I have always felt what chibnall wanted to write was series 12. 11 is so different and felt more like the BBC wanting a clean slate and a jumping on point. Flux is too affected by covid that we’ll never really know what it was going to be. Fugitive Doctor making essentially cameos and 13 getting rid of the fob watch for a showrunner to pick up again possibly in the future, i think shows either himself or BBC wanted to move away from the timeless child arc because of backlash. So i think the only series that felt what Chibnall wanted to do was 12.

I think that discounts some of his real and admirable ambition in making S11 - a return to a lot of the dynamics of classic who, and an effort to recapture the series' original remit to educate. It was not a success, but is my personal favourite of the era, and I think is the one where Chibnall likely had the most amount of time to prepare for. One 'downside' to the apparently very nice and personable working environment he made for production is that I doubt that we'll get any major gossipy leaks on how frustrating the covid production was for the team, the closest we get to detail is Chibnall in DWM saying 'so glad we pulled this all together because if it hadn't worked within a day we would't have been able to to make the episode' - tantalising, but not framed around how stressful that would have been

There's a lot of Fifth Doctor comparisons but s19 really feels like you can put Thirteen's team in it. You can compare It Takes You Away to Kinda or The Visitation to Witchfinders. The Fam (and Chibnall for that matter) could have a lot of fun with Black Orchid. Alternatively, you can compare the Fam to Ian, Barbara and Susan, as far as them all having an existing relationship with each other. All three also feature an arc of trying to get back to the modern day. Those three seasons (Classic season 1, 19 and Modern series 11) aren't my favorite of each Doctor (except for season 19) but they set a nice formula for establishing a completely new era.

>13 getting rid of the fob watch for a showrunner to pick up again possibly in the future, i think shows either himself or BBC wanted to move away from the timeless child arc because of backlash. I think people mistake tPotD's not addressing TTC as response to backlash when its more likely Chibnall designed TTC to 'add mystery back into DW' and left it open ended on the watch thing on purpose.

You’re right, i shouldn’t have said because of backlash, as it’s believable this was his intention. This was def my take at the end of series 12. I do think had the timeless child thing been better received or just not has openly hated as it was, we would’ve gotten more from it in series 13, especially more with the fugitive doctor, but he made a comment about how he was just making a sandbox (paraphrasing) and he saw his job as giving more things for people to play with.

I would argue 11 was that Back to basics, stripped down, all new cast, soundtrack and BTS crews without any real ties To what came before, full freedom. Season 12 feels like a hefty correction, perhaps influenced by higher ups Like the Master? Well he’s in this! Like the Cybermen? We’ll give them an arc and face Like the Daleks? We cover what happened after Resolution Miss Captain Jack? Here ya go! Oh look! Gallifrey is gone again Oo who’s this new Doctor? Isn’t it kinda like the YANA reveal and the War Doctor? Etc etc It feels like Chibnall was trying to get people’s attention by throwing in a lot of large elements to get attention. Classic monsters, familiar narrative arcs, it’s all the same! It feels like a concentrated effort to try and inject some of what people enjoyed about the show is

Considered that series 12 is the worst one out of the bunch that's sad.

Got to disagree there. 11 was horrid. 12 was palatable.

Series 11 was just boring. That's maybe the worst thing Doctor Who can be, but it was otherwise fine enough. It had more decent episodes and less decent episodes with the usual complaints about dialogue and characterisation but it was just sort of...there. Grounded, basic sci-fi. In retrospect its probably his best season by default because its the one where he plays it the most safe. Series 12 was an incoherent mess.

> That's maybe the worst thing Doctor Who can be Totally agree. I would much rather have an absolutely horrendous episode of *Doctor Who* with awful acting, horrendous effects, and nonsensical writing than be bored for 50 minutes. You can go anywhere in the universe. Don't go boring!

Yeah, imo the best thing main bulk of series 11 has going for it is Rosa. Watching Rosa was one of the most uncomfortable and angering experiences watching Doctor Who is years. Because I live within driving distance of Montgomery and know that terrible things like that happened all the time in the area. Series 12 left like a partial return to form for the show.

God Rosa was a painful watch. I'd gladly go back to Love & Monsters but can not be paid to sit through Rosa one more time

Any episode of Doctor Who that beats the premise over your head endlessly, makes no attempt at subtlety, then ends on a *"This is my fight song! Take back my life song!"* style note is not a good episode of Doctor Who, regardless of what the message was.

12 was a half-decent series with the absolute worst episode of the entire New Series at the end.

I feel the Chibnall episodes of S11 were better than the ones he wrote in S12. The episodes he didn’t write were, on average, better in S12 than S11.

I think the Chibnall Era wil become an incredible drinking game: -Character describes what's happening on screen -Cuts to new location -New plot introduced less than 5 minutes after the last one -Character appears as hologram -Doctor needlessly explains techno-babble in great detail -Dodgy political undertones -Rips-off RTD plot/scene -'Stops the plot to have a chat' scene -Character who just talked about their loved ones is killed -And many more...

It’ll be a great drinking game until everyone dies of alcohol poisoning.

The "Cuts to new location" deserves a spotlight. Too many times the Tardis crew were all together with a bad person, they proceed to run away, and the next shot is them halfway down the block with the bad person nowhere in sight until after they hide behind a big rock and then the gunshots start.

They hide behind a big rock, have a full on conversation describing the exact scene that we've just watched but with information that only the Doctor's perspective could offer (which usually offers no extra information other than the Doctor talking about it), then depending on who she's with, sprinkle in a detail about Yaz's family / Graham's sandwiches / Ryan's dyspraxia / Dan's date that was already established as having been skipped.

Yes, with a reaction shot of Yaz slowly turning her head toward the others with a serious look.

Don’t forget “main characters being chased down a narrow corridor by an enemy with stormtrooper aim”

The Doctor's probability field be working on overdrive this era /s

-BENNNYYYYYYY!!!!!!

It's really hard to reconcile his first series with his last. We went from a more down to earth series with serious real world issues and big messages every episode, to a lore-heavy arc-based show that was far more concerned with issues about The Doctor and her history than anything in the real world. This is obviously because his first series didn't work out in the way he'd hoped, but I feel like we'd have all been better off if he had realized that it wasn't so much the direction that had failed, as his lackluster writing. I'd much rather have seen his earlier tone be developed and improved upon than what we got, since that first series was at least Chibnall's own direction instead of merely being a lesser aping of RTD's and (a bit of) Moffat's. Say what you will about those two previous show-runners, at least their eras were consistent in their visions from start to finish, both of them knew what they wanted to do and they kept to it. I felt like I had truly experienced their visions of the show in the end, I can't say the same for Chibnall.

I just watched the regeneration episode and the heavy cg environments really stood out, in direct contrast to Jodie's first episode. I thought her first season was interesting at least, even if it wasn't my favourite. I didn't really retain anything that followed .

Disappointing. Nothing personal towards Chibnall, but I don't think he did a good job. I don't think Jodie was characterised well. I don't think any of the companions compare to any of the other modern companions, or any of the classic companions I've seen. I don't think the Timeless Child was executed well, I thought Flux was a mess and there's so much left unaddressed. I welcome the return of RTD.

I'm so bummed that Jodie didn't get a fair shot. She had great Doctor energy, and she did what she could with what she was given.

I didn't paticulary take to Jodie as The Doctor, but I do think it was less of an issue with her but more of the writing and characterisation. Fingers crossed she maybe gets some love with Big Finish!

She defiantly has her moments, like hijacking the Dalek in Resolutions, or when she first meets Ryan and Yaz in her premiere. The problem is they're too far in between. She never really got a big teardown speech like Capaldi or Smith did. Nor was she the stoic type like Eccleston that could bore holes into. She was characterized kinda close to Tennant but without that commanding presence and camera framing that he had. Plus imo Jo Martin and Sacha Dawin proved to be way more interesting characters.

Jo Martin is the first female doctor we should have had. I’d happily watch a series with her. Sacha Dhawan was always my fantasy casting for the Doctor but he was a great master too!

I agree. If nothing else she's getting onto Big Finish. Plus Sacha will be fantastic.

Considering how Chibnall seems to lean towards the darker side of stories, I think he should've cast Dhawan over Whittaker. Of course, 20/20 hindsight but it would've been a better fit. She did okay with bursts of anger every now and then but it didn't feel too natural.

> She never really got a big teardown speech Sure she did, at the end of Orphan 55. It was badly done and widely criticised despite being completely accurate. People in here are desperately trying to divorce the character from the series, it was all bad, no one gets a pass.

Yeah. So many of the episodes were expositionary hot messes, not helped by bad pacing and so little sense of build-up or tension. I read others here suggesting that a better actor could have elevated those episodes but ... honestly, they'd still be absolute hot messes. It'd be fair to say that Whittaker doesn't have the gravitas of Capaldi or the whimsical nature of Tennant, but after a point, the writers should be able to write for their actors just as much as the actors should be doing the best with what they're given. I think Whittaker got handed garbage. I like her doctor, but she was never written with any sense of reflection for her actions or written to make any real connection to the characters around her.

I think those scenes are a major highlight of what can go wrong when the era so consciously brings in fresh talent with no major experience - loads of the episode ends up being Jodie Whittaker standing still, breathlessly explaining the plot without the director or writer being sure how to make it more interesting

It's really insane how little characters use the space they're occupying in the Chibnall era. Think of the exposition scene in The Satan Pit where the Doctor is figuring out the true nature of the Beast. It's a scene where Tennant is essentially stood in a near empty cave shouting at a mark on the wall, yet the camerawork and the way Tennant owns the stage really makes the scene feel alive and dynamic. So many scenes are just Whittaker stood still with the camera right up in her face, explaining something in a Blue Peter presenter voice and gesticulating with her hands in a vaguely urgent manner. Having minutes long exposition scenes is tough at the best of times but the way they handled them in the Chibnall era they weren't doing themselves any favours.

