Doctor Who: Series 11 - General Thoughts & Analysis

So, this is long overdue. While Doctor Who has been a subject that the blog has delved into several times now, episodes of the modern series tend to be tackled on a one-by-one basis. Unfortunately, the last one ended up falling through the cracks for a variety of reasons. As such, this isn't quite striking while the iron is hot, so much as it is staggering to the forge hours late and trying to make something of it. Yet, there are things to say about Series 11 which are both positive and negative. Perhaps the single greatest one among them was that it seemed to be at long last learning from its mistakes.

The previous showrunner, Steven Moffat, might have closed out his run on a high note, but he was undeniably divisive. He was ambitious, driven and had the desire to take chances when it came to improving the franchise as a whole. While aiming to keep experimenting and doing something different is typically laudable, Moffat typically took things a few steps too far. Much like John Nathan-Turner decades before him, Moffat never seemed to know when to stop taking chances. Worse still, he seemed addicted to complexity for complexity's sake, and certain character archetypes at times. This had reached the point of overshadowing Moffat's mistakes, and the roller-coaster ride of quality must have been on Chris Chibnal's mind when it took over, as his storytelling was very much a reaction to this.

Many of the stories within Series 11 were - pun not intended - far more down to Earth. They were still often space-based, benefitted from the mania of the franchise, and the dynamic with the Doctor and her companions was the same as usual. However, there was a noted shift in storytelling. The series rapidly abandoned series-spanning story arcs or end-of-the-universe events every twenty seconds, or even the more convoluted time travel elements. It's telling that in this Doctor's first introduction, and throughout much of her second episode, she was armed with little more than her wits, a few kind people and her past experience. While it wasn't a complete effort to revert back to prior sagas, it felt more like the dynamic of the Peter Davidson and Tom Baker eras.

The threats present in each episode were far from mundane, but took on a few more recognizable qualities. Ideas like rogue factory workers, an alien bounty hunter, giant mutant spiders, and a metal eating alien beast became the more common threats. These peppered the likes of unique sentient universes exiled from our plane of existence, or world stealing superweapons. As such, it felt like an effort to remind people why these concepts were special, rather than having them so often show up in the series. This dynamic shift could have easily seemed like a step-down, but instead, the show found new ways to work around them. It introduced stories which better explored human themes and elements in more mundane settings, but still made them engaging to watch through tight writing and excellent direction. Rosa, for one, was the first more-or-less true historical tale for a long time, and explored the subject of racism with more nuance and tact than most modern-era efforts would have been capable of. Equally, the excellent Demons of the Punjab proved to be one of the best tales of human atrocities in years, and the main threat of that story proved to be a bait-and-switch.

By changing up the nature of the content and its very direction, this new era of the show was quickly able to distance itself from its predecessor. While it did not always get things right, nor was ever tale perfect, it was a noted change from the style people had become familiar with over the past several years. Ultimately this benefitted it both by having Jodie Whittaker seem far more distinct a shift in direction, storytelling and concepts, and lacked much of the baggage a few previous efforts had been lumbered with. While this is coming from someone who loved both the Paternoster Gang and Peter Capaldi, the fact that so much of Capaldi's initial run seemed like an extension of the Matt Smith Era was an undeniable mistake. You can do that for a while (like with Tom Baker's first series) but a new Doctor needs to move away and take things in a different direction from his or her predecessor; allowing them to stand out on their own and establish their own era.

The visual direction of the show underwent a notable improvement in many areas, especially in terms of camerawork. Compare the opening few stories of this series to those of any other Doctor save Capaldi, and you might notice a few things. Many of the shots within the show took on a bigger-budget quality to them, utilizing the sort of directorial choices that wouldn't be out of place in a miniseries or high-quality film production. This helped to elevate the show beyond its usual budget problems, and to further emphasise its distinction from previous efforts.

A further noteworthy area worth praise stemmed from the actual execution of many stories. A fair number of scripts saw a few substantial improvements over the past series in addition to the new direction in content. They lacked the perpetually rushed feeling which plagued more than a few tales, and when something had a fast start, it typically waited a few minutes to say "By the way, this is happening" before plunging you headlong into the narrative. This helped to not only better establish the characters, but also to give the companions more to do outside of the current crisis. While all the companions to date have benefitted from an excellent choice of actors, and usually good writing behind them barring a few noteworthy failings, Series 11 benefitted from a few new changes. For one thing, three companions was a dynamic the show typically skirted about over fully utilizing, and the broader range of education history, age groups, and professions benefitted their distinctions. That and the show's creative use of bus drivers.

