Yeah, but I think they're pretty good monsters when done right. I wish this latest episode had at least attempted to make them scary.

 

Man, this mini-series is busy - two arc plots that would have each kept a full series going, plus the - for want of a better phrase - monster of the week shenanigans. It feels like nothing has room to breathe, and it doesn't help that the arc plots are questionable, at least as far as they've been explained so far.

Spoiler

Oh cool, a secret society that's controlled the universe from the shadows for time immemorial...where were you when the Silence nearly broke reality? Or the Daleks nearly blew up reality? Or the Time War? etc etc And you're so all powerful that you can literally wipe out the universe and move to a new one, but you're doing this because the Doctor is a pain - the Doctor who, lest we forget, had no idea you existed until about a year ago?

 

Spoiler

Shame, I was hoping for a NuWho take on the black and white guardians.

 

Spoiler

Well, Tecteun being the head of Division and still kicking around is a nice, albeit not entirely unexpected development. It paves the way for her being inserted into current lore as the third 'Other' founder of Gallifrey and Time Lord society alongside Rassilon and Omega. Timeless Child nonsense is, sadly, here to stay, so we might as well start going through canon and tweaking things so it actually works.

The motivations of Division seem like a whole new level of stupid though, and I still don't know what the fuck Swarm is doing and there's only 1 episode left in the story arc.

Smh.

 

Spoiler

so...how much of the universe is left now? As far as I can tell, there was no indication that the apocalyptic events of the Flux got reversed, so are we just going with that for now?

On which note, I don't expect too much consistency from Doctor Who, and I know the Doctor hasn't shied away from racking up enormous kill counts in previous regenerations, but it's hard to reconcile 13 not approving of shooting the enormous spiders in her first series and her seeing a plan to wipe out two species in this episode and thinking "what if we hijacked that plan, but wiped out three species instead!"

Flux has had some good bits in it - honestly some of the best of Chibnall/Whittaker's era - but there was far too much going on, some of it barely relevant as far as I could tell.

 

That wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting and actually mostly neatly wrapped up all the plotlines. Still 0 desire to rewatch it.

I'm currently slowly rewatching the new series from the beginning. Definitely still enjoy them, so it's not just me being a grumbly old fart about the new stuff.

Spoiler

What was the point of wiping Tecteun? What was the point of her being there at all? Why even the angels?

This entire thing could probably have been significantly improved by slashing about half of the arcs involved.

 

Spoiler

The Flux finale was chaotic and not in a good way. It felt like a large exercise in seeing how how much content they could cram into a single episode in the hopes that viewers would find it zany and thrilling.

I'm just scratching my head at some of the arcs and their apparent pointlessness.

What was the point of the Grand Serpent guy other than to be a generic badguy who gets their comeuppance?

What was the point of Bel and Vinder's inclusion in this story? They ended up being an absolute waste of space every time they were on-screen.

What was the point of Dan's love interest? Was it literally just to give him a reason to go off with the Doctor at the end of the season?

What was the point of Azure's human form in the end? Why were Swarm and Azure imprisoned?

What was the point of the Doctor trying to find Division to get her memories back, only to cast them away for... I dunno... reasons? Being honest, I'm thankful for this one, but still perplexed as to why they went with it. Maybe Chibs saw the light and realized that giving the Doctor over a billion years of life experience/knowledge was actually a bad idea from a storytelling perspective. Or maybe this was a BBC forced decision. Here's hoping this plot point stays dead.

TLDR, I'm not happy with it. I don't imagine the specials will be much better. Can we bring RTD in early and have him rewrite/reshoot them?

 

I assume large chunks of that were setup for the specials.

Spoiler

The Master will certainly be back in one of them.

 

@KHAAAAAAAN!!

Spoiler

What was the point of the Grand Serpent guy other than to be a generic badguy who gets their comeuppance?

