The Chibnall Era of Doctor Who - some final thoughts

It's over. Chris Chibnall has finished his time as the showrunner of Doctor Who, exiting with outgoing Doctor, Jodie Whittaker. And now that it's done, I feel that it's time for me to take a true overview at all that's happened and try to make some kind of sense of it.
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[@CouncilofGeeks]

My video on the issue of the BBC's support of Transphobia: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3-XppZmfb-ljac My video on the BBC's response to complaints of its reporting: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZzLaWSEatGWj7s My short on why I'll continue to put up the note at the front of these: kzbin.infoHpwwzjzFXiE Shaun's 1st video, which includes some additional confirmed information: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mGXFpn2Dgs6qmck Shaun’s 2nd video, which follows how the BBC is trying to dodge accountability for all of this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p5fNhXpsiLudo7M Shaun’s 3rd video, following him escalating his complaints: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIPRYoiQacubmqc Shaun's 4th video, covering the BBC's response: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXeaeIpth9RnhbM Laura Kate Dale's protest speech outside the BBC offices: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnPNeKGNoNx0oKs

[@Matthew_Raymond]

The fact the Chibnall’s last episode ends with David Tennant saying “What?!?” seems pretty apt.

[@sanguinettevibrella]

While I also dislike the Doctor having a massive reputation, a key to the RTD/Moff eras that made it more acceptable was that the Doctor's importance was completely because of their own actions and agency, and because of adventures just like the ones we're privy to seeing. The Timeless Child makes the Doctor cosmically important because of the genetics they happened to be born with, and because of things completely out of their control and choice.

[@Ode_10]

This is an excellent point

[@r.j.sullivan2104]

Why? It takes nothing away from the sixty years of heroic choices the Doctor has made.

[@sanguinettevibrella]

@@r.j.sullivan2104 While I get if people don't care for the whole Gallifrey Time Lord lore (and yes, it technically is still in place given the TC got amnesia'd into believing they were a Time Lord) I think it's a bit more interesting that the lore that's been built up establishes the Doctor as a Time Lord who has rejected their culture in favour of being better than it, which is slightly taken away if they're just some random other species. Aside from that, I also think what makes the Pre-War Games Doctor (and most 'mysterious' characters in fiction) interesting in general are questions like 'what culture are they from, and how has it shaped them?' or 'what choices and impact have they left on the world around them over their life?', as opposed to the more surface things like 'what is their species called, and what is their planet called?' - as a child has very little opportunity for experiences/choices/cultural absorption, the latter type of question is all I really have when looking at the Timeless Child. There's just not much room for mystery beyond what words are on it's character sheet.

[@yusufkhan-ig7dv]

@@r.j.sullivan2104 if it doesn’t effect anything then why does it even exist

[@EmeralBookwise]

@@sanguinettevibrella: Exactly. What the Timeless Child "takes away" is The Doctor's own agency and self-actualization. By making The Doctor no longer a Time Lord it means the character is no longer rejecting their own culture, but is rather rejecting a culture that was imposed on them. It makes The Doctor's actions less a consequence of their own personal choices and more like parts of their supposedly erased memories bleeding through.

[@koradox]

This continuity has been sick, this continuity needs healing, this continuity needs medicine. In fact I'd go so far as to say that what his continuity really needs, right now, is a doctor.

[@BowtiesAreC00l]

Continuity has never been a big thing in Doctor Who, and probably never will be. You can't expect everybody that writes and creates the series to know the history of everything and then be constricted by what has gone before.

[@aliservan7188]

Hahahaha you have no shame

[@HOTD108_]

​@@BowtiesAreC00lYeah, imagine how much of a nightmare it would be if every writer for the show was expected to be completely familiar with 60 years of near-continous continuity. Only the broad strokes (e.g. regeneration and the TARDIS) get retained completely across the years, and everything else either gets dropped or relegated to throwaway references. It's an unavoidable part of having a show meant to run endlessly. The way I see it, as far as canon goes, Doctor Who can be broken down into eras (not necessarily by who's the Doctor, but instead who is showrunner) and each individual era can be expected to have its own consistent continuity, but across eras you can't expect things to line up. Sometimes they might, but it's not a given, and it shouldn't be considering how old the show is now. I'm content and satisfied with it. Plus, it allows me to more easily ignore stuff I really dislike, such as The Timeless Child.

[@richardwilliams2808]

If someone does address the Timeless Child, I think the best solution is to reveal that the Doctor was sent back from the far future, and is in fact just a Time Lord. Having it revealed that Time Lord culture / physiology is the result of a massive closed loop paradox, intentionally set into motion by the Time Lords themselves, would feel fitting and appropriately timey-wimey.

[@nekusakura6748]

So basically a Predestination Paradox?

[@Supermanuel]

I think the timeless child could have worked beautifully if they revealed them to be Susan and the reason the Doctor ran away from galifrey was to protect the child from the torture and experimentation. Joe Martin could have been a later regeneration of Susan after she and the doctor parted ways hence why her tardis is also a police box

[@M-E_123]

Been saying this all along - they could even have had the Doctor changing his records in the Gallifrey Matrix to hide Susan's existence in case anyone found out about and tried to track down the Timeless Child (and have that false record be what the Master had seen - deliberately making it seem like the Doctor was the Timeless Child so Susan could live in peace). It seemed to be perfectly set up for that reveal (Susan as the Timeless Child) to me. It would have been a great way to bring Susan back into the series and explains why the Doctor really left Gallifrey in a satisfying way. I also didn't like them blowing up Gallifrey again - but that's a whole other complaint.

[@LupinKing]

This! I had this same thought ages ago! Either Susan or it being the Master - as it would explain why he went so insane that he’d go to such lengths to destroy Gallifrey.

[@okankyoto]

Arrrgh this is so much more interesting than what happened!

[@EmeralBookwise]

Either her or The Master. In the case of Susan, The Doctor himself could even have been the one who found and experimented on her. The Doctor is certainly no stranger to implications of a dark and manipulative past, also it could put an entirely new slant on where the name "doctor" came from in the first place. It could make everything The Doctor has become since then as a form of atonement. In the latter case it could have gone a long way towards explaining the Master's hatred of the Time Lords, while also painting The Master's constant quest for new regenerations not just as a fear of death, but as trying to legitimately take back the power the Time Lords had stolen.

[@naveenbhalla4557]

I was hoping that the Fugitive Doctor was the 14th Doctor, who'd travelled back to time-locked ancient Galifrey to solve the Timeless Child mystery, and had therefore lost her memory. Fugitive Doctor was on the run for attempting to mess with Time Lord history!

[@williamjay87]

Oh yeeeeeah, didn’t a good portion of the universe get destroyed at the end of Flux?? Man, I always felt Jodie had so much potential as The Doctor. Shame she was saddled with Chibnall as her showrunner.

[@paulhammond6978]

Well, this is the thing - the whole universe was destroyed in the flux, but was it somehow all back to normal by the start of Power of the Doctor? Who knows?

[@TheGeorgeD13]

Nope! It was restored. Never really explained on-screen, but has been confirmed by writers off-screen. So... yeah. LOVED most of Flux, but that was a glaring hole.

[@neptune04]

Ironically it was the second time the series did that. @@TheGeorgeD13

[@intergalactic92]

There was a line at the start of Eve of the Daleks that the Doctor said she was using the TARDIS to reset the universe. It was a quick line that was easy to miss. It was overspill from this function that was causing the time loop. Effectively the entire conflict was the result of her trying to fix the problem of the previous series. But we didn’t really notice because Daleks, time loop, oh my!

[@dalekbumps]

I think Chibnall's rationale behind the Timeless Child, the Fugitive Doctor and Tecteun is that he wanted to introduce a new 'mystery' to Doctor Who, like the ones that exist in Classic Who (stuff like 'Who are the Morbius Doctors?', 'Why did the Doctor leave Gallifrey?' and 'Who is the Valeyard?') because he likes the idea that Doctor Who fans debate things and come up with theories, so he essentially manufactured his own set of unsolvable lore mysteries for future fans to argue over

[@calumbishop7082]

The problem is, it set up its mysteries, by bringing a wrecking ball to established canon.

[@martinmorles1]

@@calumbishop7082 you realize that was written as they went along there was no name for regeneration until planet of the spiders. Even the 12 rule , was going to be broken sooner or later.

[@Elwaves2925]

@@martinmorles1 None of that changes that it was still established canon. When those things were introduced, they added to the established canon, they didn't break it. The TC storyline breaks the canon, which is a very important difference.

[@kevin10001]

@@Elwaves2925 as much as people want to complain about a 33 year old doctor who concept getting fully executed the show still hasn’t solved it’s nearly 60 year old mystery of who is Susan the teenager who was introduced in an unearthly child as the doctor’s “granddaughter” way back on November 23rd 1963 when the pilot originally aired we don’t know who she is of if she really is the doctor’s “granddaughter” if she is it could open up the doctor to a life before he became the doctor

[@davidcrim7025]

​@@martinmorles1 it was shown that Time Lords could gift a new set of regenerations well back in the classic Who story "the 5 Doctors" when it was offered as a prize to the Master for aiding them.

