Doctor Who

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Season 12
Season #: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
User Score
2.8

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 147 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 147
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 147
  3. Negative: 105 out of 147
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User Reviews

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  1. SilverEagle89
    Feb 3, 2020
    4
    Doctor Who continues running...but where? That’s the real question. The amount of talent on the show gets dragged down by the writing. Something just doesn’t click as in previous incarnations.
  2. ShaMana
    Jan 14, 2020
    5
    Title: Three is a crowd Description: The latest adventures of our beloved doctor are hindered by uneven writing and uninspired sequences of events. The last three episodes showed a glimpse of what it could have been but sadly falls flat not long after the start. Enemies are inventive and mysterious but the plot doesn't use them well. They are nothing more than scarecrows with close to noTitle: Three is a crowd Description: The latest adventures of our beloved doctor are hindered by uneven writing and uninspired sequences of events. The last three episodes showed a glimpse of what it could have been but sadly falls flat not long after the start. Enemies are inventive and mysterious but the plot doesn't use them well. They are nothing more than scarecrows with close to no personality or emotion and that's not the show we enjoyed before. The three companions don't really help the situation, they have their personalities but are in the end extremely linear and not well developed. Removing them, sadly wouldn't cause any issues for the show considering their lack of investment except the need to be constantly rescued. And the plots, they move at a breakneck pace towards nowhere. Events occur without reason and on occasion, there is barely any connection between two scenes (in one, everyone is in danger, they do something stupid that should never work, they are not even shown to escape and the next scene everyone is fine and no one talks about it ever again)

    Sadly it's not the actor's fault. Jodie Whitaker is fantastic. Very energetic and able to portray emotions appropriate for her interpretation of the doctor (Peter Capaldi was really bad in figuring out what kind of doctor he wanted to be for example). Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill are good actors playing boring characters. Tosin Cole, on the other hand, has some spark to be a counterpoint of the new energetic doctor but is very underutilized in the end.

    Overall, Doctor Who has become a very mediocre show and uninspired writing can be faulted for it. Production values are really good, actors do their tasks well but in the end, it falls down to bad events and occurrences. Gone are the days of clever tiny details spread across 40 minutes or more to be picked and amazed at... it's CG and atmospheric music time.    … Expand
  3. adamchap
    Mar 9, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. NOTE:Came back to rewrite this review after the finale of season 12 to find that you can't see my comment, despite there only being six mixed reviews at the time of writing this. Nice to see nearly 40 new glowing reviews after THAT finale - whether or not the writing was compelling, the characters memorable or the sci-fi decent.

    REVIEW

    While season 12 does much better than the season before, it still falls short of what we have come to love.

    The best bits: Tesla and Edison. To an episode that mostly frames Tesla as the cool hip inventor being held back by filthy capitalist Edison - they still give Edison this line during a brief argument between the two:

    "All those men, all those inventions, I turn them from a sketch into real things people can buy. That’s how you change the world. You’re too blind to see that my factory is the best idea either one of us ever had."

    It was a breath of fresh air to have this morally grey area touched upon within a series which usually just goes for obvious tropes of "baddies".

    Sacha Dhawan - what a fantastic performance, despite some weird choices in dialogue. The problem with the Master this season is that there seems to be no acknowledgement to Missy. You'd also think the Master would have made some comment about how he "pulled the look off better" but no. Missed opportunity. Otherwise though, really sold it. Hands down the best performance in the series.

    The bad: Who are these companions and why do I struggle to remember their names? Ryan, the dyspraxic who is mostly unaffected by it. Yaz, the police-officer with the authority of a flannel and Graham "I dunno doc" "no idea doc" "Sorry doc, im stumped" "Dunno about you guys but I have no idea what she's talking about ". Sure there are moments. Graham telling Yaz how he feels about her was sweet, The Doctor getting angry in the final episode almost made me feel something and the cybermen were actually kinda cool.

    It's a slight problem that timelord energy in canon destroys cybermen, some incompatibility - but not the worse of Chibs' retcons here.

    The ugly: Did we all watch the Doctor sacrifice an old man? Didn't the Tenth Doctor break down at the idea of that eight seasons ago. Woops what about Wilf!

    Then, didn't the last doctor say this:

    "Never be cruel, never be cowardly. And never ever eat pears! Remember – hate is always foolish…and love, is always wise. Always try, to be nice and never fail to be kind. Oh, and….and you mustn’t tell anyone your name. "

    What happened? Are we watching the same Doctor here? Will Chris Chibnall read this review and explain it all in season 13? Seemed he listened to me about getting Captain Jack back, although I think he purposely only gave him two minutes of screen time to annoy me, and me alone.

    I thought it worth mentioning things people aren't necessarily mentioning. I couldn't care less about the gender (now ethnicity) of the Doctor but could you actually tell a bloody story instead of retconning incredible amounts of the show via an lore dump from The Master? It's like Chris sat around with the writers and said "How quickly can we get to the part where we show everyone that we hired a diverse range of children to play the doctor for three seconds"

    Here's a little girl with brown skin. Zero lines
    Oh lookie a little Asian boy. Give him zero lines.
    repeat some more.

    When you really think about it feels disingenuous, as if a desperate attempt to fill some quota. Just a little parade of tolerance, a show of virtue, a dance of equality.

    As a final note, because I find it interesting. The review scores from the major publications are glowing in contrast with user reviews. I've noticed recently that other shows have the same pattern. Sometimes the Users love it and the Critics hate it, other times it's the other way around.

    Altered Carbon is awesome. If you haven't seen it give it a watch. Then check the reviews.
    The Witcher, sure it had some problems, but compare the harsh critics of that show - to the ones here.

    Something smells wrong here and the Users know it.    … Expand
  4. Kdog152
    Jan 4, 2023
    6
    tbh, this series isn't bad, it's just not great either. It had some decent episodes, but the timeless child was a complete retcon that we didn't need. Underappreciated, underrated series. Definitely better than series 11.

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. The Independent
    Reviewed by: Ed Power
    Jan 3, 2020
    80
    As with the latest Doctor’s debut series in 2018, the chemistry between the four leads is what drives the new Who, with Whittaker excelling as the perpetual motion human gyroscope at the centre of the chaos. Everything duly pelts along.
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  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Lloyd
    Jan 2, 2020
    80
    “Spyfall” — a two-part episode that concludes Sunday, when the show takes up its regular time slot — comes on strong. ... It’s fun, often funny and action-packed, which is not to say things don’t get a little heavy by the first hour’s cliffhanger end.
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  3. Salon
    Reviewed by: Melanie McFarland
    Jan 2, 2020
    80
    This first new hour bursts with the confident energy of Chibnall, Whittaker, and the writers entering an era in which Thirteen’s feels less constrained and freer to, in her words, get on with the job. ... And it is incredibly fun to watch.
    Read full review
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