New Doctor Who

[Merzbow]

It felt like an episode you'd get in the middle of a series for filler and a really dull example of one too.

I hadn't watched the show for a few years but did all the human characters feel so.. alien? No-one talks or reacts like a real person would and it's much more noticeable this episode and it's really jarring.

[Factotum]

Chibnall has often been criticized that his writing is 'TV talk' rather than natural.

[Merzbow]

Makes sense then, I never saw Broadchurch so I haven't been exposed to much of his work before.

[JNLister]

Next week's episode appears to be every single episode of entertainingly-shit drama Timeless.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Well. That was the dullest special episode. The teaser for the next episode was the high point.

[d-d-d-dAz]

30 minutes ago, ReturnOfTheMack said:

Well. That was the dullest special episode. The teaser for the next episode was the high point.

Chibnall was never suited to writing for Doctor Who. He doesn’t seem to have any grasp of sci-fi, or what makes it work.

I was always more of a Moffatt fan than an RTD fan, but I’m glad one of them is coming back to take over. You get the impression that though they both like wildly different things about Doctor Who, they have both equally ‘get it’.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

I fully agree. I mean, I like Jodie Whittaker, but the writing hasn't half screwed her over. I'm just glad they dropped her calling people 'fam'.

[Vamp]

I kinda feel bad for Chibnall. I don't think he's ever executed his plans right but I do think trying to hold back on classic monsters and doing more educational historical stories we're interesting moves. Unfortunately between not coming up with interesting new monsters and people's weird obsession with how 'woke' the show was becoming (even though Doctor Who was woke before woke even existed) its just never really happened. 

It's also a shame that the Doctor and Yaz stuff has only now come to the fore because that was probably the most engaging bit of this episode (and I say that as a huge fan of the Sea Devils). I think Jodie Whittaker played the "I can't stay fixed to anyone thing or person" stuff better than it's been done before. 

It's kinda sad that the teaser for the final episode of this run is basically "Daleks, Cybermen, Master, Tegan and Ace" because it feels like admitting defeat. There's nothing iconic from this era of the show apart from the "Timeless Child" crap that they're presumably going to sweep under the carpet. 

I also really hope Jodie gets a decent run with Big Finish. 

[Jazzy G]

He wrote some decent episodes under other showrunners, but I just think what he had planned for his time was too much for some people to handle. 

Jidue Whittaker was fine as the doctor. Some of the other writers and directors managed to get some character out of her, but a lot of the time it sometimes felt like she was being pushed to try and be a bit more like Tennant. I wish she'd had chance to continue under RTD to see what he can do with her character. Hopefully she'll turn up in a future crossover special and gets to redeem herself.

I'm amused by the number of people who are looking forward to the end of this era and its "wokeness" who pretend that they didn't act the same way during Capaldi's run., and as if RTD didn't manage to get LOADS of representations and "woke" politics into his last time as showrunner.

The previous Doctor almost always seems to be better than the current one. Almost like the whole "the Star  Wars prequels were really good, actually" brigade. 

The special could have used more time for things to develop a little bit, as it felt like just as things were getting going it was all dealt with. 

The trailer forcthe next special looked pretty good, but there also looks like a bit of "let's throw a load of stuff in there and hope some of it works". A 90 minute runtime will hopefully means he has more time to do what he wants, and not that he tries to cram more stuff in there to keep it packed full of "moments".

Rumour is the next Doctor is getting announced at half time during the FA Cup final. 

[Vamp]

Makes sense, gotta convince people to watch the football somehow. 

I know it's most likely bollocks but I really hope the rumours about Tennant aren't true. I don't think anything else would put me off more than that. 

[Jazzy G]

I hear Tennant is supposed to be some kind of interim Doctor while they cast a new proper one by the 60th anniversary. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

2 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

I hear Tennant is supposed to be some kind of interim Doctor while they cast a new proper one by the 60th anniversary. 

I think that’s a conflation of two ‘sources’ stories;

1) is that there’ll be some form of 5 Doctors special for the anniversary next November (I think the exact report was each of the living doctors, including who ever gets cast now, will do an episode each as part of a special, steroided up version of the five doctors concept)

2) David Tennant was legitimately the favourite to take over for a while. He’s slipped behind Lydia West now, but he’s still up there (alongside the rest of the cast of It’s A Sin.

I’m a Matt Smith guy, followed by Capaldi and then Tennant; but I don’t think any of them should come back permanently. That’s not the point of the show. It should be about renewal and rebirth.

The one thing I think the role needs is a strong view of who the character is, both historically - as in the versions that came before - and what that means their version should be. Jodie is a good actress but I’ve never got the impression she has a strong vision of her doctor.
 

I think, male or female, the role needs gravitas and it needs a real understanding of where it’s been and where you want to take it.

[Jazzy G]

I'm a Matt Smith guy as well. 

I wonder whether they'd be as ballsy as to get David Bradley is to play Hartnell again, with David Troughton and Sean Pertwee to play their dads as Doctors. 

Wasn't it reported that it was going to be Hugh Grant recently as well? 

[Vamp]

There's no way that first source story can be true. They're not giving Colin Baker a full episode. 

 

[BomberPat]

16 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

The previous Doctor almost always seems to be better than the current one. Almost like the whole "the Star  Wars prequels were really good, actually" brigade. 

I always assume it just comes down to who "your" Doctor is - whenever I see people arguing that the Star Wars prequels were good, it tends to be younger people who grew up with them as their Star Wars movies, so see them as the baseline. Same with Doctor Who - David Tennant was good, but he gets placed on a pedestal because he played the Doctor at the time that most people were getting into the series, and then Matt Smith fills a similar niche for the next generation of fans.

It never really felt like Capaldi or Whittaker had the opportunity to really step up to that level; Capaldi is someone I was so excited to play the Doctor, and I think he did brilliantly with what he was given and had some fantastic episodes, but they were few and far between, and it was always as he had one foot out the door that it felt the writers had really grasped how to write to best showcase his talents rather than writing generically for "the Doctor". That's probably a good explanation for why the previous Doctor always feels better than the current one, too - by the time they're done, the writers are working towards that actor's strengths a lot more, so you see them at their best right at the end.

Things never felt like they clicked with Whittaker - even aside from the obvious aspect of being the first female Doctor, she had no bridge between her and the previous incarnation, as there was no companion to bridge the gap, she wasn't continuing a story, and then she was given hugely ambitious story arc stuff to work with, but also hamstrung by the weird way episodes are scheduled now. Doing stuff like "the Doctor isn't what we think the Doctor is" could have worked, but not with a Doctor that hadn't got their teeth into the role yet.

 

That changing of the rules of how the Doctor works could easily allow for a previous regeneration to come back, but I really hope it's not for anything more than a one-off. Nothing screams "pressing the panic button" as much as bringing back RTD and David Tennant at the same time. I seem to be in the majority, but I was never a fan of RTD as showrunner, so I'm pretty pessimistic about whatever comes next anyway.