Doctor Who Series 11- A Half-Hearted Imitation





Before we start I want to clarify how Doctor Who is so difficult to review subjectively, it means different things to different people and it is the only show where people are so precious of certain eras. Personally, I grew up with Russel T Davies’ era, with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor as my Doctor, that is in my opinion peak Doctor Who through and through, I have watched all New-Who but only dabbled into a few serials of Classic Who and that’s where my opinion stems from. Now immediately there will be people who completely disagree and think other Eras are perfect, criticising RTD’s camp and character-based approach to writing. But that is the beauty of this gigantic show, it constantly changes, is constantly trying new things and always ultimately ambitious. And for me, that’s what disappointed me the most about Series 11, the lack of care or risk-taking truly stands out in one of the most lacklustre and frustrating series of the show.Chris Chibnall seemed like the most bizarre choice to take over from the infamously divisive Steven Moffat as showrunner. He had contributed some of the most forgettable episodes of the series, but Broadchurch was loved by a lot of people, so I was unsure what to expect. The series got closer and more news came out and I realised Chibnall’s approach to the show was fundamentally flawed. He had this idea to re-invent the show completely, new TARDIS, new Sonic, no old villains, new companions and new everything but he simply didn’t have a reason to change everything instead he changed for the sake of change. This is one of the only shows that has such a rich insane history that if you’re going to ignore it you must have a lot of skill as a writer to sustain this. And I’m afraid Chibnall doesn’t have the skill to do that at all, a new approach doesn’t always make it a good approach. It’s almost like Chibnall wore himself out thinking of ways to be different that he forgot to put that effort into his scripts, instead they seem like hollow course corrections where you can’t help but feel each line is misguided.The series starts with a pretty solid opening episode that has to balance a lot in terms of introduction, which it does surprisingly well for a first episode. By the end of the episode, we have an admirable Doctor in Jodie Whittaker, she feels full of potential and with a performance that is contagiously enthusiastic. We have the promise of 3 separate character arcs from the three companions and ideas that suggest a running theme and motivation for the series. But that’s the thing, we never excel past here, the characters don’t go anywhere, there is no momentum to the series with a complete lack of any progress of any of the ideas. There are no surprises, no risks and absolutely no links between the episodes. The most painful thing when looking at the whole series is the amount of genuinely great ideas and concepts that very rarely really succeed. The daring episode ‘Rosa’ has a great message, with a genuine emotional ending and the tone and pacing of ‘Kerblam!’ really works but other than that everything feels flat. Each episode starts and seems to just go through the beats that it must and ends, each episode feels disconnected from the last due to no consistency in any of the ideas. I think this is ultimately due to Chibnall piling so much on immediately, fumbling about with three companions in plots such as these doesn’t work.Most seasons of Doctor Who had some insane over-convoluted plot running through it that results in an explosive and often nonsensical finale. Moffat was the king of the crazy running plotlines, but RTD had the better balance of simplifying these plots and having them run alongside perfect character arcs for The Doctor and his companions. This series had neither, it had the inkling and glimpses of this, but it was so lazily put together that by the end every single episode didn’t feel necessary. It was an amazing triumph of earlier Doctor Who with the amount of substance in each episode, usually bookended by a small scene away from the main action as a means to build the characters set up. Instead of naturally embedding the conflict in the characters, Chibnall seemed to create a plot and instead just shoehorn the characters into it without any conceptual links between the two. This is a bizarre result as episodes such as ‘Demons of the Punjab’ revolve around a single character yet they don’t seem to utilise or reveal anything about this character. It’s hard to care about the conflict in an episode if you don’t care about the characters, especially when Chibnall doesn’t push the concept of the episode enough.There is nothing experimental about any of the base episodes for the series, the closest we got to something really new and inventive is the penultimate episode ‘It Takes You Away’. An interesting and somewhat insane episode revolving around a separate universe that is personified through people who have died. It’s a really creative idea but the way the episode illustrates this is through flat exposition with ideas being introduced and immediately explained through a line of dialogue instead of having it explained naturally. This is a common problem throughout the series which is Chibnall writing himself into corners and only being able to use heaps of exposition in order to explain it. There are hundreds of ideas chucked into the pot that without interesting characters it doesn’t allow the spectator to really get invested.Of course, I’ve been very negative towards this season but there are some genuine positives. Jodie and Bradley Walsh give some great surprising performances to the point that I wish the series just had the two of them, the other two companions don’t have the talent to give any energy to the lines they are given. The BBC has given this series a much larger budget and it really pays off in the cinematography and the design, the episodes have distinct colour palettes with the CGI genuinely looking realistic. The visual aesthetic is so distinct and beautiful but totally let down by editing that leaves so much dead air and awful pacing. This series also features some great guest stars, a highlight being the incredible Alan Cummings. The guest stars stand out because they manage to keep energy and fun to the scripts and overshadow the main cast to the point that each guest star feels misused and wasted.I didn’t really want to write about this series as it really was disappointing, but after the flat finale, I felt compelled to write. Chibnall seemed to have used this series as an overcorrection of problems that people had with other series, trying his best to address every criticism of Moffat and RTD. So, I feel a lot of promise for the new series, people have been vocal about the problems and Chibnall will hopefully address the issues as well as possible. I feel the finale sums up the majority of the problems of this series as a whole. It has the illusion of big drama, big moments and big stakes rather than actually portraying these. The return of Tim Shaw is treated as a big climatic thing, but we only spent half an episode with him and there’s no inner conflict between him and the Doctor at all. This is meant to be the climax of Graham and Ryan’s arcs, with them coming to terms with honouring Grace rather than going for revenge. But this is just said, just explained, Chibnall lays out how the arc ends through dialogue rather than a genuine payoff.I’ve tried to explain the fundamental flaws of this season in my opinion. Doctor Who is such a big show that it’s impossible to satisfy anyone at all. But there’s a difference between a bad Doctor Who and a bad TV show. The writing on this season has so many faults that are blatantly a problem and shouldn’t have been made for such a prolific show. Maybe I’ve been spoilt by nostalgia from earlier Doctor Who that I will constantly be disappointed with whatever Doctor Who turns into. I have an extremely personal connection with this show and it has formed a lot of my taste and opinions so it’s hard to see this show fall from grace so much. Maybe I've grown out of it and its time to move on, but I want people to enjoy and remember the fun and quality of this show and not have what it is now become the Doctor Who they know.