Doctor Who: Flux (Series 13) Review
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Well, here we are. Series 13 has come and gone, and it's time for my overall thoughts. Has Chibnall learned ANYTHING since his first series aired back in 2018? Has this been the best series of the three we're getting in this era? Let me know your thoughts on this series as a whole in the comments below- and be civil!
#DoctorWhoFlux #Series13 #DoctorWho
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I was not disappointed by Flux at all, but only because the past two series have trained me not to expect much from Chibnall.
Lol 😂😂
Chibnall wrote the only good episodes in the past two series, and for series 13, he was alone (except episode 4)
@@Kephy_ "The Timeless Children" was one of the worst episodes of Doctor Who ever. "Arachnids in the UK" was also pretty bad.
@@johnsensebe3153 Uhm... No ? The Timeless Children is one of the best episode in the new who, you don't like the revelation about the doctor, but it doesn't mean the episode is bad. The two last episodes of series 12 are the best episodes of Doctor Who if we remove Blink and Heaven Sent
@@Kephy_ What do the revelations about the Doctor have to do with the rest of the story? She is literally taken aside and given an info dump for half the episode. That's just bad writing. You could cut those bits out and the plot would be exactly the same.
Chiblet - “A grand, complex, and promising story arc or plot that is resolved with the same impact of quiet flatulence.”
i really wish jodie would stay for one more season under russel t davies. i really believe she could be an AMAZING doctor under a great showrunner and writer
Why has Chibnall always had issues with finales in his era?
The -Battle- Of Ranskoor Av Kolos didn't have a battle in it and half heartedly focuses on a revenge narrative directly after an episode about coming to terms with loss.
The Timeless Children basically amounts to the Master showing the Doctor a PowerPoint presentation that ends with the slide "You were adopted".
And The Vanquishers doesn't both to mention basic things like how much of the universe is still intact clearly and Chibnall apparently couldn't find a coherent way to wrap up everything so just divided the Doctor so she could be in 3 places at once.
Season 12 is my favorite of Chibnall, including my Huge disappointment with The Timeless Children. It started so well!! It felt like, okay, HERE is what we wanted! The Maser was back, and very villainous! The Ruth Doctor was a great mystery to explore! Was she from this reality or the parallel one Tennant's Cybermen came from? The companions, even Yaz, had good stories. And then, and then, . . . oh well.
@@Skeezer66 The issue I found with The Master been evil again is it didn’t really make sense why he was suddenly evil again and Chris didn’t address it at all
@@dylanburton4955 That's another thing, was this Master after Missy? He didn't say anything about having been killed (and killing) themselves. Where does he fit in the timeline?
@@Skeezer66 He does not fit in, like most of the Chibnall plot points that are not stand alone episodes.
Yes, you can't just blatantly DESTROY most of the universe, then have a few poxy little fleets 'absorb' the antimatter shockwave, and then leave everything else unaddressed...
So messy, overall. It was nice to see the Sontarans concoct a pretty smart plan, by their standards - but it's all way too hurriedly wrapped up.
Nice to see Tecteun, in a way, too - but then she's dead, and that's rapidly wrapped up.
"Doctor Who has never pretended to be hard science fiction. At best Doctor Who is a fairytale, with fairytale logic about this wonderful man in this big blue box who at the beginning of every story lands somewhere where there is a problem." Neil Gaiman
I think this quote pretty much sums the problem with today's incarnation and writing of Doctor Who. All the back story and science-fiction narrative Chris Chibnall has tried to insert into the overall narrative of the Doctor is a try-hard effort to be a science-fiction show. It's patterning itself to the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, and all other grand fiction stories but ultimately falls flat on its face because realistically speaking, Doctor Who just can't match the budget of these movies. (Plus the fact this chosen-one/lore-revisionism narrative has prevalently been destroying old stories for the sake of just 'something' e.g. Star Wars episodes 7-9, *also now Doctor Who)
The premise of tackling a story nobody needed, is an egoistic way of moving yourself forward in the show. Chris Chibnall wanted his name to move the story forward, instead of the story moving itself forward.
There is a magic to fairytales. It hooks you up over a mysterious man, an out of this world paradise, and a premise that can never be present in our own reality.
Sadly, Chris Chibnall has shown himself incapable of making this recipe. There's hardly anything alluring to the show right now. Making Doctor Who all about the Doctor is not, and has never been Doctor Who. The show is about the Doctor's travels around the universe, finding places and instances that will tick our imaginations into hoping and wishing, that we'll find that big blue box, enter its doors, and be the companion to this great adventure.
Flux is simply speaking, the doctor landing everywhere where she is the problem.
Fairytale logic? Only since NuWho came along.
Personally, I disagree with Gaiman. Dr Who absolutely can lean into fairytale and sci-fantasy (especially Nuwho) but it's a sci-fi show at heart and always has been. Sci-fi is riddled with thought-provoking what-if scenarios, cautionary tales, new fictional worlds built on logic and carefully constructed rules, and allegory for real-world politics and culture examined through the buffered layer of fantastical times and places.
Dr Who is absolutely all those things, and frankly, to say it isn't sci-fi kinda implies it should get some sort of pass when its internal logic, plotting, and consistency fall apart. And fuck me, if that isnt just a horrible disservice to both fairytales and fantasies, but also a lazy and disingenuous excuse for bad writing.
Regardless of the genre box anyone wants to slot Dr Who into, there is no genre where character writing, world-building, and the need for stories to make sense suddenly stop mattering. The second we argue that they don't matter because it's not "hard sci-fi, it's just a fairytale", is the second you get all the second-rate, forgettable, not-worth-investing yourself in entertainment you deserve.
Neil Gaiman's full of shit. And Moffat opened the door for this "Fairytale" Horseshit. Hopefully the series can be salvaged by RTD (Again!) but the damage has been well and truly done and I'm not sure the show will ever be the same ever again.
@@marlonbonnici Remember, it was RTD who killed characters and brought them back
People really forget that in the 60s Who started as an educational show for children and became a creepy historical and fantasy drama that pioneered the base-under-siege story, 70s Who started as an action-adventure homage to Quartermass and became a gothic horror, and 80s Who started as a high-concept sci-fi and became a darker character drama centred on the Machiavellian Doctor and his companion Ace. Sci-fi isn't the focus of Who, it is just the mechanism and aesthetic through which many of its concepts are portrayed.
Chibnall's vision for Who is that of a grandiose space opera- which worked in the Matt Smith era since Moffat's vision of space opera was still grounded in fairytale, character relations and the meta-textual study of Doctor Who as a TV presence (e.g. Silence Will Fall when the question is asked, The Doctor often appearing to others through TV screens, Amy's fairytale of the Raggedy Doctor, etc.). This doesn't work as well under Chibnall as he demands lore-driven, retrospective concepts to drive his arcs and allow him to jump from place to place- rather than a person-centred concept that drives character arcs. This makes all the good things about his writing come across as superficial when viewed under the context of the wider universe of Doctor Who, since they don't really impact the companions- who are typically the bridge between the sci-fi aesthetics and the more grounded emotional elements. Even the revelation of the Timeless Child doesn't impact who the Doctor is now in any meaningful way- making everything in this era seem low-stakes despite its very amped-up presentation. That's why many people cling onto that ending with Yaz and 13 as a glimmer of hope for the specials, since it's one of the few times where the revelations of the past have actually impacted the characters in the present.
Goodness Grace-ious me after this series and the special, I think that RTD's first series is literally going to be either when I get to watching Dr. Who as it releases again or when I just give up on it all together
It will be certainly a turning point for fans, we're talking about the guy who made it great again to begin with, so if even HE can't turn it around, there will be no hope.
My expectations was really low this season, and somehow, Chibnall managed to go lower. I gave it a chance anyway, and still came out underwhelmed. I'm reluctant to even watch the specials, since things are far off the rails.
Same. And it hurts that I don't seem to care much anymore.
I'm watching this review cause the entirety of the Chibnall era of Doctor Who pisses me the fuck off! The moment The Master destroyed Gallifrey, & the writers say that "well Gallifrey is just a prop to be used or destroyed by our whim"...completely turned me off from Doctor Who.
We spent all the the 9th, 10th, & 11th doctor trying to rescue Gallifrey from the Last Great Time War...We met the War Doctor, & managed to rescue/recover a mostly broken Gallifrey, after a long intense roller coaster of episodes.
Only for Chibnall to decide to bomb Gallifrey with an anti-life particle wave, & then turn all the Time Lords & Time Ladies into a shitty-knock-off version of immortal Cybermen...
That to be fair, I haven't heard a single thing about since!
Then we get the whole Fluxx & Division & Timeless Child bullshit tossed at us...basically ordering us to accept Chibnall's version of Doctor Who backstory as cannon, but everything else that is well established is not-cannon!
