Very excited for "73 Yards" though I kinda bristle at the 'uncomplicated silliness' description for Space Babies/Devil's Chord, hahaha.
Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor |OT| Ncuti Stars (Season 1 debuts on May 10th/11th)
- Thread starter Dwebble
- Start date
- Video/Streaming OT
I mean, let's be honest, the first season of Broadchurch is good, inasmuch as its a fairly standard murder mystery. S2 and 3 (and David Tennant's questionable accent in that American remake) aren't nearly as successful.
Well 3 if you include the stupid episode with the singing goblins.
But if you think about how the show was handled during Classic Who surely anyone should be able to take over as show runner even if they haven't had any experience writing for Doctor Who before.
I'm not concerned with a potential next showrunner, I want more years of RTD first. But I do agree that I wish there were more episodes written by other people. They were a big part of what made the show good before. RTD is great as showrunner but I don't want that particular flavor every week. I know the episode count had to get cut for budget reasons but I really wish we had at least 10 episodes, with two more episodes by other writers.
I find it funny that people take such offense at the singing goblins. I personally found the whole thing charming.
So far I think the season has been good but not great. Almost every episode has been "That was a really good episode except for X"
Devil's Chord: That was a really good episode except for the dumb musical number at the end
Boom: That was a really good episode except for the aggressively stupid little girl.
Space Babies (breaks the mold a bit): The was an okay episode but I really enjoyed the interactions between Gatwa and Millie.
I agree with whoever upthread said that it would have been better to have run the show in January. I think Space Babies suffers as a first episode, which you'd want to be really strong, but I think I'd have been more charitable towards it as a second episode.
So far I think the season has been good but not great. Almost every episode has been "That was a really good episode except for X"
Devil's Chord: That was a really good episode except for the dumb musical number at the end
Boom: That was a really good episode except for the aggressively stupid little girl.
Space Babies (breaks the mold a bit): The was an okay episode but I really enjoyed the interactions between Gatwa and Millie.
I agree with whoever upthread said that it would have been better to have run the show in January. I think Space Babies suffers as a first episode, which you'd want to be really strong, but I think I'd have been more charitable towards it as a second episode.
Last edited:
Broadchurch season 2 made me so unbelievably upset.
Nothing is worse than when a mystery show spends a whole season wrapping up a mystery in a thoughtful, satisfying way, only for the beginning of the next season to be like "LOL NO ACTUALLY SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED". What a stab in the back.
Honestly while I really liked Boom, I feel like this episode just happened too early. I wish it was just mostly between The Doctor and Ruby within all the unnecessary noise from the side characters in this story.
If Moffat could make Heaven Sent work that only had Capaldi in it (and work it did, I still think it's one of the best episodes of not just Doctor Who, but television ever), he could have make Boom work with only Ruby and The Doctor.
If Moffat could make Heaven Sent work that only had Capaldi in it (and work it did, I still think it's one of the best episodes of not just Doctor Who, but television ever), he could have make Boom work with only Ruby and The Doctor.
OP
OP
It simply doesn't work that way any more - that was representative of a whole system of making drama that the BBC used to use that's been defunct for decades. You don't have staff producers being rotated between BBC shows any more.
I think chances are RTD's successor has probably already written for the show, tbh. It is important they nurture new writers in this era, but realistically, it'd probably end up being somebody like Toby Whithouse, Jamie Mathieson, Peter Harness... these are people that have written as many episodes as Moffat had when he took over. They're all 10+ years younger than Moff/RTD as well.
tbh Toby Whithouse would've been my choice over Chibnall, and the show probably would've been better off had that been the case
tbh Toby Whithouse would've been my choice over Chibnall, and the show probably would've been better off had that been the case
OP
OP
Think it's worth noting that Doctor Who credits aren't necessarily the rubric that the BBC will be using to decide who'll be taking over, mind - experience running high-end drama is far more important. The writers who've done that and who'd be interested in running Doctor Who have generally already written for it, but it's not a pre-requisite - before they brought RTD back on board, they tried very hard to get Sally Wainwright to run the show, but she wasn't interested.
