Change, My Dear (Ranking Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who Episodes)

If you are any sort of a Doctor Who fan, then the news will no longer be news for you. There's only one new Doctor Who episode this year(the Christmas special), Steven Moffat does one more series in 2017 and then it's finally onto our new showrunner, Chris Chibnall and possibly our new Doctor.

The reason why it took me so long to tackle this huge topic is because I made a point of going back and rewatching all the episodes Chibnall has written for Doctor Who so far to have a better idea of him as a writer.

With that in mind, here's my ranking of his episodes...

4) The Power Of Three - This one has a great concept(a slow invasion), but feels kind of lacking, especially towards the end. It introduces the new UNIT pretty well and I love the banter between the Doctor and the Ponds, but storywise, it's not much. I found Brian to be OOC in the final scene as
well.

3) 42 - A spooky thriller with a really imaginative bad guy. I loved seeing the Doctor become terrified and nearly turn into a monster. He really suffers in this one. I hated Martha's mom, though.

2) The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood - An excellent re-imagining of The Silurians, this story has a classic Who feel about it. I love the focus on one family and the conflicts that arise when they encounter the Silurians. Matt Smith gives a phenomenal performance in this one as the Doctor.

1) Dinosaurs On A Spaceship - This one is just a mad, slapdash adventure, the sort that we usually only glimpse in silly flashbacks. The guest stars are all phenomenal, the dialogue is hilarious and the villain is awesome. It's a great romp.

Overall, I'm impressed with Chibnall and I think he's going to return Doctor Who to a Terrance Dicks sort of sensibility of just writing a good story. All of these stories are different from one another so he's got variety. Like RTD, he has a knack for characterisation, particularly for villains(even the Shakri from The Power Of Three were a cool concept, although it went nowhere).

As for the missing year, I don't really have a problem with that either. It means they're saving quite a lot of money for Series 10 and it will give Steven Moffat more time to come up with something really good for his finale(though knowing him, he'll probably start writing at the last minute). I'm really hoping we get a new TARDIS set for Capaldi at last, although admittedly I have grown fond of the current one. But he deserves it. A new intro would be nice too. I know we've had the clockwork one for only two years, but there's just something about it that doesn't entirely work with me.

The only rumor that I'm resolutely against is Peter Capaldi's departure in Series 10. I'm hoping that a break this year will convince him to stay on for at least Chris Chibnall's first series, because I am dying to see how he would write the Twelfth Doctor. Apart from Heaven Sent, Capaldi hasn't really had a properly dramatic script and that's a huge flaw in his two series. Tennant and Smith had loads of quality scripts where they explored the character, but so much of the Capaldi era has been defined by Clara that he's been reduced to almost comic relief at times. I feel like Chibnall would rectify that and explore Twelve, giving his era some sort of meaning or definition that it's lacked so far.