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malachitebeck · 5 months

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SPOILERS FOR DOCTOR WHO: THE GIGGLE (Also, Spoilers, I get a little serious and introspective under here. Shit's a bit of an essay.)

I will be the first to admit I have not engaged with Doctor Who as a franchise in a good few years. I stopped watching the series regularly around the end of Matt Smith's run, and while I tried to engage with Jodie Whittaker's season, the confusing release schedule meant that I lost that motivation and quickly let go.

But when I saw the initial trailers for these three anniversary specials, I will admit they likely had the exact effect on me they were probably meant to; drawing me, a wandering former fan, like a moth back towards the flame of the series as it was entering a new era of streaming partnerships and a boosted budget.

And while I enjoyed the first two specials and actually found them to be rather nostalgic in their own way, the ending of the third special has left an admittedly poor taste in my mouth that I can't sit with quietly. I usually don't make posts like this, but there's a first time for everything right?

I will admit, first and foremost, that The Giggle was not the story I had expected going in. I didn't know a lot about the Classic Episodes (or, well, episode) the Toymaker was coming from, and as a result was swept up in an intriguing fan fervor that posited the episode was going to take on a kind of meta-textual horror; addressing the fires that destroyed the film reels of the majority of the episodes in an in-universe fashion, depicting the Toymaker as this haunting entity the Doctor was struggling to remember.

Suffice to say the episode was not that. But I am not sitting down to write all of this simply because the episode took on a more... stale commentative approach to the internet and social media that didn't live up to the version I had constructed in my head. The creative team was never under any obligation to do so, obviously.

I'm writing this because of Ncuti Gatwa.

For a brief moment, when the characters were out on the helipad(?) of the UNIT building, I had what I thought was an epiphany. "This has been about Ncuti all along," I thought, "this approach to talking about internet discourse is a bit stale, sure, but allegorically it's trying to critically talk about the response to Ncuti's casting. Surely that's why they took this angle, it just didn't stick the landing."

I thought this because the regeneration was happening right at the climax of the Toymaker's speech about why he loved humanity and our worst "21st century" aspects, and because Mel, in the moment the Doctor was regenerating, took the time to hold his hand, smile, and remark that "all of your faces are fantastic."

In that moment, I tried to give the series the benefit of the doubt. I tried to believe that, while clumsy, they were teeing up the start of Gatwa's era by holding up a mirror to their own fanbase, trying to coax them into reflecting on the vitriol that they put him through, especially in the British Press and on social media.

But then the Doctor didn't regenerate. He Bi-Generated.

Immediately the common trope of the regeneration is tossed on its head. Gatwa and Tennant were on screen, together- defeating the Toymaker as a triumphant pair. Rather than going through the motions I was accustomed to in every regeneration I had seen previously, where the new Doctor is alone, adjusting sharply to their circumstances and needing to struggle for a moment to get their feet back under them before ultimately still winning the day and establishing themselves as as capable as they ever were; Gatwa was not only not alone, but was immediately being depicted as if he had simply always been there, not questioning the position he was in, not needing time to recover, just. Moving. Going.

But I thought perhaps this was just going to be fleeting. The concept of Bi-Generation being a myth of the Gallifreyan people and thus fair game to be invoked by the energy the Toymaker exuded was hastily explained, and since it had apparently never happened I thought there would be drawbacks, side effects. I was quickly constructing a reasonable way the show could still give Gatwa his space, his moment.

Then the fight ended. Tennant was still standing, triumphant and fine, and looked to be utterly unchanged. Still the Doctor in every physical aspect. He's being comforted, even, by Gatwa- the newly formed Doctor, usually the one reeling, is painted as being so utterly fine that he's able to be the shoulder 14 can use to lean on.

I continue to try to make excuses. As the scene in the TARDIS begins, sure I find it jarring that the 15th Doctor is comforting the 14th on mental health struggles he should reasonably also have, but they are trying to construct an out for Tennant. They've never done this before, but it's clearly setting up a kind of retirement- they want to give Tennant a unique sendoff, want to give the character a permanent resting place in the form of one final "adventure", the adventure of a normal human life with Donna.

But then Ncuti grabbed the fucking hammer. And it all started to sink in for me.

Not only was the 14th Doctor not gone, but he was still in a relatively vague position in the story. The final scene of him in the garden is nice, in theory, but the TARDIS, his own copy of the TARDIS that he magically had made for him, is quite literally looming in the background- reminding the audience that this is all potentially fleeting. Rose and Mel joke about 14 breaking his promises to slow down by sneaking away to take them on small adventures, and it just utterly hit me in that moment, that someone at the BBC, someone responsible for writing or maintaining Doctor Who as a titan of British Popular Culture, did not trust Ncuti Gatwa.

Because even if the fan response to this decision that I have seen thus far online has been positive, it's positive for a reason, and I am being kind when I say this, that I find disheartening. There are excited thoughts about what Tennant might get to do in the near future; thoughts of a potential UNIT series where he gets to star, appearances in the main series, his own spin-off as The Doctor.

But that's just it, isn't it? He's still the Doctor. In every way he is still there, in the universe. For now we are shown the character is at rest, has found peace, but even he admits that he doesn't think it will last, and neither does Donna, the other person supposedly trying to convince him to slow down and heal.