@@DarkArtsMage I totally agree with you on this one. I felt like an idiot giving this a chance, also for some kind of reconciliation to the long time fans for killing the lore the way he did. As far as I'm concerned, it never happened. I don't know about you, I don't think Davies can save the franchise. It is too badly damaged. Sadly, I'm done.
@@michaelt.lancaster9776 There was a fan-made video that someone spun, tricked a bunch of us regular fans: ua-cam.com/video/e1W-4ioU3sU/v-deo.html
this could, "salvage & repair" most of the damage done to the Whoniverse that we all know & love!
It would negate Chibnall's cock-stamping approach to the Whoniverse, while still letting others play around with Division in that "fucked up Parallel Universe"!
Afterall, at the height of the Time Lord's power, the barriers between universes were easier to transverse! So if there was a fuckup in the Regeneration between 13th to 14th...then wouldn't that explain away most if not all of the entirety of Chibnall's BS?
11:35 I mean the reason why "The Time War" works and "The Timeless Child" is so badly regarded is that the former adds to the lore of the show, gives gravitas to loss, isolation and even a motivation for the Doctors continued journey. While "The Timeless Child" destroys lore, some would say the show, because it removed all sense of meaning to sacrifice and loss. It was a cheap parlour trick intended to hurt the fans who resisted Chibnal's feelings, the actions of a petulant child who'd been given too much power and authority and didn't know what to do with it because at the end of the day, he's pretty talentless.... look at his previous episodes in "new who" to see what I mean. And that video from when he was a kid spells it clear the kind of person he is. He's very good at criticising... not very good at doing any better.
Well said - the Time War quite nicely tied into latter Classic Who stories and escalating conflicts with the Daleks, provided somewhat of an explanation for the 8th Doctor's off the airwaves absence, and launched NuWho with a Doctor who was essentially a wounded soldier, but allowed the show just to focus on the Doctor and Companion adventures without getting bogged down in too much TimeLord stuff. It was really cleverly done and enhanced the Doctor's existing moral conflicts about war and genocide, and come its resolution and the reveal of what actually happened, it felt like a satisfying concept that made Dr Who feel bigger and the Doctor himself more developed.
The Timeless Child, so far, adds nothing. Because other than the canon breaking revelation itself, we've not been shown anything or seen it change the Doctor in any meaningful way. It's key jangling, and it shows.
I don't know if its fair to say Chibnal is "talentless" per say, though I've not seen it, Broadchurch is held in pretty high esteme. I would say that Science Fiction is not his bag. Most of his Whoniverse stuff is middling to ok, but nothing really stands out as good or even great. However, pre-head writer status, not much stood out as truly awful either, Cyberwoman being a notable exception. I do wonder if this is because he always had a safety net in the head writers, and with out that he was able to just run with anything, regardless of whether it was wise.
I choose not to think he spent the majority of his tenure with his middle finger up to the fans, with certain aspects of Flux again being the exception. I just think he was given a blank canvas that was too big, too much for him, and pride prevented him going back to the "tried and tested" writers such as Gattis for help.
However, i do feel that even the Timeless Child is still fixable. After all, who said the Doctor is the Timeless Child?? A dreanged Master, and a woman who may or may not have been telling the truth before she was dusted. Maybe thats why the fob watch didnt just download the memories as weve seen before. As for the Fugitive Doctor, we've seen other alternative timeline Doctors before. Specifically, the Valeyard, created by the High Council by manupulating and extrapolating the Doctors timeline. Maybe this is an alternative from earlier in the doctors oringinal history (maybe the fan favouratie alt 3rd) who was created as a distraction for the Doctor by whoever is really behind the Division?
I can only hope that RTD sees something like this as a get out to undo tge Chibaggedon
... wasting your time, lad.
Other way around, surely? The Master's connection to Gallifrey is a lot stronger than the Daleks ever were, and the Master came closer in doing so more times in the show's run. "Time War" is just a war where the victor changes history.
Classic Who's lore was so vague and mangled, long before 2005 too, that it doesn't matter as much as all that. The real question is did the story work in the moment? Yes for some, not as much for others.
If you didn't know Chris Chibnall was the writer of 'Broadchurch' you'd never believe this guy could construct a story over six episodes. Or one episode, even. This was a complete mess - half-arsed plot, paper-thin characters, idiotic twists... Honestly, Chibnall's departure can't come quick enough.
Are we simply not mentioning that Vinder knew what a TARDIS was? That he’d HEARD OF THEM? And then no one thought that was … odd?!
He knew what those passenger forms were too, which like a tardis are apparently bigger on the inside. Was it established that Time Lords or Division made the passengers? Seems to me like they would have had to. But then why would Division's grand plan to destroy the whole universe simply be to dump a whole lot of antimatter into it when it could be shunted off into any such trans dimensional space?
Even Dan barely care about the Tardis and Joke that his mate has one too, its just sad, i love the reactions..
I may have missed it, but did they ever explain why the main Villianess( Azure?) Was hiding out as a human with a husband/boyfriend?
Not at all - classic Chib 🤦🏼🤦🏼🤦🏼
Just another one of those "Oh, this might be cool" post-it notes in the writer's room that was never expanded upon their one-sentence origins and somehow made it into the show.
Chib, ahem, explained this is an interview video… apparently her punishment was imprisonment on Earth as a human unlike Swarm… that’s the reason. No idea why. He literally explained it in an interview instead of in the show itself. New low?
@@darkmateria2486 lol tbh he has done this a lot in his tenure - like adding extra context through interviews and stuff almost as if he is making it up as he goes along😂😂😬
@@darkmateria2486 But...how that whould work? Swarm was imprisoned for thousands years, does that mean that Azure was punished to live as a human only for a couple of years, or does she get a new human identity every couple of decades, all that going on basically since the ancient egyptians era?
It's just anothet Chibnall bullshit that is there because it sound cool but doesn't actually make any sense and even worse break the story's suspension of disbelief.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: the *Timeless Child* is to *Doctor Who* what *Highlander 2* was to *Highlander* … 🤦🏼♂️
Your metaphor is apt, Sir. *APT!*
This helps so much. Now I can express just how crapracular and damaging it was in context.
Damn, that's harsh. I mean, I hate hate HATED Highlander 2, but that's unfair to the movie.
Ouch 😂
“Just a threat, that’s apparently been here the entire time”.
I know you were talking about The Division (correction, Division) but you equally could say the same thing about the Karvanista.
Chris seems to make a habit of creating something new that supposed to have been here all along but has no back story.
The first bit of lazy writing I spotted was that Swarm had been imprisoned but Azure was somehow living an ordinary, human life for no apparent reason. Don't recall this being explained or indeed how Swarm knew where to find her/them/it. That kind of set the bar low for me from the beginning: why would two all powerful and dangerous beings not be both held under guard, so they could never reconnect?
10:55 onwards, I’ve never heard a better description, of Chibnall’s mistakes with the lore and “big” storylines, comparatively with RTD and Moffat, amazing review
I think you can lay all of what hasn't worked in this era at the feet of Chibs. He has cut the heart out of this show like an Aztec priest cutting the heart out of the sacrificial victim. All that is left for Chibs to do is toss the carcass off the side of the Temple Tardis and brandish the still-beating heart at the sky. I think Jody would have been a fine doctor if only she had had writing and production to support her. I truly hope the show can come back from this horrible run. Thanks Chibs, what are you going to ruin next. We should call him the Show Ruinner from now on.
I completely disagree with absolutely NOTHING you said. 😂
I agree with everything you said. I wish I could explain to the gatekeepers on fan sites as eloquently as you said why the timeless child doesn’t work.
The video didn't say anything about the Timeless Child not working?
@@irrevenant8724 If you listened to him it is very obvious that he doesn’t believe the timeless child works. Listen to the last five minutes and he clearly states that the timeless child, the division and other Chibnall creations don’t work.
@@lynbaker7780 I just relistened to the last five minutes and as far as I can see his complaint isn't that the ideas themselves don't work, but that they weren't adequately fleshed out or integrated into the setting so they feel hollow.
I do find his argument odd that the Time War is different and "sinks into the universe's fabric more" because it was worked on by both RTD and Moffat rather than being the work of a lone creator. By that logic, the Time War didn't "sink into the universe's fabric" back when it was part of series 1, but only once Moffat came along and added to it. And by the same logic, The Timeless Child will suddenly "sink into the universe's fabric" if RTD chooses to build on it going forward. It's basically saying that something can't be an integral part of the setting when it's new, and that just seems weird.
For me, it seemed like when they cut the series down from 10 to 6 episodes, they did not bother to integrate the plot points from the missing episodes into the remaining episodes to explain what was happening and the back story of Swarm/Azure and the Grand Serpent.
I also found the sound of the episode messed up - very loud 'background' music and sound effects. I ended up watching it with subtitles on, so I could follow what was happening.
