The Faces of the Doctor
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Craig 5 years, 3 months ago.
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29 October 2015 at 04:08 #45792
@purofilion
Hear, hear puro, I couldn’t agree more. If it’s Doctow Who, that’s good enough for me.
Cheers,
Missy
29 October 2015 at 04:11 #45793I was actually making a Fry & Laurie reference. There’s a sketch where Stephen Fry is ranting about that book to Hugh Laurie, and keeps saying “balls” about things he thinks are stupid in it, including the line, “Reader, I married him.” Hugh points out she’s talking to the person reading the book, and Stephen says, “Oh, double balls and bollocks!”
29 October 2015 at 04:14 #45794Well he would! Very funny man.
Missy
29 October 2015 at 04:23 #45796@jimthefish he’s not really a romantic lead any longer anyway.
You might be surprised; for at least one sector of DW viewers, CapDoc most certainly *is* a romantic lead — in their own minds and conversations, and certainly in the fan fiction stories they write. Well, look closely: Moffat said he looks for an actor who is attractive but off-beat looking, which certainly fits in this case IMO, in this case a mature man in late middle age. That’s a figure run into the ground in American movies and other media as not just a romantic lead who has no trouble physically attracting much younger actresses or beautifully aged older ones. Add a fictional character who is highly intelligent, accomplished, active, about as distinguished as you can get (last of the TLs sort of), extremely powerful in terms of doing what he chooses to do, and with a delightfully naive and childish side (The Fool) + two passionate hearts, if you can get past the distance of his natural reserve (and a bit of shyness). Good God, people — !
There are battalions of middle-aged women who have been looking for this guy all their lives, and very happy to find him in a *fictional* character who will never knock at the door and ask them to sew a button on his coat or wash his socks for him. And I don’t think for a minute that Moffat et al aren’t well aware of all this. They connected with mobs of younger women with Tenant and Smith; CapDoc is a brilliant next step, in terms of attracting and holding a viewership beyond kids, nerds and Sf fans of both sexes, and the rest of the traditional DW audience from BG.
Which reminds me, there are lots of younger women who “get” CapDoc on a romantic level too, and are deeply invested emotionally in a smoldering (if largely unexpressed) passion between him and Clara as their own surrogate. I can’t speak for what that’s about, but I remember the, er, middle ages, with all that disappointed idealism and longing for something better than what’s typically on offer, feeding itself on gothic fiction, vampire/werewolf and every other kind of romance, etc.
The degree to which the viewer brings what he or she finds in the story is not measurable, of course, subjective assessments are and remain just that — subjective; letting us all have exactly what we came for . . . or go find it somewhere else.
29 October 2015 at 04:44 #45800Anonymous @
Gawd, oops! I should have knowd that!
@ichabod absolutely =rather embarrassingly I dreamt about being in an episode with PC: apparently we were playing tennis against enemies and to win, would be to escape. In order to actually ‘win,’ the Doctor ‘sonicked’ my racket -as I can’t play tennis (badminton and table tennis but not the ‘real thing’)
Yes, I woke up in a pleasant sweat. Ahem. 🙂
subjective assessments are and remain just that — subjective; letting us all have exactly what we came for . . . or go find it somewhere else.
we do, don’t we? No-one can really say (or should) “that’s wrong”
In Midnight, we have that Rossetti poem, “we should not look at Goblin men….we should not buy their fruits.”
Wonderful allusions.
29 October 2015 at 04:51 #45801@purofilion Also, I must add, that on this Forum, and in this place, I’ve left my mind open and my mouth closed (not today evidently 🙂 and this really means I’ve changed so many of my opinions and habits. To be 47 and to be open to change, is rather marvellous, no?
It’s wonderful at any age, IMO. The problem with rigid, long-held opinions is that entropy rules the universe — rigidity generally leads to death in one form or another, or lots of forms in a grim cascade . . .
“Reader, I married him.” An interesting last line — not “He condescended to marry me-the-mere-governess”, or “He rewarded my strength and loyalty by marrying me.” No. “I married him.” And first he had to be cast down so far from his high horse (Rochester meets Jane as the man on horseback, the pattern of the aristocrat in a landscape of peasants) that he reaps the reward of his fall — a forced surrender to his own humble humanity, so that he can be glad that another humble human wishes to join her life to his. Not bad. It’s not the fault of “Jane Eyre” that the gothic romance has been so debased in our time.
29 October 2015 at 05:05 #45802@randypan There’s a sketch where Stephen Fry is ranting about that book to Hugh Laurie, and keeps saying “balls” about things he thinks are stupid in it, including the line, “Reader, I married him.” Hugh points out she’s talking to the person reading the book, and Stephen says, “Oh, double balls and bollocks!”
Damn, that’s wonderful! Those guys . . . “And I shall have my re-wengy!” No, no, it’s all too much –!
@purofilion “we should not look at Goblin men….we should not buy their fruits.” Wonderful allusions.
Wonderful. “Who knows what they have fed upon, their hungry, thirsty roots.” Have I got that right? Went to the gym today, probably drove some actual circulating blood up into the memory bits of the brain. On the other hand, having your tennis racket sonicked — I bet that’s a first in the Hidden History of Who!
29 October 2015 at 05:14 #45803@ichabod yes, you have it right (as far as my memory recalls, at least)
Tennis racket sonicked -a little odd. Or ood. But very fun. It was a real episode -in my dream, except that like any dream, I thought…and I was ‘there’. I remembered and it ‘happened’. Time skipping. I didn’t really understand that ’til Silence in the Library.
