Doctor Who Series 12 Was Pretty Good (Until It Wasn't)

"Being a fan of doctor who in this era is an exhausting experience" Couldn't word it any better

What was the point of giving the character of The Master a satisfying redemption arc as Missy, only to bring him back a year later acting like an evil hairdresser?

Rose: is scared at the thought she travels with an alien she just met. They eventually fall in love. Martha: Falls in love with the Doctor, walks around the Earth for 1 year, saves the galaxy and leaves him because she learned she was strong enough on her own and could move on. Donna: Secretary that yells at everyone, that no one loves. Saves multiple lives and the universe. Amy: Grew up unable to detach her mind from the Doctor, runs away from her wedding to travel with him. She eventually leaves the Doctor to die with her husband. Ryan, Yaz and Graham: Meet the Doctor. Become their ‘fam’ 15 min later. No progression so far.

12: Never be cruel, never be cowardly. 13: Traps spiders to let them suffocate and, when a friend confides to her about his fear of getting cancer again, uses a flimsy excuse of being "socially awkward" to get out of the conversation.

Last time I was this early, the Tardis still had shields..

I'll be honest I havent felt emotion for doctor who after Peter Capaldi left the show

The writers need to remember how human beings speak, it really does look like they've forgotten.

I think at the core of the dissatisfaction of the Timeless Child reveal is that it’s so obvious. Like reading a children’s book and finding out the main character is the chosen one. Chibnall could’ve subverted the trope in so many different ways. Honestly when I learnt that the title of the episode was “The Timeless Children” I immediately thought that both the Doctor and the Master were Timeless Children, mirroring the immortals in Can You Hear Me, forgetting who they were but playing some game of cat and mouse across the universe with a thousand planets as collateral damage. The twist then being that in past lifetimes it was the Doctor who was sometimes the ‘evil’ one, and the Master the ‘Saviour’ until the audience isn’t really sure which is which. Does the Doctor really stop the Master because they want to save the Earth or because they just enjoy their games of gods and mortals? Another line of thinking: the Timeless Child could’ve been some separate other entity and the entire episode just focused on the Doctor and the Master being complicit in its torture by using stolen regenerations. This would open doors to the Doctor regretting how their new regeneration cycle came to be. TLDR: the Doctor being the Timeless Child was the laziest way this could’ve been wrapped up and that makes a lot of people, myself included, very angry. I really hope we get some form of retcon sooner or later.

The Dr gave up a regeneration to save Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) and mourned that he could still have done so much more when he did it. This Dr learns she actually has infinite lives and was fine with someone giving up their only life for her.

Honestly I gave up on series 12 when Chibnall’s big opener was “Gallifrey is destroyed... again”. That alone felt like it just took a huge dump on the 50th anniversary and Gallifrey’s return. The Classic series had so much more to work with with Gallifrey and the Timelords were in play. WHY would you get rid of it again after the previous writer used the HALF CENTURY ANNIVERSARY to write it back in in a way that makes sense. The timeless children just drove home how bad a writer Chibnall is. Series 12 was just a clusterfuck with Chibnall cramming in as much nostalgia he could, and throwing in as many plot lines as he could (only to converge in a space of 15 minutes because the rest of the finale is him explaining his fan fiction to us) in a desperate attempt to bring back fans (that left after the empty void that was series 11) to make them watch as he burnt a tv show over half a century old, to ashes in over half an episode of “exposition the series”. At this point I’m just waiting for the show to get cancelled and come back in 2030 where all the writers just agree the 13th Doctor’s adventures didn’t happen.

Honestly, I really want to give a shout-out to Maxine Alderton for writing "The Haunting of Villa Diodati"; it's easily the best written episode of the Chibnall era yet (for me at least!) and I loved the imagination she employed for it. I really hope she works more on Who, she's certainly someone whose work I want to see more of :)

I personally feel like the destruction of gallifrey is horrible, as it means the doctor is again alone in the universe aside from the master. Idk it’s just frustrating to see all of moffats era (as much as I hated it) undone

Doctor Who Series 12 Was Pretty Good "(Until It Wasn't) " Ah yes, the floor is made out of floor

to paraphrase Jenny Nicholson, the worst thing a finale can do is make you feel stupid for ever having cared in the first place.

Can someone also talk about how the master actually came back? He/She died in S10, "the doctor falls". It wasn't even explained, the master just keeps popping up out of nowhere, including after the doctor sends him to another dimension at the end of spyfall.

I’m not watching anymore until this “timeless child” nonsense is completely done away with. It just doesn’t feel like Doctor Who anymore.

The thing is... the finale was so bad that it actually ruins the entire show as a whole... like it’s really heart breaking

I think Fugitive of the Judoon really could've benefited from being a two parter, we easily could've gotten rid of Praxeus or Orphan 55 and used an extra fifty minutes to really help the story. It's 30% Judoon, 10% Captain Jack, 20% a multi-Doctor Story, 30% story arc and 10% an invasion. It really, really, really could've benefited with a second part. To flesh out these storylines, or, heaven forbid, just focus on one story and save the rest of your concepts for series 13.

Doctor Who Writers, What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out!

It would've been good if the timeless child were actually the Master