In the long tradition of the role of the Doctor, a tradition being commemorated through this very string of episodes, the role has been treated in a way like principal characters in a Broadway show. Each actor gets a special night to enter into the spotlight, the chance to make it their own for as long as they wish, and a fond sendoff the moment they decide they're ready for something else. The actors are not crossing paths, not really- not unless it is in a format meant to highlight their times in the role, something predicated on the idea that each of them, as independent beings who occupied it for a certain unique amount of time, are worthy of their proverbial flowers in their own right. They each make up the long canon of the role, but were each, individually, allowed to play it all on their own.

In this metaphor, Ncuti Gatwa has been double billed. In a history of this role being occupied by one actor, one at a time, he is the only one who is entering it with the previous actor still lingering- waiting in the wings, ready to be summoned on stage at any moment should the producers decide it would make things more interesting. He is not being trusted to carry the role on his own merits, intentionally or not. He, the first black man to ever occupy this role, is having the rules changed on him- and is acting out a story wherein his character is happy to accept that fact, is the one to grab the cartoon mallet from the floorboards and break the TARDIS in two, literally severing every iconic aspect of the character he should be allowed to embody all on his own into another person, who is literally handed a tool by the narrative to crop back up whenever he'd like.

In the scene on the helipad of the UNIT building, I thought I had had an epiphany. I thought what I was watching was an allegorical condemnation of an aspect of the fanbase that had refused to accept any actor who wasn't white occupying such a famous role in British Television history. I thought what I was watching was setting up something for Gatwa, was rolling out this metaphorical carpet for him to enter his first season on, bolstered by the fact he was being allegorically supported by former companions and a Doctor so adored they brought him back twice.

But what I was actually seeing, whether or not Davies or anyone else thought this aspect of it through, was that very thought process, that very hatred, being softly placated. That those vocal members of the British public and the audience at large were being told, "Not to worry! He's not the only Doctor," Wittingly or unwittingly utterly undermining Gatwa's run from the very start.

Simply put, the Doctor is a communal role, but not a role that has ever been shared. And this Special choosing now as a time to start? Left a deeply sour taste in my mouth. For now I will attempt to be hopeful, will tune in for Gatwa's Christmas Special and hope to all hopes he is given the moment in the spotlight he deserves... but if they lead Tennant out of the wings to thunderous applause? I only hope that my thoughts on the matter will make you all second guess clapping along.

#This was so fucking long #But I had a lot of thoughts #doctor who #doctor who special #doctor who 60th anniversary #doctor who spoilers #doctor who special spoilers #doctor who: the giggle #ncuti gatwa #david tennant #russel t davies #14th doctor #15th doctor

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yeonchi · 1 year

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Thirteenth Doctor Reviews: The Final Verdict (and Ncuti Gatwa is the Doctor)

In July 2017, Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth Doctor, taking over Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor as the first actress to play the Doctor. Seeing the reaction to the casting led me to realise that I should see how she does in the series first before making any judgements, which I expressed in a November 2017 post that served as the prelude to this review series. Cut to May 2022 and Ncuti Gatwa was announced to be taking over as the Doctor after Jodie Whittaker announced her departure alongside Chris Chibnall the year before.

Given how much time has passed between July 2017 and now, it’s amazing to see how things have changed throughout this time. When I started this review series in October 2018, I had come out of a pretty toxic phase in my internet career (that almost saw me deplatformed) and was trying to find my feet after turning a new leaf. Now in October 2022, I’m talking about the things I love (from a new point of view) while maintaining a balance between my personal and online lives. It’s almost like this review series has seen me through a significant phase of character development.

Now with Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall’s era on Doctor Who well and truly over, I take a look back at my reviews and give my final reflections and verdict for the whole era.

Series recap

These are recaps of each series’ reviews with some extra thoughts made in hindsight.

Series 11

Series 11 is the series I have the most positive view of, though part of it can be attributed to me being a bit dense on SJW politics and trying to find ways to justify it in my head. Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan join the Doctor as her diverse fam from different walks of life. There is no major running story arc in this series and given what we saw in the next two series, it’s another reason why I see this series in a more positive light.

Despite this, the series does still have its flaws. Why wasn’t Krasko’s past elaborated on so as to give context on what people he murdered or why he, as someone presumably from the 52nd century, thought the Civil Rights Movement was when “things started to go wrong”? Why did the Doctor criticise Jack Robertson for shooting the giant spider even though she knew it was dying anyway? Why wasn’t Manish the one who shot Prem instead of that other guy?

According to Bowlestrek (and possibly some others), this series felt like a slight on white men and single fathers, with several episodes containing at least one villain-coded white male, but I honestly didn’t feel that vibe when I first watched those episodes. I probably wouldn’t feel that vibe if I watched those episodes again, but hey, I’m not a white Canadian who’s bitter about SJWs taking over multiple fandoms, I’m an Asian-Australian with niche interests who’s becoming bitter at the world around me and trying to understand why.

Also, I said that I liked The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, but given how Chibnall admitted that it was his least favourite script of his entire tenure because the filmed version was only the first draft (he didn't have time to do a second draft because he was helping all the rookie writers and doing rewrites), I want to come out and say that I only liked the episode ironically.

Series 12

With the previous series electing not to bring back any old enemies, Series 12 decided to revisit the broken trend (following the return of the Daleks in the previous New Year’s Special, Resolution), with the first returning villain being the Master, who was last thought to have been killed on the Mondasian colony ship as Missy. This series also reintroduced two-parters after doing away with them in the previous series. Notably, I went on holiday just as the third episode aired and came back just before the fifth episode premiered on Australia, so I ended up having to write up reviews for three episodes in the space of five days. Luckily, I wrote down some notes on my phone so I was able to get them out quicker.

