Doctor Who Season 12 review: Pissing on the embers.

WARNING SPOILERS


So you might recall I put out a piece not long ago saying Doctor Who wasn't failing because it was woke but because it was an unfocused mess.

Well I stick by that somewhat but I'd also like to extend the unfocused mess comment to seemingly even the woke elements of the show which can't seem to even keep consistent but more on that later.

I titled this review "Pissing on the embers" because that's what the show feels lie at this point. With Spyfall part 1 and 2 being seemingly sparks of hope for the series which a number of episodes in Series 12 have done their best to piss all over and put out. After Spyfall the best Doctor Who managed this series was I'd argue mediocrity. It managed what should be the base level of how good Doctor Who should be and other series managed to be with "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror", "Fugitive of the Judoon" and "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" being episodes managing that level or slightly above while other episodes ended up and a rushed mess that somehow had time to almost lecture the audience of present climate issues in a way akin to Tyrion in the final season of Game of Thrones explaining the plot to the audience.

This season felt even more unfocused as it felt like there was little overall story for most of the companions with even the implied romance between Ryan and Yaz just being dropped. The series almost seemed to have an idea of a direction to take them with Graham being worried about his cancer returning. It could have made for some potential development of Graham trying to push Ryan to do things without him more or Graham having to overcome the realisation of just how mortal he is and fear associated with it to be able to carry on in the often risky adventure with The Doctor.

Yaz has been better used this series by only slightly and no longer even having the storyline of her possibly being a love interest for Ryan she has even less actual character development or story this series often just being used as a character who can go off somewhat solo and have conversations with other characters in the episode while away from the rest of the companions.

Then again the only thing resembling character development Ryan got this series was 1 episode having a love interest whom he seemed to be over by the next episode.

I said before that being "Woke" isn't what's killing Doctor Who and I stick by that. You know why? They can't even do woke virtue signalling without smegging it up. In Orphan 55 they're on about protecting the planet from pollution etc. In Praxeus the clear message is about plastic pollution but one character is shown as being weird and wrong for not liking international air travel, you know international air travel that hugely polluting industry. Great environmental message there guys stop using plastic so you can make sure to save all that oil to let you jet round the world on international flights for fun, I mean you don't want to be a sad act staying closer to home most of the time and actually being environmentally conscious right? 

The writing team

In terms of the writing team I'll go through them and give my views so far based on what they've done.

Chris Chibnall = Don't let him write episodes keep him in a closet and pull him out to look over a script and add in references to older Doctor Who stuff. Spyfall part 1 & 2 might have been the high points of this series but the ending still felt rushed and left a lot open.

Ed Hime = From an ok series 11 episode to one of the worst series 12 episodes in the form of Orphan 55. Ed Hime seems to be taking too much direction from Chris Chibnall and its actively making his work worse.

Vinay Patel = From writing one of the more memorable episodes of Series 11 that while not feeling Doctor Who it did feel like a direction that could work to writing a solid episode in Series 12. An episode I wonder if it couldn't have been far better if Chris Chibnall hadn't co-wrote it. If anyone were dictating a new direction for Doctor Who I'd say Vinay should be allowed to try because it at least feels like it would work and her work has a respect for Doctor Who as a franchise.

Pete McTighe = From writing one of the best episodes in Series 11 with Kerblam to co-writing one of the worst episodes in Series 12 alongside Chris Chibnall in the form of Praxeus. It's clear he should be allowed to do his own thing and not have some-one else trying to dictate the script. Either that or he had 1 good episode in him and is now spent. Only time will tell.

Nina Metivier = If her 1 episode so far is any indication she's very much a competent writer who should be part of the foundation of the series writing team setting what should be the baseline standard that all episodes should try to beat. She may not have written a superb episodes but writing episodes that are serviceable and functional and consistent is a key skill and if she can keep it up I'd suggest having her taking over Co-writing duties from Chibnall.