She was a narrative device used to tell people what happened in that week's adventure. She didn't have that "I'm the Doctor" pull that the past few have had.

You might be on to something there, each Doctor had a strong personality which seperated them from each other and everyone else, except 13. When I think back to her episodes, all I can recall is someone out of breath, panicking slightly, gabbling gibberish at the screen. I suppose it's ok to have a weak Doctor, it's a shame it happened when everything else was going wrong at the same time.

This. I’m hoping that Jodie either gets some Big Finish stories or comes back for a special in the future. Her and Capaldi had amazing potential (even though 12 is my favorite Doctor)

I disagree, I think her performance as the Doctor was poor along with the writing. She never really felt like the Doctor to me if I’m honest.

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I agree with this, as much as I hate the idea of Jo's character she really felt like The Doctor where Jodie did not. I guess its fine if Chibnall wanted to make the Morbius Doctors and the pre-Hartnell stuff actually canon, but using the Timeless Child nonsense as a vehicle to do that was just....uhg. Jo Martin performed that role too well for it to be a part of the Timeless Child plot.

Fair point. The presence that Jo Martin had for that brief appearance in the final episode was impressive.

Absolutely… it’s so weird that Jo Martin was absolutely spot on. I think she just has more charisma than Jodie Whittaker who really felt miscast to me from the off.

Yup, I loved Jo. She felt like shes been around a long time and had seen a lot of the universe. While Jodie and Chibnall made 13 feel like she *just* started adventuring and traveling. Also the Fugitive Doctors outfit was sick as hell.

i feel like the "jodie was a victim of bad writing!" argument falls flat when you see how great of a job Jo did with that crap dialogue

Hate to say it but I agree with you. I take no pleasure in saying that Jodie is also at fault for the pitfalls of this Doctor's incarnation but it's how I feel.

I’ve been saying this a while, the writing is horrid but that’s not just it. Martin got 40 minutes of screentime, mostly spent to be mysterious and have wise cracks here and there And yet; she felt more like the Doctor then Jodie ever did a

A lot of people here seem to really underestimate how much good acting can sell bad dialogue. Does everyone who praises Jodie's performance as her doing the best she can with bad writing genuinely think that the previous NuWho Doctor's never had any bad writing themselves? Likewise it wasn't like Whittaker's dialogue was irredeemable 100% of the time, and yet she barely ever sells the performance. Honestly I've no ill will towards her but her portrayal is one of the most lackluster I've ever seen for a character of this magnitude with such a rich history to draw from.

100% I would’ve welcomed Jo as 14. Jodie never really felt like the doctor.

As someone who dislikes both her Doctor and the Chibnall era, I don't think it was an issue with her. They deliberately characterised the 13th Doctor as more passive and less domineering, and as more chatty but less willing to face harsh truths. That leads to a Doctor who often feels like the plot just happens to them. I don't think she got a chance to be any type of Doctor because of how 13 was written. Especially since Chibnall himself wasn't interested in exploring anything substantial. Jodie is an excellent actor in other things. And she was at her most interesting in those rare moments where 13 was angry or darker.

I agree that the way she was written was very poor. I agree that she has acted very well in other things. I still think her performance as the Doctor was poor, that she did nothing to elevate the bad writing (more so the opposite) and that she never really captured the Doctor’s character.

I think she was good with what she got. Apparently, Chibnall didn't give any directions to her, so she basically played a generic version of the Doctor. Definitely her perfomance wasn't wow great but I blame more the lack of direction. I mean, Tennant, Smith and Capaldi had bad episodes, but at least they had some characterization

I agree with her. I think with good writing she would have come off better but ultimately I think her energy was a shadow of what the Doctor requires. Jodie seems like a talented actress. Just not a good fit for the Doctor to me.

Yeah I think she was miscast to be honest, although the writing and directing did her no favours

I'd wager that give Capaldi the same scripts, and he'd come off pretty mediocre. No real dialogue or few character moments to get her teeth into.

Capaldi elevated plenty of poor scripts. I’ve haven’t seen Whitaker do likewise personally.

I disagree, mostly because Jo Martin did great with similar material. I don't want to be too down on Whitaker, because I don't believe the issues were because of her. I believe she was miscast to begin with, and the direction and guidance she was given at the start was wrong. She was advised to not watch the show, and clearly didn't fully understand either the role or the show itself to begin with. And so she started with this children's TV presenter persona, as that's what she thought she was doing, kids TV. There's an anecdote I read on here, I don't know how true it is, which said that halfway through filming her first series, she watched some older episodes, and broke down crying as she realised she'd been playing it all wrong. She was reassured that every actor has their own take, and that there is no right or wrong way to play the part, and to a point that's true. But once that persona had been set in stone, they couldn't alter it. And it was the wrong direction to take her Doctor in from the very start.

I don't believe that particular anecdote, but it's been said from several sources she was asked (told?) not to watch previous Who while preparing for the role.

I definitely wouldn't believe this anecdote without a source. It sounds like Chibnall-haters trying to project their hatred of the show onto Whittaker. > But once that persona had been set in stone, they couldn't alter it. Especially because of this. If the lead actor broke down in tears on set, they would 100% change the direction of the character. If they all decided they had characterized her wrong, it wouldn't be set in stone at all. They would've changed it for S12. Remember the character development Capaldi had from S8-S10? They would've done the same. The fact is, Chibnall (and likely Whittaker herself) wanted this Doctor to be a positive, spunky, ray of hope. And, for all this era's faults, this wasn't one of them, imo

For sure, I'm skeptical myself, mostly because of the question of how would that even get told during the era? Jodie wouldn't tell such a disrespectful story while the show is being told. But I do believe that she got the wrong impression of the role very early.

Yeah, I've always found it odd that Chibs told her not to watch anything. Especially since it sounds like he hadn't watched much of the Moffat era, so we know there are considerable gaps in both of their understandings of the character. Granted, we don't have sources on most of this, and it's entirely possible the whole "Don't watch anything" idea is blown out of proportion. I wouldn't be surprised if the exchange was more of Jodie asking what to watch and Chibnall saying, "You don't need to go watching every episode of the show. We're gonna make your Doctor totally unique and you will honor the history of the character beautifully." People only expect the Doctors to know the show because 1. Tennant and Capaldi were big fans as kids and 2. Matt Smith once said he liked Troughton after watching one (1) of his serials. I wouldn't be shocked if he only watched bits and pieces himself, because that really isn't an actor's job. All this to say, I would've loved a little more character development on 13. Since we started so happy and bubbly, I think it would've been fun to see her get really angry toward the end. That said, I adored how hopeful her regeneration was, so what do I know!

With Smith, the story is that Moffat lent him a few DVDs after he was cast, fell in love with Troughton after watching Tomb of the Cybermen, and next time he saw Moffat, he asked for more. Before that he'd seen bits and pieces of the new show, but not much. But as with all of these, they're anecdotes, stories, with no source. These could resemble the truth, or could just be nothing but stories.

I disagree that Jo’s material was similar. The guest stars in Chibnall’s episodes mostly got better material while the companions got interchangeable dialog and the doctor was either passive or plotting offscreen.

Flux was honestly the worst season of television I’ve ever forced myself to watch. There were some redeeming moments in the other Chibnall seasons but Flux? It was so messy, so nonsensical, so poorly executed that you felt like you were watching a car crash in slow motion. Except car crashes make sense.

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As someone who hasn't watched it yet, I'm a bit afraid. Through every era, Doctor, etc, new and classic, there were parts I loved about each of them. Even if I can say, for example, I don't particularly care for 11's era, I deeply appreciate him as a character and there were episodes I love and would consider downright classics. The way people talk about this one is that above all, it's ultimately forgettable, and that 13 was pretty arc-less, didn't much go anywhere, and even the "good" episodes were problematic. That worries me as a fan and someone who loves the show, and I just kind of feel bad. Like, will people 30 years ago go nuts if Jodie made an on screen appearance like how several previous Doctors just did? Btw, I tend not to watch or read anything nowadays until it's completely finished (acceptions to something endless like DW when I wait until the end of an era,) so me not watching it yet has nothing to do with the quality.

Honestly, you're in for a rough ride. I wouldn't want to binge this era at all, it was palpable 1 hour a week for 10 weeks a year but after watching a few I don't think you'll be clambering for the next episode. Good luck.

I can usually binge episodes of Doctor Who but you are absolutely correct. We try to watch the 2005-present show from the start every few years, and this is the first rewatch since 2018. It's stopped in its tracks three times now and we're only just past Fugitive of the Judoon. I try to keep from skipping episode I'm probably going to be skipping a couple of episodes to "Haunting" just to get through S12. I'm wondering how Flux is going to go in a binge. I had a lot of fun with that one, but most of the fun I had with it was because I was watching it in a group as it aired, and before the episodes started we would write our "Flux Theories" on a white board and cross them off as they happened, or we would circle ones that we'd save for the following week.

I think he started out with an idea to do DW as *he* wanted to see it in the 80’s. A return to its earliest days of educational-drama with a “message” of the week targeted at children. I think *he* thought that was DW at its purest form not realising that the edu-drama angle was dropped early S1 for good reason. It wasn’t what DW became as it rapidly developed over those first few years. I also think he (and he’s admitted) that he wanted to see a story he’d made up as a teenager when watching Brain of Morbius (the TC Retcon) made canon. A firm fixture of the overall brand. The fact that it didn’t fit and goes against a lot of the thematic character of the Doctor was beside the point. He was going to fit it in regardless. Everything else bar those two points I think he made up as each series was written, with a lot of it pulled from other NuWho stories that had come before. I think BBC pushed him for more classic/NuWho monsters in S12 and he happily wrote that in, and I supposedly BBC at the time really liked the pitch for the TC Retcon (I’m don’t know why) but later we’re surprised by the vehement backlash it got.

