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Doctor Who-ERA |OT| It's Almost Time... But Not Yet

ItRhymesWithDoom

ItRhymesWithDoom

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Oct 25, 2017
2,722
I actually felt the India-Pakistan division episode was probably the strongest story, but 'legacy' wise the special was the closest to 'your normal scheduled Doctor Who'. That said, I actually quite like Graham's interactions with 'the fam' as well as Whitaker's exchanges on that end. "I'm nice" should lead somewhere though, but that's only because we've been so spoiled by Moffat writing that it's hard to imagine Who without complexity now.

Maybe reboot some time lords that aren't the Master?

Anyway, on the whole season, I'd say Jodie Whitaker is a fun Doctor, but it's pretty clear the larger fiction (outside of the crew that is) is severely underdeveloped, to a point of almost feeling like they're rebooting from square one, which is particularly obvious with the special. At the same time of course, RTD just did that as one episode (Dalek), only to go full 'sykes!' with the finale. It feels weird to say RTD was a good writer, but there it is.

Also, I really miss Missy. :(
 
LL_Decitrig

LL_Decitrig

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acheron_xl said:
Judoon are fun! The one thing I think S11 was really sorely lacking in was some good fun.
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Yeah, I'm hoping for a much more relaxed Doctor Who. But mostly, I think the fans need to relax. We've endured many years of micro-analysis by avowed fans, at the same time the fandom has expanded.

The last season featured numerous all-time greats including the first two genuine historical episodes that could credibly be taught in a primary school (with appropriate supporting material outlining the factual shortcuts taken by the writers) and that's no mean feat. The New Year special was a special treat, showing the broad scope of this new production team. I adore Russell and Steven, but now it's time for change.
 
OP
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Dwebble

Dwebble

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,621
Gareth Robert's transphobia's caught up with him, and he's been yanked from contributing to the upcoming Target Storybook after fan complaints and other writers refusing to contribute if he was kept on.

I won't link to it, but his self-pitying account is being signal-boosted by the likes of Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, and, with the inevitability of day following night, Graham Linehan.
 
plagiarize

plagiarize

Eating crackers
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Oct 25, 2017
27,490
Cape Cod, MA
Dwebble said:
Gareth Robert's transphobia's caught up with him, and he's been yanked from contributing to the upcoming Target Storybook after fan complaints and other writers refusing to contribute if he was kept on.

I won't link to it, but his self-pitying account is being signal-boosted by the likes of Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, and, with the inevitability of day following night, Graham Linehan.
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That's good. I mean, it's not good that Roberts is a transphobe, or that those other transophobes came to his defense, but it's good that he's no longer involved in the Target line.
 
Blader

Blader

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Oct 27, 2017
26,595
Joqu said:
The Faceless Ones has been confirmed as the next animation, it'll release in 2020.


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I had a feeling this would be the next one -- it checks off a lot of the team's requirements for animating a story, and when Fury from the Deep and Wheel in Space were ruled out, this seemed like a pretty logical choice. Surprising they're announcing this so early though, the last few animations were (officially) kept under wraps until a couple months before release.

Next year is Troughton's 100th birthday so I wonder if they'll try to get out more than one animated release for next year?
 
Platy

Platy

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Oct 25, 2017
27,607
Brazil
Dwebble said:
Gareth Robert's transphobia's caught up with him, and he's been yanked from contributing to the upcoming Target Storybook after fan complaints and other writers refusing to contribute if he was kept on.

I won't link to it, but his self-pitying account is being signal-boosted by the likes of Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, and, with the inevitability of day following night, Graham Linehan.
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I love that posted a medium text explaining how he never wanted any hurt for trans people just for the next paragraph spill the same "you can't change your sex gender identity does not exist you can't force me to change pronoums"
 
ClivePwned

ClivePwned

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Oct 27, 2017
3,612
Australia
Faceless Ones is interesting. It's the last Ben and Polly story but it's also done so poorly (they're barely in it for most of it). The two episodes that survive are pretty dull and so it would be interested to see the full story.
Also, it's one of those few original series episodes with an Oscar winner in it Pauline Collins, who later onw Best Actress for Shirley Valentine (and was Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw). She would have made a great companion but apparently turned down the offer to join the series as a regular as her character in The Faceless Ones.