Based on Flux itself, that seems to be pretty much it. The way his arc wrapped up though makes me wonder if he'll be back in the specials. I did read an article that made some pretty convincing arguments for him being an incarnation of the Master, but that was written before the finale, and some of the detail about him in that episode would certainly seem to rule that out. It also goes someway to explaining the gag about UNIT being defunded a few specials ago. But yes, Flux itself would not have been spoiled by his absence.

What was the point of Bel and Vinder's inclusion in this story? They ended up being an absolute waste of space every time they were on-screen.

They did offer some explanation of how Passengers worked, and about the Grand Serpent, but see above for the Grand Serpent, and given that the show also had a flashback to the Doctor's past involving Passengers and their workings, not super important. Bel did at least get to show us the state of the universe post Flux, which was about the only acknowledgement of what had happened.

What was the point of Dan's love interest? Was it literally just to give him a reason to go off with the Doctor at the end of the season?

And to help the Doctor come up with the plan for the Passenger - but again, see above re Bel and Vinder.

What was the point of Azure's human form in the end? Why were Swarm and Azure imprisoned?

Human form - no fucking clue. They were imprisoned for attacking the Mouri and the temple of Atropos, in that flashback to the Doctor's time with Division, although quite why one of them got sealed in a can on some rock in deep space, and the other got turned into a human of all things, I've no idea.

What was the point of the Doctor trying to find Division to get her memories back, only to cast them away for... I dunno... reasons? Being honest, I'm thankful for this one, but still perplexed as to why they went with it. Maybe Chibs saw the light and realized that giving the Doctor over a billion years of life experience/knowledge was actually a bad idea from a storytelling perspective. Or maybe this was a BBC forced decision. Here's hoping this plot point stays dead.

That reeked of either editorial mandate or, more charitably, Chibnall not wanting to force too much on his successors - she's got access to her memories now, so the plot line has had some sort of resolution, but it can now be ignored or embraced as much as RTD and anyone else feel like.

 

I actually thought the Serpent was one of the better parts of the specials. Then again, I also enjoyed the Hermit joke, when most people hated that.

 

I didn't dislike the Serpent, to be fair - not the greatest villain ever, but one who I wouldn't be opposed to seeing more of. But his plot strand felt the most unnecessary of what was a very hectic miniseries

 

Spoiler

There were some comments from the Sontaran actors that originally the Sontarans weren't even in the finale.

There were some rumors that this was originally an 8-episode series or similar as well.

I expect this series was actually quite affected by production issues.

 

This is not a joke -- they actually filmed an explanation for the series. (Presumably because it's incomprehensible from the story itself).

The actual explanation and plot ideas sound a lot more interesting than what we actually got.

 

The new year special was actually really good fun. Solid concept, well executed. Hopefully the remaining two or three specials can keep that up before the changeover.

 

The episode was fine, I guess. I'm ready for this era to be over though.

Spoiler

I feel like that time loop concept (everyone aware of the loop, loops get shorter to a conclusion) was wasted on this show. Would love to see a fun story of that idea.

 

Time has shown us that an "It was fine" episode is basically the best Chibbers can do.

But also, really not digging the Yaz/Doctor romantic subplot that they've been trying to build. Hope it gets shut down quickly, A) because Yaz is an uninteresting piece of wood, and B) because trying to shoehorn any romantic angle into the final episodes of probably our most asexual NuWho Doctor to date is just blegh.

 

I think Legend of the Sea Devils might just be the worst episode to ever come out of NuWho. Good job Chibs.

 

At least Evil Dan is canon now.

chinese guy: <kills one sea devil>
doctor: D:
dan: <kills 6 sea devils>
doctor: /shrug
chinese guy: I'll sacrifice myself to save you all
doctor: k
doctor: <kills the rest of the sea devils>

I am so ready for this era to be over. There were a couple good episodes, but overall it's just been a disappointment.

 

I've seen episodes that have annoyed me more, but I can't think of any off the top of my head that have left me so bored.

 

We have a new Doctor! https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1523289542488653824?t=QOmbRcZ0UIgSgLENBlcBtg&s=19

Ncuti Gatwa, who I can't say I've ever heard of before. Hopefully his scripts will be better than Jodie's...