Moffat’s brain….wunderbar.
29 October 2015 at 05:22 #45804@ichabod in watching various Donna episodes I hear her say “go and put your clogs on and feed your whippets” This led me to Youtube and of course, pretty soon, people are yelling at each other and going on about how they “hated Rose, hated Amy and hated River” with particular reference to the Doctor going “smooch” to River in front of his crib -apparently that’s “gross”
29 October 2015 at 05:27 #45805@purofilion Moffat’s brain….wunderbar.
Not to mention what he’s done to the brains of the rest of us through DW! We’re all — *bonkers* here! I rest my case.
29 October 2015 at 05:53 #45806What a fascinating conversation I’ve been missing here! 🙂 I loved @nerys’s rundown of the AG Doctors and pretty much agree with all of it. The “Doctor Dances” two-parter was the absolute highlight of Series 1 for me, and that scene was Nine at his best. On the whole, Eccelston never really gelled as the Doctor for me, but there were a few moments when he absolutely nailed it, and this was the best of them.
I also agree with a lot of @PlainOldDave’s rundown of the earlier Doctors. Four was “my” Doctor, although I also have fond memories of Pertwee and UNIT, and like @bluesqueakpip, I enjoyed McCoy. I even found the goofy Seven of McCoy’s first series worked better for me than either Davison or C. Baker, although they both brought elements that I enjoyed. But McCoy was at his best when he could hint at hidden depths. I’ve heard some of his Big Finish stories and there, too, he is terrific when he is being darker and more secretive!
My problem with the farewell scene between Ten and Rose was not so much how it was played, because I thought it was actually rather understated. My dislike was more fundamental, because it played to an interpretation of their relationship that I simply couldn’t get on board with! Rose in love with the Doctor? Probably inevitable, given everything. The Doctor in love with Rose? I just couldn’t see it, and inasmuch as we saw Ten apparently fall to a massive crush on Madame Pompadour, I’m not sure that Russell T. Davies was really convinced either. But the Doctor’s words in that scene strongly suggested that he was in love with her, and so it felt hugely out of place to me.
Emotion in general, I’m okay with. I loved Ten’s unhappiness after losing Donna, and Eleven’s after losing Amy. As @bluesqueakpip suggests, many of us wrote at length around the time of Day of the Doctor, thoughts about fallout from the Time War that made Ten and Eleven behave the way they did. And the fact of change is fundamental to the nature of regeneration: he is the same Doctor, but also a new Doctor. This, too, we have discussed at times– it’s endlessly fascinating!
29 October 2015 at 05:56 #45808@purofilion Oh, avoid Youtube. Many of the loudest shouters sound as if they’re still in school, secondary level mostly, or uni. Reminds me of the boys at the movies back when I was a school kid myself, and there’d be a close-up kiss onscreen and all the boys would make “EW!” noises (now they’d be yelling “Oh, GROSS!” I guess), while the girls were thinking, Mmm, really? But how do you make the noses fit without getting a crick in your neck?
Some of the hatred, I’m convinced, is just “fitting in”, signifying nothing but kids desperately seeking social safety. Some is rage at having lost some kind of imaginary “control” of “their” secret sort of cult-y show that hardly anybody but a much smaller group of fans even knew about, because if lots of people love it now, that means it can’t be our superior secret any more. Some is outrage from young feminist hotheads (heaven help them, and long may they wave) who automatically reject a story in which a succession of women orbit around a central figure who’s simply by his apparent gender and his position in the story a symbol of dreary old patriarchy. Some is the misogyny of old and young fans (of both sexes) who *like* orbiting females and furiously resent companions developing ideas, goals, and character of their own (“Oh, now it’s the Doctor Clara Show, I wish she would *die* already so it can go back to being about the Doctor again!”).
A good deal of this is on exhibit at reddit.com as well. They are themselves bringing what they find, but can’t bear for others (and newbies, too!) bringing/finding anything more complex or challenging than the fast and flashy surfaces they love. It makes them feel as if they’re missing something (which they are — DW generally aren’t stupid) about *their show”! The horror, the horror . . . It’s all okay, except for the hysterical (testoxical?) vindictiveness that sometimes gets flung about.
But not here: here there be civilization and its contentments.
29 October 2015 at 05:58 #45809The question of the Doctor as romantic lead is interesting too. I think that the Doctor in all his incarnations is fundamentally a very attractive character. A lot of the qualities that seem to be basic to him are qualities which I think are generally appealing. So it seems perfectly believable to me that when he appears in a physical guise that also appeals to a person, then that attraction might turn to a romantic attachment. We humans are inclined that way, we are told! 🙂
@ichabod Yes, thanks for that point! Although I think that @jimthefish probably meant that Twelve is not being written as a romantic lead. But from an audience perspective, he gets my middle-aged heart beating a tad faster– not something that I could say about Matt Smith, the dear boy, excellent Doctor though he was! 🙂
@denvaldron Watching paint dry might be a highly meditative activity. And in fact, if the Doctor were doing it, it might be fairly analytical as well!
@purofilion Well, if he could sonic people’s phones, why not a tennis racket?
