Good Doctor, Bad Series

This post contains spoilers for the most recent series of "Doctor Who", including the finale. As usual, if you don't want to know...

I have long considered that Colin Baker has had a bit of a raw deal. I wouldn't consider him a great Doctor, by any means, but a very large part of the problem with his tenure was due to the material he was given, the costume he was forced to wear, and the fact that the show was just getting rather tired by the time he took over. None of those were things he could really do anything about; he did the best he could with some rather poor material.

As predicted, Jodie Whittaker has been absolutely fine as the Doctor - she seems to be channeling a lot of David Tennant's portrayal (which is no bad thing, as he remains the best of the 'new' Doctors), while also bringing a lot that is unique to the role (also no bad thing).

Unfortunately, this most recent series has reminded me more of Colin Baker's tenure than anything else.

I do need to note some positives of the series. Firstly, and most significantly, the episode "Rosa" was excellent - perhaps the single best episode since the show resumed, eclipsing even "Blink" and "Day of the Doctor". (It benefitted from a very strong real-world premise, where the other two I mentioned leaned very hard on time-travel premises. For me, that gave that episode a gravitas the other two couldn't quite match.)

Bradley Walsh has also been very impressive as Graham - as with Catherine Tate I thought he would be awful, but he surpised me a great deal. I thought he was excellent, and would have been great as a lone Companion.

And the new take on the theme music has been great.

Unfortunately, that's about it. The rest of the show has wavered between the mediocre and the dire, with occasional ventures into the realms of being okay.

It all started with the first episode. On the one hand, regeneration episodes always suck (to the extent that next time they really should just skip it - jump ahead to "some time later..." and go from there), but this one was especially poor. I was utterly bemused to see the various reviews falling over themselves to heap praise upon what I thought was a godawful, muddled mess.

Then there are the monsters. I actually thought the decision to put all the recurring monsters on hiatus was a good one - Daleks and Cybermen in particular had become very tired, and the rest are best used very sparingly. Unfortunately, that decision only works if the new monsters are good, and I saw no evidence of that - I mostly saw a Niffler knock-off, a bad CGI tree, and a mock-Terminator.

As I said, BW would have been great as a lone Companion. Unfortunately, Ryan and Yaz weren't so much Missy's "exposition and comic relief" so much as terminally dull and completely pointless. They even failed in their duty to ask stupid questions so that the Doctor could explain the plot, forcing JW to spend loads of time talking to herself. Such a waste.

But the absolute worst aspect of the series was the curious lack of tension at key moments. The Doctor is being drowned in a witch trial! Quick, let's talk about it all at length - no need to hurry! The entire Earth is about to be consumed with crushing psychic energy! Quick, let's monologue at length about all the various resources we have at our disposal!

I guess talking is a Free Action in the Doctor Who RPG.

Anyway.

The upshot of that is that I was rather glad to see the end of the series, and curiously unmoved by the confirmation that the New Year's episode will be the only new Who in 2019. If what we've just seen is what we have to look forward to, then it's no great loss.

As a consequence of all of this, I'm not sure where to place Whittaker on my list of the Doctors*. Given that she's only had one year, and is going to have at least one more full season in the role, I think I'm inclined to put her just ahead of Paul McGann in the "Doctors with Potential" pile - based on her performance, she should probably be higher; based on the series as a whole the rating should be lower, so that's probably about right.

* Remember that I re-evaluated Capaldi's portrayal at the end of his tenure, leading to him being moved a good bit higher. I will do the same for Whittaker when the time comes, hopefully with the same outcome - I would much rather like something than not!

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that, for now at least. I daresay I'll have some things to say about "Resolution" in early January...

#58: "Pathfinder: Temple of the Peacock Spirit", by Jason Keeley