Unfortunately, this series is what redpilled me to the SJW agenda going on in the Chibnall era. Orphan 55 served as nothing but a lecture about climate change without at least a decent resolution to the remaining characters featured in it. Then we get to the biggest turning point of the series, namely the Timeless Child revelation. After the Master revealed to the Doctor that he destroyed Gallifrey in Spyfall Part Two, the Doctor meets a woman named Ruth Clayton in Fugitive of the Judoon, who is apparently revealed to be a previously-unknown incarnation of the Doctor, known as the Fugitive Doctor. The relation between the two Doctors (apart from them being the same) is left up to the viewer until the Master tells the Doctor about the Timeless Child and that she was said child, at which point it becomes implied that the Fugitive Doctor is indeed the Doctor’s past incarnation, on top of being specialer than special.

Yaz does get a bit of a highlight after Graham and Ryan’s mini-arc in the last series, but it isn’t much. Sadly, Graham and Ryan leave the series in Revolution of the Daleks. I probably would have liked them to stay for another year given how things would unfold in 2020, but the filming for Series 12 ended at the end of October 2019 and the filming for Series 13 wouldn’t commence until November 2020, so the timing wouldn’t have been right there.

Series 13

After two years of waiting and an absolutely atrocious promotion campaign that didn’t reveal the release date until three weeks before the premiere, Series 13 came out in a different format than usual. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Series 13 was slated to be only 8 episodes long instead of 11 (which was already cut down from 13 and a Christmas Special back during the RTD and Moffat eras), which was later confirmed to be a six-episode serial collectively titled Flux along with three specials, one of which was additionally commissioned for the BBC’s Centenary. Following Graham and Ryan’s departure, their place in the TARDIS would be taken by Dan Lewis from Liverpool.

After my redpilling in Series 12, I decided to hold the series to a higher standard than I did before. The series in general was alright, but it still had its flaws; we were jumping all over the place with plot threads and characters who served little relevance until the end, every second episode was extended instead of balancing the lengths of each episode, and the main villains of the series (Swarm and Azure) ended up being overshadowed by lesser villains (the Sontarans and the Grand Serpent) in the finale.

Unsurprisingly, this series doubled down on the Timeless Child revelation, with a woman, revealed to be Tecteun, confirming what the Master said to the Doctor at the end of Series 12, essentially killing off any potential speculation to the contrary. Surprisingly though, the revelation was not elaborated on further as the Doctor dumped the fob watch containing her apparent past into the TARDIS, thereby pussying out of the double-down. The last two episodes of the series were negatively rated because of those reasons.

As for the specials, Eve of the Daleks was a boring New Year’s Special with an annoying female guest character, while Legend of the Sea Devils was a pretty good Easter Special with good Cantonese language representation, though it felt like it could have been a regular episode seeing as it was only 50 minutes long and it had no mention of Easter. Although The Power of the Doctor, in the end, never revisited or retconned the Timeless Child revelation, it brought back old companions and Doctors for the memberberries. So admittedly, while Flux in itself was abysmal enough for me to nearly null out my review score, the 2022 Specials kind of redeemed it, but not by much.

Top 5 good things about the Chibnall era

Even among Chibnall’s disgraces to the franchise, we did get some gems out of it. Not gonna lie, it was a bit complicated trying to think of good things to talk about this era.

1. Can You Hear Me?

This episode actually got me to open up about some people from my past and later, it inspired me to talk about the IRL context to the characters and elements featured in my personal project when I started the Kisekae Insights series in the second half of 2020. This episode also provided significant character development for Graham, Ryan and Yaz where it was scarce in other episodes. Of course, there was one element in the episode that in the end, I didn’t like, which I’ll talk about in a bit.

2. Returning characters

In Series 12, we had the surprise return of Captain Jack Harkness in Fugitive of the Judoon before he returned again in Revolution of the Daleks. Unfortunately though, his actor, John Barrowman, had been cancelled earlier in the year due to accusations of sexual harrassment that resurfaced while similar accusations were being raised of Noel Clarke, who played Mickey Smith.

Series 13 saw the return of Kate Stewart with a rather lackluster level of involvement, though that was later made up in The Power of the Doctor, which also featured the return of Ace, Tegan Jovanka, Mel Bush, Jo Jones and Ian Chesterton alongside Graham and Dan. In addition, the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors also appeared as projections or figments of the Doctor’s consciousness while at the end, the Tenth Doctor returned as the Fourteenth Doctor in a surprise move to prepare for the 60th anniversary specials in 2023.

In all honesty, the returning characters and allusions to past series during the Chibnall era felt like memberberries because they were coming off a series that was lackluster at best and disgraceful at worst. It didn’t look so bad during the RTD or Moffat eras because for the most part, the former was riding highs of success by the time Series 4 was being produced, while the latter was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the series.

3. Stellar performances from some actors

A couple of actors I’d like to highlight are Sacha Dhawan and Jo Martin, who respectively played O, the Spy Master and Ruth, the Fugitive Doctor. Although they played characters who were admittedly unnecessary (the Master had died and I would have rather had the Rani return, while Ruth, you’ll see later), they did a great job expressing their characters regardless, particularly since the Spy Master felt like a ripoff of John Simm as Harold Saxon, but with a classic series twist (shown by his readoption of the TCE and unique TARDIS among other things) and the Fugitive Doctor felt more like the Doctor than the Thirteenth Doctor was.

