Dr Who News (5)

[winston @winston]

@dentarthurdent  Sorry, we are not prepared to lend out Mark Carney at this time, he is way too busy here or at least he better be. There’s a lot going on.

Peter Capaldi  would make a great Bond and he already has attack eyebrows.

@janetteb   The Who movie was an American production that was filmed in Canada so you can’t blame us, especially on our 159th birthday.

Happy Canada Day!

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@winston    Yes, we had noticed rather a lot going on.   The orange Feuhrer in Washington is a busy boy isn’t he?

1867 is quite recent.   Still beats Australia though.

I wish you happy birthday, good luck and elbows up!    🙂

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@winston and all Canadians, I most humbly apologise. The American movie.

@nerys and @dentarthurdent. Not all fans are talented but those that are usually have the feel for the show which non fans might miss. There are of course exceptions. One problem I think with recent Who is the developers were trying to be more “american” to compete with the U.S. market but they were forgetting what makes Who unique and most likely what makes it appealing in the U.S. as elsewhere. Keeping the feel of the show, it’s warmth, humour and a quality that comes from low budget that so many British productions have will make it far more successful than all the glitzy special effects and action. The best episodes in the last few series were not those with the big budget on show. I hope the BBC are now of the same mind. After all it was on good scripts, acting and production that they built their reputation in the first place. (though Old Who might only have ticked two of those and then only some of the time.)

Maybe they need Mackenzie Crook to take over as show-runner, once he has done another series or two of Small Prophets of course.

cheers

Janette

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

@dentarthurdent @whohar

Doctor Who was created by the BBC in 1963. It soon became a success. However, not everyone at the BBC liked it. By the end of the Second Doctor’s era, there were a lot of Doctor Who haters at the BBC who were plotting to cancel it. Luckily, the Doctor Who lovers at the BBC managed to defeat them by creating a new format for Doctor Who. Unfortunately, this was mainly designed to save money. The money saving plans were to cut the number of episodes produced per year AND to have all the stories based on Earth. Later on, travel to other worlds was restored, but the number of episodes wasn’t increased.

Later still, there was some censorship of Doctor Who, but I’m not sure when it started. This gave Doctor Who hater Michael Grade an excuse to have an 18 month gap between series, which even prevented viewers seeing how Mel first met the Doctor.

Finally, Doctor Who had its number of episodes cut again, as well as more censorship, and being shown in the UK at the saw time as Coronation Street. This gave another Doctor Who hater Peter Creggan an excuse to cancel the 1990 series, then it was never continued.

With NuWho, it got off to a great start, but after just a few series the Doctor Who haters at the BBC managed to cancel the 2009 series, leaving the Tenth Doctor’s era to end with a few specials. They managed to cause more chaos by cancelling the 2016 series as well. Finally, they caused so much chaos that they’ve managed to cancel Doctor Who again, but of course they don’t call it cancelled. All this should tell you that the BBC nowadays is nothing like in the 1960s. The main difference is that the people in charge hate sci fi! During the 1960s and 1970s, the BBC produced some other sci fi series as well as Doctor Who. They were called “Out of The Unknown”, “Doomwatch”, “The Survivors”, and “Blake’s Seven”. There may even have been some others.

As for what might happen to the Doctor Who rights after the BBC is closed down, I think the rights should be given to a trust, not sold to the highest bidder. As for what exactly rights mean, this isn’t clear. Isn’t Doctor Who copied from “The Time Machine” by HG Wells? I recently saw an episode of “Out of The Unknown”, based on a JG Ballard story. It was called “Thirteen to Centaurus”. Fifty years later, a mini series with the same plot called “Ascension” was made which didn’t seem to credit JG Ballard at all. Also, there was a classic Doctor Who story called “The Ark” about a long journey through space in suspended animation. After that, other companies were free to create series such as “The Starcrossed” and “The Ark”.

As for me writing some Doctor Who stories, or collaborating on them, I could do that, but the problem is that I’d know in advance what was going to happen!

