Despite praising the unChibbliness of last week's script, tonight's yarn had me reassessing my own enthusiasm. Yes, when you compare Chibnall's new Who stuff to his old, it doesn't seem to rely as heavily on countdowns or the pressing of random buttons, but it's still arguably over-simplistic. Why, I'm not altogether sure. Broadchurch was reasonably complex, with its multiple story layers, and mostly satisfying payoffs. So why do his new scripts seem so linear and lightweight?
The first ten minutes were undeniably breathtaking: from the set design, to the music, to the action, to the CGI, absolutely everything promised a total barnstormer of an episode. Then we were introduced to the Last Rally of the Twelve Galaxies, and the pace kind of drove into a ditch and set on fire. What followed was a trip through some seemingly avoidable ruins, the Doctor allowing Ryan to risk his life behaving like a total arse, some sentient alien bandages, and a hand-holding finale from the Doctor that can only be described as banal. Isn't a rally supposed to be fast paced and fun? There was so much walking. And talking. And standing around. And talking.
A big issue I'm having this season is with rewatchability. Moffat's scripts always required a second viewing to squeeze out that last drop of narrative juice, and even Russell's less complex tales had some secrets to give up. Yet with Chibnall's scripts, what you see is what you get. In fact, I felt tonight's episode actually suffered from a second viewing. It added nothing to the story at all. There's no piecing together of clues, no mind-numbing twists, no surprises. Which is making for a largely unrewarding viewing experience. There's nothing to really sink your teeth into, marvel at, or get excited about. At least, not yet.
Sure, there was the 'timeless child' tease this week. Presumably this will be the new season arc, but I couldn't help but think in my head: what if the Doctor was previously a woman, gave birth to a child, and for some reason forgot about it. Which is a totally ridiculous idea for a story, but at this point in the season, I think I'm hoping for something outlandish to shake things up. Wouldn't it be great if the vanilla plotting so far was just a cover for some utterly bonkers plot reveal? Do I think it is? No, I think that whoever the timeless child is will be revealed in due time, with minimal imagination, and we'll all go 'Well, that makes sense, I guess,' whilst being largely underwhelmed. But is that what we really want from Doctor Who? Have our standards dropped so low?
On a positive note, Jodie Whittaker is hands-down the best thing about the new series. I know a few people have criticised her accent and delivery, but I think her portrayal of the Doctor is spot on. After the post-regeneration confusion of last week, tonight her Doctor was on the ball, alert, and authoritative. Perhaps she asked a few too many questions, and relied too heavily on her magic wand... sorry, sonic screwdriver, to get them out of fixes, but she comes across as likeable, trustworthy, and the ideal person to have around when the proverbial hits the fan.
Also lovely, was seeing her reunited with her TARDIS. With the show titles back in place, and the gang back aboard the Doctor's spaceship, hopefully things will start to feel more familiar. I'm fairly neutral on the new TARDIS interior. Some people get excited by the frequent redecorations, but I can't say I've been blown away by any of the redesigns. The custard cream dispenser was a nice touch though, and I liked the way the TARDIS opened for the Doctor when she'd lost her key. I'm glad that what Gaiman set up in 'The Doctor's Wife' still resonates today. Just knowing that the love affair continues unabated, even if it's on the periphery, makes my heart feel glad.
I was less keen on the show's clumsy moralising. Last week we learned that knives are for idiots. Okay, sure. Unless you want to peel an onion, but whatever. Tonight we were reliably informed that guns are bad, and to really hammer the moral message home, Ryan went all Call of Duty on some inexplicably inept killer robots, only to fail miserably and require the assistance of the Doctor's improvised EMP blast. The moral of the story: brains are better than brawn. Or more specifically, that finding shit on the floor is better than shooting people. Which it probably is, but the convenience of the Doctor finding an explodey button inside the carcass of a cyber sniper, really did feel like a contrived way of making an accurate but trite point.
The question must also be asked: should the Doctor have allowed Ryan to go racing into danger, armed with little more than an unfamiliar weapon and video game expertise? One of the problems I had with 'Robot of Sherwood' is that it made the Doctor look stupid for the sake of comedy, and tonight repeated that mistake. Ryan had to take a massive risk (a) for the sake of a joke, and (b) because it was required for the Doctor to make her point. So stupidity prevailed for the sake of moving the plot along. Which did a disservice to the great character development Ryan got last week. All he did this week was run needlessly into danger, scream and wave his arms around like an idiot, and then ask if he could press the TARDIS' buttons. Who in their right mind, on entering a space ship for the first time, asks whether they can press buttons?
Other Thoughts:
—Can we assume that since the Doctor said 'These are my new best friends,' that the infamous 'Will you be my new friends?' line was either cut or meant solely for trailer purposes?