29 October 2015 at 06:22 #45811@bluesqueakpip when Series 2, Series 3, Series 6 and Series 7a of the After Gap Series all had an ongoing romantic arc. As Jim says, times change – we had to go through that arc to get the Doctor to a place (effectively, he’s a widower) where he can say that his Companions are far more like surrogate family than they are romantic interests. He is, after all, married, even if his wife is dead. But we had to move through that arc to come out the other side. And the Doctor is different for it, more willing to acknowledge that losing his ‘family’ hurts like hell, every time.
I missed this, late in commenting — I think this works very well. And your replies on fictional characters changing course, radically or otherwise. Though I recall someone discussing mystery novels, in the Christie sense, as comedies because they do what comedies do — bring things back to the beginning, setting all to rights, which often means that the characters re-set to their old selves and positions. Maybe thinking of DW as more comedy than drama and liking it that way could lead to disliking the drama that comes with deeper emotions.
@nerys And this — exactly: The stories gain coherence through the relationships. It’s not all about creating the most logical plot, and I am grateful for that. If I want logic, I’ll watch a documentary on statistics
@pedant Thanks for that clarifying summary of the ratings/audience-numbers issue. The point can’t be made often enough, it seems.
@purofilion Things must change: only a Church would have the strength to say something is “eternal.” I don’t think the Doctor is ‘eternally unchanging”. To imply that is to suggest that the Doctor really is some kind of prophet-even a Christ,
Or a comic book hero — and these days, even they aspire to the depths that come with acknowledging the ubiquity, and the invincible, nature of change.
29 October 2015 at 06:24 #45812Oh beautifully expressed.
It makes them feel as if they’re missing something (which they are — DW generally aren’t stupid) about *their show”! The horror, the horror . . . It’s all okay, except for the hysterical (testoxical?) vindictiveness that sometimes gets flung about.
Oh yes, he sonics phones and the door to the Tardis, one’s fridge, normal doors (that aren’t wood) and ….rackets too…
watching grass grow or paint dry -if it helps the meditative ‘aspect’, then one should do it!
29 October 2015 at 06:32 #45814@arbutus I think that @jimthefish probably meant that Twelve is not being written as a romantic lead. But from an audience perspective, he gets my middle-aged heart beating a tad faster–
Thanks for that correction, quite right I’m sure. And yes, thaaaaat’s what I’m talkin’ about. The heart thing. Mmmm.
@purofilion Oh yes, he sonics phones and the door to the Tardis, one’s fridge, normal doors (that aren’t wood) and ….rackets too…
Great; do you think he could fix my watch too? And yes, meditation/contemplation are good for us. I ought to remember to do some . . .
29 October 2015 at 11:01 #45820@plainOldDave
If it’s a reboot, why did the Beeb make a 50th Anniversary special?
If you believe that, could I make a suggestion?
Could you watch the show? The more recent version of the show.
If it’s the same show (and it is – but not in the sense of ‘set in aspic’), then it becomes difficult to critique along the lines of ‘The Doctor should be like this’ when clearly The Doctor wasn’t like this for many of his regenerations. It’s also a little tricky replying to you when some of the things you say about what the Doctor ‘should’ be seem to not know what happened during the various 50th Anniversary Specials.
For example: the Doctor always runs. But which direction is he now running in?
Incidentally, to say that the Hartnell incarnation struggled is laughable. The entire reason for the BBC desperately trying to find a vaguely plausible reason that The Doctor could be replaced by another actor was that Doctor Who was a howling success – but William Hartnell, poor man, didn’t realise how ill he really was. He was struggling to remember the lines and increasingly taking it out on the production team.
An Adventure in Space and Time is a nice drama doc for the Hartnell period.
29 October 2015 at 11:27 #45822@bluesqueakpip I have a copy of An Adventure in Space and Time -it’s a great kaleidoscope of that era. Hartnell is pitched perfectly.
29 October 2015 at 11:43 #45824DW is ONE TV show, that went on a significant hiatus. This is why I call current programs S34 instead of S9; Jon Pertwee was the Doctor for S9.
The key word is ‘significant’. And much had happened in between, both in the world of Who and in the world of entertainment generally. It’s foolish to try and assert that it’s a case of ‘it was off air for a while and it’s now business as usual’. It wasn’t. The show was cancelled. It was gone. It took a lot of energy to bring it back and it came back significantly retooled and essentially built again from the ground up, with lots of new elements, most notably the Time War. It was to all intents and purposes a ‘reboot’ to use the parlance and that should be reflected in how we talk about the show. But no one here is really divorcing the two, as can be seen in pretty much any conversation on this forum.
However, the BBC and pretty much everyone else makes the distinction between the old and new series. Hence Series 9 is the current one. Use AG and BG to make the distinction. Everyone else does and it’s basic politeness to use the terms that have been established as the common terms of reference on the site. Being a contrary-Mary is just impolite.
But what many call distinctions are in reality distinctions with no substantive difference. Doctor Who is still an SF adventure serial about an alien who travels through time and space
Well, it’s never been an science fiction series. Not really. It’s got some SF trappings. It’s probably even stretching it to say it’s science fantasy. It’s not really. The science content is minimal and always has been. It’s a fantasy series.
The Doctor, is most eccentric and alien. It is at its worst when he tries to pretend he’s something he’s not and never will be, no matter how much he tries: Human.
This is rather rigid and unimaginative, don’t you think? You’ve got a very fixed view of what the Doctor is and isn’t. But as Marc Platt said, the real reason for the show’s longevity is that it is such a plastic format. It’s a madman in a box and everything else is up for grabs. That’s it’s genius. And I know which definition I prefer.
