#this is the THING about chris chibnall shows i fucking hate the characters he writes they're so COMPELLING in such a real way you know what

[bahoreal]

god torchwood was such a shitty gritty dark little show with a budget of £5 and all the sets that abandoned london underground stations had to offer but godamn theee most phenomenal cast godamn eve myles picked that show up on her shoulders and moulded this awful unlikeable brilliant character in gwen that i rooted for and hated and rooted for and wanted to fistfight like every other episode and it was brilliant and the supporting cast were so fucking phenomonal and i just. god. if only it had been better

[bleachellie]

ok, thoughts on the new doctor who episode now i’ve had time 2 let it sink in a bit!! 🥳

first of all, that was fucking brilliant!! definitely the most i’ve enjoyed a new doctor who episode in a while, and i’m so glad jodie got to have a good send off, apart from some wonky writing i’ve rly enjoyed her portrayal of the doctor, and it’s what she deserves 🥹

but it’s hard to say that without also saying that it’s frustrating in a way, cos it goes to show that chris chibnall rly Can write good doctor who.. so it’s a shame i haven’t enjoyed all the rest of his era that much, like it could have been So good if it was all on that level!! like, i haven’t Hated this era, but it’s just disappointing how it didn’t all fully live up to it’s potential 😔

but onto the good stuff: first off, dan’s departure was done v well, it felt v realistic for him to leave after that, and i suppose it was never gonna be the biggest thing in the world cos he hadn’t been a companion for long 😅

altho one more negative, again, dan’s departure after just a few episodes did So much more for me than when ryan and graham left, and they’d been companions for 2 whole series?? like their departure was just.. so flat to me, and even after 2 series i still didn’t feel emotionally connected to them all that much 😬 but yeah, ugh, that’s not rly got much 2 do w/ this episode 😭

ace and tegan’s return was handled rly well, and it was great to see them back!! i was a bit worried like, with So many characters in this episode that it’d feel too bloated and messy (like some of the other episodes this era w/ too many characters in 😅) but no, it worked well, and was all i could ask for!!

storywise, it was Incredibly fun, which is what i want most from doctor who, and also well paced imo, much better than some of the frenetic flux episodes, and the trainwreck of “legend of the sea devils” 😭

the master was fantastic, as he has been in all his episodes, sacha dhawan was Genius casting and i hope we get to see his master again someday

peter davison, colin baker and sylvester mccoy returned was leaked months ago, so i wasn’t surprised by their return, but it was still a joy to see them back, especially w/ 5’s interaction with tegan, and 7’s with ace 🥺

david bradley returning as the 1st doctor was a surprise tho, and so was fucking PAUL MCGANN??! 🤯 i will Never not want more of 8 🥹

the only one minor criticism i do have is the doctor’s death wasn’t.. anything especially special?? 😅 i’m not even fully sure what happened, the master had a remote control that.. turned the laser to blast at her i guess?? but still, not that much of a biggie 🤔

yaz’s final scene with the doctor rly hit the mark too 🥺 i wasn’t sure exactly how they were gonna get her to leave satisfactorily?? but nope, that did it!! and it’s always open for her to return one day, which is nice 😌

it was also nice seeing graham again, even if i didn’t enjoy his departure before that much!! and his scene w/ ace and the psychic paper in the volcano was gr8, they had a surprisingly good dynamic in that little scene 😭

i wonder where ryan was tho?? i thought he was rumoured to be in it too, but nope, not in it at all?? 😧 i wonder if tosin cole was just unavailable or s/t??

