Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor |OT| Ncuti Stars (Season 1 debuts on May 10th/11th)
- Thread starter Dwebble
- Start date
- Video/Streaming OT
We started blabbing everything at midnight UK time, so don't look in here if you're waiting for the broadcast.
It's like I said earlier, it's certain angles. Sometimes Millie looks a LOT like Jenna and sometimes she doesn't look like her at all. Intuitively I know they have pretty different faces, so I really think it's the haircut.
That said, they do have some commonalities in terms of generally being a very confident, self-assured, "down for things" companion this early in their runs, and the fact that we are revisiting the Impossible Girl idea again makes those commonalities feel grander than they probably would be otherwise.
Their haircuts are very different outside of being a similar length.
Any Clara comparison revolves entirely around the mystery girl plot.
Nah, for me at least, even as far back as Ruby Road I kept being like "why does this character remind me of Clara" before the impossible girl stuff started to factor into it. There are even some promo shots where my brain was drawing connections between Millie and Jenna even though I know they look quite different normally.
Now that the Doctor has literally stolen her DNA and done a genetic scan on her without her knowledge that bell is ringing louder than it did back at Christmas, but it's never really stopped ringing.
Same, I really don't see it.
Its literally just they both have short hair.
If I'm wrong about this and they do turn out to be the same person, I will eat a very large, particularly indigestible hat.
Oh, don't worry, I don't think they're the same person even a little bit. They're clearly very different people, it's just a weird character echo I can't get out of my brain!
It's the way Millie Gibson delivers her lines to me. The energy. Her and Jenna both feel like they're performing a character half the time instead of inhabiting it. Which feels new to an RTD companion to me. Rose and Martha and Donna all felt much more like actual people right away.
I think that feeling is mostly because Billie was frankly a pretty bad actress in her first season, so her performance felt more "raw". She was coming into the show fresh out of her pop music career and her lack of experience had this kind of unrefined spark to it in that first Eccleston season that UK drama schools usually burn out of a student. By comparison, Jenna was several orders of magnitude more talented (and experienced) than Billie was in her early days, which gave Clara more of a feel of "prestige actress DOING Doctor Who".
All that being said, I still maintain that Coleman is the best overall actress we've had play a companion in New Who. That's not to say all of the others are bad - far from it, I've always been a fan of Donna and Bill - but Jenna is basically the one time in the show's history since it came back in 2010 where the companion actress matched and sometimes exceeded the performance level of the current Doctor.
It does feel really Moffat like as a plot point. A mysterious woman, and she is the center of the season long plot.
It's very Moffat's go to style.
I can see how Ruby can be similar looking - pretty short, same hairstyles, round faces, big eyes (though you can't beat Jenna in that).
I thought Space Babies had some good moments in the middle of a very silly premise but my dad was not impressed.
I think there are going to be a lot of 60+ year old long term Dr Who fans who will be annoyed and confused by the new series but that is to be expected. I'm hoping the show can win him back.
The second episode was good but don't they need to go back to 1925 to stop the maestro from emerging in the first place? Or do we just accept that there was no music in the world from 1925-1963?
My dad enjoyed this more and was warming up to our new Doctor until they ran away again at the first sign of the Maestro, just like in Space Babies. Then the music number at the end put him right off.
I'll update in the future. Hopefully the show has been well received by the younger audience.
I think there are going to be a lot of 60+ year old long term Dr Who fans who will be annoyed and confused by the new series but that is to be expected. I'm hoping the show can win him back.
The second episode was good but don't they need to go back to 1925 to stop the maestro from emerging in the first place? Or do we just accept that there was no music in the world from 1925-1963?
My dad enjoyed this more and was warming up to our new Doctor until they ran away again at the first sign of the Maestro, just like in Space Babies. Then the music number at the end put him right off.
I'll update in the future. Hopefully the show has been well received by the younger audience.
I think they needed to do a better job of showing THE AUDIENCE why Maestro is dangerous. Anyone who watched The Giggle knows that the Toymaker is literally a god and can irreversibly turn people into inanimate objects as easily as blinking. If they, for example, kept some of the support staff on the studio roof and Maestro killed them all right in front of the viewer and THEN the Doctor ran it would be much easier for people to accept why this was a good reason for them to bail.
Instead they're basically counting on everybody remembering the Giggle and why it's a VERY clear and present threat, and brand new viewers might not.
I was reading RogerEbert.com's review of the first two episodes.
Their big takeaway from the first two episodes: Disney's version of "Doctor Who" is aiming for much, much younger children, than previous BBC seasons of Doctor Who. That's why the past three episodes (including the Christmas special) have leaned hard on musical numbers, goblins, babies, etc.
It's worth mentioning: Most critics have only seen the first two episodes. They haven't seen the rest of Ncuti's season.
All of the glowing positive reviews for this Ncuti season are based on "Space Babies" and "Devil's Chord".
