#this is a Chibnall hate blog now sorry

[swamp-cats-den]

Can't believe that, at some point, I let Tumblr kinda persuade me RTD's return was a bad thing (cause, you know, repetition, stagnation, all the usual criticism). And here he comes, with his episodes totally blowing out of the water anything Chibnall has ever done, and even fixing some of the Chib's messes (the emotional consequences of the Flux actually being acknowledged? hello?). RTD is just one of these writers who really breathe life into their creations.

[foxes-at-a-keyboard]

Okay. Here's the deal. I have been watching Doctor who since the new series started airing with the 9th doctor in 2005. I watched "Rose" live on tv. Huge fan.

HOWEVER. I really could not enjoy anything Chris Chibnal fucking wrote for Doctor Who. The writing was just. So bad. Not hate to the rest of the cast the writing was just abysmal. So I haven't enjoyed one of my favorite shows and special interests in a long time! (Since fucking 2018 holy shit)

AND NOW ITS BACK WITH RUSSEL T DAVIS WRITING AND I AM BEYOND EXCITED. I enjoyed his writing so much. It's what made me fall in love with Doctor Who. (And it's even back with fucking David Tenant for a bit? Are you JOKING. It's all my favorite things)

All this to say I'm going to watch the newest special and live blog all my reactions so sorry for the total shift in content I'm tagging it all as "Doctor Who Spoilers" if you don't want that LOL.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Thank Fuck That’s Over

WARNING: The following blog is offensive to sex workers, BBC employees, fans of Doctor Who, men, women, the victims of Geoffrey Dahmer, Geoffrey Dahmer himself and anyone who didn’t want to picture me in slutty heels getting romanced by a Mariachi band. You’ve been warned. Also, yes, it does contain another totally unnecessary reference to people having sex with watermelons.

So, it’s been a long time coming, but Chib-fail and Piss-taker are finally fucking off into the sunset like Charlie Chaplin’s tramp. I only hope they go on to have fulfilling post-Who careers… as skinless trophies on a serial killer’s bookshelf. I know that, sometimes, I exaggerate my hatred for comic effect, but if I found out those two talentless, culture-fucking hacks had run afoul of Geoffrey Dahmer’s ghost, my only thought on the matter would be ‘get in, my son!’, directly at the Milwaukee Cannibal with the paternal pride his actual father never fucking felt for him.

The truth is, I probably wouldn’t bring it up at all under normal circumstance. Although I often mention the BBCs systematic ruining of Doctor Who as an example of the slow death that popularity and virtue-signalling can bring about- or just as a punchline when I need some low-hanging fruit to widdle all over- my actual, personal relationship with the show has changed. I’ve slowly managed to transition from hating it as something that betrayed me to regarding it as just another crap show for casual twats that I don’t watch. Unfortunately for my long-cultivated cynical detachment, the BBC have brought back Russel T. Davis, the mastermind behind Doctor Who’s original return to screens in 2005 and David Tennant, the second best actor to ever play the Doctor (the first is, obviously, Tom Baker). And now I kind of have to give it one more go. Frankly, I feel a bit like a battered prostitute who’s just come home to discover her abusive pimp has cooked a lovely bolognese and hired a Mariachi band. I’m not sure I trust this sudden attempt to apologise, kiss and make up, but if I don’t at least give ‘em a chance, then I’m the arsehole. I mean, more so than usual.

I tell you what, though, I do feel a bit sorry for poor Ncuti Gatwa (or ‘Cunty Gateau’ as he’s known in the wonderful world of predictive text. Or possibly just the predictive text on my phone, which knows those are two words I use quite often). My point is that he thought he was going to be following Whitaker, which would have been a leisurely walk through a breezy park full of pre-sliced cakes, and now he’s got to follow David Tenant instead. Fuck me. I’m not even sure what to compare that to. Maybe being a male stripper and being told you’re on after Noam Chomsky only to learn you’re actually following the Chippendales and they’re being led by that dude from Zardoz. You know- the bloke in hot pants with the porn ‘stache that oozes erotic tension like he uses it for moustache wax? No? Am I literally the only person in the world who’s seen fucking Zardoz?

