Man some pepole are being insufferable about the overnight ratings on twitter, its almost like pepole are completly ignoring the context in which the 2 episodes came out
Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor |OT| Ncuti Stars (Season 1 debuts on May 10th/11th)
- Thread starter Dwebble
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Turlough is fabulous. Adric is the worst classic companion. An awful character and a terrible actor.
Peri is the most misused companion. A good actor who never got to do anything except scream or be confused, while being constantly abused and belittled by the Doctor. She got something interesting to do in her final scene, when she wasn't even Peri anymore.
Russel T. Davies is the most inconsistent writer I've ever seen. That's why I never understood all of the Steven Moffatt hate and all of the love for Russel T. Davies.
RTD is good at writing season finale episodes like "The Parting of Ways", "Doomsday" and "Journey's End". That's one thing I'll give him credit on. He has a history of writing good season finale episodes for Doctor Who.
But when you ask RTD to write episodes that aren't "season finale" episodes, the quality of his work can be pretty damn inconsistent.
Tegan was worse than peri. Adric I hated the first time through but on a recent rewatch I actually thought he was decent.
It's almost as if they put it on a streaming platform beforehand
I think Part 5's era would have been better if it had better companions
The point is you can come up with all manner of your own explanations, but the episode didn't really give its own. Nothing in the episode says explicitly she was only taking "good" music.
Oh yeah definitely. I didn't really care for him either but better companions might have helped.
in this day and age tv ratings are useless given the myriad of ways to watch a show. For BBC shows the only rating that will matter is the +7 days+screen rating figure which takes into account iplayer.
The people complaining about the ratings are looking for clicks or are using a flawed methodology to confirm their biases.
In Maestro's first scene with Timothy they call him a genius and eat the "songs of his heart". Flash forward to '63 and no one has music in their hearts anymore and it isn't until the Doctor and Ruby start bringing that music back that Maestro reemerges into the world. During the climax Maestro flat out says that Ruby is the last human with a song in her heart.
You don't have to spell out every little detail when the offers more than enough context.
We'll just have to agree to disagree that the script offered "more than enough context". For me, it left too much for the viewer to guess at from a narrative perspective. And like I said earlier, some things are fine to let a viewer fill in the blanks on, but major plot explanations aren't among those.
Man Tosin Cole gives me the biggest "I'm just here for my paycheck" energy throughout his time on the show
Now thems fightin words! But honestly, I don't think any of Whittaker's S11/S12 companions were great by themselves. As an ensemble though, they rank really high up for me.
I think the only thing keeping Ryan afloat was Graham being so goddamn charming. Ryan on his own was painful to watch.
Technically if we are counting the Tenant Specials, this is episode 6 (Probably why this season is 8 episodes to be honest, Add that Tenant Specials and that adds up to your standard 12 episode season order).
Furthermore we've even seen some of the Darker stuff possible with those Tenant specials as well. Remembering the freakish body proportions of the others in that second special.
They've said the series will be 8 episodes going forward because of the rising costs of production especially now they're releasing in 4K etc. The Anniversary Specials were budgeted separately.
I genuinely don't understand the love Davies gets, and why Moffat is so hated. 🤷 BUT that is the benefit of Who, we're lucky to have so much content there is something for everyone.
I think the thing for me is I think Davies is a fantastic showrunner in terms of marketing the show and presenting it and getting it out there into the world. But his episode to episode writing is rarely the thing I show up for, outside of the occasional surprise banger like Midnight.
Episode 2 was better than episode 1.
But when you start from 0 it's not hard.
The thing that annoys me so much about episode 2 is, it's an extremely good idea that is literally let down by the writing.
Is that perfect High concept science fiction story where the music died and thus humanity does bad things.
I even love that the "lost cord" was found by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
But the second that musical number at the end started, I was in the same place that I was during the first episode. "Just end!"
I'll stick around because campy Doctor Who is something I love.
But I'm not feeling it yet.
But when you start from 0 it's not hard.
The thing that annoys me so much about episode 2 is, it's an extremely good idea that is literally let down by the writing.
Is that perfect High concept science fiction story where the music died and thus humanity does bad things.
I even love that the "lost cord" was found by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
But the second that musical number at the end started, I was in the same place that I was during the first episode. "Just end!"
I'll stick around because campy Doctor Who is something I love.
But I'm not feeling it yet.
Nah, there's people who dislike it for far more valid reasons too.
I still think the Moffat era is the best era of Who. It was messy at times and often he'd write himself into a corner but I always enjoyed it.
The Space Babies felt like a doctor who episode. Devil's Chord was all over the place, brilliant and stupid at the same time. I don't have a problem with the silly song at the end, but the central concept of what music was gone and what still survived and why was incredibly poorly thought out so RTD could have his big moments.
I have never been a huge of fan of the 'Concepts are tangible objects' story idea that became part of new who. So while the musical staff and notation appearing on screen were a nice visual touch. The fake Beatles were awful. Was paul meant to be from Liverpool?
They were both fun episodes just with devil's chord being a bit more all over the place.
Also, I chuckled at the billboard referencing the band that Susan was listening to at the start of Unearthly Child.
Shows how much more interesting and fun Who is now compared to what Jodie Whittaker was often saddled with.