Charlene James = Oh great just when I thought Doctor Who had enough problems with its writing in comes Charlene James bringing back the worst writing elements from the Sylvester McCoy era with esoteric concepts and stories seemingly focussing on ancient gods. If her first episode is any indication of what's to come it's not good. Given her history however I think she might be one of the few writers capable of doing more "issue" based episodes of Doctor Who with more serious themes.

Maxine Alderton = Fine, maybe slightly above average I can't really say much more the episode she wrote was fine maybe a little above average.

The Timeless Child and the Chibnall problem.

One big thing I've noticed is Chris Chibnall seemingly being desperate to leave his mark of Doctor Who as a franchise. Russell T Davies got to bring the show back and introduce Torchwood, the Slitheen and the Judoon with the Judoon being a species that seems like it will stay as part of canon for a long time. Steven Moffat had managed to get the Weeping Angels who seem like they have or will be a mainstay of the franchise and to a greater or lesser degree The Silent. Rather than trying to create a monster and if it was a hit develop it further from the very first episode it was clear Chibnall wanted to prove he could do the same, his attempt was the Stenza, a cross between the Predator and a creepy pasta monster.

In the 2nd episode he was show runner the Stenza were already being built up as a galactic level threat taking over whole worlds in their campaign to rule the universe. It was also the Stenza who were the main villain of the season finale, or more precisely 1 single Stenza. Series 11's finale felt like and admission by Chris Chibnall that the Stenza was a failure of an idea the problem being now based on series 12's finale it's clear he was determined to leave his mark even if it meant being the man who burned it all down and then pissed on the last glowing embers.

Image Source: The Doctor Who fandom wiki 

The Timeless Child & Ascension of the Cybermen story was awful and I think I have to break it down a bit to point out all the problems.

The episode starts with the Doctor going to the future to sort of the potential problems she caused already by letting the Cyberman get hold of a AI construct in the past. The Cyber War time the Doctor goes to has her and her companions run into some of the last of humanity who are still being hunted by the last of the Cybermen. This is problem one as every other version of the cyber war has shown things never got so bleak with humanity developing the Glittergun with help from their allies and while there was a war humanity was never pushed to the brink, mostly thanks to humanities allies. The Cybermen hunting the last of humanity just felt like Chibnall trying to do something grimdark in a season that has been permeated with grim dark quite joyless episodes a lot of the time and breaking established cannon to do so by making the war far more devastating and impactful.

"Oh but the Doctor changed the timeline by giving the Cyberman the Cyberium"

I can hear people cry. Except it was pointed out at the end of the two part story that the old man sent the Cyberium back in time where it wouldn't be found, or so he thought. That implies it's been a closed loop and not the Doctor changing events which would mean breaking established canon. In previous canon the Cybermen were thoroughly defeated rather than humanity being pushed to the brink.

On this visit to the future the Doctor brought equipment to disable the Cybermen. Except the human group gets attacked initially by a wave of Cyber drones (disembodied Cybermen heads) that for some reason aren't affected by any of The Doctors kit. These drones were entirely new to cannon but The Doctor knew what they were and yet didn't anticipate them being used and or being able to take out the defences. That's a number of errors right away. The Cybermen are part human so even just a detached head (ignoring the fact the Cybermen have traditionally always had a respirator system) would still be part human inside there and so the Doctors devices should have worked. Second problem with this is The Doctor just ending up looking like an incompetent fool because she knew about them and for some reason didn't bother to work out a way to stop them killing the defences. Here's an idea that would have been somewhat better have the Cyberman having allied with the Toclafane somehow or created something like the Toclafane and have the Cyberium having devised these to counter standard countermeasures and The Doctor not knowing about this change then is caught off guard. Maybe even have The Doctor say something like "That's cheating you didn't have those before".

As the episode progresses the Doctor, Ryan and one of the other surviving humans steal one of the cyberships where the Doctor gets shown up again (though this time it makes sense) by a human who has grown up in the war so knows how to quickly rewire cyberships. The others end up drifting in space eventually managing to land on a cybercarrier floating in the middle of the remnants of a large space battle. It's shown not only does the ship still have power and life support but later than it can still fly and carries a large number of dormant cybermen. This is where another logic problem comes in, why didn't / wouldn't the last of the cybermen have checked the wreckage to see if they could salvage anything? Especially a troop carrier which would vastly boost their numbers considering we're told the Cybermen hunting the humans are the last of the Cybermen wouldn't it make logical and tactical sense to try and see if there were other Cybermen out there rather than risk the humans actually managing to wipe your out?

Skip forward we find out that the portal thing that leads to the next galaxy actually connects to Gallifrey that's where it's claimed the humans have been going. Except we never see any other human survivors and it's never explained. Did the Master kill them too along with the Timelords? Did they go somewhere else? It's not explained.

We find out The Master did in fact burn Gallifrey to the ground. Except it's never explained how? Did he just waltz back and do it? You'd think the Timelords would I dunno have defences and things especially as The Master has hacked into their system before.

So The Master wants to show The Doctor something he's found inside the matrix (the Time Lord information storage system in essence) and that drove him to burn down Gallifrey. Except generally only the leader of the Time Lords has access to all that knowledge and are we supposed to believe the Master hacked in a 2nd time? Oh and that's also ignoring that the matrix may also have been destroyed / previously destroyed in some of the additional tie in novels etc so this would be a new matrix? So if it's a newer matrix why would it still have all the old stuff still in it all the old uploaded experiences etc rather than just what a resurrected Rassilon and others put into it?

The revelation being that regeneration came from experiment on a child who was possibly from another universe or even dimension who was found to be able to regenerate. This ability was then implanted into all timelords. Which is another problem as while regeneration hasn't ever had a definitive answer where it came from with multiple different explanations put forward over time this contradicts all of them. Also it makes far less sense because if you're basically inserting DNA to gain regenerative abilities from some-one who can regenerate infinitely then how do you limit it to 12 regenerations when the ability should work infinitely? Also canon so far has pointed out clones of The Doctor don't regenerate NOR was it said the version of The Doctor grown from his hand would regenerate. However "the Doctor's daughter" created from his genetic material was able to. So the whole incorporation of genetic material from another species doesn't work as a theory for Time Lords regeneration powers.

It is of course revealed The Doctor is the timeless child with infinite regenerations only she had her mind erased of the previous regenerations, it still means all the cannon issues I pointed out still make no sense and makes it inconsistent with the all previous explanations and ideas and previous new Doctor Who episodes and plotlines too though. Oh and let's not forget it now removes most of the tension of the series too. The limited number of regenerations even with the addition of being able to be given a renewed cycle or more regenerations meant each death mattered. Each regeneration took The Doctor one step closer to permanent death. Now it doesn't matter The Doctor can just keep dying and regenerating. I mean any bit of danger any risk it's fine The Doctor can take any risk now because those deaths and regenerations don't matter. It can get almost as comical as the number of fast regenerations in The Curse of Fatal Death. This one move has made it far harder for the show or Chibnall to actually give the show any stakes or any real peril now.

Oh I forgot to mention the scene earlier in the story where Graham says how amazing he thinks Yaz is. I'm sorry what? It's not like Yaz is a character with no potential but Series 11 reduced her to a glorified love interest for Ryan and Series 12 has done next to nothing with her. It's taking the piss to have Graham praising her as such a great person when the show has barely done anything with her. They've not shown us her being that exceptional or worthy of praise the show has mostly relegated her to being a background character with less development than either Ryan or Graham. This really felt like a joke scene given how the series has treated Yaz.

The Doctor's companions fight off the Cybermen that were dropped onto the planet while the Master invites the rest of the Cybermen into Gallifrey. As things progress we find get the Masters plan being revealed that he wants to make a army to take over the universe that is Cybermen made using Time Lord bodies so they can regenerate. It's never been pointed out that the organic components were the weakness though in fact it was the breathing apparatus being vulnerable to gold that was what defeated most of them in the past.

The remaining survivors and Graham, Ryan and Yaz go through the portal thing and end up on Gallifrey, eventually finding The Doctor. It's around this point The Doctor remarks about there being no humans allowed on Gallifrey or no humans should set foot on Gallifrey. Which yeh that's another cannon mistake. Leela was left on Gallifrey at her own request and she was implied to be human or at least descended from humans. Also Ace in the extended cannon has been on Gallifrey before too. So yeh another mistake relating to Doctor Who cannon.

The episodes conclusion felt somewhat rushed with The Doctor sending off her companions and the remaining survivors in a Tardis pre-programmed to take them back to earth in the companions own time. The Doctor plans to set off a death particle which can even kill Time Lords but the old man survivor has followed her and says this has been his war and he will end it. The Doctor escapes in another Tardis with the Master and the new Cybermen Time Lords being blown up by the death particle. The episode ends with The Doctor going back to her proper Tardis planning to go find her companions but some Judoon teleporting into and arresting her (I mean didn't the Tardis used to have shields and things to stop most things just trying to warp inside?).

The last adventure of Series 12 felt like Chris Chibnall deciding to act like a villain. It felt like him going "If they won't love me and what I'm doing they can hate me instead" as he decided to make vast unpopular changes to the canon and burn down the ideas and concepts established by many writers and show runners before him. The episode just felt like a middle finger to long time fans and a screw you to everyone whose objected to Chibnalls work or writing. It felt like Chibnall patting himself on the back and an undeservedly self congratulatory story. Yaz has been a character that has just felt wasted with little to no development and being relegated to a side character and rather than show us how great Yaz was we got Chibnall basically telling everyone how good we are meant to think she is despite never giving us a reason to see her as that exceptional.

Oh and to the little smeggers who will say something like this

"Oh but you should let creators create what they want why are you trying to censor him"

What happened with the Timeless child episode wasn't an act of creation it was an act of cultural vandalism, it was spray painting a Joker face on the Mona Lisa and then trying to defend the action claiming it was a creative act. Chris Chibnall did a pathetic stunt ruining the work of other creators beforehand and to defend the results of an attention seeking tantrum like I've seen some people try to do is disgusting as it suggests we shouldn't respect previous creations. It's in my opinion that this was a deliberate and malicious tantrum by Chris Chibnall in response to the audience not liking the Stenza. This was Chris Chibnall choosing to deliberately burn down the work of others then piss all over the embers just to say he made an impact. I say this because given his past work, given the stuff he's written before, given the attention to detail put into little mentions of Doctor Who lore in his previous adventures either he was faking knowing about Doctor Who and this episode was the mask coming off or he wilfully chose to ignore it to stick two fingers up to long time fans and essentially yell "It's mine now! Fuck you all I can do what I like and you will all be forced to recognise I made an impact, you don't like what I've been doing before just wait to see how much damage I can do".

Chris Chibnall isn't the creator of Doctor Who he's the latest in a long line of custodians and as seems to be a growing modern trend rather than build on it and maintain it he was so desperate to be known as making an impact he's burned most fans good will and vandalised what came before hand.

Doctor Who used to be a relatively hopeful series that while it did sometimes touch of political themes it never felt like it lectured, political issues were side elements to the actual plot or mentioned in the odd line. What we have now is a grim dark Doctor Who series that seems to want to be closer in tone to Warhammer 40K with an "Everyone dies" idea to it than hope for the future. I don't know Chibnall's politics but if the grim dark tone was announced to be a response to Trump, Brexit and Corbyn losing the last election I'd believe it because that's the pathetic kind of thing I'd expect in [current year] where writers use the properties they are in charge of to work through their depression over their team in politics losing or something equally pathetic. Want to know the perfect example of the show seemingly trying to go grim dark? They gave the Cybermen spikes on their shoulder pads.

If that doesn't scream "Edgy Grim Dark" teenage edgelord I don't know what does.