I will say though, it’s funny that the Master and Ruth were announced to be getting Big Finish audio spinoffs up to a fortnight after Legend of the Sea Devils aired when it previously took years for the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors’ content to be cleared; this happened in August 2014, while in January 2018, the Twelfth Doctor’s content was cleared, just over a week following the broadcast of Twice Upon a Time. From the announcement, it appears as though the Thirteenth Doctor’s content was cleared six months before The Power of the Doctor was released, though it can be argued that the episode was completed a year before. But hey, I suppose if anyone in the Chibnall era deserves a Big Finish spinoff, then it’s the Master and Ruth.

4. Graham and Ryan’s character development

Although Series 11 had no clear-cut story arc, the relationship between Graham and Ryan follows a minor arc in the series as Graham tries to get Ryan to acknowledge him as his stepgrandfather, with a bit of r/FellowKids to boot. We see this in a few episodes where Graham tries to get Ryan to fistbump him only to be rejected, then in the finale, Ryan finally reciprocated Graham’s fistbump. Additionally, this series also shows Graham trying to deal with Grace’s death before finally learning to move on.

5. Select episodes

Aside from Can You Hear Me?, Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror, Praxeus and The Haunting of Villa Diodati are some of the best episodes out of Series 12. The Haunting of Villa Diodati did seem a little boring at the start, but it all changed once the Lone Cyberman showed up. While there wasn’t an episode in Series 11 I would say that I really liked, Village of the Angels is probably my favourite episode from Series 13; likewise with The Haunting of Villa Diodati, the first half doesn’t have a lot going for it, but the second part is where the episode starts to get good. It’s likely that way because both episodes were written by the same writer (Maxine Alderton) and they were both broadcast before their respective series finales.

As for the specials, Resolution was a pretty great episode, followed by Legend of the Sea Devils and admittedly, The Power of the Doctor.

Top 5 bad things about the Chibnall era

Unsurprisingly, this series feels like it has more negatives than positives, particularly in Series 12 and 13. Originally, my plan for this section was going to be “top 5 bad things about the Chibnall era apart from the Timeless Child”, but I just had to put it in anyway.

1. The Timeless Child storyline

The Timeless Child storyline makes up the main background arc of the Chibnall era, making it a highlight and one of the reasons why this era isn’t fondly received by a lot of people.

The first mention of the Timeless Child was in The Ghost Monument, then it wasn’t mentioned again until the end of Spyfall Part Two, when the Master revealed that he destroyed Gallifrey because of what he learnt about the Timeless Child. In Fugitive of the Judoon, the inclusion of Ruth and the Fugitive Doctor was a secret addition on Chibnall’s part (I wouldn’t really say last-minute tbh) that played into his plans for the arc. Ascension of the Cybermen featured a C-plot centred around an Irish policeman named Brendan, which was revealed to have been a cover-up for the Timeless Child revelation that would be elaborated on in the next episode, The Timeless Children.

The story goes that Tecteun, a Shobogan and one of the indigenous beings of Gallifrey, found the Timeless Child beneath a wormhole into another universe and adopted them. However, upon discovering their ability to regenerate following an accident, Tecteun studied and experimented the Timeless Child for a way to replicate this regeneration, presumably killing them multiple times in the process while doing so (as regeneration is normally seen as the death of an incarnation). Eventually, Tecteun was able to replicate this on herself and as a result, she gave this power to other Shobogans, but limiting them to a maximum of twelve regenerations. This was the creation of the Time Lords, thereby making the Timeless Child their genetic template. Later on, the Timeless Child would come to work for the Division alongside Tecteun and eventually, Tecteun would have their memories removed as they became the Doctor and decided to leave the Division (presumably in their Ruth incarnation).

With this, the Doctor is no longer originally from Gallifrey and the First Doctor is not the first incarnation of the Doctor that we know. The Doctor ends up being a chosen one that spawns a group of chosen ones only to end up being reduced to the group they spawned. If this origin story was exclusive to the extended media (like the story of The Other) then it would have been fine, but it was introduced on-screen on a series where TV is god. It raises too many questions and plot holes, it makes the Doctor’s past complicated (as if it wasn’t complicated enough) and it was never deeply elaborated on again.

Later on, near the end of Flux, the Doctor would come into possession of the fob watch apparently containing all the lost memories of her past as the Timeless Child, but when she had the opportunity to open it and regain her memories, she decided to dump it in the TARDIS.

In an interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Chibnall admitted that the inspiration for this storyline was personal as he was adopted and he wanted to explore the adoption myth, about where someone is from versus who someone is. Mind you, in a world where #StopAsianHate crybabies think asking “Where are you really from?” is a microaggression, this really isn’t a good look. Also, being adopted doesn’t give Chibnall an excuse to disrespect nearly 60 years of canon the way he did. In a video breaking down the story of Flux and putting it into context with the Timeless Child arc, Chibnall justifies pussying out of the double-down as a “be careful what you wish for” kind of thing, but by that point, we had waited two years for something significant to come out of it, so it just felt a bit spiteful.

