Review of The Haunting of Villa Diodati by RoseBomb
2 May 2024
This review contains spoilers
The good Chibnall-era episode, with sharp writing, humour and wit. With an honestly impressive ability to juggle characters and have them all be fleshed out, with added characterization for Thirteen (that genuinely makes me excited to listen to her inevitable Big Finish audios, providing they use this as a template as to how to do Thirteen right). With mood, atmosphere and stakes.
Similar in ways to a couple of my favourite stories from Doctor Who, Like The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon for the haunted house vibes of the second part, similar to The Chimes of Midnight for being about a house where weird stuff takes place filled with fleshed-out cooky characters and similar to Master for it being a story completely carried by the character-work.
Altogether, it is just brilliant writing, and It was a breath of fresh air to those of us who dreaded every new episode of Who after realizing that it had lost everything we held dear about it.
It was clearly an overwhelming success for those who didn't like Chibnall Who (like myself) as I heard several people say she should be the next showrunner, which I personally think is a bit far for a completely new writer to the show with one great episode and nothing else, but I certainly get the gratitude.
9/10