Pretentious Doctor Who Essays: REVIEW OVERVIEW: WHICH IS THE BEST UMBRELLA SEASON IN DOCTOR WHO?

At long last, we've come to the end of the road. It's time to pit the Umbrella Seasons against each other....

FINAL VERDICT:

After a series of deep cut reviews of the various individual components of each Umbrella Season, the moment is upon us to look at things a bit more holistically. Essentially, it's time to give reviews of my overall impressions of Key to Time, Trial of a Time Lord and Flux.

Key to Time

Key to Time does have the best of intentions. There is definitely a desire to really do something epic, here. Something the show hasn't really done much of for quite some time. For most of Tom Baker's seasons, he is meandering quite purposelessly and just, sort of, falling into trouble here and there. Stories like Genesis of the Daleks or Pyramids of Mars do feel like they're operating on an epic scale. But, most of the time, things do come across as a bit homespun. Stakes often feel small. Which is not a bad thing. But it's definitely a sharp contrast to what Key to Time is trying to achieve.

The Fourth Doctor isn't particularly good at being told what to do, either. On the rare occasions that the Time Lords do try to send him on a mission, he fights them quite viciously and can take some time to fall into line. It should even be noted that, during the Quest for the Key to Time, he is quite irresponsible, in places. This is definitely a version of the Doctor that delights in lacking any real direction with his life. To place such a character on a big season-spanning mission certainly seemed like an interesting premise. We know he'll handle the whole endeavour in the most eccentric of ways. Which is a big part of what makes the whole spectacle so entertaining. But, equally so, works to its detriment.

Key to Time is, at least, off to a very great start. It has a strong first story. The second adventure is genuinely glorious. Even Stones of Blood maintains some good standards. Admittedly the entire first half of the season is doing quite well. I'm having a genuinely good time with it.

But then we get to Androids of Tara. Things start going downhill quickly. They continue to deteriorate with Power of Kroll. That's now a solid eight episodes of fairly disappointing content. I am starting to have a genuinely hard time hanging in with this. I'm almost wishing it was just another normal season of self-contained stories full of aimless meanderings.

The final story of the season needs to get back what it had during its first half or the whole core idea is going to fall flat on its face.

In many ways, Armageddon Factor had to accomplish much of the same thing Rise of Skywalker needed to do for the abysmal Disney Star Wars trilogy. It had to, somehow, make amends for a really bad middle chapter and, at the same time, propel the saga forward to a satisfactory conclusion. It produces the same results, too. Like Rise of Skywalker, there are some things about Armageddon Factor that I found genuinely enjoyable. But there was also quite a bit that was poorly executed or made little to no sense.

Ultimately, as Key to Time reaches its end, there's quite a bit I'm not happy with. That first half is still very good, however. So it shouldn't be forgotten. There was much fun to be had during those first 12 episodes. And there was even some pretty good stuff during the second half of the season.

But the bad stuff can't be ignored, either. Even though some of it is connected to how the whole thing finishes off, there's still not quite enough of it to say that the effort was a complete failure. There's a lot to like about this Umbrella Season. But there's also enough poor judgement going on to say it could have been much better if they had just thought things through a bit better.

Trial of a Time Lord

I went through a very interesting process when Trial of a Time Lord first came out. At the time it found its way to my screen, I was still a very young, impressionable lad. Basically, I was in my early teens and cared a bit more about fitting in.

Right from my initial viewing, I enjoyed the whole season. And so did a significant amount of other fans. But there was another segment that didn't like it and were very vocal about it. Young, Naive Rob saw their angry comments in the various fanzines he was subscribed to at the time (we were nowhere near online fan groups, yet!) and thought: "Well, if so many disliked it so vehemently, there must be something wrong with it!" And, for a few years, I allowed myself to believe this. Because I felt that so many fans could not be wrong.

By the time I hit my late teens, I'd stopped giving a rat's ass what anyone thought of me! I'd learnt that most people expressed opinions for the sheer sake of expressing them and frequently didn't think things through before opening their mouths. During that period of growth, I also kept re-watching Trial of a Time Lord on a fairly regular basis. I finally decided to start trusting my own gut and stop caring what others felt. Slowly but surely, I came to believe what I had believed right from the start:

Trial of a Time Lord was always brilliant.