and that support group scene!!!! mel!! jo grant!! ian chesterton!!!!! fantastic they finally managed to get william russell back, considering he’s 97 now 🥹 obviously a little fanservicey cameo fest there, but it’s still always so nice to see classic who companions back again 🤧

so finally.. the regeneration into tennant?! 🤯 i called it about 7 months ago, when it was first rumoured david tennant was returning that it was gonna end with “what?? what?! WHAT??!” 😅 but what’s interesting to note is that after the episode aired, the bbc posted an article saying he’s actually gonna be The 14th doctor, and ncuti gatwa will be the 15th?? 😧 so that’s a surprising development, i’d assumed ncuti was gonna be the 14th, and david was just gonna be like, an unnumbered doctor, just around for the specials?? but then it looks like ncuti is gonna be in the specials too so..?? lots to think abt there 😳 just a shame they’re so fucking long away, i was hoping there’d still be a christmas/new year special, and the other 2 specials would then be spaced out over 2023 😔

and.. that’s abt all i think, or at least all i can think of rn?? might add more if i think of anything else, but all in all, rly enjoyable and a gr8 final episode for 13, which i’m rly happy abt!! 🥰

[resting-meme-face]

I posted 6,717 times in 2021

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For every post I created, I reblogged 42.6 posts.

I added 189 tags in 2021

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Longest Tag: 140 characters

#'with fucking chris chibnall who cannot write and jodie whittaker who is deliberately ruining the show because she never watched it as a kid

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I arrive at the Suez Canal

tides: turbulent cargo: contained bow: bulbous

I cannot be forcibly removed from the Suez Canal

22 notes • Posted 2021-03-26 01:35:32 GMT

#4

Binge-watched the Loki TV show.

I’m so out of touch with fandom at large, it seems. Back in my day, we’d walk uphill both ways on an Angelfire webring on a 56k modem to get our enemies-to-lovers selfcest, and now Disney’s out here serving it up on a platter, and people are like, “Won’t somebody think of the children?”

I don’t understand the younger generation. They don’t know how good they’ve got it.

23 notes • Posted 2021-08-04 08:49:16 GMT

#3

Not to be all “Old Man Yells at (snow)Cloud” about this or anything, but it’s snowing, it’s not going to get above like 25 degree Fahrenheit for a good 24hours, and this is Southeast Texas. This is the Gulf Coast. This is the Greater Houston Area. 

It’s like sub-20F right now. 

Not what I signed up for. Arguably I signed up for nothing, because I was kind of just born here, but I think I might also be grandfathered into the contract.

If anything, I signed up for hurricanes, yes. 

I didn’t even know until like five minutes ago that winter storms could have names. This one’s called Uri (what kind of filthy commie bastard name is that?), and we’re also going to get in trouble with Violet later this week, but there’s no precipitation to worry about then.

85 notes • Posted 2021-02-15 11:17:20 GMT

#2

Ask meme chibnall as show runner

Bro, the singularity of his vision is really admirable, especially in this day and age of Twitter and fucking shows-run-by-a-digital-committee bullshit. He really did just say, “Aight, I’m not going to have any old monsters in my first season at all, just invent new ones, and then I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do with ‘canon’ because I own this shit now, and I can.” Like, I think a lot of us fan creators like to joke about what we’d do if we were showrunner, but as much as I talk big talk, I’d just be trying to get people to like and validate me. Deadass do not think Chibs cares. And I know people wail and whine about this, but a show will always die if the showrunners are beholden to the fandom as a gestalt entity. I’ve seen it happen time and again in fandoms I’ve been in. Full on “lunatics are taking over the asylum” thing. Pardon my ableism.

Also, people talk shit about his writing, but there’s this thing he does that I love, where he just takes little details and uses them to very quickly flesh out the person and the place we’ve been thrown in with. This works really well in Doctor Who, since it changes every week, basically. Like, probably the best example of this is the very beginning of Series 1 of Broadchurch, where within 5 minutes, you’ve got a total vibe for the city, a general vibe for each of the characters, and you’ve also been introduced to everyone you’re going to love, hate, and suspect of having committed a horrible murder for the next couple of months.

I think he’s actually really good at character work, even though a lot of people disagree. He just has this very sparse style that leans into traditional TV shortcuts, that’s a bit, “Okay, we know how that person is now, because of x, y, z. Now keep ahold of that, and follow me over here,” so a lot of people are like, “Wait, do we know anything about person at all? I don’t remember what happened last series. Where are we going?” And I do think it’s reflective of an approach to television that many would consider dated, but a) it works, and b) we’re obsessed with a show that started in 1963, I think we can deal with some more old-fashioned storytelling strats. 