[@TomMcGregor92]

Did anyone else notice that most of chibnalls stories were based on earth? For a time and space machine I was disappointed where are the cool alien worlds. Also Joe Martin's doctor was so cool but she literally did nothing she deserved so much more.

[@tokublwhovian]

Ever since it came back in 2005, most stories have been set on earth? whether it’s past, present or future.

[@diccchocolate416]

I still genuinely can't fathom how a lot of this era made it to air. I left after season 11 and hopped back in on flux because Russell was coming back so I could be invested again. Flux just gave me second hand embarrassment. It's been a year and I still havent figured out the basic story. I would love to meet chibnall just so I can pick his brain about what the hell he was trying to do.

[@TheGeorgeD13]

Interesting. Flux (and Jodie's take on the character in general) revived my love for the show. If not for that working out, I'd probably not be rewatching from the very beginning with Hartnell's run in preparation for the 60th. I honestly kinda swore off Who after Capaldi's run. This era revived it for me.

[@radic888]

I like that Chibnall didn’t continue Moffatt’s smutty glib lines and sexual double-entendres.

[@yourneighbourtodoro]

I'll take your points and raise you two: 1. I actually think the Timeless Child makes the Doctor's origins less mysterious. One, because the Master does a power point explaining everything, and secondly because the name of the Doctor's home planet, the name of their species, was that ever really what was important or interesting? If Chibnall or anyone did decide to close the mystery and say that the Doctor came from the Peepeepoopoo Dimension, from the planet Scrimplydimply, what would I gain except just more information to update my Doctor Who Fandom Wiki? There's no storytelling in that. 2. The mystery that the Timeless Child injects is entirely a manufactured. That feeling you got in the classic series of the Doctor being a mysterious figure didn't come from the writers intentionally baiting the audience and then withholding answers. It was a consequence of the writers not really feeling it was that important to explain and choosing to focus on individual stories and relationships between characters. I like the drip-feed over years that we got of new information that illuminates the universe -- I love Gallifrey and the Time Lords and all the slow-burn world-building we got, where we were revealed one piece at a time over 60 years. It just felt like Chibnall made these changes because he wanted to leave a BIG MARK on Doctor Who in as little time as possible, but it's completely fabricated and devoid of emotion or meaning.

[@markgrehan3726]

Yeah I get the same feeling that Chibnall wanted to make his mark on the franchise so went about destroying the lore but just never really wanted to do anything with it afterward.

[@paulhammond6978]

Yeah, that's what it feels like, and I guess that's why it will ultimately be ignored and moved on from - as Vera said in the piece like the way the Doctor saying that he was "half-human on his mother's side" (just like Spock, in fact!) was quietly ignored and never referred to again when RTD started the new series with Chris Eccleston.

[@theshadowdirector]

My top 3 positives of this era: - Sacha Dhawan's Master. My favourite of the revived series sooooo far. - The use of some lesser known historical figures, made the show genuinely educational for some viewers. - The Cybermen design, my fav of the modern era.

[@AysKuz]

I love, LOVE Missy but I ADORE Sacha as the Master. The unhinged chaos he brought to the character was superb.

[@ftumschk]

Good choices.

[@JazzyWaffles]

*Dhawan

[@ginam.6787]

Sacha is my favourite too!! 😍

[@KrystleGrygo]

Like @AysunK says, loved Missy but Sacha was incredible. His characterization felt so very much like someone who spent too long looking into the time stream and became insane, but his obsession with the doctor was delightful. I could watch an entire series of him playing the master, creating chaos wherever he goes.

[@PaulAndroid]

You definitely hit the nail on the head when you said that a mystery can just be a mystery and not have answers as long as it's explained why the answers don't matter. To cite an example from Doctor Who itself, that's what I thought worked so well about the mystery of the Doctor's name towards the end of Matt Smith's run. So much mystery was built around what his name was and why he kept it a secret, and when the time came, no answers were given, but that didn't feel unsatisfying because the story became about why his name wasn't really important to who he was. What really mattered was the name he chose, the Doctor, and the promises he made to himself by taking that mantle.

[@paulhammond6978]

yea, plus having a big ole mystery about the Doctor's name is not a universe destroying mystery, it's just something we don't know about the Doctor which we've probably always wondered about from time to time.

[@december3305]

You are being very generous as always 😂 I'd at least feel fairly confident in saying that the "I don't get it" reaction comes from Chibnall not really getting Doctor Who, since he seems to have put no focus on what for many is the heart of the show - the doctor and their relationships to their companions. Everything else, even if it had been better in quality, would still have fallen flat for me as long as the characters weren't developed properly. What is bizarre in my mind is that Chibnall wrote Broadchurch and is clearly capable of creating good characterisation? Maybe he didn't think it mattered since the doctor was already an "established" character who thr audience would feel invested in no matter what.

[@nancyjay790]

I think Chibnall has done some great character writing even within Doctor Who. And I believe he understands Doctor Who to a degree, and that he loves it. But I am not sure that he had a clear idea of the Doctor. Most of what we get of the Thirteenth Doctor comes from Jodie Whitaker, with some bits from the other writers who wrote a handful of episodes. And while an actor often is the main force for how that character lands with audiences, an actor with great scripts and good direction often can create a stronger character. I may be wrong. Chibnall has written some good stories, particularly Broadchurch. But I think possibly Chibnall never really got a grasp on the Doctor, and without that, the show was at a disadvantage.

[@MeddlSchamane]

My personal answer to the "broadchurch paradox" has always been that Scifi just isn't his genere and that he just doesn't do well with episodic plots. Than in season 12 I felt the writing had improved and it felt like he just took a long time to get used to the genre and structure.

[@blackphoenix77]

It was a dumpster fire with a handful of diamonds scattered in it.

[@HeyLookWatchMe]

For me, the timeless child should have been followed up with a whole series (season) on her figuring out her past (she has a time machine). I think Chibnall doesn’t think that kind of closure is important because he is adopted and hasn’t done any work on that in his life probably. But as an adopted person myself, it’s not that simple. She would definitely have deeper issues with her identity that need to be addressed and that would take decades. That’s where the story should have gone. They tried to solve it in one scene without any outside help.

[@NeonIcyWings]

As an aspiring writer, I just don't get anyone who throws out game changing revelations and does nothing with it unless under extremely specific circumstances. It's kind of similar to my confusion as to why Disney would buy Star Wars and have literally no story in the pipeline. If I'm going to write a story I'd want to try and actually use the plot points I have laid out and get as much mileage out of them as possible. Though I always hated wasted potential so maybe that's just my angry button. "Here is big thing of which we will do nothing with."

[@FrumiousMing8]

Also the "answer" to Inception's ending is in the movie. The random guy who ran the dream house where people are choosing to live constantly in the dreamstate says something along the lines of "The dream is real to them. And who are you to tell them any differently?" That line is in there to foreshadow the ending. It's almost speaking to the audience it doesn't matter. He chose the reality he wanted to live in and it doesn't matter if it's technically "the real world" because it's real to him.

[@Kaoruishere]

I'm not particularly surprised that this era turned out as it did. The storytelling in those later Broadchurch season was weirdly aimless and struggled to land its points (if it had any). Those early Torchwood seasons lacked coherence in the characterization as well as presentation. Chibnall might have ideas, but he has serious issues with putting them into an order that is structurally sound. Given what his work was like before, it was no wonder that scripts for Flux or Power of the Doctor would turn out as this cluttered mess that they are. The paradoxical situation with these overstuffed stories is that if you turn your brain off they're probably more enjoyable - but then it's hard to keep up with them. However, if you turn your brain *on*, you become aware of badly they hang together and end up being even more confused. Ah well, There were some individual bits and pieces in the era that I found interesting and learned to have fun with - and I'll be looking forward to what Big Finish is going to with them. It's also not as *unpleasant* as the Colin years were. But I'm also a little relieved that it's now over. Fandom might even heal a bit. Who knows, who nose.

[@Elwaves2925]

I pretty much agree with all your points, except I think Colin's era is still better overall. The thing for me with Broadchurch, is that he had a massively successful first season, far greater than anyone could have expected. So when season 2 came about he tried to cash in on that and keep that initial story going, along with season 2's own story. Instead, I feel he should have done what season 3 did, keep the main characters and location but create a completely separate story. Which is why I feel season 3 is better than 2, but both lack compared to season 1. He massively overstuffed both Flux and Power Of The Doctor and for me, it didn't work for Flux (some reasons being pandemic related) but it did work for POTD, largely because of the fan service as the plot was still messy.