From what I can gather, I'm not sure if any critics have seen Moffat's Boom episode yet? (Episode 3)
Their big takeaway from the first two episodes: Disney's version of "Doctor Who" is aiming for much, much younger children, than previous BBC seasons of Doctor Who. That's why the past three episodes (including the Christmas special) have leaned hard on musical numbers, goblins, babies, etc.
It's worth mentioning: Most critics have only seen the first two episodes. They haven't seen the rest of Ncuti's season.
All of the glowing positive reviews for this Ncuti season are based on "Space Babies" and "Devil's Chord".
From what I can gather, I'm not sure if any critics have seen Moffat's Boom episode yet? (Episode 3)
I can see this. My seven year old daughter is hooked, although she liked space babies more of course. But she kept going "I need the next episode now!" after the Devil's Chord finished.
Yeah, they really needed to do a little more legwork in the script to expose why Maestro is so dangerous and how we arrived at the resolution that everything is seemingly back to normal. I also am worried that the new "fantasy is real" stuff is the direction for the series going forward, as they had the Doctor mention that he had to go too far to beat the Toymaker but not anything about how the fantasy elements are all wrong. I prefer my Who to be not necessarily hard sci-fi, but at least sciencey.
And I have to say I'm not a fan of the multiple incidents of fourth wall breaking so far, including the dance number. It's not something the series has never had before, mind you—even the classic series did it here and there—but not so frequent, blatant, and in your face. It definitely seems to be aiming at a much younger audience.
I couldn't help noticing that all these years after the complaints about the Slitheen and their fart gags, RTD made a giant fart part of the resolution for Space Babies.
Caught up now. Episode 1 was pretty fine, I think it maybe leaned into the sillier side of the show a bit too much, but I get what they were going for overall. Decent idea with middling execution for me.
Episode 2 was a lot stronger, up until the last 3 minutes. I'm really praying this is the last dedicated musical number of the season because I wasn't a huge fan of both this and the Goblin song for the Christmas ep. Other than that Jinkx really stole the show, loved the aesthetic of the episode (and thought the CGI work on the post-apocalyptic London was particularly great).
Curious where we're going with this season given it's already a quarter done.
Episode 2 was a lot stronger, up until the last 3 minutes. I'm really praying this is the last dedicated musical number of the season because I wasn't a huge fan of both this and the Goblin song for the Christmas ep. Other than that Jinkx really stole the show, loved the aesthetic of the episode (and thought the CGI work on the post-apocalyptic London was particularly great).
Curious where we're going with this season given it's already a quarter done.
I dunno, more than most other Christmas Specials, it's looking like this one might matter a *lot* for continuity going forwards.
Other things the script didn't adequately explain in The Devil's Chord: Why EMI Studios is still open 30 years after all the music was stolen, and why there are still young musicians who didn't grow up with music recording bad music, what it is they're trying to "finish" by recording that bad music, and why they're disgusted by the very idea of good music. The script seems to think just saying "Maestro took all the music" is adequate to explain all that, but it's kind of not.
I get not wanting to overload your audience with exposition as Who has been wont to do in the past, but there's such a thing as going too far with it.
I did enjoy that they kind of did a reprise of the scene from Pyramids of Mars where Sarah Jane insists that the future is safe because she comes from it, and is given a rude awakening.
I get not wanting to overload your audience with exposition as Who has been wont to do in the past, but there's such a thing as going too far with it.
I did enjoy that they kind of did a reprise of the scene from Pyramids of Mars where Sarah Jane insists that the future is safe because she comes from it, and is given a rude awakening.
Last edited:
So finally watched the first episode of this season.
I would rather watch a 5 part "epic" about the Slitheen and the Abzorbaloff teaming up to turn the moon into an egg than ever watch that episode again.
I would rather watch a 5 part "epic" about the Slitheen and the Abzorbaloff teaming up to turn the moon into an egg than ever watch that episode again.
The only explanation I can really click with is the idea that time was still in flux at the time the Doctor arrived and things were still "correcting" around Maestro's alteration of the timestream. Like the outer edges of a lake after a rock gets dropped into the middle - the waves haven't quite reached yet.
But the episode doesn't say that, so it's just my brain trying to fill in gaps with logic.
Right, that's my issue. It feels like the writing isn't all that concerned with coherence. Some things are fine to let an audience fill in the gaps in on their own, but not your major plot points. You've got to do the legwork in the script to make your story make sense; otherwise the whole thing becomes vaguely impressionistic. Maybe that's what they're going for; I don't know.
They said music is childish, so I guess it's being recorded for children?
Sure, maybe! We're left to piece it out for ourselves.
I think they mention that they're recording children's songs to make some money before leaving to do a different career. Just making some ends meet.
And why are children's songs still a thing? Surely Maestro would've taken those as well.
I think it is more that when the Beetles are doing those children's songs, they are not really doing it from their hearts, which is what Maestro is really looking for. They are slowly sucking that away from this world before it reaches a breaking point of destruction.