Terry Nation never really made the case for an eccentric, alien Doctor.
Terry Nation was essentially a jobbing hack who got extremely lucky with the Daleks. He can be given next to no credit for forming the character of the Doctor. For that you should look to Newman, Lambert, Whittaker and probably even Hartnell himself.
The City of Death (the most watched DW episode ever)
It almost certainly isn’t. Not anymore. The one which achieved the highest ratings in the old analogue days (and benefiting from a strike that hobbled the competition) maybe but not the most watched by a long chalk.
But on to your more general point:
Then came the Genuine Article and the Hinchcliffe-Williams era
This is the era I too grew up with and have a lot of affection for. And the Hinchcliffe/Holmes partnership probably more BG classics than any other production team. But your attitude seems to be to treat this is the pinnacle of Who achievement, with everything before leading up to it and everything after a corruption of this alleged golden age. In reality, it was not just the coming together of a creative team that worked well, it was cultural flashpoint whose success lies in lots of other external factors. It worked brilliantly at the time (and some of it still stands up really well today — and some of it, frankly, doesn’t) but it can’t be used as a template for everything that comes after it is pointless and self-defeating.
Times move on, nothing exists in a vacuum and every cultural artefact exists within the context of everything going on around it. The Pertwee UNIT years worked partially because they existed in the context of Jason King/James Bond etc and partially because they existed in a backdrop of the death throes of the British Empire, economic depression and so on. The Baker years at their best worked because as @bluesqueakpip says, Baker chimed with the boho undergraduate nonconformist vibe of the mid 70s. He’s the Doctor as Howard Kirk in many ways.
It strikes me that you’re suffering slightly the same rose-tinted spectacles view that afflicts a regular correspondent over on the Graun (assuming you’re not one and the same). Each era of Who has to be approached on its own terms and not peered at down a disapproving pince nez as failing to exactly match ‘the good old days’. Those days aren’t coming back. If you tried to exactly recreate Who from 1975 forty years later it would fail. Look, for example, at the new Dad’s Army film. It looks kind of fun and I’m quite surprised to find myself looking forward to it. But it basically amounts to a piece of post-modern play. It’s appeal seems to lie largely in modern actors doing impersonations of the original cast rather than creating something new and vivid. It’ll be diverting and then be forgotten. It would have no lasting impact at all. If you hired someone just to slavishly copy Baker and Hincliffe and Holmes, it would have had a similar novelty value and then died a death. It certainly wouldn’t have lasted 10 years, with no sign of giving up yet.
One which note:
Is that why the audience seems to be going away? The ratings this season have been between 2/3 and 1/2 of previous seasons. I don’t think this is explained by changes in television watching, since other programs don’t seem to suffer the same erosion.
On the contrary, it is happening to every programme. EastEnders, the Beeb’s other old warhorse, aside from a shot in the arm for the 30th anniversary episode is continuing to shed viewers at an alarming rate — far more than Who. As is Corrie, Emmerdale and just about every other soap. And as @pedant says, you can’t even compare the viewing landscape to what it was even five years ago as the market penetration of tablet set-top box ownership continues to make its presence felt.
Pick up just about any copy of Broadcast and you’ll find an interview with some commissioner or other banging on about how much the landscape is changing, how ratings are becoming next to useless as an indicator of success and so on….
29 October 2015 at 12:23 #45826@plainolddave
Ordinarily at this point one of the locals would hand you your arse. But you have managed to be so egregiously wrong on pretty well everything that you can collect yours from reception.
You are beginning to look like that nasty pest the On Topic Troll.
29 October 2015 at 14:51 #45832Honestly, this is shaping up like the Triumph debate, and I have pestered Triumph considerably to bring out a Trident that resembles a Beeza A75 Rocket III/ Triumph (Meriden) Trident; similarly to DW, Triumphs are at their best as sporting standard motorcycles; the mid-60s-mid 70s Bonneville style. And they are at their worst as Harley Davidson style cruisers or Japanese style sportbikes. But that’s beside the point.
Should S34 be a slavish copy of, say, S16? Of course not.
BUT
DW needs certain things to BE DW. And if the current team wasn’t willing to make new programs that are reasonably faithful to what has gone before, maybe they should have just left the original unmolested and made a completely new program.
That said, S34 is more faithful to the original than any since S26, and I will be watching Saturday night and looking forward to S35.
29 October 2015 at 15:27 #45833@jimthefish But your attitude seems to be to treat this is the pinnacle of Who achievement, with everything before leading up to it and everything after a corruption of this alleged golden age. In reality, it was not just the coming together of a creative team that worked well, it was cultural flashpoint whose success lies in lots of other external factors. It worked brilliantly at the time (and some of it still stands up really well today — and some of it, frankly, doesn’t) but it can’t be used as a template for everything that comes after it is pointless and self-defeating.
This is really well said, and from an arts criticism point of view, stands up really well. Any program that lasts 50 years has to be viewed in the same way as a broader art form, with individual eras that were interconnected to the cultural and practical realities of the times. In musicology, there has often been a similar tendency to cluster history around certain specific flash points, to treat it as developmental rather than simply something that flows and changes over time. But just because certain gifted composers meshed with their times and their audiences in a successful way, that doesn’t mean we dismiss everything that came later when those times and cultures had changed. If so, we would all still be singing Gregorian chant and there would be no saxophones. Even being a medievalist by training, I would be spiritually the poorer without the existence of polyphonic music and the modern blues band!