Like, Jamie Mathieson wrote some excellent Capaldi stories, but he has absolutely no experience in running a show anywhere near the size, scale and importance of something like Doctor Who - would the BBC really hand the keys of the kingdom over to someone like that?
I do think that Harness is a substantially better candidate now than he was the last time the decision was made, what with Constellation and all, but I don't think any of the other modern series writers are in the ascendency enough to be an attractive choice - Gatiss is maybe the only exception, and he's made it clear he's got no interest.
I don't know - I liked Being Human just fine back in the day, but he was pretty palpably running out of Doctor Who juice by the time of Under the Lake, and I don't think he'd have emulated the positive aspects of the Chibnall era (casting Jodie, widening diversity in front of and behind the camera) in the least.
He flubbed the audition, though (his show The Game flopped), whereas Chibnall had just turned out one of British drama's biggest hits of the millennium - absolutely no way anyone in charge would have gone for Whithouse, Who bona fides be damned.
OP
OP
A lot of it depends on how much choice the BBC have versus Bad Wolf if it stays in their hands, but a situation I can see tbh is a world where the show has a new 'lead writer' who sets the course but you have an RTD or Moffat figure as exec producer, alongside Gardner. Similar, really, to the role RTD undertook on Torchwood. I think there's a strong chance that, if the Disney stuff works, when RTD decides to step away from that job the entire setup ends up a bit different to anything before. That's a bit closer to the 'Marvel Model' in a way anyway...
Having recently caught up on Who I wanted to just drop some quick impressions and feelings about what I've watched the last little while. I fell off the Chibnall run uhh somewhere, I tried watching Flux and thought the first episode was fantastic, I got bored to tears in the second episode, and if I watched the third one I genuinely don't remember it.
David Tennant Specials:
Awesome! Tennant is my least favorite NuWho Doctor (probably sadly Jodie Whitaker now, though it isn't her fault) but Tate as Donna Noble is one of my absolute favorite companions in the series run. It was quite funny because as a teenager you probably couldn't find an actress I disliked more than Catherine Tate, but her time on Doctor Who completely flipped my opinion. I thought each episode was on the whole great, but that each one had a pretty lackluster ending.
Christmas Special:
Loved it. I didn't realize until the end of the third special that it was going to be starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor so it was a great surprise to me. I had seen the picture of the bigeneration but assumed Gatwa would like "go back" until Tennant was mortally wounded or whatever. Anyway I loved Ruby Sunday and I very much jive with the mystery girl angle, I found Gatwa to be confident, hilarious, charming, and immediately rocketing into my pantheon of top tier Doctors. I thought the Goblin story was very fun, the musical numbers cracked me up, and I think D+ branding it as episode 1 of the new season makes a lot of sense because otherwise you just completely miss the introduction to the new Doctor and Companion dynamic. I was pretty iffy and icky on NPH being here, but I can't deny I had fun with him by the end of it. The ending was kind of lackluster though.
Space Babies:
I thought it was pretty good! Obviously got shades of Rose's first adventure in it, I liked seeing more of this Doctor being quite abrasive and rough around the edges, but still in his very charming way that demonstrates his softness. I thought it was very sweet how much he wanted to save the Bogeyman who was a pretty well designed plot element to the story and the overarching "mythical" agenda of the season. I liked how explicitly it tore into the anti-abortion shits and look forward to talking to my brother about it, because while he doesn't know anything about Who he's convinced it is an awful show because of a YouTube video he's seen on Kill The Moon being aligned with those values. I would like him to see the scene about the forced baby making only to let them die and see if he still thinks this show promotes conservative rhetoric ha. Decent enough episode, I think it feels fine as an episode 2 but kind of awful as an episode 1, so again I agree with D+s choice.