People say that the Timeless Child twist allows new stories to be told and adds mystery to the Doctor’s character. In regards to the first point, The Time of the Doctor already did so by giving the Doctor another regeneration cycle. While it does potentially allow alternate and non-canon Doctors to be canonised, I’d rather it be left to the fandom or extended media and not dictated by the TV series itself. In regards to the second point, unpopular opinion, but the Doctor doesn’t need any more mystery than they already have since the Moffat era, particularly when it destroys canon the way the Timeless Child arc did. We know that the Doctor is a Time Lord from Gallifrey who stole a TARDIS and became a renegade. Thanks to RTD, we know that the Time Lords fought the Daleks in the Time War and both sides were wiped out thanks to the Doctor. Thanks to Moffat, we know that neither the Eighth or the Ninth Doctors fought in the Time War, but a previously unknown incarnation who future incarnations rejected, but later came to accept. The Hybrid arc ended up being unnecessary, but it wasn’t as bad as the Timeless Child arc was even with the answer being non-existent or deliberately ambiguous. Also, over 30 years have passed since the Valeyard’s introduction and nobody ever bothered to address his existence yet. What gives?

Before the double-down, a lot of people were hoping that the Master was lying about what he discovered. Some went the easy way out and speculated that the Master was the Timeless Child, but I don’t agree with it because the Master’s past is likely just as complicated as the Doctors and even then, it doesn’t address Ruth’s place in the timeline (I’ll buy pre-Hartnell at best, but not between the Second and Third Doctors).

However, my ideal solution would be that the Doctor is actually cloned from the Timeless Child and that Ruth is one of the Timeless Child’s incarnations. The Time Lords attempted to clone the Timeless Child but ended up creating an ordinary male Time Lord instead, so they dumped him somewhere and left him to live his life as he did. The clone eventually becomes the Thirteenth Doctor and meets the Timeless Child again, who is now in her Ruth incarnation, and after a few encounters, she encounters Ruth getting their memories erased by the Division. The Doctor somehow saved the Timeless Child and set them up to live a new life; maybe they became a child again without their memories and the Doctor brought them back to the planet where Tecteun found them and they began walking hand-in-hand towards the future, or the Doctor managed to prevent or interrupt the process and save Ruth while also defeating the Division for good before leaving her to live her own life in her TARDIS. Or better yet, don’t do the Timeless Child altogether and instead address something else that’s important, say the Valeyard. Though I must say, given how this arc was never elaborated on in the 2022 specials, I think I could buy the Doctor being a clone of the Timeless Child and Tecteun deciding not to reveal that the Doctor was a clone so as to save her the trouble of wondering whether she was the clone or not, like the Space Beth arc in Rick and Morty.

Personally, I will not accept that the Doctor was the Timeless Child or had any incarnations pre-Hartnell First, including Ruth or the Morbius incarnations (which I believe to be Morbius’ incarnations); William Hartnell’s First Doctor always was, and always will be, the original Doctor.

2. The Doctor’s callous dismissal of Graham’s cancer concerns

Towards the end of Can You Hear Me?, Graham tells the Doctor about his fear that his cancer might come back before the Doctor responds, “I’m still quite socially awkward” without any reassuring words. In another interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Chibnall states that Graham’s cancer concerns were inspired from his own cancer diagnosis at the age of 22. After learning this, I honestly think that scene is totally something r/thathappened, but this is fiction, not real life, so it wouldn’t have hurt to put in some reassuring words because fiction doesn’t have to follow real life to a T. Heck, even Chibnall admitted in that interview that there was another version of that scene where the Doctor does give Graham some reassuring words. Here, I’ll give you my example that I quickly made up in the first hiatusbreaker update: “I should say a reassuring thing now, shouldn’t I? I’m still quite socially awkward, but I just want you to know that you’ve got me, Ryan and Yaz in the TARDIS, and we’ll be there for you if anything happens, just as you have been there for us.”

OK, so people might not know how to respond to something they have no experience of (which is understandable) and Chibnall was just trying to express that through the Doctor, but you’d think that the Doctor has lived for so long that they would at least be able to show empathy and support, particularly in an episode that mainly focused on mental health issues. Even with context, the way the scene was written still makes it look like the Doctor was being callously dismissive of Graham’s concerns. Yes, I know the Doctor said she was socially awkward and that I said in my review that her fam should have known this because they’ve been with her for so long, but sometimes opinions change when you get a better understanding of the situation from different people and it still doesn’t excuse the way she dodged the subject.

Look, being adopted and being diagnosed with cancer when you’re young are relatable situations, but this feels like Chibnall brought them up as excuses for the flawed writing in the respective episodes.

3. Hamfisted SJW politics without entertaining stories to back them up

The third episodes of Series 11 and 12, Rosa and Orphan 55, were the two series-requisite SJW-fest episodes focusing on social justice topics, namely racism and climate change. Unfortunately, they didn’t end up being as entertaining as expected; Rosa failed to elaborate on the background behind Krasko’s imprisonment and racism, while Orphan 55 failed to provide a decent resolution for Bella and Kane, making the episode’s ending feel like the Doctor lecturing the audience. I suppose improving the episodes the way I suggested wouldn’t do much to change the nature of how the episodes were presented, but at least it would make it entertaining.

Arachnids in the UK and Revolution of the Daleks featured Jack Robertson, an American businessman who served as an expy of Donald Trump, though in retrospect, given events that happened in the past two years, he could also be seen as an expy of Joe Biden, given how Robertson was shown to hate Trump in-universe (meaning that he could only be a Democrat candidate) and his actor, Chris Noth, is a liberal who got #MeToo’d in 2021. It’s so hilariously pathetic.

War of the Sontarans was an entertaining episode, but it featured Mary Seacole, who some say wasn’t actually a nurse even though she did help save lives on the battlefield. I didn’t know a lot about Mary Seacole and I’m not from the UK so I didn’t really care much for her character, but I believe that Seacole should be applauded for the good deeds she did, whether she was actually a nurse or not.

