Doctor Who - Season 11

When it comes to the programme, Doctor Who, I go back as far as the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee. I have seen the show go through ups and downs and finally into a decline into cancellation.

After a failed attempt at regenerating the programme with Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, I was pleased that it returned with Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor. Season one was uneven; it was clearly finding its feet. We had the excellent "Dalek" and "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" but we also had the poor "Father's Day".

The programme's writing issues never went away under the leadership of Russell T. Davies. Stephen Moffat wrote most of the good episodes during this period but brought in new writing issues when he took over control. I suspect he used up all of his best ideas during the first four seasons.

Six series later Moffat stepped down and a new head writer took over the helm. Chris Chibnall had previously written four stories, none of which warranted the use of the adjective "good". Perhaps he was saving up his best ideas? Some of us were concerned...

The opening episode was a mediocre affair; its purpose to introduce the characters to the audience with the story relegated almost to an afterthought. This is a pattern set by the programme since the first episode, "Rose". It was too early to make a judgement.

Next up we had a filler episode. My description at the time went something along the lines of "a suspense-free romp on a dangerous planet were the dangerous things are completely useless". I think this sums up everything that needs to be said about the episode very succinctly. It was not an auspicious start.

"Rosa" was the episode that lit up social media. "It's too PC!" were the cries. The powerful emotional punch that Rosa Park's refusal to give up her seat to a person because of her skin pigmentation was undeniable. However, under that was the plot, which made zero sense. This was a shame because it broke the legs of what could have been a very good episode. I wish this had been held back until season 12 so that the science fiction element could have been ripped out and replaced with something more robust. It could and should have been so much better.

Chibnall has another go with "Arachnids in the UK". This episode featured over-sized spiders and yet, let's be frank here, they somehow managed to make them unscary. Suspense and tension were conspicuous by their absence (again!). The plot was a spider web of holes held together by something far less robust than spider silk. Was a scene edited out at the end? The scene where the Doctor actually deals with the spider problem rather than leaving them wondering around Sheffield or locked on a room to cannibalise each other!




By now, it was becoming all too clear that Chibnall was not the right man for the job. Twitter was full of legitimate complaints about the poor quality of the writing. I have friends who have watched the show for many years who were growing increasingly concerned. I saw the question asked: is the future of Doctor Who not with the BBC but with Big Finish? My experience of Big Finish's Doctor Who is very limited therefore I am not in a position to comment.

I made my complaints about the poor quality of the season so far (easily the worst since its return). Persons of limited intelligence tried to reframe this as a dig at Jodie Whittaker and her gender. Others suggested I stop watching the programme. Is this the answer? If we complain about the poor quality by switching off, will this push the BBC to improve it or will it just get cancelled again? Is it better to put the programme out of its misery or do we watch it stumble painfully on as we did during the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy years?

I felt the best way forward at this point was to only watch the episodes not written by Chris Chibnall and to tell people as loudly as possible that this was what I was doing. The protest was being made but I was still supporting the programme. It seemed like a workable compromise



The sequel to the bad spider episode was "The Tsuranga Conundrum" penned by Chris Chibnall. At the time of writing, I have not seen this episode and judging by the feedback I have heard about it, I have not missed anything worth watching.

"Demons of the Punjab" was next. This is the first episode of this season that I can say I genuinely enjoyed. The script is the most polished of the series so far and, for the first time under Chibnall's leadership, the story hangs together. There was even some dramatic tension. This is probably the best pseudo-historical since "Vincent and the Doctor".

