We recently got around to finally watching the latest season of Doctor Who all the way up to the New Year's special episode and on the whole we were rather...underwhelmed. She's not necessary a bad Doctor but she just wasn't all that phenomenal or immediately memorable. And there are a lot of factors that play into things.
First, she's a Doctor with a weird set of companions. We can joke that her particular set of traveling friends appear to be a diversity play of sorts and I can see that. But my bigger concern throughout this season is that they haven't been all that strong or interesting in terms of skills they bring to the table or personality. In the past seasons since the 2005 reboot the Doctor's companions have all had a certain spark that drove them to be curious, to fight their fear of the strange or unknown and to do great things. The new set were mostly just bumbling around this season and it all felt a little odd.
This season also marks the beginning of the time of a new showrunner, this being Chris Chibnall. His previous efforts helped to bring the Silurians back into the current story in The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, which was okay but again not amazing. But at the same time he also gave us the web series Pond Life, which was charming and hilarious. So I think we'll have to give him some time before he gets a full feel for his new Doctor and the sorts of adventures she'll get into and more importantly how she'll deal with them.
Jodie Whitaker shows a lot of potential as the Doctor, but she too needs a bit more time before she has a firm grasp on her intended take on the character. For now she has a bit of a tendency to feel rather one note in how she acts in her scenes and that doesn't make for an interesting character. She's very high energy but never seems to come down from that more eccentric side of the character and it's quite the shame. But maybe things will get better in future episodes.
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