I’ve just realised that ninety percent of this blog is just jokes about different types of sex workers having surreal experiences. But what am I supposed to say? I can’t exactly celebrate the fact that Whitaker and Chibnall are leaving, because a) they hung on for so bloody long and b) they’re sadly only leaving the show, not the planet. In an ideal world, they’d be getting the fuck off of Earth by strapping themselves to a nuclear warhead and aiming it at the sun. But they’re not doing that: they’re just walking out a building. What do they want- a medal? Am I supposed to be excited that David Tennant’s getting his own little mini-series playing the Doctor again? Well, I am a bit, but since the BBC’s incompetence and venality knows no bounds, it’s entirely possible they’ll make a bollocks of that, too. I mean, you’d think that’d be impossible, but I also thought it was impossible for them to accidentally hire the troll from The Three Billy Goats Gruff to be political editor… then they did and Andrew Neil was around for ages before anyone even noticed the mistake. My point is, there’s no point getting jazzed over this until its actually happened and has proven itself to be good.

Am I cautiously optimistic? Yes. Will I be remotely surprised if that optimism turns out to be groundless? Nope. And that’s that. The BBC might have found a way to unfuck the big, tasty sci-fi melon they let Chibnall stick his cock in… or they might not. At the very least, I’ll get to hear David Tennant say ‘What?’ again in that really specific way and that’s not nothing.

In other news, Star Trek: Picard Series 3 looks genuinely fucking epic. Go be excited about that instead, maybe? Patrick Stewart’s not actually immortal, you know: go appreciate him before he’s dead.

[timeagainreviews]

Thoughts leading up to series 12

Happy holidays, friends! I know, I know. It's been a while. I would love to sit here and say I have been away doing important things, but really I've been hibernating. The results of that awful election, mixed with the holidays had left me feeling a bit lethargic as of late. That being said, I had a nice Christmas. Being an immigrant, I don't see my family on holidays. My boyfriend and I spent the day piecing together a Babylon 5 jigsaw puzzle. I made my pal Gerry a celery for his 5th Doctor cosplay and he gifted me a replica of the Li H'sen Chang poster from "The Talons of Weng-Chiang." It was a very Doctor Who Christmas! Sadly, there was no Doctor Who Christmas episode!

Alas, it hardly matters, as new Doctor Who is mere days away! As I did last year, you can expect weekly coverage for each new episode. I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove of consistent writing. Usually, the fandom is more abuzz when the show is actually airing, so please remember to check in with this blog, as I will be watching along with the rest of you!

If you recall, prior to series eleven, I made a list talking about some of my hopes and expectations for the new TARDIS team and the new production team. Seeing as series twelve is just days away from premiering, I thought I might do it again. Let's get to it, shall we?

The Thirteenth Doctor

Seeing Jodie Whittaker back in the TARDIS for another round of adventures has me massively excited. One of the downsides to Christopher Eccleston's run is that we never really got to see him develop the role of the Ninth Doctor. I'm hoping we'll get to see more aspects of her character. Seeing as I don't expect her to regenerate any time soon, there's still much of her personality left to explore. We've met the friendly adorkable Doctor, now let's see her bend a little.

One of my primary complaints about Jodie Whittaker's portrayal as the Doctor was that I didn't think she got scary. While I love her bravery, running headlong into danger, I would like to see a shade or two of her dark side. Up to this point, she's been too friendly to be scary. I know I'm not the only person with this complaint, so it will be interesting to see what a year of hiatus and refocusing will do for her. Honestly, I hope they don't change her too much, as she's pretty great. I'd just like to see them flesh her out a bit.

Other than her personality, I'm also hoping to see some costume variations. The trailer for the new season does give us Jodie in a bow tie, which I am all for. I've also seen a picture where her trousers are black. I'm hoping they continue to tweak her costume here and there, as watching the Doctor's costume evolve over time has always been one of my favourite things about the show.

Chris Chibnall's return

Was there anyone from series eleven that drew more ire than Chris Chibnall? Sure you got the people who hated Jodie solely because she was a woman, but on the level of legitimate concerns, Chibnall was up there. I myself threw a bit of mud in his direction, and I don't feel as though it was without good cause. The general management of the show seemed a bit aimless, despite many promising elements.

Something about the way series eleven was received gave the BBC pause to reevaluate the show's trajectory, and I have a distinct feeling that Chibnall was at the heart of a lot of it. From his lack of a season-long story arc, to the villains being a bit shit, to an overly dour tone, his first year as showrunner left something to be desired. The fact that we didn't even get a single webisode during this gap year shows me that they're still not 100% sure what to do with Doctor Who.

