Wish List: 5 improvements for DOCTOR WHO's Series 13

 

Doctor Who might be far from being my favorite fandom, but I thought this would make a good inaugural article for the blog, mostly because it will showcase the spirit of well-meaning criticism which I stressed on the introductory post.

It’s no secret that ever since Chris Chibnall took over, the show has received strong words of hate which are more in line with someone who kills children than with a piece of fiction that has changed its direction contrary to one’s tastes.

While I think that exaggeration has much to do with the inability of many to accept a female Doctor, and with the usual, tired accusations of “agenda” which always ensue when changes happen, I do agree with the base sentiment that something is missing in this new era, and that while the show is not terrible, it never quite achieves the highs of the Davis and Moffat seasons.

To me, the problem has never been the Thirteenth Doctor herself, who in my book is a great incarnation. I’ve never had any problem with the Doctor being female. If there’s one character whose gender doesn’t matter at all, it’s this one. Time Lord regeneration is such an alien concept, I doubt they even care about such a quaint think as gender (something our race should really learn!). My interpretation of regeneration allows for this because we’ve seen that each Doctor is a completely new person. I do not see it much like a transformation, but more like a replacement. They pretty much cease to exist completely an a wholly new being is born, who just happens to carry their predecessor’s memories and some of their core values.

The gender issue aside, Jodie Whittaker’s performance has been delightful. She’s everything I want in my favorite Doctors. She’s whimsical, she’s funny, she smart and she’s very, very kind, yet awkward enough around humans and she doesn’t always act tactfully.

Then, if not the central character, what is failing around her? I’ve synthesized my general qualms into five concrete aspects of the current iteration of the series that I believe constitute its biggest shortcomings. I’ve put together a Wish List of what I think should be enhanced for the next seasons.

The Companions:

Companions are at the very heart of the show. Ever since the first episode, when Ian and Barbara followed their unearthly student into the TARDIS, we’ve witnessed The Doctor’s exploits trough their eyes.

The classic era had its share of dull Companions along with the great ones, but one thing I think the new series has done consistently well is to introduce worthy new companions. More often than not, they are the true protagonists of the narrative, and that has been true from the moment Rose Tyler started an ordinary day and then met the Doctor.

Which is why it saddens me that the Thirteenth Doctor is accompanied by what to me is a rather unmemorable bunch. It’s not so much about the actors, which are mostly fine, and maybe not even about the conception of their characters, but it’s undeniable that something about them is lacking, and despite (maybe partly for that very reason) having three Companions, their presences are rarely felt individually. Instead, I feel this Doctor is tagging along a students’ field trip, each of whom makes an occasional remark while she explains the universe to her class.

Again, I’m not necessarily advocating for a full change of companionship, but at the very least the writers need to figure out how to give the current ones ways to shine, which will in turn help Jodie’s Doctor, because right now I feel like she’s carrying the piece alone. No other new Doctor had to do that from the beginning.

Individually, I think the most successful of this trio is Graham. The character works both as the comic relief and as the emotional heart of the “Fam”, and that is mostly thanks to the charisma of the actor and the way he was written as a regular but good-natured bloke. I don't think he could carry the weight of being the sole Companion, but if they’re keeping the triple dynamic they have now, he’s the one that can get away with only minimal changes, if any.

Yasmin could be a very interesting Companion, if allowed to take flight. My problem with her is that she is somewhat buried in the background, even in the episodes where she is supposed to have a main role.

Out of the three, Yaz seems to be the most capable one, and I think she would make a competent assistant in the vein of Martha Jones.  Her background as a real police officer (not a kissogram) who wants to do more than she does could be exploited in a similar fashion to Gwen Cooper in Torchwood, and she could also be used to embody a rarely depicted instance of female friendship while the Doctor is being portrayed by a woman.

As for Ryan, he’s my biggest letdown. The first episode set him up as the new main Companion. His dyspraxia was an unique opportunity to make him both different and interesting. And then, they decided that they wouldn’t do anything else with it, except mentioning it every few episodes, even though he is still able to do the same physical feats other Companions do.

It’s more than that, though: as written he lacks personality and he simply isn’t interesting enough to get away with that. It is not that he’s unlikeable. He seems like a decent fellow, but there’s absolutely none of the exuberance that the great Companions have had. He is just there, and the only sparks of interest are completely dependent on his relationship to Graham.

Like Yasmin, he could still be improved, but unlike her case, I feel it’s way too late for him and that the series would beneficiate by retiring him and either swapping him with someone a little more lively, or just focusing the efforts on making Yazmin and Graham a relevant duo.