29 October 2015 at 15:28 #45834@plainolddave —
Has the original series been somehow deleted or re-edited in some way? No. It’s still there in exactly the same form as it always was, so it’s hardly been molested in any way. And every series, not just Series 9, have been quite clearly faithful to what had come before.
But your refusal to stick to the conventions that just about everyone else is using in this discussion makes me think that @pedant is indeed correct and you’re being nothing but an on-topic troll. As such, I don’t think it’s really worth bothering with you any further.
29 October 2015 at 15:30 #45835@PlainOldDave Okay, I hadn’t seen the “Doctor Who as motorcycle” metaphor before. As Eleven would have said, “That’s new!” 🙂
29 October 2015 at 15:56 #45837@arbutus — absolutely. You can love one period or style more than another. But its pointless to try and isolate and refuse to acknowledge the worth of anything that comes after it. And of course nothing emerges divorced from the cultural contexts around it.
29 October 2015 at 16:15 #45839Well, it works. The 60s-70s T120 and T140 Bonnevilles are timeless bikes that are every bit as useful as anything available today. Hinckley Triumphs other than the New Bonnie are also-rans. Just as the New Bonnie is a leader in its class because it clearly recalls the T120 and T140 without being an exact duplicate, Series 26-34 are best when they recall Series 1-25 without being exact duplicates.
30 October 2015 at 00:03 #45871@plainolddave
But the Triumph Brand won’t listen to your pestering will they? Because they’re right. This is an interesting debate about triumphs -this is family of triumphs -from grandad, to brother, to sister, to husband and we have firm opinions about this
they are at their worst as Harley Davidson style cruisers or Japanese style sportbikes
No, see that is where you have it quite wrong -respectfully, again it’s a matter of marketability and of rider’s ease -particularly for the gals. Think of all the “Japanese style bikes” which have been taken off to modern Italy and used there by young teenagers?
Anyway, waaay off topic. I think what you might be saying is that the new show is ‘wrong’ somehow and so the new Who should have been a completely different program. And you’re right -about the latter. It was – different . Not completely but substantially.
And to repeat numbering styles is just ‘assy’ behaviour. I can’t understand you when you say Series 39 etc…surely, the first thing you need to do is capitulate to the new numbering sys. If you do, people will be much happier to interact with you because you’ll be understood and ultimately that’s what you want, isn’t it? But honestly, if you want a show where the female co-lead doesn’t ‘hang’ over or hug her co-lead (the male actor) why bother checking in? Because I think there’ll be plenty of hugs for both Clara and the Doctor.
Still on another thread, like the pub, we can discuss your issues with the Triumph (a favourite bike of mine -at 40 kilos I need a little bike; a light one!)
30 October 2015 at 02:44 #45878I won’t surrender to the new numbering style because it’s wrong. I have never made a habit of apologizing for being right and see no reason to stop now. Doctor Who is one program that debuted in November 1963; THAT was Season/Series 1. I’ll go far enough to call that S1. William Hartnell was the Doctor in S1. Christopher Eccleston was not an actor in 1963 and never appeared in any Hartnell episodes; his is S27-(IIRC)29.
As to Clara, they can’t get rid of her fast enough for me. DW needs to be more Sarah Jane and less Clara. No time like the present to start.
30 October 2015 at 03:00 #45880“I have never made a habit of apologizing for being right and see no reason to stop now.”
Oh, you Objectivists. Thinking concrete right and wrong can be applied to everything.
30 October 2015 at 06:58 #45891@plainolddave
OK. Well, not much more to be said then, because when you repeatedly state a) “I won’t apologise for being right” you’re saying everyone else is absolutely wrong and so why hang with people who are so belligerent that they cannot bend down and say “oh absolutely we’re all totally wrong: the producers, writers and show-runners;
and b) writing this all the time: “his is S27-(IIRC)29” means that no-one will understand you and so you won’t be able to communicate with them. It’s kind of like saying “I won’t play on this lovely Yamaha or Kawai because it’s not on what Beethoven would have composed.”
You lose all the music, the rapt delight because you won’t surrender to things moving on. Perhaps the Catholic Church should never have acceded to Vatican ii and so Mass should still be said in Latin and women must continue wearing veils on Sunday mornings. Kindles are not books: only ‘books’ are books therefore no-one should read them and emails are not a proper form of communicating so writing a letter with excellent penmanship should be the only means of communication.
In the end, no-one will write you any letters. It’s plain stubborn and it’s stubborn for stubborn’s sake which is so beside the point when you’re discussing a program that is sci-fi, fantasy, adventure and thrills and ever-changing -perhaps more than any other, this show inspires evolution and change.
It’s about recognising how humans are limitless, how we got out of the cave, walked across the hills and looked into the night and saw the stars. We are ambitious creatures and with ambition must come change and the admonition for experiencing the delight that accompanies change.
I’d rather be discussing the potential for a female Doctor with a female companion than program numbering -because the latter is a binary, maudlin argument anyway, and so has little room for the arbitrary mystique that is Who. Who doesn’t love the mystique? 🙂
30 October 2015 at 07:30 #45892@plainolddave I didn’t catch what you said about Clara and Sarah Jane** til now (apologies for that) -what is wrong with Clara in your opinion? If it was Clara ‘the motor mouth and the Impossible Girl and not much more’ I can understand that though I respect another’s enjoyment of her in that role as much as I respect those who really liked Martha (when I really didn’t, all that much).
