Current Events > Doctor Who: 13th Doctor, yay or nay?

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is her third year in the job, counting the hiatus year.

Personally, I really like her performance. I really like her energy, and I like that most of her screentime isn't just her gobbing off about how she's the smartest person alive - I think her character exemplifies a love of learning, and one of her favorite things is to put 2 and 2 into someone else's hands and help them along until they can make 4 with it. I would take that any day of the week over another tired "yes, yes, it's bigger on the outside, I know" eyeroll from one of the Moffat Doctors.

Saying that, the show really isn't in peak condition. The worst episodes are Chibnall ones more often than not, and while the good episodes are really good - Demons of the Punjab and Fugitive of the Judoon say hi - the bad ones are some of the worst episodes of the revival - Orphan 55 and Arachnids in the UK say hi.

The show also has an overcrowding issue, with three supporting characters on board the TARDIS - Yaz is criminally underwritten for most of series 11, Ryan gets pushed further and further out of relevancy with every episode, and Graham's reduced to a quip machine half the time. I think Yaz is my favorite because she has the most potential, and most of the time she's paired up with the Doctor and I really vibe with their energy - Graham is good, but a lot of his time is tied to Ryan and I just don't dig how they play off of each other.

I think this issue could have been rectified if the TARDIS crew were allowed to wander off on their own more often. I was rewatching The Empty Child the other day, and the Doctor and Rose have their own separate plots - The Doctor gets to the bottom of the gas mask children, and Rose stumbles into Captain Jack Harkness. Most of the time, the current TARDIS crew don't have a lot to do - it's basically following the Doctor and doing what she needs. There's limited branching, but there's a lot less of each character having an individual plot or an episode focused on what they get up to - Demons of the Punjab being a notable exception, being a more Yaz-centric episode.

Current Who isn't the best it's ever been, but I think Jodie Whittaker is a fantastic Doctor. The best thing about this show, consistently, is her performance. Everything else is a bit rocky, but I really like her Doctor.

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The show could be better. I like her and her companions in theory but the execution is lacking. I like the doctor traveling with a group of companions over a single companion and I was asking for that for years. Sadly the writing and characters could be better.

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Bumparoo

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Still better than Colin's run.

honestly if her run as Doctor was written by Steven Moffat or RTD over Chris Chibnall, it would have been better

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Unknown Nomad posted...

honestly if her run as Doctor was written by Steven Moffat or RTD over Chris Chibnall, it would have been better

If only Douglas Adams were still alive...

she's been fine, the scripts not so much. also not a big fan of any of the companions, though Graham and Yaz have started to grow on me. Ryan's just kinda there.

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Unknown Nomad posted...

honestly if her run as Doctor was written by Steven Moffat or RTD over Chris Chibnall, it would have been better

One reason I like her so much is because she brings back some of that RTD energy. Chibnall's run has unfortunately been spotty, but I'm still so glad that Moffat isn't behind the wheel any more. He had his high points, but I cannot stand his run on the show.

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I have three daughters that adore her in the role... I liked her better in attack the block

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Character and actress are fine. Writing is kind of bland and boring, though.

She needs fewer companions. There's just too much going on there.

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I put the majority of the shit show Doctor Who has become on Chibnall's shoulders more than anything. She isn't terrible at the role, but she's clearly either not into it or on a tight leash...possibly scared to take chances too.

I don't find her an overly likable Doctor and a little too reliant on previous personalities. But when Chibnall isn't directly involved (or seems like he isn't), she starts to shine a little.

The show itself went down the tubes with the bashing over the head in your face political stances it is choosing to take. And the newest episode exposing the Doctor's origins was definitely a shark jumper. It can be fixed, but only by minds more creative than Chibnall.

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MrMallard posted...

One reason I like her so much is because she brings back some of that RTD energy. Chibnall's run has unfortunately been spotty, but I'm still so glad that Moffat isn't behind the wheel any more. He had his high points, but I cannot stand his run on the show.

to each their own but I feel none of Chibnall's episodes are nowhere as good as Moffat's top episodes like Eleventh Hour, Heaven Sent, The Empty Child, and Blink and I feel Moffat is better at not going overboard in twists compared to what Chibnall did with the Timeless Child

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Unknown Nomad posted...

honestly if her run as Doctor was written by Steven Moffat or RTD over Chris Chibnall, it would have been better

Na it would be worse under Moffat. Man was a hack that was dragging the show down.

