Dr Who News (5)

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@iskrat
Well you SAY that. I think three 2,000 word essays are required on each of the show’s many dubious but variedvincarnations. Then… and only then… may you buy me a pint.

[WhoHar @whohar]

Deadline article on the BBC and D+ fallout.

https://deadline.com/2025/10/why-disney-ditched-doctor-bbc-1236601181/

[janetteB @janetteb]

@whohar thanks for the link. It sounds as though the 26 Yule special might be RTD’s swansong. I expect there will be big announcements next year, new partnership,new show-runner new Doctor. Fingers crossed they chose well and realise that it takes more than just a big budget to make good Dr Who.

cheers

Janette

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@whohar @janetteb

Anyone got the low down on Tony Jordan? Obviously there was someone of the same name involved in Life on Mars… not saying there’s necessarily any jockeying for position or strange briefings going on but…

Also… Piers Wenger took over from Ben Stephenson a year after he left in 2015. Stephenson got a lot of flack from the right wing press in what you might call the early phases of the ‘culture wars.’ Now, you know my theories about Moff being nobbled, continuity trashed and Chib hamstrung (not sure what practical difference that made)… but then it was this guy who presumably appointed RTD.

Still that one xmas special does rather stick out, throbbing rather. Surely this other streaming network must be relevant? And the Sea Devil thing.

Yes, I can see Russ taking the fall for this, but if as we think, many of the oddities of 24/25 were down to Disney, he should be given the chance to resolve them. I’ll be desperately disappointed if the Susan/VR arc is ditched or there’s a rushed version of the Bille/David conundrum. Really looking forward to Billiedoc.

Non fans think the show is ridiculous anyway; do you want to risk another showrunner who will trash continuity?

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

@janetteb

I expect there will be big announcements next year, new partnership,new show-runner new Doctor.

I hope so. My guess is that the 2026 Christmas Special is a kind of placeholder while the BBC / Bad Wolf figure out the next move. If we don’t start to hear something by say Easter next year, then I’d be expecting a delay until the new season proper.

@ps1l0v3y0u

Anyone got the low down on Tony Jordan? Obviously there was someone of the same name involved in Life on Mars…

That was my first thought too but it’s not the same guy. This Tony Jordan runs the DW Fan club.

[WhoHar @whohar]

Some rumours circulating that RTD and Bad Wolf will be out once the 2026 special is done.

Rumours also that Pete McTighe and Jack Thorne are in the frame for next showrunner.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@whohar Interesting names both. I had to research McTighe. I liked his remark that he entire career has been aimed at getting to work on Dr Who. Thorne has done some sterling work but not sure he has the flair required for Dr Who. Also he does seem to have a lot on his plate at the moment.

I have suspected that the 26 Yule special is RTD and Bad Wolf’s  Dr Who swansong.

cheers

Janette

[winston @winston]

@janetteb  @whohar       I am not sure how I feel about this.  There was such high hopes for RTD’s  return and everything seemed to go wrong. There are so many reasons and I am not sure it was all his fault but I guess like the captain of a ship…

There was a lot of really good stuff  in the last couple of series and the 15th Doctor was excellent .

Any way I guess we will find out eventually  what is happening ,and until then we are left guessing and hoping about the future of the Doctor. We can also make mad theories and Doctor wish lists and that is fun.

stay cozy

[janetteB @janetteb]

@winston There were many good moments in the past two series and it surprises me that they did not get better ratings. I also really liked Gatwa as the Doctor. I always have mixed feelings about RTD. He can be brilliant and he did bring Dr Who back but at times he needs someone to tell him that bigger is not always better and the universe does not have to end every series. His best stories, (like Moffat’s) were always the “small ones”, like Gridlock and Turn Left. He writes character very well.

I would love for RTD and Moffat to continue to pen the odd episode, to not sever ties entirely with the series but I also feel that new blood might be what the show needs if it is to continue.

cheers

Janette

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@whohar @winston @janetteb

Doctor Who… new directions.

What are we dealing with?

Culture Wars: there is a lot of noise. Is it it real? I prefer continuity in terms of the show’s development and its tradition. I don’t like to feel we (the fans) are being dictated to. Trouble is everyone points at the ratings. A new showrunner won’t necessarily stop the noise.

Streaming Partners & the BBC: apart from the money, why? Did no one look critically at the deal and what would happen as and when someone pulled out? Comes back to continuity in the show’s development. Because RTD/Moff was pretty seamless, but Chib was a nasty shock.

RTD2: How much was the Disney deal his baby? It seems to me that the BBC were trying to ‘Marvelise’ the show after 2014. What the first two Chib series were about I don’t know, but the pressure to sell, seemed to resurfaced with Flux. After the hand over, either the show was rushed, and/or RTD deliberately trashed stuff from the Disney wish list… like song and dance. That died a death. Also the 1950 comic book vibes: the aesthetic may be related to the VR arc but it was as confusing as it was exhilarating. You want a classic villain? Hahaha. So, were the dodgier elements of the last two years almost a Sex Pistols/EMI thing? Take the money. Don’t be controlled. Make them back off?