The Devil's Chord:
Mostly great, in NO small part due to the absolute scenery chewing fantastic portrayal by Jinkx, who immediately became one of my favorite Who villains. I thought it was very fun throughout, though it felt much more rushed than even the Toymaker episode and there was far too little time for repercussions or the mavity of the situation to sink in. Still very very good and one I could see myself rewatching a lot. I see a lot of people are bothered by the musical number but I thought it was very fun.
Boom:
Another mostly great episode, though it was also kind of filled with smaller annoyances for me. The premise is fantastic and the scathing remains about capitalism are so good. The Mundy/Dude Whose Name I've Already Forgotten romance story was bad, and the death was laughably bad. The kid was annoying. The ending was, yet again, way too quickly and cleanly resolved. I know the kid had a weirdly good attitude to her dad dying but dancing and fist bumping the Doctor felt extremely inappropriate, and the episode ending with a bunch of strangers hugging just had me going ?????? I really liked how the stakes kept building in the episode. It's interesting that there's been this theme of the Doctor not being the most powerful entity in the room this season, counting from Toymaker, the new language of Goblins and magic, the unknowable and unfathomable Bogeyman, Maestro, and then... a mine? It's not so much a criticism of the episode itself but within the context of these other threats that 15 has had to deal with, it didn't fit in right. It's weird that he's familiar with this technology but only as something that he wasn't able to beat before (and indeed, he doesn't beat it this time either), and I don't really love that. I think the same episode with any other Doctor, or even this Doctor but further removed from the current seasons theming, would have left me feeling higher on it. It's so much fun to see how much 15 emotes and fears and is so sincere about everything though, so it is a standout episode for Gatwa to demonstrate his Doctor.
So overall thoughts... It's not perfect, but Doctor Who is back! And it's not like Doctor Who has ever been perfect, and honestly with my favorite runs being from Moffat, I'm very pleased at how familiar this run feels to his instead of, well, RTDs. I'm just so so glad to be excited about Doctor Who again after Chibnall tried to kill my interest in it. It's kind of concerning that I think most episodes have had a weak ending, I mean the best one for me is the spaceship farting which is uh... yeah. Hopefully at some points they can reach a resolution with a bit better pacing, because it feels like every episode is ramping up the tension to the last 5 minutes before going "oh fuck this is almost over, uhhh, the Doctors play catch and the Toymaker drops the ball, the end." or "oh fuck this is almost over, uhhh, remember seeing the Beatles earlier? They play the chord out in the hall and Maestro vanishes." or "oh fuck this is almost over, uhhh, the ghost AI uh they just save everyone and stop everything bad, the end, everybody is happy suddenly despite the two people that just died."
David Tennant Specials:
Awesome! Tennant is my least favorite NuWho Doctor (probably sadly Jodie Whitaker now, though it isn't her fault) but Tate as Donna Noble is one of my absolute favorite companions in the series run. It was quite funny because as a teenager you probably couldn't find an actress I disliked more than Catherine Tate, but her time on Doctor Who completely flipped my opinion. I thought each episode was on the whole great, but that each one had a pretty lackluster ending.
Christmas Special:
Loved it. I didn't realize until the end of the third special that it was going to be starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor so it was a great surprise to me. I had seen the picture of the bigeneration but assumed Gatwa would like "go back" until Tennant was mortally wounded or whatever. Anyway I loved Ruby Sunday and I very much jive with the mystery girl angle, I found Gatwa to be confident, hilarious, charming, and immediately rocketing into my pantheon of top tier Doctors. I thought the Goblin story was very fun, the musical numbers cracked me up, and I think D+ branding it as episode 1 of the new season makes a lot of sense because otherwise you just completely miss the introduction to the new Doctor and Companion dynamic. I was pretty iffy and icky on NPH being here, but I can't deny I had fun with him by the end of it. The ending was kind of lackluster though.
