Tag: chris chibnall

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Classic Series New Series

Caves and Twins: Cold Blood

The second half of Chibnall’s Silurian two-parter, which has referenced half the Pertwee era thus far, had to pull it out of the bag rather to improve on the disappointing The Hungry Earth. So, was it a pretty Okdel, or was the whole thing a pile of Icthar?

Caves

 

All the regular were excellent

Kiling of Rory – brave and unexpected

The return of the crack – Just when you that particular arc had been magicked away

The shrapnel – An intriguing lead in to the climax of this season

Twins

 
Most of the guest cast. Pretty poor, in my opinion.

The plot – Earth Reptile Plot Number One gets yet another run out

Silurian redesign – Sorry to be a bore on this, but it was totally uninspired. Straight out of the TNG/DS9/Voyager monster make-up book. Humans with masks on.

Murray Gold’s music – Back to intrusive, bombastic and totally lacking in subtlety

Loose ends – I expect things like the wedding ring and the future Rory and Amy will pay off in the future, but what about the little kid’s dyslexia? Seemingly deliberately flagged up, only to be abandoned. Or did I miss something?

All in all, Cold Blood was OK, but the two-parter as a whole felt like marking time until the last ten minutes.

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New Series

Caves and Twins: The Hungry Earth

Chibnall’s much-dreaded two-parter kicks off with Inferno meets The Silurians meets some dreary regional soap opera. So, was The Hungry Earth like some of the bits from the five-part Torchwood, or was it like everything else he’s written for Who and Torchwood?

Caves

 
Scenes in the night-time churchyard – They were quite good.

Regulars – Generally coped OK with some really weak stuff

Twins

 
Chibnall’s characterisation – None of the lines he put in the mouths of his characters, none of whom are well-drawn or interesting, sound believable. I couldn’t care less about any of them.

Chibnall’s dialogue – Awful speeches by the Doctor again and again. Cliched lines for everyone concerned. Who’s editing this stuff?

Meera Syal – A terrible actress in everything she’s in

Pacing and plot – Stop-start, long spells where nothing happened. Boring and incoherent – with a side dose of running around.

TARDIS scenes towards the end – Simply embarrassing

Redesigned Silurians – What’s the point? Predictably shit.

Worse than I’d anticipated. A misfire on virtually every level. Chibnall took one of the most interesting concepts in Who mythology and totally fucked it up.

• Caves and Twins? What are you dribbling on about?

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