He has a really admirable commitment to inclusivity and color-blind casting. Has made a concerted effort to get more diversity behind the camera too (although he needs more, my god does he need more, some of your color-blind casting decisions have been fucking terrible, man, you gotta stop killing all these black people, my dude. I knew the guy in Revolution of the Daleks was dead the moment he said his mom was sick).

He seems to really listen to his actors and fellow writers. That’s awesome.

I actually like Chibnall a lot, honestly. I get he has flaws, but a lot of the quality stuff people harp on about sort of flies over my head. I think Steven Moffat is a fucking auteur of a writer, so holding Doctor Who up to that standard constantly is absurd to me, but I honestly don’t see a huge difference between Who under Chibnall and Who under a lot of other writers and showrunners, including RTD.

Give me a topic and instead of the usual hyper-negative “hot takes” people usually drop about it, I’ll talk about positive, unusual “hot takes” instead.

193 notes • Posted 2021-01-28 03:14:57 GMT

#1

299 notes • Posted 2021-12-01 00:36:03 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[thebraxiatelcollection]

*ahem* THOUGHTS ON THE CURRENT ERA OF THE LONG-RUNNING BRITISH SCI-FI SHOW "DOCTOR WHO"? (I'm prepared for the sodium chloride. I'm ready.)

can y'all send some asks that are like “thoughts on ______”

-

*Cracks knuckles*

I’ll be completely honest.

I love the 2005-2017 Era of Modern Who. To me, that is my Doctor Who and even though the show did have its issues, it was nowhere near as bad as it is now and nor does it have as much terrible writing, moral of the week storylines that we do not need forcing down on us.

Sigh.

Chris Chibnall for me has completely rebranded the show and the direction it’s going in is really not doing it for me. I know he acknowledges Lungbarrow and the classic but with the Timeless children,  I felt he just did a big fuck you to the classic series and the lore and just did his own take on it and I think mainly, for his and the BBC’s political gain.

I watched an interview with him where he was on a talk show and he’s talking about Pip and Jane’s Baker era of the show and he goes: “It could be slightly better written.” IRONIC for he can’t write for shit.

They have dumbed down the scripts way too much for the audience (and even some kids I know have completely stopped watching it because of this) and the companions are useless (I do like Graham but I wish he would stop praising Yaz because Yaz does fuck all and I do not get the Yaz/13 shipper thing as they don’t have any chemistry) and flat.  The characters he writes lack development and it’s been two seasons now and I am bored to tears by them. Also, Ryan dyspraxia storyline seems to have been thrown out of the window and the writers seem to forget about it when writing him. 

Doctor Who has always been political, don’t get me wrong but it handled it beautifully and was for everyone on different sides of the political spectrum. These moral of the week storylines don’t do it for me and whilst I think the message they are trying to get across to people is important to learn, I just wish they didn’t dumb it down for people and didn’t just use the “white males are the villans” for the majority of the episodes. 

Chris Chibnall needs to take hints from the fans and acknowledges that his era of the show is losing ratings and fast and they need to do something about it soon otherwise I think the show will go on a long hiatus with the way it continues and it’s losing more and more fans with each episode. 

Also, what the heck was the point of bringing Jack back other than to try and get the ratings up and do a bit of fan service? 

I also hate the new TARDIS that Jodie has. It’s too chunky and messy and I much prefer Jo Martin TARDIS even though if she does come before Hartnell (It pains me to write that), why does she have a Police box as her TARDIS?

I’m point blanking refusing to accept his version of Doctor Who as Doctor Who. It doesn’t feel like the main show but a spin-off.

I won’t be watching any further episodes or if I do, it will only be clips that the BBC post on their youtube channel.

I’m just sad that my favourite show is going in this direction.

I am so glad people are still loving it and finding it to be their escapism but this new era of the show is not for me and I am done.

I have a lot more issues but I won’t discuss them here but if you want to PM me, you can do. 

