ScreenRant Tries To Explain What Went Wrong With Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who

ScreenRant Tries To Explain What Went Wrong With Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who

Intro Music By Doctor M1ck, visuals by Adam Walker

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC since 1963. The programme depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called "the Doctor", an extraterrestrial being, to all appearances human. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Accompanied by a number of companions, the Doctor combats a variety of foes while working to save civilisations and help people in need.

The show is a significant part of British popular culture, and elsewhere it has gained a cult following. It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. The programme originally ran from 1963 to 1989. There was an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with a backdoor pilot, in the form of a television film titled Doctor Who. The programme was relaunched in 2005, and since then has been produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. Doctor Who has also spawned numerous spin-offs, including comic books, films, novels, audio dramas, and the television series Torchwood (2006–2011), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), K-9 (2009–2010), and Class (2016), and has been the subject of many parodies and references in popular culture.

Thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each actor's portrayal is unique, but all represent stages in the life of the same character, and together, they form a single lifetime with a single narrative. The time-travelling feature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, who became the first woman to play the role after Peter Capaldi's exit in the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time".

The twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 1 January 2020 and aired through to 1 March 2020. It is the second to be led by Chris Chibnall as head writer and executive producer, alongside executive producer Matt Strevens, the twelfth to air after the programme's revival in 2005, and the thirty-eighth season overall. The twelfth series was broadcast on Sundays, except for the premiere episode, continuing on from the eleventh series, after regular episodes of the revived era have previously been broadcast on Saturdays. The series was preceded by a New Year's Day special episode in 2019, "Resolution", instead of the traditional annual Christmas special.

Jodie Whittaker returns for her second series as the Thirteenth Doctor, an incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in the TARDIS, which appears from the outside to be a British police box. It also stars Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill as the Doctor's travelling companions, Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, respectively. The series follows the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions as they meet a new incarnation of the Master and his destruction of Gallifrey, the return of Jack Harkness, the appearance of an unknown incarnation of the Doctor from before the Time War, the Cybermen, and the secret of the "Timeless Child".

The ten episodes were directed by Jamie Magnus Stone, Lee Haven Jones, Nida Manzoor and Emma Sullivan. Alongside Chibnall, who wrote four of the scripts and co-wrote a further three, the writers include Ed Hime, Pete McTighe and Vinay Patel, who return from writing the previous series, as well as new contributors Nina Metivier, Maxine Alderton and Charlene James.

The thirteenth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who is set to premiere in 2021, after being announced in November 2019. The series will be the third to be led by Chris Chibnall as head writer and executive producer. This series is set to be the thirteenth to air following the programme's revival in 2005, and will be the thirty-ninth season overall. The series will consist of eight episodes.

Jodie Whittaker returns for her third series as the Thirteenth Doctor, the most recent incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in the TARDIS, which appears to be a British police box on the outside. Recording commenced in November 2020, and is set to run for ten months.

#DoctorWho​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ #Series13​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ #DrWho​​​​​​​​

[Huntracony]

Here's two screenrant article titles that I came across recently:
"Doctor Who: 10 Ways Russell T Davies Was The Best Showrunner" published 6 days ago
"Doctor Who: 10 Ways Chris Chibnall Is The Best Showrunner" published 4 days ago
It would be delicious if these were by the same person, but unfortunately not.

[almcdonald]

I did wonder if the timeless child travesty was some kind of twisted homage to the cartnall master plan but I actually align with Jay Exci that it was simply shallow spectacle that substituted for well thought out substantive story telling

[SGlitz]

Social Justice and Virtue Signalling where the "message" was the most important thing they thought.

[ftumschk]

6:25 The Morbius Doctors were never meant to be taken seriously? That wasn't what Bob Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe said back in the day, and the team wouldn't have gone to the trouble of trying (but ultimately failing) to get established actors to pose for the pre-Hartnell mugshots if they weren't serious about it.

