Day 788: The Power of Three

Chris Chibnall, show-runner designate, has written four stories for Doctor Who. The first, 42, doesn't reach that highly but is still reasonably enjoyable. The second, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, is a bit better but suffers from some slight pacing issues. His third, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, is one of the most beautiful Doctor Who stories ever created and I completely and utterly love it. But despite that, and looking at the other two stories that he'd written up until that point, he doesn't really come across as a person who could feasibly take the reigns from Steven Moffat and start running Doctor Who in one of its most critically acclaimed periods. That is, however, until you consider The Power of Three. I think that this is perhaps where you get the best idea of what a Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who would look like.

I think that The Power of Three is all about taking another look at the Doctor/companion relationship, and examining when it needs to stop. Or perhaps 'stop' wouldn't be the right word and 'wind down' would be more appropriate. We see that Rory and Amy are beginning to enjoy relaxing away from the Doctor, but they still can't quite resist that urge to travel with him again. You can see this both in the ending, where they abandon their happy life eating dinner with Rory's father to go off with the Doctor for more adventuring, as well as the scenes at Amy and Rory's anniversary where they go from being happy with their lives and both of them slightly complaining that the Doctor brought them along to yet more adventures, to them having spent seven weeks with the Doctor, presumably having a good time. It all gives the impression of that struggle with normality, that idea that people should perhaps learn to let go and be happy. It's why the ending feels forced, because Chibnall's written such a strong case as to why the Doctor and companions should let go of each other that you can't help but think that they should. Let them have a happy ending without too much sorrow.

And that's what I think a Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who would be about. Instead of having big moments and letting us see the Doctor as something dark and evil, I think that it's generally going to be happy, allowing us to see the fun of travelling with the Doctor once more. And, when that time needs to come to an end, it should, and both parties leave happily. Consider that, in all of the new series, only two companions have left the series on their own terms: Martha and Mickey. All the rest have been abandoned, or killed, or something worse. There's no room for the happy ending any more. Perhaps that's what Chibnall will bring: a desire for Doctor Who to be fun and happy - something different from what's been seen before, but still worth watching in my opinion.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, but I don't care; the Chibnall era is years away and I'm not going to cover it one bit on this blog. Because everything must end sometimes. This Blog for one, but also something else as we'll see tomorrow.