Spoilers Doctor Who -Series 11, Episode 4: Arachnids In The UK

VenusianFryCook · Oct 27, 2018

VenusianFryCook · Oct 29, 2018

Well, that was a thing. I still like Graham and Ryan growing on me. The CG wasn't bad.

It's not Sleep No More or Forest of the Night levels of bad but Chinball needs to try a little harder. He writes the Doctor as if he never saw an episode without Tennant, particularly the hypocritical 10 who preached about guns yet killed the Racnoss and tortured the Family of Blood, but without any sense of self-awareness. 13 is slowly getting a streak of this and the show, for the moment anyway, is completely on her side. Whittaker's trying but getting no help at all.

The other characters aren't let off easy, either. Chris Noth must have been told "It's a kids show and you're Trump. Just go with it." Yaz continues to be window dressing but episode 6 should hopefully give her some development.

VenusianFryCook · Oct 29, 2018

Double (triple?) post lol

ZERO_ninja · Nov 4, 2018

This episode is really the straw that broke the camels back for me. I'd had issues with the series up to now but I'd been more forgiving than I usually would have been to episodes, hoping that with time Chibnall would find his feet. But my patience starts to run out when we're 4 episodes in.

Despite my hopes that Rosa represented Chibnall was at least finding his groove in writing these characters, Blackman seems to have been the soul reason that had improved last episode. Once again Graham is the only character that really stands out here. I confess this episode was the most Ryan had endeared himself to me, largely through him being a bit nicer to characters around him and bringing his walls down a little but I'm still not super enthused with the guy. Yas doesn't really get much character work despite the episode focusing on her family. As for the Doctor... Chibnall couldn't be handling her more generically if he tried. I could sort of respect wanting to convince audiences nothing has changed with the character, but you can practically see the flow chart of "how the Doctor talks" in Chibnall's writing. *The Doctor name drops someone famous from history* -> *The Doctor makes a non-sequitur* -> *The Doctor naively says something socially inappropriate* -> *Then The Doctor name drops someone famous from history* and on it goes round and round. We're 4 episodes in and Chibnall appears to have so little idea of where he's taking this Doctor that she's STILL going on about not knowing who she is yet this long after regeneration sickness has passed.

As for the episodes plot, I don't think I've ever seen anything more on the nose in every sense of the word. Scary episodes could be inventive and interesting under RTD and Moffat. RTD created compelling psychological threats that prayed on natural human paranoia in Midnight, there was clearly a lot of thought put into how to structure that situation and a monster to pray on human nature. Moffat liked to play with little things everyone experiences "was that statue like that a minute ago", "what was I doing I don't remember" and blow them up into unnerving threats. Chibnall when it comes to his "scary episode"? "Well most people are scared of spiders, let's make them really big! Yep that sounds brilliant!". It's so uncreative. The explanation also feels a bit outdated, I'm watching Doctor Who not Captain Planet, have a "protect the environment it's everyone's responsibility" message fine, but put a bit more effort into your actual story for it.

The central villain of the episode is about as awful as last weeks, he's your standard selfish business man out for only his own ends and he couldn't be less redeeming if he tried. Yet, despite that, despite how out and out repulsive he is, I find myself taking issue with just how much moral high ground the characters are taking. The scientist woman is just as responsible, arguably more so, for the events and yet this aspect is not dealt with at all. It's good she feels a responsibility (which she should) and actively works to make up for it, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a responsibility here and that it's souly the businessman's fault. Then the solution to deal with the spiders... okay I understand his solution is motivated by self interest, but I really am failing to see how "let's lock them in a room to cannibalise each other and starve to death" is the more humane solution. Similarly in the final moments with the death of the mother spider, the Doctor has been capable of euthanasia before, but now she wants to watch a creature slowly die in pain. Like the previous example I understand the businessman's solution is motivated by self interest, but I'm not sure watching the creature agonise to death is really a moral high ground.

I understand Doctor Who has to be for kids, but I don't think that means Chibnall has to take complex social issues like racism, pollution, political corruption, social responsibility and reduce them to the most over-simplistic black and white levels as is possible. Writing for kids doesn't mean you approach complex issues like a child yourself and teach kids the world completely lacks a grey and everything is black and white, baddies and goodies where the baddies are bad and the goodies are good.

RedFeather1975 · Nov 24, 2018

I didn't mind the spiders as much as that head honcho! :^O

Spoilers Doctor Who -Series 11, Episode 4: Arachnids In The UK

VenusianFryCook

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VenusianFryCook

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VenusianFryCook

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ZERO_ninja

The Arbiter of Objective Truth

RedFeather1975

Dancing Penguin