I really hope Evil of The Daleks (and one day, Dalek Masterplan) are animated. Also: whatever happened to that Wheel in Space DVD without the animated missing eps? Is that still on or has it been quietly shelved for now?
 

BadAlchemy

Member
May 2, 2019
226
milamber182 said:
The Judoon are OK but I'm still waiting for a Sontaran/Rutan war episode. Shakedown is probably the closest we'll ever get.
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Alien war is not really what I watch Doctor Who for. I'm glad they did the Dalek/Cyberman war just so people would stop pestering them about it, but for me the show is about telling human stories set around conflict, not about military conflict itself.

I'm pretty happy about The Faceless Ones. It's one of those mediocre episodes that I've always had a soft spot for. Ultimately I'd like to see all of them animated, and ultimately I'm confident (given the sufficient survival of humanity to that point) they will be. I don't mind their waiting on Evil, either; as time goes on I expect the standard of animation to improve, and I'd like to see Evil given a better treatment than Power (though Power was perfectly serviceable and I enjoyed watching it, even if the theater showed the whole thing in the wrong aspect ratio).

The season 3 episodes will, I think, be more difficult to animate due to the lack of visual reference. The Massacre even has a significant plot point which is unclear from the surviving material, if I remember correctly.
 
Blader

Blader

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Oct 27, 2017
26,595
BadAlchemy said:
The season 3 episodes will, I think, be more difficult to animate due to the lack of visual reference. The Massacre even has a significant plot point which is unclear from the surviving material, if I remember correctly.
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Stuff like The Massacre is pretty unlikely to get the animation treatment anyway, just because of how difficult and expensive it is to create all the characters, costumes, sets, etc. for those historical episodes. Which I think is why Troughton is getting all the animation love the last few years: most of them follow that same base-under-siege template, with limited environments + characters and easier-to-animate aliens/monsters.
 
milamber182

milamber182

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Dec 15, 2017
7,707
Australia
ClivePwned said:
Faceless Ones is interesting. It's the last Ben and Polly story but it's also done so poorly (they're barely in it for most of it). The two episodes that survive are pretty dull and so it would be interested to see the full story.
Also, it's one of those few original series episodes with an Oscar winner in it Pauline Collins, who later onw Best Actress for Shirley Valentine (and was Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw). She would have made a great companion but apparently turned down the offer to join the series as a regular as her character in The Faceless Ones.

I really hope Evil of The Daleks (and one day, Dalek Masterplan) are animated. Also: whatever happened to that Wheel in Space DVD without the animated missing eps? Is that still on or has it been quietly shelved for now?
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I read the novel when I was younger and remember it being creepy. The story probably benefited from the condensed format.
 

BadAlchemy

Member
May 2, 2019
226
Blader said:
Stuff like The Massacre is pretty unlikely to get the animation treatment anyway, just because of how difficult and expensive it is to create all the characters, costumes, sets, etc. for those historical episodes. Which I think is why Troughton is getting all the animation love the last few years: most of them follow that same base-under-siege template, with limited environments + characters and easier-to-animate aliens/monsters.
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Didn't they do the missing episodes of Reign of Terror as animation? I am sure at some point they are going to get around to Marco Polo - complete (or nearly so, is there an episode missing somewhere in there?) set of telesnaps existing, copious off-air colour reference material, and the costumes are just plain _gorgeous_.
 
8bit

8bit

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Oct 27, 2017
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Only really tangentially related, but anyone watching Years & Years? Episode 4 of that was quite something.
 
genjiZERO

genjiZERO

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So..... Been out of Doctor Who for a while. Really thought the quality of the show reached Colin Baker level of bad under Moffat and fell off mid-Capaldi. Worth catching up on or am I just going to be disappointed?
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Oct 25, 2017
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genjiZERO said:
So..... Been out of Doctor Who for a while. Really thought the quality of the show reached Colin Baker level of bad under Moffat and fell off mid-Capaldi. Worth catching up on or am I just going to be disappointed?
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I'd probably go with "disappointed" as nothing really changed for the end of the capaldi run.

The first Whittaker season is nowhere near as offensive as moff got, but it's kinda plodding and a lot of the villains suck
 
Sheepinator

Sheepinator

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Jul 25, 2018
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genjiZERO said:
So..... Been out of Doctor Who for a while. Really thought the quality of the show reached Colin Baker level of bad under Moffat and fell off mid-Capaldi. Worth catching up on or am I just going to be disappointed?
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I would say no, given that you're already out. That said, did you see the Capaldi one with him locked in the castle thing? That was amazing. And the Jodie one in this season with the India-Pakistan stuff was really good, but as sir_croc said overall the villains sucked in this season.
 