I don't understand how someone who brought us such a well-crafted story as Broadchurch (especially the first two series) can make such a mess of a concept as Doctor Who. It's as if he is annoyed that he didn't think of the idea in the first place so tried to "out-think" it - with the end result that he's mangled the entire thing. It has more holes in it now than a deep-sea fishing net. Short of a serious retcon (or ignoring it altogether) it's difficult to imagine a way out of this maelstrom.
Jodie, I love. Even the companions have their moments (and I share your pain at the loss of Jericho - even for that name alone). But she, like Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy before her, has been let down by some woeful writing, inelegant plotlining, and abhorrent dialogue. Russel T. is going to have to really sharpen his pencil to get us out of this mess.
Easy but possibly unsatisfactory retcon suggestion: have the next regeneration go wrong so that the new Doctor loses all memory of the Division and the Timeless Child. It would just be plot convenience to have such a selective amnesia but I'd go with it. They could even reintroduce those elements later if they wanted to keep them in continuity but do it slowly and properly with self-contained stories hinting at some mysterious outside interference. I'd prefer the Doctor to just forget it all and the new series to then ignore it but I'm sure it could be done in a subtler less heavy-handed way than it has been.
@@bobhale7302 Still whont resolve all the universe but earth being destroyed and all of Daleks, Cybermans and Sontarans being genocyded.
To make the show good again they need to retcon and delete from canon ALL Chibnall seasons, there is no way around it. Making the Doctor forget does not fix all the damage done by Chibnall, like the Master killing ALL the Time Lord.
@@TheMetalOverlord I think we can safely assume that's not going to happen. Besides, between them the Daleks, Cybermen and Timelords have been completely wiped out at least a couple of dozen times over the years. They always end up coming back.
@@bobhale7302 I know that it will neve happen, especially after Davies said that he liked the Timeless Child storyline. But a man can dream.
Yea, they always come back, but this time the Time Lords are killed just right after they were brought back after many years removed from the series and after bringing them back was the focus of the 50th special. Also Daleks, Cyberman and Sontaran this time are all genocided by the Doctor, the one that usually is the only one that do all that he can to save even his worst enemies instead of killing them.
@@TheMetalOverlord OK. Additions to my suggested retcon. Sontarans - not all killed because why would they send more than a token force to subdue a backward planet like Earth? Daleks and Cybermen - not all killed because they aren't stupid enough to trust the Sontarans and both held back their main forces from the truce meeting. Timelords - not killed when Galifrey was destroyed because they all escaped either backwards or forwards in time. Universe - clearly not all destroyed or Karvanista, Vinder and Bel would have nowhere to go so maybe not as much destroyed as we thought, maybe only ten percent destroyed. Doctor - as I suggested before, forgets everything after faulty regeneration. Master - well the master always comes back with no explanation as to how he/she survived the previous death. It's easy enough to think of minor retcons that keep Jodie's era in continuity and then let future show runners (and all the fans who didn't like it) ignore it completely but whether that's what happens remains to be seen. Anyway, we will see soon enough what happened to the Daleks but I have a terrible premonition that as with most of his grand ideas Chibnell will just hand-wave it away by not even trying to explain why the Daleks are still there in the very next episode after he destroyed them or by having a single line of dialogue saying "oh, look - Daleks".
Chibnell knows a lot about Doctor Who, but he understands woefully little of Doctor Who
For my own sanity I had to try my hand at rewriting the story beats to the last episode (and a little of episode 5 with Bel & Vinder). The main thing I changed was removing the Doctor splitting into 3, and giving those plot points to the companions so they actually had something to do.
Kate (y'know, the head of human resistance) locates the Sontaran command centre, Claire is now an old woman who Jericho recruits to infiltrate the Sontaran psychic thing, Dan & Yaz get a message out to the Daleks and Cybermen that the peace offering is a trap (cause y'know, genocide is bad Chibnall). Bel & Vinder lead a revolution inside a passenger, which results in the capture/death of Azure. The Doctor sees glimpses of past memories as the Fugitive Doctor, who commits atrocities in the name of Division, she doesn't recognise that to be The Doctor so doesn't want to know anymore about her past. Swarm feels the loss of Azure so winds back the flux. Once everything is back, The Doctor blows up the Division ship and escapes.
This sounds like an improvement to me, it might sound worse to you I don't know :) but it's been bugging me since the last episode aired that the Doctor was split into 3 for the sole purpose of fixing everything when there are characters standing around twiddling their thumbs.
Every time the episode ended with a cliffhanger, i was hoping that Chibnall would find a clever way to write themselves out of it.. but it just got worse EVERY time. Did they ever explain how the Doctor survived the flux heading into the Tardis in episode 1? Didnt we start the episode with her waking up in a battleground?
Let me say right away: I stopped watching new Who after Series 11; however, I've been keeping up with the reviews. My take on the Chibnall era is that he keeps missing golden opportunities. "Arachnids In The UK" could have been a great prequel to "Planet of the Spiders" had the Doctor unknowingly brought the giant spiders to Metebelis III's past era. Instead of the Division, he could have referenced the already mentioned CIA (Celestial Intervention Agency) from "The Deadly Assassin". In which case the Division wouldn't have just come out of nowhere after 50+ years of Doctor Who lore. Then again, Chibnall doesn't really care about Doctor Who lore, does he?
Agreed. If you just read the blurb for each episode it sounds like a really good idea, but it just never delivers.
I gave up in the same way, only just after the Spyfall two parter.
I watch reviews now to try and find something good to bring me back, but Chibs never fails to disappoint.
Tying in Metebelis III would be a nice continuity nod for classic era fans, but I don't think a bit of nostalgia for a 44-year-old episode would address the fundamental issues with that story. Also the spiders of Metebelis III were already given an origin in that story.
As far as I can tell the CIA is an offshoot of the Division (or vice versa), but that doesn't really make a difference IMO. The problem isn't that Chibnall didn't tie the Division to pre-existing Who lore, it's that he made them a hollow, superficial threat with no depth.
Chibnall cares about Doctor Who lore. Remember that he's the guy who brought back the Master's TCE, referenced the Eternals etc. And while more tie-ins to classic Who continuity would have been nice, it wouldn't have done anything to address the main problems of the Chibnall Era, which have to do with connectivity and depth.
@@irrevenant8724 I would agree partly...
First yes there is an orign story in Metebelis III, BUT whats the problem with another? We got examples of that.We have "Spareparts" the orign story of the Cyermen, with the 5th Doctor. We have "World enough and time" orign story of the Cyermen, with the 12th Doctor
We have "Shada" with the 4th and the 8th Doctor. We have "Silver Turk" Mary Shellys Frankenstein with the 8th Doctor and we have "Villa Diodati" Frankenstein with the 13th Doctor so im ok with that, i see it more like a "how different the same story can play out, with a different Doctor"
Chibnall did care for the lore / canon ... a long time ago (see P.S. thats a masterpiece) however it seems he lost track completly, acting like a child "You didnt like what i did? Now im going to ruin your stuff and you will see!"
He went the complete wrong way. "Oh back in 1989 there was that story, for season 1990. The Doctor beeing one of the founders of the Timelords alongside Rassilon and Omega. I can do it better, because I will make it happen, it was ONLY the Doctor and even before Rassilon."
"There is the logic gap between 2nd Doctor, the very, very old 2nd Doctor and 3rd Doctor since 1986. Even before that, there were rumors about unfilmed season 6B with Regenerations between 2 and 3 when the Doctor worked for the Timelords (btw the second Doctor confirms that in the two Doctors) NOW comes my idea. this mysterious Devsion . The organisation created to fight the Doctor and the Doctor fighing alongside them .....oh btw it all happens pre Hartnell"
"The Tom Baker era showed how time works Time is a force / entety of itself, controlled by the white and black guardian .....heck that, now time is against space and can be anyone!"
"Moffatt wanted the 13th Doctor to be female, back in 1999? Ha im going to make it look like something completly of my own"
"I will wipe out Gallifrey, even we have seen it 4 billion years into the future 2 seasons ago. I know fan favourite Romana has been on Gallifrey, heck kill her! Characters like Narvin, Leela, Braxiatell, Olystra KILL THEM!!!!"
Look at Big Finish, the writers over there care about the lore / canon. Yes some contradict others but there is not one completly bad story they even improved so much of the 6th Doctor and show how good Colin Baker is, given propper material.
The BBC for eg. always treats "Talons of Weng-Chiang" as something terrible. Something you are not even allowed to mention by name. Big Finish looked at it and went like "Mhh people still talking about the charcters of this story.....40 years and they still know their names, Jago & Lightfood" 40 years ago, two actors who´d met for the first time, while filming episode 3 and 4. Had a face to face screentime of 8mins or something like that and people remembering them, so what did Big Finish do? They called the actors and 40+ years later we got 13 seasons of the best spin off series ever Jago & Lightfood + one Jago & Lightfood & Strax
@@thomasnieswandt8805 Without getting into a whole 'canon vs non-canon' thing, Big Finish is its own space. The show goes to greater lengths to be compliant with itself than it goes to be compliant with Big Finish, or vice versa.
