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The Death of the Doctor

 I saw a Quora thread that was basically a deconstruction of what made the current seasons of Doctor Who terrible. You can read it here if you want to scream at somebody else who isn't me because you can scream at me all you want and I wouldn't care. 

My reaction to this post was going to be just a snide remark about how much I agreed with it. It was going to be a Facebook post but then it eventually became so long that it became better to expand it into a blog post because who knew blogs were still alive today. So here goes. 

As a fan of what this post calls "New Who" since Russel T. Davies, it needs to be said flat out that the fall started with Moffat. This is baffling; Moffat's stories were some of the best when Davies was the showrunner. However, when Moffat took over, Doctor Who lost the camp that was so lovable about the new series. Davies knew how to make things cheesy, chair-grippingly good.

With Moffat's term, there were a few things you could still expect. The story was still good, the characters were still solid, so I kept watching. The actors were also top-notch, and they went on to become some stars in their own right, Karen Gillian being the brightest one of them all. Although to be honest, my favorites were and always will be John Simm and Michelle Gomez. And...Matt Smith was a decent Doctor, but let's be honest, Moffat didn't really hit his stride up until Peter Capaldi took over, because wow what a blast of fresh (senior) air that was. To this day, he remains my favorite Doctor.

Then I watched Jodie Whittaker and I loved her as The Doctor. The Companions, not so much. It was just really difficult to find any emotional investment in them, they were written like afterthoughts. The story came first, in Chibnall's stewardship, and it showed. The story arcs were okay. They were daring and gazed boldly into the unknown. But the storytelling...there was no meat in it. It felt like dour BBC melodrama, the kind that could rival a big-name daytime soap.

I can give you some of the best moments from New Who from Rose to Twice Upon a Time, but I can't for the life of me tell you anything interesting about anything from the Thirteenth Doctor. And I watched her first season twice.

Which I don't get, but can understand. From what I've read, Chibnall also worked on Torchwood, which I loved - but was also quite forgettable in the way many American TV shows are forgettable. And it looks like Chibnall took this with him when he started writing for the Thirteenth Doctor. There were plenty of big, big ideas, and given the proper execution, they would have worked. But Chibnall didn't make it work. The series felt like one of the dual hearts of its titular character were on its last legs, and not even the (now middle-aged) Face of Boe could give it life. 

Or maybe Chibnall just needs his Peter Capaldi. It would be absolutely fascinating to watch Michelle Gomez go from Missy to Doctor, to be honest. I don't know.

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