"Kerblam!" was a bit of fresh air. The tone of the episode was more lighthearted. Comparisons with Kerblam! and real-world companies (one in particular) are obvious. It was a cleverly written episode with twists and turns that kept the audience guessing. It has more depth than is obvious at first glance. The episode itself suffered from poor pacing and again the absence of suspense and tension were detrimental. On the plus side, this was the first story where I felt Jodie Whittaker really got her teeth into the role of the Doctor. What seemed like a dig at corporate greed turned into a cautionary tale about ordinary people getting caught in the crossfire in the fight between Right and Left Wing extremism. The terrible background music only made matters worse. As far as I am concerned, Pete McTighe can write more episodes. I wonder what he could deliver under a better showrunner? To achieve what he did in the episode, the main villain could not have been working alone, therefore, there is room to explore this in more detail in future stories, either on screen, in print or on audio.

After the science fiction of the previous episode, we are served up with another pseudo-historical set in seventeenth century Lancashire, "The Witchfinders". Anyone expecting a visit to the infamous Lancashire witch trials will be disappointed. This is a rather laboured episode. Frustratingly, the trend of lame aliens continues. The only decent villains so far have been humans. There were many things wrong with this episode, the usual lack of tension and suspense and the usual poor background music. In this version of history, landowners have the legal right to commit murder and the famously paranoid King James I wonders around without an armed guard in a county full of Roman Catholics who are so angry with him that a group of them will attempt to blow him up and his parliament in the not too distant future. The writing fits in very well with Chris Chibnall's lazy approach. An opportunity was lost here to do something much more interesting and engaging.

Addendum - in discussions I had regarding the "The Witchers", it was suggested King James was an imposter. This makes a lot of sense and explains away many of the problems with the episode, i.e. why he was wondering around the County Palatine of Lancaster with no guard, why he was unaware that he has no witchfinders general, and why he took no action against a landowner murdering people with a cucking stool.

And then we get to the final episode I am prepared to watch, "It Takes You Away", set on modern day Earth (yawn). This episode was a real mess. I should say not so much half-baked as forgot to put it in the oven. Good things about this episode? We had a blind actress playing a blind character. Ellie Wallwork was superb. I hope we see her in more roles. The basic premise was that there is a mirror Universe that is linked to ours by an "anti-zone". The anti-zone has dangerous things in it that kill an alien but don't really bother anyone else. We have a lame alien. It turns out that the Mirror Universe is lonely and just wants a cuddle but the presence of people from our Universe makes it unstable. The presence of one human being in the mirror Universe is fine; multiple humans renders it unstable as does one Time Lord. The Doctor persuades the mirror Universe to let the others go if she stays behind and then persuades it to let her go. The episode crawls along haphazardly to an anticlimax. Again, a wasted opportunity: if they had made the mirror Universe malevolent and given it a better narrative reason for kidnapping beings from our Universe it could have been a good episode. Sadly, this was not to be.

The finale was "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos". As I type this, I have not seen this Chibnall-penned episode. On the night we watched the colourised version of "The Power of the Daleks".


There is no getting away from this being the weakest season since Russell T. Davies brought the programme back but it is not all bad. The tedious and ill-suited story arc is gone. We have a very much back to basics approach. The stories are self-contained. I believe the lack of returning adversaries is a good thing (the lack-lustre nature of the new ones is not). It refreshes the show and takes it forward. There has been too much of old favourites returning. The programme needs to look forward more than it looks back.

The downsides, though are many. Chris Chibnall's writing is lazy and despite being a big fan of Doctor Who, he seems to have the same problem that RTD had: he cannot write for it. The music was terrible. Was this really composed specifically for each episode? The aliens were consistently weak and ineffectual; humans stand out as the only real monsters. It quickly became apparent that the TARDIS is too crowded. Bradley Walsh's Graham O'Brien is the best thing about the current incarnation of Doctor Who. Unfortunately, he does have a tendency to steal scenes. It brought back memories of Amy upstaging Eleven. The Doctor should dominate scenes where she is present. Ryan and Yasmin had their moments of glory but most of the time they melted away and disappeared into the background. I fear at least one of them will have to go before season 12 to redress the balance. The ideas were there, they were not given the opportunity to develop into interesting stories (except for "Demons of the Punjab").