Continuity: is there a Cartmel 2.0? And what do the BBC think about it now? One special to wrap up those two series will certainly be awkward and maybe messy: one reason I’d like another RTD series. Because there is clearly an unresolved arc cooking and actually I was (obviously) invested in that. Shaking things up could seem like a cheat.

Piers Wenger: what was/is his role? Because he started out as executive producer alongside Moff and then appeared to oversee his demise and the introduction of Chib. Am I blaming him? There is a lot to blame.

McTighe: Kerblam, Praxeus, Lucky Day. Getting better maybe but hardly promising. In terms of writing pure and simple, what is Maxine Alderton doing? My current in show investigation is where do all the good writers go? Cos not many come back.

Jack Thorne? Adolescence and Toxic Town would indicate a darker direction. But Wenger obviously didn’t want Whithouse/Matthieson. OR maybe the streaming age is over, or there’s a very different streamer in the wings.

Not VERY confident.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb    I thoroughly agree about the ‘small’ episodes being some of the best.   (Blink, Moonlight, Listen, the Van Gogh one, The Doctor’s Wife, Boom, even Fugitive of the Judoon).   There were many ho-hum small episodes too, of course (The Wire, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship).   But I think being small gives more opportunity to make the characters interesting and the story ‘relatable’.    Opening it up to universe-ending threats loses the personal touch and the threat overshadows the story, and when the ‘good guys’ succeed there’s a certain credibility gap – how could the Doctor and a few friends overcome such a massive threat?

Certainly, if there’s a new showrunner, I would like to see RTD writing a few episodes and I’d love to see Moff doing so.

For the future, I do hope Billie Piper has a decent role to play.   With some (most) of the pre-Gap companions who have had cameos, it feels like they’re only there for fan service.   Even Ace, who I hugely like in her old episodes with Seven.   But Billie is still a lot younger so she fits the part better.   (I know I’m being shockingly age-ist there, I think at my age I’m entitled to be  🙂

[WhoHar @whohar]

New edit of the 3rd Doctor Sea Devils story:

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-sea-devils-special-106375.htm

Airing on the same* day as the spinoff

*Same day unless you are in Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada…..

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

@dentarthurdent What’s your definition of a “small episode”? Of course, “Midnight” was total crap, mainly people repeating what someone else was saying. “Vincent and The Doctor” was great, while “Fugitive of The Judoon” was part of the amazing Timeless Child storyline which revitalised Doctor Who.  “The Wire” was also fantastic, while “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” was crap. Of course “Space Babies” was terrible and I’m relieved that the original ending to “The Reality War” when Susan said to Poppy “Come on Mum”, was cut. Susan’s Mum must be someone with some history and who is older than Susan. It could be “The Woman” from “The End of Time” or a previously unseen woman who could be just a Shebogan from Gallifrey who never became a Time Lord. As we’ve seen in classic series episodes, when different Time Lords meet up after travelling, their time streams are in sync, so none of them could meet a parent as a baby.

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

@whohar it sounds like just a hatchet job of “The Sea Devils”, which was only six episodes long AND in colour! As for the spinoff, it looks and sounds like it doesn’t even feature the same species as the Sea Devils. They look quite different and are called “homo aqua”, so there’s no point showing this story before it!

[WhoHar @whohar]

@translatorcircuit

I don’t know if the re-edit of the original episodes into a feature length one will be an improvement.  Some of the older Who stories did suffer from padding, although I can’t recall if that’s the case here. And television in the 1970s tended to be more influenced by theatre (compared to modern shows which tend towards the filmic) so can sometimes seem a bit slower. This will be the third time the BBC has done this, after The Daleks, and The War Games.

RTD is on record as saying that “Sea Devils” is a slur and has come up with the new name of “Homo Aqua”. It makes sense that the creatures would have an actual name, although I’m not sure the one he’s picked makes a whole bunch of sense, scientifically speaking. But they are meant to be the same monsters as the classic series. I’ve not seen all that many publicity shots but I think there will be two versions of Sea Devils, one of which looks like the original version, and one that doesn’t. Hopefully there’s a good in-story reason for this.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@whohar Sea Devils was a good story but like all Who at the time, plenty of padding and shades of sexism. It is one of my favourite Pertwee stories. RTD has a good point about the name. It is probably time it was changed though as you say, Homo Aqua is not entirely accurate but it has a nice ring to it.

cheers

Janette

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

@janetteb

I wonder if the BBC are going to continue to produce these condensed / colourised / re-scored versions of classic stories. They’ve done Docs 1, 2 and 3 now, so presumably a Tom Baker story is due next. I wonder which one. They previously did a feature-length version of Genesis, which was transmitted and is also available on Blu-ray I believe.