4. Lack of promotion and elusive marketing

I don’t know if it’s just me, but there hasn’t been a lot of marketing surrounding this series, with each series only getting trailers or release dates three weeks before their premiere. Even in the RTD or Moffat eras, the promotion of the series typically began at least three months before they were due to premiere. During Series 13, however, the BBC were being deliberately elusive with their promotion of the series with their #FindTheDoctor ARG that didn’t even reveal an airdate followed by an advertising campaign in Liverpool that also involved them deactivating their social media accounts for a day. The fact that the whole campaign won awards just shows how people will accept anything when they’ve been blueballed for two years.

On top of that, there used to be a lot more behind-the-scenes insights before the Chibnall era with Doctor Who Confidential, but as the years went on, the featurettes became shorter, now going up to around 5 minutes at most. Additionally, from 2009 to 2013, there were quite a number of documentaries produced as retrospectives to the series, with a majority of them being produced by BBC America in response to the series’ growing interest in the US and the 50th anniversary. All this reduction in behind-the-scenes content just goes to show how far this series has fallen over the past decade.

5. Poor writing and lack of significant character development

While Graham and Ryan did get significant character development throughout their appearances on the series, the Doctor and Yaz didn’t get much compared to them.

The Thirteenth Doctor ended up being an expy of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors without any attempt to make her unique or understanding how the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors’ qualities make them unique. The Thirteenth Doctor’s moral outrages at people killing enemies (like the giant spider, the Sontarans and Marsissus the Sea Devil) were clearly ripped off from similar notions from the Tenth Doctor, along with his aversion to weapons, survivor’s guilt and “no second chances” attitude, but Chibnall didn’t seem to understand why those elements mattered to the Tenth Doctor nor the potential consequences of keeping the enemies alive. Aside from the Timeless Child, there’s no particular moment in this series that cements the Thirteenth Doctor as the Doctor (yes, I mentioned that thing at the start of Series 11, but that was post-regenerative and things have changed since then). I suppose the Doctor’s character can be summed up by whatever it says on the TARDIS Data Core article about her, but I don’t think that it’s enough.

Yaz got very little character development during Series 11 and 12, but then Series 13 went out of its way to regress her character development. OK, so we know that Yaz is a socially-awkward Muslim who was bullied at school and suffered racism while working as a police officer, but meeting the Doctor changed her life and eventually, she decided to quit the police force after randomly going on secondment for extended periods of time (and those ten months she spent being obsessed with finding the Doctor). Upon being separated from the Doctor and Dan in the Crimea and being transported to the Temple of Atropos, we saw that she had to have “WWTDD” - “What would the Doctor do?” - written on her hand (like a child) when at that point in her adventures with the Doctor, that phrase should have been the first thing that came to mind, not to mention that she has also been a police officer, potentially signifying that Yaz is too incompetent to rely on her instincts and logic. Later on, when Yaz gets trapped in the 20th century with Dan and Professor Jericho, she couldn’t recall the year they had to get back to even though she and Dan were supposed to know. They only figure it out once they get to Joseph Williamson’s tunnels in Liverpool and they find the door leading back to 2021. I don’t really believe in it myself, but there’s a reason why people like Bowlestrek and NoelZone call her “Yaz the plank”.

Throughout her run, the Doctor seemingly showed favouritism towards Yaz, which the fandom soon spinned into a ship known as “Thasmin”. This ship was explored during Series 13, but it was kind of rushed and there wasn’t much development because Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens never planned on exploring it, though the resolution was okay. Eve of the Daleks apparently showed Dan “outing” Yaz to the Doctor, but I’m not LGBT so I can’t really comment on it.

Dan, like Yaz, doesn’t get a lot of character development, but I feel like we know enough about him in his first episode to conclude that he doesn’t need it that much, not to mention his sense of humor and the meme of him being “Evil Dan”.

And one more thing, I’ve got to mention Ryan’s dyspraxia, because it was only mentioned in like five episodes and it didn’t play that much a part in his character development nor do we see it affecting his adventures with the Doctor negatively. Chibnall could have written Ryan with autism and I wouldn’t be able to notice this.

A common rebuttal for the Chibnall era being bad because of its wokeness is “It’s not the politics, it’s the writing!” Um, is it possible that both things (among others) could have contributed to the Chibnall era being bad? Let me put it another way: The series isn’t bad because the writing is woke, but the series is woke because the writing is bad.

During the RTD and Moffat eras, the showrunners were working on other shows while working on Doctor Who; RTD was producing Casanova while working on Series 1, then was overseeing Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures throughout Series 2 to 4 and even continuing after stepping down as showrunner in 2009, while Steven Moffat was producing Sherlock alongside Mark Gatiss simultaneously throughout his run as showrunner. Chris Chibnall, however, was not shown to be overseeing anything else while realising his “five-year plan” for Doctor Who (though given the coronavirus pandemic, he probably couldn’t do anything else even if he wanted to), so in all honesty, he had no excuse for the quality of writing we got from him. On the other hand, though, the Chibnall era was all about fresh blood in the name of diversity, so I could probably forgive the amateurish quality as being produced by rookies and not by experienced individuals. We can only hope that the RTD2 era will really bring back the show we knew and loved.

Final points tally

So in a few episodes, the Doctor has been giving out points, which she changed to gold stars and stickers as the series went on. Out of interest, I’ve been keeping a tally and I’d thought I’d sum everything up to see how everyone did.