LL_Decitrig

LL_Decitrig

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Guppeth said:
You enjoy being probably the only person in this thread who actually enjoys the show probably more than you like the actual show.

I love the show but I don't want to steal your thunder.
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No, I really love the show far more than I enjoy reading this godawful thread. I and my family watch this show more than anything else, even though we watch a hell of a lot of other television. I just get fed up with saying I enjoy an episode while half a dozen amateur critics try to tell me how wrong I am for enjoying it.

It's sometimes not so much a fan thread as a hate-a-thon.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Is the new season ever going to go up for free streaming on Amazon Prime like the Capaldi years did? I've been waiting so long...
 
LL_Decitrig

LL_Decitrig

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genjiZERO said:
I used to enjoy the show...

... back when the Doctor was a scientist not a physician!
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Okay, was that ever a thing? He's just this bloke who stole a time machine. Whatever he calls himself or pretends to be, that's who he is. Moffat mostly cast him as a mad wizard, which I thought worked well because it gave the stories such a vast scope. It's hard to see what Chibnall is up to, but I love the historical focus and the team building with a younger cast (plus Graham.)
 
genjiZERO

genjiZERO

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LL_Decitrig said:
Okay, was that ever a thing? He's just this bloke who stole a time machine. Whatever he calls himself or pretends to be, that's who he is. Moffat mostly cast him as a mad wizard, which I thought worked well because it gave the stories such a vast scope. It's hard to see what Chibnall is up to, but I love the historical focus and the team building with a younger cast (plus Graham.)
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I'm joking a bit, but it's true that "Doctor" referred originally and explicitly to being a scientist not a physician. Once you get to Tom Baker is when he starts to become more of just an adventurer. His mission too was originally to *understand* the universe not save people. RTD is the one who started all the physician metaphors, but Moffat really went full steam ahead of it.
 
Radiophonic

Radiophonic

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Oct 25, 2017
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I generally enjoyed the latest season, but I rarely engage in debate over it because I don't see the point. I have found that my love for Dr Who is kinda beyond critical evaluation affecting it at this point. Having watched the show for decades, I just love it for what it is, good or bad. That's not to say I just love it all unconditionally, of course. Sometimes it is terrible.
 
LL_Decitrig

LL_Decitrig

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genjiZERO said:
I'm joking a bit, but it's true that "Doctor" referred originally and explicitly to being a scientist not a physician. Once you get to Tom Baker is when he starts to become more of just an adventurer. His mission too was originally to *understand* the universe not save people. RTD is the one who started all the physician metaphors, but Moffat really went full steam ahead of it.
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Well it's a bit more complicated than that, but at least I now see what you're saying.

If you go back to the first episode of the first serial, An Unearthly Child, I think you'll see that he is known as a doctor to Susan's teachers, who clearly assume he's a physician and question why he's so unworldly in such a people-oriented profession. In the third story, Susan and her grandfather, The Doctor, are shown to have medical technology far beyond that of the modern day (early 1960s) Earth. It's never explicitly stated whether The Doctor has any formal qualifications of any kind. He's not so much a Doctor of science as a person whose civilization is highly advanced, and who as a consequence of that has access to knowledge that makes him look like a legendary wizard to the Earth humans he meets.
 
milamber182

milamber182

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I enjoyed last season. The historicals were great. The pure sci-fi episodes by comparison were not as well written, IMO. I don't think Jodie got to really show what she's capable of yet.
 
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BadAlchemy

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May 2, 2019
226
genjiZERO said:
So..... Been out of Doctor Who for a while. Really thought the quality of the show reached Colin Baker level of bad under Moffat and fell off mid-Capaldi. Worth catching up on or am I just going to be disappointed?
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You should probably re-watch the Colin Baker episodes; if you think even the worst Moffat episodes are anywhere near as bad as "The Twin Dilemma", "Attack of the Cybermen", or "Trial of a Time Lord", you probably haven't actually seen them those particular episodes in a while.
 
genjiZERO

genjiZERO

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LL_Decitrig said:
Well it's a bit more complicated than that, but at least I now see what you're saying.