Can we please lose this idea that Chibnall set out to ruin people's stuff? He's a professional writer. His run was heavily flawed, but no way in hell was he given control of BBC's premier sci-fi drama that he's loved since childhood and gone "Now I have the opportunity to wreck things!". Chibnall set out to create stories that would be fresh and exciting for fans. His ability to deliver that vision didn't live up to it. It's silly to assume malice.
You've pointed out that Big Finish care about lore and use it to create good stories. That's what Chibnall was aiming for too, he just didn't do as good a job at it, and had a lot more eyes on him when he failed.
BTW, it was written into the show in "The Doctor Falls" that Cybermen have multiple origins - that they'll keep arising as natural result in situations of "people plus technology minus humanity".
I don't give Chibnall the credit for how (relatively) good Diadati and this season's Weeping angels episode were since they were both written by Maxine Alderton. Fairly confident than she did the heavy lifting in that regard
Almost every companion in this show had something so significant, Rose being the Bad Wolf, unintentionally bringing a powerful entity to the show, Martha being a strong woman who's make it to the head of unit, and was about to destroy her own planet to stop the daleks on fourth season finale (pretty much the doctor on the time war), Donna being well the most important human being, not only to save The Doctors life, but more important to save him from his own rage, and many, many more.
I realized that after Bill and Nardole, this end, and Chinibal bring us 3 companions with poorly background but yes, more human background.
But c'mon i really miss being fascinated by the humans of this show, by the companions.
Companions of chinibal era, just sound like random people who crossed with the Doctor.. Ok Graham was great, with him and Grace was the original companions i would be in love for then all along, but idk this era really failed for me on this.
I'd love them just being random people...if they were still, yknow, characters, which Chibnall companions hardly are
@@googleplusisgone9435 agreed, hopefully Russel will give us that, characters that we can actually care about. The whole fam of chinibal was freaking me out all the time.
I feel that's slightly unfair. I mean Yas literally survived 3 years leading an expedition to try to save humanity, during which she survived assassination attempts while travelling the world. She also learned how to fly the Tardis, defeated the Master, and saved the Doctors life. That's pretty powerful for a companion if you ask me. Plus she did that without any random plot point making her pretty much have superpowers from something like Tardis energy or whatever it might be.
@@capricorn878I do agree with this though, when the "fam" got split up, the series dramatically increased in quality for me. It just didn't work.
Chibbers didn’t learn a thing. He won’t learn a thing going into the tail end. Flux was bad, plain and simple. 2 out of 6 episodes are worth the rewatch. I’m ready for the door to be closed, locked and sealed on this era as a whole because as much as I wanted to love it, I just don’t. I can’t sit here and defend the horrendous writing behind it. I hope Davies finds a way to clean the slate and ignores the timeless child. And if you’re about to say he supports it, give me proof that he supports it instead of a baseless claim.
He does a lot of telling but not a lot of showing
@@benmiller3252 or he just can’t write Sci-Fi.
@@adamburke4738 that too
@@benmiller3252 if I had to choose, I’d say series 11 was his best.
@@adamburke4738 I could have seen edger Wright or Richard Curtis as the Showrunner of doctor who
I hate this era so much.
The Doctor has always been an active character that is special for the things he does.
Now with Chibnall the Doctor is a passive character that is special for who she is.
How many scenes we had with Jodie totally useless hearing the villains plans and this era? How many times she is saved by some spaceship or another character? Come on, one of the cliffhangers here was solved with her playing hide and seek with Swarm!!
There are so many contradictions too. Jodie listening to The Division lady talking about the destruction of the universe, without doing ANYTHING. WTF. Just imagine Smith´s, Tennant´s, Eccleston´s or Capaldi´s Doctors in that same situation. The Doctor is always the smartest person in the room! A highly resourseful character. It´s painful to see Jodie with an expresionless face there. Doesn´t she know karate tricks he has used before? Why suddenly a timelady twice her age is a threat for her?
Chibnall is a complete incompetent writer. It amazes me how BBC chose one of the least creative writers ever to give them this beloved show.
And I think Jodie is quite bad in the role too. The writing is awful, yes, but if Chibnall writes a line where this Doctor needs to be menacing talking to a dalek or a sontaran, Jodie was totally incapable to sell it! There is NO SCENE in this whole era when I see her as The Doctor we know. As the ancient alien so clever and with a darker side. Her performance basically is her puting funny faces, talking fast and scaning EVERYTHING with her sonic screwdriver.
You've put your finger right on the nub of the problem with the Timeless Child and the Division. Although I know a number of fans who hated the Time War, it felt like a natural development from stories going back to the Hartnell era (the idea of a 'time war' between the Time Lords and the Daleks is really only 1965's "The Chase" turned up to eleven, after all). The Chibnall era stuff comes out of nowhere, with no set up, and feels like it was done for no other reason than to allow Chibs to give us the finger and shout, "Ha ha, I know Doctor Who better than any of you do."
Jericho was my favorite character to see on Doctor Who in *years. I was so mad that he was the one to be killed off. Of all the companions I would have loved to see him become a long standing one, especially going in to the doctor's regeneration. Although, I must admit going out with a Peter Pan quote stole my heart a bit.
Whole heartedly agreed, Jericho was the highlight of the season for me. I expected him to be yet another grumpy old guy but he turned out to be well meaning, kind fellow who had seen some shit and was ready to prevent that from happening again. A companion from the 60's would have been great to see, have him be amazed by the world once more and get over his past with the help of the Doctor, who knows exactly the feeling as an old warrior. Add him to the list of wasted potential, but put him on the top. Rest in peace
I think you’re being kind in describing the series, and indeed Chibnall’s time as a whole as disappointing. It’s been awful. Agree with everything you’ve said though, including Jodie having nothing but beige to work with, she’s the Colin Baker of new who. Great potential, awful execution.
at least colin baker's doctor was memorable and dynamic. you can describe who his doctor is and what his personality was like. jodie's doctor is just a mis-mash of various traits of other doctors but with nothing unique about her, other than "woman".
I’m still hoping The parallel universe theory that the 12th Doctor's regeneration was so powerful it broke the Tardis navigational systems and pushed the Doctor into another universe since (Timelords can travel between universes). Once the TARDIS entered Ruth’s universe, The TARDIS struggled to enter properly. Evidence to this theory can be seen in The Ghost Monument (Series 11, Episode 2). It stuttered, failed to land properly and failed to find something to stabilise itself on from it's own universe until the Doctor found it and stabilised it with her screwdriver. "But the TARDIS gains it's energy from it's own universe." The Timeless Child plays into this perfectly. The name drops of The Timeless Child is scattered through Series 11 and 12. The episode "The Timeless Child" (Series 12, episode 10) cleared this up as The Doctor herself being "The Timeless Child" and we all thought he was telling the truth. TECHNICALLY HE WAS...
Well not quite. Who else is seen through Series 12? That's right, *RUTH!!!* Ruth is the Doctor of *THAT UNIVERSE* that 13 and Jack are trapped in! All this similarity's to our universe, 13 assumes it's her own universe. She later comes across The Master which is actually the Master of Ruth’s universe. The Master just assumes 13 is just a past incarnation of Ruth (since even the Master is unaware of this universal breach.)
*"But where does jack come into this?"*
Back in the proper universe (our universe) Jack steals a ship to follow the Doctors last know coordinates. When Jack finds a small rift left by the TARDIS, he follows into that alternate universe just enough before it closes behind him. Jack is determined to find the Doctor and bring her back to our universe knowing the consequences of universal tampering from Torchwood experience. Knowing the TARDIS is runs off a black hole, he becomes aware of the dangers this could have on this new universe and possibly our own. Somewhere down the line, Jack becomes aware of the lone Cyberman and links up all these events to the Doctor. He now knows there's another Doctor roaming the universe, WITH A TARDIS OF HER OWN. Putting 2 Doctors in 1 place already causes catastrophe on certain timelines, 2 TARDISes with functioniung black holes colliding will cause a universal destruction. Luckily in Fugitive of the Judoon (Season 12, Episode 5). My guess is the reason the TARDIS dematerialised in "The Woman Who Fell To Earth" was because it knew what was happening and detected another TARDIS (Ruth's TARDIS) and immediately left to prevent any destruction but gave 13 the remaining shields while she fell to Earth and collided into the Train roof.
Jack sets out to find The Doctor and SUCCESS! He does find BOTH OF THEM IN THE SAME PLACE, which coincidentally made it easier for him to track her! Except he teleports Graham to his ship instead of The Doctor and realising he’s in trouble, attempts to send a message in the meantime so he can hopefully prevent these events taking place leading to a TARDIS collision.
*"And the Timeless Children? Isn't 13 a future incarnation of Ruth?"*
{The Ascension of the Cyberman -Series 12} Towards the end, The Master appears out of a portal from the wreck of his universes Gallifrey. This is phase 2 of the universes breaking down leading to destruction. While Jack is on the run, he gets captured by the Jadoon because he’s not registered by the galaxy (since he’s part of our universe). These events will lead into Revolution of the Daleks (hopefully).
(The Timeless Children, Series 12) The Doctor is later revealed to be The Timeless Child. I’m thinking that The Timeless Child was actually Ruth from that universe. The master technically overall DIDN’T LIE but he just didn’t know that Jodie’s Doctor Isn’t his Doctor from his universe but rather Ruth is. This whole episode and story arch was meant for Ruth, but The Doctor intervened. 13 believes this and is gets trapped in the Matrix by the Master in the matrix. My guess is that in that time, The Matrix was unsure whether our Doctor (13) was the correct Doctor of that universe (Ruth) since it now picks up 2 Doctors simultaneously existing. 13 then proceeds to break the Matrix but NOT FROM HER MIND, but rather from the fact that The Matrix was right about 13 and began to break from the fact it didn’t recognise Jodie’s Doctor as Ruth’s Doctor. This is very possible theory since we've seen another Doctor from another universe die from the Racnoss (Turn Left, Season 4, Episode 11). All reality was threatened after that. All the adventures the Doctor had, were turned sinister and had a bad outcome.
*"The Brain Of Morbius has evidence."*
Usually I'd shut down those faces in The Brain Of Morbius being The Doctor as literally Morbiuses faces since they clashed in a psychological battle, but that would mean this theory wouldn't follow through. It shuts down a potential story that could be a classic and a Chibnall redemption. The theory goes that Ruth's universe was like any other except there are only 4 universes with The Doctor inhabiting it. Our Doctor (13), The Metacrisis Doctor with Rose, Ruths universe, and the Turn Left Universe. Ruth's universe could have taken a drastic turn when her universe clashed with 13s Universe during that one mind battle with Morbius. The link with Morbius opens up so many possibilities. Morbius was a Time Lord at one stage. He knows his way around inter-dimensional travel along with Time Travel. When the 4th Doctor clashed minds with him, it unlocked something deep inside Morbuises head causing a mental link with RUTH while Ruth engaged in the SAME BATTLE from another universe. 13's mind met with Ruth's mind for a split second and drifted apart. All these years after that, Ruth's universe stayed close to 13s universe. Since Ruth's universe never really had any alien invasions and extra terrestrial encounters, UNIT and Torchwood went out of business. Because of this, The Daleks never visited 1963 in "Remembrance Of the Daleks" (7th Doctor,) it never lead to the destruction of Skaro leading to the events of the Time War. Meaning that this Universe never experienced a Time War. This reality of Ruth's was safe keeping it from being destroyed. That is until 13 fell into it.
I pray this theory is true. If Chibnall does this it would be the coolest Plot Twist hidden WITHIN A PLOT TWIST!! Also the longest lasting plot twist in the shows history. This theory could come to an end when Jack tells The 13th Doctor this was the case the whole time and the Universe is disintegrating. Jodie’s last episode as The Doctor could have Ruth rejoin the oath to never be cruel or cowardly and come to terms that her universe is fading and the attempt to save the universe with The Doctor, Ruth, Jack and the Jadoon is the plot as they figure out a way to return to the old universe and save the one they were trapped in. This of course ends in one spectacular finale as Ruth and The Master unfortunately dying just as everything could be safe. The Doctor in a fit of rage comes to her senses and slows down to think. In one final effort The Doctor takes her TARDIS to the closing portal with Jack and flies straight into it RETURNING INTO OUR UNIVERSE AGAIN!!! Jack is still in the TARDIS but 13 is somewhere else. Jack lands the TARDIS on earth with UNIT waiting there to keep the TARDIS safe. Everyone think the Doctor is dead and officially announce The Doctor has died. A montage similar to The Dark Knight Rises (2012) ending plays as people close to the Doctor get subtle messages that the Doctor is still alive. 13 then anonymously visits her companions and helps them out in any way possible. Yaz joins Torchwood, Ryan is approached by UNIT, Jack is given a chance to rebuild Torchwood (giving it a revival for season 5) And Graham is cured from his cancer and even given a small amount of 1 million Dollars to finally relax. 13 pulls off a heist to steal her TARDIS back and takes off. We later reveal that She has been wounded by the universal impact while travelling through the portal roughly and begins to regenerate.
What about the waste of Jo Martins character. She's one of the best of chibnall era and she got 2mins
It was bad. I hate pretty much everyting about this era. Rich I love your series reviews though, keep up the good work 👍
The series was slightly better than I expected but honestly that's not impressive considering the low wall I set it.
I actually had no clue former companions were returning, so that was a bit of a spoiler :'(
Still love the review regardless, great content as always!
Definitely a Chibs effort, with so much wasted potential and his desperation to see his legacy remembered. It will be, of course, but likely not in a good way.
I departed after Chibnall's first series. I thought this iteration of the Doctor had potential, but the writing just wasn't there for me. Hope there's something to come back to when Chibnall's gone.
It felt like each episode was full of teasers to keep you coming back but by the end it felt like it didn’t payoff. No real in depth or character development but I’m expected to care about New Year’s Day one …
I enjoyed most of this season, but I was extremely disappointed with the finale, I was hoping it could be wrapped in a nice little bow but no. No answers. No epic finale. No closure. I will say that the performances of everyone involved was amazing though. Swarm was captivating and the Grand Serpent made me hate him (although that's probably from Line of Duty). Lets just say I'm excited for RTD's return.
I've been a fan of all things scifi and especially DW for a very long time. I've rarely not understood the plot of most of the things I've viewed and NEVER have I've been this confused by a Doctor Who series since my first ever encounter with the show as a kid.
I watch episodes 1-3 of the Flux story and I struggled to keep pace and to give a damn. I feel so sorry for Judy, she deserved. We sure as hell deserved better. This was a tough, tough watch and a poor job of telling a coherent story.
This series was a 5/10 imo. The sontaran episode was the best of the season and possibly even the best of Jodie’s run so far. Doctor who Flux was just so fluffed up, that it all felt messy. The division was really interesting at first as they were like a gallifrey tal shiar but by the end they felt 2d and like a one off cheap villain. Dan and Yaz were great when they got to shine as were the other supporting characters. Swarm and Azure were really disappointing, it just felt like they appeared, then killed a lot of people and then possibly died without being that interesting.
The Evil Dan meme on the other hand gets a 10/10, the story was pretty easy to follow with little fluff.
I think it was a REALLY mixed bag.
My episode ratings would be
The Halloween Apocalypse - 6
War of the Sontarans - 8
Once, Upon Time - 4.5
Village of the Angels - 8.5
Survivors of the Flux - 5
The Vanquishers - 4
The finale left a really bad taste in my mouth. It was so poorly written and worse, boring. I haven’t even watched Eve of the Daleks because Vanquishers just left me exhausted with the show.
Very much enjoying the reviews, I stopped watching after Jodie's first season (having been a firm old and new Who fan for many years), personally I didn't rate her take on the Doctor, thought the standard of writing had continued to slide and the less said about the Timeless Child the better.
In holding out an-admittedly small spark of-hope that RTD can course correct when he returns with a new Doctor.
“Bel and Vinder weren’t the doctors parents. Yet. Maybe. Yet…” Wait, WHAT? Okay but that would just be SO COOL. Cuz timey wimey
I do have a question that I haven't even been able to come up with a head-canon kind of answer for. If anyone has an answer I'd like to hear it. The Sontaran plan was to stop the antimatter flux by throwing all the Daleks and Cybermen at it so the "the matter would cancel out the antimatter". The solution used was to suck it into the Passenger where there was an infinite amount of matter to cancel out the antimatter. If we ignore the nonsense physics and accept these plans I still have a question. Wasn't the rest of the Universe made of matter, and a lot more of it than the combined Dalek and Cyberman armies? So why didn't that already cancel out the Flux? Any ideas?
I assume the wave was designed to propagate against a certain amount of matter, by the flux/vacuum pads Division used, or whatever, @Bob Hale: Poetry , so that an extra amount of matter in one place may have been enough to unbalance this? Still, it was all very hastily and vaguely plotted.
Exactly Bob.
Series 13 had so much potential. It even had moments of brilliance. But sadly overall the series fell short. I think Jodie had the potential of being a great doctor. But sadly the writing let her down. But all is not lost. Hopefully RTD can breath some life back into Dr Who🤨
Jodie had no chance. She only got hired becuase Chip new her from a previous show and they were aready chummy. She's really not a great actor.
Simpsons: Lunch Lady Doris - "There's barely any meat in these gym mats"
I feel Flux had the best episodes of the Chibnall Era with "War of the Sontarans" and "Village of the Angels," but the rest were at most okay, and at worst, bad. And with this having so few episodes, I had a much bigger hope that the episodes would be great to make up for the lack of content. On top of that, the idea of one story was a really nice idea, but with the finale feeling like it didn't properly close the story, the other episodes get brought downa little because of such a direct connection.
As for Division, I was really interested about it and what it could possibly be after "The Timeless Children." It looked like it was an intense organization in the episode, but then all we got in Flux was a flashback to The Fugitive Doctor not doing too much and Tecteun rambling. It was really a let down. Also, Division eventually trying to stop the Doctor as an end goal in the universe just made me think of how something similar happened with The Silence, except done worse.
The companions were more useless in this series than others I feel. I did like Yaz in the first episode, and I loved Dan in the first two, but after those, they felt like they didn't really belong. Yaz especially felt left out of everything once Dan joined it, as it felt like the companion role was more focused on him since he was a newcomer. I do think they worked well in the 5th episode, but that's only because there was a forced b-plot added for them that had little impact to the main story. It's literally just them trying to find their way back home. I think the companions would have been better cut out of Flux overall so more time could've been focused on the much bigger Doctor story.
There were things I liked, I will admit that. I loved Jericho and thought Kate was done well in the second to last episode, even if she wasn't in it much. I also think The Grand Serpent slowly infiltrating his way into UNIT over the years was a really cool concept. However, with Kate and The Grand Serpent, I feel they lost everything going for them in the finale. The Grand Serpent ended up feeling like a joke with how easily he was defeated and Kate being underused in the finale just upset me. There was also a moment with Kate that kinda bugged me, where she's asked how she knows the Doctor, and instead of answering, she decides to say she's the leader of human resistance against the Sontarans despite being alone, only having a phone (despite breaking hers the previous episode) and supposedly going dark. I know it's a minor gripe, but it really did bug me.
In terms of the future, I'm kinda going into the specials waiting for them to be done so RTD can come back. As stated, I do think there were some good episodes this series, and in Chibnall's era as a whole, but the finale of Flux kinda broke me. I hope that Jodie will at least be in the 60th Anniversary and maybe even stay in the role of the Doctor for it so she coud regenerate at the end, just so RTD could write a good story for her, but with her being so dedicated to leave when Chibnall does, that's likely not gonna happen. I do believe Mandip Gill said she'd love to continue playing Yaz after Chibnall leaves though, and I kinda hope she does just so RTD has at least one Chibnall character to improve. I'd also love Bill to come back since I know Pearl Mackie's said it's not ruled out and I did like the character.
And finally, I know a lot of people say they want RTD to retcon the Timeless Child arc, but I really hope he doesn't. I always found the idea interesting, even if the execution was a bit lacking and I really want to see if he can improve upon the idea, because if anyone can do it, it's RTD.
The Sontarans and (Evil) Dan were the main highlight for me, I didn't really care much for The Division or Swarm/Azure/Passenger/Grand Serpent/Weeping Angels
Bit of a tangent here.
Companions.
The point of the companion in Doctor Who is to be the audience surrogate. To ask the questions we'd like to ask and do the things we'd like to do. IE Travel with the Doctor and see the wonders of the universe. since... Well Ace if we're honest, the stories have been more about the companions than the Doctor. Which has been a deliberate shift. The whole point of the Doctor is that they are a mystery, a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, in a certain blue box(!) The more we learn of the Doctor the more layers are stripped away the less of a mystery they become.
But here's the thing, this whole Timeless Child storyline demolishes this. First of all we're all learning about this new history. The mystery is being revealed, the magician's tricks are being exposed and we're finding the miracles were just rusted springs and a squeeze box between the knees. Second of all we learn that The Doctor didn't know about this. All those sly hints, those obscure references and quiet little smiles that spoke of some grand secret that only they knew? Utterly wasted. Now rather than TIme's Champion, The oncoming Storm, the sometimes reluctant Lonely God, or even The imp of the Pandorica it turns out they didn't know what was happening either. Just along for the ride. That puts the Doctor in the role of a Companion doesn't it?
Think about it. They're the ones asking the questions, seeking answers. They are trying to understand what's going on. Now yes, often, the Doctor is seen investigating a problem before they can solve it, but now they're just standing around with a confused look on their face while things are going on around them. The reason the companions haven't been doing much these last few years is they've not had a job! Their role has been totally absorbed into the Doctor, who has no screen time left to actually do anything of consequence. Leaving the random guest cast to take up the Doctor's former role of protagonist.
Oh, sure, she'll wave her screwdriver in a random direction once or twice. Pull a face and make a show of some half hearted speech on the odd occasion, but she doesn't do much of anything. The Doctor has been made a companion in her own show!
I think 'Division' was especially disappointing because early this year, there was another series which should how to really portray 'Secret Organisation outside time and space manipulating events towards their own goal' so much better. There's likely to a fairly big cross over of audience between Doctor Who and the Marval series - and Loki just did this so much better and grander than 'An old woman and her Ood hanging around outside the Universe'. Chibnall never really came up with a good idea of what the goal of Division was other than 'moustache twirling, cape swish, we were behind it all! Mawwah!!!!!'. He should've tried and done a cross over with Scooby Doo so they couldn't unmasked them as Old Man Smithers, the Groundskeeper.
Lol
And we had the 'Celestial Intervention Agency' in the old Doctor Who era, did we not? Doing much the same thing, on a somewhat smaller scale.
So not even that new. Was genuinely interested to see Tecteun, all the same - and then, pop, she's a gonna.
I overall loved the series, the last 2 parts were waaaaay too rushed but i still had good fun. village of the angels was absolutely superb. Loved swarm and azure. I can understand he had allot of issues with the episode count being cut. It had allot of issues but i really did have allot of fun with it.
I doubt if ten episodes, or fifty episodes, would have helped. There would probably have just been even more random and disjointed plot strands and they would all have ended without a proper resolution. Only the Vinder/Bel strand was actually fully realised - not particularly interesting or necessary but at least complete - all of the others started well and then just stopped instead of actually ending. The prime offender was the way that Swarm and Azure turned out to be not the main antagonists just subordinates of the manifestation of Time that wasn't even mentioned until the last episode . The same is true of the Grand Serpent, reduced in the final episode from being the devious master manipulator of episode 5 to just a flunky of the Sontarans in episode 6. Even the Flux itself was wiped out in such a lacklustre fashion that it seemed a pointless element in its own series by the end. To sum it up, lots of good ideas thrown at a non-stick wall and wasted.
Overall for Chibnall's era I'd say each season has had a couple of good episodes, a couple of bad episodes and the rest were just sort of there, along with his efforts to retcon the the entire history of the show.
Yeah. The problem is that the connective tissue was just missing. And in many cases it wouldn't even have been hard to add - a quick line here or there would've fixed much of it. The just doesn't seem to be an underlying understanding that there *needs* to be connective tissue. For example, Diane was abducted and put inside Passenger so she could ultimately come up with the idea of using Passenger to solve the Flux. Cool. Neat idea. But having done that you need to connect that up with everything else - show us Dan reacting with worry that they haven't had a chance to go back with Diane. Have Azure mention why they're holding her in the first place. That underlying supporting structure is just missing, and that doesn't seem to be down to lack of time.
@@bobhale7302 "Just done for plot convenience" sums it up nicely. Chibnall seems to have put all the large pieces in place and thought about their prerequisites, but lost track of a lot of the smaller implications of what that *meant* for other elements of the story.
During the explanation of what the division was I was expecting some sort of big reveal but it never happened.
Random thought I had after the fact, it would have been cool if after the doctor said the division were breaking time Lord laws by meddling in history Tecteun could have been like yep, and when they tried to put a stop to us our operatives went back in time and made the time war happen to kill off the rest of the time Lords so they can keep operating as they want
Like maybe they could have wanted the time war to end the universe so they could ride the shock wave to a new one kinda like they wanted to here and then instead of them ending the universes because the doctors special its more like it was their plan anyway and the doctor inadvertently foiled it the first time around
I dunno
It still would have been some bloated retcon thing but it'd be more integrated into previous lore I guess
Jody has been given absolutely nothing to work with in this era. I feel cheated by the poor material given and feel she has never been given a chance to become the doctor. Plus the over usage of the sonic
The Daleks shot the power out once, and never again. It completely messed up the doctor and the others, why would they not shoot it out every reset?!
Also I thought the entire practically the entire universe was destroyed by the flux, how is there a paradise beach planet?
I hate Chibnall
Chibs' superpower is to pick things up, shove them in your face and wiggle them about crying "Oooh! Sparkly!" - only to drop them to the floor when he finds something new to show us. And when playtime is over, he still has to clear up the mess before he can have his tea, so he just sweeps everything under the sofa and hopes his parents won't notice.
Nothing connects, nothing has meaning or significance other than "Here's a glittery thing!".
It's a sort of scriptwriter's ADHD - with, it seems, no one on his team to tell him "Oi, Chibnall! NO!"
Feel so sorry for Jodie Whittaker. It's a shame she isn't being taken forward with Russell T Davies writing.
honestly, when she was coming into the role, it was not long after Broadchurch (another Chibnall project) just had its popularity peak. She played a character grieving the loss of her child in a pretty claustrophobic setting. She probably didn't expect Chibi to headhunt her to wave her arms for 50 minutes at a pop sayin "Ughhh, I just can't quite *get* it" on a loop.
Yeah, this was so disappointing that I thought I missed something when I fell asleep.. Turned out despite my nap I didn't miss anything.
I have said it before ..... Fingers crossed for a "Bobby Ewing" as the Doctor falls out of the library on Galifray and everything from then (including the previous set up for division and timeless child) was all the master trying to mentally break her down to steal her new (limited) set of regenerations. Otherwise we appear to have a tiny fragment of a universe, (the bit the first flux didn't destroy) with no daleks (despite being in the xmas show?) , no cybermen and no sontarans (they need a rest).
Really how difficult would it have been to have "Time" click it's fingers at the end to reset everything? Couple of shots of the flux in reverse and we are back to normal.
Remember folks don't mess up xmas, always remove the Chiblets.
I have to agree with almost all.of this, bar maybe one point. Im.not entirely convinced that Jodie, as an actor, would every make a great Doctor, regardless of the writing. It is very difficult to tell, as even direction could have suppressed her portrayal, but theres something "too normal" about her. Every great Doctor (Patrick.Trouton, Tom Baker, David Tennant, Mat Smith) have all had a "weirdness" about them. They may look.human, but you jave a visseral.sense that they are not. That doesnt mean she would have been a bad Doctor, given better writers, but i think she would have maintained a middling position, good caretaker for the role until the next weirdo is cast.
Couldn’t agree more. Jodie could have been the best doctor yet, but got Tesco value plot writing instead
It’s true! Flux was both Chibs best season and disappointingly empty.
There are some tiny sweet currents in this lukewarm grey gruel, but I wouldn't ask Chibnall for more.
Spot on mate, spot.on. And yeh Jodie did the best with what she had to work with.
My expectations for remaining episodes are pretty low.
Thanks for review.
I can't wait to come back to Who after the Chibnall era.
There’s only one thing Chibnall can do that’s can ruin his already shocking reputation and that’s tell us the doctors true name. And knowing him, he’s probably contemplating it.
Maybe I need to rewatch the Sontaron episode because everyone says Chibnall did them great but I disagree. Mainly because the dialogue was really bad and this advanced warrior race, that are literally clone bred for war, was defeated by human gun poweder.....how? Alsp the weeping angels weren't terrible but what kept pissing me off was Chibnall misinterpreting the rules and just flat out changing them without any explanation. And there's a HUGE plot hole in that episode. It's originally stated that Claire has premonitions and the angel in her visions became an angel. That's fine. But then it was said that the angel GAVE her her premonitions and was hiding in her mind. How?? If the angel gave her premonitions then how is the angel in her head? How did it get there? How did it get from her head into Yaz's phone? Then into the TARDIS? And when the Doctor asks rhey literally just blow past the question. Every episode was poorly written. But that's no surprise from Chibs
I love you anyway, Rich, if you are gonna quote Lunch Lady Doris, you have a bit more of my heart...
What do you think about Jay Exci's Doctor Who video? I think he's showing pretty well why Chibnall doesn't work
I feel MUCH more relaxed now that he's sitting...that is all.
Isn't anybody else bothered with this season ending with most of the universe destroyed and Earth the last place left? Or is this going to be ignored?
I'd really like it if the Doctor ends up destroying the fob watch, deciding that she is who she is from the memory wipe on, and what happened before doesn't matter, because that wasn't her.
Here's what I wasn't expecting... I wasn't expecting the directing or scene-to-scene character interactions to be so engaging. Unlike the previous two seasons, I didn't feel like I was sitting through long stretches of boredom. This season felt kinetic and lively. *And that's the problem.* This wasn't a season. It was just a collection of third acts. New characters, events, and ideas are all thrown at us as if we've seen the first 60 minutes of the film. But we haven't. What's happening on screen seems cool but means nothing. I basically spent this season thinking there was a first and second act I missed.
Making the Doctor the most important being in the universe and being a the reason the Time Lords exist is the dumbest thing ever written on the show. It takes away what makes the Doctor the Doctor.
“Stay tuned for one more video for series 13, before we look to the New Year and Eve of the Daleks which I will not lie, I am excited for, love me some Daleks, as you know”.
But didn’t Chibbs, The Doctor, and Karvanista commit genocide of all the Daleks, Sontarans, and Cybermen in Episode 6?
dont worry about it, we saw the daleks in the trailer at the end of the episode, there wasn't a consequence, clearly.
Yes (well sort of - it was the Sontarans that genocided the Daleks and Cybermen). I *hope* that even Chibnall hasn't just forgotten that he destroyed 99% of the universe and that the appearance of a Dalek is a sign that they'll be fixing that up over the course of the specials. We'll see.
@AmbitiousWitch Maybe. There was an interesting line in _Flux_ that the Flux event was "Forcing spatial compression on" the universe rather than destroying it. So there's always the possibility it could be decompressed...
@@irrevenant8724 Considering that Tecteun's hideout was inaccessible anyway, I do have doubts.
@@YoungCodger I don't follow what you mean?
I gave up after four episodes. I simply just didn't care where it was going...
Hey, I don't know if you read comments or take suggestions but I would love to hear what you would do as a show runner. Like a what if you were the show runner for series 14. Who would be your doctor? Companions? Main or series antagonist? I've enjoyed watching/listening to you and I'm glad you are continuing to create.
Bel couldn’t be killed because she’ll be the demise of The Doctor, she is the meaning behind the “master” line. Not the actual “Master” everyone is presuming. Pregnant Bel will be why Jodie regenerates.
There have been episodes of DW going all the way back to Hartnell that make me scratch my head and say, "What the hell were the writers thinking?" (I'm looking at you The Web Planet!), and I know there are many out there who lost their minds (and not in a good way) with New Who Series 11/12 - but for me, other than some badly written scenes that make absolutely no sense and the odd episode that makes me scratch my head and say, "What the hell were the writers thinking?"(I'm looking at you In The Forest Of The Night!) I've honestly no problem with anything that came before. For better or worse, it's all been DW, and I love DW. But this... I don't know what Chibnall was doing, but it wasn't DW. I've been chomping at the bit for a female Doctor since 05, and Jodie is fantastic, but this... Chibnall took a Michelin Star meal, put it in a blender, added mint, and gave it to Jodie and said, "Here, sell that."
I swear I always completely agree with you, love Jodie- hate the writing. I wish she could have worked with RTD :(
This series has been a bit mixed for myself. I liked the episodes with the Weeping Angels and Sontarans the most in flux. Plus the flux story itself was a good idea, but it fall a bit flat. But I still watch Dr who. Regardless of how I feel about this series.
I guess it isn't accidental that in talking abut the supporting characters you forgot to mention Diane.
I always waited an extra day to watch an episode so I could watch your videos straight after 👌
Considering Series 13 was originally meant to be eight episodes, this makes me wonder if Flux was written with that in mind originally and mangled with the episode crunch.
Its Chibnall. Its just mangled even if it had 100 episodes.
To be honest, it's just more rope to hang himself with.
With 8 episodes he could do only more damage to Doctor Who.
Personal tier list of the episodes:
1. 4
2. 2
3. 1 & 5
4. 6
5. 3
Like.... the other night I was nodding off to sleep.
And my brain sorta took what Flux tried to do and, idk, it rewrote it? 👉🧠🤏💀
In my brain version, Flux wasn't some antimatter thing, but a means of importing matter from our universe into another. Perhaps you can even call it Time: entropy as a weapon: breaking it down to atoms and waves, and exporting it. A re-jig of Davros' plan from Journey's End, perhaps: "the destruction of reality itself".
And I think there's a real neat idea to tap into there: entropy is the natural state of the universe: all matter tends toward entropy increase as time goes on. It's a fact of physics. Could it be argued that "good" is, in a broad sense, merely rebelling against destruction, prolonging life and structure: "evil" is interested in hastening the process of annihilation, and destruction and death are ways of releasing a state of 'tension' in the universe. (Perhaps that's the cornerstone of Azure's faith.)
And the Passengers. They're basically the same, except they're Time Lord tech. Noah's Arks with boundless space. The idea is to collect samples from our universe (people, animals, plants, whatever), and import them into the new Universe. Existence inside the Passengers is almost like a time stasis: you don't age, need food, and time and distance don't have meaning. Maybe it is a void. I don't care. Point is, it's also been done before. But having it being Time Lord tech is more interesting. They did something similar with the Genesis Ark from Doomsday.
These Genesis chunguses are imported into the new universe when the matter has had a chance to coalesce into meaningful planetary systems (cos yeah let's face it star matter and geology isn't an overnight thing). Beings are set loose into optimised worlds, given a fresh chance for.... a reason.