Yaz: 20 (10 points S11E5, gold star S12E6)

Ryan: 20 (gold star S11E6, gold star S12E6)

The Doctor: 5 (given by Ruth S12E4)

Graham: 10 (gold star S12E6)

Gabriela/Adam/Jake: 10 (one gold star each S12E6)

Jack Harkness: 10 (gold star NY2021)

Mary Seacole: 15 (gold star and sticker S13E2)

The Master: 15 (self-granted gold star and sticker BBC100)

Yaz and Ryan are at equal first with 20 points, Mary Seacole and the Master are at equal second with 15 points (if you want to count the Master giving himself points), Graham along with Gabriela, Adam and Jake from Praxeus are third with 10 points and ironically, the Doctor is last at 5 points.

Final era rating and verdict

Specials are included in the ratings.

Series 11: 81/110 (73%)

Series 12: 83/110 (75%)

Series 13: 18/90 (20%) Hypothetical: 47/90 (52%) Conservative: 27/90 (30%)

Final era total: 175/310 (56%) Hypothetical era total: 211/310 (68%) Conservative era total: 191/310 (61%)

In the end, despite all the flaws and disgraces I pointed out with the Chibnall era, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I compared Chris Chibnall with Kamen Rider producer Shinichiro Shirakura and writers Shoji Yonemura and Toshiki Inoue; that comparison continues to stand even at the end of the Chibnall era. In terms of wokeness, to compare the three showrunners of the revived series up to now, RTD is someone who has been woke from the beginning, yet knows how to subtly incorporate politics in a way that still makes the episode entertaining; Steven Moffat is someone who had to learn how to be woke judging from the reception of Series 10; while Chris Chibnall is the r/FellowKids version of woke. The way the Chibnall era was presented seemed to be appealing to a new generation of younger viewers (given the modern music used in Series 11 and its promos back in 2018), but as time went on, it seemingly stopped appealing to some of the more hardcore fans with the Timeless Child arc. Would I still go to say that Chibnall is a hack writer? Maybe. I’m not a good judge of acting skill or film production, but I like to think that everyone, cast and crew alike, did an okay job with what they were given; undoubtedly, this era would have been better with different people at the helm.

Look, I’ve been trying to stay positive about this entire series, but I think we all need to accept that this era of Doctor Who sucked. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the past 2-3 years, it’s that sometimes, the people you hate, or the people you think you’re supposed to hate, were right about some things (but not necessarily everything) all along. In politics, it might be the people you call conspiracy theorists, grifters, anti-vaxxers, facists and Nazis, or even individuals like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, Pauline Hanson or Craig Kelly. In Doctor Who, it’s the people you might call racists, sexists, or NMDs (Not My Doctors); the people you gatekeeping assholes don’t consider fans because you think fans have to accept everything offered to you like consumers without being allowed to complain. Yes, and I am really saying this, people like Bowlestrek, Nerdrotic, Heel vs Babyface and NoelZone were right all along.

Although I don’t join in the fan discourse of the series on social media, I have to condemn the actions of people like Trilbee (Mr Tardis), Jay Exci and Tharries; Trilbee’s videos on Bowlestrek incited his fans to harass him, with one even making repugnant remarks about him doing something unspeakable with dogs, Jay Exci debating Bowlestrek and failing to properly counter anything he says while giving the excuse that he was tired, and Tharries used Bowlestrek and NoelZone for clout before turning on them. I’m just listing vague examples here, but I’m sure other people may have receipts. You may think NMDs are bad, but let me tell you that the people calling out NMDs are just as bad as them, so they should stop trying to act like they’re innocent of their actions just because they have the clout of their enabling fanbases.

When I started these reviews, I set out two questions that I hoped to answer with these reviews. I briefly answered them in the prelude for the Flux reviews and I’ll answer them again in this post:

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

If it weren’t for Jo Martin and The Power of the Doctor, Jodie Whittaker would have set a really low bar for future female Doctors, but now, I can say that maybe another woman can become the Doctor in 10-15 years and do a better job than Jodie Whittaker, regardless of whether you feel she did her best with the material she was given. As I said in the aforementioned post, just because one Doctor acts one way doesn’t mean another Doctor will act the same way and as such, each Doctor should be measured and judged individually.

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

Admittedly, it did, but it was mostly because Chibnall was being rather unsubtle about it, and even then, all the SJW red flags I found, especially in regards to Rosa and Orphan 55, got me talking about racism and climate change among other things. I was hoping that I’d find something offensive about Hong Kong, but it’s good that there wasn’t; in fact, Legend of the Sea Devils did a good job in Cantonese language representation, something that was last seen briefly in the third episode of the Third Doctor serial, The Mind of Evil. There was also the case of Chibnall adding LGBT characters for representation in Series 11 before they got killed off, but Praxeus did it right because the LGBT representation wasn’t killed off in the end.

Looking forward to RTD2 and Ncuti Gatwa

Admittedly, I was going to do a post about Ncuti Gatwa’s casting back in May, but I never really got around to it, so I’m doing this here.

So right after The Power of the Doctor concluded, we got a sneak peek into the 60th Anniversary Specials, then a couple of days later, the new Doctor Who logo was unveiled, reverting to a classic design, while also announcing that the BBC are joining forces with Disney on Doctor Who, with the BBC continuing to broadcast the show in the UK while the rest of the world (except Ireland) will have it exclusively on Disney+. Also, Disney is expected to give the show higher budgets than before, on top of Sony having a majority stake in Bad Wolf Studios, so yeah. OK, I can kind of get behind putting it on Disney+ worldwide so everyone can get it at the same time (and without ads unlike on BBC America), but why does it have to be streaming-exclusive? In Australia, the ABC will no longer be airing new episodes as a result and I don’t know how many other countries will get screwed over because they can’t watch it for free.