[@voltijuice8576]

Although I liked Colin's time (despite Eric Saward's grimdark scripts), I otherwise agree. I groaned and banged my head on my desk when I heard that Chibnall got the job on Who because it only made sense on paper to BBC execs who could point out that "See? This guy is both a writer, and has produced several shows!" And even though the first two season of Torchwood are a mess, I still find them more interesting, fun, and even coherent than Chibnall's run showrunning Who. Before he was picked, I'd even joked with my kid about what a bad choice I thought he's be.

[@Kaoruishere]

@@voltijuice8576 @Elwaves I enjoy the Colin considerably less because the Doctor/Peri-dynamic is so uncomfortable to watch. So if I happen to be in the mood for some bland Who with plodding narratives, I think in that case I rather pick something that involves the "fam" from here on out. ;)

[@voltijuice8576]

@@Kaoruishere - Fair enough, but the fam weren't an option when I watched them 25+ years ago. Unfortunately, during the JNT era, companions weren't given much agency or respect until Ace. The Big Finish audio stories have addressed those dynamics quite well. I bet that even most viewers who know of Peri don't know that she's a botanist, because it hardly ever informs her character or role on the show. I like the crew dynamics from Chibnall's era. It was barely explored, the difficulty of how flat the team structure can actually be when a nearly immortal genius alien is trying to solve problems with a few humans. But that was more about the Doctor's personal baggage than the practical aspects. My ex had always wanted more child companions, and basically ragequit watching Who after _Eleventh Hour_ when they introduced Amelia and then aged her into another young adult.

[@xrgg7111]

"This is some JJ Abrams nonsense". 🤣 I love you, Vera.

[@TK3477]

On the whole "Fans reading into things getting mad because they expected something the creator didn't promise" is exactly what I feel Thasmin was. The creator never promised it. There were telltale signs in what the Doctor was saying that she was trying to brush Yaz off nicely in Seas Devils. Yet everyone is mad that they didn't kiss. You can feel like someone is special without actually falling in love with them and, honestly, I feel the Doctor would gravitate to that easier as He/She/It has a fear of being alone.

[@survivordave]

The Doctor is It? I think I'll skip the Pennywise regeneration thanks

[@HOTD108_]

"He/She/It"? Just say "they". It's so much less tedious and will make your sentences flow better.

[@TK3477]

@@HOTD108_ "They" implies more than one individual. The Doctor is still the same individual no matter the incarnation. "He/she/it" fits as "They" do not. Also the Doctor has never pronoun corrected people so don't assume people's pronouns. I hear people get real mad over it.

[@brocktree4]

Let me try to do my own version of the Timeless Child. When the Doctor was a kid on Gallifrey, Division sees potential in them and conscripts them as an agent. They give the Doctor a new regeneration cycle and sends them out to do ops for the Time Lords. With the Doctor traveling all over time on these missions, that starts the legends of the Timeless Child. After the Doctor has lived through their cycle, Division wipes their memories, gives them another cycle, and they regenerate into the "First" Doctor. This way, you get the mystery (What did Division make the Doctor do?) without turning the Doctor into the Time Lord's version of Adam and Eve, plus you give us 12 (11+Fugitive) past versions of the Doctor that we can explore later (easier to wrap heads around than to have countless regenerations). If people like the mystery of what Chibnall did, great. But the problem is that it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between plot points that are meant to be mysterious, and plot points that are not well written or thought out.

[@noelleggett5368]

Ummm… so the Doctor is the Gallifreyan Jason Bourne?

[@brocktree4]

@@noelleggett5368 XD yeah, I guess so. I supposed I'd prefer the Timeless Child to be something that can be built on and revisited later, as opposed to saying, "So the Doctor's past is now this, and if you never talk about it again, whatevs." This way you could at least have a special or two dedicated to a couple of these Division Era Doctors. And hey, a special where a Division Era Doctor regenerates into Ruth/Fugitive Doctor and has to channel Jason Bourne to evade Division? Sounds good to me.

[@Jacob004]

I’m personally of the opinion that I think the era was at its best when it wasn’t focused on telling an overarching mystery box type arc. In retrospect I find execution of the arcs has ended up just not living up and ended up being very messy as a result. That being said, I do like the era more then a lot of others do. I think series 11 while not perfect was a perfectly decent and low stakes series which I liked and had some strong stories like Demons of the Punjab and It Takes you Away. Resolution and Eve of the Daleks were pretty fun romps all things considered and I genuinely love Power of the Doctor as a closing story despite it’s flaws In other words, I’m very mixed about this era, but I’m very excited to see what RTD will bring now that he’s back in the helm

[@josgibbons6777]

Pierre de Fermat introduced an idea in mathematics that took centuries to prove, in a comment where he claimed he had a proof that wouldn't fit in the margin. All he ultimately published was a special case, so it's assumed he realized he'd made a mistake and that was all he could salvage. Maybe Chibnall thought he had good ideas for where things would go, but decided they weren't good enough and had to try to back out of doing or revealing much.

[@jessebechtold2973]

To me it mostly felt like writers-including Chibnall- whom may have had a passing interest in Science Fiction/Fantasy at best were suddenly told to make a leading Science Fiction show and didn’t understand what that meant. Moffet went to maddening excesses but at least he loved the surreal stories a time travel show could get away with.

[@Alex_Fyrehart]

As far as thoughts on Chibnall's run overall, the main takeaway I've gotten from his time as showrunner is that, like RTD's first run, he was inspired by the 3rd Doctor era, just in different ways. To me, RTD 1.0 was very "the action side of the Pertwee era", whereas Chibnall's run seemed more inspired by "the politics of the Pertwee era". Honest to god it's why I think in hindsight I lean more positive on Chibnall's run. I don't *love* his era, but I lean more towards the positive side of things. Which mainly amazes me cause when he was announced I remembered he wrote The Power Of Three.....an episode I absolutely hate. lol. So the fact I was able to come out of his era thinking "well, this was flawed as hell, but I have more positive feelings than negative" is a win in my mind. lol. I'm not gonna die on a hill defending his era or anything, but I liked it fine enough, with a few exceptions that probably just aren't coming to mind right now.

[@paulhammond6978]

I'm not sure exactly what you are meaning by the politics of the Pertwee era. Little bit of environmentalism and Buddhism from the Green Death and Planet of the spiders? Attempts at non-violent solution to the Silurian problem, undercut by the Brigadier blowing them up and sealing them in? anti-colonialism, as explored in The Mutants?

[@Alex_Fyrehart]

@@paulhammond6978 Politics in a generalised sense rather than literally the same politics (although i did make a joke comparing a line Pertwee makes in Invasion Of The Dinosaurs to a speech Jodie makes in Orphan 55). Pertwee era was a lot more overtly in-your-face political compared to the eras before it (and I'd argue after it in some respects). One of the things people usually bring up about the Chibnall era is how the political elements of the story are very blunt. Pertwee era you could argue it was usually just due to them being stuck on Earth for 2 seasons and otherwise being very Earth heavy, whereas Chibnall's strength is drama rather than sci-fi.

[@DavidBeddard]

I can't help but wonder whether Chibnall was trying to give hardcore fans the chance to build their own head canon, while allowing casual fans to ignore it. Or, knowing that Big Finish has an uncanny ability to take daft, throwaway lines from old scripts and spin them into exquisite storylines with such a rich tapestry of extended lore and worldbuilding, he decided it wasn't worth fully exploring the Timeless Child, Division, or the Fugitive Doctor himself, because others would do it better later on, with hindsight, for those who care enough to explore further, while everyone else can forget. 🤷‍♂️

[@ErinTheFennec]

To be honest, i interpreted the scene where the Doctor dropped the fob watch into the TARDIS as her accepting that at least for now, it doesn't matter who she is or where she came from originally, she knows herself as the Doctor, and that's all that matters to her in the present. thinking about it that way makes the ending of that arc much more satisfying to me, though I can definitely understand why it didn't land with a lot of people.

[@CouncilofGeeks]

Except that Chibnall blows that with her line about "hold onto it until I need it," which completely undercuts the idea of her believing it doesn't matter. If it didn't matter she could have thrown it into a freaking supernova.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

@@CouncilofGeeks hence why "that's all that matters to her... in the present"

[@CouncilofGeeks]

But it STILL undercuts that idea because her present self isn't committing to it.

[@Kaoruishere]

When that moment played out on screen I got on a conceptual level what they were going for with it, but it doesn't land because there's just no proper build-up. There's no detectable progression for the viewer how she came to the conclusion, she just decides that she doesn't want to know after all, despite chasing for answers for six episodes straight.

[@8LiterallyJustTheNumber8]

@@Kaoruishere exactly! There was no weight to anything. "This matters! It matters to me more than anything in the universe! Wait- Never mind, who cares?" If it matters to her, show us WHY it matters to her. If she no longer cares, show us HOW her opinion changed so drastically. It's like if you told the story of Cinderella by saying "Once upon a time there was a girl whose step-mother was evil and abusive and it sucked but actually it wasn't so bad because suddenly she married a prince and they lived happily ever after." Like, you're not given enough time to care in the first place

[@TheMutantCreeper]

I don’t care about the mystery. I care about their character arcs, story, and monsters. Learning this info makes things more pointless. I loved the information of The Doctor’s home world and their strong connection to it. So taking that away and partially disconnecting them from Gallifrey just hurts.