Re: the spinoff, all of us here in the colonies are going to have to wait until February when Disney+ show it, unless you can find a cough…cough… unauthorised stream.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@translatorcircuit    By a ‘small’ episode I mean any that doesn’t have a cast of thousands and where the peril is focussed on the Doctor or a small group, not some universe-ending threat.   Far more credible

What do you mean, “of course Midnight was total crap”?   Where did the ‘of course’ come from?   Your opinion does not constitute a universal truth.   And for my money, the ‘Timeless Child’ storyline was just Chibs crapping all over continuity, it certainly didn’t revitalise Who.   But that’s just my opinion.

By ‘The Wire’ I meant of course The Idiot’s Lantern, which I found very ho-hum.   And of course when I said ‘Moonlight’ I meant ‘Midnight’, I could blame autocorrect except that my laptop doesn’t have it.

It would seem our tastes are fundamentally opposed.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@translatorcircuit @whohar @janetteb

colorisations and edits… The Daleks was well received; War Games not, and rightly… I was very excited at the time: it’s an outstanding story but it should really have been divided into two specials… War Games and Time Lords. However, the original 250 mins is far too long.

Sea Devils? I’ll have to watch it. Katy Manning did carry the burden of Laziest Who Hack Writing for Women. And Pertwee could be excellent or really get on your nerves. As a Crimhead I hope they don’t cut The Devil’s Triangle by Crimson.

Moff (or Chib) dubbed the Silurians Homo Reptilia. So the new name has (inaccurate) form. And Silurian itself is a misnomer unless the reptiles were named for an older master race of Squids or Prawns.

But reptile can’t be hominids. Really the SD’s should be something like Testudines Sapiens. Or maybe that’s specist.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@translatorcircuit @dentarthurdent

Small episode: NOT… ‘the end of time itself!!!’ Not a Reality Bomb. T’bloody Floox. Entropy (what yer gonna do about it?) Sutekh’s gift of Death. Maybe the paradox machine was just about acceptable. And the Fendahl was ok. Generally small threats. To companions, the hero, maybe the odd civilisation.

Funny you have it in for Midnight, and The Well… but then I like the Mara stories.

[nerys @nerys]

@dentarthurdent

What do you mean, “of course Midnight was total crap”? Where did the ‘of course’ come from? Your opinion does not constitute a universal truth. And for my money, the ‘Timeless Child’ storyline was just Chibs crapping all over continuity, it certainly didn’t revitalise Who. But that’s just my opinion.

Yup, I agree on both points. “Midnight” remains one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who episodes. “The Timeless Child” could have been good, were it not for it being spoon-fed to the Doctor (and us) through reams of exposition narrated by the Master. Chibnall seems to have skipped the whole, “show, don’t tell” lesson of storytelling.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent @translatorcircuit @janetteb

Sea Devil music was of course all by the Radiophonic workshop… KC’s The Devil’s Triangle features in Mind of Evil.

Tsk gonna have to watch that now.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys @dentarthurdent
TTC… Russ at least was at pains to point out that TTC was as sound an idea as anything in Who. Of course Missy is shown as being heavily invested in Cybermen. In The Doctor Falls, The Doctor makes Gallifreyans ‘upgradeable’. Dunno what the significance of Ashad is. Anyway, that plot line COULD have been a slow burner.

Can’t remember Moff’s exact response but he did say something a bit jokey along the lines that Chib would really appreciate him out of the way (!!) Then he wrote Douglas is Cancelled.

Andrew Cartmel was furious about TTC but got slapped down. He’s not carrying the Ming Vase anymore; Russ and Moff are.

Moff’s legacy:

Timelords rehabilitated

The Doctor gets a new regeneration cycle

1 is 1, he turns the cylindrical uncamouflaged Tardis into a police box.

All three are trashed in TTC. Not just (sarcastic) ‘cheers Chris.’ More… ‘Oh that’s a bit vindictive really… was that REALLY your idea?’

[WhoHar @whohar]

@ps1l0v3y0u

@nerys

@dentarthurdent

@janetteb

Moff’s legacy:

Timelords rehabilitated

The Doctor gets a new regeneration cycle

1 is 1, he turns the cylindrical uncamouflaged Tardis into a police box.

All three are trashed in TTC

This is why I am surprised Chibnall gets such a free pass from the previous showrunners. He must have known what the implications of his (borrowed) idea would be, and he did it anyway. Hubris, or ego-driven perhaps: “I want to leave my mark on this show”. Well, he certainly did that. I’d imagine Moffat was fuming.

I don’t like TTC at all, although it does explore some interesting ideas, as the Doc effectively becomes an abused child due to Tecteun’s experiments. This is pretty dark for Who though and could have been done another way if he wanted to go down that route. The main reason I dislike TTC is that it makes the Doctor special, and therefore less relatable and less interesting. I prefer him/her to be the rebel, the maverick, the outsider, and that his/her good deeds are motivated by trying to do the right thing rather than being (inherently) a saviour. The fact that it was all done so cack-handedly doesn’t help of course.

