Alright, so... those of you who have been paying attention know that I'm a fan of Doctor Who.
...let me give you a moment to process the absolute soul-shattering shock of that revelation that came out of nowhere.
I watched The Power of the Doctor, the final episode of both the Jodie Whitaker and Chris Chibnall era after I kind of slacked off following The Timeless Children. I won't rehash that episode any more than the topic of this particular ranting will allow but basically - I loved it. It felt like Doctor Who for the first time in quite some time with consistency and heart to it. Much like my analysis of Turn Left, Chibnall has this in him and instead spent his tenure wasting our time with ridiculous or intellectually offensive concepts like "Rosa Parks menaced by a space racist" or "environmental message slammed over our heads that is pretending to be a Doctor Who episode". I am nearly at a loss for words at how much of a gigantic, flamboyantly overblown misfire pretty much the entire Chibnall era was from top to tails... but I'll get into that when I finally get around to reviewing that era, and I still have quite a bit to go before that happens.
This ranting is actually not about the quality of Chibnall's writing, but in fact... a defense of him?! Don't worry, I've not shaved my goatee quite yet (so you still know that it's me), but I am actually going to be going to bat for Power of the Doctor, because Alex Keenan has produced a take that is so bad that I can only conclude is had to come from an alternative universe. It is so completely and utterly divorced from reality that I have to assume that that is the reason in order to preserve the shriveled remains of my sanity. I'll go through selected bits of it, but the thesis statement is that Chibnall's era - not just Power of the Doctor - relies too much on nostalgia for the Classic Show... which, again, is so detached from reality as to almost be comedy.
Anyone who watched Series 11 would likely know one big thing about: namely that it was as disconnected from basically anything else in the show as you could get beyond having the Doctor and the TARDIS. There were no classic monsters, no recurring bad guys beyond one that nobody thought of or indeed even wanted, and it felt more like Chibnall was trying to clear the table between courses in a meal more than he was trying to serve up anything that is remotely satisfying. Also, early spoiler alert for people who have been following my reviews of the show: Series 11 largely sucks and I'll get into the problems with it when we get there. My point, however, is that there is no nostalgia, at all, because so little of it had any connection to anything that came before. It was as if Chibnall was trying to take Russell T. Davies' tactic from Series 1 of only vaguely referencing that anything had happened before and instead trying to act as though nothing had happened before.
Now, Series 12 was a good bit better about this... if you could call it that. We did have some returning monsters in the Judoon, the Cybermen, and of course we had the Master and the Dalek specials. We also saw the return of UNIT.. sort of (problems there, will get into them when we tackle Resolution). So it was clear that Chibnall realized that he needed parts of the show from before his tenure to help things gel better - something that likely would have helped Series 11 be looked back on a little more fondly. Just a few familiar faces, some references, things to tell viewers that - yes - this is the same show they've been watching for some time. I don't know whether the additions in Series 12 were because of Chibnall's choices or because of interference from the BBC, but they happened and it seemed like the show was at least attempting to remember its past.
Then you have The Timeless Children, which is the biggest argument against Chibnall nostalgia baiting, largely because it did to Doctor Who continuity (which is already hilariously flimsy at best) what Shane Stant did to Nancy Kerrigan. As I said a few paragraphs ago, I'm not going to rehash the episode and I know that some people will point to The Brain of Morbius or the novel Lungbarrow and say that Chibnall is just following on from those. Your point is noted and is still wrong anyway, because neither of those destroyed the existing continuity, and both can fit in very well.
The other faces from The Brain of Morbius are either incarnations of the Other or incarnations of Morbius due to him losing the psychic battle with the Doctor. Lungbarrow often gets ignored by the show (as in, nothing in it ever really gets referenced), but it explains why the Doctor is so alien (apart from just being an alien) and fits with the character as had been seen in the classic show. They both work. The Timeless Children not only rewrites the Doctor's origin, but also that of Gallifrey and the Time Lords. Frankly, the Time Lords were already terrible bastards enough in their past without needing to add on all the things that Chibnall insists they did in that story on top of it. Again, we'll go over this in the actual review when the time comes.
Either way, those are used as defenses by other people, not Chibnall himself as far as I've seen. So no, Alex, he is not "tied [] more strongly to classic Doctor Who than the new seasons", because he went out of his way to ignore both of them and then had a rush job to acknowledge that either existed. Your further claims that Chibnall's era was "shaped too much by Classic Who" is complete hogwash for that same reason. I do agree with the notion that the elements of the Timeless Child really, really don't work for the show, but you seem to have come to the right conclusion for the wrong reason.
Still, you're batting five hundred.
So when The Power of the Doctor came around - being a regeneration episode - was there nostalgia baiting? Sure, and a lot of them have to. One in particular was Russell T. Davies' resignation letter that someone mistook for a script and put it into production regardless. The episode is not just about the Doctor, but the impact that the Doctor has had on others. Keep in mind, we hadn't seen Tegan or Ace since Resurrection of the Daleks and Survival, respectively, and there was always the mystery hanging in the air as to just what had happened to Ace in the time between Survival and the McGann TV Movie. So it's been over thirty years since we've seen either of them, and Chibnall actually took the time to not only acknowledge what had come before, but also develop on it and build up the characters. And he did magnificently! Also, it's just nice to see former companions pop up to remind us that - yes, things are actually happening that have nothing to do with the Doctor.
Even Russell managed this and we got the Sarah Jane Adventures out of it.
No, I still have no plans to review it.
The point is, though, that Chibnall did not really nostalgia bait until the very last minute, where he gave us pathos for two characters who had departed from the TARDIS almost forty years before, and one who hadn't been seen since SEASON 2 of the original show. Was it necessary? No. Was it good to see? Hell yes. Again, showing the impact that the Doctor has had in their travels and that they don't forget anyone, no matter how much they might think so. Chibnall actually showed us that he not only understood that, but could communicate it effectively to the audience, which is amazing. If he had put ten percent more of this into his era, it probably wouldn't be on my list of one of the worst eras in the entire history of the show. You can accuse Chibnall of many things, Alex Keenan, but nostalgia baiting is not one of them. It's not even in the top twenty of the list of issues.
Jodie Whitaker deserved so much better than what Chibnall was willing to provide. It pains me that she didn't get a better shake than she did, and the blame can pretty much be laid squarely on Chibnall himself. There are plenty of problems with what he did and how he did it, but none of those things were Jodie's fault and none of those things were nostalgia baiting.
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