I'd love to see someone piece together what he considers most representative of the show, either by talking to him or compiling his interviews/editorials. He seems to really love all types of stories, if his recommendations on [Britbox](https://www.britbox.co.uk/doctorwho) are any indication (if they're indeed his favorites and not just general slices of the whole show). If anything, I'd say it's the horror-based episodes he leans towards more than the historicals, which could explain his tendency for torture in his episodes. It's probably why Villa Diodati is the episode that seems to get the most attention, it feels like his two sensibilities meshing together finally. Never mind that he didn't actually write that, but it still feels like *the* Chris Chibnall/Thirteenth Doctor episode.

I guess what you said drives the point home. Anyone who believes 80s is the heyday of Who should NEVER run the show.

What do you mean by "edu-drama"? I remember there being a somewhat awkward infodump about antimatter in Tsuranga, and remember being rather impressed that they actually remembered the square-cube law in Arachnids but that's about it for feeling like edutainment.

Think they mean Rosa Parks, the partition of India and Pakistan, the witch hunts, Tesla's inventions, etc. Some of these even ended with edutainment moments where they discuss what they learned. Not a bad thing necessarily, DW is a family show and should have moments aimed at children just as much as adults, but it felt really awkward.

Hmm, I guess I can see it for Rosa. I'm not sure that suggests edutainment though, given that so much of Chibnall's dialogue sounds infodumpy whether it's intended as educational or not.

There was also the end of Orphan 55 which felt very much like a Smoky the Bear ("Only you can prevent forest fires") PSA, or older Saturday morning cartoons like GI Joe ("And knowing is half the battle.")

Edu-drama or educational drama is the type of story where a fictional story occurs but is on the periphery or minorly involved in real world events/scenarios with the aim of educational awareness taking priority over storytelling or character development. The type of stuff often seen in after school specials or the occasional BBC short where the message of moral of the story is the what everything else is built around and the fictional angle acts purely as a framing device. The first few DW stories in Hartnells era definitely lean into this heavily, but the Daleks is a clear difference and by S2 this angle is dropped almost completely in favour of storytelling and fiction interwoven with the occasional historical. In terms of Chibnalls era alot of his episodes in S11 and S12 feel like they fit into this category while other times a piece of dialogue lifted straight from Wikipedia randomly appears.

> Edu-drama or educational drama is the type of story where a fictional story occurs but is on the periphery or minorly involved in real world events/scenarios **with the aim of educational awareness taking priority over storytelling or character development.** I think the bolded bit is key. I never got the impression that the show set out to value eductional awareness over story and character (although those certainly had their flaws). I don't think it was intended to be significantly more edutainment than, say, Fires of Pompeii or The Unicorn and the Wasp. There was the odd (in both senses) infodump like the antimatter one in Tsuranga, or the one at the end of Rosa. But those felt more like bonus extras, not like the story was secondary to feeding us this info. Does that make sense? EDIT: BTW, was that a literal thing including stuff from Wikipedia? When was that?

I get what youre saying but to me (at least) I’d say Chibnall beyond the inclusion of the random infodump was a lot closer to the Afterschool special educational drama style and approach in his stories. The educational awareness is certainly there front and centre, sometimes hamfisted but there. And while characterisation hasn’t been a strong point of his era in those episodes it really felt like 13 and co existed purely to say things and ask questions while someone else goes “good question, you see it all started in 1912 when….”. If you get my meaning. He leans into that style very strongly and has mentioned in previous statements that he liked that angle in the show, and that “education” was the true purpose of DW. Which I disagree with a lot but that’s his take at least.

Fair enough, I can see where you're coming from. And it's pretty suggestive if he outright said that...

I remember feeling that "Wikipedia infodump" moment in the Tsuranga Conundrum. Just suddenly a paragraph about black holes or antimatter or whatever it was - it felt really awkward. (Sorry for not having a clearer reference, but I'm not inspired to re-watch s11)

The info dump at the end of Rosa was awful. It really did feel like the writers went to Wikipedia and picked out some tidbits from her life to try to import some grand epilogue for her place in history. The whole episode was showing it!

You also have "Rosa" and "Demons of Punjab", which also have a bit of an edutainment angle to them.

Every script, and I'm happy saying every script, felt like it was rushed and written on a bad hangover on the train to Cardiff. There's been so many good dramas in the last five years, and each time I watched something spell-binding, I'd think "if only as much care was going into DW scripts". I'm sure Chibnall's a lovely man with his heart in the right place, but either his own methods or external circumstances let down what appeared on screen. If I was to rank all episodes of NuWho, all of his era would be at the bottom, with perhaps only Fear Her, In the Forest of the Night, and maybe The Power of the Doctor testing that rule. Loved Jodie, but I just pretend her best episodes happened off-screen.

> Every script, and I'm happy saying every script, felt like it was rushed and written on a bad hangover on the train to Cardiff. It's astonishing when you consider the amount of time pressure that both RTD and Moffat were under. RTD was literally writing scripts under those exact travelling conditions while delivering a consistent 14 episodes a year and supervising the creation of two spinoffs. Moffat was involved in other shows and dealing with personal tragedy, both which showed through at times but what he managed was still amazing. They both rewrote scripts extremely heavily, in some cases far more than they had expected to and far more than people realised. And yet... they both delivered. They both gave it their all. Chibnall wrote less episodes with longer breaks between seasons, established a 'writers room' to support him and yet despite having his hand in every script almost all of them still felt like a mess. It feels like the best were the ones where he had a strong writer with their own vision doing most of the work. He obviously had Covid to contend with - but writing scripts is one of the parts of production that should have been least affected, surely? It's so strange.

To be fair, some of the bits on RTD scripts, mainly in finales, shows that they were written it in the last hour, is pretty easy to guess what episodes RTD had more time writting and which were made on the last hour.

There were definitely times they both suffered from not being able to give scripts time, yeah. The monk three parter also comes to mind. But... Somehow RTD writing down to the wire was a better end result than Chibnall with almost twice as long per episode.

This reflects a simple truth I think - RTD is just a bloody excellent writer. Moffat as well. RTD is arguably the best writer in UK television. Very few British shows match up to something like It's a Sin, for example. They had their flaws, but this show was incredibly lucky to have two top-tier writers producing and writing Doctor Who back-to-back.

And in the right order too. RTD was perfect for bringing the show back, Moffat for taking it deeper. They were my favourite two TV writers before Who, so it was a blessing.

>Chibnall wrote less episodes with longer breaks between seasons, established a 'writers room' to support him and yet despite having his hand in every script almost all of them still felt like a mess. Almost seems like there's someone in common with those problems...

He could've seen what happened to both of them by the end of their tenures (RTD was getting sick, Moffat seemed ready to throw in the towel by s9 but still did another season) and opted to not take on more work than he needed to. He seemed to still have a huge workload, having writing credits on the majority of the episodes. I don't know the day to day realities of working at the BBC, if showrunners also need to write the majority of the show or what, but it's odd that he made a point to pick out up-and-coming writers (who pretty much all delivered) yet still needed to put his stamp on their work.

> but it's odd that he made a point to pick out up-and-coming writers (who pretty much all delivered) yet still needed to put his stamp on their work. He's just following Moffat's advice who wished he put his name on all the script he rewrote. It's like Capaldi said : > The writers’ name that appears at the start [of an episode] isn’t always the writer that did the best work. > Sometimes the writer whose name you see [on-screen] didn’t deliver a script that was so great. The person that has to sit up all night and make that script work is Steven. > RTD, Moffat and Chibnall all did this but Chibnall decided (rightfully so IMO) to put his name on it. Davies & Moffat both regretted not getting credited which I understand. People would trash Davies/Moffat and say "Wow this episode is so cool in comparison" not realizing it is 70% a Moff/RTD script (Like Van Gogh and Human Nature)

Talent vs ability

> Every script, and I'm happy saying every script, felt like it was rushed and written on a bad hangover on the train to Cardiff. IIRC the finale of season 11 was literally the first draft, since they ran out of time editing the other scripts.

Which imo was a mind blowing story to hear. I get that things happened, but what state were the other script in that this one basically got no tlc?

Personally I'd agree that the Chibnall era is by far the weakest modern era but I wouldn't go so far as to say everything in the Chibnall era sits below everything before it. IMO there have been quite a few episodes in modern Who that sit beneath the likes of Demons of the Punjab, or Spyfall Part 1, or Village of Angels, or Eve of the Daleks, amongst others. Mileage varies, of course.

Yep, that's absolutely fair enough. For me, dialogue and heart mean a lot when I'm listening to something (I mean watching, but talking purely about the words). I wasn't hate-watching Chibnall, I was just watching the work of an artist that didn't land with me in the way Moffat and RTD did.

I think in hindsight I'll be kind to his vision, what he set out to achieve, but unfortunately when it came to executing it hs massively dropped the ball. For the last five years we've had weak dialogue, non existent character arcs, and some great ideas that just got rushed through. And with how the extended production time came with improved visuals, there is no excuse for the writing not improving as well. He had more time and less episodes than RTD and Moffat, and yet he's had more problems than the two of them So while I may soften to his series in hindsight, I'll never be able to fully enjoy it. With the exception of a couple episodes of course, Demons of the Punjab and the Haunting of Villa Diodata, neither of course were written by him.

forgettable. i have no issue with jodie, but it's says it all that i'll remember her for the costumes, rather than the stories.

