Doctor Who Series 12 - *Exasperated Sigh*
I know it sounds hyperbolic to say Series 12 of Doctor Who broke me, but it really did. I love this show so much and it's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember so it hurts when I really dislike a series as much as this. There was a false pretence of hope before this aired, Chibnall seemed to have attempted to change a couple problems I had with his first season and I was actually excited to see where he would go and what changes he would make. But, in hindsight, the exact same problems repeat themselves but in a bolder more arrogant way. Series 11 felt like 'Doctor Who' only in name and was dull and unimaginative, whilst here Chibnall seems to have taken this complaint and taken it to the extreme, giving the illusion of bigger scale and importance by waving around things we recognise from the nostalgia of past series. It has the appearance of being bigger and more important than it is but I haven't felt more disconnected from the series, it just goes to show that sometimes the content needs the writing skill to make it effective. Of course, this is my own opinion and the beauty of Doctor Who is that is constantly evolving and you might hate one episode one week and love the next episode the week after. However I'm having a real problem with Chibnall's era as he doesn't have that distinct voice the other two showrunners have had, there is nothing bold about his decisions, they feel cowardly and pandering in areas with this illusion that he is being bold with his decisions. I'm going to go through some of the repeating issues with the series and then end on some positive notes.
Familiar Faces
About halfway into this series an interview with Chibnall was released where he claims he doesn't listen to the audience reception on his work. Which is so baffling to me as this series feels like the biggest course correction I have ever seen (maybe Rise of Skywalker has that honour). There are a lot more problems in this series then the overuse of Doctor Who tropes but it is by far the most fascinating part to the series. We get the return of The Master, Gallifrey, The Judoon, Captain Jack and The Cybermen all battling for your attention. I like seeing these things brought back as much as the next person, but Chibnall does nothing new that is interesting with any of these ideas. I absolutely adored Sacha Dawan's portrayal of The Master but just two seasons ago we had the beautiful redemption of Missy, so there is a baggage that comes with bringing this character back that Chibnall ignores. He doesn't write The Master as a genuine three-dimensional character, he is villainous without redemption and I always felt The Master was most interesting when he shows vulnerability towards The Doctor and there is none of that here. When he shows up in 'Spyfall' he doesn't need to be The Master, he is just some villain and there is none of the interesting dynamic between him and The Doctor.
Captain Jack and the Judoon returning are fun but have hardly any impact, in the long run, they could have been anyone narratively and seem more like their purpose in returning is just to entertain the audience with things we know. Jack is one of my favourite NuWho characters and I was over the moon to see him back but his return is genuinely pointless, Chibnall uses him as an exposition machine to set up something that didn't need setting up. He drops a hint about The Lone Cybermen and uses the phrase "don't give him what he wants', which comes into play in 'The Haunting of Villa Diota' when it is revealed the Lone Cybermen wants the Cyberium. It seems so bizarre as narratively the characters would realise that of course The Doctor shouldn't give him that, that didn't need setting up 3 episodes ago, it is a given and a waste of Jack. I'm going to come back to Gallifrey later on....
New Series, Same Filler
When I was looking back through these episodes, it feels like a series with two types of episodes: Event episodes that create the running plot and completely separate classical adventure of the week episodes. This creates a really unengaging flow to the episodes, Chibnall waves this promise of plot in front of you which means episodes such as 'Orphan 55', 'Nickola Tesla's Night of Terror', 'Praxeus' and 'Can You Hear Me' feel like filler because Chibnall has several mystery boxes running at once. They are the episodes that fall into the same problems that Series 11 episodes have, they are just bland and forgettable with no real connection to this grand story that Chibnall is giving the illusion of. Moffat had a tendency to do this throughout his run, he would set up this long narrative but have several episodes that just felt like filler because we want to go back to what is happening in the main narrative. How RTD worked around this is by having the filler episodes carry on the character arcs of the series, something Chibnall criminally ignores and it just screams inconsistency and frustration. Granted some of these episodes work alright, the Tesla episode is just a fun Sci-Fi historical but they all are paced with this disregard for their own importance. They feel rushed and like first drafts, often overblown with side characters and needless plot threads that run nowhere and it is so frustrating as they don't offer anything for the audience to grasp onto. Chibnall seems to be scared of making these episodes larger in scale, not world-ending scale, but character scale, he never uses these plots as a way to build on his characters instead they feel like observers to the plot and with no direct influence, you can take any of the companions out of any of the stories and it does not impact the narrative at all.