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb I agree with you about the budget and special effects. First of all, the FX should support the script, not replace or outweigh it. I think there’s a certain quality of FX to properly support the story. Less, and you get things like the embarrassing unconvincing ‘guns’ in Blakes 7, or the gods in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy looking like styrofoam statues firing ‘little points of light.’ Too much, and the plot gets overshadowed. The worst is when the producers think, “We’ve got the most awesome FX, just need a script to tie them together”. No, FX cannot substitute for a good script. Nor can a cast of thousands.
This is probably why the most intense episodes of Who were ones like Blink, Listen, Midnight and so on.
This is not to say that a good FX budget doesn’t help when the story needs it, for example I imagine the CGI budget for the beautiful alien ship in Wild Blue Yonder must have been – generous. But even so, it was subservient to the story, so it worked.
For another example, “Alien”, which was famously filmed on a relatively tight budget, was by far the most intense and suspenseful of its series.

And, I think a ‘feel for the show’ is a big asset, maybe even essential, for producers/writers/directors.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@translatorcircuit Unfortunately, what you think ‘should’ happen to the rights carries little weight with those who actually have custody of them. In particular, if the BBC were wound up, it would probably be the duty of the receivers (or whatever their title was) to maximise the financial return.

As for ‘The Time Machine’ somehow invalidating Doctor Who’s copyright, that’s not how copyright works. ‘Prior Art’ can invalidate a patent, but copyright is a little bit different. There is no copyright in ideas, only in the expression of those ideas. The idea of a time machine, even if it was original with Wells, is not copyrightable. The BBC, or you, or Disney, can make all the stories they like about time machines and not violate anything. It’s the expression of those ideas which is copyright. If Disney or you make your time machine look like a blue police box, that would almost certainly be a breach of copyright. Again, courts take into account how much of the original work was copied. There’s a doctrine known as ‘fair use.’ If your sci-fi included a line-up of model time machines, and one of them happened to be a blue police box, you’d probably be on safe ground, so long as the hero didn’t select it to do his adventuring in.
Also, of course, almost every idea in science fiction (or any other fiction) has been used countless times.
The authors of ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ famously sued Dan Brown for using their ideas in ‘The da Vinci Code’ and failed utterly. Firstly, their book claimed to be factual and historical, and there is no copyright in facts. (Kind of an own goal, that, if they’d released their book as fiction they might have stood a better chance). Second, they claimed da Vinci Code copied their ‘theme’, but couldn’t state which unique parts of their ‘theme’ had been copied, other than a few key points which were ‘factual’. There was no word-for-word wholesale copying. So they failed.
Similarly, Doctor Who copied a theme fron A Christmas Carol, but they were on safe ground. The Who story was sufficiently different from the original to be safe from copyright.

And even if the Beeb had been guilty of breach of copyright in elements of The Time Machine, that wouldn’t invalidate the original copyright or mean that anybody else could breach copyright independently. And, the Beeb would still have copyright over all elements of the story that weren’t copied from The Time Machine.

(Disclaimer:  I’m not an expert, if any of what I’ve said is wrong, please somebody weigh in.)

[nerys @nerys]

@janetteb I definitely agree with you about the Paul McGann movie. I had no idea he was so good because … well, that movie didn’t offer a clue. But when I saw The Night of the Doctor, I was so impressed with him. As you say, what a difference a good script and good direction make!

@winston Yup, Mark Carney’s dance card is full … more than full, actually. I don’t know how he does it, but I’m glad we’ve got him.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

Paul McGann as The War Doctor would have been fascinating. We got John Hurt instead.

Otherwise…

I AM annoyed with The BBC:

Putting Grade and the first cancellation aside…

In my opinion they undermined Moffat.

They set an agenda for Chibnall. Who was pretty poor anyway.

They give every impression that they want to sell the show… you can call it ‘putting it to tender’ if you want. They get broadcasting rights; someone else carries the can.

