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.

Evidently, I have a lot of “lead ins” or qualifiers (?) to most things I say. 

“The thing is…”

“Anyway…”

“I also wanted to say….”

“In any case…”

“Evidently…”

Christ, I’m annoying. I really should just get to the point. Here goes…I guess that’s another one! Jesus!  My wife suggested I start a blog just because I need an outlet? Because I always seem to be going on about something? To get me out of her hair? All of the above. 

I’ve usually maintained that no one wants to hear what I have to say. Mine is just one opinion among the millions out there. Then again, the same could be said for literally a billion other people who already have blogs about pretty much anything and everything voicing their opinions and I don’t give a crap what they’re saying so turnabout is…. fair play? 

I must say “The thing is…” fairly regularly, plus I am a pretty big fan of The Thing from the Fantastic Four, so combine those two shining elements and you have the name of this new, fresh, steaming blog. I suppose “New, Fresh, Steaming, Blog” would work too but I already have a title! So, I’m throwing together a separate website from my others and I’ll occasionally just add to it when I can. 

Side note: (there’ll be a lot of this too) I do have a Thing collection, which is mostly action figures but includes a couple pages of original artwork as well. The collection numbers almost 150 pieces now. Yes, I’m sure you’re very very impressed probably.

The blog entries will be fairly straightforward, not a lot of bells and whistles, just me observing, ranting about or relaying stuff in general. I’ll post up a link to FB and Twitter whenever I blog but if I forget, you can always check in once a week or so and see if I’ve started a new government, lost a limb or done something of note. In the end, it’ll usually have a humorous component regardless of however serious the topic is because that seems to be how I roll. 

Also, the majority of these topics will probably be written while I lay awake at 4am worrying or thinking or thinking about worrying. So, until next time….the thing IS.