—The Stenza are back already? I'm not sure they had the immediate impact of say the Vasta Nerada or even the Silence, but maybe there's some mileage there.
—I loved how after the Doctor said they all looked shattered, both Graham and Ryan yawned. You know... just to emphasise how true it was.
—So everybody dug a hole so as not to get burned alive, only for the wide shot to reveal they were all lying on flat sand.
Quotes:
Doctor: 'I'm really good in a tight spot. At least I have been historically. I'm sure I still am.'
15 comments:
Finally, a monster made of rags. They said it would never work. How foolish they must feel.
I've always thought that a longer Doctor Who is a better Doctor Who, but both of these episodes could have been shorter for me. They haven't dragged exactly, but they could've both been streamlined to tell a tauter more focused story. And enough of the magic wand waving already. For something she knocked up from scrap, her sonic seems able to do just about anything. It even scanned rags FFS. RAGS!!!!
I thought that the opening was powerful, with some of the best visuals we've seen in a while, only for it to eventually stall when we made it down to the planet. Obviously the show doesn't have the budget to keep that sort of spectacle going, but when they do DNEG really knock it out of the park.
I dunno about DNEG yet. Some of the stuff they've done had been good, but the flying rag monsters looked unconvincing to my untrained eye, so I'm seeing them as being on par with Mill VFX. Sometimes they do good work, sometimes mediocre. I suspect everything comes down to time and budget. It doesn't matter how good you are, you can only do so much with the time and money allocated.
Week one: knives are bad
Week two: guns are bad.
Week three: racism is bad.
Week four: insects are bad.
Week five: Chris Chibnall is bad.
^^^ Someone needs to meme that shit up.
Well, spiders aren't insects, they're arachnids, but I found it funny anyways :)
Agree that the show now has zero rewatchability. I hate to say it, but I didn't buy season ten on DVD because I knew I'd never watch it again, and season eleven in shaping up the same way. It looks nice, it sounds nice, the cast are turning in good performances, but there's no heart any more. Obviously it's early days, and it could all get turned around, but does anyone really believe that Chibnall has it in him? You know, the writer of Cyberwoman and Dinosaurs on a Fucking Spaceshit.
Ozymandias, I don't care whether 'Dinosaurs on a Fucking Spaceshit' was a typo, you're totally winning the internet today :)
I'm liking this season a lot, probably because I'm not looking to be bamboozled with clever twists and writing, I just want to sit down with the kids, and not have to explains the bits they don't understand - particularly when I don't understand them myself.
So it's all good, clean family fun for me, and Jodie is excellent. If this season's proved anything, it's that the naysayers were talking out of the back of their heads when they criticised her casting.
It's like all the Doctor does is ask a million questions, and then answer them later in the same episode. There's no effort required from the viewer, we just watch while we're spoon fed data. Reading the forums after this episode aired, hardly anyone was speculating on unexplained details, just on the things that we were explicitly stated. This really has turned into entertainment for children.
I like the new format. It doesn't feel like the old Doctor Who, but after the declining ratings something needed to be done, and this feels like a good direction to go in. Does anyone know what the ratings for this week's episode were?
The general feeling towards Doctor Who at the moment seems to be it's the best thing ever, stop being a hater, or decent characters, average stories. I'm in the latter camp. I'm also of the opinion that the show has somehow morphed into a bog standard scifi drama, light on both the science fiction and the drama.
I'm confused at the logic of guns being bad. What would the difference be between killing something with a gun, and using a cigar as a weapon to kill the rag monsters? Obviously it would've been impractical to kill them with a gun as they were too small, but the Doctor's "guns are bad" stance seems odd when she's willing to destroy using other methods. It just feels like huge contradiction in the Doctor's character.
Also, surely with the robots being unthinking and largely running on programming algorithms to deter intruders rather that having a real sense of self, Ryan shooting them with a gun wouldn't have been killing them, just shutting them off? It feels like the Doctor's blanket moralising is meant to teach the viewer something by stating it, without really taking the time to demonstrate why it's correct, and deploying it in a situation where it makes no sense.
@Exigeous The overnights were 7.1 million.
I finally go around to watching this one last night and it was the most uninspired episode of Doctor Who I have seen in a long time. Being a Chibnall ep, i was fully prepared for the plot to be as exciting and original as a Westlife song, but the sheer lack of creativity on display was staggering. All the aliens we meet looked and sounded human (and barely had enough personality between them to fill the back of a stamp). The planet looked alien and otherworldly as a budget holiday in Spain. Sci-fi writers really need to get over this idea that deserts automatically make places more alien. They don't. And I'm not really surprised they didn't put any monsters in the trailers if the best Chibs could come up with is a bunch of iffy CGI rags.
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