But what happened with the BBC abandoned special? It was clearly never just a figment of RTD’s imagination. They must be divided over the show because…

… they’re in a right wing press/streaming competition bind. And we are, all of us, as far as the press and the streamers are concerned, toxic fans. Yep! That’s us. Because we like the show. But most of us rather actually like Steven Moffat, and they can’t cope with him again.

Probably, ‘kiddult,’ as a genre… frothy, not too serious, but some real threat and jump moments, isn’t actually possible anymore. Not sure The Streamers will touch it. It would need a reinvention, to be ‘like’ something probably irrelevant to WHO. And I would never want someone to do to Who what Apple did to Foundation.

The issue are ratings: we ARE niche, toxic, unrealistic, sentimental and NOT amenable to soapification, the holy grail for the proper hack.

And yet somehow we still exist, somewhere, down the river. Sold.

[WhoHar @whohar]

Moffat’s views on writing, always worth listening to:

Earlier in the interview, Moffat also shared his view on what makes good writing, arguing that the first job of any television show, film or play is to entertain.

“They never mention the word entertainment, which is the minimum condition of anything you write,” Moffat said. “Not theme, which some poor sods ask me about, and not subtext. Oh, do me a favour. It’s entertainment. That’s all you’re doing.”

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@whohar   Care to give us a link to that interview?   Thanks.

[WhoHar @whohar]

There you go @dentarthurdent

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/moffat-doctor-who-must-entertain-107246.htm

[janetteB @janetteb]

thank you for the link @whohar I was just thinking earlier about how universally loved Dr Who is. I was in a shop yesterday when the s.o rang to find where I was and the assistant immediately smiled at the ring tone and we started talking about Dr Who. Prior to the reboot that would not have happened, not in Australia anyway.

cheers

Janette

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@whohar @janetteb

That’s Entertainment! Well, Moff has no problems on that score. Could it even be a barb at another showmaker? Or an executive in drama?

But I would hope a new regime would also aspire to some kind intelligence. Like Moff. Cbeebies doesn’t fill me with confidence.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@whohar   Thanks for that.   That article is actually excerpts from a video interview with Stephen Moffet, it very helpfully  gives a link to the interview, which is on Youtube here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T-wYCvusZ4

I know what I’ll be watching for the next hour and a half.    Moffat is always interesting to listen to.

[WhoHar @whohar]

Smallish update on the tender process:

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-next-production-partner-107265.htm

[janetteB @janetteb]

@whohar Thank you for the update. I did worry that they might be the people that decided on the infamous i-daleks.

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Rather more interesting (because more exclusively Who-related) and briefer than that one I linked to before,  Youtube just served me up an episode of the Whoniverse show  (which seems to be a little bit less kitsch than the fan show they used to add in as extras on Moff-era DVDs).    But anyway, it is the Moff, answering some reasonably interesting questions.

[syzygy @thane16]

Hey to all!! @whohar @ps…. @translatorcircuit @janetteb @nerys @winston @dentarthurdent @blenkinsopthebrave

oh boy, yes, the latest info on all things Who made me feel a tad off? I found out that the so called Special wasn’t really much of a special at all: whilst in a hotel room, doom scrolling on YouTube on a site run by a young British lady who styles herself  “Who Culture,” I believe.

And I don’t understand how RTD could speak so fluently (or should I say in his usual slightly rambling, breathy way) about a Christmas Special that hadn’t been made at all? Perhaps it was written, or some scenes had been filmed?  But I get the sense it didn’t get that far, which makes me wonder why on earth you’d have Billie Piper pop back for 5 seconds.

It seems, then, that regeneration doesn’t have as much significance any more though you could interpret her appearance as glitchy matrix or Bad Wolf.

I also wonder how Aus/NZ will locate The War Between the Land & Sea… I read some good things about it & also some less than stellar including a meme where …..>

SPOILER SPOILER……Russel Tovey’s character does a Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind vanishing act, leaving his family to go “naughty naughty” with a fish! End spoiler.