Space Babies:
I thought it was pretty good! Obviously got shades of Rose's first adventure in it, I liked seeing more of this Doctor being quite abrasive and rough around the edges, but still in his very charming way that demonstrates his softness. I thought it was very sweet how much he wanted to save the Bogeyman who was a pretty well designed plot element to the story and the overarching "mythical" agenda of the season. I liked how explicitly it tore into the anti-abortion shits and look forward to talking to my brother about it, because while he doesn't know anything about Who he's convinced it is an awful show because of a YouTube video he's seen on Kill The Moon being aligned with those values. I would like him to see the scene about the forced baby making only to let them die and see if he still thinks this show promotes conservative rhetoric ha. Decent enough episode, I think it feels fine as an episode 2 but kind of awful as an episode 1, so again I agree with D+s choice.
The Devil's Chord:
Mostly great, in NO small part due to the absolute scenery chewing fantastic portrayal by Jinkx, who immediately became one of my favorite Who villains. I thought it was very fun throughout, though it felt much more rushed than even the Toymaker episode and there was far too little time for repercussions or the mavity of the situation to sink in. Still very very good and one I could see myself rewatching a lot. I see a lot of people are bothered by the musical number but I thought it was very fun.
Boom:
Another mostly great episode, though it was also kind of filled with smaller annoyances for me. The premise is fantastic and the scathing remains about capitalism are so good. The Mundy/Dude Whose Name I've Already Forgotten romance story was bad, and the death was laughably bad. The kid was annoying. The ending was, yet again, way too quickly and cleanly resolved. I know the kid had a weirdly good attitude to her dad dying but dancing and fist bumping the Doctor felt extremely inappropriate, and the episode ending with a bunch of strangers hugging just had me going ?????? I really liked how the stakes kept building in the episode. It's interesting that there's been this theme of the Doctor not being the most powerful entity in the room this season, counting from Toymaker, the new language of Goblins and magic, the unknowable and unfathomable Bogeyman, Maestro, and then... a mine? It's not so much a criticism of the episode itself but within the context of these other threats that 15 has had to deal with, it didn't fit in right. It's weird that he's familiar with this technology but only as something that he wasn't able to beat before (and indeed, he doesn't beat it this time either), and I don't really love that. I think the same episode with any other Doctor, or even this Doctor but further removed from the current seasons theming, would have left me feeling higher on it. It's so much fun to see how much 15 emotes and fears and is so sincere about everything though, so it is a standout episode for Gatwa to demonstrate his Doctor.
So overall thoughts... It's not perfect, but Doctor Who is back! And it's not like Doctor Who has ever been perfect, and honestly with my favorite runs being from Moffat, I'm very pleased at how familiar this run feels to his instead of, well, RTDs. I'm just so so glad to be excited about Doctor Who again after Chibnall tried to kill my interest in it. It's kind of concerning that I think most episodes have had a weak ending, I mean the best one for me is the spaceship farting which is uh... yeah. Hopefully at some points they can reach a resolution with a bit better pacing, because it feels like every episode is ramping up the tension to the last 5 minutes before going "oh fuck this is almost over, uhhh, the Doctors play catch and the Toymaker drops the ball, the end." or "oh fuck this is almost over, uhhh, remember seeing the Beatles earlier? They play the chord out in the hall and Maestro vanishes." or "oh fuck this is almost over, uhhh, the ghost AI uh they just save everyone and stop everything bad, the end, everybody is happy suddenly despite the two people that just died."
Peter Harness wrote some great character drama and dialogue in Kill the Moon and Zygon Inversion, but my god do not let that guy showrun a sci-fi series. The actual plot of Kill the Moon was embarrassing, as was all the UNIT soldiers putting down their guns and walking into the most obvious trap of all time in Zygon Invasion.
