What Went Wrong with Chibnall’s Era of Doctor Who

Whether you like it or not, the critics and fans reviews don’t lie. The past five years were the most subpar of modern Doctor Who history- and it wasn’t because of casting a female Doctor (NMDs DNI!). It was an amalgamation of missteps and mistakes, all of which left the show lacking. Today, I have compiled a list of what I think dragged the show down throughout Chris Chibnall’s era of Who.

The Writing

Call it intuition, but I said that Chris Chibnall was the wrong choice for showrunner back when it was announced in 2017. I never had a good experience with his episodes (particularly The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood, two of which I consider to be the worst episodes of Doctor Who), and always thought that he just couldn’t write the characters properly. 

Turns out, I was right.

What Chibnall proved in his five years of writing for Doctor Who is that where his writing struggles is with his plot, dialogue, and primary characters. Even he himself has stated that he didn’t like the turnout of The Battle of Ransoor Av Kolos, one of the weakest episodes of modern Doctor Who in my opinion.

One of the worst moments of writing was in the Series 12 episode Can You Hear Me? when Graham tells the Doctor his fear of his cancer coming back. Her response? “I should say a reassuring thing now, shouldn’t I? I’m quite socially awkward, so I’m just going to subtly walk towards the console and look at something. And then in a minute, I’ll think of something that I should have said that might’ve been helpful.” As the daughter of a cancer survivor, I found this extremely insensitive. And don't get me started on her revealing the Master’s true race (not white) to the literal Nazi’s in Spyfall Part Two.

It was a good call for the BBC to bring Russell T Davies back in for The 60th, Series 14, and onward. Myself and many Whovians are ready for Chibnall’s writing to come to an end.

The Doctor

I thought that casting a female Doctor was a great idea. I thought that casting Jodie Whittaker was an even better idea, as I loved her performance in Broadchurch. It all came down to how her Doctor would act. Would she be more of a Fourth/Tenth/Eleventh type of Doctor? Or a Third/Ninth/Twelfth type? Or maybe a new kind of Doctor entirely?

The latter was apparently what Chris Chibnall wanted, as he had reportedly instructed Whittaker to not watch any prior Doctor Who upon her casting. All the while, even though Matt Smith did the same thing, she gets slack for her character feeling “too unoriginal and cringy.” Why? It falls back on the writing. 

Chibnall stated that when he writes the Doctor, he leaves gaps open for Jodie’s interpretation of the Doctor to shine through. However, Whittaker stated that she trusts Chibnall to write her Doctor’s characterization instead of inputting her own opinions. This paradox leads to the making of a very bland, one-dimensional incarnation of the Doctor, and this is why I think her character faltered.

While Whittaker’s acting was amazing, Chibnall’s characterization of the Doctor was not. She worked very well with what she was given, and it leaves me wondering how bright she would’ve shined had she worked with a different showrunner.

The Companions

The companions were a massive failure in my opinion, and that’s because of three issues- the amount of companions, the acting skill, and the writing.

Introducing three companions right at the very beginning of the Thirteenth Doctor’s era was one of Chibnall’s biggest mistakes. A TARDIS team of three might have worked had Chibnall not introduced new side characters every episode to focus on rather than developing the companions he already had. They were left to be walking theories of what could’ve been, shells of characters in a first draft.

Speaking of underdeveloped companions, it feels like they weren’t even written at all. While I can name multiple random fact about any other Companion, I feel like the Chibnall Companions are complete strangers. I don’t know a single thing about Yaz except that she’s a policewoman? I’m not even sure if that’s correct. They are extremely bland due to how little characterization and development they had been given. It would’ve been interesting to see another writer handle these characters. Maybe I would know a little more about Ryan, other than the fact that he can’t ride a bike.

In terms of acting skill, I think that Bradley Walsh and John Bishop did alright in their roles- and they’re not primarily actors. Walsh is a game show host, and Bishop is a comedian. That being said, I found Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole’s acting skill to be very poor. Their line delivery in particular was lacking, even cringeworthy and caused secondhand embarrassment at times. It’s sad that these companions were so horribly casted and mistreated by the writers, 

(Also, is it bad that I audibly cheered when Ryan and Graham left the TARDIS in Revolution of the Daleks? I think I’ll have the same reaction when Yaz leaves as well.)

In Conclusion

I don’t have entirely bad things to say about Chibnall’s era. He gave us not one, but two female Doctors for the first time in the show’s history, including the first BIPOC incarnation of the character. One of my favorite modern Doctor Who episodes is Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror- which Chris Chibnall wrote. One of my favorite side characters is the Lupar, Karvanista- who Chris Chibnall came up with. The past five years weren’t the absolute worst in television history, they were just a weak spot in multiple facets. The Whittaker era is similar to how the Davison or C. Baker eras were received; let down by poor writing and characterization. The Power of the Doctor awaits, which I hope will tie up loose ends like the Timeless Child and the Fugitive Doctor.

Now with the return of Davies, David Tennant and Catherine Tate, the involvement of Bad Wolf Studios and Disney+, and the casting of Ncuti Gatwa as the fifteenth Doctor, the show can hopefully move on to a brighter- and more successful future.