The Doctor Who Thread

The Garage
#121

Pertwee’s era in particular had a fair whack of social-message-of-the-day… though they at least weren’t (mostly) rammed down your throat, and were ensconced in a fun action thriller.

Interestingly the show’s creator, Sydney Newman, wanted WHO to adopt a strong social message format when he spoke with 80’s producer, John Nathan-Turner. JN-T’s response pretty much was to tell him to f-off. (OK - that’s not true; but none of Sydney’s suggestions were taken on board.)

I haven’t watched the episode yet; son forgot it was on, so we had a peaceful dinner last night. Guess I’ll queue it up on iView at some point for him.

#122

But at least Pertwee was fun to watch, to me the current one just isn’t

#123

I mostly like it for what it is, and don’t dislike what it isnt. Stop comparing it with whats gone before and just enjoy it FFS. Or stop watching.

#124

Asking most Doctor Who fans not to compare current episodes with previous episodes?

There is less chance of that happening than there is Donald Trump flying to China and apologizing to President Xi :slight_smile:

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#125

I know… a vain hope. I’m just getting sick of the negativity. I guess I will just have to ignore the thread from here on.

#126

I don’t think there is negativity here. What I think does exist is a level of disappointment surrounding the new Doctor and new showrunner. Whittaker has done a pretty good job with the character; the stories themselves have been great/had potential but the writing has been poor.

It’s a bit unreasonable to say that people expressing their opinions on the new doctor/series construes negativity.

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#127

Not saying it’s true… But there’s rumours Chibnell and Whitaker may be parting ways (see what I did there) soon.

And @kyte - I’m actually really glad that whilst not enthralled with Whitaker’s (female) Doctor, I don’t want to see her go (whoops I did it again). Ready for Chibnell to go, so a new showrunner can take over and give Jodie some better stories / direction… But not wanting it to be Whitaker’s Doomsday.

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#128

Me too. He did well with Broadchurch but… not impressed with his efforts on Doctor Who, and I dont think that has been fair on Whittaker. Oh well, I’ll still enjoy whats left.

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#129

My feeling is that Whittaker was going to have a tough go of it because I feel like being the first female Doctor guaranteed it. It’s not much different than the absurd standard Avery Brooks was held to as Benjamin Sisko or Kate Mulgrew was held to with Kathryn Janeway. Anytime a certain set think they can frame criticism of the “diversity hire” as “just not as good” they’re going to do so.

Whittaker’s Doctor is an engaging main character. The companions are interesting. The stories have been good. Way better than the vast majority of Who I’d previously seen. The stories and writing are substantially better than even stuff written for Ten and Rose. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m probably pretty representative of the very demographic Whittaker was hired to appeal to.

tl;dr Good actress, good actors, engaging stories. What more do you people want?

#130

:wink:

#131

A change to that horrible time rotor!

Don’t have a problem with the current Doctor, don’t have a problem with the companions and I’ve enjoyed the stories (to varying degrees and in isolation) so far this season.

I’m yet to see an overarching season long story arc (which was in some of the earlier seasons and which I miss) and I think there’s a bit too much emphasis in the writing on ‘teaching stories’ and not enough ‘fun’ stories.

IMHO Doctor Who works better as entertainment than it does as education (and yes I know that’s how it originally started, my point is it had moved away from that).

#132

Ok - I’ve watched the episode now.

There is no way I cannot compare this episode to The Robots of Death - at least a Top 10 Contender for best classic episode of all time.

I will say that Kablam surprised me with the twist at the end - didn’t see it coming. I also didn’t feel like I was having an anti-Amazon message rammed down my throat as some have commented - but then, we here in Australia haven’t ultimately felt the sting of Amazon as has been felt in the USA and UK.

What I am sick of, is the Doctor being stupid. Forgetting about the ankle devices… and blaming it on having too much going on? Yes, as I write this I can hear 10 bemoaning his stupidity at times… but I feel like we’ve had a few such occasions where the new Doc has “failed” to keep up. She never quite seems to be on top of the situation… I’m not sure if I’m over reacting, or if it’s a deliberate character flaw…

#133

Finally a good episode! “It takes you away” was enjoyable, entertaining and gave us back a Doctor with some drive, passion and a little bit of craziness. Hopefully this bodes well for the remaining episodes of the series.

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#134

Woot!

Looks like it will be in colour, too, like Power of the Daleks (probably with b&w option for the purists).

To me, a Patrick Troughton fan, this is amazing! :slight_smile: The Second Doctor’s first season was so severely savaged when the BBC decided to cull its back catalogue, it’s great to have the opportunity to see more of his stories, even if it’s via animation, with huge thanks to the fans who recorded the soundtracks live when they went to air all those years ago.