Finally embracing continuity:

Canon has always been erratic in this franchise. The classic series simply wasn’t too interested in keeping a straight record of the continuity, and concepts changed back and forth between stories. Think about how much The War Games changed all the notions introduced on An Unearthly Child, or how elements like the Daleks, Cybermen and Gallifrey did not have one unified vision for years. Facts just changed according to each writer. And how old is The Doctor, anyway? They would just make any age they wanted without any regard of what was said before.

One could argue that these inconsistencies were simply a product of their time. But the aproximation to fiction has changed and nowadays the need for a strong continuity is important for most. It simply makes the universe much more tangible, and at first it seemed like the new series was going to take this more seriously.

The Russell T. Davis era was mostly "canon-conscious". There was, more or less, a consensus on the age of The Doctor (900 years old). Daleks and other important part of the lore had a defined origin.

And, vitally, the people of Earth could remember global catastrophes and alien incursions.

Back in the classic series, most of the extrarrestrial happenstances on present day Earth happened within a contained scenario or were somehow erased from people’s consciousness. There were exceptions but, again, these would fall under the little care about world-building that existed at the time.

But once Davis introduced full-on invasions, in-universe humanity simply had to become aware of the existence of aliens. They did destroy the Big Ben and Downing Street during their first contact, after all.

That one was explained as a hoax, but a few episodes later, in the very first Christmas Special, a gigantic spaceship appeared over London again and was quickly destroyed by a very visible death ray coming from Earth. From then on, the secret was out, and Davis kept it that way until the end of his energic tenure.

I wasn’t thrilled when I realized the Moffat era would disregard most of this entirely. Suddenly, people didn’t know about aliens, even though a replica of the Titanic almost feel from the sky and that Earth was towed halfway across the universe and then back again. There was a timid attempt to explain some of this in Series 5 via the Time Cracks, but it mostly remained an enormous reset button in order to disregard previous -and very important- storylines.

I’m certainly much less happy about Chibnall doubling on this mistake. How can people not know about Daleks, when they invaded the whole world a few years earlier? Their presence was supposed to be so important that they would inspire Adelaide and her granddaughter to do great things, so they can’t be completely erased, can they? Wasn't that a "fixed point in time"?

Cybermen also led full scale scares in both the Davis and Moffat eras. Even if the first was somehow erased and they can’t remember having ghost cybermen all over the planet, the second one still very much happened. Did they simply shrug off that day when their deceased loved ones were cyberconverted and walked out of their graves?

Yet, we have the Thirteenth Doctor needing to explain to her Companions what Cybermen and Daleks are. Not only that, but Earth is still inhabited by skeptics who don’t remember or don’t care about the time the whole planet turned into a forest or when people stopped dying for almost three months.

These inexplicable collective memory lapses are, to me, way more distracting than any Timeless Child retcon and point to a lack of commitment towards the reality of the universe these characters are supposed to inhabit. Yet I don’t see much of a controversy over this.

The few times I’ve seen fans addressing this, I’ve read statements in the manner of “an extraterrestrial invasion isn’t interesting if people already know aliens exist”, which to me is a fallacy.

Think, for instance how the MCU has fully embraced its inhabitant’s awareness of the existence of the alien and unusual ever since the pivotal “Battle of New York”, and how this has helped flesh out their universe instead of harming the narrative. Even the less connected spin-offs aren’t completely divorced of this, which makes everything so much more consistent.

As I mentioned, David approach was very similar to this one. He also had his New York and Sokovia, his Snap and his Blip, only to have them undone with little ceremony, pretty much throwing us back to that era of Doctor Who in which events didn’t have everlasting global repercussions.

If the current producers were to put an end to that, and finally accept that humanity has been changed and shaken by their alien encounters, they would succeed in creating a much more cohesive, realistic and interesting universe.

More inventive concepts:

I can’t fault such a long-running show for repeating certain ideas, just as I’ve never roasted The Simpsons when something feels familiar.

But at its best, Doctor Who’s fuel has always been wild concepts, or at least their execution, and lately I haven’t often felt that. It’s not the first period this happens in the series history, mind you. There was a long, tired stretch of the classic run that had this same problem. I’m not saying this time it’s as bad as then, but the symptoms are there.

To be fair, I’ll say that Series 12 was an improvement in this regard over Series 11, with elements as The Lone Cyberman, The Doctor finding an incarnation unknown to her, or setting an installment within the spy genre. None of them lived up to their full potential, maybe, but at least they feel more daring than during their first year, when the main antagonist’s distinctive trait was that he was a hunter and he decorated himself with victim’s teeth.