[@happysquirrel]

I have such conflicting feelings about this whole era, I love it because it is still Doctor Who, and I've been something of a Chibnall defender, but sadly it's probably one of my least favourites of the whole show. There is some really good stuff in there, like I love what this era did with historicals, and it went out on a really big high for me with Power, but so many of the good ideas that were there just sort of fizzled out or fell apart at the end, like with Kerblam! or Flux. And I really hate the timeless child thing. Partly just because I'm autistic and messing with the continuity is deeply upsetting to me haha, but more than that it's such a boring, generic idea. And even more than that, I hate that the Doctor has zero agency in it, it makes them important not because of the choices they make or the things they do, but just because. And like you said, it goes nowhere and it changes absolutely nothing! I could maybe forgive it a bit if it did literally anything at all. It's basically Arnold Rimmer announcing he's the reincarnation of Alexander the Great's chief eunuch but treated like an earth shattering revelation. Like, ok, so? It is so frustrating! But apart from that, Jodie has been great, Graham was nothing but a delight, as was Jericho, some of the things they did with classic monsters like the Sontarans was rad, Jo Martin is amazing (and I'm just going to head canon her as season 6b for now), this incarnation of the Master was fabulous, the use of lesser known periods and figures in history was great, the Dalek trilogy was a lot of fun, there is so much I did thoroughly enjoy that I just really wish I loved this era more as a whole. I would be really interested to see Jodie come back one day for a multi-Doctor story and see how another show runner would write her. Also I'm still bitter that they were like, here have a story about Mary Shelley, inventor of sci-fi and all round awesome historical figure, on the night she writes Frankenstein, and then made it about how important her husband was. And that the super interesting weird Irish people who don't age turned out to be absolutely irrelevant and not even real. And if the memory is so deeply hidden, how did the random rag monsters reach it? And much as I liked Vinder as a character, still have no idea why he was even there. But they did also put Ace and Ian on my tv in 2022 so I also forgive everything. Ok, I'll stop rambling!

[@m.stewart8094]

I still want to know how Missy fits into this version of the Master. It’s ridiculous that the Doctor made no mention of her.

[@sanguinettevibrella]

Honestly, it's utterly mental that Chibnall's era is SO disconnected from the one just before it that it creates this jarring shift in the Master. Even more mental is that it's seen as such an active *regression* that most fans headcanon that his Master just has to come earlier than Missy

[@najawin8348]

I still see no evidence that Chibnall actually watched the Capaldi run.

[@marxistlynchist]

@@najawin8348 he 100% didn’t- or at least didn’t pay attention. his version of the Master references Gallifrey being in its pocket universe- which was already resolved in Series 9. Missy is never referenced. all allusions to Capaldi’s Doctor are about him being Scottish and old - nothing else- which wasn’t the case with other callbacks. it’s a shame because Jodie’s more optimistic and morally righteous characterisation could’ve been framed as a direct response to Capaldi’s incarnation - who was initially questioning if he was good and pleaded for his next self to be kind.

[@barryhomeowner9293]

I like the idea of the timeless child, but not the execution. I like the idea that the doctor's life goes on before Hartnell's, and will continue long after the show stops. They could've even pulled on, "the doctor was forced into the Division's service and got reset as punishment". If it hadn't gone for "the doctor invented regeneration and is a special mystical baby from another dimension", I'd have loved it. It just seems like a lot of lore over character, and not really doing much with the lore anyway

[@theboulder027]

I get the feeling that chibnall thought he'd have more time, like Davies and Moffett did.

[@CouncilofGeeks]

I'm inclined to agree but he's not stated anything clearly indicating that.

[@Mad-Bassist]

Excellent and insightful video! I was waiting for a big story arc involving The Doctor versus The Division. Setting that up seemed to me the whole purpose of the episode.

[@AndrewTaylorPhD]

The "it doesn't matter" bit is bang on - the new Green Knight movie has an ambiguous ending for exactly that reason, and while it's a traditional story so the ending can be trivially looked up, I've never felt the need to do so. The story is over.

[@Alex_Fyrehart]

Been saying it since it happened, but I feel like The Timeless Child was inevitable in some form or another. Not even taking into account the "Cartmell Master Plan" stuff, RTD & Moffat both contributed to The Doctor's importance in the universe scaling up continuously, so stands to reason something like this would happen eventually. Bungled though the execution of the idea was, I was moreso just disappointed. Especially since it felt like, up until that point, Chibnall had been trying to go for more of a Classic Who feel with The Doctor's relationship to the universe. So to go from that to "the reason regeneration even exists" was quite a leap.

[@HOTD108_]

I really don't understand your reasoning here. What exactly about the existing contents of the show made retroactively making the Doctor special as a result of their genes, as opposed to their actions, and the Time Lord version of Adam & Eve, an inevitably?

[@TheMaskedDonut]

I have a lot of thoughts about the Chibnall era, but as long as we're talking the unresolved plotlines, here is my issue. I'm not against the concept of "The Timeless Child", I think it can and did lead to interesting areas in Flux, and it has the potential to be further explored to new areas. But that's the problem right there with the whole era, the potential was always there, but it never felt fully realized. Chibnall did some things really well. I love how he made the classic and new monsters actually feel scary again. I love how he devoted time to the side characters in each episode to feel significant. I love how the companions feel like real people with their own lives apart from the Doctor. I love how he used the historical episodes to actually lean in and educate about the setting, and not just use it as set dressing like Moffat did. But in each of those cases, I don't feel he went all the way with it. While threatening, whatever conflict that needed to be resolved with the Cybermen, the Daleks or the Master often happened too quickly with little to no sacrifice. While side characters would die in these episodes, it was often completely predictable who would or wouldn't make it, so it made it tough to get that invested in their fate. And while the companions feel real and not like cartoons, they really don't do much at all with their development. Graham Ryan, Dan and Yaz feel just the same as when they first enter the TARDIS as when they leave. And while I do think the historical episodes were often the best episodes, they also just weren't as fun as the old ones. And again, going back to "The Timeless Child", not offering closure on that to me is like if in "Breaking Bad", Hank never finds out that Walt is the culprit, or they never have that infamous showdown in the desert. That is an ocean of dramatic conflict begging to be extracted that you'd be missing out on. I genuinely hope that with the new series, they don't abandon all of what this era brought up. This era's had a lot of negative feedback and I worry about the new folks overcorrecting things by discarding it all (if you ask me, overcorrection is the other fundamental problem with Jodie's series) and I think that would be a mistake. I hope they take what was built up, and if not resolve it, at least you it to bridge into more interesting adventures...

[@tidalblue2739]

Every era is a pile of good things and bad things... There were just too few good things that came with the baggage of the bad things. The Historicals, I adored (Sea Devils and Witchfinders are debatable), and The Master was so, so good. Graham and Dan were my favourite companions. Whittaker got some moments that showed *she was* The Doctor. I loved and hated episodes like any other era. My feelings after coming after this is ... meh. I would describe the era as a marmite era, and I am one those middle people.

[@MeddlSchamane]

I totally agree. I think people artificially make this run out to be so much worse than all the other seasons, when it was just as much hit and miss as for example the Capaldi era was. (And god, I loved Capaldi as the doctor. And I will for ever be sad the quality of the scripts durring his run was so inconsistent.)

[@f.b.cavalcante1276]

The Timeless Children is a revange for The Trial of a Time Lord

[@slumdogjay]

I’m afraid I’m one of those fans who gave up on the show during the last few years. Apart from Chibnall not seeming to know what he was doing, I honestly think Jodie was the wrong choice. She had no presence or even a Doctor like personality. The Timeless Child was the final nail in the coffin for me. Struggling to get interested in RTD coming back. Unless I hear The Timeless Child is retconned I won’t be watching.

[@paulgreening7387]

You make a lot of sense in your ramble😀 As a person who watched the original in 1963 I am so disappointed in Chibnail era. Feel sorry for Jodie that she got crap scripts and companions. For me, I am stopping at Twice Upon a Time and disregarding the past 4 years. Looking forward to Tennant and Ncuti A

[@thymeIord]

well said! on the wandavision point though-I was under the impression (I think I read this somewhere) that there *was* a purpose to the quicksilver casting. Something about how they needed both Wanda and the audience to be convinced that he really was her brother, but also show that she wasn't totally in control, and only casting the X-Men version of that character would accomplish those two things I was really disappointed that it didn't mean anything more though lol

[@Scsigs]

I need to watch more of Chibnall's era to really be certain of this, but to me, the constant thought I have of it is that to him, it didn't matter. It didn't matter what he did. He came in not really a fan of the show to any extent & didn't have any real passion for the material he was writing or overseeing from the other writers he hired. It's easy to see just going off of your description of each series he did. Series 11, no overarching story arc or mystery, but not a lot of impressive standalone stories. Series 12, overarching story but a huge shake-up to the established continuity of the Doctor that ultimately doesn't matter, is disappointing, or both. Series 13, doesn't do anything with the stuff from 12 & has its own problematic shake-ups to the established lore from what I know. And Chibnall saying that he has no leftover stuff or regrets is just weird. It comes off like he just didn't care. Which wouldn't shock me because I think the BBC hired him for his work on Broadchurch which wasn't a bad idea, but you can tell which show he had more passion about.

