If nothing else, this is yet more evidence the series needs a solid script editor. This at least didn’t feel ‘first draft’, but it did feel very ‘second draft’. It wouldn’t have taken a lot to tighten it up, but either Doctor Who doesn’t have someone capable of doing that (in terms of ability or budget), or Chibnall doesn’t let them. Either way, the flubs here look embarrassing when compared to Danger Mouse, let alone something like The Expanse.
As for Yaz luvs Doctor… The entire ‘romance with the Doctor’ thing has legs if played right (not least in the Doctor looking human but not being human). But dumping that kind of thing less than two hours from the end of this incarnation’s run seems unnecessary and cruel. Moreover, it seems entirely unearned. Rose and Tennant made some kind of sense. But it’s hard to know what Yaz sees in this Doctor, given that neither character has evolved to be much more than a cypher during this run.
What is this Doctor’s motivation? What does she believe in? What are her key characteristics, beyond generic ones (smart; quippy)? Or perhaps Yaz is dead keen on people who say “fam” a lot and are heavily into genocide and needless, cruel deaths.
That’s not to say JW’s entire run was a bust. It’s had its moments. The show often looks really good now. And Segun Akinola will, for me, be deeply missed when RTD inevitably goes for a take on the theme heavy on bombast and light on horror and mystery. But, man, it just feels like such a waste of potential, and I worry that it will be seen by too many people as ‘proof’ that a female Doctor can’t cut it, when the problem absolutely wasn’t JW but the material (and, frequently, direction) provided for her.