However, having said this, Chibnall's core TARDIS team is one of the most exciting aspects of series twelve. I can't wait to see more from this great line up of characters. And if the exciting trailer for this new series is anything to go off, we're in for quite a ride. Chibnall's most recent endeavour as showrunner was last year's "Resolution," a much-needed bit of classic Who villainy in the form of a Dalek. I was left feeling optimistic that Chibnall was capable of delivering solid storytelling. And that's the operative word- optimistic. As long as he doesn't get needlessly gritty, I'm cautiously optimistic that this year-long hiatus has yielded positive results.

The Companions

Like many other viewers, my chief complaint about the companions has to be Yaz. She really got shafted on the level of character development last year. When you have someone as talented as Mandip Gill, it's a shame to waste her. I know the fandom was quite vocal about this fact, so I fully expect to see the show give her more time in the spotlight. I don't know anyone who disliked her character, which is a good sign that the fandom wants more of her.

Ryan and Graham were two characters that I felt got a great bit of character development. The moment when Ryan finally calls Graham "granddad," was a truly exciting moment for two characters we had grown to love. The logical next step, at least in my mind, is to test the boundaries of this new relationship. I'd really love to see Graham meet a new love interest. Introducing someone into Graham's life would make Ryan have to broaden his definition of family even further. It might also be a catalyst for his own personal growth.

I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't also see one or more of the companions depart from the TARDIS. My gut says it would be Graham, but I wouldn't be surprised if all three of them left at the end of the series. As much as I love the current companions, I would love to see what energy a new companion or two might do for Jodie's Doctor.

The Villains

Prior to series eleven, I was feeling very optimistic for new Doctor Who. That is until I read an article where Chris Chibnall announced there would be no returning villains. Other than the announcement that Chibnall would be showrunner, nothing had made me more concerned for the show's future than "no returning villains." It's not that returning villains are a must for Doctor Who. It's actually a rather brave thing to attempt. The reason it's brave is that if you're going to leave out classic baddies, you've got to justify your decision by crafting new classics. And I'm sorry, but some Slipknot dude with teeth in his face is not classic.

From what I've seen of the trailer and promotional stills, we're looking at at least three returning creatures from the Whoniverse. We've all seen the picture of Jodie staring down the Judoon. If I am completely honest, those have left me with the least amount of hype, as they weren't ever even full-on villains. I've always found the Judoon slightly hokey, so I could take or leave them. The plus side is that there is still plenty of room to develop them as a species. Are there non-Shadow Proclamation Judoon? Are there evil factions? I'm curious if nothing else.

Another familiar face is the Cybermen. While I feel like both the RTD and Moffat eras used the Cybermen ad nauseam, they're still a classic baddie with a solid track record. It appears they'll have something to do with the finale and that "timeless child," storyline I'm uninterested in, so fine, sure, ok. The real alien species I'm excited for is the Racnoss! Much like the Judoon, the Racnoss are also underdeveloped. I wasn't a big fan of them the first time around, which is why I'm excited for more. I'm curious to see what depth can be found in these campy arachnids. If nothing else, the makeup is fun.

The Guest Actors

Series eleven treated us to a surprisingly tender performance from Lee Mack in "Kerblam!" We got a decent turn by Mark Addy, working with not a lot to go off as the underwritten Paltraki. But without a doubt, the best performance came in the form of Alan Cumming's King James. Not only was he as hilarious as he was loathsome, but he also elevated what could have been a more straightforward performance, by finding that sweet spot of camp and contemptible.

That being said, with actors like Stephen Fry, Lenny Henry, and classic Doctor Who alum Robert Glenister joining the show, I'm hopeful we'll get at least one memorable performance out of the lot. I've not followed many of the ins and outs of the storylines, so I have no idea who anyone is playing other than Goran Višnjić as Nikola Tesla. That being said, the addition of Tesla to the series seems an obvious fit. He was an eccentric man who was a bit weird about his pet bird. I expect his story to be one of the stranger ones we'll enjoy this year, or at least, it had better be.