That Awful word 'Political'
Let's not mince words, Doctor Who has always been political by its very nature. The most iconic villains in the series are a metaphor for ruthless fascism and they were introduced in 1963. But the Chibnall era approaches narratives from a political perspective, they begin with a political idea and work from there. This is not a bad way to structure these stories but the narratives aren't strong enough to communicate the political ideas themselves so each episode tends to over-explain every political theme to exhaustion. As someone who genuinely agrees with what they are saying, it is frustrating because the way these ideas are communicated is embarrassingly sloppy. Take for example the much aligned 'Orphan 55' in which the dead planet The Doctor is on is revealed to be a climate change riddled Earth in the future, this as a concept could work. If it was left as a part of the narrative, the fact it is Earth shouldn't be the point of the episode, yet The Doctor closes the episode with a ten-minute speech to the camera about the dangers of Climate Change. It makes The Doctor come off as an arrogant writer's surrogate and it doesn't feel like a speech The Doctor would say but something the team behind wants to tell the audience, almost breaking the fourth wall making her come off as 'preachy'. The bizarre thing is that these political messages aren't interesting or layered, they boil down to 'Climate Change Bad', 'Plastic Bad', 'Capitalism Bad' but with no actual debate about these topics and it is frustrating to watch. Although I wouldn't call it political, 'Can You Hear Me?' tackles mental health in a self-congratulatory and patronising way, with a fear to really delve into the genuine mental health of the companions, instead, we get a basic 'talk when you feeling sad' message that isn't good enough for an episode that dedicates so much time to these ideas. There is a pattern of dedicating the runtime to these ideas, taking away from the interesting pulp-SciFi elements yet somehow the themes aren't developed enough at all.
A Crowded TARDIS
In the space of two series, our three companions have had less development than any other companions from Nuwho. This is a very harsh and somewhat hyperbolic claim I know, but I am tired of Chibnall's lack of understanding of his own characters. There is a very important distinction between a character's circumstances and a character's development and Chibnall whenever he writes these characters just adds another circumstance as his character moment. Yaz being a police officer, Graham possibly getting his cancer back and Ryan's dyspraxia shouldn't be the only defining thing about their characters but it feels like it is. Chibnall seems to have wanted to give Yaz more agency this season but he never commits to it enough, she has these odd lines which suggest agency but are never followed through, then Chibnall pats himself on the back by having another character congratulate her agency. I'm really sorry Tosin Cole, I reckon you might have a lot of talent in you but you seem so bored as this character. Ryan is the companion I have the most problems with as he always just melts into the background and every now and then as a character beat we bring back his dyspraxia for him to overcome in short bursts. Graham is a really funny and entertaining character, Walsh is just the best in the role with what he is given, he is pure comic relief at this point and whenever the script drags he is given a comedy one-liner which is refreshing but ultimately unsubstantial. Three companions are too much without a doubt, they never get enough to do because each script is overblown with side characters and it all washes away into no one having anything memorable about them. Jodie is doing her absolute best as Thirteen but I can't name a single trait about this Doctor that is different from the rest other than negative traits. She often feels subservient, nervous and unimportant in her own stories which could be an interesting way thing to delve into but on the surface, she is our first female Doctor and the most naive one yet, which does not look good.
The Timeless Children
So this review has taken me about two weeks to write because I get to this episode and I struggle to coherently break it down. There is so much going on in this one episode that frustrates me but it mostly one simple revelation that has been the talking point around the internet. In the series' opening two-parter we had this tease of a big revelation that caused The Master to destroy Gallifrey and every episode it is gently mentioned to keep the audience focused on the fact there is going to be a reveal. In 'Fugitive of the Juddon' we added three more mysteries, the return of Jack, the Lone Cyberman and the Ruth Doctor, which took over the episode as just a set-up and mystery box episode lacking in any substance pon its own. It is an episode that at the time seems incredible because Chibnall chucks mysteries at us, but after the payoff of these mysteries, it feels lacklustre and false. Then in 'The Haunting of Villa Diodati' we are given a genuinely really engaging episode that introduces the Lone Cybermen and the finale's cybermen plot and is the lacklustre payoff to Jack's return, revealing it was just finale baiting exposition. The first part of the finale is a dull Cybermen episode that doesn't offer much in terms of interesting Cybermen episodes and is overtaken by a finale reveals of The Master and Gallifrey and yet another hint for this big reveal. Then the final episode 'The Timeless Children' spends 40 minutes of it's run time having The Master deliver exposition on this big lore-changing reveal which I will come back to. We spend the entire series being teased about this reveal and Chibnall may as well have just updated the Doctor Who Wiki instead of wasting the audience's time. He follows this reveal with this lazy conversation where he blatantly tells the audience 'The Doctor is still The Doctor, nothing has changed' and chucks a cliffhanger at the audience before Thirteen can even let this twist affect her character. It is manipulative and lazy in every single way, he just holds a bit of information above our heads and then hands it to us with no interesting consequences. This twist could have been anything and it doesn't matter because Chibnall doesn't do anything with it at all.
