Chris Chibnall has authored five
radically different episodes of Doctor Who: 42,
The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The
Power of Three. All the stories were the results of specific briefs from
showrunners Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat and none really gives any
indication as to what a Chris Chibnall-run Doctor Who might conceivably be
like.
We do know that several of the
stories started life with very different intentions. The Hungry Earth was due to have dinosaurs arising from the holes
in the ground in balls which uncurled to reveal the lizards themselves. Cold Blood was written in a much more
(sorry) timey-wimey fashion, the show ending with Rory’s demise and then
folding back to reveal how it all happened. Budget cuts and editorial choices
saw to these quite radical changes. The
Power of Three had a re-written ending as Steven Berkoff rather fruitily
wouldn’t play ball. But even if the scripts had
represented Chibnall Unbound, I’m not sure they would have revealed his house
style in the same way that The Girl in
the Fireplace, Blink and Silence in
the Library are noticeably Moffat. There’s really not much way of knowing
what the future holds for our programme given Chibnall’s Who output so far.
Looking to his other shows, it’s
even more difficult to see a possible through-line. He was responsible for some
of the very best and some of the very worst Torchwood. For every End of Days or Adrift, there’s a Day One
or a Cyberwoman. His dialogue can be
incredibly well observed or so unrealistic and sledgehammer, there’s no way of
removing it from the throats in which it sticks. His greatest success in
Torchwood terms is his character work, ensuring they grow and surprise and live
across both those initial series. His finales were adept when it came to
needling out the intricacies of those relationships and crescendo-ing the
characters’ bitternesses and antagonisms. Ending the unrequited love story of
Owen and Tosh from different disaster rooms over a mobile phone was deeply
inspired.
Broadchurch is Chibnall’s biggest success and there’s no doubt it
had an outstanding impact on the television landscape. It is also the most characteristically
Chibnall show we’ve got. Series One was a tremendous thriller, cliff-hangering
episodes leaving the viewers desperate to follow the new twists and turns in
the character-driven narrative. Series 2 and 3 didn’t quite shine as brightly,
their tales a little over-complicated and in the case of Series 3 predictable.
But if Broadchurch proves anything,
it’s that Chibnall can write edge-of-the-seat, pulpy stuff which draws the
viewer back time and again. The shows were, however, about child murder, rape
and all things Doctor Who can never ultimately be so it might be unwise to look
here for answers.
The remainder of Chibnall’s
career is a real mixed bag, refusing to pin him down to particular styles or
genres. United was the true story of
the Manchester team whose lives were lost to a plane crash. Due to the nature
of the drama, the narrative wrote itself, and it was difficult to hear
Chibnall’s voice coming through. He’s written television as diverse as Law and Order UK, Life on Mars and Camelot all
of which refuse to offer up a strong idea of what Chibnall’s writing is like or
about. There’s only Broadchurch we
could look to for a true picture of what a Chibnall-led show might seem. And Broadchurch is nothing like Doctor Who.
The only thing we can learn from these dramas is that Chris Chibnall is at his
best when writing relationship drama.
His play Kiss Me Like You Mean It perhaps exemplifies this trend more than anything.
An old couple consider ending their lives as a young couple hope to start one
together. It’s a little downbeat towards the end, but full of jokes and very
funny, imaginative swearing. What’s interesting though is that stripped from
the panorama of television with its opportunities to tell lengthy stories across
multiple locations, Chibnall chooses to tell an intricate tale of four people, thinking
about what life is like and what it means to one another. Perhaps this is where
Chibnall might go with Doctor Who?
The new trailer broadcast during
the World Cup final, includes snippets of match punditry, Alan Shearer announcing
that they’re starting to make “a great team” just as we meet the new TARDIS
travellers. To be frank, the trailer was rubbish. It didn’t have a distinct
message, it failed to promote anything about what the show may be like and it was
terribly, terribly directed.
Honestly, if you have to watch a 30-second clip five times before you realise someone else is dipping the toast in the
egg, there’s something very wrong with the visuals. My cousin, who was looking
forward to seeing the trailer, walked out of the room as soon as it started,
thinking it was an advert for Eastenders.
But its merits are by the by and debated elsewhere online. What is clear above
all though, is that Chibnall is promoting his characters, throwing the
limelight on that team of four. Hopefully, whatever else the new series does,
it will put the Doctor and his “friends” at the very heart of the drama. We can
only hope for a show that’s as nail-biting as Broadchurch, as funny as Kiss
Me Like You Mean It, as tragic as Torchwood
and as grittily realistic as Law and
Order UK, and as hokily unrealistic as Dinosaurs
on a Spaceship. Marry those elements together with Chibnall’s passionate character
work and you’ve surely got a recipe for success?
JH
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