5 Reasons Chibnall's Doctor Who Era Failed

4. Bland Writing

Doctor Who the Doctor The Timeless Children
BBC Studios

The writing in Chibnall’s era gets a lot of flack for being too political and always having a “woke” agenda. It’s true. The episodes have featured a lot of brilliant diversity in the cast and their stories. It's also tackled important messages like global warming, mental health, pollution, monstrous working conditions, racism and loads more. The problem isn’t with the points being made; it’s with the writing. Often these issues have been attacked in a clunky, awkward way or just been outright boring.

Take Orphan 55, for example. It was a brilliant concept. The message was great: These monsters are what we become if we don’t get our act together. The only problem was that to get to that reveal, the audience had to not fall asleep first. Between awkwardly weird costumes, dodgy fancy dress wigs, and constant irritating cries of “BENNI,” nothing happened, and that’s a serious issue.

Season eleven, in particular, was guilty of stories that felt like they went nowhere or were paced too slowly. Tsuranga Conundrum, anyone? It didn’t help that the entire series was dedicated to fresh new villains and had no past threat to ground it in Doctor Who lore.

Jodie did great, and the companions were okay. The problem is, with companions three is a crowd. While the fam is lovely together, it made it hard to develop anyone’s character because there were too many people.

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Simon is a writer, cat dad and presenter of a geeky radio show with his husband. He loves Doctor Who (except 10 who can get in the bin…only joking.) He idolises Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lara Croft and would 100% be a Sith Lord in a galaxy far, far away. He wishes life was like a musical so he’d actually be a good singer.