To me Sarah Jane with her passion for travel and her adherence to right and wrong is quite similar to Clara, no? I realise that the way the Doctor just dumped her was pretty trashy and says a lot for the Doctor’s faults -whether Gallifreyan or human, it’s a crap thing to do.
That’s not really ‘quirky,’ it’s just wrong. Once, when I was eight, my dad (being bewildered or just lazy) forgot to pick me up from tennis one wintry Saturday arvo and after one hour of waiting I walked two hours home. In the rain. When I arrived home, Dad said “not a word to Mum, you hear me?” He must have felt guilty about being caught but not at all upset he’d done the wrong thing.
** So basically, I’m trying to determine what it was that made Who so great with Sarah Jane but not so with Clara (for women, I’m wondering if it’s plain envy and for men it’s because she talks too much. It’s the Doctor traditionally doing the talking and the ‘explaining’ -and we know, right back to Pertwee, he did a lot of that. Tennant, my God, always spoke about “talking, talking and talking.” -it got him out of tight spots!
30 October 2015 at 08:14 #45894@purofilion I’d rather be discussing the potential for a female Doctor with a female companion than program numbering
Me too, and that’s me who wore meself out discussing that very issue elsewhere!
30 October 2015 at 10:51 #45900@purofilion What I mean by Companions need to be more Sarah Jane and less Clara is the program is diminished by Clara’s unseemly crawling all over Twelve. The man’s 900 years old, for Pete’s sake, and he’s not going out of his way to dissuade her. Sarah Jane, on the other hand, was a colleague. NOT a FWB, which is a perception the current people aren’t doing nearly enough to dissuade a classically trained DW viewer.
On tradition and heritage: We are all products of our heritage, and it informs who we are. A more accurate summation of your view might be, ‘why bother with that 200-year old trash? Technology moves on, after all and Justin Bieber (or whoever) is newer and therefore better.
NO.
I may be misunderstood. I don’t want Series 35 to copy the Dicks/Hinchcliffe/Williams era, and the DT era had shining moments of what DW can be. A specific example is Rise of the Cybermen.
Plot: The revisitation of the origin of the Cybermen as the ULTIMATE mobile phone upgrade was brilliant and in the finest tradition of making a DW plot a social commentary. In this case, the overdependence on smartphones.
Companions: Rose and Mickey act perfectly within the bounds of DW companionship, and the pathos of the alternate reality were VERY well done.
Now. Why can’t more S35 episodes be like this in character?
30 October 2015 at 12:23 #45903@plainolddave
A more accurate summation of your view might be, ‘why bother with that 200-year old trash? Technology moves on, after all and Justin Bieber (or whoever) is newer and therefore better.
Sir, we were having a good conversation but to assume I must like Bieber, me, a 47 year old with credentials in classical music is very acidic and rude -yet again. I think @jimthefish was right -there’s no point in bothering with you- -particularly when I was asking a civil question in a civil manner.
I would ask for an apology at least.
Also, I don’t speak in FWBs or whatever it is.
30 October 2015 at 12:25 #45904@plainolddave–
I won’t surrender to the new numbering style because it’s wrong. I have never made a habit of apologizing for being right and see no reason to stop now
No, you are wrong, I’m afraid. Doctor Who originally ran from 1963 to 1989. Then it was cancelled. Over. Finished. Then there was a one-off TV movie that didn’t go anywhere. And then there was a revived series that picked up some elements of the original, now-defunct series and added its own. The ultimate arbiter in these matters is the BBC, I’m afraid, not you. And this is the numbering sequence they use and therefore so do we. To insist otherwise is (apart from being more than a bit ‘comic book guy’ is disrespectful to everyone else on the forum, it also creates confusion unnecessarily. If you’re going to engage with people here, then I suggest you respect the basics.)
the program is diminished by Clara’s unseemly crawling all over Twelve
We seem to be watching entirely different shows. Can you point to one scene, just one, where this happens? Because I must have missed it. Clara and Twelve do not have a romantic relationship, as has been (I think successfully) argued by many above.
Basically, your argument seems to boil down to ‘the modern world! Booo!’
30 October 2015 at 12:30 #45905Must we put up with this? I was being extremely polite and questioning out of interest. I was not attempting to be crude or to pick on someone. And yet still I must learn, I suppose, not to flog a dead horse – and all that!
🙂
Anyway, moving on…. Ad hominem attacks. Three by my count, now. Interestingly, he’s not so rude to the gentlemen? Just the ladies, perhaps!
Ah, well, I’ll sleep on it. Everything is better with the morning sunshine.
30 October 2015 at 12:41 #45906Oh, you Objectivists. Thinking concrete right and wrong can be applied to everything.
Oh God, of course. I should have recognised the dogmatic certainty a disciple of the Emotionally Damaged 12 Year Old Who Never Got The Psychiatric Help She So Obviously Needed.
30 October 2015 at 17:03 #45913The new series has its own rules, traditions and audience. Most of people are too young to remember the original series. For me it’s a waste of time comparing the old with the new which is not really new because it’s 10 years old. And it’s a long time.
I just can’t wait for the next Doctor’s meeting with River. I don’t know if I can accept this relationship but it could be so much funnier with the 12th.
30 October 2015 at 21:40 #45917@PlainOldDave
There is no such animal as ‘Series 35’. If you’re going to be ridiculously pedantic, can you at least be correct in your pedantry?