[@joelsytairo6338]

Just a reminder 1/3rd if the entire universe was destroyed by the flux. If this is a competition that’s the most underrated plot hole of the chibnal era 😂

[@voltijuice8576]

It's not even the first time in Doctor Who that a sizable chunk of the universe was casually destroyed, and never mentioned again! Tom Baker's last episode, Logopolis, was low-key bonkers. This era introduced the concept of "block transfer computation", which mean that the material universe is a by-product of doing certain kinds of math. So there is a city, Logopolis, where mathematician monks maintain the universe by always performing these calculations. And that's where the Master lures the Doctor for their showdown. IIRC in their struggle, much if not most of the universe was destroyed.

[@joelsytairo6338]

@@voltijuice8576 man the doctor just won’t let the universe catch a break. I think I saw that episode or at least the final episode of it where he regenerates.

[@ooooneeee]

Yeah I'd love it if Doctor who never had an episode again where the entire universe was threatened or a lot of our was destroyed. When the stakes get this big it's honestly less compelling than a star system or a planet or a city being under threat.

[@voltijuice8576]

@@ooooneeee - Agreed! That's what I call "farcical stakes". That's been increasingly an issue as special effects have improved and gotten cheaper, and visual fantasy/sci-fi media seek to upstage the limits of pure spectacle. But it nearly always undermines the narrative and characters and seems silly when thought about much.

[@ooooneeee]

@@voltijuice8576 yeah Star Trek Discovery is really guilty of that in their season arcs. Every season the galaxy or universe is threatened, again. Yawn! A related problem is the trope of serial escalation, where in each new movie or season the stakes get bigger. Like in the MCU now it's not enough for Earth to be in danger, now (half of the people in the) universe or multiverse being threatened. I wonder what's the next level, the multi multi verse? 😂

[@WiloPolis03]

OH MY GOSH WandaVision is a perfect comparison. That show felt like it was trying to do 3 things at once and threw them all away by the end

[@purplecelery7380]

I really loved Broadchurch, and Chibnall definitely has talent as a writer. So I can't quite put my finger on why his era of Doctor Who didn't quite hit the mark for me. There were some great episodes during his tenure (Rosa, It Takes You Away, Fugitive of the Judoon, Villa Diodati) - but overall, it was a mixed bag. I guess maybe writing sci-fi is different than writing murder mysteries? And in the last couple of years Covid obviously affected production. But I agree with your consensus that his writing did seem very reactive at times, and 'first draft-like' at others.

[@elberno4243]

I genuinely believe that Moffat recommended Chinballs, just so his own era would look good by comparison😂😂😂

[@lalida6432]

I feel like the Chibnall era kind of had all the bells and whistles of what Doctor Who is but never really got down to the guts of it. Everything just seemed very superficial and on the surface. It was hard to care about the characters. I never really got vested in any of them.

[@ghlmk5931]

I know you dislike mystery boxes, but at least one good thing that came out of them in past seasons of DW is that the story went somewhere and had a conclusion. It may not have always been satisfying, but at least there was a plan for setup, follow up and resolution. Like another reviewer points out, Chibnall doesn’t go anywhere with his setups, and at least for me, that’s what left me with such an unsatisfied feeling about his era. He made the show look fantastic with great cinematography and effects, but that’s about it. I hope the show only goes up from here.

[@mhollis1989]

Touching on the Doctor saying he was half human, i never put too much into that. As River herself famously said, The Doctor lies. Besides, as I understood it, he was not only still cooking from his shift into 8, but the ER's efforts to save him interfered with the regeneration. In short, the dude was still loopy when he said that.

[@Gingerprince521]

Unfortunately, the Master also mentions it so it can't just be put down to the Doctor joking or still effected by the regeneration.

[@mhollis1989]

@@Gingerprince521 was this when he was lying to that teen, even going so far as to say he was Genghis Khan?

[@Gingerprince521]

@@mhollis1989 Yes but the way it is set up is that the Master seems to discover the Doctor is half human, not that he happens to make it up. That said it could well be that the Doctor has somehow set it up to trick the Master.

[@lcoyle1998]

Ngl my biggest complaint of the Chibnall era was the chronic overuse of the Sonic Screwdriver. It was such a problem, I hope RTD does a 'The Visitation' and just destroys the Sonic and get rid of it for a while...

[@maurinet2291]

No, I don't think it's you. Chibnall basically provided the explanation for that scene in The Brain of Morbius with the Timeless Child BS. That was the entire point, maybe the entire point for him to be showrunner. I felt like he'd been sitting on that notion since he was a kid. But he had no idea what to do with it past that. It was fan fiction to fill in a continuity hole, not to go somewhere new.

[@KirstenBayes]

I liked the characterisation in this era: Jodie's Doctor, all the companions, Sacha Dhawan's Master, really warmed to them, super memorable, terrific. The issue was really plot. I get that it's hard to hit all the story beats in a 1 hour episode as well as create an interesting story arc over a season, and do a decent job on characterisation. Especially in an old show where if there is a gigantic cosmic conspiracy, it's no mystery who will be behind it. But absolutely, if you are going to put something like the Timeless Child in, as a big reveal, or basically destroy half your universe like the Flux, it has to move the protagonist's story forward. It's basic "Chekhov's Gun" stuff. It's not about "what's so", it's about, "so what?" I get why the Timeless Child is important to the Universe, but why are they important to us?

[@sanguinettevibrella]

I feel like 'the episodes didn't have enough time to hit every plot beat' is a strange point that I see people bring up when Russell, Moffat (well, less so Moffat) and almost every other writer on the show could tell satisfying stories with ten minutes less than in this era, and there are tv shows with 22 or 11 minute episodes that can still bring up ideas and conclude them; I think if Chibnall was given 2 hour long episodes he'd still put all the focus on technobabble and disinteresting details.

[@rudolfambrozenvtuber]

I don't think any of the companions got much characterization at all.

[@DeidreAnneEvans]

I've enjoyed your DW analyses lately, especially because you start with the BBC disclaimer. I appreciate the nuance you bring to your analyses. Also, thank you for those kind closings. I've had a bad few days, and the way you talk to your audience at the end has made me feel a little more comfortable in my skin. You are beautiful, valid, and loved too! Thanks for what you do.

[@pattatbh9484]

I don't know if other people feel this, but I think for me personally the timeless child didn't make the doctor feel more mysterious because the secret isn't being kept by the *doctor*. it's an external secret. there's no information about their past that she's withholding, it's just stuff she doesn't know. what planet they come from and all that background information would only be a compelling mystery to me if she had any personal relation to it, but she doesn't.

[@bennet8388]

I really agree with your view about not liking the Doctor to be made to seem too important, apart from in the way that you mentioned to the people in his life. It's one of the reasons I'm inclined to really like the 10th Doctor's dip into an almost manic belief at points that 'the laws of time are [his]', because it's shown through the resolution of Donna's arc in s4 (as one example) that he's wrong. Anyway great video, I'm excited to feel excited about watching Dr Who again!:)

[@chasehetrick4752]

Honestly when it comes to you having a specific video talking about mystery boxes I feel like you could just do a compilation of every time you talked about mystery boxes and it'll be a informative idea on your thoughts of mystery boxes in Doctor who

[@1monki]

I thought Evan Peters was a brilliant choice. His showing up put the audience in Wanda's point of view. We instantly knew who he was, but we also knew he was wrong. He was her brother and not at the same time. Great. But they needed to put more thought into how to unwind that character. That's the bit I have issues with

[@JohnBainbridge0]

Flashbacks to the Star Wars sequels. Force Awakens asked, "Who is Rey?" and "Who is Snoke?", but JJ never had answers to those questions. That's part of why Johnson said, "Rey's nobody and Snoke's dead." Then JJ had to try to "fix" it in Rise of Skywalker. It's like kids fighting over Star Wars toys in a sandbox.

[@najawin8348]

God Rian Johnson was so based. Wish Disney had just given him the year off so he could have written/directed EP9.

[@JohnBainbridge0]

@GiRayne Afraid not. JJ admitted in an interview he had no answers. He didn't even give Johnson any story notes. There was no plan.

[@najawin8348]

@GiRayne As stated, JJ admitted he had absolutely no answers. He so fundamentally misunderstood the assignment that he wanted the closing shot of TFA to be Luke sitting on the island levitating some rocks. Johnson had to ask him to change the scene because it would have made absolutely no sense within the context of the story JJ had told.