The BBC's involvement

I'm hoping that in this last year, the BBC weren't just reevaluating Chris Chibnall's direction for the show, but their own involvement as well. They got rid of Bake Off and Formula One, Top Gear's audience followed Clarkson over to Amazon. All that's left are partisan news coverage, QI, Countryfile, and Doctor Who. Oh and I guess "His Dark Materials," but I don't know anyone who's talking about that show. As I said earlier, it's been a year of nothing from Doctor Who as a series. Other than comics and a less than perfect VR game, we've gotten nothing from the Thirteenth Doctor and the fam. Not even a novel or webisode to tide us over. How hard would it have been, while filming series twelve, to shoot a quick little skit on the TARDIS set? The Moffat era did this a lot, and it was always nice to see a little bit of Doctor Who while waiting for more episodes.

As the last vestige of the BBC's once-great television empire, you would think they might start to give a shit about Doctor Who. I know it's a crazy concept, but perhaps shelving one of your best shows for a year wasn't the best option. It would be nice to see them put more money and effort into the show. It would be a welcome sight to see them also put more money into the budget for things like merchandise or extended universe media. We've got three books for the current Doctor and that was last year. David Tennant had over thirty novels, while Matt Smith's Doctor appeared in over 15, and Capaldi only appeared in nine. Do you remember the last time we got a Character Options figure that wasn't a repaint of another figure? The most recent one we got was Harry Sullivan, and I'm pretty sure the only new element to that figure was his head. I've seen previews of the new companion figurines, and they're great, but I want more.

Perhaps I sound a bit spoiled. Many shows never expand beyond their allotted episodes, but this is Doctor Who, a show with a broader reach than your telly. It seemed last year that they were finally giving the show its dues. There were billboards of Jodie's face everywhere. The hype was palpable. Now, it's just four days from series twelve, and I've not even seen a bus ad for the new show. A woman I see out on dog walks was surprised when I told her the show was returning on the first of January. She had no idea. This is the Doctor Who audience that they're failing, not people like me who count the days like an advent calendar. The BBC needs to decide once in for all if they're going to give Doctor Who the respect it deserves, or sell it someone who will.

And that's it for now, friends. I hope you're all just as excited as I am to be back in the blue box. If all goes as planned, I should have a new review up the day after each episode. I'm optimistic that I'll have some great things to say!

[scifinal]

DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

[the-desolated-quill]

The Power Of Three - Doctor Who blog

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

Two Chris Chibnall stories? Two Chris Chibnall stories?! What the fuck did I do to deserve TWO Chris Chibnall stories?!?! Is this a punishment for something I did in a previous life?

So come on then. What poorly thought out, underdeveloped bullshit have you pulled out of your arse this time?

It’s present day Earth and a bunch of cubes have mysteriously appeared. Nobody knows what they are or where they came from, so naturally they decide to keep them instead of doing something sensible like dumping them all in a ditch somewhere.

The Power Of Three looks very much like it’s jumped straight out of the RTD era. Obviously there’s the alien invasion on present day Earth, but there’s also the news reports, the pointless celebrity cameos (why would Sir Alan Sugar be trying to sell the cubes when people can literally just pick them up off the fucking ground?), and of course the often forced and borderline nonsensical social satire. The cubes are clearly supposed to be a commentary on humanity’s curiosity and obsession with social trends, but there’s one problem with it and it’s... Oh come on. It’s a Chris Chibnall episode! What do you think the problem is? This is the same guy who wrote an episode of Torchwood that featured purple sex gas that feeds off of ‘orgasmic energy.’

At this point I can say quite confidently that Chris Chibnall is a fucking awful writer. Everything he’s ever written for Doctor Who suck to varying degrees. So the question isn’t so much ‘was The Power Of Three any good?’ Rather it’s ‘how badly did Chris Chibnall fuck up this time?’ Well.... quite badly actually.

Let’s start with the cubes. I admit it’s a striking image seeing all those black cubes dotted around all over the place, but in order for Chibnall to make his ‘slow invasion’ work, he has to reduce every single character to gibbering morons. Obviously if a bunch of cubes mysteriously and suspiciously appeared out of nowhere, the government and the military would want to gather them all up. They could be fucking bombs for all we know, right? Well not here. Here everyone thinks it’s a good idea to just leave the cubes lying around or take them home with them and make videos about them. Nobody seems to bat an eyelid. Bearing in mind at this point in New Who the Earth has been invaded by Autons, Slitheen, ghosts, Cybermen, Daleks, Cybermen and Daleks, Racnoss, Sycorax, the Master, Atraxi and...

...whatever the fuck that was all about. So do you really expect me to believe that people would be that cool with a bunch of mysterious cubes appearing out of nowhere?!