That's who the show seems to be written for though except not actual edgelords, what Tumblr readers think is being edgy by having teeth embedded in things and spikes and monsters looking burned / scarred. It feels like it's trying to hard to be a dark sci-Fi show when it's not. Hell Picard so far has managed a more hopeful tone and that's a show where they pulled a characters eyeball out while he was still awake and the Federation have suddenly become isolationists. It comes to something when the most hopeful sci-fi series I've seen in recent times was one set in a dystopian future of people suffering under corporate control.

If you told me the BBC was doing this because Doctor Who is their most costly show and they want to kill it off I'd believe you. At this stage I have to wonder if the BBC are defending the choices just out of fear for the damage Chibnall will do with his 3rd series as show runner and they can't afford to just drop his contract and replace him early.

The problems with Series 12

The Doctor ends up having no real inspiring moments, ends up looking incompetent, ends up looking like she has no real empathy rather than being socially awkward but trying. Jodie Whitaker may be a good actor but the material she's been given have turned her Doctor into a sort of "Lol aren't I so quirky" manic pixie girl only without the love interest thing to make it a manic pixie dream girl. Jodie Whitaker may be good as The Doctor but we likely will never know because she's working with such awful material. I mean this is the Doctor who left some-one to certain death rather than trying to go back and save them.

All the companions had little to no development this series overall and felt relegated to being side characters, but the Doctor didn't really have much development either. Yaz as a character got reduced further often feeling like a background character entirely too.

The show was grim, it was dark and it felt like it was being turned into a generic grim dark modern Sci-Fi series rather than the fun hopeful show it once was. It also feels like it had no clue who it wanted it's audience to be, with rather nasty monsters (that I've talked about before) appearing in episodes where suddenly the show was lecturing people like a Captain Planet episode would to children. Who is it meant for? Monsters like this.

Image source = BBC Doctor Who Website

Don't suggest it's being aimed at children. So were the political comments designed just for people who support those political positions and emphatically whoop when some-one mentions them? Because I do support those positions and I felt it was done poorly and have already pointed out how shallow it is with one episode ending up hypocritical as it lectured people about one issue while advocated for something else highly polluting.

Some episodes felt like the endings were rushed again with most of the plot wrapping up in the last 5-10 minutes. Many episodes had plot holes and issues with their internal logic.

Jack Harkness coming back felt like a stunt and he was in it for just part of 1 episode. It felt like a stunt to try and bring people back and I don't doubt the announced actors coming back in the future are just yet more stunts to try to stop the freefall in the show's ratings.

Closing thoughts

My Father who got me into Doctor Who is pretty much done with it. My mother who is big into Sci-Fi and used to enjoy Doctor Who has been done with it mostly since Series 11 and is done with it now. You know what, I'm going to watch Bradley Walsh's last episode as a companion which will likely be the Christmas Special next year and then I'm done with it too because the last bit of joy will have left the show as despite everything he actually did try to make Graham a deeper more interesting character and I honestly don't blame him for wanting to abandon ship.

I thought Series 12 had a promising start and if it had kept going it would have been good and had Chris Chibnall showing he could carve his own path and mark a new direction for the show. Turns out instead he ended up ripping up the path others had laid down and making Doctor Who seems more like many other generic Sci-Fi shows out there. The worst part to think about is Chibnall had a full year with no Doctor Who to write series 12 out and it still felt rushed, I worry to think what Series 13 will end up like with less time to write it.

I actually put on an old Doctor Who adventure on the tv recently. I put on The Robots of Death serial from Tom Baker's time as The Doctor. I enjoyed it far more and my mother who happened to be here at the time said the following:

 "Despite the low production values it felt like far more actually happened in that episode from what I saw than any of the episodes in the recent series". 

This was 1 of the episodes in the 4 part adventure, it was 24 minutes long and it's true it felt like the plot was better and paced better and just all round more enjoyable.

I think I'm pretty much done with Doctor Who now. I gave Chibnalls new direction a try and 2 series in I've had enough. I'll watch the Christmas special next year but I feel like after than I'm done and I have a feeling I won't be the only one giving up on it too.