And with the usual promotion and importance, the new season of Doctor Who arrived, except this time it had that extra element of the gender change to the character. I had little energy for this issue; not because I was not interested in this change, but probably because everyone seemed so extreme when it came to the change. You had people on one side saying it was the worst thing in the world, while of course on the other the opinion was that this was the best thing and that everything was going to be just great from now on. For me personally I doubted that any of it would make any real difference to a show that hasn't varied too much in the last few incarnations, and probably the gender of the person pretending to be a Time Lord isn't the gamechanger.
And indeed it is not, because this season of Doctor Who is pretty much in the same vein as previous Doctors - good and bad. The episodes are a mixed bag, but mostly they are good but not great. There is no episode in this season that really hit everything spot on, but there are a few that are pretty good either by virtue of action, ideas, or the bit of weight that some of them have. There are a few weaker ones too as is the norm, but the issue is more consistent - which is that it is inconsistent. The show as a whole doesn't have great tonal control, and struggles to mix everything together in a way that gels rather than bits detracting or distracting from other bits. The season keeps some of the heavy-handed politicking of the modern era; in this case it is clumsy call-outs of Trump and Amazon, but it also does that thing that has characters take any opportunity to casually mention they are gay (about which my only objection is just how lazily and pointlessly it is always done).
The cast is mostly good, although a bit too heavy with familiar faces in the supporting roles. Whittaker fits in perfectly from the start - although this is because she is not too different from some of the recent performances. She manages to indignation, the comedy, and the exposition well, and seems to be having fun with the role. The companions are mostly okay, but ranges from Bradley Walsh being really good through to Tosin Cole being consistently dull. The group is a bit large at times though, and the TARDIS does feel a bit cluttered compared to normal, and there is scope to thin that pack a little. They get away with the crowd a little bit by using them as this season's arc in so much as there is one - which there mostly isn't.
In the end it was a fairly standard season aside from the headlines of the casting. It does what you are used to the show doing, good and bad, and in the end I totally forgot the fuss about the casting because everything else seemed to just be as normal.