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She's been good, but the show's writing is pretty terrible.

Like, it's never been something you take seriously, but still, it's gone dowhill. In these seasons with this new doc, they've come up with a lot of fun ideas, but then fail to commit enough time to them, so they end up wrapping up with an extremely shitty endings. And then the one story line they have been spending time on sucks.

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I don't hate it, but I'm not enthused - and it doesn't have anything to do with a lady Doctor.

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I really like her, but I just don't feel anything about the show itself anymore. I don't know if it's the writing of this incarnation or the fact that the reboot is 15 years old at this point, but the show just feels kind of lifeless to me.

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creativerealms posted...

Na it would be worse under Moffat. Man was a hack that was dragging the show down.

he has had better episodes than Chibnall though

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One last bump

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I haven't watched any of her yet. Any stand-out episodes to check out?

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I like Jodie Whitaker and I like her character, but she's always on step away from being great. If I had more resources I'd give examples, but some of her deliveries don't quite take. They're not flat, but she feels too passive. If she went around screaming all her lines, got used to that energy, then toned it down - she'd hit the mark.

I like the companions, especially Graham, but no companion seems to have really hit that chemistry since Amy. I think that's mostly the writing, though.

Doctor Who has also had serious issues with special effects and lighting for a long time. Some episodes are just trash out the gate because they were filmed so terribly. This seems like a modern issue, though, CW shows also have issues with special effects and settings that look worse than 4-10 years ago. Buffy had better visuals than most modern TV shows and it's not all budget.

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PMarth2002 posted...

I haven't watched any of her yet. Any stand-out episodes to check out?

The Woman Who Fell to Earth (her debut), Demons of the Punjab and Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror are all very good.

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MrMallard posted...

The Woman Who Fell to Earth (her debut), Demons of the Punjab and Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror are all very good.

I'll strongly second the motion on Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror. She feels Doctorish and some of the agenda was forced to take a backseat for the sake of historical accuracy (but they still slipped a few moments in, they're eye roll worthy, but easy enough to move past).

Demons of the Punjab is another good one, but I don't know if it was a standout Jodie performance so much as it was the rest of the cast.

The Woman Who Fell to Earth is a feel good "well, lets meet the new Doctor" vibe so its kinda worth a watch.

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ChocoboMogALT posted...

I like Jodie Whitaker and I like her character, but she's always on step away from being great. If I had more resources I'd give examples, but some of her deliveries don't quite take. They're not flat, but she feels too passive. If she went around screaming all her lines, got used to that energy, then toned it down - she'd hit the mark.

I like the companions, especially Graham, but no companion seems to have really hit that chemistry since Amy. I think that's mostly the writing, though.

Doctor Who has also had serious issues with special effects and lighting for a long time. Some episodes are just trash out the gate because they were filmed so terribly. This seems like a modern issue, though, CW shows also have issues with special effects and settings that look worse than 4-10 years ago. Buffy had better visuals than most modern TV shows and it's not all budget.

She can be a bit one-note, sure. I feel like it was a problem with series 11, but she's had a bit more to work with in series 12 and I think she's been better.

Honestly, chemistry is a bit of an issue with the TARDIS team. I think Jodie and Mandip play off each other well, but it's in the sense that since the text is a bit lacking, I'm looking more into subtext and body language. I've subsequently gone into shipping these two characters, but that's neither here nor there.

I think the last companion I really liked was Clara, but only when she was with the Eleventh Doctor. I thought they had a really interesting progression, and I think they got along like a house on fire in a way that was really entertaining to watch. It's her interactions with 12 that kinda soured me towards her.

I agree with you about the lighting. I think the issue is with filming in HD, and/or filming digitally. Lighting methods had to change along with the format, shows today have to be filmed in a more brightly lit environment I think. That's really impacted the look of TV shows, even the cheaper low-end shows that used to film on video.

I really like RTD's era because on top of the stories feeling kind of contemporary for the time, the look of the episodes are set in the format of the time. You can tell right off the bat in Matt Smith's first episode that something is different, because the picture quality and framerate of the episode is way different. I think it shows way more in series 1 that they recorded on video, whereas for all I know series 2-4 recorded on film or another format before series 5 went HD.

I think a consequence of this is that shows today look a lot more saturated, including Doctor Who. Look at Riverdale, Cheryl Blossom in particular - her red hair and cherry red lipstick pop whenever she's on screen.

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