I agree about the staging of dialogue being so static, and I think it is reflected in the actual lines too.

“When he first installed it he couldn’t get it to work and the activation code or whatever wouldn’t work”

Except for the Nazi insects who live underground and drink the blood of unsuspecting travellers.

He definitely is striking a different note, but I feel such a relief to see anyone having any fun.

It wasn’t the worst, I’ll agree.

It was, and what was so frustrating about that scene was the Doctor’s response was so... blah. Chibnall seems incapable of writing any kind of fully engaged emotional back and forth between characters.

The way character traits were dropped was one of the many annoying things about Chibnall’s showrunning. At first the Doctor was supposed to be a MacGyver, which has promise, but it almost immediately disppeared. Yaz as a cop had promise, but then that side all peeled off. Graham coming to terms with mortality could…

I think the Davies v. Moffat dustup has all kinds of points for either side, but I think you’re right that there really isn’t anything from Chibnall but a dull buzzing sound.

I agree that he doesn’t ever seem to say anything beyond mush, but I get the sense that he doesn’t really know enough to say anything.

It wasn’t terrible, I guess you could say that. It felt moderately competently put together, compared to others of this series like the first Robertson episode where the writers clearly had no idea where they were going or how to wrap it all up.

Just a few years ago the anticipation of the holiday Doctor Who special would have been causing a huge buzz, but now it is on a par with the announcement of an interview with Gordon Brown to talk about his appointment to a bank capitalization review board.

I saw Jingle Jangle and it is a giant train wreck. I still liked it.

We’ve got a Ross who wants to be seen as a Joey.

The Peter Parker hater.

A lot of people think humor is about affirmation, which is why so much political humor stinks. I think it is why so many impersonations are awful too — they are more hung up on being accurate and reinforcing ideas about people than being  funny.

No way am I plowing through those books again, but I thought there was a part where the Hat said it wasn’t always such a good judge of character?

That would mean they were carrying ladders with them when they dug in.

“I also like to think that Steve never had a chance to see an escalator in the 1900's due to that whole World War one thing he was busy with.”

He was a big fan of air hockey.

He was great, and it’s unfortunate (but not surprising) that people treat the Tommy Westphal theory seriously. He was flat out saying that obsessing about continuity was silly, and the lengths you could go with Tommy Westphal was a prime example why people needed to relax about it.