Thread by @ellardent

Okay, let’s do #tweetnotes on #DoctorWho Spyfall.

MUTE FOR SPOILERS

In short: Like ‘The Woman Who Fell To Earth’ this is an especially polished Chibnall script. Also like that ep, production value and the launch of new take on a big character compensate for a lot of blah.

DW-S: Like RTD doing a disaster movie on Christmas day with Voyage of the Damned, doing Bond on a bank holiday seems smart. Casual viewers will know the shape, feel it’s familiar and comfy, and not be overwhelmed by the Who-ness. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Though I can’t help but feel that the big Master reveal contradicts that.

Especially his flying house. We’ve not seen his TARDIS since the 80s, and (despite endless exposition dialogue) that’s not explained here at all.

Still, I’m a fan, I got it and loved it. #tweetnotes

DW-S: But the Bond stuff? Cute, but… These are dad jokes and dad tropes.

There’s no ‘have you ever considered x about the genre?’ It’s not an examination, it’s just running through the checklist - MI6 boss, daft assassinations, gadgets, undercover with villain. #tweetnotes

DW-S: The action sequences try - nice rear projection going on, though some sped-up shots stuck out - but they’re written without character or much in the way of smarts. Neither’s a clever sequence, rather than a costly one. #tweetnotes

DW-S: An alien blaster can’t shoot mirrors?

I guess ‘the Master’s just playing’ explains the uselessness of the attack - why it’s not aimed at the Doctor first, why it doesn’t just keep firing - but in the moment it just makes the attack seem feeble, an excuse. #tweetnotes

DW-S: It’s trying to be the ‘remote control helicopter’ pretitle from For Your Eyes Only. But without stunt work that makes you gasp you’re left with ‘villain’s plan is daft’.

(A reason why the FYEO sequence is also not a famous one. Don’t the *bad* things in Bond!) #tweetnotes

DW-S: What even is the bike chase - they go after him to…what? Force him off the road? Kidnap him?

It doesn’t even end, just sorta crossfades from ‘chase going badly’ to ‘we followed him sneakily’. You kept up but…went unnoticed after the chase? #tweetnotes

DW-S: Meanwhile we’re still struggling on the usual things - always narrating everything in the scene; there’s no tension so much as there’s an impersonation of genres that have tension; and character is still something that gets relegated to single index cards. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Sure, Yaz cries after her ordeal, and Ryan has his ‘Logan’ thing. But either side of those moments, the characters could generally each be saying each other’s lines and you wouldn’t notice.

Oh, except Graham says “Doc”. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Especially disappointing is the big new series reintroductions of the leads.

Yaz as the cop who’s off work a lot. Ryan as a guy with mates who can’t throw. Graham as an old guy with a dead wife and, once, cancer.

These are CIRCUMSTANCES not PERSONALITIES. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Imagine kicking off a reintroduction of someone in a wheelchair with them dealing with stairs. It’s not inaccurate but it’s not *who* they are. It’s not reaction, it’s what they deal with.

Paperwork, jobs, dyspraxia, cancer, bereavement. That’s not who you are. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Opening assassinations: The middle one would have been great if not for the ‘WE ARE DOING SPY CODE-PHRASES’ direction of the actors.

But if you commit to three scenes, your job is to make all three interesting. “And then in Russia, same thing’ was nothing. #tweetnotes

DW-S: 3 assassinations where the third is pure flab, then 4 character intros that mostly give circumstances that won’t be relevant once the series begins. (Like they’re going to give Graham cancer again, or do more dead wife stuff, or connect Yaz’s job to anything.) #tweetnotes

DW-S: That’s a lot of shoe leather just to walk into MI6.

I don’t mind the restart of losing Torchwood and UNIT. I guess that helps newcomers. It’s just…we now have two New Year episodes that really want to be Torchwood-UNIT stories anyway! #tweetnotes

DW-S: I liked the alien design. good sound, neat visual.

