The twelfth series of the revitalised Doctor Who aired in 2020, and saw showrunner Chris Chibnall taking stock after his debut season, which could be called the very definition of a mixed bag. On the one hand, Series 11 had shown that a woman playing the role of the Doctor could be successful, and had several solid stories. Unfortunately, it also had several very poor ones, and arguably the lowest consistent quality since the show had returned in 2005. The season was also the first since then not to have any kind of over-arcing story, with Chibnall instead focusing on mysteries and monsters of the week. The fan response to this approach had been muted, so for Series 12, he decided to return to featuring some kind of season-spanning mystery, as well as fully embracing the show's history by bringing back fan-favourite villains including the Master, the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Judoon. The result is a busy season, and a better one that its immediate forebear, but one that is overshadowed by the clunky and decidedly divisive finale which tries to do nothing less than retcon the entire history of the franchise in the most boring way possible.
Before we get there, the season gets off to an epic start with Spyfall, an elaborate two-part story in which the Doctor gets drawn into an alien incursion on Earth that starts off by targeting the planet's intelligence agencies. This is an interesting idea, buoyed by the enjoyable casting of Stephen Fry as the head of MI6 and by Lenny Henry as a corporate billionaire who, obviously, is in league with the bad guys. A promising opening part is subverted by the unexpected return of the Master, played here with charismatic relish by Sacha Dhawan (fresh from The Punisher), and who shifts the second part into a time-travelling thriller where the Doctor has to team up with Ada Lovelace (Sylvie Biggs) and Noor Inayat Khan (Shobna Gulati) to halt the Master's evil plans. To be honest, the main plot is gubbins and a potentially fascinating interdimensional alien threat in the form of the Kasaavins is under-utilised, but the two-parter succeeds thanks to its splendid guest cast. Fans may also bemoan a lack of any explanation for how the Master (last seen only in Series 10, apparently dying for good - twice!) has returned with no trace of the "goodness" the Doctor helped impart to them in that storyline. Still, as a statement of intent, this is a solid start.
Orphan 55 starts off as Doctor Who-by-the-numbers, with our heroes visiting an idyllic holiday resort which - shockingly! - becomes less idyllic as it comes under attack by aliens. Again, a solid supporting cast (including the always-splendid Laura Fraser) prop up a pedestrian script, but the story struggles with pacing (a perennial problem of the Chibnall era) and the ending is decided woeful, with a "twist" that you can spot coming a mile away.
Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror gets bonus points for a great title, and it's mildly surprising that this is the Doctor's first on-screen encounter with both Nikola Tesla (a charismatic and tragic Goran Višnjić) and Thomas Edison (a bumblingly malevolent Robert Glenister). It's a fine slice of sci-fi pulp, though perhaps the alien threat underwhelms. The Skithra feel like a redo of the Racnoss, to the point of pondering why they didn't just bring the Racnoss back. Still, a firmly enjoyable episode.
Things take an upwards turn with arguably the highlight of the entire Chibnall era. Fugitive of the Judoon sets up a straightforward-looking story, with a disguised alien who many not even know their own identity being hunted down by the Judoon whilst hiding in Cheltenham. The Doctor has to work out who the alien is and how to save them. What feels like a breezily solid mid-Russell T. Davies tier episode abruptly shifts tone and direction three-quarters of the way through and executes a mind-boggling twist that elevates the whole episode. The episode hinges on outstanding guest performances by Jo Martin and Ritu Arya, and a doom-laden cameo from Captain Jack (a returning John Barrowman after a near-decade's absence). I think this episode has been downgraded a bit because of how incredibly well it sets up a compelling mystery that the season finale totally fails to deliver on, but in isolation it's an outstanding slice of Doctor Who.
Unfortunately the season can't really sustain that level of interest. Praxeus starts off "big," with the Doctor and her companions splitting into multiple teams to deal with a threat to Earth that simultaneously unfolds in Peru, Hong Kong and Madagascar. The episode's huge scope and fun dialogue (Bradley Walsh is on fine form here) can are let down by a late-episode turn into a lecture on microplastics. A reasonable cause, but it feels like this saps the drama from the resolution of the story.
Can You Hear Me? has huge potential, featuring two ultra-powerful beings inadvertently unleashed from their prisons to rain terror on the universe. The epic scale of the story and compelling performances by Ian Gelder and Clare-Hope Ashitey, as well as Aruhan Galieva as Tahira, is very impressive, as well as featuring an intriguing setting with medieval Aleppo. Unfortunately, the episode feels a bit short-changed. The story is so epic that its resolution after just 50 minutes only feels perfunctory. This at least is the reverse of most Chibnall stories, which often feel like a great 30-minute idea stretched to almost an hour with filler. Unfortunately, the episode also features one of the most reviled scenes in the show's history, as Graham comes clean to the Doctor on his battle with cancer only for the Doctor to really not show much interest or empathy, which was certainly a choice.
The Haunting of Villa Diodati is another good one, with the Doctor and her companions stuck in the famous house where Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein. A haunted house tale turns into a surprisingly effective horror story as the house is invaded by the foretold Lone Cyberman (a formidable performance by Patrick O'Kane). This episode succeeds thanks to a very fine guest cast (Lili Miller as Mary Shelley, Jacob Collins-Levy as Byron, Nadia Parkes as Claire Clairmont and Maxim Baldry as Dr. Polidori) and a rich atmosphere.