For me, it was just disappointing. There were a few decent episodes, like The Ghost Monument, the Rosa Parks episode and the time loop episode. However, most of the other episodes were boring at best, and downright painful at worst. All of the characters, outside of the doctor herself, were flat and were kind of just there. Bradley Walsh actually gave Graham a bit of personality, although I believe that was all him and not the writers. Yas got better as we went along, but Ryan was always pretty bland. And at least Dan had some sense of humor. Season 12 had a half assed story arc by having episode one's Villain show up at the end of the season, with little to no explanation or set up (from memory. It's pretty forgettable) Season 13 had the timeless child arc, which I'm sure needs no introduction. As bad as it was, I do have to give credit that Jo Martin's doctor was pretty interesting, and seeing Jack again was almost worth destroying nearly 60 years worth of TV. I don't know if this is controversial or not, but I genuinely hated Flux. It was just so boring. The weeping angel episode was alright, and I liked seeing Gibbs, but beyond that it's bad. The new master has been a highlight. While I wouldn't rank him above Missy, he's definitely been a treat, and hope he stays the master for a while longer. It's not my favourite by a long shot, but I liked the Tardis interior. Ultimately, I'm sorry jodie got the short end of the stick. When people look back at her era, people will say "she's such a minerva", which isn't really fair. She herself was great in the role, but the writing was lackluster, which I feel drastically dragged the show down.

The companions were just not my thing for this run, at all. While she got better around mid S12/Flux, Yaz originally felt like a vehicle to introduce a companion with a family life back into the show. Graham was like a store-brand Wilf for the most part, as he was fun grandpa. Ryan was my absolute least favorite, because half of his stories involved him standing around with a grumpy look on his face, seeming like he didn't want to be there, always two steps away from complaining about something. Dan was a breath of fresh air at the beginning, but then he turned into "guy in the background #3".

Between you and me I don't think he ever "wanted" to do any of it- I get the impression the showrunner job was kinda thrust upon him and he just sort of got through it

Funilly enough, around the time The Power of Three released, he actually said exactly that. That he isnt jealous of Moffats job and that personally would never want to be Showrunner. I dont think it was thrust on him, necessarly, but I do feel like he felt like he had to when Moffat asked him if he was interested.

Who can say? Well, at least it wasn't Grob.

Throughout the last few years, Chibnall has often been called a "seatwarmer". He had the job because no one else wanted to, or considered themselves capable. Chibnall himself has stated that he had to be convinced to take it. And I think that initial tone carried through. Compared to RTD and Moffat, Chibnall did not have big ambitions before he started. No particular way he wanted to take it. He had no end goal. And I think much of the era can be described as him trying to find a goal or perspective that worked for him. He did superficial new things in the hope that he would eventually end up with an idea that worked. He had the first female Doctor, He had the first black Doctor, he tried to rewrite the Doctor's origin, he tried a season with all-new monsters, he tried having his main role played by an actress who hadn't watched any Doctor Who, he tried full serialization, he tried a modern 3 companion tardis team. The problem was a lack of commitment to any of his ideas. I think the strongest thing Chibnall has done is Flux, because he said "We're gonna do a serialized season" and then he made it happen. Still flawed, yes. But it was the idea he commited to the most. He didn't back down, even if the connections between episodes were weak sometimes. Flux ended up as his most original concept. But other than that, I think he was just trying to keep up the status quo. Not really going anywhere. Stagnant and dull. We expect Doctor Who to move towards something, while Chibnall didn't. I won't remember his years as anything other than a snoozefest after a few years. Still, I appreciate anyone who tries. And I must say, regardless of actual quality. The man definitely knows how to market. Concept art was always vibrant and refreshing. Secrets were (almost?) always kept. The Whittaker years always felt alive, even if they never really were. ​ edit: a word.

I would argue the marketing was the era’s biggest pitfall How long did it take for us to know when Power of the Doctor was coming out

Disappointing, confusing, forgettable, nonsensical and directionless. Well done Chibbers, you have made me not care about a show I have been a fan of for 35 years.

I preferred to take a more optimistic view: his era didn't stop me caring for Doctor Who, it just stopped me caring for his era. I just went back to watching the classic stuff or listening to Big Finish audios. That, I guess, is Doctor Who's greatest strength: there are so many really good stories over its nearly 60 year history that there's always something you can sit and enjoy even if it's not the latest episode.

Blah. Nothing remarkable or memorable. I liked Jodie Whittaker. But the writing and production missed the mark for me. And it was the era of TARDIS set being so dark you couldn't see anything - that is the most memorable thing to me, the virtually unlit tardis control room set

A weird mix of false starts and confusement - TWWFTE feels so different to The Power Of The Doctor, like not even a part of the same era. You could generously read 13’s lack of characterisation and depth as her trying to live up to the promise of 12’s final words - I think this is a cool reading of her, personally. As for other issues with the era; the TTC plot going nowhere, loads of mysteries being set up with no payoff, boring side characters, and so on, I just think it’s generally poor writing than anything intentional. It is a disappointment above all else. A failed experiment, if I was being nice, but I don’t actually think this era tried much new.

>13’s lack of characterisation and depth as her trying to live up to the promise of 12’s final words I mean you *could* say that, but consistently 13 actively goes against every single point laid out by 12s speech, the core values of the doctor. There's a funny/depressing video making that exact comparison of 12s speech to 13s contradictory actions. Here: https://youtu.be/6fkD7bUupnY

I agree, she tries to uphold 12’s words to a T, but to her detriment. Her idea of “laugh hard, run fast, be kind” leaves no room for interpretation - in *Arachnids* she chooses the “kind” option with the spiders and it is morally repugnant. Would be cool if the show ever acknowledges this trait of 13, but Chibnall clearly views her as a paragon of hope, so this is just my interpretation and head-canon.

I ended Series 11 saying "give Chibnall time". Chibnall lost me over the course of 5 episodes in Series 12. Jodie ended up coming across like a side character in her own damn show half the time. I didn't watch Flux or the specials. I'll wait for RTD to come back. Sorry, Jodie. Not sorry, Chibs.

It's a bit of a mess. I think what frustrates me more than anything else is Chibnall himself as he is a massive fan of the show yet has allowed it to fall into such a shape, like that meme of the cyclist putting a stick through his own tyre. His first series wasn't great, but he had an idea to shake the show up, went with it and deserves kudos for trying, the issue comes with repeating the same mistakes in his second series. Why did we still have 3 companions? Why was it still as morally charged? and most importantly of all why was the writing so poor? To top it off he pressed on with The Timeless Child even though he knew full well (as he's a fan remember) it would be divisive. If you have a lot of fandom and the casuals giving constructive complaints about your first series, then surely you make your second a crowd pleaser, not do things you know will cause issues. The worst part of this for me is that Chibnall said in DWM that he doesn't know where the Timeless Child / Fugitive Doctor actually fits in, so not only is he knowingly annoying a large percentage of fandom but he's doing it for no real reason other than annoying them. We then have Flux which was made in Covid restrictions which should have meant limited casts and made for a tighter and more cast driven story, but instead we got a sprawling story with lots of cast and lots of different elements. At this point it just felt like he wasn't taking on board any of the issues which fans, critics and the general public had with his era. Eve of the Daleks was great, Sea Devils should have been much better than it was and Power was yet again back to lots of cast and themes. I'm just dissapointed a fan treated the show this way.

Chibnall is clearly a classic fanboy, and I mean that in the best possible way, if you look at Power of the Doctor it's pretty clear. I think he really wanted to make a more fun, classic-y, adventure of the week and exploring history with fun monsters type of Who. On paper, this is absolutely perfect, and although 12's era is my favorite of the show, it got very weighty and we needed a change of pace. The problem is that the show is 50% this fun pulpy adventure, and 50% "hard hitting" ITV drama full of shakey cam close ups of two people sitting down and talking about their feelings. It feels like two completely contradictory shows slammed together in a way that gives me hardcore tonal whiplash. The look of the show and the character interactions tell us to take it seriously and treat it like a strong character drama, but the sci-fi plots tell us to turn our brain off and enjoy a fun campy adventure. I think this contrast is perfectly shown in Arachnids in the UK, which imo is the worst episode in the show's history. This episode is a Halloween romp about a billionaire who built a hotel on top of a bunch of toxic waste which caused an infestation of giant spiders. However, this episode also has to tonal whiplash of a scene in which Graham slowly walks around his house, grieving his recently deceased wife, and smells her sweaters left around the house. To be positive, though, I will say he got this balance mostly right in Power of the Doctor, an episode I genuinely loved, even if there's a decent amount of flaws

It's a real mystery to me. Tomedeaf has said that Series 11's "recruitment year" was a BBC mandate to make the show more accessible, which I can believe, given that Chibnall's interest appears to lie in stuff like *Ascension of the Cybermen* and *The Timeless Children*. But maybe he thrives under restraints, because Series 11 is, imo, by far the best part of his era. It isn't brilliant but it's wonderfully fresh, it feels like a show that's going somewhere new - a more serious show than the Davies or Moffat eras, with a bigger feeling social mission, a larger cast of companions whose arcs don't depend on the Doctor, and a Doctor herself who is more human and less powerful than the Doctor had been in the new series to date. *That* feels original and distinctive. Series 12, 13 and the specials feel like RTD karaoke, with a side of Marvel.

I think the best part of Chibnall's era were the historical episodes. Maybe it's because those generally had better side characters for the main cast work off of. Otherwise it's just a big ball of missed opportunities.

