Review of The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I think nothing sets apart the nascent Chibnall era from the RTD and Moffat eras so much as the final regular episode of this first series. Whereas previous showrunners have gone all out with bombastic, plot-heavy tours de force for their series finales, Chibnall… did not.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2018 BBC

There are still some familiar elements in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, in that a thread begun back in the series opener (and continued in the second episode) was woven back into the TARDIS Team’s lives. Graham, and to a degree Ryan, finally had a chance to come to terms with the death that sent him scuttling into the TARDIS in the first place.

But it was more in the callbacks—both subtle and stated outright—that I was reminded of prior finales. Without the “Tim Shaw” tie-in, TBoRAK would be indistinguishable from any other episode in Series 11, and certainly not readily identifiable to a casual viewer as the series’s “big finish.”

That fact will make the episode a big disappointment for a certain segment of fans. For those who loved Moffat’s twisty, tricksy, over-stuffed plots, Chibnall’s writing will feel far too straightforward. If, however, you’re someone who loves stories grounded in character, there are plenty of satisfying moments to be had.

Review of The Witchfinders
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

In a way, this is the episode I’ve been waiting for since Whittaker was announced. Although she’s been so on screen for a couple of months now, this time the Doctor was finally “a woman.”

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2018 BBC

Up until now, she’s been able to do her usual trick of swanning in, acting like she owns the place, and being taken seriously. In fact, even when the TARDIS Team first arrived in Bilehurst Cragg, she flashed her psychic paper and was immediately accepted as an authority. But enter King James, and suddenly she is demoted from Witchfinder General to a “wee lassie”—and I loved it.

Not that I loved the Doctor being devalued; that part was, as always, difficult to watch. But I loved it because it was real. “Honestly,” the Doctor herself complained, “if I was still a bloke, I could get on with the job and not have to waste time defending myself!” Welcome to the club, Doctor.

Review of Demons of the Punjab
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

A few hours before the episode aired, I saw someone in one of the Doctor Who-related Facebook groups I’m in express his apprehensions about the potential for an episode set in India in 1947 to be a preachy, anti-British Empire bash-fest (totally paraphrasing)—airing on Remembrance Day.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2018 BBC

I have rarely felt as much of a cultural divide with the UK as I did in that moment. Such a concern had never—would never have—occurred to me. I thus sat down to watch Demons of the Punjab feeling like I was about to walk through someone else’s cultural minefield. But the type of mines that were actually scattered about were completely different than what I’d expected. And unlike the Doctor and her friends, I really had no context for what was coming.

The US and the UK share an awful lot of cultural DNA. As the former colony rather than the former colonizer, though (and here I’m entirely skipping how my ancestors helped to slaughter the original inhabitants of the land I now live on as they colonized it), the people of my country generally stopped paying much attention to Britain’s affairs after about the turn of the nineteenth century, where “American history” and “British history” diverge.