So anyway, at some point, let's say Doctor and Tecteun join Division. They work hard, and sure enough, they find out about the plot. And their relationship is lost. Doctor defects, and aims to bring the plan down. They can't change the rules of the universe, but they will find a way to stop the Flux.
Perhaps because the Doctor is stubborn and OP, they find a way to slow the Flux down. The Division escalates matters and recruits a race of beings, who have space-time sensitivity.
And this is where Swarm/Azure's story begins. Their race are sensitive to the pulls of time, and Division (maybe even Tecteun themself) manages to kit these beings up to destroy everything with Time Flux powers.
Doctor cannot defy an entire species with Godlike powers going ham on reality (not that it'll stop them from trying). Maybe this is where Doctor realises they will need help- so much help. Good thing time machines mean that a functionally immortal person can travel as much as they need to without losing tempo.
Doctor gets companions. Grows as a person - their whole life has been experiments and missions. And at some point, after perhaps winning over the Time Lord race, they declare war on Swarm/Azure's race, much to the chagrin of Division, who are hidden and have to burn connection to their cleaners.
And at 4am or whatever time it was, I did a bit of reading, and APPARENTLY, one of the first Time Wars involved retroactive destruction of a race called the Charon (7th Doctor Novel) . And guess what! The Charon are noted for having spacetime-warping Godlike abilities! And at least one escaped the extinction! Isn't that handy??
So yeah Swarm and Azure are surviving Charons. Perhaps the siege of Atropos was a more of a stand against The Doctor and the Charon, in which the tide of the skirmish changed. And the Doctor, in {her} mercy (they're Ruth now and Ruth is.... ruthless?), takes Swarm and Azure and imprisons them in achronological ways that neutralise their powers. They live, but are removed. As such, they survive the retro-extinction of their race. Perhaps it would have been cool to see Karvanista heavily in that sequence, considering what happens?
And let's say, because the Division Time Lords are filthy cowards: they agree to full purge the Charon race if the Doctor accepts some terms. Disappear. Forego memories. Become a 'new' Time Lord. Ruth is tired and can't keep putting others in harm's way.
But maybe the Doctor didn't know this chapter of the Time Wars would involve a genocide. There's a scene maybe where Tecteun shows a glimmer of remorse, and offers to give the Doctor a childhood of sorts. A forced regeneration into a child (toddler Hartnell) with a mind decanted into a modified pocket watch. And then Tecteun hardens and sends the child on its way. To be raised in a well-respected house, perhaps with perception shift tech so none ask too many questions.
And somehow, somewhen, Karvanista, abandoned, gets home, possibly carrying knowledge that the threat could re-emerge somehow, and Lupari tech assimilates this. He doesn't expect he'll live to see the day when it does. I also like to think his human is also a companion played by John Bishop (Good Dan?), but with different hair and maybe some face prosthesis. And this guy is competent and empathetic and insightful.
My brain literally farted all of this at like 4 in the morning about two nights ago. And now I'm here writing it at near 4 in the morning. I prefer my own sleep-deprived version to what Chibnall put out. The above couldn't work in a 6 episode run either. And that's not touching the other plot points either. 👀We know he *can* write a series (Broadchurch won a bunch of awards, was 8 episodes per season, and featured Jodie and a shagton of other Doc Who alumni). Yes, there was pressure because of covid. But the joy of a 55 year old show is that so much groundwork can be found already existing. A lot of RTD's original works also nodded to classic Who. There's balances to be balanced. This wasn't it.
And if anyone's interested, when I actually got to sleep, my waking dream involved witnessing watching someone be run over by a van. The memorable part wasn't that they exploded into green glitter (they wore green workman overalls, so that's whatever). It was the fact that despite the dream being (presumably) set in daytime, it had a Dark Mode colour palette. Somehow, that is the bit I remember strongest: that my dreams have a dark mode now.
i was just happy to see a lot of filming from inside the Tardis. Most of this Doctors tenure has seemed to take the Tardis for granted. I still think the "blue box" is the star of the show.
For someone who is trying to make the Doctor the most important being in the universe, he sure made the Doctor the most boring being in the universe. And she's the first female Doctor so had to make a good impression of herself. It's like he didn't want her to succeed.....
Chinballs was wrong for the series and the BBC has well and truly screwed up another cash cow, RTD has a lot of work to do to get me back on board.
I did not watch series 13, I didn't care for it other than potential drama regarding more Who-lore demolition (Like Bel and Vinder being the Doctor's parents), but I did watch your reviews and enjoyed your honest enthusiasm for the show, even though it's drowning in chiblets right now. Makes me wish I could enjoy Doctor Who again.
I’ve been restarting new who era again as I had the feeling, maybe I was to harsh on CC, but I have not been. I am half way through Se2 and even though Rose is the main companion, we know who she is from the get go and it’s still plopped in through the episodes. Then this era you have poor Yaz, who could of had a similar set up.
Not going to lie I am looking forward to meeting Dr Noble in a few episodes, she was the best and also got the worse fate from all others, even Billie got a nice ending.
It used to be that we would be hanging out with baited breath to see what a new episode would bring. Sadly, not so much with this season. I really found that episode 3 took me completely out of the story arc and I struggled to get back in to it. I was quite disappointed by things but I am trying to be kind because I imagine that the issues with COVID-19 probably made things much worse.
I liked the first 5 episodes of the series and I think it was a nice series, but the finale fell apart and it fell apart big time. Nothing made sense, no character served any purpose and no twist that had been teased turned out to be somewhat dramatic. I cannot believe how Chibnall is a professional writer. I can't understand how this got greenlighted. There are so many errors and flaws in the conclusion of things, so many underwhelming reveals that it is shocking. How is that even possible?
6 weeks of build up. 6 weeks of promised answers and we got nothing. I hoped against hope that Chibs would be smart enough to not drag this whole timeless child/division plot into the special and wrap it all up in Flux. Knowing that we are on the brink of the R2D era is the only thing getting me through the rest of this era
It had a good beginning, but it quickly turned out to crap after the Weeping Angels episode. Chibnall just couldn't stick the landing.
I'm glad that the response to this series has overall been negative or with lack of any response, because it clearly signals to the studio to change directions and get rid of Chibnall. I mean some of the reports about viewing rates reflect this. Like we all have differing opinions about Russel T Davies and Moffat, as well as which doctors are better etc etc. But I don't think any era has been as unanimously disliked or unwatched as this. I just forgot about Doctor Who for years even though I followed it closely all the years prior as a fan. Chibnall is a good writer in drama series and Jodie Whittaker has so much potential but this era has been either boring or awful.
I don't think you can blame Covid for s13 only being 6 episodes. They did film 3 Specials in the same year.
I love it when fans see a new character and think it's the Rani, or Master, or the white Guardian, or a missing Doctor. Actually, its rather sad.
My review consists of just one question and that is:
What the flux was that all about?
RTD can fix this very easy, The show starts with a black screen, camera slowly pulls back to show a closed eyelid, Suddenly the eye opens, camera pulls back more to a sweaty, startled familiar face laying flat down on the floor of the Tardis, It the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) ! he jumps up and says "That was a HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE !!!" ,(effectively erasing all of Chibnall's crap) and goes on to figure out what Evil Beings hacked his brain and made him think he was a women to keep him busy while they threaten the fabric of time or something, then he regenerates into a new male Doctor. Fixed that easy , because it was all a bad DREAM...
So, he only had six episodes, no need for filler episodes. Yet somehow Mr. Chibnall managed it. Plus a finale that was OK, but did not wrap up everything, as it should have.
Flux was a disappointing series, it wasn’t exactly like my conspiracy theory. And there is a lot of plot holes and pointless stuff:
Bel being pregnant was so pointless. She didn’t gave birth, she can still find Vinder. He would still be her boyfriend and still have a reason to find each other, without being pregnant, and not giving birth during a battle.
Grand Serpent isn’t a good name. How about Grand Bishop?
Tecteun being revealed as the mother wasn’t a heartwarming moment. Kinda a ripoff from “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Karvanista and Jericho were good in the season.
Kate was pretty good in episode 5, but in episode 6 she did absolutely nothing.
So Russia doesn’t exist, then how come we saw a Russian Colonel in “The Pyramid At The End Of The World” in season 10?
How does Diane know what a Passenger is? Shes been there for a few days, the Passengers don’t speak. She’s a tour guide, not a scientist.
Grand Serpent (Bishop) could of easily killed Kate and Vinder without even touching them. He uses his mind.
Why did Diane give Dan shit for being late for their date? Woman you’ve been kidnapped! And if Dan didn’t get taken by Karvanista and went to see ya, he would also been taken by Azure, and they wouldn’t mean anything to the Doctor, they’d be killed immediately.
I didn’t think the angels were scary in this season. Using old scary faces from previous seasons.
#WeNeedRussell
Of course Bel needed to be pregnant. She had to use the baby monitor in the last episode... to... to... er, to do something or other, not completely sure what it was but it must have been important. Yes, definitely important. :D