Honestly, the only reason why the series is still on the BBC in the UK (aside from them being the creators of the series) is because RTD is a fervent supporter of the BBC and the licence fee. I know that streaming appears to be the growing trend nowadays, but aside from it being free, I watch the episodes on ABC iView because I know they’ll be available on there right after they premiere in the UK so I can watch them as quickly as possible in order to avoid spoilers. While the Disney+ deal does make it easier for some people to watch the episodes, it’s actually become harder for others to do the same. I hope the BBC and Disney are able to chalk up some kind of a deal to give broadcasting rights to other broadcasters including the ABC, but if nothing changes by November next year, at least we’ll always have torrents.

Going into conspiracy theory territory and speculate on why things are the way they are. I suspect that RTD was asked to come back after the outrage that the Timeless Child arc caused; the BBC fired Chibnall and decided not to renew Jodie Whittaker’s contract, but were told that they could do a final series to wrap things up. Jodie leaving after three series would be believable, but Chibnall leaving after one Doctor would be surprising. If it weren’t for RTD’s willingness to return, the series may have been cancelled and The Power of the Doctor would likely have ended with a fade to black. Other conspiracy theories say that “Chaos in Cardiff” actually happened and that Chibnall and Whittaker were going to quit after Series 11 but were asked to return for Series 12, but that kind of neglects Chibnall’s “five-year plan” comment from the start of his era. There’s also the “hostile takeover” theory I covered in the Flux prelude which kind of turned out to be true but not really. I guess time will only tell.

UPDATE - 19 November 2022: So RTD has come out and confessed that he asked the BBC if he could come back to Doctor Who as early as December 2020 following the lockdown tweetalong for The Runaway Bride when he suggested the idea to Catherine Tate, who then suggested it to David Tennant. Once he knew that both of them were willing to return, RTD emailed Piers Wenger, Director of Drama at the BBC, to throw the idea out there. While this may have been the case, there is still the possibility that either person wanted to return to Doctor Who or the BBC was willing to let RTD come back because of the outrage that the Timeless Child revelation caused. Given what we would later see during Series 13, it was a good thing that RTD decided to come back when he did.

When Ncuti Gatwa was announced as the Doctor back in May, my first thought was, “Well, at least the Doctor’s a man again.” Jo Martin aside, Ncuti will be the first black actor to play a numbered incarnation of the Doctor and his incarnation is slated to be the first gay Doctor. RTD has stated that Ncuti’s casting wasn’t about diversity and representation, but a couple of days before that, he stated that he had someone else in mind before Ncuti came in to audition and “simply stole it”, which makes me a little suspicious, but at any rate I look forward to seeing how he does as the Doctor.

Aside from Ncuti, Yasmin Finney, a trans-female actor, has been cast as Rose and is slated to be the new companion with her debut being in the 60th anniversary specials. On top of that, David Tennant has been announced to be returning as the Fourteenth Doctor alongside Catherine Tate, (the late) Bernard Cribbins, Jacqueline King and Karl Collins, reprising their roles from the RTD era. Neil Patrick Harris has also been cast as a villain who is apparently slated to be the Celestial Toymaker, but further details aren’t known as of yet.

UPDATE - 19 November 2022: Apparently Millie Gibson has been cast as Ruby Sunday, who will be the Fifteenth Doctor’s first companion. So is Rose going to be in Series 14 or what?

The three 60th anniversary specials are due to air in November 2023 before Ncuti’s first episode is expected to premiere “over the festive period” in 2023. In the review for Eve of the Daleks, I was raging about why RTD couldn’t do Series 14 early in 2023 before the 60th anniversary specials, but I can sort of see why the arrangements are what they are now.

While the Chibnall era all but killed off most of my interest for Doctor Who, RTD’s return reinvigorated it and now, I would like to announce that I intend to continue reviewing new Doctor Who episodes, even if only for the content. At the start of this review series, I had plans to give up this series if the next Doctor was a woman, but now, I’m happy to remain as a casual fan (this would be the same if Jo Martin were actually announced to be the next Doctor). My focus in the Chibnall era was seeing how the SJW agenda would affect how I see the series; for the RTD2 era, my focus will change to seeing how RTD does (in writing and the SJW agenda) in comparison to Chibnall.

This series of reviews has been simultaneously posted to a Google Site which I share with my friends on my personal Facebook account. This was because I was still hesitant at sharing my personal project outside of my Facebook friends back then and I also wanted to share my findings on the Chibnall era without revealing this Tumblr to anyone, not that anyone would care nowadays. For future reviews, they will be exclusive to Tumblr and I won’t be doing the bookending prelude and epilogue posts for the era, just the ones for each series.

I would like to acknowledge everyone who read and liked my reviews over the past four years, even if they were few and far between. I would also like to acknowledge Blogtor Who, as it was the site where I got most of my review header screenshots from (as shown in the collage below). Like I said, I’ll be back for the RTD2 era, but until then, feel free to follow me and check out my content both related and not related to Doctor Who, such as Kisekae Insights, Doctor Who 10 for 10 and my reviews of Koei Tecmo’s Warriors games, which are being lined up for future release.

Once again, thanks for following the Thirteenth Doctor Reviews and I hope to see you around.

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