Here we are folks, a new season of Doctor Who, and if we’re to believe the trailer, it’s the most epic adventure yet.
So, you know, business as usual.
Last night I sat down with some leftover Halloween treats and readied myself for a new Who format after almost two years of drought.
Before we dig into this episode and season, I realize I haven’t written weekly reviews of the series before and, considering the vastness of fandom and the millions of opinions out there, I think it’s important to share where I stand in all this.
My Best Version of the show lies somewhere between the Second and Fifth Doctor. At its peak it’s kind of like a science nerd that doesn’t quite get the whole picture but the spirit is there. Someone who inspires excitement, revels in mischief, capable of a dry joke or two, and is forced to make some horrible decisions. Although I love all Doctors, Three and Four probably rank lowest on my list – I just don’t connect as well, although I recognize some of Four’s high points and particularly love Leela.
I started with New Who, so Ninth is my first Doctor, and it’s pretty tough for me in general to rank New Doctors. Each one had such a huge impact on the show and came with the pros and cons of the showrunner. Do I pick Eleven for being my perfect Doctor, even though his last year and half was full of Moffat trash? Do I pick Twelve for a wonderfully complex Doctor even though I had issues with Missy and straight up hated Nardole? Ultimately, it might just be too soon to know. Maybe it takes twenty or thirty years for a Doctor to properly settle in our minds.
THAT SAID.
I haven’t been a huge fan of the Thirteenth Doctor. It’s by far not the fault of Jodie Whittaker, who is doing all she can with the role. Although the companions are a little more hit and miss, I don’t mind them much either. Honestly, there’s something about the new seasons that can sometimes be good television but aren’t always good Doctor Who. As a fan, it’s a hard aura to pin down and describe, and it’s certainly different for every person. Doctor Who can be poorly written, woodenly acted, haphazardly thrown together by the props departement, defunded, censored, and canceled, but there is a core that remains Who-ish. Basically, even when Ace is running around through plastic sheets or crawling in a TARDIS that can no longer afford to have its lights on, it still feels like you’re watching the same show as “Robots of Death.” “The Lazarus Experiment” is the same show as “Hell Bent,” etc.
I love that Doctor Who is a show that can reboot itself and try new formats and styles, can constantly play around with what stories it tells and how – it can choose to focus on the companions, on the Doctor, on the monsters (my least favorite, granted), on the science, on space opera, on history, on anything really. It’s very impressed upon fans, and subsequently espoused by fans, that the show can be any thing at any time and that it’s all the same show. Which is why I’m struggling so hard to articulate how that’s all still very true and at the same time Chibnall’s era doesn’t feel right to me. Series 12 was a huge improvement on Series 11, granted, and I’m still sitting tight for Series 13 and whatever it brings me, but the best episodes of Series 12 were rooted in a particular genre (horror and spy) that I don’t see reflected in this premiere. Although the show has a definite new style and sensibility, and it can often be quite beautiful, that style often mutes the emotions and energy out of the show.
This era is very keen on asking questions, particularly the Doctor asking questions, like, “why is this happening to me,” “why don’t I know about this,” “what’s this guy’s real deal,” “for what reason do these aliens want to invade Earth.” And while these are all very valid questions, they’re set up like central mysteries to the show that are supposed to get viewers interested. But it’s Doctor Who, we’ve had sixty years of Earth invasions! For ages and ages the Doctor has been targeted by enemies – it’s not that big a deal! Pushing every day questions to the forefront really makes the show and writing look weak, like it’s grasping at straws to hold the audience’s attention. It’s like yes, okay, I get that there’s a big monster out there, can we get back to that conversation about the Doctor being awful to her friends? No matter how many times we have that conversation it never feels properly addressed. I’m one of the people who is simply going to patiently wait for the tides to turn, this isn’t the death knell of the show by any means, but I am quite confused by a lot of the decisions being made. While trying to keep as open a mind about this series as possible, it’s inevitable that some of that bias will seep in.
The Actual Review of the Episode
So let’s start with the things I liked! Being Chapter One, of a six-episode overarching story a la “Trial of the Time Lord,” there were quite a few concepts and characters introduced. The Lupari are extremely cute, and I loved their obligatory bond with a human. I wonder how both people who prefer cats and people who are cats feel about this. Karvinista’s little fluffy ears were a highlight. Are there different breeds of Lupari?
