All New Who

Jodies Doctor wil regenerate next year in whats been called the Centenary Special. So if your hoping to see her gone at the end of this six parter I'm afraid theres a bit to go yet, a presumably New Year epiosde then this special.
Also note this is a Centenary special, that is its marking the centenary of the BBC. RTD is still still starting his 2nd run with Who's own 60th Anniversary Special (as far as we know anyway). Exactly what the difference in format or style between an anniversary episode for the BBC and one for Who itself is not clear and will be odd to have two anniversary specials back to back.

ah, last week Chibbers used RTD's playbook and this week lo and behold Chibbers is taking the playbook from Moffat and messing about with it. It almost seemed like a bit of a urine take. Very timey-wimey, Weeping Angels and the like.

I think I have to first talk about one of the reasons I admire Moffat's writing technique, as an example of how do this sort of story. The trick from a writing point of view is actually quite simple in theory and a bugger to successfully pull off in practise. It involves initially deliberately confusing or disorientating, or both, your viewer using disparate threads to slowly build up the entire pattern. With the aim that by the time you get to the end all the pieces slot to together and give a satisfying conclusion.

Moffat's particular skill however is to add the extra relish to this, he lays things out in such a way the answer is always right in front of the viewer but yet not seen till its meant to be. A writing sleight of hand if you will. And secondly he gives his answers in such a fashion that the viewer will connect the dots right before the story reveals the solution. Many folk often accuse Moffat, wrongly, of writing these sort of stories 'to show how clever he is' the irony of course being he writes these stories in such a fashion they are designed to make the viewer feel clever.

I've had a few chortles at folk claiming some Moffat twist was rubbish because they worked it out right before the reveal, not for one instant realising they have been led by the hand to make their genius conclusion at exactly that point in the narrative, and their feeing of outsmarting the writer and being cleverest person in the room is in fact all created by the writer precisely to make the viewer feel that way. They just fell for it. Its what makes these types of stories so satisfying, from joe bloggs viewer to the sort of person who does the Times crossword for breakfast. It should give you a mystery, a puzzle, then all the clues you need to solve it, then let you solve it right before confirming if your right or not. That's the game the writer is out to play with the audience. And its just as easy for the writer to lose as the audience.

To give an example of how difficult this technique is Ive been reading a lot of Agatha Christie as some of you know, and the last one I read, the Blue Train one, whilst it had many points I enjoyed and admired had one major flaw in its puzzle- you don't get the piece you need to solve it until its too late, Poirot reveals it after the villain is revealed. The reader, having puzzled their way this far can never solve the murder because all the information is not there to do so. For all Christie's talents many talents and skills as a writer she still couldn't in this instance pull off the technique Moffat has shown himself so adept at. Its a very particular and difficult skill.

The point to that lengthy Moffat praise is to say that this sort of technique is not for everyone, its not straightforward to do well and very, very easy to get wrong. Which brings me back to Chibnal, who gets it all so very, very wrong.

I think the best way to tackle what is wrong is to simply tell the episodes story, but not as it does- but to lay out what happens.

We meet a new character Bel. She is a survivor in the remnants of the universe post Flux sweeping through it, the Daleks and Cybermen are engaged in mass war against anything left alive and each other. She is pregnant and has a device which lets her communicate with the child in her womb, allowing an emoji style reflection of how the baby feels. She is trying to find her partner and father of her child Vinder.

At this point, three episodes in we have half a dozen characters who we either know nothing about or are mysterious puzzles boxes we don't know much about still. And Chibbers throws another new character into the mix we know nothing about and about whom he is going to slowly drip feed the information for no other reason than to draw it out and drip feed it. She is not stuck in a time line, hell she could have just bookended this story and we'd have the same information about her we have at the end. She doesn't do anything as she travels except avoid bad cgi Daleks (floating Daleks good idea, Dalek cgi so bad when they turn their heads their entire neck turns too- BAD. Dalek necks do not turn only the head dome turns- how did that get in an actual Who episode?!!!)

Meanwhile the Doctor saves said Vinder and Yaz from last weeks cliffhanger by throwing them into the time stream and putting herself onto one of the pedestals along with the Mouri.