Now as for the twist itself, this has been one of the most divisive things the show has done. He reveals that The Doctor was the first person to regenerate on Gallifrey and is from another dimension, the people of Gallifrey spent years genetically splicing her regenerative ability into themselves to create the Time Lords. As a result of this The Doctor has lived countless lives she can't remember and is also the most special person in the history of anything. I firmly believe that this is simultaneously undermining of her character and inconsequential heading forward. NuWho has this tendency to make The Doctor the most special person and this is the worst example of this, however, I always believed that The Doctor is someone who is only special due to their actions and not their circumstance. The character has been a beacon for this idea that no matter what you are, you will always be a person measured by their actions and not their circumstance. It is a beautiful message that Chibnall spits in the face of by making The Doctor responsible for these circumstances, before we looked up to The Doctor because she fought against this society she didn't agree with yet now she is responsible for this society and the only reason she is the way she is isn't under her control. Yet at the same time, these are memories she can't remember, they don't really form what is her character at all. If a tree falls in a forest etc etc. So Chibnall teases a big reveal that ultimately doesn't really change anything in-universe, but negatively impacts the audience's perception. He has played it so safe, giving the illusion of a lore-changing aspect that doesn't impact our protagonist at all and is the narrative equivalent of a Wikipedia entry. Maybe he will dedicate time to exploring the impact of this reveal but for now, it seems like a waste of what is a big deal for the canon of the show. I'm all for big changes in the lore, the Time War is a great example, but it feels insincere to not give it any weight and be so cowardly with the impact.
The Positives
I have been very defeated by series 12, the show needs to change it's direction because there are a lot of things that are close to really working. Sacha Dawan and Jodie Whitaker killed it this series, they bounce off each other and even when their characterisation is frustrating I can't help but love their performances. Whitaker really pulls of the comedy as her Doctor, whilst Dawan works excellently as this maniacal over the top villain that we all love, for as interchangeable as their characters are, their performances are not. Doctor Who has never looked better, seeing these big-scale CGI effects in action is impressive and a bit disorientating for a Doctor Who fan who is used to the show's signature low budget look. Chibnall's era has a lot of interesting concepts here and there, I loved the villain designs of episodes such as 'Praxeus' and 'Can You Hear Me?', there is clearly a lot of effort put into the visual design of the show and it pays off. My favourite episode by far was 'The Haunting of Villa Diodati' which was genuinely a great episode of Doctor Who. It works as a really engaging haunted house mystery with excellent horror concepts that I loved to bits, the second half becomes a bit finale-baiting but The Lone Cybermen is the best thing brought to the Chibnall era. He is terrifying, compelling and looks incredible, this era has lacked that defining new character or villain and, although not entirely original, this is it so far.
Conclusion.
I started this review with an exasperated sigh because no amount of words can sum up my feelings better than that. I don't think I will ever give up on 'Doctor Who' because it holds a very personal special place in my heart but I just need it to change soon. The problem always seems to lie on Chibnall's feet, he lacks conviction in so many ways. I've heard that is known to be a pencil-pusher kind of writer, someone who gets the scripts in fast and that seems evident, obviously, I have an outside perspective but so many of these scripts need a couple more drafts and an ounce more passion in them. I felt this way about series 9 with Capaldi, frustrated at Moffat's repeated quirks that I didn't enjoy, in retrospect I'd kill for another series 9, but then series 10 came along and it is one of my favourites in all of Doctor Who. What I'm saying is that I hope Chibnall and the entire team listen to as many voices and as many different opinions as they can and take their time to think about what Doctor Who should be, understand that you aren't going to please everyone and imitating just feels frustrating, find this era's voice and defining characteristics and lean into it. And please, I beg of you, 'Doctor Who'; a television legacy with millions of fans and passionate people that would love to be where you are, stop making it dull. Thanks for Reading!