I’ll read some more of your lovely posts. Hoping you’re all well & keeping up the fight for some more Who -even that from Chibbers! Puro and son xx

[syzygy @thane16]

@ps1l0v3y0u

yes I think they did undermine Moffat a little. And McGann was wonderful in the minisode.

Do you think the BBC didn’t much like Moffat or were tired of his stories or expectations?

I actually enjoyed Foundation- not so much season 1 or 3 but definitely season 2 and quite a bit of season 3. The books are so dense with characters talking & deciding things with little action so showrunners needed to include action & momentum and create a role for 3 famous (?) actors as the genetic dynasty to modernise it & also to make Hari Seldon more real.

neither of us have read much Asimov. I think mum taught some of his work at school & to be honest there was some criticism of his writing style.

Son of Puro….

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

@thane16

I think that “The War Between The Land and The Sea” was basically a waste of time and money! I read that Disney+ wanted a more tightly defined series which enabled them to predict how popular each episode might be, but the war referred to in the title ended in the series, so no more episodes could be made.

I felt really sick about all the publicity given to this series. It seems that these five episodes were responsible for cutting their Season or Series 1 down to just 8 episodes. I only bothered to watch this spinoff once.

I think the future now (after the BBC wasting a whole year then announcing the “out to tender” story) is fan films. These will be high quality by a few different groups, including a series featuring a very young Doctor on Gallifrey by @infinitepotentialfilms with in camera effects and scale models, starting around Christmas 2026, as well as more from DW2012 and possibly some others. I’m tempted to try making some AI Doctor Who stories myself. All of these will be automatically better than nothing which is what the BBC is offering. I think that Putin may destroy the World during 2027.

To sum up, close down the BBC, abolish Eastenders, abolish Strictly, abolish BBC News, etc, etc!

 

[syzygy @thane16]

@translatorcircuit   So we never missed much with The Land & Sea, then? 😉

and as others said, you definitely should write some Who. And I agree about the FX. I remember mum saying on this very Forum how she loved the show when she was 8 for its cardboard monsters, its B&W film & the endless dirty corridors relying on tension, & feelings of “this isn’t right” which made it all the more suspenseful.

The actors had such gravitas & were almost always serious (except for Tom Baker who smiled but not all the time) & cautious people who drew us in with a look or gesture.

None of the family enjoyed the big FX this time with UNIT’s enormous & expensive building & worse, hyping up characters like Donna’s daughter & 4 others, including an ‘80s companion, with almost all of them doing very little.

That could be due to a season of 8 episodes instead of the 12-14 we usually had. And only occasionally was there a Doctor-lite episode. The result is everything feeling rushed. I would’ve liked to have the villain’s arc more complex instead of the Doctor shooting one of them or somehow undoing their existence by …..magically using a spoon as a wand to undo death.

Others had the impression the season of Gods meant the Doctor was in a fantasy underworld from which he & the companion would soon awake. But now we’ll never know. 🙁

Puro’s son.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@thane16 (and son)

And I don’t understand how RTD could speak so fluently (or should I say in his usual slightly rambling, breathy way) about a Christmas Special that hadn’t been made at all?

He’s basically lied to the fans and admitted it. Not sure why he felt the need to do that but it’s not a good look. I’m assuming the pressure behind the scenes got to him.

 

or somehow undoing their existence by …..magically using a spoon as a wand to undo death

Actually laughed aloud.

@translatorcircuit

All of these will be automatically better than nothing which is what the BBC is offering. I think that Putin may destroy the World during 2027

Well, that got dark really quickly. Everything OK?

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@syzygy I do agree about UNIT’s new mega-HQ. Makes MI6’s Ziggurat look like a garden shed. It also has (in my opinion) a really dominating and intimidating appearance, more like CyberHQ than UNIT.    (As an aside, do Cybermen drive Cybertrucks?)

And I, like you, was also disappointed in the companions, or rather the treatement of them. I really liked Rose(2) and we only really ever saw her in one episode. As for the other old Companions who came back, I had the distinct feeling they were just there as ‘fan service’ and their roles had just been tacked on to the story.

