Oh Brilliant! A 13th Doctor / Chibnall Era Appreciation Thread

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It’s safe to say that the 13th Doctor era was a divisive one, for justified and unjustified reasons alike. I thought it might be nice, seeing as there’s a lot of us (yippee!) that like this era, to have somewhere to talk about it in a positive light!

For me personally, my relationship with the era is a tricky one, I’m very much a latecomer to appreciating it. Last year myself and one of my friends, who like me didn’t like much about the era from the companions to certain dialogues etc, decided to rewatch the era in full to try and see if our minds could be changed. Ultimately, both of us rarely liked to talk negatively about our favourite show so we wanted that to change, and change it did!

We decided that going into it, we would keep an open mind and try to appreciate the different take on the show. I found that going into it, knowing how all the plotlines with the characters went, to be a big help. Also, going in appreciating that they wanted to make it more like Classic Who in a lot of ways. I still firmly think if Chibnall had spoke more prior to S11 about how much it would be different it would’ve altered expectations.

Anyways, I went from not really caring about any of the companions, to nearly crying at Graham/Ryan’s exits. I used to rank the series Flux > 12 > 11, now I rank them Flux > 11 > 12! I think there’s a lot of subtlety in this era, a lot of requirement to look further into the characters, their changes etc as it goes on.

Also, as I found out i was AuDHD after having seen this era, going back I fell in love with Thirteen way more especially knowing that’s how she was intended to come off and it really works for me so much.

On a final note, trying to not drag this out too long and make it about me as I want everyone else to chime in, it was the last Doctor Who era I ever watched with my mum before she passed away so in retrospect even more now, it has a special connection with me.

I’ve just started diving into the 13 comics, I’m not a huge comic fan but I’ve enjoyed them! But I’m EXTREMELY excited for the 13th Doctor audios to start as a huge Big Finish stan. I already loved the Fugitive and Lupari audios we’ve had, and I’m excited for CMM despite not being the incarnations hugest fan. The real big one though is of course the 13da’s which, I am just so excited for. Especially as we’re getting to explore Thasmin as a duo pre-Dan, I like Dan but part of me wishes Flux was just them.

Anyways, I’ve rambled on a LOT so I’d love to hear everyone else’s (positive) opinions on the era, I’d like this to be a safe space for 13/Chibnall fans :blush:

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You have basically made the perfect topic for me!

Expect a lot of posts from me here!

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The 13th doctor is one of the most unfairly maligned of all the doctors. Half of even the people that don’t hate her tend to tag the phrase “but the writing was bad” onto any praise they give, as if to absolve them of any association with the less popular group that enjoy Chibnall’s era. “Jodie did a good job but bad writing let her down” “I like the character but the writing was bad”.

So I’m going to say this: I like the 13th doctor and the writing was good.

My special interest is in 8, gallifrey, and the expanded universe, but most of the tv show is good, and that includes 13. First of all, it was groundbreaking to cast a woman as the Doctor. They’ve always been a genderqueer character to me, but making it this obvious that gender is fluid on the mainstream tv show is really important, and a step that really needed to be taken. A lot of people take it for granted now but it was a massive thing when it happened. There was even a conservative politician criticising it!! I hope more women play the doctor in future, so 13 doesn’t stand out as a kind of anomaly in many viewers’ eyes, and I also hope one day we get a trans actor playing the Doctor, since they are either a character whose gender has canonically changed (if 13 counts as a woman character and other incarnations as man characters) or a non-binary character (if this is not the case).

This is very true. Since becoming more of a fan of classic who, I have grown more appreciative of features of 13’s era, especially having multiple companions at once, and the more episodic approach (especially s11). There is a realism and subtlety to the group of 13, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham not dissimilar to the three-companion TARDIS teams in classic such as 1/Barbara/Ian/Vicki and 5/Tegan/Nyssa/Adric.