It's kinda depressing people are talking about the next showrunner only halfway into RTD's first one on the return. By all rights we could be getting another five years of RTD. Think we're jumping the gun a bit here with this talk. I know it's too late to impact S2 but I do hope for S3 they add more guest writers. I think it's important. Looking at the first RTD era, that variety in writers helped a lot.
DOCTOR WHO
Directed by Nicholas Briggs
Written by Nicholas Briggs
Staring Nicholas Briggs as 'The Doctor'
And Nicholas Briggs as 'The Daleks'
Also Nicholas Briggs as 'The Cybermen'
Introducing Nicholas Briggs as 'Nick, the Best Companion'
A Nicholas Briggs Production
I do hope that RTD sticks with Ncuti Gatwa and we get a 4/5 season run with 8 episodes.I think it's very possible Ncuti will be in the role for 5-6 years
I think this about every Doctor and it's never true.
I really hope Ncuti's breaks the 3 season/year rule as the Doctor and NO, not by being just a 2 season Doctor
Same,I get the impression that Ncuti wants to stay around for a while and I think will end up leaving when RTD leaves
Got to say that upon reflection I liked The Devils Cord better than Boom by a pretty wide margin. If nothing else because it actually seemed to do something with the characters and the seasonal motive. I'm not against episode of the week things but Boom felt very "safe", I knew no one important was going to die and so I wasn't invested.
I don't think it's about wishing RTD would leave or anything else, but I think a different, new, uncertain situation is interesting, and thereby naturally it generates discussion.
Specifically... Moffat is 62, RTD is 61 -- if this new era runs for 5 or 6 years it's unlikely either will ever return again to run the show as that's a really full-on job as people get older. Second, Doctor Who has never been in a co-production arrangement like this before - not specifically with Disney+, but where the control of the brand is largely out of the BBC's hands and now sits with Bad Wolf - which will change how they think about showrunners. It's not about wishing RTD would leave (he's my fave), but just about being interested in speculating abt what the future holds.
People did the same as early as the end of series 1 in 2005; what happens if RTD leaves? The difference is back then, everybody had a pretty much universal answer all along and it was exactly the one that came to pass. This time, not so yet. But maybe Herron will give us that "Doctor Dances" moment & everyone will end up saying it's her...!
I do think RTD is in for the long haul and will be doing this for the next 5 years at least though. The way he talks makes clear. He's talked about plans in his head for episodes in season 4, so he's got designs on at least another 2 seasons of the main show (without considering any spin-offs etc) already.
OP
OP
She's directing big Hollywood movies nowadays - I'd be surprised if Who could get her.
OP
OP
It's a sign of the times that Space Babies got the same weekly chart position as The Doctor's Daughter, broadcast on the same week 16 years previously.
The Doctor's Daughter got 7.3 million viewers, Space Babies got 4.0 million.
Whole different ball game nowadays!
The Doctor's Daughter got 7.3 million viewers, Space Babies got 4.0 million.
Whole different ball game nowadays!
The showrunner is obviously incredibly important but one of the issues with the Chibnall era is that none of his writing staff stepped up either. There was no Moffat to pull an amazing episode out of nowhere and that created a situation where there was also no clear successor.
I like Moffat more than RTdD and glad he is back but I also think RTD would be smart to heavily push young talented writers as much as possible.
I like Moffat more than RTdD and glad he is back but I also think RTD would be smart to heavily push young talented writers as much as possible.
OP
OP
This is Vinay Patel erasure, and I won't have it.
Of course, if you believe the rumours, the experience of writing Fugitive of the Judoon put him off writing for the show ever again, but never mind...
It's a real double-edged sword. Chibnall brought in a lot of new writers for the show and tried to push things in different directions for the first time since 2005. Which was great and exactly what the show needed (and still does) but none of the people had experience with the show before. So it meant that Chibnall, who was already a much slower writer that Davies or Moffat, was spread too thin.
The show desperately needs new blood and a new creative direction, but that's all easier said than done.
