Doctor Who is a quintessential part of English
television, with the show being over fifty
years old. A big reason for its longevity
is due to the ever-changing nature of the
show, completely reinventing itself every
few years. With the upcoming series eleven,
it seems like Doctor Who is making its biggest
changes to date, with the very first female
doctor, which has gone done - really well.
However, I'm not going to be talking about
Jodie Whittaker, because she's a good actor
- but a good actor is nothing unless they
have a good script and this where Chris Chibnall
comes into the picture.
Chris Chibnall will be the head writer and
showrunner for the new episodes of Doctor
Who. When his role was announced, I became
really interested in finding out what contributions
Chris Chibnall has made to Doctor Who. So
I watched all the episodes Chibnall has written
over the many years. All four of them.
In this video, I will be looking at Chibnall's
episodes critically in order to gain a better
understanding of Chibnall as a writer and
to paint a picture of what series 11 might
be.
The first Chibnall episode is called '42'
and if you have seen this episode, you probably
won't remember it because it's pretty much
the most forgettable, bland uninspired episode
of Doctor Who ever made.
So The Doctor arrives on this ship and he
has 42 minutes to stop the ship from colliding
with a sun. But
before our heroes can worry about that, it's
revealed that one of the crew members has
gone crazy and has started killing people
on the ship, but before we can worry about
that, the crew have to answer a series of
security questions to gain access to the control room. But before we can
worry about that, the sunshine monsters are
actually zombies and can infect other crew
members, but before we can worry about that,
the doctor stares into the sun and becomes
infected, as it turns out the sun is an alien
being and the crew of the ship have been illegally
using it as fuel.
But all these problems are solved by simply
dumping all the fuel. So good job guys.
But this episode should be complimented for
the way that fan favourite companion Martha
tragically dies. She's in an escape pod hurtling
towards the sun with no power to stop her
demise and the doctor has to convince her
that he'll save her, but deep down he knows
he can't.
Not really, he flicks a switch and she's fine,
everyone's fine. This is a classic Chibnall
move but I'll get more into that later.
This is pretty much all the doctor does in
this episode, apart from get infected from
the sun and almost die, which begins his long-standing
battle with PTSD.
Maybe I'm not being completely fair, the doctor
does some things, like he's able to give a
full diagnosis of this man by shining his
sonic screwdriver in his face.
Oh your sonic device told you about his energy
readings? Cool.
The main problem with this episode is it's
too convoluted and lacks focus, themes, or
any kind of end message. Chibnall is constantly
establishing new threats which makes it difficult
to build any sense of tension. Especially
when every threat can be tackled by pressing
a button.
So
Chibnall's next contribution is a two-parter,
it's a chib-nib double-bill so strap yourself
in boys and girls, it's about to get chibby
in this hibby.
So this episode is set in the future. Wales
2020. Although it's the future, things in
Wales are still bit.. primitive.
Why are you reading The Gruffalo? This is
the future. You should all have kindles! Fuck!
We're immediately introduced to the worlds
greatest dad, Wale's best friend, he's great
with his son and everyone at work loves him.
I hope he doesn't die. Ohh nooo. He's dead.
Well, what do you do when you see a smoking
dirt pit in your state of the art drill lab?
Is it haphazardly shove your arm down it?
Because that's what you would do if you were
in a Chibnall script.
These dirt pits have been made by the Silurians,
an ancient reptilian race who used to inhabit
the earth before human beings evolved, but
they went underground to hibernate in order
to escape extinction. But this big drill has
woken them up and they want their planet back,
which they feel is rightfully theirs. So just
imagine the Isreali/palastine conflict but
with lizard people.
Later on Amy also gets sucked by the soil,
but The Doctor doesn't really seem bothered
about it.
Through this whole episode it never feels
like anyone's in any real danger, which really
kills the tension and makes everything feel
meaningless.
But Chibnall uses his classic writing technique
to ramp up the stakes, he employs an arbitrary
deadline.
The countdown serves two purposes, firstly
it moves the story forward and secondly it
stops you from thinking the plot, because
if you do, you realise nothing makes any sense.
Like instead of these characters sitting and
talking about what's been happening Chibnall
just makes the drill computer show that life
forms are moving to the surface. So they have
12 minutes before the baddies arrive and they
have to quickly get ready - ready for something.
But gosh golly damn am I tense now.
But anyway the kid gets kidnapped, the old
man gets poisoned and Chibnall broke new ground
by having the doctor shove this Lizard lady
in the back of a van.
So now you've kidnapped a Silurian, you can
do a trade and get the others back. As long
as the humans don't kill her.
Oh no 
didn't see that coming.
To be fair how could she know that a stun
gun would be the silarians only weakness and
this middle aged mum does seem to feel pretty
guilty about killing this alien lizard creature.
Maybe she's learnt her lesson.
Oh wait she's set the drill to destroy and
wipe out all the Silurians. Effectively genociding
an entire species. But they've got fifteen
minutes to stop the drill so it's another
countdown and again I'm on the edge of my
seat. Even though the doctors screwdriver
makes all their weapons useless.
Like the previous Chibnall episode, it ends
with all the characters being exactly how
they were in the beginning. Hopefully the
next episode is less shit.
*Singing Jurassic park theme*
Unlike Jurassic Park, this episode is garbage.
I'd rather watch 2012s The Dinosaur Project
four times back-to-back than sit through this
episode again. But sadly this has become my
life because The Dinosaur Project is my three
year old son's favourite film. So please leave
a like for support.
I don't really have a son but please don't
unlike I need the youtube money.
So, Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. This spaceship,
that's full of dinosaurs is going to collide
into the earth in 6 hours. - Wait haven't
I been here before? - and the doctor has to
uncover the mystery of what happened to the
crew and save the dinosaurs from being blowned
up by these missiles. How does he go about
this? He decides to assemble a dream team,
the universes best and brightest heroes from
all of time to help him save this ship.
So, who does he choose?
Nefratiti, Rory and Amy and John Riddel - a
made up fictional English explorer from 1902.
Oh also Rory's dad accidently gets taken while
he's changing a lightbulb so I'm sure he'll
come in handy.
Even though these might not seem like the
obvious people for the doctor to recruit,
I'm sure Chibnall can write the story in a
way that gives each character a moment to
shine and add something to the plot. So, Riddel
is sexist and shoots some dinosaurs with Amy
at the end and Nefratti is a strong female
character who has a crush on the doctor and
flirts with the sexist old fashioned animal
hunter and then gets kidnapped and has to
be saved. Arthur Weasely also provides a trowel
so that's useful.
The main problem with this, is like all of
Chibnall's other episodes, this episode doesn't
have any distinguishable themes. For example
if this episode was about animal cruelty,
the hunter could change his ways or opinions
or if it was about ownership of people - because
caretaker filtch wants to own Nefratiti and
is like a collector, then nefratiti who probably
owned slaves might have learnt something.
This is just standard story stuff really.
But because Chibnall doesn't give them anything
to really add to the plot or any character
arcs they feel unnecessary and empty.
Ultimately it seems like they were written
in so the episode could look interesting.
But just because something looks interesting,
that doesn't make it actually interesting.
When none of these things work together or
fit into a narrative or theme. You've just
got a mess.
Oh but I didn't mention there's a countdown
to when the missles hit, so I'm gonna retract
everything I just said. This episode has a
lot of high pace and energy, I was gripped
all the way through.
This is the last episode Chris Chibnall wrote
for doctor who, which was 5 years ago. This
could be argued as his best episode, but it
could also be argued as his worst.
The episode starts with a really promising
doctor who mystery, with all these cubes appearing
on earth overnight. The Doctor analyses them
and can't figure out what their about, they're
just sitting there, doing nothing. Unlike
other Chibnall episodes, he doesn't force
in other elements to move the story along
and try to create artificial tension. Chibnall
is happy to let the characters interact and
develop naturally in a casual setting.
The plot thickens as Chibnall establishes
more creepy elements surrounding the enigmatic
cubes. There's this mysterious little girl
in the hospital who's rubbing a cube and staring
at people and these disturbing gasmasked faced
people who are kidnapping patients.
Around the half way mark, after a year of
doing nothing, the cubes become active.
So far there's been no countdown, abritory
screwdriver use and we've had a focussed plot
with consistent themes and a captivating mystery.
All Chibnall now has to do is not screw up
the final act, all he has to do is give us
a satisfying ending.
And it's at this point that the cubes start
counting down from seven... it's all downhill
from here folks.
It's revealed that the cubes have spent a
year figuring out the best way to kill humanity
which turns out to just be - giving people
who are nearby heart attacks which means a
third of the population have died. Edgy choice
chibnall.
The doctor and Amy rush to the hospital to
put a stop the dastardly cubes, whilst there
the doctor comes face to face with this ominous
and mysterious cube girl, but thankfully using
his trusty sonic screwdriver the doctor deduces
that the girl is an android working as a scout
- even though the cubes were sort of doing
that anyway.
At the elevator the doctor uses his screwdriver
to pick up on some unusual energy signals.
Turns out theres a portal in the elevator
that leads to the invaders ship and it is
here that we are introduced to the greatest
Dr who villain of all time - Cube man.
He shoots lasers out of his eyes once and
then reveals his entire motivation for killing
a third of the world population, which is
that humans are a plague and should be destroyed
before they colonise space.
He then reveals the next foreboding step in
his ingenious plan, which is to release more
cubes.
After a slew of exposition cube man just disappears
leaving the doctor and his crew completely
unsupervised on his spaceship, maybe he could
have stuck around and used his eye lasers
more than once but I don't blame him - he's
a busy man. He probably had to guest panel
at a cube convention.
But there's no excuse for the gas mask people,
what are they doing right now - what even
are they?! They seem to have absolutely nothing
to do with cube man, and why are they bringing
people on this ship! Why are their faces like
that, people committed hours to CGing those
faces but no one questions why!!! This is
so dumb they spent a year observing people
intimately and taking in information and sending
little cyborg girls to do recon and having
their gas mask men kidnap sick people but
when it comes to crunch time you all just
go home! Surely after a year of planning and
observing you must understand how there are
flaws in this plan - the cubes wont be able
to get everyone, there will always be a handful
of people hiding in a cupboard or something!
And sending more cubes won't change that,
you should have sent enough just to get everyone
in one go! And then you leave the one man
who can stop you in the central hub of everything
putting up no fight whatsoever when you have
bloody laser eyes!
So the doctor is able to use his magic wand...
I mean sonic screwdriver to reverse the effects
of the cubes, so instead of stopping peoples
hearts - it restarts them. On top of that
by skilfully moving his screwdriver about
a bit more he also is able to use... the energy...
to blow up the ship. You could say that's
because the doctor is really clever or you
could call it lazy writing.
So in closing, every Chibnall episode has
not been good, he hasn't written a doctor
who episode for five years, but in that time
he has been a showrunner for a fairly successful,
albeit, unoriginal detective show for three
consecutive seasons. So I wouldn't say I was
worried for the 11th series of doctor who,
but I'm not excited. Mostly I'm just confused
as to why, Chris Chibnal, the hack fraud of
Doctor Who has got this job.
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