New Doctor Who

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Donna was my favourite companion of the modern era, followed very closely by Rory.

[DavidB6937]

So Jodie's run comes to an end tonight. Crazy to think it has gone so fast. Sadly feels like I can't even remember 90% of what she even did. And I don't think that's on her. I can't call it a failure as I'm sure she's done wonders for young females so good for her.

Excited for the future though. I hope Ncuti gets some good material to work with.

[Guest]

I think her run's been better than it's sometimes given credit for, but it wasn't the most consistent. Like you, I don't blame her for that, and her work in the early days of the pandemic offering reassurance to kids was definitely a case of the right Doctor at the right time. Can't imagine any of her recent predecessors doing as good a job of that.

[Vamp]

It's odd that her most defining Doctor moment was filmed on a phone behind her sofa. She was bloody brilliant in that clip though. All her interactions with kids have been great too. I think you'd have to go back to Tom Baker to find someone who was that good at being The Doctor outside of the show.

I like the Rosa Parks episode, though I know a lot of people don't, the Witchfiner one, Demons of the Pubjab, etc. I liked the environmental message that people found preachy too. Helps that they're my values too I guess. 

It's also important to remember what proceeded it. We've gone from a head writer with notoriously bad writing for women characters to a woman Doctor who's in love with another woman who's also been presented as strong and capable. Fair play to them for touching upon suicidal feelings with a companion too. And for representing dyspraxia.

But there is a real sense of wasted potential with this run. I think trying to do a whole first series without returning villains was a good idea and could have created a new big bad but we just ended up with the guy with teeth in his face. Yaz had some interesting character choices that never really came to anything. The Mary Shelley Cyberman episode could have been great but was a set up for a series finale that ended with Time Lord Cybermen. They introduced another Doctor who seemed quite interesting but we never really got to see enough of her. And the show never achieved the tone that the reveal video had. 

The Timeless Child? The Doctor's mum? Meh. I can't imagine it won't all be forgotten about. I like The Doctor as a Time Lord who's a bit too outgoing for the rest of them and runs about the universe. Not particularly special, just a bit odd as Time Lords go. I think the odd hints to The Other and The Doctor bring something more are fun as hints. I think saying that the Time Lords learned how to regenerate from the Doctor's blood because the Doctor was an alien from another universe or whatever is far less interesting. Its a "so what?" What does that mean for the series? How is that actually played? How will that change the character? And if it doesn't, why bother revealing it? Leave it hinted at for the viewer's imagination if it isn't actually going to change the episode to episode story. 

Also, they brought back the Sea Devils. I love the Sea Devils. Staggered they didn't do something more contemporary with them. 

But yeah. Jodie Whittaker has been the shining star of all of it. 

 

[King Coconut]

I just happened to catch the end. What's the deal with that then?

[Vamp]

Spoiler

Such a shame that Tennant got revealed, otherwise that ending would have been bonkers. 

Smashing episode that. Utter fan wank, obviously, and a fast paced romp that didn't give you time to think about anything, but it was a cracking example of mad cap blockbuster Who. 

Seeing the old Doctors was lovely. I don't care that they don't look the same. 

And the companions at the end was a truly lovely touch. I know people will probably bang on about how Ian is meant to look young because of a throw away line in a Sarah Jane's Adventures that one time but they can bugger off. 

Kinda worried that Tom Baker might not have been there because his ill health, but it was nice to give the others the nod after they missed out on the 50th. They all twinkle with the seconds they get, but I guess they would because they've never stopped being the Doctor.

 

 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

1 minute ago, Vamp said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Such a shame that Tennant got revealed, otherwise that ending would have been bonkers. 

Smashing episode that. Utter fan wank, obviously, and a fast paced romp that didn't give you time to think about anything, but it was a cracking example of mad cap blockbuster Who. 

Seeing the old Doctors was lovely. I don't care that they don't look the same. 

And the companions at the end was a truly lovely touch. I know people will probably bang on about how Ian is meant to look young because of a throw away line in a Sarah Jane's Adventures that one time but they can bugger off. 