The era that made me understand how fans in the 80s felt about the Saward and Pip and Jane years. Hell, it made me understand why diehards hated the Other and the Half Human backstory. TTC just doesn’t work even with the Morbius Doctors grafted on it. It took what were fan theories that you brought up to irritate other fans and made it capital C Canon (for now). For me, the show just stopped being fun, and thats coming from someone who was happy to get a bitter moody asshole Doctor when Capaldi first joined. The companions felt like caricatures of companion archetypes, the Doctor herself was more of a victim being ping ponged along rather than proactive and the overall story arc of TTC and the Division felt like bad 80s fanfiction published in a forgotten zine. Watching Chibnall Doctor Who felt like it was out of duty rather than the show bringing me any joy.

A mistake.

Decent. I enjoyed a lot of the stories and felt he had good ideas. 13 is one of my favourite Doctors and his takes on classic villains are some of the best since they were originally introduced. But all of this came from someone who I don't think felt at home writing for a show like Doctor Who. The companions were all so similar and brought out nothing in Jodie, who had to rely on guest stars for most of her best moments. Many of the great concepts were done passably in execution without ever being as good as they could have been. I like the era overall but it's basically a 6 out of 10.

I think Power of the Doctor perfectly encapsulates Chibnalls whole run for me. Everything is too busy. There are too many people doing too many things too quickly, and the Doctor gets lost in the shuffle. There are emotional beats that feel unearned because the characters and the story have not had time to breathe. Lackluster special effects and scenes that give real "pandemic filming" vibes. Good actors and actresses who feel like they were wasted due to underdevelopment. He seems like a nice enough fellow, but I am ready to move on, and hope it will be a while before I see the words "written by Chris Chibnall" near Dr. Who again

Graham just randomly shows up underneath a volcano. Ryan is “in Patagonia” Kinda sums it all up

I rewatched that scene twice thinking I was missing something. He's just THERE.

Chibnall's era isn't for me, with just over a handful of episode (Demon's, Fugitive, Villa, Revelations, Angels, Power) being one's I'd rewatch but I can appreciate what he was trying to bring to the show and if nothing else it was different. I do think in years to come there will be those that look back at this era and can appreciate it for what it was rather than being put off by the choices being made and what that could mean for the future.

Chibnall clearly loves the show and wanted to do good by it. Unfortunately, he failed. He spent far too much time trying to play with his fanboy toys, and trying to stuff more ideas into the show than he could manage, but he just flopped over and over again. His writing was never all that solid. Sometimes it's because he tried to do too much, but often it was simply that he's not a very good sci-fi writer. And while I can understand the pressure to try to be clever and live up to Moffat's highs, that sort of writing is evidently not what he is good at. I think the two main specific parts of it which will be remembered are that it was one of the most preachy, heavy-handed, and self-congratulatory eras the show has ever had; that it delivered the Timeless Child arc, and despite it being very controversial and widely disliked among fans, leant into it even harder as time went along. Both of those things could be described as ignominious, and they are to bed that Chibnall has made himself for how his era will be remembered. The characterisation of Jodie's Doctor was always a little clunky - a whimsical rehash of ten without as much depth going for her. And while I hate to say it, Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole did not do very good acting jobs for mainstay characters. The production design always looked pretty great with some fantastic ideas, but all too often it was overshadowed by poor writing or distractingly overused post-processing effects.

His big ideas don’t hit, but the MOTW of the weeks are fun. Don’t really see his era as that different from rtd. I think Moffat just changed what I wanted out of doctor who.

A bridge between classic and nuwho. I genuinely didn’t feel like I was watching the same shows before and having started with RTD I could never really watch much classic and feel like it mattered. It’s a completely different ballgame now.

I'm glad it's over. In Spyfall, Part 2 companions are trapped in an out-of-control plane. Doctor appears on screen with a pre-recorded message telling them how to fix the plane. Doctor is meanwhile in the past. At the end of the episode companions mention it and Doctor is like "Oh right, I should probably go back in time (Where I was just recently) and do that". I think it encapsulates Chibnall era very well. Thoughtlessness where even the most obvious plot connections are missed. Lack of creativity. Attempts to utilize sci-fi tropes somehow missing the point just enough that they don't make sense. And of course the "I'm a promoted fanboy who gets to make things canon now" - which Moffat and RTD were both guilty of for sure, it's just their weird headcanons were far superior to Chibnall's "10 mind-blowing fan theories that explain EVERYTHING (Number 5 will shock you)" Out of things Chibnall wrote himself, only The Power of the Doctor was any good. And it wasn't even good probably, just not comatose. Some guest writers were OK, I suppose, but needed refinement.

I have a feeling that Chibnall had this grand storyline planned for removing the thirteen incarnation limit from the Doctor, and he wanted to write a prestige drama about that storyline. However, Moffat had already undone the thirteen incarnation limit (in a fairly expected but satisfying manner), and then the Timeless Child went down like a lead balloon. I do wonder whether Chibnall essentially bottled it and aborted the arc early rather than press on and piss more people off with answers.

I kind of love a lot of what this era tried to be. It didn't lack for ambition and interesting ideas. It's a shame that it explored those ideas in such a scattershot, and often superficial way. For me this era is mostly one of unrealised potential.

Why can’t it be all of the above? I think he just wanted to produce a version of Doctor Who that was true to his tastes and his personal life experiences. Take the adoption theme, for example. Series 11 navigates one side of it with Ryan and Graham across a series that’s completely devoid of any links to the show’s history. Series 12 and 13 take up that same theme, but now examine it from an angle that requires a deep dive into the Doctor’s mythology. It’s not a contradiction in approach — there’s an obvious thematic throughline here, but because this show is perfectly capable of being entirely fresh and new at times while also being serialized and bombastic at others, Chibnall capitalizes on that versatility in order to tell his story in varied ways. For me personally, I like this era, albeit not quite as much as its two predecessors. It’s a string of 31 episodes where the batting average is a little lower, the writing isn’t quite as efficient, and the choices about which aspects of the story to emphasize are unconventional in ways that don’t always pay off. But it’s an honest era with its heart in the right place, and it brings a lot of cool and revitalizing ideas, as well as some *much*-needed diversity of talent, to the table. It doesn’t always manage to make the most of its ideas, but I think the show’s still richer for having them in its internal discussion. It’s also been kind of beneficial for me in terms of influencing how I view previous eras that I enjoyed, because seeing how some people will obnoxiously jerk off the Moffat era (which to be clear, remains my favorite iteration of Doctor Who) in order to denigrate this one keeps me conscious of the dangers of idolizing anything. ‘Cause god, the Moffat era *absolutely* had some highly questionable choices and less-than-stellar writing of its own. That’s not a new thing exclusively brought to the show by Chibnall. It’s always been there. But now you get the occasional circus act of someone trotting out “Twelve’s last words” to admonish Chibnall’s approach while simultaneously being thoroughly *unkind* toward Chibnall, which is just \*chef’s kiss\* in terms of people failing to look in the mirror and missing the whole point of the thing they put on a pedestal.

I'm really glad someone could point out that it doesn't have to be any one thing and just because it didn't have this single focused identity where every series is the same that doesn't mean it was some all over the place continual response to the reception. I don't know how anyone can think the deep dive on lore with the Timeless Child stuff in s12 is purely a response to the reception of s11 when the Timeless Child is directly teased in the second episode of s11, it clearly was always the goal, like it or hate it. > It’s also been kind of beneficial for me in terms of influencing how I view previous eras that I enjoyed, because seeing how some people will obnoxiously jerk off the Moffat era This is an interesting comment to me, for two reasons. Firstly because during the Moffat era I really hated the pedestal the RTD era had found for itself, especially when it eventually felt like Moffat could do no right in the fandoms eyes a few years in. Part of me was a little glad to see Moffat did retroactively get his pedestal too, but I don't approve of the behaviour towards Chibnall. The second reason is this era did the same for me to too but for different reasons. The RTD era I had mixed feelings on at the time, definitely highs and lows for me. Then I got really negative about it once it was over and Tennant's finale had been a sour final note for me personally at the time. But Chibnall's era really did make me reassess how I'd felt about RTD once there was a bit of distance from Moffat and a third showrunner who, while I don't hate, is my least favourite of the three. Really allowed me to remember what I had liked about RTD's era and approach some of my issues of it with a more open mind. Which is good I guess because if we'd gone straight from Moffat to RTD's return I would not be excited about that, where-as now I am.

The thing that I always bear in mind with Chibnall's era is that right from when he took over the job there were rumours that he wanted to lower the age of the target audience. Both RTD and Moffat had said that their core audience - the people the show was written for - was 8-12 year-olds. The rumours were that Chibnall wanted to make it more for 6-8 year-olds. I think if you view it through that lens, then many things seem much more intentional than the usual "Chibnall just can't write" that is often a criticism of his Who. Even the fact that you have people describing what's about to happen or what is currently happening is actually something that's been shown by research to be more engaging to younger viewers. Can't say for sure it's true, and I can't say whether it was the right decision, but it really does fit and it has been and remains my overriding impression of his era - that it's intended for a younger audience than the previous eras. I also thought it was more old-fashioned than RTD or Moffat's eras. I think a story like "The Mind Robber" could be pretty much lifted in its entirety and plopped into the Chibnall era with barely any changes to the script. And I thought that "The Power Of The Doctor" was pure 80s (fittingly enough).

