The problem with the Chibnall era's morality

I was struck by a discussion in one of the Discord groups just now that there is a problem with how Chibnall's era promotes the 'morally right' way for the Doctor and companions to solve things and claim a moral triumph by doing so, and that often their idea seems utterly juvenile and not really the lesser evil at all.

Don't kill the spiders with guns, much better to lock them in a vault where they'll eventually die anyway. It's wrong to kill the season's big bad Tzim Shaw. Much better to put him in suspended animation for all eternity and shoot him off into space.

(infact you can probably date this problem back to The Hungry Earth, where the Doctor's peaceful solution is to either kidnap a hostage, or just make the reptiles go to sleep for another 200 years and try again later).

It just occurred to me that the problem isn't just that the show's philosophy is just an insipid "let's just always be nice to everyone unless they're Donald Trump"....

It's that Classic Who used to pose moral questions and grey areas, and Chibnall is the kind of fan (maybe because he was a fan during the thick of the more preachy Davison stories, and the BBC making their disapproval of the Season 22 approach known) who seemed to think those questions of what the Doctor should do to maintain a moral high ground, needed to be answered. Often in the safest, stupidest way possible.

Some may question Chibnall's fan credentials, but for me ironically the problem is that he's *too* much a fan.

He doesn't get the intrigue of moral ambiguity. He thinks the show's moral questions existed to be answered with a lesson of the right way, a demonstration of what "another way" looks like. Like the show is some kind of cult to live by the rules of (hence why even new fans are feeling alienated now).

And his answers are both stupid, and just never as interesting as the unanswered imponderables would've been by themselves.

Probably bad form to bump this thread, but I actually finally just saw Kerblam! and thought this the best thread to discuss my impressions of it in.

I actually see why it is seen as one of the better of the Jodie stories. Although there are moments of the usual stupidity, for the most part there is an interesting bit of old-school world-building and storytelling going on. It's probably as fun as Series 11 gets.

But I do think the ending and Jodie's part in the villain's comeuppance is the perfect illustration of the problem (especially as it was so badly handled it completely took me out of the story).

For the story's purposes, the villain needs to get his comeuppance and be hoist by his own petard. Killed by his own booby trap.

But nothing about his willingness to stand by and let himself be blown up makes sense, and the scene ends up giving me too much time to think about that problem. And it takes that needless extra time just in order to demonstrate Jodie and her companions trying to give the villain a hand of salvation and a second chance. The problem is in this case, he's given so much time it doesn't make sense to me why he refuses it (or for that matter, why Jodie can't cancel the countdown).

Basically Jodie's morality is such that for the villain to be defeated, they have to suddenly be conveniently suicidal enough for her.