[janetteB @janetteb]

Moff’s legacy:

Timelords rehabilitated

The Doctor gets a new regeneration cycle

1 is 1, he turns the cylindrical uncamouflaged Tardis into a police box.

All three are trashed in TTC. Not just (sarcastic) ‘cheers Chris.’ More… ‘Oh that’s a bit vindictive really… was that REALLY your idea?’

@ps1l0v3y0u and @whohar and there you have my objection to TTC and why I gave up at the destruction of Gallifrey. It did seem spiteful especially knowing that Moff contacted RTD to make sure he was ok with the re-instatement of Gallifrey after the Time War. Showrunners past and present collaborating as it should be. I don’t think something like The Fiveish Doctors Roboot could have done done during the chib years.

cheers

Janette

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb   @ps1l0v3y0u  @whohar    @janetteb     Like Janetteb, I found Chibs’s rewriting of the whole Who timeline too much to take.   ‘Future’ events (by which I mean ones the Doctor’s timeline hasn’t reached yet) can do what they like, but ‘past’ events had better fit into the sequence or they just confuse and annoy me.   Which am I supposed to believe, what I ‘knew’ before or the incompatible version I’ve just been presented with?  I contrast the way Moff eased the War Doctor into the sequence without breaking anything, with Doctor Ruth (Fugitive of the Judoon).  Like, that was an intriguing story (if reminiscent in some ways of The Family of Blood) and I liked Ruth, not least for her ruthlessness (you are permitted to groan), but she should never have happened.

So currently I’m trying to find a rational way to believe that most of Chibz ‘didn’t happen’.    I’ll let you know when I’ve succeeded.   🙂

Whohar – I think the reason Chibz gets a ‘free pass’ from other showrunners is just politeness or ‘professional courtesy’.   You don’t badmouth your fellow workers even if you think they’re crap.

Timeless Child could have been about some other character altogether.  We all know Time Lords are ruthless, as was well established in [the episode with Timothy Dalton] and in Hell Bent.   (In fact, in that one, the Doctor was pretty unforgiving to the – Lord President, was it?   But since the LP had just tried to kill the Doctor as many times as necessary (‘I’ve got all day’) I guess that was understandable).   But anyway, as I said, the Timeless Child didn’t have to be Doctor Who.   Heck, the Doctor could even have gone back and rescued TTC from Tecteun – which would have made a nice anomaly to sort out, but could have been done.    (Apologies if I’ve got any wires crossed there, my usual laptop with its stash of Who data is – unavailable for reference.  Which is to say, I installed a new version of Debian on it and now it won’t boot off the hard drive.   All my data is still there, I can boot off a USB key and see it, so the hard drive’s okay, maybe I screwed something in the BIOS or maybe it’s the zombie ghost of Windows resurrecting itself.   So I’m on a backup laptop and some serious geeky hacking is in the offing.   The Church on Ruby Road will just have to wait.)

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@janetteb @whohar @dentarthurdent

Final word.

My initial thought re Chib was that the undoubted mess revealed a degree of incompetence and that was it. BUT I was also aware of criticism of Moff, suspicious about incongruities in his story lines (though I suppose that could also be the way Moff rolls); also a little surprised that the Being Human team (Whithouse and Matthieson) didn’t get the gig. I can see now that was, ahem… wishful thinking: never going to happen.

The relative silence about the process: I can only put it down to the Ming Vase concept. You DON’T break it. So Russ says yes pass it to me! Woops. But it’s an impossible task. And he knew he would carry the can, because he understands the politics, and lo! See the approbrium he has garnered. On the other hand he has successfully shown that outside interference in the show’s format will be a disaster. So, time for a reset? Hmmm how will that play out?

Or what else could it be? An just an unfortunate series of events? The show has always had its knockers and it HAS been cancelled before. Hence the Ming Vase. No-one wants that. Or DO they?

Observation: Moff got the gig sixteen years ago with Piers Wenger as co executive producer. Moff went eight years ago, Wenger is still there, commissioning drama. Good job!

Continuity. Most ‘old’ shows would get a reboot… just start again and retell the old stuff with knowing jokes. Who didn’t do that: it twists the canon and changes the question; it wears change like a badge of honour. This is a problem. Twenty years in, writers realised that you couldn’t just come up with any old rubbish. You needed a plan. Thank you Andrew.

Now @whohar you make not like The Doctor being too special, but why are all the other time-lords such crashing bores? Yes all of them; if The Master wasn’t such a loon, he would be boring too. In fact he is quite one-note. No wonder the race keep falling off a cliff. So anyway, Andrew said the Doctor (and Omega and Rassilon) ARE special. It’s canon, and now part of the plan, IF there is still a plan.

Of course there is a Plan. The soufflé is not the soufflé, the soufflé is the recipe. The Plan IS tricky. The theme is ‘Who?’ You can’t give everything away up front or the show ends; so you tease, you may need to introduce two new twists say for everyone you solve. Also The Plan may be hijacked. The Plan could even be a screen for other activity… though again tricky because the first rule of The Plan must be you don’t draw attention to The Plan.

