After three seasons, Jodie Whitaker as the 13th Doctor and the showrunner Chris Chibnall are leaving. How do I feel about this? Meh. I have only seen a handful of episodes and from what I saw, it was a lackluster set. More preachy about social justice issues and praising Jodie's gender.
She had so much potential, I was actually ready to see how she could make the character her own. Unfortunately we had too many companions and slack writing. Let me expand.
The Doctor. Every Doctor incarnation we have had had brought something new to the table and changed the way the Doctor interacts, learns and teaches. Jodie, in my opinion, was never given that chance. In her case the writing was sub-par, to say the least. Plus, we had 3 companions at one time, from the start. That creates a bottleneck of crud that crowds the writing to the point of not being able to get proper background and development. With that, I was not able to get invested with them and really didn't care about them. Now, take 2005's 'Rose'. she was introduced and given good background and you could feel for her. THen she was the ONLY companion and then over the course of the season we got a feel for her strengths and weaknesses and built supporting characters around her(Mickey, her Mum, Cap Jack). Ones you could and did, care about. And that carried over to Tennant's 10th Doctor. I feel that Chibnall and the BBC were more interested in checking boxes and 'Social Justice' that telling a good story. I mean, they could have tacked important issues, but did it in subtle ways instead of preaching and bashing the stories.
I hope the BBC get's it's head out of the sand, get a ballsy showrunner that tells good stories(like Davies and Moffat) and a decent Doctor NOT based on gender but someone who can make the character GROW. Either that, or put it on hiatus until it can be done properly.
-Pyfe.
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