Most pressingly, however, was the use of the Doctor's gender in all of this. Marketing material made a great fuss about Jodie Whittaker being the first woman to take the role. Well, the first one outside of a fairly bad Big Finish story, and technically Jenna Coleman. It proved to be a key point in marketing to get this series off to a great start, and draw people back to the show after they had been trickling away for some time. However, there was one major concern about how this could be handled. The reason more than a few (saner) fans were worried about a woman taking the role, was because she would become a River Song clone. This wasn't an entirely invalid concern, as there had been no shortage of these, and the first male-to-female regeneration involved chracterisation defined purely by snark, and an announcement of "Thank God I'm a woman, how do you deal with all that testosterone."

Rather than making gender a key focus of every episode, the Doctor was just written as the Doctor. Jodie Whittaker and acting capabilities mattered far more than her gender, and the few jabs present were more appropriate to the era or individual moment rather than a constant barrage of them. While the promotional material helped to show how important this new change was for the show, the episodes themselves used the kind of restraint and focus it needed to prevent this change seeming like a marketing gimmick. The Doctor herself also had the sort of enthusiasm you would expect as a reaction to her predecessor, and it helped to give the show a very engaging upbeat feel. It showed promise for the future, and emphasised the out-and-out fun which had benefitted the highlights of the Matt Smith era, along with the need to shift to seriousness when required.

However, there were a few undeniable flaws here. The big one, more than anything else, was that it took quite some time for Whittaker to stand out from the crowd. Her introductory episode, and the one following both carried the same opinion from more than a few audiences: This seems an awful lot like David Tennant. This never truly stopped throughout the run, and while the show did improve on this, those familiar with the Tenth Doctor kept noting how similar she was in mannerisms and opinions. The last thing any Doctor needs is to be compared with an already popular predecessor due to their mannerisms, and for at least a few people it seemed as if the show was using a fan favourite as a clear reference.

Another definite problem in terms of writing was how it was rather hit and miss when it came to the meaning behind its stories. The quality of storytelling was far more consistent overall, as it wasn't taking risk after risk. It never seemed like it was reaching the heights of some tales, but it was making up for it by going off in new directions and avoiding many lows. However, outside of its historical tales, the current writing came across as extremely toothless at many points. 

The worst offenders were easily Arachnids in the UK and Kerblam! Both of which contemporary issues which were in the headlines, but never truly did anything with them. Arachnids threw a Dondald Trump expy into the mix, drew direct comparisons with him, and highlighted both the issues of current employee abuse and wealth disparity. Then it did nothing with it outside of a few gags, and the villain walked away scott free by the finale. Kerblam! followed the same approach, highlighting many abusive and outright terrible policies by Amazon early on, and the problems of such companies. However, it not only treated these as acceptable normalities, but it also showed no one having problems with them, and presented the company in a benign light. Compared with the likes of The Sun Makers or The Claws of Axos, it at best lacked the bite it seriously needed to help it stand out. At worst it seemed to be reaffirming such problems as just being a part of life and not worth changing.

The last big mark against it was how the series went off in one direction, only to promptly loop back around to doing the opposite. The show abandoned arcs in favour of individual episodes, lacked the repeating hidden elements peppered within stories, or foreshadowing of major developments. This was fine, of course, but the show needed to commit to this entirely. It didn't do that. Instead, at the last minute, it threw together a big finale which brought back a very forgettable villain from the first story that the group treated as a joke even as they met him. While the actor behind the make-up - Samuel Oatley - was a good choice, "Tim Shaw" as he was nicknamed lacked the meaning or threat needed for a finale. As such, the story just had an interesting start, but was undermined by itself at every turn, leading to a middling and somewhat disappointing end to the series.

Overall, when all of this was taken into account, Series 11 came across as more good than bad. It was certainly flawed to be sure, and had more than a few noteworthy areas which needed to be improved upon, but there was a definite push to change things for the better. At its worst it really was just middling more than anything else, and after some of the things seen during the last ten years (from radiation being conveyed to an audience via lightning strike to a certain city on a space-whale) it really did nothing so offensive that it was worthy of being called out on it. Here's just hoping that the next series keeps up with this success.