So, did Chib do what he did under cover of The Plan? There was an intention to investigate non-human Cybermen; the Doctor’s parentage would always be questioned and explored; and why did the Doctor leave Gallifrey? Andrew Cartmel may be jumping up and down on the sidelines after TTC because it was obviously done so BADLY, but he’s not involved anymore. Russ and Moff are, and they don’t want to start a war. Or drop the vase.

But why was it done so badly? I don’t actually think Chib is THAT poor a writer. He must have known the Fam was a potential disaster. He might not be able to tell a joke but he was surely wincing at the sheer dullness of his tenure… until it became incoherent. Not sure if the incoherence wasn’t a bit meta either. Conclusion, Chib was under instruction. Moff refused to be instructed and he went quietly as it turned out. Don’t smash The Ming Vase.

What is SO dangerous about Who that you would want to sabotage it… so very carefully? I’m sure the Corp would prefer control. Keep the fans fed and let it die a natural death. Well, while the ratings are good the critics keep their heads down. But the premise… science fiction… is itself dangerous: ideas, which suggests other ideas; there is always an alternative and someone is going to find at least something uncomfortable. From bug eyed monsters to Mary Whitehouse to an… erm sexualised Doctor, THAT narrative doesn’t change. Time and again, the same demands are made of the show: give it more emotional impact (er… it IS sci-fi); make it a soap! Soaps involve continuity and shouting don’t they?; make it space opera… look at Star Wars and Marvel; go back to historicals (oh dear history is contentious too… tell you what, stick a monster in it).

Continuity is the killer though; it says you can’t control the past. If a public service broadcaster wants to stay away from scrutiny in a hostile climate, that’s a nightmare. And are the Corp under pressure now! The private sector is just going to sell you back something you thought you already owned. A streaming platform should be ideal: make them hold the purse strings, and keep the writers in line. And I think they’ve been trying since 2015.

[nerys @nerys]

@ps1l0v3y0u @whohar @janetteb @dentarthurdent I do agree with you about disliking what Chibnall did to the canon, especially with Gallifrey. But then, I was disappointed with how Gallifrey was handled after the 50th anniversary special. Here we had the Doctor’s jubilation at setting out to find it, and then we got little joy (I mean that in the “jubilant” sense) with the Trenzalore storyline. I think it’s just a case of, that’s not what I was expecting. And I don’t think Gallifrey was handled particularly well after that, with the exception of the “Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent” episodes.

So I wasn’t especially galled by that aspect of the Timeless Child. For me, it was the horribly clumsy handling of it. The story had potential: What the Doctor thinks she remembers is not what actually happened (which then becomes true for the audience, as well). Here it was handled slightly better than “It was all a dream” … but not by much. (I kept wanting to tell the Master to just shut up. Not because I was upset at the content of his speech, but because such a revelation is not something that should be left to rambling exposition.) Which should have been a clue that maybe this was a road best left untraveled. In a series in which there is not such a well-established canon, this kind of tinkering can work. But, with a series as long-lived as Doctor Who, one must proceed with caution.

@ps1l0v3y0u I agree with you that this was likely a decision made by committee. I’d had a suspicion that this mess felt like a “too many cooks in the kitchen” situation, and I think that’s probably true.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@ps1l0v3y0u

@nerys

@dentarthurdent

@janetteb

I think the reason Chibz gets a ‘free pass’ from other showrunners is just politeness or ‘professional courtesy’.   You don’t badmouth your fellow workers even if you think they’re crap.

Absolutely understand this. What I don’t understand is why RTD doubled down on it in the latest two series. He could have written something contradictory (unlikely), or quietly shelved it, so it was never mentioned again.

you make not like The Doctor being too special, but why are all the other time-lords such crashing bores?

So, that’s the point really. The TL society was too stifling and bureaucratic, so the Doc wanted to leave, explore and help. It’s a direct juxtaposition with the other TLs.

I read recently that Chibnall didn’t tell any of his writers that the Doc was female until after they had submitted their first drafts. You can tell if you look at the finished versions of the eps – just a few, mainly cursory allusions to the change. Think about this. Chibnall (presumably) wanted a female Doc but then mentally went “yep that’s done” and then did nothing with it. This is appalling tokenism and it’s shameful if true.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@whohar @nerys @dentarthurdent @janetteb

design by committee? More dictact in my opinion, and contrary to the spirit of the show at that. I’ve probably said too much already.

The question is, with so much (supposed? imagined?) interference, why HAVE the main parties been so diplomatic? Well Andrew Cartmel wasn’t. Moffat has made the odd salty comment and apparently only sidled back at Russ’ behest. Russ had the show to run and he probably felt he could be magnanimous, save the soul of the show, shovel Disney out of the door and still enjoy breakfast at the end of the universe. Is that hubris, a death wish, or recognition that it’s all out of his hands? There is BBC blood in the water and the ‘gammonhead sharks’ are circling. OR have things have changed since even 2022, when he took it on? Well yes.