I also agree about FX. It can be great, used properly in the right context (the beautiful alien ship in Wild Blue Yonder) but it can be a distraction and is no substitute for good writing and acting. (Wild Blue Yonder only had two actors and four characters in it, which really helped to focus the narrative and tension, so the FX only helped, not distracted). But I’ve rabbited on about this enough before. 🙂

As a complete aside, Spain just won the World Cup! I was really hoping they would. (Nothing to do with any British-Argy feud, everything to do with the fact that the World Cup boss’s boss, that well-known football expert and FIFA Peace Prize winner President Donald J Trump, will have absolutely hated having to present the trophy to those ‘hopeless bad people’. Sometimes karma gets it right 🙂

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16

Hi!

I went off on one a bit. How could RTD speak so convincingly about the special that wasn’t? The BBC authorise the press releases don’t they?

But, what with the dire ratings, it was hard to see how there wouldn’t be a problem at some point. Murky business.

The furore over Billie Piper was really quite distressing. She’s an actor. What’s the problem?

Not had the heart to finish The War Between the Land & Sea but I shall. What I saw was ok without setting the world alight. Not sure how Disney or RTD thought it would pan out.

My Moff theory stems from the observation that his original co-executive producer later returned, to bid him farewell and usher in Chib. The BBC didn’t like the innuendo, the sexual politics or cybermen blowing up in 2014. Moff would have gone in 2015 but Chib ‘wasn’t ready.’ The later dismantling of The Moff legacy confirmed my suspicion.

Beyond that, what did the BBC want? To get someone else to fund the show and flush away the show’s history.

Yes, I should actually try to watch more of Foundation. I am fussy about sci-fi and those books are particularly iconic. I certainly don’t imagine a story extolling Azimov’s slow deconstruction of determinism, even if that is the story. But sci fi has to be about ideas. Or it’s space opera. If you want space opera, let’s have Lensmen. Cleon, as an anagram of clone, was not at all<span class=”Apple-converted-space”> </span>impressive.

I also think a certain deceased international undesirable modelled himself on Hari Seldon and his organisation on The Foundation. Now, that might be fun.

Otherwise, Azimov himself acknowledged technological advance was an issue. Answer: set the bar low; Galactic Empire held together by gaffer tape; epic, dreadnoughts, soviet era environmentalism and rust-belt scenery gorn; even though they don’t know it, it’s a joke.

The fun and games starts with The Mule anyway.

Azimov’s later books could be more than a bit embarrassing. The Elijah Bailey series was good and even prophetic; thinking about our emperor of Mars unelect. I DID like Foundation and Earth… a mixture of The Odyssey and really fantastic new and yet inevitable ideas.

Also, if you can find it, The Gods Themselves is entirely original.

[syzygy @thane16]

@dentarthurdent

Cor, yes! MI5’s ziggurat: a perfect description of it. I wonder who employed the architect to build THAT?  Oh yes! El Trumpo presenting the prize. What a delicious moment.

Yes, the fan service was evident, wasn’t it? I think even Mrs Flood’s status was confused with her monologue to Ms Cherry in Season 1 (almost like AD or CE organisation) speaking of  “there’s a storm coming. Beware!” I thought some of this didn’t quite match up in Season 2?

also there’s a small scene in the rather appalling Eurovision episode (sorry if people loved it!) where Doctor has a secret message from Susan but it’s never explored? Waaaa!!

And I loved Wild Blue Yonder too. Great chemistry & the FX worked which was also down to the calm direction & photography with a Doctor we know can do massive damage if necessary & with a full & complete backstory in an actor so very experienced in authenticity. It’s also filled with humour & explosive moments.

@ps1l0v3y0u @whohar

oh, don’t worry, @PS, I do the same! But I had no idea about the dismantling of Moffat’s legacy considering his work remains well loved & his themes & Doctors, scary but subtle. He understood just how the system is the controlling weapon (much like how Odysseus is at the mercy of impersonal gods), how characters work inside those constraints where institutions are the true antagonists.

