Doctor Who Megathread

[Middle-aged Europe]

If true, then that's okay. Would've liked another season and would've preferred Chibnall to call it in instead, but this is fine.

^^

Yeah, this. I actually like and enjoy Whittaker's portrayal of the Doctor, although Chibnall has been horrible as a showrunner and he brought the overall quality of the writing down.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Legend of the Sea Devils had a cool premise (Chinese pirates and sea monsters in the early 19th century), but as usual it suffered from Chibnall's stale writing. He just isn't on the same level as RTD and Moffat, something that should have been apparent all along from watching his RTD/Moffat era episodes. Well, it will be soon over anyway.

[Middle-aged Europe]

What? What?


WHAT!?

[Middle-aged Europe]

After I had been a bit underwhelmed with last week's kind of standard monster story, this week's Wild Blue Yonder truly marked a return to form with a scary-ass mindf**k episode that seemed to be function as a (somewhat kid-friendlier) cross between The Thing and Event Horizon.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Spoilers for The Giggle...
















so, RTD basically just opened a huge f***ing door for Tennant to return on a recurring basis in future episodes in maybe Christmas specials or series finales or something. No convoluted plots as to why the Doctor happens to meet one of his former incarnations. I certainly can live with that.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Gatwa certainly is likable which counts for something. He seems to portray one of the most humane, most empathetic Doctors yets - which is a stark contrast to the darker incarnations such as (in recent times) Capaldi.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I'm a bit behind schedule, managed to watch "Space Babies" yesterday.

The first 15 minutes or so were okay, but the rest resulted in a "bloody hell, what did I just watch?" reaction from me.

But I understand this season eventually gets better, so I'll keep watching.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In that last respect, it reminded me of Midnight, one of the best episodes from RTD's first tenure. There certainly have been episodes where that doesn't work.

73 Yards is essentially "RTD's Midnight meets Stephen King's The Dead Zone".

[Middle-aged Europe]

So that latest episode is in a sense, Black Mirror's Nosedive... with alien monsters.

I appreciate getting some new Black Mirror, after Charlie Brooker turned it to sh**t with his pointless horror stories last season.

[Middle-aged Europe]

This season was certainly a step up from the Chibnall era, but it hasn't managed to return to the old RTD level of the 2000s yet.

Actors and characters are good, quality of writing feels uneven and all over the place though. I suppose something similar could have been said about the original Eccleston season back in 2005, since it had farting shape-shifting aliens (their equivalent of the space babies?) and stuff.