[@catfancier270]

Wish the navy coat had been the default one for Jodie's Doctor-looks better than the gray one.

[@philipstephens5960]

I have no need for the Doctor to be a mysterious character beyond simply not knowing all of the details of their past. Doctor Who has always been, first and foremost, a science fiction adventure series in which the Doctor travels through space and time and helps “people”. The basic personality characteristics that follow the Doctor through all of their regenerations is all an audience really needs to know in order to enjoy the show. Additional mystery adds nothing of importance to that.

[@EmeralBookwise]

On the subject of what motivation Chibnall could have to still lie after leaving the show, however, it could still be possible her is operating under some NDA agreements, or maybe he's just practicing professional courtesy and not wanting to tie future show runners' hands by revealing his own specific idea of what direction the show should go in following the changes he made to it. On the subject of trying to add mystery back to The Doctor, I'll only say that Sylvester McCoy's run did that better and did so without complexly uprooting everything that came before it. Similarly, Jo Martin's fugitive Doctor actually had some great potential, in much the same way as John Hurt's War Doctor. They both represent "lost" incarnations that inject some of that mystery back into the character, make us question some of the things we thought we knew. The Timeless Child, however, takes that beyond the extreme, uprooting not only every idea of who The Doctor is as an individual within the setting, but of the fundamental nature of the ENTIRE setting a whole. For my own _"If I didn't know better"_ take, I would have assumed Chibnall was simply someone who'd never watched Doctor Who, a person who didn't know any of the lore and didn't care how anything they wrote would reflect on the franchise's past or impact its future. Knowing he actually was a fan, however, I'm more inclined to believe that what he wrote was very much his own closely held and deeply personal interpretations and speculations, something that were he not a professional would have just been fanfiction. As an occasional fanfic author myself, I could respect that... if it was only just FANFICTION, or even if it was presented as a non-canon spin-of akin to Peter Cushing's Doctor, or maybe some kind of AU were it ever desirable to bring back in crossover events. As official mainline canon though, it just does not work.

[@dante6985]

To add a little bit to the JJ Abrams side of the conversation. One person on Twitter said "After The Force Awakens, the Star Wars sequel trilogy was ALWAYS going to be divisive." (TLJ widely considered a divisive movie.). I initially was a little miffed at the idea, but then I thought, "no that's 100% correct." JJ Abrams had no answer for "Who is Rey?" nor "Who is Snoke?" It was mystery-box storytelling and no answer anyone gave was ever going to very satisfying (or satisfying to most people) because Abrams didn't have one in mind when he made the first film (those "answers" are not my issues with TLJ, btw). Abrams is guilty of this as far back as Mission Impossible III where the antagonist wants a macguffin called the Rabbit's Foot but we never learn what the Rabbit's foot is, or even why it's important. Chris Chibnall is the JJ Abrams of Doctor Who: He retools what's worked before, gives it a shiny coat of paint, adds a mystery box to hook audiences, and that's pretty much it. I find it an enormously unsatisfying approach to media.

[@jeanfalconer6377]

I've seen two phrases related to this: Mystery baiting & addiction based story telling. Basically get people speculating/engaging by constantly promising resolution and then never resolve it. It's extremely annoying.

[@krchecotah]

I know your video was almost entirely about The Timeless Child, which yeah, it was bad, but I'd say that as a whole Chibnall's characterizations (or lack thereof) bothered me more than most of his plots. Honestly I could have ignored the heavy handed writing and dropped plot points if I just enjoyed his characters more. I never really connected with Jodie's Doctor and I think it's because she never really connected with her companions, probably because they were so underwritten. I didn't need them to be Clara levels of important but geez, does the Doctor really have nothing to say to Graham when he admits to being worried about a cancer recurrence? Do the companions really have no rebuttal when the Doctor talks about being on a mountain above them? The companions admit that they know very little about the Doctor and that she doesn't share anything personal with them, so why are they constantly touting her as the best person ever? I wish the writing had been bold enough to say "hey, this Doctor treats her friends like crap, so their opinion of her is a bit iffy". Instead we get conflict-free little cheerleaders. Even if there wasn't a companion issue, I struggle to find something endearing or distinctive about Jodie's Doctor (well, aside from that ONE facial expression she makes). I don't know if it's the dialogue or the delivery but a lot of her "big moments" just sound preachy. Maybe they should have gone less serious with her and let her be the wacky inventor Doctor, wearing the goggles and making questionably useful things. IDK, maybe that's Matt Smith territory, but at least it would have been something. Maybe if the Doctor or "the fam" was actually doing something interesting, even if it was completely unrelated to the main storyline, the pages and pages of exposition Chibnall always gave us would have been easier to slog thru. As it is, it's all just kind of dull.

[@theoncomingstorm7903]

Honestly it makes perfect sense why he did it to me. TTC was his pet fan theory he made up during the 80s, it was engineered to give the show a creative shot in the arm after it had begun to stagnate. Hence destroying Gallifrey and reintroducing mystery to the idea of the Doctor. (Gallifrey was courtroom drama setting in the 80s and the Doctor's mystery was gone). It was never a story arc, just a new status quo designed to make the show feel fresh again. So when he took over he just decided to drop it into New Who without regard for the fact it simply no longer works as intended.

[@charlieinthefog]

I love how the glasses fit with the rest of the outfit

[@Macapta]

I'd say the post revival seasons did a decent job in mystifying the Time Lords again by pivoting the mystery away from who they are and into what have they done/become. We knew they were a powerful yet corrupt and fairly indecisive people to the point you wish they would just get off their asses and help, so to hear that they had now done something and that thing was so large and impactful people almost refuse to talk about it is a great twist on it. Obviously that mystery faded again but i think they had the material to work with to do it again with the current condition of Gallifrey when it was lost in the void and Time Lord society would have seen a major shake up. Turning the intrigue from who they are, to who they had become and now into who they will be moving forwards after such a massive shift in position after the war. Well, until they all got killed again anyway.

[@dgf6275]

The algorithm got something right! New subscriber. Sharing.

[@tothm129]

I want to skip forward a decade or two and just ask a decade or two and just ask a dr who fan "hey has any writer on the show or big finish picked up the timeless child ark"

[@haydenmaines5905]

The Chibnall era suffered from the same problem Pokemon suffers from - this notion that people's attention spans are shorter now, and that in order to maintain mass market appeal, content must be simplified and streamlined to focus on the visuals and attention-grabbing spectacles over depth, complexity, and deeper meaning.

[@Azphreal]

As far as i se it he just wanted to put his 'Mark' on the show and had no idea what to do once he did it. First female doctor, black doctor and then the doctor is the 'Timeless child' and is not a timelord.

[@BowtiesAreC00l]

I'm perfectly okay with the whole Timeless Child concept, even if not perhaps the execution. One thing not mentioned (possibly) is that, yes I know the Doctor was given a new life cycle pre-Chibnall, but I think one of the things he wanted to do was to ensure we stop counting down regenerations to the Doctor's demise rather than having the Time Lords step in every twelve and say how grateful they are and "here's another lifecycle for your efforts" every time. Given that Philip Hinchcliffe has stated that the faces featured in the Brain of Morbius were intended as earlier versions of the Doctor ("It is true to say that I attempted to imply that William Hartnell was not the first Doctor."), then Hartnell's incarnation was therefore not the first from that point on. In fact, this (that Hartnell's was THE first) was never directly alluded to until The Five Doctors in 1983, when Richard Hurndall delivered the line about him being the 'original' which therefore technically broke 'canon' established in The Brain of Morbius. The Three Doctors only stated that Troughton and Pertwee were his 'replacements.' That means there were eight (I think - and that's not even including Jo Martin's Doctor) before Hartnell. Which means the Doctor's lives would have otherwise ended with Peter Davison (or Tom Baker), if we assume they were the only eight previous incarnations (or nine...). That though would have been contradicted by Davison's line in Mawdryn Undead ("Eight of them, eight of me"). The whole point is that whether you think it was right or wrong, don't get hung up on it. Chances are it'll just be ignored and moved on from as things often have. Why let the past stand in the way of creative endeavour? Remember when Terry Nation took a sledgehammer to his own Dalek origins and gave us Genesis of the Daleks? There have been some great episodes in these years and some terrible ones, but that's ALWAYS been the case to some degree or other. There have been some positives: I will always like Jodie as the Doctor, and wish she'd have had more time, no Covid (hardly the worst thing about a pandemic though, I must admit), and yes, better scripts and narrative direction, but none of those negatives are things she could have any control over. I'll miss the thirteenth Doctor, don't particularly want the upcoming David Tennant interlude (will probably still enjoy it though), and would prefer to go straight to Ncuti's Doctor instead.

[@gearmachine_4885]

22:04 he brought in writers that didn't have any background in sci-fi writing... and commissioned them to write for a sci-fi show? That explains a lot...