If you go back to the first episode of the first serial, An Unearthly Child, I think you'll see that he is known as a doctor to Susan's teachers, who clearly assume he's a physician and question why he's so unworldly in such a people-oriented profession. In the third story, Susan and her grandfather, The Doctor, are shown to have medical technology far beyond that of the modern day (early 1960s) Earth. It's never explicitly stated whether The Doctor has any formal qualifications of any kind. He's not so much a Doctor of science as a person whose civilization is highly advanced, and who as a consequence of that has access to knowledge that makes him look like a legendary wizard to the Earth humans he meets.
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Oh that's true for sure. But you know what I mean... before all this "duty of care" rubbish they introduced during the Capaldi years.


BadAlchemy said:
Medicine is a science.

Also, in the Moonbase he said he studied for a medical degree in Glasgow in the 19th century. So what you're saying is that the show jumped the shark sometime before 1967.
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Allopathic medicine uses science and can be science, but there's a difference between science and medicine. If there wasn't I'd be paid a whole lot more... but I digress.

As far as Moonbase (one of the best series!) if I remember the line right Troughton (the GOAT) flippantly said he, "took a degree" but also says repeatedly throughout his tenure that he "isn't that kind of doctor" too. Also, Pewtree is overtly a scientist scientist. Anyway, not saying they never added a medical aspect to him, but that it's clear that originally "doctor" meant PhD not MD and that he was invisioned as a nutty professor sort of character.

BadAlchemy said:
You should probably re-watch the Colin Baker episodes; if you think even the worst Moffat episodes are anywhere near as bad as "The Twin Dilemma", "Attack of the Cybermen", or "Trial of a Time Lord", you probably haven't actually seen them those particular episodes in a while.
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What's the one with the dude in silver make up? Easily the worst series ever. My biggest problem with Moffat is that he changed way too much of the mythology of the show. That and he turned the Doctor into a freaking wizard which contradicts the point of the show. It's supposed to be science fiction.
 
Radiophonic

Radiophonic

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I recently started rewatching the Colin Baker stories, and Twin Dilemma wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered. Mark of the Rani, however, is just dogshit. Pip and Jane Baker...man were they lousy.
 

BadAlchemy

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May 2, 2019
226
genjiZERO said:
As far as Moonbase (one of the best series!) if I remember the line right Troughton (the GOAT) flippantly said he, "took a degree" but also says repeatedly throughout his tenure that he "isn't that kind of doctor" too. Also, Pewtree is overtly a scientist scientist. Anyway, not saying they never added a medical aspect to him, but that it's clear that originally "doctor" meant PhD not MD and that he was invisioned as a nutty professor sort of character.
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Well you can cite evidence from the show to back up whatever your preferred interpretation of the character is, because his characterization has never been consistent! Yeah, sure, Pertwee's doctor was extremely overtly scientific, except when he randomly started using magic in "The Ambassadors of Death", which, by the way, was written by the show's first script editor, who you'd think might have some inkling as to the original intent of the character..

Absolutely, the show is grounded in science. Problem is, it's bad science at best, outright pseudo-science at worst. To invert one of Clarke's Laws, any sufficiently bad science is indistinguishable from fantasy. A "counter-earth" on the other side of the sun? Nonsense. The Fourth Doctor's explanation of dimensional transcendence to Leela? Pure gobbledygook. Travelling backwards in time? Not, as far as anybody can figure out, actually possible. What's left? A staggering array of cheap bug-eyed monsters, rock quarries standing in for alien planets, and endless chases through studio corridors to pad out the running time. Oh yes - and also improbable amounts of ingenuity and creativity devoted to the service of a show about an absurdly clever and tirelessly compassionate character. No, I don't see any inconsistency between Moffat's vision of the show and the parts of the show I like best, not at all.

Changing the mythology? The mythology of the show is self-altering. I have a hard time differentiating between people complaining about Moffat ruining the story engine and the Lofficiers' review talking about how "The Deadly Assassin" was the WORST EPISODE EVER and completely destroyed the mythology of the show.

Doctor Who is an inconsistent show, sometimes maddeningly, sometimes gloriously. It has also, since the show's second episode, been about change. I have little patience for so-called "fans" who fail to recognize that basic reality underpinning the show's extremely nebulous story engine.
 
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