True. Orci hasn’t worked on it at all. Nonetheless, I see a lot of the same problems in both.

Yeah. I enjoy Into Darkness more because I think the casting was stronger, but all the same flaws are here.

The people behind Into Darkness are the main creatives behind the modern crop of shows. This might explain a lot.

The Star Trek franchise can never let go of The Wrath of Khan. Never.

That’s just it. By Chibnall standards. By the overall standards of Doctor Who, this season is still subpar.

Agreed. Demons of the Punjab is great, bold television, and I want to travel to the alternate universe where at least half the Chibnall era episodes are that good.

You have a point, I just feel like even the most convoluted nonsense should have something of substance in Doctor Who. This isn’t Legends of Tomorrow. Even The Last of the Time Lords has some compelling ideas and character work beneath all the schmaltz.

I think a lot of the problems with The Flash came from the fact that they couldn’t set and end date for it. So they just ended up spinning things out endlessly.

I definitely need to watch Trigun at some point.

I just want someone to do justice to that concept :(.

Fair enough, but I just think that all television requires an emotional hook of some sort, even ridiculous ones like this.

It’s a live action anime adaptation. I doubt it.

I don’t know. Even the craziest Doctor Who plots only work if they have some sort of solid emotional core. Which this one was severely lacking.

Exactly right. The original is one of the masterpieces of the medium, and it’d be almost impossible to add something vital to it.

It’s not an ironclad rule, to be fair. I always think of the ‘it’s like a soap bubble, no it’s not!’ from The Doctor’s Wife as a classic example of exposition done right.

This really was just a pile of incoherent nonsense, wasn’t it? Yeah, yeah, not exactly new for Doctor Who, but the meaningless sound and fury was ramped up to 11 this time.

Probably, but he’s also bent that rule in the past. Not surprised he did it again here.

The books don’t make a whole lot of sense on their own, either!

Personally, plot holes aren’t the be-all end-all, but I do appreciate when writers make an effort to cover them up. To be fair, I imagine the consistent excuse would be ‘he’s busy’ or something like that, lol.

These were the two best back-to-back Chibnall-scripted episodes.