Same! I was diagnosed with autism about 2 years after first seeing series 11, and am currently in the process of an adhd diagnosis. Chibnall has stated that he delibarately wrote the character of the 13th doctor with autistic traits in mind, and I think (even though all incarnations of the doctor are autistic and adhd imo) it is really interesting to look at the character from this perspective with actual evidence of authorial intent. 13 can often be awkward and unlikeable (think of the scene in Can You Hear Me? that outraged so many anti-chibnall fans, just because she didn’t respond to Graham in a considerate way) in ways that many neurodivergent people experience in real life. Autism isn’t just being eccentric, but can lead to real social ostracisation due to being misunderstood, or being seen as fundamentally ‘other’ by your peers.

I actually underwent an identical change in opinion! There was a time when I thought that s11 was the worst not just in the Chibnall era but also in all of New Who. Now I think it’s a really good series. Demons of the Punjab and The Witchfinders are some of the best historicals the 2005 show has to offer. In other eras it has been very UK-centric so having an informative as well as enjoyable story set during the Partition of India, highlighting the terrible things done by British imperialism, was incredibly important, as well as being reminiscient of the more global approach found in Hartnell historicals like The Aztecs and Marco Polo. There are other standout stories like It Takes You Away, which is brilliantly creepy with a clever twist.

I also vividly remember watching some of the episodes of s11 when they aired: I was 13 and knew nothing about doctor who. So while I’m a crazy fan deep into the EU and lore now, then I was the perfect target audience, and from personal experience can say that series 11 absolutely worked for the demographic I was part of then. The end of The Woman Who Fell to Earth absolutely terrified me. With almost no knowledge about the show, I genuinely thought that Doctor Who and her companions were going to die, hanging in the vacuum of space, and that would be it.

The visuals and music of 13’s intro is the one that has most strongly stuck in my memory. In many ways it feels like the definitive doctor who soundtrack, the same way (I imagine) people a couple of years older than me feel about the RTD version, and the way my mum feels about the first 4th doctor one! Aside from personal nostalgia, it is genuinely so good - atmospheric and with the best representation of the time vortex.

I’m going to stop myself here but I have many more thoughts. Despite not being my primary area of interest in doctor who, it is an era that I enjoy, yet every doctor who fan I meet irl seems to think it laughable, so there are a lot of hitherto unexpressed thoughts about it in here. Apologies if this reply is too long!

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I remember watching this live after the tennis. I was saying to myself, OMG OMG its? Yes its a woman! Absolutely fantastic! What a great choice, & also AT LAST! We really shoud have had a female Doctor years ago. & 13th’s era remains one of my favourites in all of Who.

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I miss it and I miss the Thirteenth Doctor.

I knew I was in the minority at the time because I was really, truly, genuinely just confused with the derision it received. I’m very respectful of other people’s opinions so I’m not going to counter any of them with, “They’re wrong,” but the confusion came from criticisms directed at Chibnall of which both Moffat and RTD had also been guilty of yet got a free pass.

It was a baffling time to be honest and I think a lot of people got worked up in a circle of negative opinion. I would also add that because I try to be respectful of others’ opinions I expect people to do the same with mine if they differ, and it didn’t feel like they did with this era. It was a very, very vocal and toxic time - completely futile trying to have constructive conversations and debates, which eventually served to rile me up because I really wanted constructive conversations and debates as I had with previous eras.

So I ended up kind of taking a step back from fandom and just enjoying the show quietly and offline. My other half isn’t anywhere near a fan like I am but I’d still call her a Doctor Who fan. She started watching with Eccleston and now will always watch, has no interest in Classic Who whatsoever but Doctor Who is most definitely one of her things.

And she loved Jodie as well. She missed Capaldi unbearably when he regenerated and she sulked about it. Took about 4 minutes of Jodie and she was over it. Both of us even now after each episode say to each other (even though we both do really like Ncuti), “Wish Jodie was still the Doctor.”

I just never particularly responded to the extroversion of Russell’s Who and felt like it was just shouting very obvious stuff at me and I’d look around and be told by other people it was deep and emotional. When I just felt screamed at. I felt massively out of step. Moffat’s era I liked much more but it would occasionally stray into that territory so the quiet, introversion of Chibnall’s era was right up my street.

I don’t think Ranksoor av Kolos is an amazing episode by any stretch but I remember it airing and seeing the upset that it wasn’t a proper big finale and I remember thinking, “I don’t really care about that kind of thing anyway. What a lovely series this has been.”

