Wow, I wouldn't normally post a whine as I know a lot of people here still enjoy the show but, I'm sorry, that was comfortably the worst Doctor Who episode I have ever seen.
I actually said out loud to my family about the Doctor being a weeping angel: 'bet it's over in 5 seconds'. Sure enough, the stone crumbles away and she is back; a cliffhanger that was actually reasonably good completely undone in the first scene.
This is my issue with the show: nothing is earned, nothing is shown. Everything is explained to us in intricate detail. If it were a book, it would be a series of bullet points, rather than an actual story. I mean, Yaz, Dan, and the professor have been SEARCHING THE WORLD for three years or something (can't remember what for) but rather than maybe have an entire episode showing the slog, the travel problems, visas, language, cultural issues, etc, we are just shown 3 scenes (a Mexican tomb, a Constantinople shop, and a Himalayan sanctuary) and the first lines out of the characters mouths are 'Wow, we've come half way around the world to find this' or 'three years we've been looking for this' or 'and here we are in the Himalayas with our last chance for finding the secret McGuffin thing'!!! The dialogue is execrable. The writers have NO INTEREST in showing us any personal ordeals, character developments, thoughtful expressions, painful silences, nuance, NOTHING. Characters exist solely to explain what is going on to the audience so that we can move as quickly as possible to the next scene.
As for the whole arc about timeless children division, flux, etc.... So, Division poisoned the universe with the flux to stop the doctor because they were worried about the doctor exposing division???? Why not just capture the doctor in some kind of time trap or shot her / him repeatedly?!?!?! They just had her surrounded by weeping angels and they decided to bring her back to HQ (where I am sure the suspiciously convenient Ood has been placed to help her save the day at the last minute) and talk to her about it. Why not just kill her. Why not just take the Tardis, or lock her between dimensions somewhere. With this vast army of agents, surely they can do anything. No? Instead, they just go with destroying the universe (oh, but it's okay, it's not serious: we have a multiverse now, so we can just go anywhere, anytime, redo this, rewrite that... Nothing is permanent).
The retcon angle is horrific too. Yes, the character was male, and yes, it was time to add a little more diversity; I agree that it was time for a female doctor. But retconning it to suggest the doctor has already been a woman before???. Now, I have to admit that the Ruth story line was pretty good and one of the better episodes (and Ruth definitely had the look), but I struggled with them retconning the doctor's history for the sake of diversity. I just find that part of it a little bit insulting. Great, have a black female Doctor; find the best actress you can get and make her the next one, but don't inject one into some hidden past to suggest that Doctor Who WAS a lot more diverse and liberal, and that we just weren't told about it. It's cheap, especially when they've only given her a few minutes of screen time. It's the same issue as the writing: they don't want to actually work and graft for anything; they just take the end goals they want and hammer them into the middle of a sprawling, nonsensical story line with a little bit of exposition on either side and hope everyone accepts it. For me, I just feel this undoes the actual work they and a lot of other writers are doing to try and make a more diverse and equalified entertainment world (in the same way that making Rey a super Jedi in Star Wars with almost no training in some way tarnishes the brilliant female-led Sci-Fi movies we already have, like Aliens, Rogue One, Hunger Games, etc). The best movies and shows highlighting equality, diversity, and liberalism are the ones that do it organically without screaming 'LOOK, we're being diverse, and you'd better like it, otherwise you're sexist / homophobic / racist, etc.
Sadly, this show bears ZERO comparison to one that brought us Listen / Heaven Sent / Blink / Father's Day, etc; far simpler stories with actual writing, subtly, character development, SHOWING the story, rather than telling it.
I'm sorry, but the end of this era can't come soon enough. Poor Jodie (great actress, terrible script and direction) is going to be unfairly burdened with the blame for this phase of the show by a lot of people when really it is 100% down to Chris Chibnall.
I actually said out loud to my family about the Doctor being a weeping angel: 'bet it's over in 5 seconds'. Sure enough, the stone crumbles away and she is back; a cliffhanger that was actually reasonably good completely undone in the first scene.
This is my issue with the show: nothing is earned, nothing is shown. Everything is explained to us in intricate detail. If it were a book, it would be a series of bullet points, rather than an actual story. I mean, Yaz, Dan, and the professor have been SEARCHING THE WORLD for three years or something (can't remember what for) but rather than maybe have an entire episode showing the slog, the travel problems, visas, language, cultural issues, etc, we are just shown 3 scenes (a Mexican tomb, a Constantinople shop, and a Himalayan sanctuary) and the first lines out of the characters mouths are 'Wow, we've come half way around the world to find this' or 'three years we've been looking for this' or 'and here we are in the Himalayas with our last chance for finding the secret McGuffin thing'!!! The dialogue is execrable. The writers have NO INTEREST in showing us any personal ordeals, character developments, thoughtful expressions, painful silences, nuance, NOTHING. Characters exist solely to explain what is going on to the audience so that we can move as quickly as possible to the next scene.
As for the whole arc about timeless children division, flux, etc.... So, Division poisoned the universe with the flux to stop the doctor because they were worried about the doctor exposing division???? Why not just capture the doctor in some kind of time trap or shot her / him repeatedly?!?!?! They just had her surrounded by weeping angels and they decided to bring her back to HQ (where I am sure the suspiciously convenient Ood has been placed to help her save the day at the last minute) and talk to her about it. Why not just kill her. Why not just take the Tardis, or lock her between dimensions somewhere. With this vast army of agents, surely they can do anything. No? Instead, they just go with destroying the universe (oh, but it's okay, it's not serious: we have a multiverse now, so we can just go anywhere, anytime, redo this, rewrite that... Nothing is permanent).
The retcon angle is horrific too. Yes, the character was male, and yes, it was time to add a little more diversity; I agree that it was time for a female doctor. But retconning it to suggest the doctor has already been a woman before???. Now, I have to admit that the Ruth story line was pretty good and one of the better episodes (and Ruth definitely had the look), but I struggled with them retconning the doctor's history for the sake of diversity. I just find that part of it a little bit insulting. Great, have a black female Doctor; find the best actress you can get and make her the next one, but don't inject one into some hidden past to suggest that Doctor Who WAS a lot more diverse and liberal, and that we just weren't told about it. It's cheap, especially when they've only given her a few minutes of screen time. It's the same issue as the writing: they don't want to actually work and graft for anything; they just take the end goals they want and hammer them into the middle of a sprawling, nonsensical story line with a little bit of exposition on either side and hope everyone accepts it. For me, I just feel this undoes the actual work they and a lot of other writers are doing to try and make a more diverse and equalified entertainment world (in the same way that making Rey a super Jedi in Star Wars with almost no training in some way tarnishes the brilliant female-led Sci-Fi movies we already have, like Aliens, Rogue One, Hunger Games, etc). The best movies and shows highlighting equality, diversity, and liberalism are the ones that do it organically without screaming 'LOOK, we're being diverse, and you'd better like it, otherwise you're sexist / homophobic / racist, etc.
Sadly, this show bears ZERO comparison to one that brought us Listen / Heaven Sent / Blink / Father's Day, etc; far simpler stories with actual writing, subtly, character development, SHOWING the story, rather than telling it.
I'm sorry, but the end of this era can't come soon enough. Poor Jodie (great actress, terrible script and direction) is going to be unfairly burdened with the blame for this phase of the show by a lot of people when really it is 100% down to Chris Chibnall.
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