In her time stream Yaz remembers some boring stuff from her life being a police officer and playing computer games with her sister, but is stalked throughout by a Weeping Angel. The Doctor occasionally pops up to tell her she is sorting it all out. Eventually the Doctor sorts it out and she gets out the time stream.
There's a horrible bit in this where Chibnal reinforces an unfortunate stereotype tha thas been used to keep females out of male gaming spaces for years- that female players arent 'real gamers' they just do it to get boys to like them. Which is exactly the reason Yaz's sister gives here as to why she wants to learn to play games. Im amazed that got in given how widely an issue this very stupid sterotype has been in the gaming community for decades.

Vinder is reliving the day he got himself sent to the Military equivalent of Siberia for trying to whistle blow his people's leader for shady dealings during diplomatic negotiations. After going ahead with his report he is consigned to a far flung monitoring outpost he has to man alone. Which is where we first met him in his first appearance explaining how he got there. Eventually the Doctor sorts it out and he gets out the time stream.

Dan relives a date he once had, that's about it I think. The Doctor also occasionally appears to him saying she will fix it all. Eventually she fixes it out and he gets out the time stream.

As for the Doctor she finds herself simultaneously trying to keep everyone safe from the deadly effects of the time stream and get them out with the help of the Mouri and reliving a lost memory from when she was the Ruth Doctor working with the Division on her final mission, a mission which it turns out is when she first caught and stopped the bad guys Swarm and Azure she faces again now.
She and Mouri successfully pull the others out to safety but before the Doctor gets all the answers she needs and wants.

All three go back safe to the TARDIS only for a Weeping Angel to get onboard and take control of the ship. Cliffhanger ending.


Now you may read that synopsis and think what's so timey-whimey, puzzling and confusing about that? And of course right there is the problem, it snot, its all very simple and in fact Dan's story is just filler and Yaz is 99% filler with 1% being it has the Weeping Angels turn up in it so they dont just appear out of nowhere at the end.

Vinders story is cliched and straightforward, soldier tries to the do right thing when superior breaks rules, but gets punished for it instead. It could have been told n far less time too.
Bels story, has some information about the state of the universe after the Flux, but again its a cliched story, pregnant women during a time of conflict trying to find the father of her child. Its again a very simple narrative that's neither new, that interesting nor very exciting, and this is true for all of them save the Doctors, which is tied to the overall 6 part storyline (I'll comeback to that later).

The entire problem with what we got out of these thin storylines is that to make them seem less thin Chibnal wrapped them up in a mystery puzzle box writing format. But as you can see there isn't actually a puzzle, not in any story line of any meaningful type. In each case the first puzzle is 'eh what's going on here, why are Dan and Yaz here but not acting like them? And that's meant to be your first puzzle. Then you get the situation, what's going on, why are they here/? And that's your second puzzle.
But neither really are puzzles, they are just stuff waiting to be revealed to explain them. So why do they look like Dan and Yaz, its just their appearance not them, Dan for example is eventually revealed to really be dog alien. But that's not a puzzle.
There are only two reasons for the character switching, on the Doctors line its to disguise dog aliens part in it till we are shown its him, as a sort of reveal, twist, only it was really obvious as he had same weapon as every time we've seen him. And to create an artificial mystery around what's going on.
Same goes for the reveal the Doctor's memory is from when she was the Ruth Doctor. And here we hit a major problem, by trying to create an artificial mystery about what's really going on we only see Ruth Doctor as herself for a few lines of dialogue, and she again outshines Jodie's Doctor in that brief time that it feels an utter waste of her that we are not seeing her as Ruth the entire time, this would have been so much better as a conventional flashback. And the better reveal would have been when she looks at her reflection and sees Jodie's Doctor, then have the conversation they have across Time. But sadly Ruth Doctor is wasted on just another cameo appearance to provide ex positioned information.

Most of the rest of it, Bel's story and Vinders, and Dans, and the bulk of Yaz's is not a mystery or puzzle either- once you've been told early on they are in their own time streams its clear enough what's going on, there's no mystery there. And it's not a puzzle as there's nothing to work out- the Doctor and Mouri are solving it in some mysterious timey-whimey off-screen fashion. So all these stories largely boil down to two characters in a room ex positioning the story at each other. For this episode sees the return of Chibnall's favourite writing technique, exposition heavy dialogue.

