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22 November 2021 13:59![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nym_wibblyDepression's been kicking my arse the past few months. I can stay on top of it but it's a full-time job. I was hoping that the new series of Doctor Who would be a shiny distraction, or at least that I'd feel better with the Doctor around (I usually do, even if it's fifty year old reruns), but this series feels like the Doctor is hardly there. Like she's a placeholder, or a half-realised character in a novel draft, tragically underutilising the talents of an actor capable of bringing anything and everything to the role. It shouldn't matter that Whittaker is a woman, the first woman to take the role of the Doctor, but it will matter: if Chibnall blows his tenure as showrunner, history will lay the blame at the lead actor's feet, and the segment of the audience who didn't want the Doctor turning into a girl will be all, "told you so". Whittaker deserves better; on the rare occasions when she's been given the room to shine, to get to the meat of her character for a few minutes before the madcap mayhem kicks off again, she's been beyond incredible.
This mini-season, "Doctor Who: Flux", is meant to be Marvel-verse-style spectacular; a trail of breadcrumbs and then blow-your-mind payoff. It's meant to be as clever and as focused as "Loki" and as engaging and epic as the Marvel interconnected superhero spectaculars. But the MCU has really, really, devotedly worked at that. For years, consistently and on multiple fronts, and mostly by putting character first and letting all the action flow from the character drama. Because I feel so unconnected to the current DW characters - the two familiar leads as well as all the scattered new ones in the whirlwind that is "Flux", I lack confidence in Chibnall's ability to actually pay his dues come the "Flux" finale. I just don't think he's done enough character groundwork.
If he manages to pull it off and finally do some justice to Jodie Whittaker's performance before she's gone from the lead role, I shall of course worship his writerly footsteps. In the meantime, I'm missing my healthy dose of the Doctor, even when she's standing right there waving her screwdriver.
This mini-season, "Doctor Who: Flux", is meant to be Marvel-verse-style spectacular; a trail of breadcrumbs and then blow-your-mind payoff. It's meant to be as clever and as focused as "Loki" and as engaging and epic as the Marvel interconnected superhero spectaculars. But the MCU has really, really, devotedly worked at that. For years, consistently and on multiple fronts, and mostly by putting character first and letting all the action flow from the character drama. Because I feel so unconnected to the current DW characters - the two familiar leads as well as all the scattered new ones in the whirlwind that is "Flux", I lack confidence in Chibnall's ability to actually pay his dues come the "Flux" finale. I just don't think he's done enough character groundwork.
If he manages to pull it off and finally do some justice to Jodie Whittaker's performance before she's gone from the lead role, I shall of course worship his writerly footsteps. In the meantime, I'm missing my healthy dose of the Doctor, even when she's standing right there waving her screwdriver.