Every Chibnall Episode pre-showrunner - thoughts

42 - Loved it. 
The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood - good.
Pond Life (2012 mini-episodes) - not seen it.
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship - Cleopatra! Dinosaurs! Great fun.
The Power of Three - pretty good.
P.S. (2012 mini-episode) - not seen it.
for the hell of it, the last three minutes of Twice Upon - ompossible to make any judgement.

I loved 42: from the title (linking it to the length of the episode, the Kiefer Sullivan show, contrasting the answer to the meaning of life, etc with trivia questions) to the delivery of the story and the links it had to the wider story arc.

Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood had some great moments and some terrific guest characters but for various reasons (timing, service to the season arc) didn't quite deliver.

Dinosaurs On A Spaceship was just a great fun romp with a couple of moments that really took you out of the fun and gave you a bit of a chill.

Power Of Three - fab episode right up until the last five minutes when it suddenly seemed to realise that there was an ending in sight and it needed to finish - but rushed and imperfect endings are a problem that we've had to deal with since the show came back - mind you, Classic Who quite often fumbled its endings too, but if I've got an issue with recent Who (and I'm quite the Moffat fanboy, so this is a big admission for me) it's that many episodes could deal with a few extra minutes or some trimming in the earlier moments in order to be properly resolved.

Twice upon A Time - not even going to bother to comment except for the fact that for the first time we seem to have a Doctor who has regenerated with their faculties intact: the "Oh, brilliant" suggests (I'm open to be disproved, however) that she has kept her marbles, comparatively, which makes a nice change.

I think you can also take his non-Who work into consideration, as well - I know it's against the spirit of fandom to do so, but... - for this. I know that RTD had worked on some shows that were radically different from Who but brought a lot of those sensibilities with him, as did The Moff. So I'll be interested in seeing what The Chib/ CC/ whatever fun nickname we come up for him (Chinball just isn't doing it for me) brings to the table from other shows he's worked on.

42 is definitely underrated - overshadowed only by the brilliance of Human Nature/The Family of Blood and Blink.

Hungry Earth/Cold Blood are pretty good. All of Series 5 except Victory of the Daleks is at least pretty good, actually.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship is another episode that I think is a bit underrated. It introduced some of the best side characters of the Eleventh Doctor years besides the Paternoster Gang in my opinion and I'd love to have some further adventures with them on audio. Maybe he'll even pull a trick out of Moffat's book and bring back some of them, though I doubt it. Overall, it's just a fun episode really.

I agree that The Power of Three had a pretty rushed conclusion, but it has some really memorable moments with the TARDIS team and Rory's father that make up for it.

P.S. was absolutely heart wrenching. It's an absolute must-watch in my opinion.

Not much to say about the brief bit at the end of Twice Upon A Time, but I do like Chibnall's approach. I'm not really sure what I was expecting in that moment, but it just really fit. I like how it's much more subdued than the previous two post-regenerations and that it depends more on the direction than any of the other modern regenerations. I think it's too early to say what the first episode is going to be like, but we're off to a good start.

As for his work on Torchwood, he did have some misses in Day One and Cyberwoman as well as some I just didn't particularly care for such as End of Days, but Countrycide hit the mark for me and his work in Series 2 was significantly better - particularly in Adrift and Fragments.

In review, I think Chibnall's strength lies in his characters which has arguably been Steven Moffat's weakest area (though I thought he did a pretty good job myself). He can pull at your heart real well and he can make some pretty memorable characters - Captain John Hart, anyone? He also has a good sense for writing to his actors' strengths and giving them plenty of moments to develop. When he does a character focused episode like Fragments or P.S. he can surpass Moffat and Russell T. Davies. He can write a really fun, enjoyable, and engaging plot too, but I think that's where he's weakest - sort of like Russell T. Davies.

So, overall, I think Chibnall's style would be more comparable to Russell T. Davies than to Steven Moffat, though I think Chibnall has his own strengths that will set his era apart from any other. I'm excited to see what that may be.

Hmmmm. Plot holes, you say?

Why would I read that? If you need to tear apart an episode to get any enjoyment out of it, surely you'd be better off devoting your time to something else?

42 (Average but not terrible)

Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood (Hungry is ok but I get visions of Moffatt saying "There's not enough Amy" and Chibnail badly overcompensates for it in Cold)

Pond Life (Silly filler material but that's what its meant to be)

Dinosaurs (Brian is excellent, princess and the Hunter are good. Hate the Robots [but then again I don't like Mitchell and Webb] and does the Doctor go too far? No because Solomon was a vicious piece of work IMO.)

Power of Three ( UNIT reintroduction is very good, Berkoff is such a waste of talent as the villain though and I was sick to death of the Ponds since Asylum.)

PS (Should've been filmed its a nicer coda ending then the Ponds deserved though.)

Regards

mark687

I'm sure this is not what you meant, but that does come off as a tad reductivist. Blind adoration of something is surely as bad as blind hate.

From what I understand, 42, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Power of Three were all late commissions that Chibbers had to write and deliver very quickly. And, according to one Gareth Roberts, The Power of Three's first draft was excellent, but somehow became too long by the final draft so the (naff) ending had to be cobbled together in the edit.

So hopefully that provides some context as to why some of us on here aren't particularly enamoured with his past Who work.

In that case, his Torchwood series 2 stuff is probably the best for illustrating the kind of drama we'll be getting under him for series 11.