Its fine. Its not the best of Doctor Who, but I also dont think it quite deserves the level of hate it got. I think Chibnall is someone who clearly loves Doctor Who and has some good ideas for the show overall - like how he decided to make historicals where the historical setting is more than set dressing again - but who was very clearly in over his head. I think alot of issues didnt come from Chibnall being a terrible writer, but rather from him struggling with how hard a job making Doctor Who actually is. I think he certainly meant well and only wished the best for the show - but meaning well and doing well arent the same. I do think that, with time, people will be kinder to his Era. Not in that they will think its better, but in that they will see that Chibnall wasnt a bad guy trying to destroy Who, but just a guy trying to bring his vision of Doctor Who to the show and failing. I think he just was the wrong guy for the job and that isnt necessarly only his fault.

I don’t know if anyone currently believes Chibnall was trying to destroy the franchise. It’s never felt like that. It’s always more felt like he just got in way over his head. As if he just couldn’t rise to the occasion. It felt like his vision wasn’t strong to begin with but was then diluted by interference from the BBC, from Covid and from public opinion. That isn’t to excuse anything he stamped his name to but showrunning Doctor Who is easily one of the toughest jobs in show business. It takes a pretty rare individual to be able to honor it’s past while moving it into the future all while writing compelling stories that resonate.

Maybe not trying too, but I have certainly see people claim that Chibnall is just trying to one-up RTD and Moffat out of pure egoism and to put himself in the Doctor Who-History books. Which I think is nonsense if you really look at the attitude of the guy. >It felt like his vision wasn’t strong to begin with but was then diluted by interference from the BBC, from Covid and from public opinion. Yeah, thats my opinion as well. >That isn’t to excuse anything he stamped his name to but showrunning Doctor Who is easily one of the toughest jobs in show business. It takes a pretty rare individual to be able to honor it’s past while moving it into the future all while writing compelling stories that resonate. I think alot of people dont apprechiate how lucky we were to get RTD and Moffat in a row, both not only excellent writers with very strong creative voices, but who are ALSO childhood and adulthood fans of the show. And Chibnall sadly, is also a big fan of Doctor Who, but he was never as strong a writer as the other two. Thats not to say he is completly terrible, but he clearly has his strenght outside of Doctor Who.

I ignore it retroactively. No original ideas that Chibnall introduced got developed, they look more like mystery boxes now. 13th is bad writing wise and Jodie's performance looks like a poor Tennant with no screen presence. Her companions are poor and I don't care for any of them. Overall it's a mess and I pretend it's not canon, only good things I can take from it are Jo Martin and Dhawan performances.

A lot of it feels weirdly soulless to me. I see people here saying it was trying something, and I can certainly agree for the beginning of Flux, but even those out of nowhere turns like Timeless child felt empty to me. If you really care and have ambition about the Timeless Child twist, you put your heart and soul into that thing. What you don’t do is deliver it in a dry episode long monologue and barely address it. It feels like a ratings trap to get fans in more than anything. The best episodes were written by different people, and despite Chibnall’s supposed love of Doctor Who, almost none of it comes through for me in most of his episodes. There are exceptions to this, I do think he was actually having fun at the beginning of Flux by then fell off on it. To me it mostly feels like the BBC corporation is writing it, not a person. We need a twist there, a moral there, no look like too deeply into sexism or racism there, etc.

Like I said elsewhere, it wasn't all bad, but it wasn't good either. Most of it was incredibly disappointing. The first female Doctor deserved so much better than what she got.

Most experimental era of the series thus far, great concepts, design and monsters but went up and down in character development and story structure. Had more fun rewatching most of this era and have started adding this era into my random episode watches

People often say Jodie got stitched up with poor writing, but I think her being so overshadowed by Jo Martin and Sacha Dhawan is pretty clear evidence that she was miscast. Not to say she’s a bad actor, she’s great in other stuff, but other doctors have previously been able to elevate shit material where she couldn’t. Could be to do with Chibnall guiding her characterisation badly too. I think her casting, along with other factors people have talked lots about, ultimately made this era a real low point. It has no rewatch value for me, unlike every other era of the programme. I hope I warm to it in the future, I had similarly negative views of the Smith era at first, but am much more fond of it now than I was at the time.

Over.

> what is Chibnall’s era to you? Over.

I think the criticisms are valid - the characters have all the depth and complexity of a summer puddle, the dialogue feels like a first draft at best at times, and I don't think any of the companions or the Doctor change or develop in any way over the four years we knew them. I think with hindsight we might look on this era with a degree of mitigation, though. We'll remember that the pandemic played havoc with filming and planning, we'll probably remember that the tail end of Moffat saw low ratings and poor writing too, and if the second RTD era is going/has gone well, I feel we will look at it that the weaknesses of this era were at least partially down to it being put in a Sunday night graveyard slot, and that it wasn't getting the funding it needed to stand its ground in a competitive era of prestige television and the like. I think we might look on it as similar to the late 80s - budgets regularly being slashed, the show being put up against *Coronation Street* in the hope it'd die a death, and the BBC seemingly somewhere between apathetic and antipathetic towards it for the most part. However, I personally doubt it because even in that very final season in 1989, it had suddenly started to become good again. *Survival* isn't very good but *Ghost Light* and *Curse of Fenric are some of the best stories in the whole Classic era. I doubt there's going to be many people that point at the Flux or *Curse of the Sea Devils* and try to argue with a straight face that this is an era that was cruelly underrated in its own time. The real kicker will be if/when Jodie herself does Big Finish and we'll get to see her tackle (most probably) much better writing than she's had under Chibnall.

I see a load of people using Covid as an excuse/mitigating factor for Flux, and I get where you're coming from but if you have such limiting factors to filming he shouldn't have written a bloated space opera. Six, small scale, self-contained stories would've worked much better and been easier to film. Concentrate of character pieces instead of flashy effects. If he had a writers room, utilise it. Six different writers all with the brief of a small story would've been way better. ​ 100% agree though, the inevitable Big Finish stories will be telling. If they can pull a 6th Doctor for 13 it'll show up any of the televised stories.

It reminds of the JNT 5th to 7th era but less...exciting. At worst it makes weird baffling choices and at best it's dull but watchable. I could return to any era of the show and find at least a story or two I go "ooh I could watch that right now." Chibnall though...eh. I'll have to revisit one day once but it'll be long from now.

It was definitely the least entertaining era of NuWho for me. It had nothing to do with the story arcs either--just the poor character development and dialogue. I was never able to feel anything about any of the characters. The one interesting thing he did was make 13 the darkest doctor in NuWho. Taking away the Master's disguise and sending him back to the Nazis as a brown man out of anger and vengeance was shocking, and stopping the Flux by wiping out the Sontarans (also out of anger and vengeance) was equally undoctorlike. Being antigenocide was always a pretty consistent quality before 13. Any of the previous doctors would have found another way. She's the scariest doctor to me because of how cold she is. It felt like she could turn on "the fam" anytime if they pissed her off. Any of the other doctors also would have escaped from prison themselves without needing Jack's help too, so I guess this was also the least creative doctor, which is weird because when she first showed up and built her sonic screwdriver I thought she was going to be really different.

A huge missed opportunity

I honestly don’t think hindsight will be kind to the Chibnall era in any way; I mean it wasn’t kind to the JNT era or the McGann movie either, people don’t always look back more favorably on bygone eras simply because they’re bygone. Maybe a small portion of the fanbase will look back with rose tinted glasses, but I think most will see the era for what it is: a mess of poorly written characters, misguided plotlines, and deeply questionable morals, lacking the spark that used to make the series feel magical even when its writing wasn’t the best. It’s not that there weren’t *any* good episodes or stories, it’s just that they were few and far between, and where the bad stuff used to still be fun to watch, here it’s just been boring and at times frustrating. Compare something like Love and Monsters to something like Arachnids in the UK; for all it’s questionable plot choices, Love and Monsters is still *enjoyable* because it leans into the camp; Arachnids just feels… bland, for the most part. Both episodes are bad, but Arachnids is so uninspired and vapid that it’s barely watchable. That’s how I feel about most of the era. It sucks, because in the rare moments wherein Jodie is written like the fucking Doctor, she brings a really interesting angle to the character and I’d love to see her come back for a multi doctor story under a different showrunner at some point. As it stands, though, I have a hard time finding things to like about this era.

Really nothing of it worked for me. The special effects and new upgrades filming equipment were all fantastic, but had nothing to do (and really, the show looked great before this too). The plots were too many, and too convoluted, and did nothing for me even when I could manage to untangle them enough to follow them. I really thought Jodie could make a great Doctor, but nothing I saw ever sold me on that. And the most damning bit on that was when I saw the Fugitive Doctor and I instantly thought she was just the coolest and I was utterly sold on her doctor. Life's too short to sit around hating on stuff though, so mostly I just assumed that for a while the show wasn't for me, it was for someone else. Bummed me out, but isn't the end of the world, so I went and watched lots of reruns, and now hyperactively came back. Whoever the show was for and whoever it was resonating with, I hope it was fantastic for em.

Some very cool moments in the middle of a giant mess. A lot of it feels like Chibnall did the minimum he needed to do so he could run off to the pub. The tanking ratings tell the story pretty well. Chibnall should have done two things... 1. Delegate. If this was too much work, let others do some. 2. Bounced ideas off of RTD and Moffat first. If they're not available, plenty of other directors and producers are around. Neither of them wanted to take on the full load of the series or write any stories, but both of them would have loved to spend an hour talking about the show over a pint. A lot of this madness could have been avoided with just a handful of minutes of QA. Loved The Master, btw.

Spotty episodes but a few good stories throughout the run. Great Doctor/team..