Now Kate Stewart does raise a very good point. It would take months for the entire world to coordinate a cleanup operation of this scale. That is absolutely right. Except:

THE EPISODE TAKES PLACE OVER THE COURSE OF A YEAR!

Are you seriously telling me that these potentially dangerous cubes have been sitting there FOR A YEAR, and the world’s governments did... nothing?

Oh and when I said ‘slow invasion’, I wasn’t kidding. This episode is painfully slow. After the first 10 minutes, the episode pretty much just stops dead in its tracks as the Doctor decides the best course of action is to wait and see what happens. So while we sit around waiting for the plot to kick in, let’s talk about the characters. 

They’re awful.

Okay, to be fair, I thought Kate Stewart was okay. Jenna Redgrave does a good job with the material she’s been given, but outside of being the Brigadier’s daughter, there’s not a lot to her character and she doesn’t actually do anything. She’s basically like Commissioner Gordon from the original Batman movies, who never did any actual police work, instead just pressing the button for the Bat Signal and getting the Caped Crusader to do all the work. While Kate is marginally better than the other female characters of the Moffat era, she’s still entirely dependant on the Doctor and doesn’t actually exhibit any kind of life or personality of her own outside of the Doctor.

Speaking of the Doctor, good God did I hate him in this. It’s like The Lodger and Closing Time where they decide to ramp up the Doctor’s goofiness until his obnoxiousness levels go through the roof. I recognise this is more of personal taste issue, but I’m sorry, i really can’t stand Matt Smith’s Doctor when he’s like this. It just feels so childish and is incredibly grating. Rory’s dad also irritated me a bit too. He seems more cartoony than he did in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, and a lot of the humour just feels really forced.

And as for Amy and Rory... um... Why are they here again?

Yeah, I’m really struggling to see why Moffat decided to bring them back for Series 7 because outside of that stupid and insulting divorce subplot in Asylum Of The Daleks, they both just feel like spare wheels. They’re not contributing anything and the characterisation has become somewhat bland and superfluous. I honestly don’t understand why they’re still hanging around. And that’s quite a problem considering a lot of this episode hinges on Amy and Rory deciding whether or not to keep travelling with the Doctor. It’s hard to be emotionally invested when you don’t really give a shit about the characters. And you can tell the writers have gotten desperate when the Doctor starts talking about how special Amy is because she was the first face he saw after his regeneration. So their bond has nothing to do with Amy as a person or anything. No, it’s just because she’s the first person the Doctor saw after he regenerated. Presumably he’d feel the same way about a cat or a garden gnome if that was the first thing he clapped eyes on.

And then typical Chibnall cocks up again near the end. Throughout the episode it soon becomes abundantly clear that Amy and Rory have outgrown the Doctor and are ready to start real life, and while this is all done in a really cack handed way, this could have built up to a really good, emotional farewell, but then for literally no reason whatsoever the characters suddenly do a complete 180 and decide they do want to travel with the Doctor after all. It feels like the ending to a completely different arc. It just doesn’t marry up.

But wait. The cubes are finally doing something now. They’re counting down from 7, which the Doctor opines as meaning that a cube has 7 sides, including the inside.

If you include the inside, then a cube technically has 12 sides, you fucking moron!

So UNIT have a cube sealed inside a containment room thingy and the Doctor decides to sit in the containment room thingy until the countdown reaches zero. Why he couldn’t just watch the cube from the outside I don’t know. Then it turns out the cubes give people heart attacks, including the Doctor, which should be really tense except the episode for some reason decides to play it up for laughs, thus stripping away the tension. And Amy is soon on hand to defibrillate the Doctor with a defibrillator that just happens to be lying around.

...

A defibrillator... in a hospital... full of heart attack victims... that just happens to be lying around... with nobody using it.

So anyway they find a wormhole in a lift that leads to a ship where an Emperor Palpatine lookalike plans to eradicate the human race because he seems them as a pestilence. Why does he view them as a pestilence?

Fucked if I know. It’s a Chris Chibnall script. What did you expect? A coherent and satisfying narrative?

And don’t get me started on all the plot holes and inconsistencies. What was the point of those robots with the snouts abducting people? What was the point of the little girl in the hospital? How come nobody noticed her sitting there for a year? Where did the robots with the snouts disappear to when the Doctor and Amy showed up at the end? How come the Doctor left all those people to die when he blew the ship up? Why would Emperor Palpatine leave the ship undefended with a great big wormhole open to the public where any prat could wander in and ruin his plans? What was the point of the scene where the cubes were producing spikes and hovering and firing lasers at the protagonists? And why the fuck did the world’s governments just leave the cubes laying around for a year? (sorry I’m still on that).