[@k1ttkw1snky69]

there's a rule in writing called Chekhov's gun. if you introduce a plotline, or anything really, you have to follow up on it. don't pull out a gun if you don't intend to shoot it and all that. Chibnal only cares about temporary surprise and mystery, not expanding on any big arc and drip-feeding info until it all ties together, nor following up on the consequences.

[@annieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

For me, I think the doctor had enough mystery bc I only watch new who so I don't know anything about his family (apart from the fact he travelled w a grand daughter in the old ones and mentioned in passing he had kids) I don't know much about gallifrey except time Lords, citadel and red grass. What life is actually like on gallifrey- how their schools work(bar looking into the schism), what jobs people do, how much other time Lords travelled and when, the set up of their government (not sure that's the right word?) Etc. I have no idea. I really don't think that's a lot of information from 17 years worth of content. And to me i get my fill of mystery from the plots/the people the doctor meets on his travels, I've just never felt it was something that was lacking.

[@andrewbowman4611]

Who was this era for? The general TV audience in the UK, primarily. As he's stated previously, when it comes to writing the show, Doctor Who isn't a democracy in which the fans get a say. He has no online presence, so he's unlikely to have been influenced in any case. The idea of the Doctor as an adopted child comes from personal experience. Chris Chibnall himself was adopted at an early age, so he's taking influence from his own life and the feelings that come with it. Equally, the cancer that Graham had in the series was inspired by the cancer Chibnall himself had at 22. The idea being that cancer itself isn't the scary thing a lot of people think it is. Chris Chibnall is very much a writer who draws from his own life. I also think Timeless Child and Fugitive Doctor strands were always intended to be deliberately vague, although the Brendan sequences are clearly pointing in one direction. I believe, based purely on the onscreen evidence, that the Fugitive Doctor is still between Troughton and Pertwee. I think there's ambiguity there, but I also think there's only one clear solution. Should both arcs have been wrapped up in time for the RTD era? I don't know, but I appreciate the sheer chutzpah of Chibnall expanding the Doctor's origins for other writers to do with what they wish. The peculiar house seen in Flux is another indication of a greater story to be told. Maybe if Chibnall comes back at some point, and no one else has picked up the threads, he may clarify a few things himself, but probably not. What's interesting about it is not what the answers are, but what they could be. I suspect we'll be debating both points for many years to come.

[@ftumschk]

Chibnall apparently also has a relative with dyspraxia, hence his giving Ryan that condition. If, as you suggest, Chibnall draws from his own life, it's possibly a blessing that he didn't continue as showrunner. I don't think the world is quite ready for "The Writer's Block of the Daleks" ;)

[@ooooneeee]

​@@ftumschk 😂

[@andrewbowman4611]

@@ftumschk As you say, Ryan's dyspraxia is another example of real life experiences influencing Chibnall's scripts. As such, and I realise it was a joke, writers' block is going to be a long way off, I suspect.

[@Penguinstudios123]

Whilst I agree with most of what you said, I think that the timeless child story does in fact add more mystery to the doctors background, as it wasn’t confirmed either way whether or not they are from gallifrey and were just outside the hole thing, or if they came through the hole thing. They were just found there. It doesn’t confirm it either way, which I think does add more mystery around it Also, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Ncuti being dubbed as “the first gay doctor” and that “[promising] a queer future for Doctor Who”. I personally think it’s really weird that he’s being dubbed as the first gay doctor right after we’ve had Jodie… a gay doctor? My understanding was that the doctor, regardless of gender, likes women. It feels like this side of the doctor is being erased. Sure, I’d they wanted to make the doctor also like men that would be cool, we’d have a panromantic/biromantic icon (which I would adore as we don’t get much bi rep!!) , but making him strictly gay undoes the doctor’s previous relationships with Rose, their literal wife River and her crush on Yaz. I also feel that for the doctor, they should just like who they like without having to have a label so putting “gay” onto them is putting them in a box. Sure, they’re queer 100% (by human terminology I think they’d technically be gender fluid and panromantic/pansexual) so the doctor is definitely part of the lgbt community (and we love that), but it’s been already established that the doctor (genderless) at least likes women?? I always imagined the doctor to be panromantic and asexual (as 10 and I think 11 have said he’s ace) so it’s kinda sad to have the parts of him that have loved River, Rose and had a crush on Yaz disappear. It’s been shown over time that he/she was still sad about Rose even after regenerating into a woman, and still is married to River (13 literally references her wife to Yaz). It feels like this undoes those previously established relationships. Hopefully they explain this somehow, say if the sexuality can change when they regenerate - but I’d hate to have it seem like gender and sexuality are linked as many people have this as a preconception already. (Though, I doubt a lot of those people are watching Doctor Who 😂) I’m also not really sure how 15 being gay has been quoted as “[promising] a queer future for Doctor Who” when it has been queer for years and years before this. Eg, Captain Jack, Bill Potts, 13 herself, Yaz, Madame Vastra and her girlfriend. Of course, I’d love to see more queer representation, but Ncuti definitely isn’t the first of it to be seen and they’re acting like it’s such a huge thing for him to be gay, when she literally just was gay Saying all that, I’m going to watch and see what they do with it because they may make it fit and work! Love to know what you think! 🥰

[@paulhammond6978]

Maybe these people are just talking about Ncuti himself, rather than the character of the doctor. I don't really know about him, but apparently his character is gay or queer in Sex Education. It's new (I mean, only in the new series since 2005) that we've had the Doctor show any romantic interest in anyone. Personally, I would expect it to be possible for everything about the Doctor to change with every regeneration. 9th Doctor didn't seem to be very interested in Rose that way, but the 10th was.

[@Penguinstudios123]

@@paulhammond6978 yeah, he plays a gay character in Sex Ed, but (based on a quick Google search, I’m no expert on this man) he’s not labelled himself as anything so I’m not sure why people would be talking about the actor Ah, yeah, never thought about 9 not really liking rose that much but surely once you’ve fallen in love it sticks? Like how 13 mentions her wife and how the whole situation with rose has left her broken, so it clearly still hurts because she still likes them I don’t think I like the idea that it will change with each regen tbh, it (unintentionally) links gender and sexual orientation (or romantic in this case but majority of people don’t recognise the doctor as asexual). Idk I’m very tired May come back to this convo !!!

[@pumamanjrandsuch]

Older fan is a hard term to quantify with Doctor Who.

[@TimeBolt759]

The one thing that has annoyed me about this era is that Chris never developed his ideas. They were all undercooked giving us something unsatisfying. I get why he wanted to add mystery to the show but this wasn't really the way to do it. If I was lead writer for the show I would have a multiseries story arc that started with a lot of mystery that got answers as you went along. Like perhaps a group of villains working in the background trying to prevent the doctor from going to a certain point in time? Why? I wouldn't provide answers initially but drip feed them as we went along until it's revealed say, I don't know... The master is marrying Susan. Ok I know not a very good reveal but I'm spit balling here. Chris' ideas had the potential to be fantastic additions to the show. Yes even the timeless child could've been an amazing addition. Instead this era will just be forgotten and ignored sadly along with Jodie's doctor who was WASTED. She didn't have the chance to shine and I think that is the biggest crime this era committed

[@eline.de.allerbeste]

I’m mostly just confused. When the timeless child stuff happened and the internet was outraged, I defended it by saying that this is definitely just a setup for something much bigger and maybe we should wait to judge it until we know more. But then… that was it I guess? I don’t understand what he was trying to do. I wanted to like this era of the show so much, and there were things I liked about it, but Chibnall’s overarching storytelling is definitely not one of them

[@livinghomunculus657]

9:40 he did make those changes to tell a story. The story was the Master's motives for his actions in series 12. It was nothing more than that. And they were necessary to explain why the master would do something that insane in my opinion.

[@lucypreece7581]

You can admire the boldness in the choices he made. He certainly nailed the shock factor but after that everything you said is 100% true. It felt like nothing was significant and nothing got payed off and there are just too many dangling threads that will never be resolved.

[@theesweatydrummer]

Completely agree. Chibnall took a lot away but really only added the Fugitive Doctor (who I love). But it really says something that by turning the Doctor into Spacetime Jesus it pretty much flattened the character.

[@thegamingninja3578]

Honestly the timeless doesn't really bother me because i completely ignore it 😂. There's still plenty of older episodes I haven't seen and I've started watching classic who so I'll probably just stick with that for now

[@MeddlSchamane]

I share a lot of your opinions on Chipnalls run, aspecially when it comes to the timeless child Story, but your Video left me with the feeling that I enjoyed this era probably more than you did. But I think my Impression of this three seasons is influenced by the fact, that the internet had told me all these bad things before I even watched it, of which some weren't even true and when I finally saw the episodes a lot of them turned out to be better than I anticipated. Season 11 was pretty weak in my opinion and it took a long time for me to find a connection to the characters. I'm really surprised to hear that the script to 11x10 (I keep forgeting the full name of the episode) was a first draft that Chibnall thinks is his worst work, because I enjoyed that episode and thought it was one of the best episodes of season 11. I was also surprised when I finally reached season 12 and Flux (I took a long break near the end of season 11) and found myself enjoying the majority of it. Again, I think that might be the effect of going in expacting absolut garbage, while still hoping for something to like. I also think that a lot of people are judging this era way harsher than it deserves. To me it wasn't worse than season 8, which is one of my least favorite seasons and there where a lot of times where I thought "that could have been a tennant or smith episode". At least when it comes to the plot and dialougs.

