C+Q - Arachnids in the UK (2018)

Having now seen all of Series 11 (the New Year's special will air in a few days), I can safely say that 10 episodes just isn't enough. The reduction of episodes from 13 to 12 was upsetting but it wasn't that noticeable. Series 8, 9, and 10 all still feel complete and substantial. But boy howdy does my enjoyment of Series 11 miss those two lost episodes. Instead of being a 12th of the run, each episode is now a 10th, meaning they all have to do a lot more heavy-lifting to make the series feel complete, and for me personally, it doesn't. This feels like a mini-series rather than a full series. For example: Arachnids in the UK is the 4th episode of Series 11, one away from the halfway point, and it's only here that the three companions officially agree to be companions.

This overly-long introduction to the series might be already if it at least introducted everything properly, but there's so much about these four characters and the show in general that isn't covered. The words 'Time Lord' and 'Gallifrey' don't appear in this series, and the two hearts thing is only covered for everyone as a group in Kerblam!, which is the seventh episode. The most unfortunate one though is Yaz, who is given nothing in Series 11. In this episode we meet her family, which is the biggest step forward in her characterisation this year, but at the end of the episode when each companion is going over their motivation for wanting to travel time and space, her motivation is just 'it's been fun so far, give me more'. There's some potentially interesting territory with the hatred between Yaz and her sister, a sibling rivalry so intense that Yaz runs away into time and space to get away from it, but no episode in the whole series ever goes there. Then I thought maybe she'll run away from her family but be unable to return, or return much later like Rose did in Aliens in London, so there will be some lesson about taking your family for granted. Instead, Demons of the Punjab establishes that the companions go home throughout their off-screen adventures whenever they want to, so that tension is gone. Series 11 is a slow burn of a series with nothing to burn. It's just...slow.

There's also nowhere near enough variety in locations this series. I love that we're finally going to countries outside of the UK for the historicals, like Rosa and Demons of the Punjab, but I'm feeling a distinct lack of weird stuff. I think one of the two episodes that was cut should've been a The End of the World/The Rings of Akhaten-style exercise in creativity to allow the set designers and costume department to go wild and push the boat out in as many different directions as possible. I just don't feel there's enough crazy, weird, All of Time and Space stuff in Series 11 to justify another modern day UK episode like Arachnids in the UK. Giant spiders have been done in Doctor Who before. It's not fresh or exciting enough. Some weird alien hotel on the planet Zog with different alien species staying in all the different rooms? That might have been something. But a normal hotel on normal Earth that I could actually get out of my flat and physically go to, where the big threat is normal Earth animals but bigger? Where's the creativity? Where's the spark?

I'm SO happy the Thirteenth Doctor, Ryan, Yaz, and Graham are all returning for Series 12, because dear lord does this TARDIS team need more. I mean, this series is fine. It's perfect adequate. But Doctor Who has been so much better than adequate for so long that I don't know why we're stuck here.