So the episode jumps back and forth between all these story lines, revealing bits more of each story each time but in as confusing a way as possible with Yaz, Dan and the Doctor all popping up in each others timelines but as different people, except for the Doctor who is only different people sometimes for some reason but herself others telling the rest, and the audience what's going on.

And because each individual story is actually simple and quite threadbare and we keep cutting to and from each one they feel like an age is passing as you watch for anything exciting to happen. As the mystery is merely one of  wait till the end well tell you rather than here's clues to follow as you watch and think about, as so much as just folk standing about and talking there's nothing to give it pace or intrigue or any real engagement or interest in proceedings.

The Doctor's story had elements I enjoyed, but the bulk of it and the rest of the characters I could not have cared less about.

I've saved for last topic the bad guys of the piece and what their plan is, what's going on, what the Flux is. And to be honest I am moving into speculation in this last part based on the main bit of explanatory dialogue expositoned by Swarm. But though I cant see what else it refers to, I could be wrong in my speculation- just to caveat this muddy part of things.

Ive watched the final scenes three times now, and um best I can make it in the past Ruth Doctor and Division captured the bad guys Swarm and Azure- and presumably put them where we saw them originally - one in a prison thing and the other disguised as a human living in the arctic or something? And um the Doctor meets possibly God for all it gives us, an old woman who knows everything that's going on and talks to the Doctor like she's an idiot child (which its 13 and is fair enough really) and then reveals the Flux is all the Doctors fault. Oh and she is another mystery box brand new never seen before character to throw into this mess of characters we know nothing about save they are a mystery to be revealed later.
Then bad guys reveal that the silent third of their group- Passenger is, um, sort of repository where they can put people and store them inside him. I think. Oh did I mention Swarm and Azure seem to be Time? Maybe,I think from the dialogue, or sort of. And Time and Space are now at war with each other and Time will win because anything in material space cannot defeat Time. Um, maybe.

Look here's the actual dialogue from the bad guy explaining it as they stand in the temple thing on the planet Time where the Mouri are on their pedestals and the time stream thingy-


Swarm- A planet called Time. Thinking this could bring the Dark Times to an end. Time is not controllable, Doctor. It will not do as other beings bid. Here we are, still engaged in the Founding Conflict. There is no greater battle than this the battle between Time and Space. And Time shall not lose. Time shall never surrender to Space. No planetary mass, however sophisticated, can imprison the force of Time. This planet, this construction is not just a fallacy, not just futile hubris, it is heresy.

So there you go then. A a general viewer I have no idea what you make of this explanation.

As an old Whovian this sounds like ridiculously lore heavy stuff you have to bring so much to the table to get a grip on.
The Dark Times for example is the name given to the universe before the Time Lords created the Web of Time. The Web of Time is why there are fixed points which have to happen in order to hold the universe in the shape it currently is in terms of its natural laws. The reasons the Time Lords did this is before that the universe was chaotic in a mythical way, to a large degree incomprehensible and the force of magic was a thing like any other natural force in physics and stuff evolved to make use of it. It was a unbelievably violent and bloody time full of monstrosities and horrors capable of devouring entire planets, full of terrible unpredictable chaotic natural forces that meant space and time even changed and shifted. The Web of Time made the universe manageable, stable, controlled, so long as the necessary points in it remained fixed. It brought the Dark Times to an end.

That's a lot to have to bring to bear on just the first two sentences of his dialogue. But bring this knowledge to bear on the rest of it and it appears to say that the Time Lords were about to set the Web of Time in place, the Mouri are what keep it in place,or are Time Lords themselves like those in the Matrix or similar, and Swarm and Azure as embodiment of Time were not going to let the Time Lords control them with the Web of Time so tried to destroy the planet the Web was being created on. The Division sent in the Ruth Doctor and her team and they stopped Swarm and Azure and presumably got the Web up and running.
But if that reading is correct, then its either a lot of lore expecting a viewer to know, or something that's going to need a lot of exposition to explain, and as its Chibnal I suspect that's all we will eventually get.