[techinrl]

The Timeless Child was the last straw and was only one of the last unforgivable things Chibnall did. Everything before it could have been written off and ignored allowing a viewer to skip from the end of Moffatt’s era straight into RTD’s new era without ever watching a single Chibnall episode and nothing would be changed… except for that one retcon that wrecked the franchise and caused millions to abandon the show. Hopefully RTD and the BBC have recognized that the retcon cannot stand and still have a viable franchise, despite RTD having said he liked it. Retcon the retcon and maybe people will come back.

[briansmith]

The bottom line was for multiple reasons it just wasn't very good.

[leejohnstone]

If you want Doctor Who to regain it's former glory have a showrunner who isn't a fanboy and ditch the earth bound adventures.

[MrBully]

Two main problems: 
1 The best sci-fi is just good drama in a different setting. Few of the writers actually seem to know how to write drama.
2 The best sci-fi draws on things from outside of itself. That is what made the original Star Wars trilogy great (cowboys and knights versus Nazis do Shakespeare in space). The longer a franchise goes, the longer it is defined by itself, drifting into mere regurgitation. Continual engrafting is required. That is what kept the original series fresh and surprising (time and space, cosmic hobo, Quatermass, Hammer horror, pop-science), and also the reason why it stagnated into self-parody. That’s where we are again now.

[blackphoenix]

They had a lot of valid points, I will give them that.

[UgandanPrinc]

I feel like this article was very undercooked. It touches on some good points, forgoes completely on others, and some it just gets wrong. And it just uses the timeless children as the glue to hold everything together despite it really only getting focused on in 1-2 episodes. Like it gets 1 throwaway line in Ghost Monument, then scattered mentions across series 12, but it’s not the prominent era defining issue in the way the article paints it as.

[MrRjhyt]

I openly confess to not understanding camera angles, lens, cinematography, etc... But, they do still feel poorly used. Even if a more panoramic scene is set. The cut to the studio scenes are all the more jarring. I suspect that there were underlying problems, behind the scenes, not relating to direction, pacing, story and so forth. I doubt CC was able to handle the challenges that arose when a script issue cropped up, or some other factor. I have similar doubts about his ability to deliver the show on budget, and spread it evenly across a season.

[CBLMedia]

I believe Chibnall co wrote most episodes too!

[swannvictor]

Truthfully, I'm not sure the person who wrote that article actually watched ANY episode of Dr Who. Sounds like a 'cut & paste' job to me.

[rafaelsantos]

2:23 You just had to make that reference, don't you ?

[johnanthonylucock]

In my opinion Doctor Who was on its way out when Stephen Moffat took over in 2010.

[doughorton]

In a nutshell: political agendas and ticking diversity boxes in place of good stories and characterization.

[daniledrake]

Thanks and I agree with your points, and I just wish the BBC and Chibnal would play
the departure honestly or stick to one reason they both could agree on. Bet JNT
where ever he is laughing his head off.

[thomasleongeorgerobertglad]

Cartmell Master Plan was supposed to be the mysterious "The Other" back in the 1st Doctors life and he was there when Rassilon and Omega created the Hand Of Omega, and stole it and ran away to the point there (allegedly) he gets a new regeneration cycle and physically de-aged to hide on Gallifrey, hense how he grew up with The Master, then when someone in the high council finds out about his adopted parents and sibling from when he de-aged, yes the Doctor was ment to have a brother, he The Doctor and Susan were ment to be the last survivors with the high council wanting to kill them to get the Hand Of Omega, so they take The Doctors brother as a prisoner of war against The Doctor hense why he and Susan run away in a broken down TARDIS.

[DemetriusSorvo]

I'd like to know what went wrong with screen rant. Most of their Doctor Who articles are poorly written and factually incorrect.

[androstempest]

I actually unfollowed screen rant because of how poorly researched their articles tend to be, so your criticisms here feel on brand.

They don’t know what they are talking about most of the time.