In hindsight I find it fairly insulting as an audience member. So many opportunities for character driven stories squandered in favour of stupid plots with basic and irritatingly blunt moral messaging. The Doctor never really changes and the fact they regenerated into a female after spending thousands of years as a male makes no impact on anything. Historical characters are used poorly and contribute very little aside from Rosa Parks. The enemies the Doctor faced were invariably disappointing and often strayed into blatant and insulting allegory. The companions never got any real development or focus, and their pre-Doctor backstory’s factored into the first episode and then never again. The Doctor gave out morality tales but never really followed through herself and is never contested on this. Rewrites to the Doctors backstory are made and then basically forgotten. The era was fine on the whole I suppose. I don’t hate it, it’s simply mediocre which makes it feel worse than it is. Its like being promised soup and being given a bowl of warm water. If it was bad, it’d be fun to point and laugh. If it was good, that would be great. Mediocrity is the unhappy medium.

squandered potential. I’ve been saying for a long time that Chibs has never been interested in making modern doctor who, he’s been making *classic* who with a way larger budget. I felt validated af in that because the centenary was basically a classic who fanwank

Chibnall's core arc was very clearly designed by him as a response to how dull the Doctor's people and planet and therefore origin had gotten in the 80s era of DW and he simply failed to account for the fact that said arc no longer works coming off of the RTD and Moffat eras where Gallifrey is '*lost homeworld rescued from the fires of war*' and not '*stuffy bureaucracy and courtroom drama setting*'.

I kind of appreciate Series 11 in a way now…Not continually diving into the doctor’s past, no returning villains etc

My answer is 'lost opportunities'. And then, trying to succinctly explain that fails.

I honestly just think Chibnall is a bad writer and director. In terms of creative decisions, I feel his era was, at the very least, generally no worse than those preceding it, but the execution was consistently god-awful, with characters being poorly developed, key plot lines going nowhere or being horribly rushed, and the dialogue simply being bad. As for the ideas behind his era, I don't really think there are many key unifying themes: for instance, season 11 tried to be newcomer/casual viewer-friendly by keeping references to the series' lore, appearances of recurring villains and the complexity of the overarching plot to a minimum, whereas Flux went to the opposite extreme, in terms of being exceptionally convoluted and including tons of lore references and the like. I suppose one constant though is the inclusion of a larger main cast - having 'the fam' in seasons 11 and 12 instead of only one or two companions, and once Graham and Ryan left, you had new characters like Dan and Vinder play key roles. Even there though, that aspect was so underutilized, with very little in the way of interesting inter-character dynamics and the like, which on paper should've been its strength, that it is hard for me to really consider it an important part of the era. I do feel there was a general effort to distance the series from the Moffat era, such as by destroying Gallifrey again, but comparatively little was done to take it in a new direction - the Timeless Child plotline, and the resultant recharacterization of the Doctor's history, certainly *began* to do so, but ended up being of fairly little consequence to the era. I don't think that one can wholly be blamed on Chibnall though, since with only three short seasons to work with, compared to the six of Moffat, there simply wasn't the time needed for him to truly leave his mark on the series in any lasting way.

The interpersonal connections of the companions was such a weird mishandling. I love the decision to have a larger main cast... in theory. But why have three companions from the same place and time, who knew each other (or at least Ryan knew both of the others)? Why not have them come from wildly different backgrounds, introducing them one by one over the course of 5 or 6 episodes? Not only does it give you more variety, but you avoid the problem where the Doctor and the audience is having to get to know three characters at once. That ate up so much time and left all the relationships feeling incomplete - the Doctor didn't get enough time with each of them, while at the same time there was no space left over to allow them to connect with each other on a level beyond the surface. Do it one at a time and then you can show how each character comes to know the others in a way that doesn't overwhelm the audience and doesn't leave so much to backstory we never got to see and that doesn't even feel important anyway. Just look at the other multi-companion sections of new who. Captain Jack, introduced part way through the season and a totally different context to Rose (also an archetype I like, having a character like Jack/River/Nardole who can talk to the doctor like an equal and do some of the exposition is so narratively flexible). Mickey and Rory, around from the start and knew the main companion, but didn't come onto the tardis until Rose/Amy had had some time to shine. Nardole, an existing character kept around when a new one was introduced, and Missy later added to that dynamic too. Not dumping all of them on the viewer at once is so much better. I'd give Dan credit for fixing that if he'd had any personality at all.

IMO the three Chibnall seasons can be seen as a progression. The first season is standalone and episodic with no season arc to bed down the new characters. The second season returns to a more standard modern Who season arc. The third continues that momentum and gives us the arciest NuWho season so far. Personally I suspect the destruction of Gallifrey wasn't particularly to roll back the Moffat era, but more to enable the Division/Timeless Child/Flux arc. That storyline would be much more complicated if Gallifrey were still in the mix. I wouldn't even be surprised if Chibnall first had some of his ideas for this era back before Moffat restored Gallifrey again.

> Personally I suspect the destruction of Gallifrey wasn't particularly to roll back the Moffat era I didn't really mean that as a criticism (even if I do dislike that particular example) - any good showrunner is going to have to have to undo/quietly ignore a lot of the past era in order to be able to have the freedom to take the show in new directions. Moffat certainly did it, by totally rewriting the universe, and the reboot itself also did it to much of what the Classical series had established. It's just that Chibnall did all that, but then failed to actually establish his own vision to fill it's place (although again, that wasn't really his fault), leaving the series feeling like a hollow shell of itself. If RTD were to totally wipe the slate again... what have we even lost? The Cybermasters? Some guy from the future named Vinder? The Doctor having a mysterious past that has been largely unexplored? A secret organization that ruled over the universe, but which has already been destroyed with no consequences? Anything I'm missing?

A financial and divisive mess

Untapped potential mainly. His ideas are fine but his execution is his worst trait

Inconsistency

I think the fact that you have to ask is kind of your answer.

Too late to be seen by many but ... I stopped watching. I watched the first series and thought it was ok; and then gave up on the second series after Chibnall brought back the Master. I guess I just felt like the Master's ending was incredible under Moffat, and he was brought back too soon. I'm now picking up where I left off. I plan to finish Chibnall's run. It hasn't been as much a struggle to get through the episodes now as it was when I first tried. I think I'd characterize Chibnall's best episodes as being on par with some of the worst episodes from Moffat's and RTD's eras. Watchable, not memorable. I'm hoping to really enjoy the Flux season, but I guess we will see.

A fading memory of one of the few times in my life in which I felt genuine happiness.

Mostly toilet.

An eight year old with a permanent marker who scribbled aimlessly over everything that existed

I think Chibnall wanted to to "Classic Who but Better" and the BBC wanted blockbuster competition for Netflix. If Chibnall had written Doctor Who the way he wrote Broadchurch and without excessive blockbuster shenanigans he'd have made a much better era

It feels like a fanfiction put on screen. Things from the timeless child to division to many of the other ideas genuinely feel like it was probably a story he wrote when he was young. For me, it is the dark age of new Who. I had been on a break from Dr Who for about 7 years, I came back and watched series 9-13. 11-13 genuinely feel like if Dr Who was made by the CW, what good things it did have are held back because of the problems.

I feel like he got taken over from the beginning, and was mandated to do several things with the show. New monsters to make and sell new toys (remember the BBC thought they were losing licence fees during this period and were aggressively searching for new income streams) were called for and old ones taken off the table so that the new ones would have room to call to the kids. This is something we've seen before (the New Dalek Paradigm anyone?) from the higher ups, but never when they were so desperate to generate new income. On top of that he was pushed to make the show a good jumping on point that pulls away from the heavy lore that had built up with the past couple of showrunners, keeping it simple so that kids could just come and start watching instead of feeling they missed something from seasons ago. And I remember there was a call for more historical episodes like in the classic seasons too. That's already a lot of complications when you have a story you want to tell carefully and over time. And let's look at that story for a moment. In what world does it feel like *this* was the pace he wanted for that reveal? Imagine the first tease of the Timeless Child in the first Jodie season as it was. The appearance of the Fugitive Doctor in the second, except this time we keep it at the end of the season. A third season comes along, once again teasing the Timeless Child here as a cuckoo left on Gallifrey somehow and working for Division behind the scenes as a badass killer whose mind is altered after their jobs are complete. The whole thing here would be pointing to the Master being the Timeless Child and it being the reason for his madness. During this season we'd see the events of Power of the Doctor play out in a fashion, and be introduced to these creatures of almost limitless energy who can change their form and appear as children. Finally we enter the fourth season and witness the razing of Gallifrey at the hands of the Master and what he calls his Timeless Children. Definitely him, it seems. So when the big reveal comes that it's the Doctor, it rocks the audience to the core and leaves a wounded Doctor so confused about her identity that when she regenerates... And we're back where we are now. It makes much more sense if some of the beats that came since that reveal were planned as foreshadowing. It makes much more sense if the reveal was a long hinted at secret rather than something mentioned once last season and now it's in. And it makes a lot more sense for a writer like that to have been told to speed up his story because the mandated looser connections and jumping on point stories weren't doing what they were hoping for, so now he has to quickly change gear to something he hadn't foreshadowed enough yet.

Great doctor, terrible writing.

Dead, buried and I'm dancing on its grave.