Is it absolutely perfect? Of course not! Robert Holmes plunders a few of his own ideas from The Krotons for Mysterious Planet's plot. There's some padding issues in the third part of Mindwarp. Terror of the Vervoids does get ever-so-slightly over-contrived, in places. But the truth of the matter is: there are all kinds of brilliant creations that have slight flaws to them. But it doesn't stop them from still being brilliant.

Unfortunately, fandom can work in these weird cycles where, suddenly, the smallest flaws can be blown out of proportion by certain people. The show can do nothing to make them happy and they are going to let everyone know about it. I've gotten quite good at shutting out those sorts of people and just letting myself enjoy something even if they swear to the ends of the Earth that it's absolutely awful!

Trial of a Time Lord is not just a magnificent piece of television that was way ahead of its time (it would be decades before shows would start producing season-long arcs that were as tight), it helped me to learn something valuable about the weight of others' opinions. If you think something is great - stop caring about the nay-sayers and just let yourself love it!

Flux

Having learnt my lesson with Trial of a Time Lord, forming my own opinion on Flux outside of Popular Fan Consensus was not going to prove difficult. It helped that I'd already listened to all sorts of complaints against Series 11 and 12 that I felt were highly unmitigated. Two seasons' worth of comments that I largely didn't agree with had galvanised me to filter out whatever mud would be slung at the third and enjoy it on my own terms.

After watching the season several times, I will be bold enough to say that it is probably the most tightly-written story the show has ever produced. Yes, I know there are many of you that believe Chibnall to be the worst writer in the history of humanity - but I'm not one of them. I don't think he's ever actually offered us up any real bad stories - just very different ones from what we've been used to. And some folks just aren't good at dealing with change and will lash out at new things (which is sad when you think about it. No show is more about re-inventing itself on a regular basis than Doctor Who!).

Flux, for me, represents Chibnall at his absolute best. He weaves together all his various plot threads masterfully. He creates two of the best episodes for recurring monsters that we could ever ask for. He also gives us some really awesome new villains with Swarm, Azure and the Grand Serpent. And he continues to unveil the mystery of the Timeless Child in a real cool way. Those are just the edited highlights of the praise I have for the season!

Surely, like Trial of a Time Lord, there must be some problems, right?

I can honestly say that any misfires the season had are so minute that they are barely worth mentioning. Many of the issues I have with Flux, in fact, are more about personal taste than actual bad content. I just feel that, had I been making the show, I would have made slightly different choices in some instances.

Not even better ones. Just different.

A RATING SYSTEM

Those are some very basic reviews of my overall feelings about each season. Let's, now, see how they stack up against each other. We'll make this easy by establishing a rating system. This will give us a clear idea of which Umbrella Season I feel is best.

The system, itself, will be quite simple. We'll just give it a score between One and Ten.

Key to Time

Creating a score for something like Key to Time is pretty straightforward. There's a very solid dip in quality during its latter half but I'm still going to say that 70% of the whole season is quite enjoyable. Which means, of course, that it gets:

7/10

Trial of a Time Lord

A season that has, at best, some very minor flaws. Otherwise, it's quite brilliant. Not perfect, though. So we have to penalise it a bit.

9/10

Flux

I'm going to do it. There's just not enough here that I actually dislike. So it's going to get that rating that sooo many of you will probably object to!

10/10

FINAL RANKINGS

With a rating system in place, we can now easily see where things sit with me. Clearly, Flux is the winner of this race. But Trial of a Time Lord was hot on its heels. There is a significant point spread, however, as Key to Time comes in third.

Key to Time is still decent, though. It was the first time the show created an Umbrella Season and it seemed to have learnt from its mistakes. As the next two efforts Doctor Who makes at this sort of story-telling are nothing short of incredible.

And, at long last, it's done. No doubt, there will be disagreements with the judgements I've passed. But, at least, with my Criteria in place, you can see how I reached my conclusions.

Like an Umbrella Season, itself, this was made up of many parts. Here are links to all of them:

Intro:

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/03/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella.html

Key to Time

Part One:

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/04/review-overview-which-umbrella-season.html

Part Two:

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/04/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella.html

Trial of a Time Lord

Part One:

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/04/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella_15.html

Part Two: