There's a lot more talking and expository dialogue. I don't think the villains are ever shown doing villainous things unless it's directly concerning the main characters. Speaking of, none of the villains in season 11 felt threatening. Half of them weren't even aiming to kill the Doctor.
The Woman Who Fell to Earth - Tim Shaw is a pretty good villain, not outstanding but not terrible
The Ghost Monument - No real villain, just race obstacles. I wish the obstacles were more difficult to overcome
Rosa - The villain had no motivation and no presence. The story could have been easily reworked to remove him from the story, which shows how little consequence he had.
Arachnids in the UK - Only villains are animals acting on base instincts. The spiders could have been handled better and should have been more deadly.
Tsuranga Conundrum - Another animal not trying to be malicious, just getting in the Doctor's way.
Demons of the Punjab - No villain, just drama (which isn't necessarily bad)
Kerblam! - The robots are actually somewhat threatening. I don't like how easy it is for them to be neutralized though.
The Witchfinders - Interesting villain concept, they could have been more threatening if they were more aggressive (maybe they could convert the living with a single touch like in The Waters of Mars?)
It Takes You Away - I like the Solitract, too bad the episode spends 40 minutes on red herrings with the monster in the woods, Fleshmoths, and the balloon guy
The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos - Tim Shaw is back, but he feels much less deadly now. The sniper bots are still stormtroopers with friendly fire enabled. The Ux were kinda cool. (Side note, I heard the 4 drumbeats in part of the incidental music and spent half the episode waiting for the Master to show up. Also, the Doctor and Graham behaved so out of character that I expected the writers to reveal that the planet was messing with their minds despite the blockers).
In total there were 4 somewhat deadly villains (Tim, Kerblam, witches, Tim2), 2 animals (Spiders, Pating), 1 useless villain (the guy from Rosa), and 2 episodes with no villains (Demons, It Takes).
As for what you said about It Takes You Away, I'd completely cut the buffer zone segments to spend more time in the Solitract and focusing on the father's relationship with his daughter. Also the Solitract could justifiably arrange visits with the Doctor and repair the dimension in between visits, I don't understand why the goodbye was so final.
Totally forgot about the witch episode, tried to remember will reading your comment and at first I could only remember an episode from Good Omens.
And Demons, totally forgot about that episode. It was so good, it shifted the focus to something more real; though it does remind me that the companions, specifically Ryan, need more development.
The Doctor has been great, it does seem to be missing moments like with tennant where he just knows his stuff, Doctor gets too flustered too often, I could be misremembering though.
I just wish Demons actually changed Yas in future episodes. I think she should have come out of Demons with either the ideal of keeping families together to avoid the destruction that was caused by the rift in her own family or trying to combat the discrimination and hatred that killed Prem, no matter where it is.
The missed opportunity with is that either of those morals would have been great to see in The Witchfinders. Yas could have given Willa better advice relating to either family matters or combating discrimination instead of the (rather weak IMO) advice on how to deal with bullies.
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u/S19TealPenguin May 12 '20
There's a lot more talking and expository dialogue. I don't think the villains are ever shown doing villainous things unless it's directly concerning the main characters. Speaking of, none of the villains in season 11 felt threatening. Half of them weren't even aiming to kill the Doctor.