For the first Star Wars they cut gaps in the shot film to create the lightsaber glow. This felt like that - a gap something shines through. And that SO works to visually represent inter-dimensional beings. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Yeah, it’s a bit Army of Ghosts, but it has a visual unity that - for example - Tim Shaw lacked. Where a mushroom thing, a square light in the air and a big eel machine were meant to fit with a tooth-faced hunter. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Poor Lenny Henry, miscast as a Zuckerberg type. Stuck with stock Bond villain things…played small.

Ryan & Yaz interviewing him was never played for character - a great chance to size each other up, but who knows what anyone in that scene thinks of anyone else? #tweetnotes

DW-S: Yaz is also surprisingly indifferent to being asked to spy for MI6. Which is a hell of a step-up within her career.

But then, why did we scan his DNA anyway? Why was that priority one? #tweetnotes

DW-S: We have some nice weirdness with the alien forrest (surely a shrunk-down visit to something, looks like carpet, works like fiberoptics.) We have some pace.

We also still have the ‘monologue to educate the kids’. (Check out Lost in Space for this done well.) #tweetnotes

DW-S: But all this builds to the genuinely thrilling reveal of the big villain. The reason Lenny had to play down - cos a scenery chewer was coming!

Sure it’s only been 12 episodes, but it’s also been two and a half years. That’s a lot of kids coming of age to watch. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Can’t be overstated how well Sacha Dhawan nails this. A total performance change that lands the story, the take on the character *and* finally gives something strong for Whittaker to play off.

Note she was best last time when she had to spar with Alan Cumming. #tweetnotes

DW-S: I’m sad we’ve lost the work that went into Missy. The Doctor-Master relationship was in a position to return to Delgado - friends whose relationship is ruined by one’s evil.

Instead this is all written as Ainley (Moffat also wrote Simm that way). Just mad evil. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Like simplifying the Dalek to just a Dalek, removing the fascism allegory, this is the Master shorn of the complexity.

(Expect an index card ‘we were friends scene’ at some point, though.)

But that take, at least, gives Chibnall tools he knows how to use. #tweetnotes

DW-S: So sure, the plane bomb is silly, but he’s that kind of Master, apparently.

The capricious plotting of the evil schemes is given justification this way. It helps sell the type of writing we’re getting. #tweetnotes

DW-S: I’ve no idea what anyone who’s only watched the show since, say, 1986 will make of the human in a matchbox (made to look crap as homage, if we’re being generous).

It’s all fan service, that. But sure, I thrilled at it and the flying house. #tweetnotes

DW-S: The Doctor catches the Master impersonating a person she corresponds with by…noting a disparity between what he does and the file she just read.

‘Your character sheet does not match your actions’ is such a Chibnall version of cleverness. A data error.
#tweetnotes

DW-S: Writing clever is VERY hard, I will say.

You kinda have to be impressively smart to do it, or work long and hard to make one quick moment not feel like the product of days of thinking.

That data sheet companion does not feel like much work. #tweetnotes

DW-S: So, bottom line, this might be the best Chibnall solo episode in the Whoniverse to date.

But take away the kick of the Master reveal - which deserves its kudos, but wasn’t the meat of the episode - and it’s a good-looking adequate-athon. #tweetnotes

DW-S: The Doctor is still lurching between Tennant-like runs that don’t suit Whittaker’s delivery and those genuinely lovely ‘a kid playing Doctor’ bits (snap, a kiss being French; “Can I turn on the Siren?” last series.)

But at least she’s proactive here. Pushing. #tweetnotes

DW-S: There’s a casual assumption by the Doctor that the aliens are bad, and any deaths must be both fully intentional and unreasonable. No thought, just a conclusion jumped too.

Our spies killed in pursuit of their duty? Maybe *we’re* not doing nice things! #tweetnotes

DW-S: There’s nothing really being said here - even the ‘unregulated dudes are powerful’ is exposited and then left alone - it’s just the actions that create a plot.

And it’s plot more than story. I can’t say this feels like it means much to any character. #tweetnotes

DW-S: Still, I went through this going ’okay okay, hurry up, okay okay okay, nice snap gag, okay okay okay OH BLOODY HELL YES’ rather than last year’s run of ‘Oh FFS’.

But it’s ep one. Series 11’s opener was similarly polished. Then ep two tanked it. So we’ll see. #tweetnotes

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