The series which started in 1963 was identified by story and ‘season’ – First Season, Second Season etc. Pick up any Who reference book that dates from before the After Gap reboot and you’ll find that they use that nomenclature, right the way up to the Twenty-Sixth Season. The series which started in 2005 was identified by story and ‘series’ – Series 1, Series 2, etc.
It makes it very easy for the BBC (and fans) to quickly identify the original Before Gap programme and the new After Gap reboot. Doctor Who ‘First Season’ is referring to the Lambert/Hartnell stories, Doctor Who ‘Series 1’ refers to the Davies/Eccleston stories.
If you’re watching Doctor Who’s Ninth Season, you should be watching Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. If you’re watching Doctor Who Series 9, you should be watching Peter Capaldi.
You are either watching Series 9 (S9) or the Thirty Fifth Season. You are not watching Series 35.
30 October 2015 at 23:20 #45923An Adventure in Space and Time is a nice drama doc for the Hartnell period.
I watched that on Space (in Canada) and loved it. If I recall correctly, it aired around the time of the 50th anniversary special. I felt like I’d traveled back in time, appropriately enough, and caught a glimpse of what it was like to be developing Doctor Who at the BBC back in those days.
@plainolddave
I won’t surrender to the new numbering style because it’s wrong.
In your opinion. Always an important qualifier to bear in mind with any discussion on what we like and don’t like.
31 October 2015 at 01:33 #45930@bluesqueakpip @plainolddave
Aaaand now we’re going right back to where we started because Mr Dave’s original concern was one (concerning the Triumph) which was: “there is a difference between a series and a season” -or, something like that….;)
31 October 2015 at 01:49 #45931There’s. One. Dr. Who. SERIES.
When SciFi rebooted Battlestar, they made it abundantly clear. The sole tiein to the original were a couple of the original actors had bit-part cameos.
When JJ Abrams rebooted Trek, it was perfectly clear from the movie plot, and Spock Prime was a driving force in the reboot’s plot.
DW is completely different.
There has never been any sort of pronunciation from the Beeb that this is anything OTHER than a continuation of the series that debuted in November 1963; a SF adventure anthology serial about an eccentric alien known only as The Doctor. The Doctor is the constant in the anthology, and his basic character CAN’T change as it is one of the constants the serial is based on. The current team’s insistence on trying to transform an anthology serial into a drama with standalone episodes is the source of a goodly part of the plot and storyline troubles. IMO. But “my opinion” is conclusions based on facts.
31 October 2015 at 02:15 #45932@plainolddave
So, do I get an apology for calling me a Beiber lover when I have a PhD in music -the left handed conducting style of Penderecki, to be precise? 🙂
Seriously, dude, you need to lighten up.
And enjoy this Forum
31 October 2015 at 02:56 #45935@plainolddave I don’t want to exchange insults with you but I find it interesting that you really focus on one thing (oh, other than the numbering) and that’s the way the definite article (as you refer to him) relates to his companion. Your most striking emphasis being: “how he leaves Susan and Romana” etc.
I would say it’s almost as if you enjoy that part the most: that the Doctor takes leave of ‘his women’ in a rude and destructive style. If I was being nasty, I’d say that’s what you like -possibly what you like to do yourself: to dump people quickly and effectively, as if you, personally, admire that, as some sort of skill. As Jim has asked, and others too, could you name one instance where our current doctor has had some romantic or “unseemly” carry-on with Clara?
I feel you cannot answer the question because you know there isn’t an answer: he simply doesn’t do that, and hasn’t. Not last year and not this season certainly.
I would also add that there’s something wrong with any person who believes a quick kiss and hug are somehow wrong and unseemly -as if personal attraction, physical contact or even sex is ‘disgusting’ which would suggest to me that, sir, there’s something rather wrong with you.
Having received no answers to my questions, no apologies to calling me a “chick flick lover” and worse, despite my particular articulation and lucidity, I’m a person who thinks only the modern is “correct” and “throw away the rest.” This suggests you haven’t read a word I’ve actually written. This is further infused by your enthusiasm at suggesting I’m some kind of a “Bieber lover.” Really? In what capacity would I have suggested this? Have you read any of my other posts before assuming I’m some ‘twenty-something, fashion orientated, brainless, shop-til-I-drop chick’ inferring that I therefore adore Bieber and One Direction instead of Paul Grabowsky (a personal friend, by the way) and Peter Sculthorpe -by no means “new” musicians.
I would suggest you read people’s posts in full and before attacking them personally perhaps, just once, read thru the comments @jimthefish and Pip have stated regarding the nomenclature of the Season versus Series refinements, done so simply to aid people’s understanding about the ‘same show’ as you call it. And if it is the same show, then terrific, we all agree. But where does that get us? Precisely nowhere because it’s a binary argument -and therefore one favoured by the Underbridge Family – @bluesqueakpip herself has defined these type of trolls using this ‘Family Name’.
You are, by harking on and on about the same damn thing, not positioning yourself as a member willing to ‘give a little’. To be so opinionated and inflexible is the very opposite of this site -we love opinions which differ, but we love flexibility equally -it’s the hallmark of an educated mind. Not stifled by beliefs of one kind or another.
