RogerBW's Blog

The season ends not with a bang but with a "to be continued". And that's not a bad thing.

Particularly when we start off with a vision of mental disintegration portrayed remarkably well by Mark Addy (though he doesn't get to do it for long), and some atmospheric interior sets that make up for the generic gravel-pit outside shots. Pity about the "nine distress calls" that never come to anything, though.

Oh, Doctor, you of all people shouldn't say it's impossible to steal a planet! It's happened before in both the old (The Pirate Planet) and the new (The Stolen Earth / Journey's End) iterations of the show. So have people who can change the universe via thought (Logopolis, School Reunion). Perhaps that's why this doesn't feel as Epic! as one might have expected. Back in the day, the last story of a series was typically just the one that happened to be finished last, but since the revival, there's been a more US-style emphasis on a big expensive high-stakes story at the end of the season; which is why it's odd that this really doesn't feel big, or expensive (except for the sets aboard the shrine-ship, which are impressive if under-lit), or even particularly high-stakes. But the big flashy finales always felt to me like a poor fit for Who, and the constant raising of stakes drifted from dramatic into bathetic in remarkably short order. This is simply another story in the season, with some connections to earlier stories and a bigger budget than some of them, and it does a good job of being that.

All right, there's a frankly dull Message about the stupidity of unquestioning faith, but it's not dwelt on for long; the excuses for the immediate plot don't necessarily make much sense, but since the plot comes down to "a bad person is doing bad things and needs to be stopped" better scaffolding would be largely superfluous anyway. The first half is slower than it needs to be, and could have used perhaps a bit more action and a bit less wandering around, but the second half balances conventional action with moral choices and reasonably smart problem-solving. It's one of the good ones this season, and the Chibnall script I've liked best.

My feeling on the season is still that it's got a solid production team and a good set of actors, but it desperately needs a better showrunner, specifically someone less keen to write all his own scripts (five and a half out of ten scripts here, and the New Year's special, and Chibnall simply isn't that great; in fact I'd say he's the worst of the writers this season), and someone prepared to ask for a bit more than mere basic handle-turning competence from their scriptwriters, for some scripts that can balance message (I'm not saying there shouldn't be message) with decent characters and drama, and writing complex and subtle enough to provide a bit more interest for the adult viewers and the smarter children as well as being comprehensible to the stupidest kids in the mass audience.

There are a few turkeys, but plenty of solid episodes here, and I hope that Whittaker in particular stays on and develops her portrayal of the character further. (The plan is for her to continue for at least another series, to be broadcast early in 2020.) Bradley Walsh is effortlessly out-acting the kiddies - well, so's Whittaker, but Walsh is obvious about it and could perhaps stand to tone it down a bit if they can't up their game. It would be nice if someone occasionally remembered that Yaz is meant to be a police officer, and if they gave Ryan a bit more to do.

But the departure of Moffat brought me back to the show, and I've found this season worth watching.

The final episode of this season will be the New Year's Day special, but if it's anything like the previous run of Christmas specials it'll be more of a whimsical side story in the manner of The Five Doctors or Dimensions in Time than part of any kind of ongoing narrative. (A Christmas Carol and The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe did a great deal of the work it took to push me away from the revived show.) Still, we'll see – it might instead be worth the time.