incredibly long adventures all the time – you could be just about ready for bed, then travel to somewhere where it’s 9am and Daleks are trying to kill you. But then the concept of Christmas or it being any specific day falls apart when you have companions from different times, different planets etc. Would Nyssa join in with Tegan and the Doctor celebrating New Year’s?

[Dave]

It seems to me that the move to New Year is all part of the positioning of the show.

They seem to want the show to be seen more like a flagship BBC drama these days, which is reflected in the Sunday night series slot and also in the New Year timing of the special (New Year’s Day having been a big day for new BBC dramas like Sherlock in recent years, or Luther this year).

In comparison, Christmas specials are more often reserved for light-entertainment or comedy shows, and I get the impression that’s the kind of label that Chibnall is trying to shake.

[Ben Saunders]

All the attempts to make Doctor Who seem like a modern, flagship drama (including the aspect ratio, oh God the aspect ratio) feel hollow and forced, and sucking the life, the spark, the identity out of the program. This isn’t Broadchurch. it’s Doctor Who. Turn up the lights and fill the screen, for a start.

[steven87gill]

Oh dear, that’s not a great overnight (may improve with catch up, mind) but it is indicative of the level of casual interest in the show & how it’s fallen since the premiere, to be honest.

I don’t think Chibbers appreciates just how much good will he’s pissed away with this latest series.

[Author]

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