OP
OP
Davies has been making encouraging noises about having a more diverse writing staff onboard for series 2 now that they've got their processes down, and I imagine that any spin-offs will be used as a test-bed for new talent like they were last time too, so I guess we'll see what they've got up their sleeves.
He also doesn't need to work from scratch. They've already brought back directors from the Moffat and Chibnall eras, I'd love to see that extended to writers as well. There's people from both of those eras I'd love to see write more for the show.
I'm surprised he never ended up writing under Chibnall considering how much he loves Thirteen. Other than the short story he did during Covid.
They weren't all-time greats or anything, but Vinay Patel (Demons of the Punjab, Fugitive of the Judoon), Maxine Alderton (The Haunting of Villa Diodati, Village of the Angels), and Nina Metivier (Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror) all turned in some pretty solid scripts under Chibnall. I wouldn't mind seeing any of them come back.
I know who a few of the writers are and it is indeed diverse as fuck. A few first time writers, which I like—anything that gets people tv credits.
Finally caught up with the episodes in this season.
My thoughts so far: I'm annoyed at the series losing 1/3 of its episodes (from 12 to 8), it's had a pretty obvious negative effect on the pacing of the whole thing. "The Devil's Chord" was a very good episode, but some of it felt unearned due to being so early in the season. Had this been episode 4 or 5, lines like "you never hide" would've felt more organic. The same goes for Ruby and the Doctor's relationship: they're great together, but it feels like they've gotten really close way too fast, which again feels unearned.
"Space Babies" was fine. Very silly and childish, and I hope that's not the tone for the entire series (seems like it won't be), but also not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
"Boom" was a mess, wtf are y'all smoking?
That's basically how most of Moffat's scripts have been since "Silence in The Library"/"Forest of the Dead" (with the exception of season 9 ig). Annoying character dynamics (the romance subplot that doesn't add anything to the story), characters that don't act like real human beings, some of the most insufferable dialogue put to paper, very little substance. It's a Moffat episode alright.
My thoughts so far: I'm annoyed at the series losing 1/3 of its episodes (from 12 to 8), it's had a pretty obvious negative effect on the pacing of the whole thing. "The Devil's Chord" was a very good episode, but some of it felt unearned due to being so early in the season. Had this been episode 4 or 5, lines like "you never hide" would've felt more organic. The same goes for Ruby and the Doctor's relationship: they're great together, but it feels like they've gotten really close way too fast, which again feels unearned.
"Space Babies" was fine. Very silly and childish, and I hope that's not the tone for the entire series (seems like it won't be), but also not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
"Boom" was a mess, wtf are y'all smoking?
That's basically how most of Moffat's scripts have been since "Silence in The Library"/"Forest of the Dead" (with the exception of season 9 ig). Annoying character dynamics (the romance subplot that doesn't add anything to the story), characters that don't act like real human beings, some of the most insufferable dialogue put to paper, very little substance. It's a Moffat episode alright.
I'm still holding onto my theory that The Devil's Chord was meant to be an episode later in the season. We jump from December to June, Ruby knows the Doctor well enough to say things like "you never run", and production-wise this is the only episode out of place with it's block shooting, the other episode directed by Ben Chessell being Episode 6. All other episodes are in the proper pairs with their directors.
I'm willing to admit I'm probably wrong but I'm going to hold onto this theory until it's proven wrong in some way. Boom, as far as I'm aware, contained one bit of evidence for it and one bit of evidence against it. For it, when the snow starts falling the Doctor says something like "this has happened before", the way he says it to me sounds like he's only seen it happen ONCE before, which would work if Boom was meant to be before The Devil's Chord originally. I feel like after Devil's Chord he should be more familiar with this snow thing. However, against the theory, Boom further implements weird date stuff with it now apparently being, what was it, October? One could argue that doesn't mean it's October for Ruby, but either way this hurts the December to June jump point a little bit.