The show had touched on the mythical Dark Times before, the 4th Doctor era had the Black and White Guardians, who are similar in theme and ST's Q race always remind me of them. In that case though they are used more as a framing device, the actual story is go get thing thats been split into several parts- allowing for a straight forward everyone knows what they are doing scenario and for a different story to be told every few episodes as they go after the next bit, so it still had the familiar format.
Both RTD and Moffat use the Dark Times for stuff but they stripped all the baggage to a minimum, the witch like Carrionites, the Racnoss spider Queen, the Weeping Angels, the Beast devil thing are all from the Dark Times. But it required no previous or in-depth knowledge beyond that fact for the viewer to know what was going on.
For example here's the entirety of the backstory given by the Doctor to explain the Carrionites use of magic-

'I named her. The power of a name. That's old magic....it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. Carrionites use words instead....The Carrionites disappeared way back at the dawn of the universe. Nobody was sure if they were real or legend...A new empire on Earth. A world of bones and blood and witchcraft.'

Its all you need to now to follow as its not about the lore. Similarly the whole premise of the Web of Time and how it functions forms the basis of the entire arc of series 6 and the Doctors death in a newly created fixed point. Knowing all about how it functions clarifies a few points, but not knowing it doesn't prevent understanding what's going on or how the Doctor gets out of it.
Similarly the series 4 Pompey episode is about breaking or keeping a Fixed Point, but it doesn't require knowledge of the Web of Time to know what's going on.
In all previous cases the writers were careful to take the viewers with them, not let requiring lore knowledge be a bar to viewers following the plot, and not making the lore the focus of the plot, at most its a framing devious as an excuse for a plot.

What Chibnal is attempting here is to show us that lore head on. He's delved right into it. But he is not in my view taking the audience with him as he is presenting it in such a heavy and ham-fisted manner, making things that should be easy to follow deliberately difficult to.


And the tragedy of all this is as a Who fan there is interesting stuff here- if I read a Who book or heard it as a Big Finish audio about the Dark days and it was the Time Lords trying to create the Web of Time but the force of Time itself was the stumbling block due to its resistance to being constrained in the Web, and that force becomes personified as a deadly physical force eroding the physical universe, and created and used the Weeping Angels as its agents, and the Division were sent in to stop them in a big showdown that finally ends in the establishing of the Web- Id probably enjoy it. But as a book for fans, or a Big Finish story. As the main show, told like this? I just doesn't work so far.

If all this is related to the Dark Times it does however raise immediate questions. Till Chibbers came along the Dark Times were millennia before the Doctors time, before Rassilon even when the Council of Pythria ran Gallifrey, the witch like psychic despotic ruthless all female rulers of Gallifrey ( it did occur me the mystery women introduced at the end who talks down to the Doctor and tells the Doctor she is responsible for the Flux was the Head of the Gallifreyean Council). But if the Doctor was around then as the Ruth Doctor then how could dog alien be there with her? How could she have a police box shaped TARDIS when it didn't get stuck like that until the time of the Hartnell Doctor, billions of years later. If she is between the 2nd and 3rd Doctors how can she be present in the Dark Times- you cant get there by TARDIS as the universe was literally a different shape and form then.

My head hurts now.

If the Flux we saw in episode one turns entire planets into dust, why are the planets we see post flux just ruined cities and still got atmospheres and stuff?

I need more buckie from this.

Why when Jodie was playing Yaz's police partner was really good acting that role, then we became the Doctor again immediately dull and uninteresting again?

And pregnant lasses baby will probably turn out somehow to be the Timeless Child who is the Doctor so Vinder's her Dad as he might be Gallifreyean as he knows what a TARDIS is....

New barrel! New barrel!

There's so much more, but my god that's got to be enough for now. I am beginning to think that 75 AI was generous.

To tell this sort of story in this fashion each of the separate threads you lay down have to all come together as a whole by the end, but that doesn't just mean getting information drops. It also has to come together thematically, for the characters, for the emotional and the intellectual satisfaction. It all has to join together.

