TV #3 of 2020:
Doctor Who, season 12
I’m honestly still not sure how I feel about this season on balance. The Thirteenth Doctor’s debut year was designed to be maximally approachable for new viewers, and although that could sometimes feel a bit tame, I don’t think any of us expected its successor to bolt quite so far in the opposite direction. The individual episodes are pretty fun, but the season as a whole is staggeringly heavy on returning concepts, figures, and species from across the show’s history, not to mention the wide swaths of new continuity introduced for future writers to explore.
It’s an exciting space for the franchise to be in for a diehard fan like me, but there’s no way these additions to the mythos are connecting for everyone. (It can’t be a good sign that the forums spent much of this season debating the relevance of several frames from 1976’s The Brain of Morbius — which do indeed make an appearance in the finale.) There’s also little in these developments that tells a complete story in its own right, rather than just opening up intriguing possibilities that the series may or may not ever come back to.
I want more from the character arcs too, as I still don’t feel I know the current companions all that well. Yaz gets some belated characterization in the last few episodes, but Ryan and Graham are never really challenged in a way that feels specific to them as individuals. I think that’s where showrunner Chris Chibnall is struggling the most for me as compared to his New Who predecessors, who for all their own faults could generally render distinct and fully humanized roles with ease. So while I appreciate what this season does for Doctor Who on a macro level, I guess I’m less satisfied on the micro.
★★★☆☆
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