For Christmas this year I got a very nice present, that I had to buy myself with all my Christmas money, I got me a sexy laptop, and in just a few short days I'd already named it and wrapped up two posts that'd been gathering digital dust on the family PC for about a month; Long Live The King and Battlefield V: The End of the Line. But with those two out of the way, that leaves one project of mine that remains incomplete, and while I loved rambling about Godzilla and got a guilty pleasure out of rambling about Battlefield, this one will not be pleasurable, this will be painful. Since publishing the first instalment in this set; the eleventh series of Doctor Who has aired in its entirety, and as of me writing this the New Year Special is only a few days away, and also as of me writing this, I've still only seen two episodes of this series. That's going to change now though, because I'm going to watch it, all of it, all ten episodes and the special, in other news I got a handsome amount of Jack Daniel's Whiskey for Christmas, I wonder how much of it will be left by the end of this. I made a point about the series' RT audience score in my last post, and back then it sat at fifty five percent, the lowest score of any New Who series, and a far cry from its critic score of ninety six percent. Those numbers have changed since then, and not for the better, with its critic score dropping by two percent to ninety four, and its audience score dropping to twenty seven percent, yes, twenty seven, since the series started its score has halved, and do you know what else nose-dived over the run of the series, its ratings. Unlike other New Who series' where the ratings went up and down, eleven saw a consistent drop for its entire ten week run, losing three million overnight viewers in that time. A good start ratings wise gave way to pretty average Doctor Who viewing figures, despite apparently being the boldest, most original and best series Doctor Who has ever had, not to mention the gimmick of the first woman in the role. I don't know if that's quality related though because I haven't watched the whole series yet, but I'm about to, so here we go, no more foreplay, let's just do it.
The Woman Who Fell to Earth
I am not joking when I say that the first ten seconds on this episode made me want to punch myself in the face. Literally the first line that is spoken in series eleven is Ryan, one of our new companions, talking about the greatest woman he ever met. This was one of the two episodes I had watched before writing this, so I know that this is a red herring and that the woman he's on about is actually his nan, which is kind of sweet, but that doesn't change my gut reaction to the line when I first heard it, guess it shows how much faith I had in this series, or how paranoid I am about the communi- I mean SJW's. To be fair though, this introduction to the series could have been a whole lot worse, initially Ryan being both black and disabled stunk of quota filling, and it still does, even god knows how many weeks it's been since I last watched this episode, but watching it again for the review, this is a solid set up for two of our companions, Ryan seems like a good kid, the show sets up a compelling drama with him, his nan and his nan's new husband; Graham, who, saying it now, is the best thing about series eleven, I can already feel it. Ryan's disability is also very important to this opening scene, but it's incorporated into the drama in a surprisingly compelling way. Then we get our first taste of the alien shit as Ryan accidentally summons a giant space Hershey, and the visual effects are pretty good, yet still have a bit of low budget charm to them, and you know what, it's so far so good to be honest, I mellowed to the red herring once I knew it was a red herring, and so far everything's been going well, I like the characters, and the visual effects are good, so what could go wrong from here.
As it turns out, a few things, because then we meet Yasmin, a police officer in training who wants to do more with her life, and like Ryan, her character stinks of quota filling and diversity, but unlike Ryan, she isn't introduced in a compelling or dramatic way, and the politics really isn't hard to find. How about Graham, the only white guy, also being a coward, while his wife, the black woman, is the strong and proactive one of the two, a comedic role reversal, or the BBC at it again? I know what I'd bet on. And we haven't even seen the Doctor yet. The build up to her arrival is done quite well though, the scene on the train is spooky and mysterious, and for a minute, it kind of felt like Doctor Who, I was reminded of Rose and the Autons briefly, and then in crashes the Doctor, literally, through the ceiling, and my will to live starts to drain. The episode actually makes it a point that the Doctor is a woman now by having Yasmin call her madam and her being surprised and confused, but more annoying than that is how the character is introduced, she's annoying. She reminds me a lot of Matt Smith to be honest, and while that may be good for some, I personally couldn't stand the eleventh Doctor, but at least Matt Smith was weird and different, a bit too much for me, yes, but he wasn't just doing a David Tennant impression, unlike Jodie Whitaker, who is just annoying, in the way she acts and talks, but also in the way she possesses gravitas, because she doesn't. She's a talker, but she has nothing interesting to say, she's a comedian, but her jokes are bottom of the barrel, safe, politically correct drivel, what a shocker, and she's a hero with a completely unearned sense of heroism. She's not as bad as I thought she'd be, or at least she isn't in this first episode, but Matt Smith left a more positive impression on me in The Eleventh Hour than Whitaker does in this one, which isn't a good start.