If you take say the 10th Doctor two part story Silence in the Library - the main story is about a father whose love for his dying child plus technology allowed him to preserve his daughters consciousness inside a huge computer that stored every book every written, as she loved reading, so she could exist in any of them. Bad things happen to everyone in the physical library and she 'saves' them, putting herself in distress trying to to the right thing. Eventually she does save everyone with Doctor's help and she gets to continue in a  happy existence in her favourite books. Its about loss, sacrifice and hope. About having dreams and losing them and regaining them.

On the Donna line she meets perfect man, gets married has children, loses them all. And in discovering her world is not real she sacrifices the love she thinks she has only dreamt up with man who is actually real and she therefore loses. But finding with the Doctor in their final exchange and saving of River the hope and strength to move on anyway.

In the River line she sacrifices her life for her love of the Doctor who is about to sacrifice himself to save everyone else, and so they can have a future together she has already lived and the Doctor loses her in grief, but that love is given back in the future 12th Doctor's actions in order to help his past self save her consciousness into the library. Loss turned into hope.

Each part not only tells its own story, informs us more about the main characters and their personalities, it also all compliments each other in its themes, it dovetails satisfyingly together.

What Chibnall does though is only give the information. There is no connection thematically between each character, information gained in one doesn't help in another so there's no cross over narratively or conceptually between them.

All this episode boils down to is a series of flashbacks that provide background information to us on characters we've met as if revealing a mystery. Or setting up a new mystery for the future.
But the only reason those backgrounds are a mystery is they have been kept from us in order to make them a mystery. Its all so artificial feeling. There's nothing about what we are told that could not have been told upfront, its not big secret reveals its just...information about them, who they are, why they are in the situations they are in.

So on Vinder's story we get the mystery resolved of how he ended up at the arse end of space, and on Bels story we get that she's his partner pregnant with is child who is searching for him after the Flux.

But nothing in Vinder's story of being punished for trying to do the right moral thing reflects anything in Bel's tale of just crossing space- apart from shooting Cybermen and dodging Daleks all she actually does is tell us slowly over the course that she is pregnant with is child and looking for him. That's all we get about her. They only connect on the most basic, here's information that tells you stuff about them and that they are connected we didn't tell you yet stuff.

Similarly Yaz's story is just there so the Weeping Angels can be introduced to the narrative. It doesn't have another purpose on its own. None of the companions are going to do anything proactive or clever to get themselves or help the Doctor get them out their time streams, it may as well all be vr to them once they know as all they can do is experience it until they either die or get let out. And there's no real implication or sense of peril that they will die or any real threat save an Angel occasionally popping up to go boo and vanishing again in Yaz's  line. The threat is some vaguely half-arsed explained intangible concept of Time attacking so there doesn't feel like there is a real threat to anyone. There just sort of having about in unrelated to each other moments from their own time streams waiting to be let out again.

Dan's story is likewise devoid of any real connecting tissue to the overall story here. Its just him being confused until he gets what's going on explained to him, as Chibber's loves his exposition. Its all just such  waste of time. Literally in this story.

And none of these stories that don't really connect save as info dumps to each other also don't connect to the overall narrative about the Timeless Child or the fight between Time and Space, or what Swarm is doing. Not more at least than the most basic plot sense of here's some more information about some things and some more mysteries about some new things. It serves a crude functional reason for existing but the deliberately obfuscated way Chibnall has chosen to unravel his tale is needless and detracting. None of it feels coherent as a single story at this midway point. And entirely new concepts, characters and stories are just being introduced, all in the same over hasty unclear fashion as the rest.

None of it gives any real sense of peril, connection to the characters or what's happening to them. The stakes are not clear, what victory means or even vaguely how to achieve it is not clear, the nature of the threat is not clear, the abilities of the villains or even who or what they are is not clear.
There is nothing here for a viewer to be invested in other than waiting for the inevitable finale, no doubt exposition laden,  that will make all these points hopefully at least clearer.

But in a story where the mystery of what is Vinder's story is as simple as he did something to piss off superiors got sent there as punishment- something you could have guessed anyway from when we first saw him and his attitude to his posting and superiors- or that Bel's is just his partner looking for him, will the clarity when it finally comes be any more interesting or worth having concealed in the first place? I have very serious doubts about that.