Doctor Who Season 11 Review

Since the revival of Doctor Who the show has seen its most extraordinary changes with a new creative team. There was a big risk with its choice of showrunner and Jodie Whittaker becoming the first female Doctor.

Following her regeneration the Thirteenth Doctor lands in Sheffield and meets her new companions, Ryan (Tosin Cole), Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Graham (Bradley Walsh). Ryan is a young man with dyspraxia, Yaz is a rookie police officer and Graham who’s married Ryan’s grandmother, Grace (Sharon D Clarke). Together this group travel space and time – going from historical events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Partition of India – and face numerous alien and monstrous threats – typical Doctor Who stuff.

Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall become the showrunner and this led to a lot of trepidation from fans due to his previous Doctor Who credits. His episodes under the Davies/Moffatt eras were uninspired and sadly the same can be said about his first season as showrunner.

Doctor Who under Davies and Moffatt did get over-reliant on world-ending threat and one of the best aspects of Chibnall’s run is scaling back some of the stories. Not every Doctor Who adventure has to be stopping an alien conquest and Chibnall and his writers give us a fair amount of mysteries, quests, and historical stories. Chibnall and his writers don’t rely on alien threats which Davies and Moffatt used too often. There are sci-fi stories involving mutant spiders, alternative dimensions and an intergalactic retail giant. Even when aliens or other sci-fi elements are introduced in some stories there are not the main focus.

The best episodes in this season were the historical ones. There were “Rosa,” “Demons of the Punjab” and “The Witchfinders.” “Rosa” was the most famous episode in the season because it was the Rosa Parks episode. Chibnall and co-writer Malorie Blackman wanted to educate audiences about the Civil Rights Movements. Some of my friends said they were touched by this episode and it had noble intentions but I preferred the other two episodes.

“Demons of the Punjab” tackled the Partition of India and it worked because it’s a personal story in a climate of violence and hatred and had the most emotional ending the season. “The Witchfinders” was a more traditional Doctor Who adventure that used the Doctor’s new gender as a part of the story. Despite these episodes being the strongest has to offer only “Demons of the Punjab” might scrape into a top 20 list of best modern Doctor Who episodes.

Most of the episodes are weak. Some are perfectly solid but forgettable whilst others are terrible, i.e. “Arachnids in the UK”. “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos” will go down as one of the worst modern season finales because it was wasted potential. The building blocks were there, characters wanting revenge and an enemy of The Doctor being worshipped as a god, but it was a finale that lacked any energy. “It Takes You Away” was criticised by some for its surreal ending but at least was memorable.

One of the biggest problems with this season was the needless political commentary. The worst offender was ” Arachnids in the UK” which for no reason has a Donald Trump surrogate – he served no purpose than just being a way for the writers to take jabs against the controversial figure. It might be cathartic but there was no reason why the character couldn’t be a corrupt local businessman. The episode “Kerblam” was basically The Doctor versus Amazon.

The episode “The Tsuranga Conundrum” was targeted by some fans for promoting ‘transgender propaganda’ because it had a pregnant man. I wasn’t offended – it was a just a bad joke – something that could have been avoided if the show made the character an alien.

One of the biggest selling points of this new season was Jodie Whittaker. Whittaker is a talented actress and she makes her Doctor maniac, forgetful and erratic who was a bit of a tinkerer. But Whittaker hasn’t made as strong an impact like previous Tennant, Smith, and Capaldi did. Her Doctor’s worst trait is the non-violent philosophy which goes against other versions of the character. The Doctor has always refused to use weapons and avoids killing as much as possible but previous versions were still prepared to join an army or do a mercy killing. There have been times when The Doctor has been pushed to the limit and wants to kill an enemy – Whittaker’s Doctor needs to face the conflict.

Another big change in the series is the number of companions. The Doctor normally only travels with one or two companions. Her new companions work well with Graham having the best arc because of what happened to his wife. Graham’s relationship with Ryan was a major theme of the season. Yaz’s skills as a police officer come in handy and she was one of the most capable companions to join The Doctor – her big episode was “Demons of the Punjab.” In “Rosa” Ryan and Yaz’s ethnicities become an important factor in their character development.

The 11th Season sees some of the greatest improvements; these were in the production values and special effects. The season has some of the best CGI, sets, and costumes in the show’s history – especially when it comes to spaceships and the use of weaponry. There are some weaker effects like on a conveyor belt in “Kerblam” but for this is a show on the BBC so things were bound to fall through the cracks.

Season 11 is sadly one of the weakest modern Doctor Who has to offer. Despite the big changes most of the episodes do not elicit an emotional reaction – positive or negative. There is already a movement to get rid of Chris Chibnall as showrunner and I sympathise with their cause.