Kinda worried that Tom Baker might not have been there because his ill health, but it was nice to give the others the nod after they missed out on the 50th. They all twinkle with the seconds they get, but I guess they would because they've never stopped being the Doctor.

 

 

Yeah, my wife didn't know and got really giddy.

[DavidB6937]

Watched it a bit late tonight but damn that was far better than I expected. A real treat for long term fans. Didn't expect to enjoy it that much.

[BomberPat]

I really, really enjoyed that episode, and I couldn't critically explain why at all.

Doctor Who is essentially a mystery story, but the audience is never given the information required to solve the mystery, because it's always inventing sci-fi nonsense to resolve existing sci-fi nonsense. It fundamentally shouldn't work, and often doesn't. This episode was fucking rife with it; it just stumbled from exposition to Deus Ex Machina without leaving any space for plot, what story there was relied on some real ten year old boy story logic (what if all the baddies joined forces?!) and the cracks were papered over with blatant fanservice.

And it was fucking brilliant. Completely in spite of itself. 

Spoiler

In terms of cameos, I think they played a blinder by revealing that Tegan and Ace were in this episode as a bit of a carrot to dangle for fans of Old Who, so they could sneak in the old Doctors and other companion cameos unannounced. I actually audibly gasped when Ian showed up, and I love that McCoy and McGann have been allowed a bit of space to be reassessed as Actually Good, and to have their place in the show. 

 

[Guest]

As someone who never watched the original run, a lot of the fan service wasn't for me but I enjoyed its inclusion regardless. But if you're in the same boat and nearly caught a cold from all the references whooshing over your head, this is a handy cheat sheet to make sense of it all (though its final point in itself took a bit of googling to understand).

[Daaaaaad!]

I think my favourite part about that episode is that it just felt fun! Whether it's my own perceptions or biases against the writer, or perhaps the overall aesthetic seeming dark (TARDIS interior, opening titles etc.) so little of Jodie's run felt fun. I'd rather not go into the Timeless Child or all that because it just makes me sulky and upset, but at least this one felt like a big jaunt. Which, ultimately, a children's scifi TV show should.

[DavidB6937]

I've grown to love the Classic stuff over the years when I thought it was a bit naff as a kid. I think working with so many of them over the years at conventions really made me try again. They're all so lovely and there's just something special about the dedication people have for the show even after all these years. And I think this episode captured all that perfectly.

[Factotum]

Spoiler

GIVE PAUL McGANN A MINI SERIES!!

The fact he was in his costume leads me to believe we might be seeing more of him in the future.

Episode was bonkers but in a good way. Chibnall's era is so bizarre. The whole Timeless child nonsense should be forgotten as soon as. Made more sense if it was The Master.

[Jazzy G]

So unfortunately not every episode of Doctor Who will be coming to the iPlayer next month. This appears to be because the son of the guy who wrote some of the script for An Unearthly Child has taken umbrage with Ncuti Gatwa being cast as the 15th Doctor, and various other lgbtqia people being cast in the specials and new series, and made up some spurious thing about how he owned the rights to the name of the TARDIS and the first 4 episodes of Doctor Who. He demanded a ridiculously large amount of money for the rights, which the BBC turned down, and is now trying to claim some kind of huge moral victory over "the establishment". 

[BomberPat]

3 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

 made up some spurious thing about how he owned the rights to the name of the TARDIS and the first 4 episodes of Doctor Who. 

Stef Coburn been banging this drum for years; he tried to challenge them on the ownership of the TARDIS at least a decade ago. There's lots to dispute that - there's no evidence that Antony Coburn ever held the rights to the name TARDIS, as I'm reasonably sure he was a BBC staff writer at the time so the rights belonged to the company. By contrast, Terry Nation was an independent contractor when he created the Daleks (and other characters), which is why he still receives a credit, and why he was able to license them for the movies and merchandising). 

Even if Coburn were in a similar position to Nation, I don't think he created the TARDIS anyway - Verity Lambert did, his only contribution was, I think, that it would be stuck as a police box so as to save money by reusing the same prop in every episode. 

He's a really nasty piece of work, anyway - conspiracy nutter, racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-vax, pro-Putin, just checking all the boxes.