Oh yeah, and then the Doctor uses the cubes to bring everyone back to life. Not just save them, but literally bring them back to life. Because that’s who the Doctor is now. He’s a smart person written by stupid people who think smart people are indistinguishable from fucking wizards.

The Power Of Three is terrible, just like everything Chris Chibnall has ever written for this bloody show is terrible. Remind me, why was he picked to be the next showrunner again?

[the-desolated-quill]

Cold Blood - Doctor Who blog

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

Did I mention how much I don’t like Chris Chibnall as a writer and how I really, really didn’t want him to write a Silurian story? I’m sure I did.

‘But Quill,’ I can hear you saying in my head, ‘it’s not that bad. The only reason you’re being so negative about it is because you’re comparing it to the original. Why not judge it on its own merits?’ Well first of all, it’s impossible not to compare this to the original because Chibnall is trying so desperately to emulate it (and failing miserably), and second, even by its own merits, it’s still shit.

The reason why the original Silurian/human debate worked so well was because there was no clear right or wrong answer. Both sides had a point and neither side was presented as being 100% good or evil. It was complex, nuanced and thus interesting. The debate in Cold Blood however is so cack handed and so extreme that it’s impossible to be invested in this at all.

Let’s start with the Silurian side of the debate. You have Restac, a character who’s even more boring and one note than her twin sister Alaya (i didn’t even think that was possible). Her solution to every problem is to kill all the humans. A mysterious drill from the surface is detected. Kill the humans. The perimeter has been breached. Kill the humans. You lose your car keys. Kill the humans. She never considers the possibility that this is all one giant misunderstanding. Nor is there ever an explanation for why she hates humans so much. She’s just a dull cardboard cutout foaming at the mouth.

Then there’s Eldane, played by Stephen Moore. The leader of the Silurians and who is so insanely nice to the point where it almost starts to become comical. Even when Rory, Ambrose and Tony show up carrying Alaya’s corpse, and Ambrose threatens to kill all the Silurians with the drill, Eldane still tries to help the Doctor and everyone escape at the end even by going so far as to gas his own people. What the fuck?! You could probably sit there quoting excerpts from Mein Kampf whilst jetting heroin into your eyes and defacing a library book in front of him and he’d still insist that peace could be brokered between our species.

Finally there’s the Silurian scientist Malohkeh, played by Richard Hope, who is by far the most confusing character. In this episode they go out of their way to present him as this cuddly, reasonable person who abhors violence and confrontation, but in the previous episode he was the one torturing Mo and Amy and threatening to dissect them. Talk about inconsistent.

The humans are just as bad. Tony, Ambrose’s dad played by Robert Pugh, was poisoned in the previous episode and is slowly dying, so he secretly offers to let Alaya go in exchange for a cure. Now this could be interesting. Deceit, backstabbing, survival at all costs etc. Except it’s never brought up again and even at the end he’s still treated as one of the good guys. What?! It gets even weirder when he chastises Ambrose for killing Alaya as though he’s the moral authority when a few scenes earlier he was prepared to sell out his own grandson in exchange for his own miserable life, the conniving bastard.

Ambrose too, played by Nia Roberts, is just plain daft. She’s desperate to save her son and dad (and husband Mo, although she keeps forgetting to mention him. Bad writing or a sign of marital problems? I’ll let you decide... but the answer is bad writing), and threatens to torture Alaya for information. Three problems with this. One, it’s already been established that Alaya isn’t going to talk, so torture is pointless. Two, she already knows the Doctor has gone underground to negotiate an exchange of hostages, so if she just sits patiently and doesn’t interfere, everything will be fine. And three, there’s no buildup to this whatsoever. She’s not suitably desperate enough to resort to such drastic action. All that’s happened is that Alaya has taunted her a bit and now all of a sudden she’s a cold blooded murderer. This isn’t subtle character shading. This is just picking random scenarios out of a hat.

