I was hoping he'd become younger-android-body-Picard but that would work, too.
Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
- Start date
How about Retcon of the Timeless Child.
You're the winner! As long as it's retconning it out of existence! Or retconning it so it doesn't become the Doctor!
Don't hold your breath.
Sadly, I agree.
Reverence of the Corporation’s Centennial
I jumped ship at the third episode of Chibnalls second season, so i thankfully dodged the bullet that was this thing, so i kind of retconned the retcon in advance by accident. lol
I'd put the Tesla episode with those four as excellent episodes but I'm biased because I'm a big Tesla fan
Fugitive is a bit pants, truth be told. It has shock value, but the later revelations actually diminish that in a lot of ways.
War is also a bit meh, and wastes some interesting concepts.
The others are practically the *only* good episodes in the era, and both suffer from being good to great ‘part ones’ to things that retroactively ruin them, or are ruined by a desire for shock and awe.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. The worst Chibnall era episodes aren't anywhere near as bad as the worst Moffat/Capaldi episodes. A lot of Chibnall/Whittaker is in the adequate to good rather than outstanding range, but it was rarely as frustrating as the way Moffat wasted possibly the best actor to have had the role with silly "am I a good man" "why am I being an asshole to my white girl companion's black boyfriend again" "am I going to be blind forever" "what is the hybrid" arc stuff, none of which had any worthwhile payoff, and focusing too much on Clara and Missy at the Doctor's expense.
I can agree with that. I think the RTD and Moffat eras had much lower lows and much higher highs. But I always wanted to keep watching after a bad story because the next episode might be really good. Chibnall's era, on the other hand, has given me a general sense of apathy and disappointment. It's missing the wit and the cleverness, and without that even the most watchable episodes can become dull and forgettable.
That said, I really liked Fugitive of the Judoon. And the New Year's special was pretty good.
That said, I really liked Fugitive of the Judoon. And the New Year's special was pretty good.
Well, that's the thing. I don't think he was giving us terrible episodes from the off. In fact, I liked "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" and most of the first two seasons. I don't think Chibnall's perfect, because as great as Broadchurch series 1 was, the other two were comparatively disappointing. But I like most of what he's done with Doctor Who.
I have the exact opposite opinion. The last three seasons have struggled to even match the lows of Capaldi years, though it sounds like we have very different opinions on what counts as a "low" if you're throwing in "Oxygen" and "Hell Bent," which themselves seem like they were sent back from the future as repudiations of episodes like "Kerblam!" and "The Timeless Children," respectively. It's just been weird how much of the Chibnall era has been bizarro versions of Moffat's choices. Which is great, I guess, for people who didn't enjoy the Moffat era.
Feel free to show me where I said that. Moffat had higher highs than Chibnall, sure. But also much lower lows. And more of them. Moffat was peaks and valleys. Chibnall's first two seasons, for me, maintained a pretty consistent competent but not mindblowing level.
I'm also curious how many of the Moffat rules/Chibnall drools brigade are longtime fans. You can easily find runs of episodes in 1963-89 Doctor Who that make Chibnall look like high art. Twenty years from now I don't think anyone's going to be talking about the Chibnall era as one of the low points in the show's history.
While my overwhelming response to most of Chibnall's run has been "Meh" there's never been anything close to as bad as "Knock Knock", "Sleep No More", "In the Forest of the Night", "Kill The Moon" or "Robot of Sherwood" And that's just the ones from Capaldi's series.
People are very good at remembering the good stuff from Moffat's time while forgetting about the rest.
People are very good at remembering the good stuff from Moffat's time while forgetting about the rest.
I can’t see that happening either. They’d have to be able remember any of it for a start.
Thanks, I needed that laugh. What a riot!
This truly is uprorious. I don't know which one is funnier - the idea that the best writer to ever work on the show since 2005 wasted Capaldi's potential or the complain about the Hybrid arc, from a self-professed Chibnall fan, the guy who invented the Timeless Child arc.
I guess I can say, maybe there was a little more focus on Clara, but at least she came off as a defineable character with clear quirks and portrayed with respect and had an actual impact on most plots, even when not associated with the given season arc. And was also played by the incredibly talented Jenna Coleman, putting the combined efforts of the entirety of Chibnall's companions to shame. As for Missy, well... she's the best damn Master of this iteration of the show. I wish she never left.
I saw all of those again last year, as I'd started a marathon the year before with the Seventh Doctor, and worked my way through his chronology all the way to the 13th Doctor. Kill the Moon is, actually, rather good. Sleep no More is just there, and Knock Knock is entirely disposable, but never outright bad. The only ones I disliked from what you mentioned were Robot of Sherwood and In the Forest of the Night, but the former at least fits the overall theme of the Capaldi era, where fictional heroes happen to exist but the Doctor supercedes them in certain areas while they surpass him in others. And neither (not to mention all of them) are better than the significant amount of episodes produced by Chibnall. And I've seen his era twice now (about to go through a third time in prep for Whittaker's regeneration story), also last year.
Also, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam! and Orphan 55... seriously, better than Kill the Moon?