I’ll be sticking to my big finish and doctor who books :D

[the-desolated-quill]

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

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

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

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

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

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

He doesn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[the-desolated-quill]

Arachnids In The UK - 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)

Spiders. It had to be fucking spiders, didn’t it?

Normally I watch each episode multiple times before writing a review in order to pick up on every nuance and detail. With Arachnids In The UK however, I just about managed two viewings and that was a Herculean effort I can tell you because... you know... fucking spiders. So apologies if this review isn’t as detailed as previous ones. Frankly you should be grateful you’re even getting a review of this at all because... you know... FUCKING SPIDERS!

So then. Let’s talk about the fucking spiders. The fear factor of this episode will depend on how you feel about spiders in general. If you’re one of those weirdos who keep tarantulas as pets (seriously, what’s wrong with a dog or a gerbil or something? Can’t you just be normal?), then you probably found this quite quaint. If however you’re like me, a confirmed arachnophobic and colossal wuss, Arachnids In The UK most likely terrified the fucking life out of you.

But wait. It gets worse. I would have been shitting myself if the spiders were regular sized, but that’s not enough for Chris Chibnall. Oh no. These spiders are ever so slightly bigger than that. How big, I hear you ask? Think Aragog from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Yeah. That big.

At this point I’d like to extend a massive fuck you to Doctor Who’s special effects department for really putting in an almost criminal amount of time and effort into making these giant, eight legged demons from hell look as photo realistic as possible. Each individual, computer generated hair rendered with absolute care and attention to detail, making the spiders that much more skin crawling to look at. I mean it wasn’t as if I was planning to sleep that night anyway.

I also have to begrudgingly commend Sallie Aprahamian for her direction. The lighting, camera angles and use of sound really help create a creepy atmosphere and build tension effectively. Because spiders, even massive spiders, aren’t the type of monsters to jump out and attack you directly. No, the little fuckers like to sneak up on you and catch you unawares, and that’s what this episode really takes advantage of.

So what reason did Chris Chibnall come up with for giant fucking spiders to exist? Genetic experiments and toxic waste. Stupid? Yes, but so is the idea of a wooden blue box travelling through time and space, so let’s not get too critical. Just pretend that scientist works for Norman Osborn from the Marvel Comics and go with it.

Let’s move away from the spiders (quickly please) and talk about the characters because they’re, once again, the strongest part of the show. The Doctor is still just as delightful as ever with Jodie Whittaker switching from comedy to drama effortlessly. I especially liked at the beginning of the episode where she’s noticeably sad to be saying goodbye to her new friends only for her face to light up again when Yasmin invites her for tea. After Steven Moffat’s ‘the Doctor lies’ bullshit and Twelve acting all brooding and stoic, it’s refreshing to see a Doctor who displays their emotions openly. I also liked the way she interacted with the spiders. While everyone else is understandably shitting themselves, the Doctor is the only one who tries to give the spiders any kind of dignity, even going so far as to comfort the giant mummy spider at the end as it dies. She doesn’t view them as disgusting or frightening. They’re living creatures like her and deserve the same kindness she would give to a human.

Of course the main purpose of Arachnids In The UK is to get the companions to sign up for more adventures and I really like how this is done for the most part. Ryan is very quickly becoming my favourite companion and Tosin Cole is clearly having a lot of fun in the role. My favourite scene in the whole episode was him using grime music to lure spiders into the panic room. That got such a big laugh out of me. He’s just a really likeable character and I love how he’s growing and developing. He’s come a long way since The Woman Who Fell To Earth. He’s become a lot more confident and I think it’s because he feels he can achieve great things with the Doctor. He likes that he feels valued by her and that’s nice to see. And he clearly still has a lot more room to grow as shown by his scenes with Graham, which are easily the highlight of the episode. His negligent father wants Ryan to move back in with him, calling himself his ‘proper family,’ which irks Ryan. Over the course of these four episodes, Ryan and Graham have grown so much closer as Ryan slowly starts to let Graham in. I love their camaraderie and the understated love between them and I can’t wait for the episode where Ryan finally calls Graham ‘grandad’.