So, even though I know there’s a very slim chance we’ll get something in the league of the Weeping Angels or The Silence, I’m optimistic that there will be more memorable ideas this next season.

Bring back excitement!:

As I said, the current series is serviceable. Most of the episodes are even entertaining. But none of them has been close to stirring the emotions the last two eras were known for, at least for this viewer.

Even action-packed episodes have been strangely devoid of the epic quality that both Davis and Moffat were able to inject to a large portion of their installments. Think of the many moments that stand out emotionally in the 9^th-12^th Doctors tenures and you’ll quickly run out of fingers.

The closest we’ve come was the twelfth series finale, however you personally feel about the Timeless Child plotline, which at least upped the stakes and brought us a stand out moment when 13 broke free as Doctor Who’s theme played triumphally. Then there were other decent efforts like chunks of Spyfall and Fugitive of the Judoon.

But even at their best, they could hardly measure with the greats of the past. I will not try to compare them to achievements such as “I don’t want to go” or the Doctor breaking free of his Confessional Dial, as those needed setup time to be earned, and Chibnall’s run is still relatively new. But even during his first season, Moffat managed to bring us the Pandorica arc, which rambled at moments but never lacked trepidation. We’ve now concluded Chibnalls’ second year, and it feels unlikely that we’ll get more of those explosive feelings.

I’ll admit that a big part of it is that I miss Murray Gold’s towering scores. The new musical direction is different, and I respect it a lot, but I feel it doesn’t carry the same weight.

It can be argued that classic Who is similarly tepid, with just a few exceptions like each Doctor’s demise, but to me, the biggest strength of the revival is that it understands it’s not cold, hard sci-fi, but a rather fantastical tale of a lonely godlike being who shares a short measure of his infinite time with the people he bonds with.

There’s a lot of emotional potential to go with that, and I hope the current team can realize it in the future of the series.

Serialization over stand-alone episodes:

I won’t dwell too long on this one, mostly because the 12^th Series also seemed to take steps in this direction, as opposed to the 11^th.

The thing is that serialized TV is usually more compelling than fully episodic shows. It’s true that Doctor Who has been mostly episodic from the start, but that had to do with the preferred way of making television that prevailed for decades. But the medium has changed a lot and long form, ongoing narratives are now much preferred.

Even New Who has been composed of mostlystand-alone stories, and don’t get me wrong… That’s the way it should remain. The TARDIS crew should travel to a new narrative, with a different tone, every one or two episodes.

But under Davis, the show had found a great balance between serialization and the adventure-of-the-week format. There was a new setting, set of characters and main plot on each chapter, but at the same time there were overarching arcs. Moffat continued this and even deepened it, which some viewers found too entangled instead. That’s a debate for another time.

Chibnall’s episodes have being far more contained even though, as I said, the last season tried to give the Doctor some overarching threads, though some of the middle episodes were still a bit of filler.

I’d love for this tendency to serialize to be continued and refined. For me, serialized TV has a much more appealing drive: instead of just focusing on the hour of TV you just watched, the viewer has to fit the pieces of season-long puzzles, which is much more rewarding and the pay-offs more meaningful. No wonder I always enjoyed Deep Space 9 more than the other Star Trek series.

EXTRA WISH: Aromantic commitment

This one is kind of a bonus, because I think it's even more peronal and less objective than the others, yet it's just as importat to me.

One of my favorite aspects of our current Doctor is that, for two whole seasons, she has never shown the tiniest hint of having any kind of authentic romantic or sexual interest. This fits with the character's original portrayal during the classic series, and sets her appart from the film and reimagined era counterparts, all of who have been characterized as having romantic relationships.

This has consistentely been my less favorite change of New Who, which I commonly regard more highly than the original run. But by taking away his aromantic persona has made the Doctor a much more conventional and less interesting hero, something that Thirteenth has given us back.

BUT... it's obvious that the world puts pressure on fiction creators to give all their characters a love life, with that old fashioned belief that someone isn't whole until they're part of a couple that still prevails.

So my sixth wish for the show is that the creators commit to this facet and don't succumb to the convention, giving her a love interest. Recent rumors have proposed that the character might be revealed as biromantic next season.

While it's a great win for the LGTB community to get more representation, and I'm all fot it, there's no reason to take it from aromantic characters who have, let's face it, close to zero representation, so they need it far more,

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In conclussion, I do feel the show has been trying to stride in the correct direction in most of these respects, but they've been baby steps which might not quite make it in time. I just hope that they don't become even more timid as a result of the fan reaction, which, at least among vocal, aggresive circles, has been directed towards what I think are the wrong issues.