Yes!!! Great thread!

Like I said, this was one of those rare Broadchurch S1 situations where Chibs musters every meager drop of talent he’s got and manages to puke out a slightly-less-dismal-than-usual script (and if you can avoid thinking about it AT ALL, it even rises to “good”) and hand it to an outstanding director, editor, etc. IMHO…

And they had to avoid Feb. because isn’t there an X-Men movie then? Albeit a delayed one with terrible word-of-mouth, but still....

My understanding is that MNS funded this (and all his other recent ones) himself, so he may have total control over the release date himself as well. (Presumably Universal is just distributing?) If I were self-funding, I’d sure aim for January too. It worked for Split. And it’s a dead zone ripe for the picking.

Given that Chibnall is the one who wrote a lot of those disappointing Torchwood episodes featuring Miserable Captain Jack instead of the original Fun Captain Jack from season 1 of DW, I wouldn’t count on any return of Captain Jack ever being anything but disappointing as long as this bozo is still the showrunner. :(

That’s just because the bad, boring Chibnall episodes were mostly packed into the first half of the season, for whatever reason. Remember, the good guest writers mostly didn’t come out to play until the second half of the season. And then somehow this episode was a lot better than Chibnall’s others (perhaps largely…

Not a chance — Maisie Williams has stated in no uncertain terms that she’s done with the show, and Chibnall seems extremely uninclined to bring back anything at all from the Moffat era — he’s made brief references to the RTD era, but not Moffat. Me would be too deep of a cut, unfortunately. In any case I don’t know…

Agreed. The only time when three companions worked was back in the 60s when they spent a lot more time doing budget filler episodes in the middle of six-parters and each one of the actors got to take some time off here or there. Three companions didn’t work with the fifth Doctor — with Nyssa getting short-shrifted —…

It was easy to tell it wasn’t Murray Gold because it wasn’t more syrupy than an entire vat of melted-down Kenny Gs.

Yup. I’m from the Delmarva Peninsula. On the MD side there were *definitely* more chickens than people, at least in the 80s. The best we could say for Delmarva was usually, “Uh, it’s better than Alabama... I think?”

Huh?

So has anybody seen this New Year’s DW special yet and is it any less monumentally mediocre and dull than Chibnall’s other DW episodes? I haven’t even bothered to watch the season finale yet because I heard such dismal things about it. “It Takes You Away” is the *real* season finale as far as I’m concerned. Jesus, some…

I’d probably just go straight to season 2. The pilot episode is absolutely wretched and not characteristic of the show at all. They bizarrely used the same script as the first episode of the UK version and it doesn’t fit these characters or their tone at all. Episode 2 is the first original episode and is definitely be…

Cookie, my man! Errr... I mean, my monster! You’re still around in this post-Disqus hellscape! Good to see you again! Still in the JC area?

Wait, so you’re reading this thread even though you didn’t watch the episode? I’d say this was the best episode of the season, largely because (as the Eruditorum Press reviewer points out) it’s a bit more like a good Moffat-era episode than a Chibnall-era episode, or at least it seems to be written by somebody who…

The TARDIS Eruditorum review wisely points out that although James wasn’t needed for the plot, he *was* needed for the tone of the episode. He keeps it from being too monochromatic and... muddy.

I’m not too clear on the specifics but apparently it’s extremely difficult to do that in the UK, contractually speaking. Keep in mind that The Crown is one of the most expensive TV shows ever made. The BBC doesn’t have those geysers of Netflix money.

I don’t see why we have to give Chibnall credit for episodes for which he’s not credited if he hasn’t proven he can write an above-average episode, or at least some above-average dialogue. And so far, as far as I’m concerned, he has NOT proven that. RTD and Moffat proved they could do it; Chibnall hasn’t. When the…

Yeah, this year the episodes (except this one IMHO) really, really lack urgency and momentum. I think Chibnall wanted to get rid of a lot of the previous staff (all of the previous staff?) and give a lot of new people a try behind the scenes, but they really needed some “transition” staff to stick around and help show…

In fact, if I’m not mistaken, it was the first episode written by *any* person of color in the show’s entire history. (Although not the first directed by a person of color -- a lot of the early ones in the 60s were directed by Waris Hussein.)