3. Chris Chibnall
Episodes: 42 (Season 3), The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood (Season 5), Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (Season 7), The Power of Three (Season 7) Back in Season 3 of New Who, Chibnall gave us an episode where the Doctor has forty two minutes to save a crashing ship and eradicate a crew-possessing alien sun that eventually crawls into the Doctor's head. For all the potential it has, there is no real sense of tension or urgency even when Martha is seemingly sent to her death and the Doctor becomes possessed, the danger doesn't feel real. We all know when we're watching an episode of Doctor Who that, nine times out of ten, the Doctor will save the day precisely because he's the Doctor. Even with this foreknowledge, a good writer can keep the suspense going and have the audience on the edge of their seats, knowing that the Doctor will save the day yet still wondering how the heck he's going to pull it off. "42" does not accomplish this, and neither does "The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood," a dull, plodding two-parter which while reintroducing the Silurians to the TV series, is little more than just another chance to kill off Rory. Chibnall's greatest crime as a writer is being boring, and with a show with a premise as fantastic, open-ended and full of possibilities as Doctor Who, being boring IS a crime. I suppose he may have tried to redeem himself with the absurdity that is "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." From the title alone it sounds like the writers were running out of ideas, and Chibnall blurted out, "You know what would be a cool thing to have in a Doctor Who episode? Dinosaurs! On a spaceship!" For lack of any better ideas the episode was created all they needed was a plot to actually get the dinosaurs ON the spaceship, yet that didn't work out very well and the whole thing dissolved into the sort of ridiculousness that only a show like Doctor Who at its worst can deliver. Mind you, Doctor Who already has a ridiculous premise in itself - an alien who travels through time and space in a police box - and "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," I feel, finally broke the limits of how absurd and utterly silly the show can be. I haven't been able to watch much classic Doctor Who yet, so there well may be more ridiculous episodes within that era; but within New Who, I believe no episode has been as utterly insane and pointless as "Dinosaurs." Then, within the same season, Chibnall wrote "The Power of Three," which, while probably being one of the better episodes of Season 7, is really not saying much, considering how horrible the writing of that season was. The main focus of the episode the cubes never really build up much of a threat even towards the end, and so, besides a few funny moments for the Doctor and Rory's dad, this episode too descended into boredom. Maybe Chibnall isn't quite cut out to write longer scripts for Doctor Who; he did, however, do a decent job writing "Pond Life," the webisodes of Amy and Rory's life before the start of Season 7. Perhaps he should stick to writing shorter pieces. Perhaps, for Chibnall, less is better.