New Year! New Who!

It's a brand new day in a brand new year of a brand new decade and we're mere hours away from the release of brand new Doctor Who.  

I am hopeful for this new season of Doctor Who. 

The previous Series 11 was something I described as "competent".  It was not a bad production. 

It just wasn't great.

I need Doctor Who to be great. 

Or at the very least, it needs to have aspirations of greatness. 

I think with Series 11, Chris Chibnall's new crew was so determined not to screw this up, they played it too safe.  

It's been said of the creative process that if you're not offending someone, you're not doing it right.  

For Series 12, I need to see the Doctor challenged and even doubted. The line from the trailer "You don't know who I am" seems to point the narrative in that direction. 

We don't need the show to be bogged down in it's own mythology but Doctor Who needs to have some kind of narrative arc to give what we're seeing more weight. Even if it's just something like Russell Davie's arc words like "Bad Wolf" in Series 1 or Rose Tyler's face popping up on video screens at random times during Series 4. Nothing that interferes with the casual viewer's enjoyment but rewards the dedicated fan. 

The obsession with avoiding all previously established monsters in Series 11 cut off the Doctor from her history.  Nothing establishes as a NEW Doctor as THE Doctor than a run up against a Dalek or a Cyberman.  Series 12 appears to be mixing more of the old with the new. 

The opening story about aliens messing with spy organizations on Earth sounds like a perfect job for the remnants of Harmony Shoals. You may recall at the end of The Return of Doctor Mysterio, we see a UNIT operative has been replaced by a Harmony Shoals agent.  This may account for UNIT's absence in Resolution.  

It may be a bit too much ot expect Chris Chibnall to get that deep in the weeds of Doctor Who continuity just as it may be a bit much to hope that the Doctor is riding the anti-grav bike introduced in The Bells of St. Johns.  

But as the Doctor says, I travel hopefully.