In 1996 an Aussie fan/s discovered that a whole swag of early WHO clips (many from now “missing” episodes) had been retained by the censorship board. The clips were all deemed too violent for screening in a G / PG timeslot, and so had to be physically cut from the 16mm film reels. This discovery gave us the only surviving footage from The Macra Terror:

(along with the aforementioned fans who “saved” the audio - hence the ability to create the animations.)

This announcement adds to the mystery surrounding the earlier revelation that (at least) 10 minutes of The Wheel In Space has been animated. Next week this animation is going to be screened at the BFI’s “Missing Believed Wiped” annual event in England. Why would the BBC animate just 10 minutes of a story (at great expense), which is missing 4 out of 6 episodes? It has no commercial value - unless they have in fact animated all 4 missing episodes - or - unless they only needed to animate 10 minutes - and have recovered the rest of the footage…!?

I’m on tenterhooks waiting to find out…

#135

It was an ok episode, nothing great.

Unfortunately it seems this series is just “monster of the week” with no underlying arc. I’m liking it less and less as it goes on.

#136

I’ll agree it wasn’t a 10/10, however it possibly felt like one of the most “WHO” stories this season. There’s been stories that ticked boxes, but I could feel a sense of urgency, mystery, a sense of “how’s the Doctor going to save the day this time”. The payoff was sadly less inspiring. Given that the occupants of the mirror universe had both been representations of someone missing from people’s lives, when it was just the Doctor remaining, I was sitting there highly expecting to see a shock surprise guest - a companion, a previous Doctor, someone the Doctor has lost; failing that, even a double Jodie… instead we got a rather disappointing talking frog. (Considering the amazing spiders a few eps ago… this felt less than inspired.)

Regarding a season-wide story arc… My understanding is that following Moffat’s sometimes very convoluted story arcs, Chibnall decided to move away from them, as well as avoiding featuring any familiar foes. I’m not sure why the episode count was cut, but the extended duration was I’m sure flagged as allowing greater development in the story. I can understand the logic behind those moves.

The problem of course is that the modern audience kind of expects the long story arcs - not just in WHO, but lots of Sci-Fi / Fantasy shows have gone down this route. Whilst Chibnall may not wanted to have featured the build up to a big finale, I think he should have instead more strongly built up the TARDIS team. There should have been something else happening, woven through the stories - akin to Clara’s final season.

#137

I enjoyed this one, it really felt like a real ‘Who’ episode finally. Maybe not a great one but a good one where the ending let down the story a bit (I agree with cosmichobo here strongly) .

Still I’d give this one 4 Tardis boxes out of 5 (which is more than any other episode this season).

#138

Once again, I liked this episode. I can definitely understand why several of you feel this is “real” WHO.

Again, take this non-fan’s view with a grain (or more) of salt, but in regards to @andyb’s commentary on the lack of an arc, this is precisely what I wanted. I was one of the ones who found many of the previous arcs during Smith’s time absolutely no fun at all. I feel like the most intriguing WHO to me has been episodes where it doesn’t matter how I catch it or when I catch it, whether I know that numbered Doctor and companion or not: I can watch the entire episode completely independently. The convoluted arcs really killed my enjoyment, especially since sometimes I didn’t want to binge-watch OR wait for the next episode. And without chemistry of a Ten/Rose, or a really, really compelling (to me) Doctor, arcs just take too much out of me.

#139

In the early days, Doctor Who didn’t have story arcs across seasons. Indeed - in the beginning, there was no real seasons - the show was almost on every week! Even when it settled down to roughly 6 months per year, there was no arc across the season until The Key To Time - S16 (and later the Trial of a Timelord, S23). From around about S10 there tended to sometimes be a “big” story at the end of a season, but just as often - not.

Even when Andrew Cartmel became script editor with his so called masterplan, we didn’t actually have the modern arcs that we see today, where most episodes have some little tidbit building up to something big in the finale.

I think RTD’s 9 and 10 Doctor story arcs were well done. Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Saxon, Donna-Doctor, and Time Lord Victorious - subtle, and if you missed stuff - no matter - it was still enjoyable.

Moffat however… Ok - the crack was pretty good, although I have HUGE criticisms whenever someone uses a “big red reset button” to get out of trouble. But by the time Smith’s second season reached its end, I didn’t bother watching the finale. Wasn’t interested.

I would guess it was Moffat’s era that damaged the ability of the casual viewer to join in - it just got too complicated. (That said - my oldest kid loves 11…)

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#140