Ascension of the Cyberman is effectively a modern remake of classic Doctor Who episode Earthshock, where the Cybermen, driven to the brink of extinction, recover an army of Cyber-warriors from a spaceship and prepare to conquer the universe. The episode does a lot with not too many resources, achieving a surprisingly epic scale at times, and a foreboding sense of the distant future where all hope is lost, reminiscent of Series 3's Utopia. A subplot in which we follow a young boy growing up in Ireland to become a policeman is well-made, but feels disconnected from the rest of the plot (at least until the following episode). The episode is great right up until the cliffhanger, when you can feel everything is about to go wrong.
That cliffhanger ending takes us into The Timeless Children, easily the most controversial episode since the show's return in 2005. This is also possibly the most awkwardly-structured and paced episode of the entire franchise, with the episode being part standard run-around-and-blow-things-up romp (complete with regenerating Cyber-Time Lords, a brilliant concept here mostly wasted) and part massive TED Talk about the Doctor's backstory. The running-around bit is mostly okay (livened up by a splendid guest turn by Game of Thrones' Ian McElhinney) but the scenes of the Master lecturing the Doctor on her hitherto unknown backstory drag on, as well as being somewhat eyebrow-raising in its connotations.
The Doctor being a super special Time Lord destined for greatness was always a hokey and cliched idea, her just being a rebel who ran away and got into hijinks after being bored was more entertaining (helping the idea that anybody can be a hero in the right circumstances). Not only does the retcon itself feel unconvincing, it's also portrayed in a redundant manner: the Master has - somehow - destroyed Gallifrey and wiped out the Time Lords again, making the entire Time Lord arc in the Steven Moffat period feel like a complete waste of time. The Doctor also already had one secret incarnation she didn't want anyone to know about, so giving her a bunch more here is just the same idea repeated. It also doesn't help that the Doctor here is written in an incredibly passive way, not asking questions or shouting out observations, just staring dumbly as the Master (hardly a trustworthy character) unloads the mother of all infodumps on her. I wouldn't mind so much if this massive backstory revelation actually leads anywhere but, over five years on, it hasn't, making the exercise feel pointless. Babylon 5's second season episode In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum shows how to make a massive backstory revelation story really work in a clever way, which Doctor Who (and Battlestar Galactica's No Exit, for that matter) fails to match here.
Still, watching Barristan Selmy fight Cybermen is undeniably a lot of fun, so it has that going for it.
After that confusing morass, the New Year's special Revolution of the Daleks throws subtlety out of the window and opts to have some laughs. Captain Jack returns (again) and teams up with the Doctor and the gang to fight a Dalek incursion on Earth. The entertaining bit here is that these are actually human-built Dalek drones that aren't too much of a problem until an overeager employee clones some of the surviving Dalek DNA from the previous year's Resolution, which is of course a Very Bad Idea. The episode improves further when the real Daleks show up, disgusted with these Dalek-human-robot hybrids, and set out to annihilate them (which is great) as a prelude to annihilating Earth (not so great). The escalating threat levels are well-handled, there's a lot of explosive action and the episode sets up the possibility of future troubles with amoral American businessman (and possible future President) Robertson. Any plans in that direction were thrown out by subsequent misconduct allegations levelled against actor Chris Noth. Still, the episode is a strong, if inconsequential, action piece with a surprisingly emotional ending.
Series 12 of Doctor Who (***½) is a significant improvement over the previous season in terms of general and individual episode quality. There is more action, more humour, some great guest stars, and some very solid ideas. Some of the hallmark problems of the Chibnall era remain: the TARDIS is too crowded with too many storylines for each episode for any to land extremely well (and by trying to further the characterisation of four regulars at once, it doesn't do a great job of any). It's notable the best episode of the season basically sidelines Yaz, Ryan and Graham for most of its going whilst the Doctor is confronted by a genuinely mind-blowing mystery with a great resolution. Otherwise pacing remains an issue, with Chibnall being given generally more time than either Davies or Moffat had (with several episodes clocking in at 60 minutes and most over 50, compared to the stricter 45-ish minutes of previous eras) and not knowing what to do with it.
The season also highlights what is Chibnall's key weakness: he seems to find it very difficult to write for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor. The Doctor is at her best when she storms into a situation, takes over and uses her natural authority and intelligence to investigate a problem and come up with a solution, overcoming rising complications along the way. When the script allows her to do that here (particularly against the Judoon and Cybermen, known threats she is confident of handling), the episode sings. When the script fails to do that, the episode turns into a leaden mess. This is particularly notable whenever Chibnall pairs Whittaker's Doctor with Dhawan's Master. Chibnall has a great handle on this Master's voice, his viciousness and evil really coming through in a chilling way. But the Doctor can't afford to let the Master run roughshod over her as happens in all four episodes of the season here where they face off. The Doctor standing mutely whilst the Master outlines her revised backstory is deeply bizarre, and leaves the audience losing respect for the character, which the show can never afford to happen.
But still, outside of those moments there is a feeling here that things are, if not back on track, at least sidling in that direction. Fugitive of the Judoon is a great episode, and The Haunting of Villa Diodati is almost as good, whilst Revolution of the Daleks, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror and Ascension of the Cybermen are all very solid romps. But you'll probably never feel an urge to revisit Orphan 55 or Praxeus ever again. And The Timeless Children remains a deeply odd idea, strangely-executed and, so far, totally unresolved.
12.1: Spyfall, Part 1 (***½)
12.2: Spyfall, Part 2 (***½)
12.3: Orphan 55 (**½)
12.4: Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror (****)
12.5: Fugitive of the Judoon (*****)
12.6: Praxeus (***)
12.7: Can You Hear Me? (****)
12.8: The Haunting of Villa Diodati (****½)
12.9: Ascension of the Cybermen (****)
12.9: Ascension of the Cybermen (****)
12.10: The Timeless Children (**½)
12X: Revolution of the Daleks (****)
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