I’m not going to say the era was perfect (as much a fan of Doctor Who as I am, I don’t think any era is) but if I dig deep then I do think it’s my favourite since 2005. Jodie was great, Mandip was great and, as was said above, I don’t think they were stymied by poor writing. Conversely, I actually think Yas is one of the most well-rounded characters the show’s had in years and I hope, though doubt, she will be re-evaluated as such in years to come.

I’m really looking forward to reaching this run of episodes again when my marathon gets there and am eagerly awaiting July’s first Thirteenth Doctor audio.

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I’m just super excited for the audios and the whole exploration of this era on audio, unlike Moffat’s era which hasn’t had much so far. Maybe my most hyped release of the year is the 13da range.

I loved the inclusion of the Lupari in the recent CDNM set too!

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13th Doctor is my favourite Doctor of all time (not just of New Who but Classic too). I was thirteen years old (funny coincidence) when watching The Woman Who Fell to Earth (in cinema) and it did just everything it could to me. I loved Jodie’s Doctor, I love Chibnall’s writing, I love everything about this era. Also this era confirmed that the Doctor is genderqueer, and as a non-binary person I feel it was especially important for my own relationship with gender

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Thirteen is one of my favourite doctors definitely and I love her series! All the episodes are so nice, and I really enjoy watching them. Very excited for her audios!

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Regardless of execution I think there were a lot of really interesting ideas in this era that I’d love to have seen developed further. I’m fine with what came after, and I’m not one of those buffoons clamoring for a “rest” (tell me you don’t know how tv production works without telling me you don’t know how tv production works), but sometimes I wish the stars aligned to create a second Wilderness Era right after Flux, solely because I think that the concepts introduced in the Whittaker years combined with VNA/EDA levels of experimental storytelling would produce truly bizarre results.

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In restrospect, I think 13 had some really interesting new monsters that I can’t wait for other writers to use.

You’ve already mentioned the Lupari, but to give a few more:

  • Showing another inmate from Stormcage in Rosa was a fun idea
  • The Pting is a silly lil goober, I didn’t really get it at first, but has grown on me
  • The Thijarians are an incredible idea, and I really want to see more of them, both in this form and as assassins (I’d love a story about them as assassins set just before they shifted to being what they are now)
  • I don’t like Kerblam myself, but I adore how fans have taken the idea and used it to tell other, much more anti-cap stories
  • The Solitract is just such a lovely idea and that conversation between it and 13 is brilliant
  • I really like the era’s original dalek designs for what they are. not the biggest fan of the focus on the mutants themselves, but I love their new armours, especially the defence drones
  • The Skithra are a really fun idea that I could absolutely see coming back (I mean they have in a comic and were used decently)
  • And of course the new eternals from Can You Hear Me were brilliantly creepy
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About that…

There’s a prequel to Demons.

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OOOOOOOooooo

Is it this one?

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With the Thijarians I was absolutely convinced that they’d return in The Power of the Doctor to watch over 13 as she died, kind of like the Ood singing for 10. I’m still disappointed that they didn’t.

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Yes!

I’ve read it and iirc it shows the Thijarians when they were assassins, and has some lovely stuff with Prem as well.

Honestly I really recommend this collection.

It has some stories I love, such as Gatecrashers, Journey Out of Terror, Citation Needed, Grounded, and Letters from the Front.

Yes it also has The Turning of the Tide.

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Same I had hoped. However imo 13’s regeneration scene is the most beautiful we’ve ever had and maybe ever will.

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Agreed. I have a massive bone to pick with the Doctor just standing up and exploding into a giant inferno that gets bigger with every regeneration, but the cinematography and music more than makes up for it.

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Agree there’s sooo many good returns we could get from this era. The Lupari episode was good and built on their lore with Chibnalls input which I loved. I’d gladly hear more of them, I really want to hear some Karvanista!!!

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100-9

:heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

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I should also take a moment to point out Segun Akinola’s scores. They were a massive departure from Gold, but they were still very good. I love the leitmotifs for the Doctor and Master, and the track leading up to the Fugitive’s reveal is also stellar. I’m not as big on the Cyberman theme as some people, but I appreciate that it does something new and experimental.

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What’s Turning the Tide?

(I had to really, didn’t I…?)

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