[@toshomni9478]

Interesting. The only part of it I liked was Flux and the closing specials. Just when the run starts to get good, it's over. It never lacked for ambition but only started to focus on the characters in a deep and meaningful way towards the end.

[@SKSith]

Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos really does feel like I first draft. I've always thought that episode had potential, and just needed more time on the script. I was always extra disappointed because it features a lot of concepts that I really like to see in Who. I think moving the pacing of the threat alone would help a lot. I never thought series 12 was reactionary. Series 11 felt like it was supposed to be light and loose before the big arc stuff kicked off. 1, to get a footing on show running and 2, to give us a lighter series before we start to see all the issues with The Doctor dealing with these big things and hiding all that from the companions.

[@DalekEagle]

I don't know how much the timeless child reveal changes the ammount of mystery behind the doctor. The solution of the origin of the doctor are unknown to everyone in the universe (except the watch) and to the hero. There is no added mystery in the story if there aren't information to solve it or the need to solve it. If anythining i would argue the timeless child reveals the doctor origin, other than mystify it.

[@jensbergqvist]

Thanks!

[@MorbidGod391]

My biggest problem with the Timeless Child is it could have been EPIC! Just spit balling here. Let’s take The Flux. What if The Flux happened because the people who lost the Doctor came looking and found her? What if they were mad, and wanted to destroy the universe that stole their child? And they find their child - the Doctor - and she talks them out of stopping the Flux? That could have been HUGE! And then the Doctor chooses to stay with our universe, helping with the chaos that can’t be undone. How much would that have changed things? Would have been EPIC! And then we can have new bad guys from this other race (that remains unnamed). Maybe that’s what the main bad guy in the Flux could have been. Some rogue solider wanting to cause trouble. Maybe a former lover the Doctor doesn’t remember? Who the hell knows! But for gods sake, Scotty, it could have been EPIC! (Haha) Anyway… back to your normal video.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

An era that gets more hate than it deserves imo, it's not perfect of course but I think there's a lot to like and even love. I think retrospect will be very kind to this era tbh, much like the Moffat era. It'll be looked back on more fondly. I'm sad that it's come to an end but I'm also excited for the future of this silly, wonderful, brilliant show! But at the end of the day every fan has different opinions and I think that's fantastic so while I think this era gets more flack than I think it deserves that's not to say I'm saying people don't have criticisms that aren't valid and I respect those differing opinions. Ultimately it is all subjective!

[@Huntracony]

i think it'll be looked back on with more apathy, but I wouldn't mistake that for fondness.

[@ooooneeee]

Yeah no, I already loved the Moffat era while it was running. I liked series 11 and the first half of series 12 including the fugitive Doctor, but the timeless child retcon and before that the master destroying Gallifrey again after it has just been saved just seemed like Chibnall dicking around with continuity for no good reason. And we now no he really didn't have one.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

@@Huntracony I do think it'll be looked back on with more fondness,

[@najawin8348]

@@ooooneeee I think people will ultimately forget TTC like we've sort of forgotten the TV movie. Spyfall 2 is going to stick around as a problem though. It's just a vile episode in so many ways.

[@ForrestFox626]

You overestimate human compassion

[@bobjohnston1239]

My take on it is that He was hoping for another season or two, but the flagging ratings caused the BBC to cut short his contract.

[@CouncilofGeeks]

It’s possible but there’s no solid evidence.

[@Pilcro]

I really hope that RTD addresses TTC in the upcoming Tennant specials/Ncuti's era. 'I don't know who I am anymore,' in the trailer for the 60th seems to suggest this to me. Annoying that it seems RTD has to mop up after Chibnall though. I think TTC could go somewhere good. I'm somewhat up for the idea of it just being retconned tbh, though I don't think that's very likely.

[@Tymbus]

I don't think " things getting out of control" sounds like how Chibnall rolls. Although he couldn't plan for Covid-19 and its impact on media production, he managed to work around it to actually deliver a new season. I personally hate the motiff of "There's a secret about me, just so you understand I'm super interesting". It didn't work for the 80s era and it didn't work here. Because "secrets" rarely inform stories, particularly the entire history of the series prior to The Timeless Children. The obsession with The Doctor's back story and pinning down their powers is really "modern". Previously, The Doctor was mysterious because of the things they did and what they said. But it was Moffat who raised all this to an irritating level- an entire season devoted to the question: Doctor Who? Who cares! I don't think either producer responed to "fans", Chibnall's scripts were comissioned before his first season was completed. I think he did what he wanted and what he planned for. Finally, the BBC isn't that interested in fans or what they think. Doctor Who is made primarily for a British family audience. And if they did care what fans thought we might not have had a woman Doctor! We might not have had so many diverse characters and companions. Did I enjoy every story? No. But there's nothing to "get". Chibnall delivered a professional set of seasons, stories that returned to educating , entertaining and informing - particularly in the historicals. Chibnall also had a fannish interest in continuity and brought a spectacular look to the series. Was it great writing? in my view no, but it did what he wanted to do and, speaking as someone whose watched the series almost from when it was first on, I have no desire for it to primarily meet the expectations of a Sixty-Year-Old (despite that being the average age of today's BBC TV viewer).

[@ryanzerda]

It's been the most unsatisfying 4 years of being a fan of any TV show. Series 11, while I appreciated it's efforts in cleaning the slate and doing something new, didn't quite hit the mark most of the time thanks to poor characters and poorly executed arcs as well as some just fucking baffling moments and decisions (arachnids in the UK, Tsuranga, Ranskoor, Kerblam) Series 12 has some decent episodes and one great one with Villa Diodati, but also has it's share of weird moments like the Graham Doctor Cancer scene, "Now they'll see the real you", but it was mostly a step up. But the conclusion of the series long arc was just awful, not even because it changed the lore, but because it did so in such an unengaging way, and then told you that it doesn't actually matter that much. Flux seemed to promise more answers by seeing The Division who have been the masterminds behind the true secrets of gallifrean society, and teasing us getting to see The Doctor's memories, but it goes nowhere. Then it was followed up by some specials that both decide to confirm Thasmin, while simultaneously sweeping it under the rug and not going all the way with it. For all my issues with RTD and Moffat's Eras, with some similarly unsatisfying resolutions now and then, I can at least see the wider picture and what they were going for, and I can find tons of episodes that I would instantly go to for a good dose of quality science fiction, but the closest I have for this era is Villa Diodati, Rosa, Demons, It Takes You Away, maybe Tesla's Night of Terror, but that's about it. 5 stand-outs out of 31 episodes, but without an overarching through-line, and without a satisfying ending. Instead of stand out episodes there are more stand out moments, but they're sandwiched in between tons of boring poorly executed unengaging storytelling that is just a slog to get through. TLDR: Disappointed. Not a fan. Really frustrated that the first female Doctor has been bogged down by such a poorly thought out era. Let's hope Ncuti and Russell pave the way for a fantastic era in 2023/2024

[@Ode_10]

I'm sorry, but the excuse that he had to go back and help the writers he HIRED because they weren't SCI FI writers is his FAULT as the SHOWRUNNER

[@krchecotah]

Right? Why would you hire writers for your SCI FI show that have never written SCI FI? Edit - In the same vein, why would you hire a director who's only done small indie films and give them something like Legend of the Sea Devils?

[@SupaKen74]

I was actually afraid Chibnal was going to nuke the franchise. I was worried he'd do something incredibly wrong like, tell us the Doctor's name. Things we should NOT be messing with. I felt this because I felt after the timeless child, he showed a disdane for those things we all hold as important for the character we love. I'm glad his run was cut short and I'm actually glad he didn't have time to flesh out his world-breaking concepts. Because I don't think he'd patch up the holes he made- I think he'd make more holes and make them bigger. I think he'd destroy the franchise, given enough time. Maybe that's over-the-top. But so was the timeless child. It wasn't bad writing. It was damaging. The timeless child was like finding out in the Last Jedi that, oh by the way, Luke WASNT actually Anakin's son.

[@justsomeone8310]

I truly do not understand why in the timeless child they tried to say oh yes this is a big change but its not a big deal cause your still you... THEN WHY DID WE HAVE FLUX BE ALL ABOUT 13 CHASING HER PAST? In the specials 13 still hinted part of why she couldn't get close to Yaz was cause she didnt know herself.