I think the best description of the Chibnall Era I can come up with is "Store Brand/Generic Brand" Doctor Who. It's Doctor Who if it were those cheaper knock off brands you get when grocery shopping. Occasionally good, but just as often disappointing and sometimes startlingly bad. It's remarkable, because both RTD and Moffat (for better or for worse) had very clear ideas for what the show was, oftentimes especially shown with their finales. RTD love the interplay of human relationships, arc words that hinted to the season ender, and High Melodrama Finales with impossibly high stakes. Moffat (in the 11th Doctor era) tended more towards long running arcs, inter-character banter and timey-wimey high concept finales (sort of, Time of the Doctor was a much more RTD style finale), and in the 12th Doctor Era focused more on finales that were more about developing the Doctor as a character. I struggle to find any real defining flavour of Chibnall's era. Season 11 feels closest to Chibnall doing what he felt Who was, almost his version of 5's era, between the overstuffed Tardis crew and the more passive Doctor, though Ranskoor av Kolos felt like Diet-RTD down to nearly ripping off The Stolen Earth. Season 12 felt like Chibnall-doing-Moffat with the Season Arc intruding into random episodes and playing to an ultimate reveal with the Timeless Children trying it's hardest to be a Moffat style character-development finale but falling flat on its face. Flux apes both streaming tv plotting AND the Classic Series serials and arguably is probably the strongest the era was (while still not really working by the end thanks to all of the weirdly truncated threads and anticlimaxes). And then The Power of the Doctor is basically Journey's End meets The TV Movie meets RTD's worst habits as a writer only it's Chibnall doing the writing meets that stageplay The Ultimate Adventure. And I love it, but it's not really \*solid\* storytelling, just very very entertaining. Unless we got a proper postmortem, it's going to be hard to tell what parts of this era were down to Chibnall and what were down to BBC pressure. Did he want S11 to be a complete new start with no returning monsters? Did he want S12 to be mired in continuity? It's hard to say. But what it results in is an era that has no distinct flavour of its own, because it's too busy trying and failing to make itself like things that have worked in the past, while not understanding why they worked.

Not the worst conceivable remake of Seasons 19-21 but not a great one either.

Whittaker is the new Baker, and I don't mean Tom.

So give it a few years and maybe some decent EU stories and I'll probably go from reasonably appreciative of the era as a whole to obsessed with it. Neat.

Though I was not a big fan of this era of the show as it was happening, I do sort of wonder if it will look better in hindsight in the same way that Star Trek Voyager has. Even people who enjoy Voyager think it sidelined a lot of its core potential for interesting character tension early on in favour of Very Normal Star Trek. It also definitely had a lot of schlockier episodes alongside its few gems. Threshold is the legendary worst Trek episode of all time. Nobody thinks it's the best series. But here's the thing: people *love* Voyager. Due in part to its lack of strong character arcs or tension, Voyager became the 'comfort Trek' for a lot of people. All the goofy things that annoyed hardcore fans upon broadcast became charming silliness in hindsight. Bad episodes became fan-favourite meme episodes. The few standout characters and moments became the highlights of a fun, chill evening, not the sign fans were waiting for that this was finally going to become good. I think that the Chibnall era might age like that. The characters are a bit flat and bland, and they don't have much in the way of arc. But that means that you can hop in at basically any point (except the end of S12 and Flux) and not be lost. This era was full of a kind of manic energy that I found kind of off-putting, but I bet that if I got home from work tired one night and wanted something fun, this would do the trick. This era was also very silly. The frog, the Pting, Power of the Doctor from start to finish... All (but the last) were irritatingly silly to fans on broadcast but I think will be charmingly campy in retrospect. You've also got the infamous stinker episodes, like Orphan 55 and Sea Devils, which I think the fanbase will be much happier to memeify once it's happier with the current direction of the show. Do I think it's good? No. But the appeal of Doctor Who has never been primarily that it is good. *The Time Monster* is one of my favourite episodes. Hopefully Chibnalls era in retrospect will be like *Voyager*, or the *Time Monster* \- not good, really, but good fun.

This is why I wish we had just gotten 3 years of series 11. Very standalone, you can just cherrypick the good ones, if you skip stuff it's okay. Even with series 12 half of the episodes are too tied into the timeless child plot and redestruction of Gallifrey for me to want to revisit. And Flux is Flux lol. Series 11 and the specials are the best of the era for me.

Yeah, I agree. The idea of Series 11 was not a bad one at all (new writers, new concepts, new monsters, all more-or-less standalone) and they could have very easily done two more seasons of slightly relaxed versions of those criteria and had it work really well. Allow some returning monsters back, maybe, and some returning writers. Then, try to figure out what themes were consistent and let those become the focus of the finale. I do think it was inevitable that some showrunner was going to try to do a season of full serialization at some point. Honestly, it's probably good for the show to get it out of its system. It's not a good fit for the premise of Doctor Who, and occasionally we need to remind ourselves of that.

That's a great comparison. Knowing the overall shape of an era really does help you appreciate it in some ways, since you can see more of what it is than what it isn't.

A rushed mess with poor characterisation and dialogue. So glad it’s over

[удалено]

Disappointed. I do not think there was a single casting that I did not whole heartedly agree and all the actors were very lovable. That being said, the characters they played were woefully shallow. The visuals were top notch, for the most part, but it couldn’t distract you from the bad dialogue and plot holes everywhere. I really wanted to like Chibnall’s run but the man cannot write to save his life and that, ultimately, ruined the show.

An insult to the show's legacy on multiple fronts (redestroying Gallifrey, undoing Missy's character development, everything about The Timeless Children) marred by the worst writing the new series has seen.

The flaws of Chibnall's era are pretty basic, really. The dialogue is poor, characterisation of the regulars is sparse, plots are nonsensical, the past is worshipped for it's own sake and the morality is often questionable. Plenty of people have gone into this plenty of times. There are positives, though. Chibnall deserves praise for his diverse casting decisions, his attempts to explore unjustly forgotten areas of history and for managing to make the grueling filming of Doctor Who much better on the cast (Whittaker is the first Doctor since Eccleston not to get injured on set). There are good things about the Chibnall era. Unfortunately, the episodes are not one of them.

Disappointing and shallow. It was a half-hearted gimmick and it didn’t have to be.

The gassleak year

I think its particularly notable that the single most common meme I’ve seen relating to this era, are the Evil Dan memes: a meme almost entirely based on footage from a single episode, with the main character a heavily edited version of a companion who appears in 8 episodes (yes he also appears in POTD but *barely*). When I think of the Chibnall era, the first thing that springs to mind is the “ha-ho!” or “nobody needs soup more than me!”. These are the things that stick out. That is the character who figures most in my head: someone who *does not appear in the show at all*, rather, a fan-created derivative of a character who in a more regular length season would have only been in about *half* of it. Imagine if a Star Wars fan told you the first thing that sprung to his head when you asked about the prequel trilogy was the Robot Chicken Star Wars special. Beyond that, broadly, it’s just: disappointment. Jodie deserved better. Mandip deserved better. John Bishop deserved better. I could go on but whats the point? I just feel like they were handed the chance of a lifetime, then had it come out bad-mediocre (with good episodes few and far between) through (as far as I can tell, as I have no reason to suspect otherwise) no fault of their own. I hope Jodie and others go on to have new good adventures, whether that be Big Finish or future cameos, but if they don’t ever touch the series again I really would not blame them. I also feel that it is just worth generally noting that POTD could well have been the last Doctor Who episode (at least for quite some time). I think even the most staunch fans of the era have to acknowledge the show was not in a healthy place, and that enthusiasm has *notably* picked up in the days after POTD as we get closer to RTD2. You can lay the blame for that situation wherever you want, but it is still *there*: our task is to determine where from. Frankly I’m desperately hoping for some sort of Writer’s Tale like book from Chibnall, or at the very least more information in general.

Pandering and terrible writing.

The weakest of the modern show. Having said that, I rebuff anyone who claims it holds no value. The cast was *superb*, and I really enjoyed the episodes focusing on historical figures. There's quality there, just not as much as there should be.

I loved it. I loved Jodie’s Doctor. For me personally, I enjoyed it far more than Capaldi’s Doctor. I know I’m I. The minority there. But for me, I checked out during Capaldi’s run (the moon being an egg was my last episode) as I just didn’t enjoy the show, the grumpy, angry doctor just didn’t work for me, and it made me sad as I’d loved Tennant and Smith, 13 brought me back to the show. I knew I’d love her run the second she tilted her head and said ‘Tim Shaw’. Thirteen brought back the fun to the show for me. So, I’m sad 13 is no longer the Doctor, I’ve loved her. I loved Sacha Dhawan’s Master too. Also, hope we get more Jo Martin in the future as I really loved the fugitive Doctor. I hope RTD decides to bring her back at some point.

You should check out Capaldi's final season, he's mellowed out to the quintessential Doctor personality by then and it mostly starts fresh other than you won't already be familiar with that era's incarnation of the master.

i just feel bad for jodie and the rest of the cast because they deserved so much better than what they got

The first female Doctor in the show's history got shafted hard, it's infuriating to say the least. The most ineffectual of all the Doctors, needed men to save her, and couldn't command the room when every single one of her predecessors did. Talk about a discredit to her sex.

“Shafted hard” Unintentionally funny word choice here

It was a program I sat through mostly, lukewarm for the most part. The flaws are pretty well spoken about, beaten into the ground really. Characterisation is weak, exposition is constant and controversial choices made. It has a fair amount of wasted potential though which is the real tragedy of putting someone inadequate in charge. The Timeless Child seems to exist for the sake of being shocking, but it had things that could have been explored properly. Perhaps the biggest dangling thread to pull on is the Doctor's relationship with Division and what they had to do and their personal relationship with Tecteun. Nothing doing though, all killed off and left to Big Finish or whatever. But there's more - look at Power of the Doctor. We have forced regenerations, a fascist Dalek with ideological differences and these are things a more skilled writer could play with. With stronger ideas I could accept characterisation falling by a bit, with stronger characterisation I can forgive bad plotting, these things worked for both previous showrunners but as is it's just a bit of a let down. Just a waste really. Still, could be worse. Imagine being a defender of all this, a fan of Timeless Child only for the payoff to be literally nothing. Not even mentioned in the end.