The writers also remember Colin Baker being sacked and Eric Saward resigning then launching into JNT. The show was gone in three seasons.

The most even Russ has said is that the ideas in TTC are sound enough (therefore were they broadly planned and not just by Chib?) There’s mention of the execution, which was of course woeful.

The biggest problem is the 8 Morbius faces, in that I suspect that whole scene was meant to be meta, showing National Viewers and Listeners Association that the show runners were ‘the monsters’ (ie Morbius) Not sure a single Hinchcliffe statement about the Doctor having an existence before 1 should be taken at face value; at that point there wouldn’t haven been A Plan.

But they can’t be ignored now. Or… could Morbius be another bigeneration of The Doctor? This is the problem: ideas suggest contrary alternatives. And NONE of it is actually REAL. Except for The Art, which, as we know, trumps Words and Deeds.

 

 

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

I think I must admit now that I never really liked the Disney+ era of Doctor Who. I was just trying to like it, watching it to support the series and telling other people to watch it to enable Doctor Who to continue.

I’m disgusted with Ncuti Gatwa for leaving just because it was taking too long for his liking for Disney+ to decide whether or not to finance another series or season. His latest job is performing live in a play! RTD and/or Disney+ have messed everything up by introducing fantasy elements into the series. Luckily, the original ending of “The Reality War” was deleted. This ending claimed that the character Poppy was actually Susan’s Mum. I think this is really stupid or even sacrilegious, because Time Lords have previously been shown to be in synch with each other when travelling. The Doctor would never meet The Master as a baby, for example. So, this means that it’s impossible for a baby or a toddler to be Susan’s Mum. I think her Mum might have been “The Woman” standing near Rassillon from “The End of Time – Part 2”, or an ordinary Gallifreyan Shobogan who failed the test to become a Time Lord. Either way, she can’t appear as a baby, although she might look younger than Susan.

Unfortunately, the actual chord played in “The Devil’s Chord” which caused Maestro to appear was a chord well known to me. It was made up of notes which are three tones apart. This is equivalent to six guitar frets. I don’t think it has a name because the guitarist of a certain quite influential band made it up. Can anyone here name the band or mention any tunes it appears in? I’m worried that RTD chose this as The Devil’s Chord, as well as the title of another series he’s produced because he hates this band!

I think the best thing about this era was Ruby, who was totally sexy. I think just the skirt she wore in her first episode could have attracted lots of viewers if they’d known about it in advance. I was really disappointed when she left at the end of her first season or series, then didn’t make many appearances in the second series or season. I’ve just noticed that she’s since appeared in a remake of the old “The Forsyte Saga”, and the pics of what she’s wearing in that mean that I definitely won’t be watching it. I hope she appears in a sci fi series in the near future. I don’t think she’ll return to Doctor Who in the planned Christmas Special for 2026, though.

 

 

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@translatorcircuit

three tones apart sounds like the tritone, long described as ‘the Devil in Music’ and rejected by musical theorists until C19th. Significantly, George Harrison did use it more than once.

Disney+… I can hardly say it was satisfactory but S1: 3-6 worked; also S2: 2-7. Only S1: 7-8 were abject failures.

The main problem is we don’t know where the show goes next. Or what the legacy will be. We seem to be mid arc. But if the arc is VR… and Poppy is Belinda’s very human child, who is to say Poppy doesn’t REPRESENT Susan’s mum? So, maybe that clip WILL be used yet!

Also, the Doctor apparently has several wives. River is last seen in a VR reading bedtime stories to (the magic number) THREE children (one of whom is Charlotte Lux). Bet she LOVED that.

So Time Lords meeting in the right order isn’t necessarily relevant, but even so there’s something about ‘the causal nexus’ invoked there (whenever that was)… what the hell is THAT? Got my own suspicions about Saxon and Missy.

But, will that story be developed now? Maybe without Disney’s proscriptions, things will seem less fevered.

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

@ps1l0v3y0u I don’t know anything about “the Devil in Music” or George Harrison using this chord. However, it was used in a cover version of a Beatles song and possibly in one or two other songs. This guitarist likes using more obscure chords.

I’m not wishing my life away waiting for the Doctor Who Christmas Special 2026! I think the BBC has closed down now. I never watch anything on BBC TV channels because I’m boycotting them. I think the BBC must be severely punished for their treatment of Doctor Who. Eastenders and Strictly must be cancelled, as well as the Licence Fee abolished just for starters! My fantasies about this are Doctor Who crossovers with both series that put the 30th Anniversary “Dimensions in Time” to shame. They should cost a fortune, bankrupting the BBC, so that the BBC has to go off air. Everything the BBC produces apart from Doctor Who is a total waste of the Licence Fee.