And then there’s the Doctor, who is quite possibly the biggest idiot of the bunch. He insists that a peace can be brokered and that despite all their atrocities and crimes and violent actions, humans are still nice, kind, lovely people that the Silurians can totes be bezzy mates with. Where the Doctor is getting this idea from I don’t know considering this is the fourth time he’s tried to get the humans and the Silurians to play nice and it never works out. But my biggest problem is that he makes it all sound so simple. He claims there’s no reason why the Silurians and the humans couldn’t work together, but as I’ve already mentioned at the beginning of this review, it’s not as simple as that. We have trouble sharing the planet with members of our own species. How are we going to cope with another? And Nasreen sensibly points out that we can barely sustain our population due to limited resources. We can’t just shove another population of people on top. But no. The Doctor says it’s possible, therefore it must be so. I’m sick of New Who constantly squashing any chance for a complex moral debate in favour of overly simplistic answers. I would much rather watch Nasreen and Eldane debate about their futures rather than watch boring chase scenes and the Doctor pissing about like a tit in a trance.

Also how are Amy and Nasreen qualified to negotiate on behalf of the human race? I know Moffat and Chibnall are trying to sell the idea of the everyman hero, but again, it’s not as simple as that. How are they going to explain this to the people on the surface? Are the Silurians just going to march into the UN and go ‘Hi guys! Sorry to disturb you. We’re the Silurians. Basically these two humans that you don’t know and have no authority whatsoever have said we can share the planet with you guys. Hope that’s okay. Bye.’

Also Amy makes the idiotic suggestion that the Silurians can populate the Sahara, the Nevada Plains and the Australian Outback because they’re ‘uninhabited.’

Blimey, I’d hate to be the one that has to tell the Tuareg or the indigenous Australians that they’re going to have to share their lands with a bunch of lizard people.

Anyway the negotiations break down, everyone scarpers, the Doctor tells Tony that he’s not in fact dying but actually mutating (Huh?), and so has to stay underground to be decontaminated while Nasreen elects to stay with him (it’s a shame. I’d love to have seen her as a companion. She got on so well with the Doctor and Meera Syal is always fun to watch). Then Eldane poisons his own people (da fuck?!), the Doctor blows up the drill and then makes the insanely stupid suggestion that Mo, Ambrose and Elliot spread the word that in a thousand years time the planet is to be shared.

That is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. There are two possible scenarios to this. Either everyone dismisses them as a bunch of weirdos or UNIT and Torchwood get wind of it and venture underground for a bit of pest extermination. (Also doesn’t the Earth get scorched by solar flares a thousand years in the future in The Beast Below?)

And then just when you think things couldn’t possibly get any worse, that bloody crack shows up again. It has the same effect as the one in Flesh And Stone did, effectively trampling all over the narrative. But then things take an unexpected turn when Rory kicks the bucket. Both Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are to be commended here because they both act their socks off in this scene, but it’s hard to be emotionally invested because Rory’s not dead. And I’m not just saying that with the benefit of hindsight. Even at the time I didn’t think Rory was actually dead because we saw him and Amy’s future selves waving at the beginning of The Hungry Earth. So I suspected that Moffat’s hand was hovering over the reset button. It was just a question of when he was going to press it. So yeah, it did dampen the emotional impact ever so slightly.

Now usually I like to inject some humour into my reviews, usually in the form of cynicism, bad puns, and occasionally through the use of smutty innuendo because I’m really, really childish. Believe it or not, I don’t sit there thinking of naughty things to say. Sometimes the best ones are just handed to me on a silver platter, and this is one such occasion. I see it as my reward for putting up with an hour and a half of crap, so if you don’t mind I’d like to take this opportunity to just savour the moment.

Ready? Here we go.

The Doctor sticks his hand up Moffat’s crack and pulls out a shard of the TARDIS.

Oh thank you God! You’re too kind to me!

Cold Blood is terrible in every way. Chris Chibnall tries so hard to replicate the success of the original Doctor Who And The Silurians, but forgets what made the original so good to begin with. If you’re interested in the Silurians and/or want to get into the classic series, I urge you to watch the original Silurian story. It’s dark and morally complex with well written, nuanced characters and the ending has a shocking and tragic impact because you actually grow to care for both sides. If you’re prepared to look past the bad 70s special effects and cheap looking rubber latex monster designs, it’s a treat. The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood on the other hand is an absolute failure that pales in comparison to the original. The characters are one dimensional, the moral debate is reduced to two sets of extremes with none of the complexity or nuance the story requires, and I didn’t give a single shit about anyone or anything. The Silurians deserve so much better than this.