But the episode really falls apart when we meet the villain, who, and I'm not kidding, the Doctor calls Tim Shaw. Apparently his name is actually T'zim-Sha, and he's a Stenza, a warrior race that sort out their politics through ritualism and conquest, and they also wear their victims' teeth on their faces. Well, I gotta give it points for weirdness, he's a blue ice guy with a face full of teeth, and he's also on a hunt, because to assume the throne of his home planet he must come to Earth and hunt a human. The build up to his reveal was actually kind of cool, like the scene on the train, it was creepy and atmospheric, and I really like the scene where he emerges from the space Hershey, his armour is uninspired but cool in a generic sci fi way, and his method of killing is cold and brutal, and apparently too violent for television. But then we have the contrivance of him 'cheating' in his ritual by bringing equipment to Earth to help him in his hunt, but to be honest, this is a minor contrivance compared to all the others. Doctor Who is no stranger to contrivance, most famous of all being the Sonic Screwdriver, a tool that does anything and everything the plot needs it to, but The Woman Who Fell to Earth doesn't just give us a Sonic Screwdriver, one that looks absolutely hideous, more closely resembling a dildo than previous Sonic designs, but it gives us one that the Doctor builds in a workshop in Sheffield. So apparently time lord technology isn't that hard, in fact it's so easy that a spoon, a blow torch and a battery is all you need, and the scene where she builds it is supposed to be epic, I know that, but the only epic thing about it is the cringe from looking at Jodie Whitaker's stupid fucking face, there's quirky, then there's annoying and awkward, and Whitaker clearly doesn't know the difference. But then, before she even builds the Sonic, she turns a smart phone into an Alien Tracker, because apparently there are apps for that sort of thing. This is Doctor Who, this is a show that asks you to suspend your disbelief a lot, in fact you could say there are no rules in this show, but when you're being this 'bold' and 'original' with your new take on the series, it helps to not be lazy, and this episode's sci fi elements are all incredibly uninspired and lazy, along with the contrivances that it simply can't afford while trying to sell us on the new Doctor.
The finale with the cranes isn't a bad finale in all honesty, there is a tiny bit of tension as T'zim-Sha and the Doctor race to the human target, and there is, of course, the big speech about how the Doctor knows who she is now and that she is the Doctor, which is the point in the episode that we're supposed to be sold on the new Doctor, and to be honest, I wasn't, this Doctor had all the dumb of Doctors ten and eleven, but none of the gravitas or intensity of ten, again, wasn't a fan of eleven. What made Tennant so good as the Doctor was that dichotomy, the ability to be a goof ball with a heart of steel, someone who would make jokes and be silly, but had it in him to really fuck up anyone that crossed him, and that dichotomy is not here with Whitaker, she's stupid and awkward, but she isn't even the slightest bit threatening or scary, the commanding presence of previous Doctors just isn't there, and she needs that to be the Doctor, she fails at it. When she is telling the Stenza to leave in peace before she makes him leave, it's clearly supposed to be epic and badass, but it isn't, Whitaker just doesn't sell herself in the role in this episode, and since that's the point of the first episode, the episode as a whole fails, even with the handful of things it gets right like Ryan and Graham or the space Hershey. And I suppose those are my thoughts on this episode; it gets a few things right, I like some of the new characters, and the sci-fi alien shit is on a fine line between generic but serviceable and uninspired and dull. But the biggest problem with the episode is the Doctor, who I do not like in this episode, even though it's the episode's job to make me like her, even if the politics wasn't there, this would be the least compelling Doctor New Who has ever had, but then there is the politics, creeping in the back of my mind, creeping in the diverse casting and between the lines of the script, I try to ignore it with films, games and TV, but sometimes I just can't, Doctor Who is one of those times, and that's because like Ghostbusters before it, Doctor Who means something to me, it's special, and that makes the infection so much harder to tolerate.
The Woman Who Fell to Earth is better than I expected, but that doesn't mean anything since I expected it to be unwatchable, but if this is what Doctor Who's going to be now; boring and lazy with a barely functional cast of heroes and a cringy lead, as well as a liberal sprinklings of identity politics, then no thanks, but unfortunately the BBC doesn't give us the freedom to not financially support this, so I might as well carry on, keep the torture coming.
The Ghost Monument
I'm going to say a nice thing for once, I like the new intro, the first episode didn't have it and that keeps skipping my mind, but the new theme grew on me after hearing it a few times and the visuals are really nice, so there, something about this show that I like, the intro, and speaking of intros, what a mess the first ten minutes of this episode is. With most of the character set up out of the way and a bigger fish on the horizon, I'll be trying to keep this one brief, but the opening of this episode tries desperately to have tension as the crew are separated and the Doctor and Yasmin crash land on a desert planet. The scene isn't as tense as it wants to be though because of the issues the Doctor had in the first episode; that being a lack of authority and gravitas, so when she's arguing with the ship's captain about how to not die, it sounds more like a know it all, overly argumentative woman than an authoritative leader. But, like me, she did forget about Yasmin's existence, I was much more interested in Ryan and Graham, the two people I actually like in this show now, who are already on the planet. And the crash landing is a joke, with the two characters I like seemingly having Prometheus syndrome and not understanding how straight lines work.
And then in creeps the politics as dickhead captain no.1, who's a white guy, talks down to dickhead captain no.2, a woman, once again, is it banter, or the BBC and their nefarious agendas. Humour's kind of on point though, Graham complaining about aliens putting things in him is admittedly pretty funny, and once again cements him as my favourite character. And then we get the big reveal that the titular Ghost Monument is actually the Tardis, which was completely absent from the first episode also, and has become a very continent plot device here, well well. And you know what, now having the intro and the Tardis doesn't make this feel any more like Doctor Who, because Jodie Whitaker keeps talking and I keep wanting her to shut up, she's somehow even more annoying in this episode than she was in the first. At least the drama of the first episode is going smooth, as Ryan and Graham struggle to cope with the grief of Grace's death and Graham keeps trying to connect with Ryan. And in creeps the politics again as dickhead pilot no.1 tells the story of why he's such a dickhead, while dickhead pilot no.2 tells us a sad story of how she has to save her family, the problem with the identity politics of media is that it puts my guard up; this is something I've talked about before relating to Wonder Woman and Black Panther, two films I feared would be giant ballads of social justice, they weren't, thankfully, but this is the kind of paranoia identity politics brings out, the questioning of everything as to whether it's harmless or political, a paranoia that's not entirely unjustified because they're everywhere. And then Chris Chibnall shows us how in touch with the youth of today he is with a Call of Duty joke, while completely ignoring the disability he establishes Ryan to have in the first episode, real consistent there, and bruh, that joke was lit.
The episode also keeps bringing up the mystery of the planet, like we care, like Jodie Whitaker's Nigel Marven looking for the Giant Claw or something, and the fact that the atmosphere is toxic keeps coming up as well, even though everyone is breathing that very atmosphere and showing no ill effects, real consistent there, again. But it turns out that the answer to the mystery is the Stenza, Chibnall must be really proud of his Predator Knock off with a funny name, like Moffat and the Weeping Angels, only, you know, generic and lazy, at least the talking bedsheets are creepier, but can apparently be defeated with the flammable atmosphere. As it turns out, the air is flammable, but there's luckily a layer close to the ground that isn't, conveniently allowing our heroes to live when they ignite it with a conveniently self lighting cigar. It's funny how when they were getting shot at with lasers earlier the atmosphere didn't ignite then, but then again, it's also funny how this lifeless planet with a toxic atmosphere has plants. It's also a sign of growth that your dickhead captain no.1 now sees dickhead captain no.2 as his equal, how sweet, how progressive. But thank god that they can get off that deadly, uninhabitable, toxic planet in the Tardis, which has once again been redesigned, like what it looked like before could be improved upon, and would you look at that, it wasn't improved. It's funny how you don't notice how good something is until it's gone, I never paid the Capaldi era Tardis design any mind until I saw this design, and you know what, that Capaldi design was actually really nice, it was clean and practical and colourful, unlike the dingy junk pile Whitaker's now flying around in. It's dark, it's small, the console looks even more like it's made from scrap, the colours are flat and ugly, and even the exterior has a sickly greenish hue to it now. Just how much they screwed up the design of the Tardis shouldn't surprise me now that I've seen what they did to the Daleks, but this design is ugly.
The Ghost Monument didn't annoy as much as The Woman Who Fell to Earth, though not for Jodie Whitaker's lack of trying, but the space race plot keeps things going at a tolerable pace, and the setting isn't as cool as the episode thinks it is, but maybe could have been had they tried a little harder, but then we get the generic robot guards and the talking bed sheets and it occurs to me that they might have actually been trying, it's just that they're not very good. The monsters of this episode could be terrifying if they were done right, but it's all build-up for very little payoff, and as a result, far from being scary, they're just sad. Were this episode part of a previous series, it'd be a fine, functional, forgettable episode, but this is the second underwhelming episode of the series, and we're just two episodes in, this isn't a good sign for the rest of the series.
Two down, only nine to go
My original plan was to talk about the first episodes of this series today, but if every review is three paragraphs long, we'll be here all day, and something tells me I'll have a lot to say about Rosa, so it looks like this series that I wanted to be a three parter is going to end up being a six or seven parter, so make sure you've got your seat belt on because this will be a long and bumpy ride. Still, it's 2019 now, it's a new year, and this year I intend to keep up with reviewing the films I watch, and with part one of this series already up, I can't just stop now, as much as I want to. So stay tuned for my rant about Doctor Who's first attempt to tackle Racism, which I'm sure isn't going to be unbearable, and if I have the time, Doctor Who's attack of Donald Trump and Americans, and oh yeah, there are spiders in it too. I'll be honest though, series eleven isn't quite as bad as I'd feared so far, but even with that in mind, this is far, far below the bar this show set for itself when fell in love with it as a kid, and in that regard, it's exactly what I expected.
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