Graham too is brilliant. We see him return to his home and start properly coming to terms with a life without Grace and I love how it’s portrayed. New Who has an unfortunate tendency to really overegg the pudding when it wants to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience (see the Tenth Doctor’s farewell tour or the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor’s ghastly final monologues). Chris Chibnall so far really seems to understand that less is more and the same is true here. There’s no obnoxiously loud sad music or sappy monologues. In fact the imaginary conversations Graham has with Grace are actually quite mundane, talking about when to put the bins out and things like that. What makes these scenes so powerful is Bradley Walsh. His performance, his facial expressions, everything he does sells the pain and heartbreak Graham is going through. It’s truly an acting masterclass that puts the previous showrunners attempts to tug at the heartstrings to shame.

I’m very curious to see what happens to Graham going forward. Him wanting to travel with the Doctor in order to cope with his grief and avoid knocking around an empty house is quite a compelling reason to become a companion. Haven’t really seen that done before. And... is it just me, but is this coming across as a bit... death wish-y? What with this and his cancer recovery as well, I’m deeply worried something bad is going to happen to him come the end of the series. I really hope not. I would be devastated.

Finally there’s Yasmin and... yeah, I’ve mentioned before how I’m not exactly warming to her. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate her. Mandip Gill is doing a great job with the material she’s being given and Yasmin is a nice enough person, but as I’ve said in previous reviews, she comes off as a bit superfluous. Even the introduction of her family doesn’t really do much to establish her as a key member of Team TARDIS. In fact she’s coming across as an amalgamation of Rose Tyler and Martha Jones. Rose because of her desire to find something more in her life and Martha because she wants to get away from her boring and annoying one dimensional family. She doesn’t really stand out as her own character and I put it down mostly to the ensemble cast. It’s the classic case of ‘two is company, but three is a crowd.’ It’s the same reason why Susan and Adric got sidelined in the classic series (as well as the fact that Adric was an irritating little shit that deserved to be smacked upside the head) and she just pales in comparison to Ryan and Graham, whose characters and storylines are much stronger and more interesting. I really hope she gets a chance to shine soon because so far I honestly couldn’t care less about her, and considering she’s the first ever Muslim companion, that’s really disappointing.

Since we’ve shifted to criticism, lets talk about the supporting cast. Yasmin’s family, as I said, are quite boring. They’re just your typical family with the typical overbearing mum (maybe it’s time for New Who to consider stopping all the family stuff now). The scientist... exists, doing nothing other than to introduce the spiders as a plot device and occasionally give exposition on spider ecosystems. Finally there’s the hotel guy, played by Chris Noth who tries to wring every last drop of comedy out of the part and is actually quite amusing on occasion, but sadly doesn’t have an actual character as such other than being a painfully on the nose parody of Donald Trump. Not only is this futile in and of itself because some could argue that Trump is so extreme that he’s practically impossible to satirise, but also nothing ever really comes of it. He’s a prick at the beginning, he’s a prick at the end, and there’s no real payoff or satisfying closure. Not only does he not learn his lesson, I actually found myself agreeing with him a few times. Like what’s the difference between shooting the spiders and locking them in a panic room so they can eventually starve to death? And what was the Doctor planning to do once she herded the giant mummy spider out of the ballroom? Set it up in a nice cozy bedsit? And if it’s suffocating to death anyway because its lungs have grown too big and can’t absorb enough oxygen, wouldn’t shooting it be the kindest thing to do at that point?

While I’m on the subject of guns, how the fuck is his bodyguard able to get away with carrying a gun in Sheffield? You’re not in America now, sunshine. And how come Yasmin, the police officer, doesn’t do anything about it or the fact that her mother was wrongfully dismissed? (at gunpoint. I need to keep pointing that out. Her mum was fired from her job at gunpoint in Sheffield). Come on Chibnall!

Arachnids In The UK has flaws to be sure, but its excellent execution of the main plot and threat as well as its genuinely touching and heartwarming moments between the main characters that help it stand out. The weakest episode so far, but still very enjoyable.

[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.