It seems clear to me that Maestro was only taking good music. Anything that could soothe, inspire, connect, etc was what they were after. Their entire plan hinged on the universe going mad from a lack of heartfelt music, what The Beatles were playing would do nothing to interfere with the plan.
Space Babies actually felt like RTD holding back on the silliness.
He can and has gone weirder.
He can and has gone weirder.
I hate to say it...but I think 3 might be the make it or break it episode for me. If I don't enjoy this one I'll be walking away from Who for a bit....again :/
I wasn't really excited for Davies' return, and these 2 episodes really cemented my fears. Sorry Gatwa, you deserve better.
I wasn't really excited for Davies' return, and these 2 episodes really cemented my fears. Sorry Gatwa, you deserve better.
I liked both episodes. 99% because watching Ncuti is so fucking fun. If he's having a blast, I'm having a blast. There's definitely stuff in there that I get might not get everyone, like the song at the end of the second ep did nothing for me personally, but I enjoy that they've got the confidence to just go for weird shit like that and even if preferentially I don't care for it, they did it well.
The Devil's Chord is certainly the better episode, but it's Space Babies that made me feel better about the future of the show weirdly enough, and it's exactly because it feels like a series 2 middle-of-the-road episode.
One of my favorite qualities about those original RTD series is that, at least to me, every episode was worth watching no matter what. Even when the plot is a miss, or when the worse tendencies of RTD is on full display.. the sheer swag, the characterisation, the fun factor, the spectacle of it always guarantee a very solid bare minimum to the fun factor. Always a joy to watch in a way. That's how Space Babies felt to me, despite being the exact kind of episode I thought Russel was over making anymore.
One of my favorite qualities about those original RTD series is that, at least to me, every episode was worth watching no matter what. Even when the plot is a miss, or when the worse tendencies of RTD is on full display.. the sheer swag, the characterisation, the fun factor, the spectacle of it always guarantee a very solid bare minimum to the fun factor. Always a joy to watch in a way. That's how Space Babies felt to me, despite being the exact kind of episode I thought Russel was over making anymore.
I feel like we have completly swung in the opposite direction compared to the 13th's Doctor era which was mostly very serious at least for the first season
It's bonkers to make this assumption based off two episodes, tbh. Or even three if we're counting Christmas. There will inevitably be heavier episodes. Doctor Who is like this. This is a show that followed Blink & The Impossible Planet with Love & Monsters and Fear Her.
In our previous Who thread I was behind and playing catch up with Whittaker's seasons. I'm surprised and not surprised to see I finished season 13 and didn't write a single thing about it. I swear I ha on at least the first few episodes. The first few episodes of The Flux were some of my favorite Doctor Who with promising villains, and new side characters I really loved. Vinder and Bel especially....But wow. The way it all wrapped was so bad that I lost any ounce of will to even come and complain about it. And now it's been months that I've forgotten most of it. I am surprised again and again at how great of a job Doctor Who can be at signing a check for mysteries and villains it can't cash out in any meaningful way.
All that to say I started the first of the 3 Tennant specials! I was never a huge fan of Tennant, but I'm really enjoying him here so far. When I started Who eons ago, I was sad it wasn't more dark and serious. And now I'm older and embracing the hell out of the corniness and silliness that is Who. I love it all, and everytime I restart Who I think to myself, "I missed this." Just a relaxing breaht of fresh air. Just please don't let me down again.
Can't wait to catch up and jump into the new season. It'll be the first time I'm actually caught up and able to discuss the week-to-week fun with everyone.
All that to say I started the first of the 3 Tennant specials! I was never a huge fan of Tennant, but I'm really enjoying him here so far. When I started Who eons ago, I was sad it wasn't more dark and serious. And now I'm older and embracing the hell out of the corniness and silliness that is Who. I love it all, and everytime I restart Who I think to myself, "I missed this." Just a relaxing breaht of fresh air. Just please don't let me down again.
Can't wait to catch up and jump into the new season. It'll be the first time I'm actually caught up and able to discuss the week-to-week fun with everyone.
100% Doctor Who has tonally shifted all over the place especially in the modern era. The Devil's Chord whilst being quite OTT in places at the centre of it was quite serious. RTD's Doctor Who seasons are always like this.
Steven Moffat wrote the next episode and from the interviews about it it's Ncuti's favorite
And one last comment about Whittaker-era. Is Dan the worst companion ever? I think so. At least in New Who. I'm not familiar enough with the classics. Just a boring cardboard box, and I can't figure out why he was brought in.
God no. Not when turlough existed, New Who maybe yes.
Guy looked like a budget Hugh Grant and it always bugged me.
I'm one of the few people who liked Dan, it's funny how much the Doctor doesn't give a shit about him, he comes off feeling more like Yaz's companion not the Doctors
Also Dan brought us the evil Dan memes, which became WAYYY too overdone, was funny initially
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HvcECaE6k
Also Dan brought us the evil Dan memes, which became WAYYY too overdone, was funny initially
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HvcECaE6k