I have never been a huge of fan of the 'Concepts are tangible objects' story idea that became part of new who. So while the musical staff and notation appearing on screen were a nice visual touch. The fake Beatles were awful. Was paul meant to be from Liverpool?
They were both fun episodes just with devil's chord being a bit more all over the place.
Also, I chuckled at the billboard referencing the band that Susan was listening to at the start of Unearthly Child.
Shows how much more interesting and fun Who is now compared to what Jodie Whittaker was often saddled with.
I feel the same. Devils chord was way too wacky for me. The episode with talking babies was somehow more serious and enjoyable for me
I didn't mind the musical number, but hearing your complaint just puts into my mind...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_nPp64OrBc
You weren't compelled by his journey to learn to ride a bike?
I adore musical numbers but yes that was literally do that exactly MST3K moment.
Dan was 13's best companion tbh. They all had a problem of mostly being there just to state the obvious but at least Dan was funny sometimes. He was just added too late in Jodie's run to do much and they wrote him out in a hurry in Power of the Doctor to make way for Ace and Tegan.
My New Davies Era Ranking So Far:
1. The Giggle
2. Wild Blue Yonder
3. The Devil's Chord
4. The Church on Ruby Road
5. The Star Beast
6. Space Babies
The more I think about it the more I think Space Babies might be one of the worst episodes Davies has made. It's built on a bad premise and it somehow gets worse than the premise would suggest. Series 1 of the 2005 era had some rough episodes but even the Farting Aliens two parter had a lot of good character moments and world building. Here they just keep having the Doctor say "space babies" over and over again and that's kind of all it had, outside of booger and fart twists.
1. The Giggle
2. Wild Blue Yonder
3. The Devil's Chord
4. The Church on Ruby Road
5. The Star Beast
6. Space Babies
The more I think about it the more I think Space Babies might be one of the worst episodes Davies has made. It's built on a bad premise and it somehow gets worse than the premise would suggest. Series 1 of the 2005 era had some rough episodes but even the Farting Aliens two parter had a lot of good character moments and world building. Here they just keep having the Doctor say "space babies" over and over again and that's kind of all it had, outside of booger and fart twists.
So like,
The obvious set-up here is that the Doctor is part of the same group as the Toymaker and the Maestro, right? The reiterating of him being adopted plus him getting extremely unsettled by them is giving me those vibes.
The obvious set-up here is that the Doctor is part of the same group as the Toymaker and the Maestro, right? The reiterating of him being adopted plus him getting extremely unsettled by them is giving me those vibes.
It's possible, but we've also already MET Time, if memory serves.
I really hope we're not exploring the Doctor's origins at all. We've already done waaaay too much of that.
Finally watched both episodes. I'm... sadly not really feeling it, after being very excited about it following the specials. I feel like they feel very disjointed, like they're just a collection of scenes instead of fully formed episodes. Like a bunch of scenes a writer comes up with that they think is cool, but they have no idea how to string together into an actual story. Devil's Chord was worse in this regard than Space Babies, as that one at least feels like it has a structure. But the pacing and dialogue was also way off in Space Babies.
Yeah, I kind of hate all the "the doctor is actually super secret important" stuff. Last of their kind? Cool. Some mystery there in how they survived and shock when there are other survivors. Explaining their secret origin, their "real" name etc... eh. I liked it when it was a funny man who stole a time machine and went on adventures in it. When they weren't super duper special in their own race outside of maybe being a bit more "human" in compassion and meddling. I didn't need them to become the entire genesis of their race and also be from another dimension/universe.
It blows my mind that the production team signed off on space babies. Like, you have a reboot of sorts for a show trying to pull in the big disney audience, and you open with that pile of whatever the hell that was?
Is that anything new? The Doctor helped create his own worst enemy that ultimately lead to his races genocide all the way back with Genesis of the Daleks, or at the very least made them aware of Space Travel, Time Travel and the Time Lords.
Alternatively Ruby was part of the pantheon and reincarnated as a human somehow. The Doctor's memory of her mother changing in real time and Maestro reacting specifically to the song that was playing when Ruby was born. Heck, the woman we've been seeing in every Ruby episode (plus Wild Blue Yonder) might be her harbinger. Ruby could actually be Christmas.
I kept expecting a reason to reveal itself why he kept correcting himself from "babies" to "space babies" but I guess it was just intended to be a random flight of whimsy. Yet another thing that just happens in these episodes for no real reason.
Yes, exactly this. They're missing the narrative connective tissue between each "wouldn't it be cool if" idea.
I don't think that's right at all. The Doctor didn't help the Daleks during Genesis. And I don't recall any suggestion they got space or time travel from him. They were created after a nuclear war, so already had rocket technology. And the Doctor's very first companions used a Dalek time machine to get home, because it was more reliable than the TARDIS.
In the original programme, the Doctor was unique because he was a renegade but he wanted to help people, unlike other renegades who were total dicks. But that was the only thing special about him.
It's rare to hear Beatles songs in stuff. Maybe they're too expensive even for Disney.
for example
'Mad Men' Paid $250K for Beatles Song
Show creator says it was necessary to authentically portray the Sixties
www.rollingstone.com
I don't get it either.
For this season, Russel T. Davies wrote 6 out of the 8 episodes.
Ncuti Gatwa's favorite episode is the one that Russel T. Davies did not write. (Moffat's Boom episode)