Luckily for Doctor Who fans there are some fan produced videos. One collection is called DW2012 because of when it started. I’ve only seen a few of these, because I didn’t hear about them until recently and Season 2 was taken offline to be remastered, but now I’ve heard it’s back online. Apart from this, there are lots of the Big Finish audio dramas available in Spotify and/or Apple Music which can save fans a fortune compared with buying them individually. Fans can also buy a subscription to KDAN PDF Reader or some similar software, then get it to read various Doctor Who novels to them aloud if they find them difficult to read.

I’ll be watching “The War Between The Land and The Sea”, but I’m not expecting much from it. I doubt if I’ll be watching it twice.

 

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@translatorcircuit

I have so so much admiration for those who, Pete Sinfield said of Ian McDonald, can pluck a string, hit a key or vibrate a reed and create a pleasing sound. Because I can’t. I can only admire and read.

The tritone is a dissonance, ‘mi contra fa’, avoided and ‘demonised’ by medieval sacred music: typically an augmented fourth. Romantic composers liked their musical pallet rich however: so naughty boys like Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz gobble it up; also Debussy and Bartok, and you hear it in Mars and Uranus from Holst’s Planets.

‘The Inner Light,’ ‘Blue Jay Way’ and ‘Within and Without You’ by Harrison all feature Tritones. I think he may have started writing on the Hammond organ around this time; obviously ‘Without’ may have been written or adapted for Indian traditional instruments, but George seems to have searching for new musical colours in 67.

Then Hendrix, Black Sabbath and King Crimson hijacked the tritone to develop ‘metal’ tunings.

I think. It’s the less cuddly one.

The BBC have bigger problems than some dissatisfied customers. That is dissatisfied customers want to know why they’re paying the license fee.

How do you fund a public sector broadcaster? If parties in favour of the private sector want value for money, cos they want people to pay for their own product, how do you get them to commission original drama and documentary? What if the third parties you decide to purchase from on the cheap don’t comply with your editorial standards?

ie Watch Out!

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ps1l0v3y0u In Oz the public broadcaster, (ABC) is purely government funded which I guess is a mixed blessing. Not dependant upon a drying up license fee but instead are subject to government whims and the malice of one side of politics who dislike anyone who dares criticise them and equate truth to bias. (it is universal sadly)

Back in the day the ABC were a force to be reckoned with, despite having a very small budget compared to the BBC. They nurtured original talent, had government changing current affairs, excellent docos and managed make some good tv series not to mention showing the cream of BBC and ITV and giving us a winter of Doctor Who including endless repeats every year. We were fortunate. They are teetering on the perch now sadly. Like libraries public broadcasters need to change to survive but they are just as essential to a robust culture.

cheers

Janette

 

 

 

[nerys @nerys]

@ps1l0v3y0u @janetteb Sadly, Canada has its own “Defund the CBC” initiative, led by those who, quite predictably, feel their own political causes are not sufficiently championed. But, given how reliant Canada has become on American broadcasters, the CBC is really the only broadcaster in Canada promoting Canadian culture (especially music). If we lose that, we’ll lose a valuable part of our identity.

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

@ps1l0v3y0u I don’t know about this chord being contained in ‘The Inner Light”, “Blue Jay Way” (covered by this band on their reunion tour) or “Within and Without You”, I’m sorry that no one on here can tell me the song or songs I’m thinking of which contained “The Devil’s Chord”, so now I’ll have to reveal them.

The main song I’m thinking of is “Helter Skelter” covered by Siouxsie and The Banshees, from their album “The Scream” https://open.spotify.com/track/1fxqGusoFnaRoFRmf9bSsS?si=96b39597d6b2454d Several of the chords are used in the intro. I think it’s also contained in their songs “The Staircase (Mystery)” and “Playground Twist”. They were played by guitarist John McKay, but he left, then their later guitarists had to copy him as well as add their own ideas.

I haven’t heard this type of chord used by anyone else, but I’ve just found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone

The RTD Bad Wolf Productions series I was thinking about was “I Hate Suzie”.

 

 

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@translatorcircuit

I don’t know John McKay… and I’m sure I should … apparently hugely influential. You get the idea that there were so many musicians like Keith Levine, who hadn’t done the grammar school music thing and so didn’t launch into classical references and jazz, though jazz was anti rock (which in early 80’s was very cool…) most of the post punk would agree.

I did wonder if you meant John McGeogh (obvs you don’t) who joined Souxsie later. He was both a willing servant to the music and looked to other innovators he couldn’t quote directly (cos they were rock baggage at the time).

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@nerys    Has Donald Trump sued the CBC for a billion dollars yet?

We know why he hates the BBC.

Given that Trump is the most loathsome excrescence ever to crawl on the face of the earth, with all the appeal of a Dot-and-Bubble slug  [five paragraphs of vitriol omitted], and lies brazenly and continually, any news organisation that reports his doings remotely fairly or factually is automatically his enemy.

