Yeah, that’s the main thing I don’t like about her specials. The Daleks didn’t have to be used in most of them. Wish we saw more villains.
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Thirteen against Maestro 
. Thirteen as a drag king
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Yeah, it is not a good one. It was a bad return for a classic villain. How is it that Doctor Who seems to be unable to make a good pirate episode?
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That’s a really interesting choice!
I really like the episode but it’s not often talked about, and when it is, not many remember it.
I really want to love the Thirteenth Doctor’s era. Jodie Whittaker is a wonderful actor, I love how she portrays the Doctor, and I think it was a bold and brilliant move to have a female Doctor.
The era introduces more diverse cast and crew, and really attempts to do something different, and for that I applaud it 100%.
But I just didn’t enjoy the actual stories as much as lots of people here clearly do, and it annoys me that I seem to have watched a completely different show.
I am absolutely not intending to be a hater here - there’s so much to love about this era, but for me it just all falls flat.
So I decided to try and rewatch the highest rated Thirteenth Doctor episode on the site and see if I can connect with it. I watched Demons of the Punjab, the most well-regarded episode of the era and the most uncritical 5 star reviews I have seen on an episode, and I wrote my opinions[1]
Sorry, but it is quite negative, but I do it from a place of wanting to understand. Perhaps someone could reply to my specific points and let me know where I’m wrong here?
Thanks, don’t cancel me 
note that yes I was also influenced by the 5 hour long “Fall of Doctor Who” video, and lots of my points here were mentioned in that too ↩︎
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I’d like to write a response to this but I do worry (and this is something I worry about all the time, nothing to do with you) that my opinion won’t really be listened to as I’ve had many bad experiences with defending her era in the past.
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I will listen! And many others will as well. I hope from my review you understand that I have specific issues and it’s not a blanket “I hate this”. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
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I find myself defending 13’s era online a lot coz I genuinely love it, and I think part of my love for her has developed from telling the haters how good she is 
I think what Chibnall does really well compared to others is the balance of light-hearted fun and seriousness, especially with the reveal of the timeless child (as controversial as it is), which was made, produced and written so well
Fugitive of the Judoon is by far my favourite new who episode and the series 11-12 fam is sorely underrated in my opinion, Ryan especially
I’m due to rewatch Flux soon which I’m really excited to do as well
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I didn’t click with 13’s era, and the companions more than anything, for years. I always liked 13 though. It was last year when myself and a friend who both really didn’t like the era, plus a certain figurehead in the fandom during the era was very VERY horrible to us, decided to rewatch it together to try and love it because we love every era of the show. We ended up having very wildly different opinions, there’s episodes I loved that I now don’t care for as much, or episodes I hated I now love. I do think going in with an optimistic mindset and knowing what Chibnall wanted to achieve can help to enjoy it more, certainly it did for me!!
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While I LOVE Flux so much, I do really dislike the fact that Tecteun, Swarm and Azure are all killed off. I think there was so much potential there for all three. Swarm and Azure at least have a lot of history that the EU can explore, but Tecteun you can’t really do that as much.
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I remember particularly feeling like the one person that knows the most about regeneration of anyone shouldn’t have been that easy to kill off…
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Echoing this bc this is 100% where I stand with this era. I by no means hate it and find the level of vitriol people have for it quite disgusting actually. I just don’t get it. I love watching you 13 fans being so excited about the era and I dearly wish I could see the same thing you do.
There are some great episodes, and I personally favour the sillier ones like Tsuranga or Ghost Monument - indeed, s11 is probably my favourite 13 series because I like the low stakes adventure feel of it. S12 and Flux just didn’t hit for me. I watched them and went ‘oh ok 
’ and they kind of slipped out of my mind.
It’s like the Fifth Doctor for me. I enjoy it enough if it’s on, but I’m not seeing whatever it is the hardcore lovers are seeing in there
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You’re so real for this. The Ghost Monument is probably my favorite 13 episode so far despite being one of the least popular.
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I do think Chibnall could’ve promoted the era better leading into S11 in the sense of preparing the audience for a more Classic Who approach and it might’ve helped some people. That being said to me I prefer S11 to S12. Pre rewatch I had the opposite opinion, and didn’t like stories such as Ghost Monument and the finale but now like them!
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I was so excited when Jodie was announced and was looking forward to her Doctor. I also like Broadchurch and thought that CC could be a good fit for the series. But the more I watched of season 11, the more I lost interest and I stopped watching after a while. I think that many episodes are poorly written, and I especially think that many don’t stick the landing. This is something that I think is a big problem for this entire era. “Timeless Children” is an interesting concept, but it does not stick the landing, and it makes it fall flat. The Fugitive Doctor is an interesting concept, but I don’t think it sticks the landing, and it just falls flat. It is the same with a lot of characters. Ryan and Yas are not characters that I find interesting, and I feel like this with a lot of characters from this era.
I did eventually come back to the show, and I have watched this era twice and will watch it again. Even if there are some good episodes in this era, it is mostly not for me.
I really wish that I would like this era more. And I have read some EU stuff from this era that I like. This makes me hopeful for the upcoming BF stuff with 13 and Yas. I am hoping that many of my problems with this era will work better with another creative team behind them.
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Would it be possible for you to explain why you think these elements ‘fell flat’?
/gen
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Need to pick up my kids at preschool now. I will try to expand on it later
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Seeing the recent run of posts stating how they don’t hate this era, but don’t get the love for it either, is very much where I sit on this. I enjoy Jodie as the Doctor, but didn’t really engage with the companions, especially Ryan and Yaz. There were a few instances where I really didn’t like certain bits, the environmental speech at the end of Orphan 55 for instance didn’t land with me. That said, I haven’t watched most of these since they aired (or in the case of Flux and the following specials, when my library got the DVDs). So, as I slowly rewatch these, my opinions might change.
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As much as I enjoy the era, I do wish there were parts of it that were fleshed out more, Yaz being one of them so I share your hopefulness with that! BF have done wonders for lots of characters already, I cant wait!
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You’re not wrong per se. People just have different interpretations, and different things bother them.
Yaz is sacrificing nothing because she already knows exactly what happened. Her Nan actually wants to tell her now, but she is just shutting her down.
I took that scene to be her nan being like, okay, fine, I’ll tell you, and Yaz saying, no, it’s okay, we can do this when you actually want to. Because, as you say, she already knows the gist of what happened, though there’s still some she doesn’t, like how her grandparents actually met.
The Doctor is not presented as having her prejudice challenged and being wrong about something; she is just shown as not having updated information about her prejudice.
Yes, and this bothered me from a story perspective. If the Tardis knows everything that will happen, how did it miss that?
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