The Doctor is back…

Spyfall part 1

I went into Doctor Who Series 12 very warily. Series 11 was mostly a mess and the worst over all series of the show since its inception in 1963. And 90% of the problem was new showrunner Chris Chibnall. His horrific scripts mainly. 

He was socially progressive in casting the first female Doctor. Yet he held no auditions to get the best candidate for such a momentous occasion, he just hired someone he worked with on Broadchurch. A friend. He created a racially diverse cast of Tardis regulars but neglected to develop any of their characters except the middle aged white guy. It was pretty bad. The only bright spots were some of the guest writers who actually did a better job writing the characters than he did. 

Oh, I could go on but suffice to say, it did not inspire confidence as Series 12 approached. It premiered last night with Spyfall, part 1. Spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned. 

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor still doesn’t inspire confidence n the role but here was a rare Chibnall instance of the story being good enough to do the heavy lifting. There were proper, evil, scary, unknown aliens. An actual, credible threat, which was missing throughout Series 11. Graham, the middle aged white guy was still the best character in the Tardis, again, more so than the Doctor –an ongoing issue– BUT, the Doctor was actually okay at times, taking a break from being wacky and managing to step up here. Yaz, the police officer who mostly stood around in the corner all last season doing nothing actually had some screen time. More than all of last year really. Ryan….was still fairly useless but over all, this ep was a step up from last year, which is encouraging. Here comes that spoiler…

Sasha Dahwan, who played “O”, a former MI6 operative, turned out to be The Master, which frankly, blew me away. I did not see that coming. We’ll see where this goes but myself, I’m hoping A) he’s not another frothing, maniacal idiot like John Simm’s version of the Master. Missy did the role better, handling the evil and the crazy better. B) technically, Missy would have been unable to regenerate after being shot in the back by her predecessor, so I’m really kind of hoping that this new Master is a much much earlier incarnation. Earlier than Simm, Jacobi, Roberts, Pratt and Ainley (all actors who played the part in years and decades past to varying degrees of quality). Maybe so far back that he came right after Roger Delgado, the original and the gold standard, the true, worthy Moriarty to the Doctor’s Holmes. 

We will see. We’ll see if Chibnall can stick the landing in part 2 this Sunday night. We’ll see if he can keep his scripts above average through the season and service all his companions well enough. We’ll see if dire situations bring out the steel in Whitaker’s Doctor. We’ll see, because the thing IS.