Since coming here and being welcomed by me warmly you have proceeded to utter one rude statement after another, dwelling on infernally small issues which you’ve blown up into enormous hot air balloons. In order to make your point you have interceded with personal attacks (which had now lead me to do the same, damn it -and that’s not my usual metier; as you should have realised by now -although, who nose, perhaps that was your only intention after all) and lamented the ‘fall’ of your favourite show merely because of a simple problem with numbers which means precisely nothing! Nothing whatsoever -except it does if you wish to be understood, which clearly doesn’t bother you. But, you will be alone and unable to discuss a show that, clearly, has vindicated itself to you in the last two years and I feel, that if you take @blenkinsopthebrave ‘s suggestion of watching the Smith era you’ll be presently surprised. There’s no unseemly touching there whatsoever. Oh, no, there is one kiss. Do beware of this..
31 October 2015 at 03:04 #45936@plainolddave
There’s. One. Dr. Who. SERIES
I agree. There is one serial called Doctor Who. It’s split into Seasons for its first twenty odd years and then series after that.
You seem to have such a problem with this concept, and, you know, everyday reality, that you have become a poster of interest. Especially because every post contains a factual inaccuracy for us to dither about.Çan I strongly recommend that anyone who has a tendency to engage with this poster cease. We know the score by now surely?
I’ll discuss the situation with our new friend tomorrow by PM. Intermediate posts will be deleted and will never have existed. I don’t care how much typing you did.
31 October 2015 at 03:15 #45937@PlainOldDave
There’s. One. Dr. Who. SERIES.
Which the BBC calls ‘The First Season’ to ‘The Twenty Sixth Season’, and then calls ‘Series 1’ to ‘Series 9’. It’s not complicated. At least, it’s not complicated if you’re British; we have streets that change names halfway down and house numbers that are No. 1 on one side and No. 234 opposite, so a numbering system for a TV series that uses one system in 1989 and a different system in 2005 isn’t terribly problematic.
However, the fourteen year gap between the ‘Seasons’ and the ‘Series’ is sufficient to make the 2005 series a reboot. Fourteen years – that’s nearly an entire television generation. Nicking the Wikipedia definition of ‘reboot’, because it’s 3 am over here:
Reboots remove any non-essential elements associated with a franchise by starting the franchise’s continuity over and distilling it down to the core elements and concepts…
The backstory provided to explain the ‘gap’ shows that we’re looking at a reboot, as do the structural changes (from serials to mostly stand-alones, episode lengths of 50 minutes, and much, much more money). Using the Wikipedia definition, it’s possible to see that the Time War backstory removed everything except the core concept of the time-travelling alien in a TARDIS shaped like a blue Police Box. It rebooted the series.
The ‘continuity’ could then be slowly re-introduced later, once they’d got an audience. I’d point out that Star Trek: The Next Generation contains a considerable amount of shared history and characters with Star Trek (The Original Series), but while they’re set in the same dramatic universe, they’re not considered the same series.
The Doctor is the constant in the anthology, and his basic character CAN’T change as it is one of the constants the serial is based on
No, the constant that the serial is based on is that the lead character is an alien called – well, actually, that hasn’t been very constant. Either ‘The Doctor’ or ‘Doctor Who’. Take your pick. And there was a moment when he was only half-alien, but he was probably lying.
The other constant is the TARDIS – except for the Pertwee Seasons where it wasn’t working and he was stuck on Earth with a job at UNIT.
What’s constant about the Doctor’s core personality?
- He’s very curious
- He likes to travel, though he may not always be able to
- Ummm….
Mostly, he’s very brave – but not always. Mostly, he’s very compassionate – but not always. Is he a good man? Tricky.
But “my opinion” is conclusions based on facts.
At the moment I’m afraid my opinion is that I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that you wouldn’t know a fact if it slapped you in the face with a wet haddock. You keep stating things as a ‘fact’ which are not factual.
Such as, for example, the idea that the character of the lead in a continuing series can’t change. That’s out-of-date even in the US, and it was never the case for The Doctor in Doctor Who. It is not a fact. It’s an opinion about what makes a good continuing drama.
Or that the numbering system of a television series can’t be changed. Again: opinion.
But not ‘fact’.
31 October 2015 at 03:19 #45938Apologies – I was typing while you were posting and didn’t see your #45936
31 October 2015 at 03:45 #45939I understand and thank you.
You’re quite right, we should know the score by now. I guess I felt that due to specific rudeness that I ought to stand up for myself -however, in so doing, I’ve fed the troll; these people tend to bring out the worst in us and cause large amounts of typing which only causes….well, more typing. I also received personal messages from this gent to which I responded only on the Forum -I thought they were pretty inappropriate also and pointed to a nasty misogynistic streak. I’ll cease discussion with him and any other trolls. I really try to avoid them but basically that’s a lesson I’ve still to learn 🙂 Apologies. Yours,
Puro
31 October 2015 at 03:51 #45940Is that why the audience seems to be going away? The ratings this season have been between 2/3 and 1/2 of previous seasons. I don’t think this is explained by changes in television
I invite you to make whatever point you have on ratings in a blog, setting forward whatsoever point you wish to make. Simply because it’s not the first time you’ve made a point about a spurious Audience Report. Tiredly making the point that ratings mean a damn needs a point. What’s the way forward?
I’ll anticipate it. Because with the statistics (and historical perspective) you love, I will present the opposite argument.
I guarantee you. It’s pretty easy.
31 October 2015 at 04:02 #45942@bluesqueakpip @purofilion
Let off, only because you’ve posted sense above and beyond….etc.
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