I imagine the CBC must inevitably have reported on him in less than glowing obsequious terms, I’d be willing to bet that tRump or his minions are giving support to any ‘Defund the CBC’ movement, in exactly the same way they promote the far Right in Europe and badmouth the NHS.

Elbows up!

(Thais has been a party political broadcast on behalf of sanity and rationality   🙂

[nerys @nerys]

@dentarthurdent Has Donald Trump sued the CBC for a billion dollars yet?

No, but probably only because annexation is more top of mind.

Unfortunately, in Canada the “defund the CBC” rhetoric came to a head during the pandemic, in lockstep with similar protests and blockades opposing Covid public health measures and demanding to overthrow the federal government. All of this is thanks to the growing polarization that exists in Canada, just as it exists in other parts of the world, creating a fertile environment for fascism and foment.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@nerys   Unfortunately  Covid was a breeding ground for  anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists  and  bloody-minded obstinate people of all types who thought their individual rights trumped everyone else’s.   In fact, thought that they weren’t properly exercising their rights unless they trampled on somebody else.   The sort of mentality that thinks the Government must automatically be evil because it makes laws that infringe their ‘freedom’  (except of course when the laws favour them personally).

If there was some thing that needed to be done, which was obviously sensible and the only rational course of action, and would benefit everybody, you can guarantee that there would be at least one individual who sabotaged it out of sheer perversity.

[nerys @nerys]

@dentarthurdent Yup. The whole “individual rights over the public good” mantra took an ugly turn during the pandemic, and it doesn’t seem to be losing steam.

What’s strange to me is the speed with which many people forgot how bad it was. Governments, along with health care and public health personnel, were feeling their way through terrifying terrain, made all the more frightening because so much was unknown. Were mistakes made? Absolutely. But they were made with the intent of protecting public health, and I think/hope we learned from those mistakes and have a better pandemic template going forward.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys @dentarthurdent

In the age of ‘rage-bait’, malicious blatantly revanchist/irredentist sites and posts, of funded social media stooges, of bots and fake foreign avatars of known personalities, can we really claim the new information order down to ‘matters of opinion’ or reactions to apparent ‘mistakes’ made in obviously exceptional circumstance?

That the pandemic should be quite such a catalyst is predictable… it’s a source of considerable stress, but not related to the main narrative. This seems to be lack of trust in governments, institutions and industries, possibly as we atomise around the illusion of our ‘intelligent’ devices, and new generations forget a time when they weren’t.

In terms of ‘pbs’… it’s very odd. The cost isn’t great. Do you or do you not want an element of broadcasting to be independently funded? In the case of The BBC the main problem seems to be that the License Fee is not a natural tax. I don’t mean ‘just’. You really might not think you have to pay it. There is no great cost. You pay for other stuff. Why pay for this too?

This is being exploited.

There is one common theme: don’t tax us. No state; Do as the uber rich say? Collapse state; exploit disorder?

Other dystopias are available.

 

[nerys @nerys]

@ps1l0v3y0u The “rage bait” is so true. I engage far less with social media than I used to, but I still see a lot of it. And there’s been a big increase in AI-generated content to attract clicks. It’s sad to me that people of all political stripes fall for it … and share it.

[winston @winston]

@nerys    Covid did bring out the beast of us and the worst of us.  There have always been racists ,bigots and haters of all shapes and sizes here in Canada and around the world but the rest of us told them they were dispicable and held them accountable. When the big orange menace emerged from the muck he took a big stick and lifted up the rock they were all hiding under.He made them very brave. The other day we saw a pick -up truck with a big sign that read “F@#k all liberals!”. What and why? I mean all of us,even me? You don’t even know me. So stupid.

I tell the mister that I feel like I live in bizarre world some days but I refuse to give in to bullies no matter how loud they get.

@dentarthurdent Thanks for the “elbows up” right back at you eh!

stay sane (that’s for me)

stay safe

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@winston   @nerys    I think a lot of the anti-society attitude stems from the myth of the hardy pioneering individual who did everything for himself and was beholden to no man.   So that, reinforced by the successful American Revolution (which was really a rebellion), morphed into the ‘all government is a threat to my freedom’ frame of mind.   (If anyone really, truly  wants to be totally self-sufficient and beholden to nobody, there’s plenty of space in Alaska, the Yukon, or eastern Siberia available).

It also led, I think, to the gun-lovers of America’s favourite argument that the ‘right to bear arms’ was a vital safeguard against a dictatorial government.   So now their great chance to prove it has come.   I’m waiting…

Oh dear I’m getting political.

On a non-political note, AI-generated video is getting alarmingly good.   Youtube is choking with trashy patently fake videos with stunningly good graphics and puerile plots.   Any Who producer of the past would have wept at the quality of the graphics.   They would have wept even harder at the ‘plots’.    (These aren’t political, just clickbait.   Occasionally the AI gets it laughably wrong, like, say, a beautifully rendered giant python – with legs.)     Unfortunately Mrs D watches a lot of them.

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