The guy who worked at Observation Outpost Rose? Pretty dope. I cared about him because they gave him a sense of humor and I could feel how lonely and stranded he felt out there. He fit so much character (wonder at the universe, pissed off at his boss) into his short screen time! More of that guy please. I keep thinking Rose is obviously going to tie into this somehow although I’m willing to just let fandom do that work. I would be so tired if it actually happened but it’s something I would expect anyway.
I love it when the TARDIS goes wonky.
Glitter demons? Fairly rad. Like, medium rad. I don’t really care about how evil they are or their history with the Doctor (are you trying to retcon the Master, really???) but the sister has bomb ass blue glitter eyeshadow and the affect they have while disintegrating people is pretty. Also glitter demons is pretty great as a monster concept. I wish they took themselves just a bit less seriously, but this era isn’t really going for camp, is it. Or is it? Hard to tell.
The episode did a lot of work to set up a problem on an epic scale. It also, obliquely, continued some of the themes and questions of “The Timeless Child.” (Writing down how I feel about that development would take another thousand or so words so I’ll just skip it for now.) The Flux, we learn, is a huge mass in space of…something… that is disintegrating everything in its path, causing planets to fold in on themselves and wiping out galaxies. So, our overarching enemy is a faceless object/concept that apparently can’t be stopped. This makes the Sontarans happy, as they prepare for war and continue to be awkward comic relief. This makes the Lupari work to save humanity and protect the earth. The Weeping Angels react by…being around. The Doctor’s oldest enemy that she can’t even remember and whose name didn’t even stick with me (it’s Swarm) is re-establishing long dormant psychic links and generally excited to rehash centuries old rivalries because turning people into glitter is fun. And while Swarm is a visible face to the evil this season, the heavy prosthetics and masks make it incredibly hard for the actor to emote and get anything across the the screen. Dampening. While an alien lifeform unlike the corporeal ones we generally know it’s an instant plot killer – at least Star Trek doesn’t seem to think so – it is a much more difficult narrative to handle, and I’m not sure I have confidence in the current Doctor Who team to do it. So far the Flux has killed a bunch of planets and hovered menacingly in the atmosphere while people react to it. Maybe learning more about it (and the way it moves, if it can be directed somewhere) will make the arc and themes clearer.
Dan, now joining the crew, probably only through happenstance for these six episodes, certainly has listable personality qualities, but I don’t feel them. I know he’s selfless, loves Liverpool, doesn’t mind impersonating a tour guide, is too proud to take donated food, lives to help others, likes football, and likes to smile – but everything he does and says still feels very ho hum and by the numbers. I think is part of the mattefying effect I was talking about earlier, but there hopefully a future episode will give more nuance. It’s funny, though, how quickly I took the the bored station worker who very endearingly signed off to his superiors. In terms of quick character sketches and introductions, it’s a lesson in polar opposites.
I can’t help but feel a little indifferent to this chapter. There has certainly been worse Who, but, as is almost always the case with Chibnall, there has certainly been better. It’s mediocrity becomes a sort of exhaustion because you’re just waiting for the show to do something – and then when it swings for the fences it’s almost too much at once with no pay off. We were introduced to a couple in one scene and they died in the next. If we were supposed to care about them the show didn’t communicate it very well. This episode was heavy on set up and teasing out where the rest might lead, so by nature it was never going to be the best of the season. By introducing all the familiar (and unfamiliar) monsters and setting up some personal mysteries, we got some cute setpieces (I particularly enjoyed the good use of angels again) but mostly just characters standing around telling the viewer who they are. How does 1820s Liverpool tie in? Who can say, we’ll find out next week.
End Notes:
- what the hell is with an indescribably old monster, straight out of supermax prison saying “trick or treat” straight to the camera as some sort of threat directed at the Doctor. Why did Yaz repeat it. Why was it supposed to feel significant in any way? I’m tired.
- the use of “long way round” makes me a) incredibly excited and b) hope we’ll see Gallifrey by the end of the seeires
- a lot of nice history nods in this one: nitro-9, the TARDIS doors landing sideways, Scottish voice activation
- Yaz and the Doctor just have a mattress casually set up in the TARDIS console roome presumably for soft landings and…other things
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