Chibnall tried to show how economic & political structures govern us all but many episodes were so consumed with what was wrong in society that they singularly missed gravitational pull & momentum in favour of narrative convenience.

i absolutely agree @whohar that the pressure on RTD was great. I can’t imagine him enjoying having to write Gatwa in less episodes over a shortened series where social media is onto everything before you finish a syllable. He had different pressures back in 03/04.

Puro.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16

Moff: you know where my sympathies lie. But there are those who cannot stand him, consider him ‘unwho’. He clearly wasn’t bothered what side of the Bechdel Test he landed. I am inclined to think an awareness of the principle of the Test should be enough. In the words of Arcade Fire: ‘I guess we’ll just have to adjust.’

BUT the plots did sometimes get out of control. And most people DID tend to live. The Toymaker’s repeated comment, ‘well THAT’S alright then’ was telling. At least it wasn’t the bemused tone that greeted Der Floox.

The Timeless Children was however aimed deliberately and squarely at Moff: Gallifrey, the regenerations and ‘the original’, not all of them particularly elegant it’s true, but all flushed away in a single ep.

I’m not sure how you find any message at all in Chib. Perhaps my attention span was defeated by his improbable combination of tedium and incoherence.

[syzygy @thane16]

@ps1l0v3y0u @whohar @janetteb

Until about 8 years ago I was ignorant of the Bechdel Test myself. I actually thought Moff’s female characters were well rounded (not just …ahem….well rounded…) progressing from confused & helpless to “being the Doctor.”

Over the years one notices how companions evolve. In the 2000s the Doctor saved his beloved companions, as they in turn shouted, “where are you? Help us! The Doctor WILL come, he’ll deliver us…”

They then became a stronger moral compass & with Clara you had her IN the Doctor (Flatline), or in the Dalek 😉 but by Chibbers we had WhitDoc’s Fam, & in particular, Yaz taking off alone to solve a difficult puzzle.

But with RTD again we backtracked: though Ruby was independent, she was painted as a kind & gentle, sweet (get my drift?) lady who seemed a realistically depicted person —in RTD’s mind (all smiley, generous or oversimplified) without the necessary moral conundrum & anti-passivity that a Doctor-companion relationship needed to sustain an arc.

Mind you there’s a lot of talk about the companion’s cosmic mystery with both showrunners but under Moff they were volatile, fierce debaters, & occasionally ethically challenged….. The Doctor & companion grew, thanks to each other. And again, this can be put down to Gatwa, concerned as to the length of his tenure, or maybe Disney’s luke-warm attitude to extending the series beyond 8 episodes.

I should add I wasn’t worried about Ruby’s anti-cosmic energy (even though her supernatural qualities were overtly demonstrated through each episode) as I liked her being “ordinary” -as indeed we all are. Looking back I did feel a tad cheated considering the music alone hinted at some innate power.

Puro.

[syzygy @thane16]

@ps1l0v3y0u

do you think Hell Hent was contradicted by The Timeless Child? (I saw the former about 10x & the latter once or twice!).

You mentioned incoherence so one of my issues was Chibbers panicked breathing thru it all? In the Tennant ep where Martha’s kidnapped, the quiet direction had the Doc sitting opposite Martha listening to his grief over Gallifrey, as he explained Gallifrey & Kasterborous & the night sky. A beautifully framed scene.

Chibbers always had massive edits, constantly moving cameras clocking onto Whittaker without letting the atmosphere breathe even for a few seconds. It made me a little nauseous! 🤮

Either way one can’t deny Chibbers’ love of the show & his characters (however many companions there were). But he wasn’t subtle!

Puro.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u The Bechdel Test sounds like barely relevant hokum to me. ‘At least two named women characters who talk to each other about something other than a man’?

Well, ‘Alien’ would fail that and the hero was a woman, ffs! So would ‘Hell Bent’ (I don’t think Clara and Ashildr talked to each other about anything other than the Doctor, although Clara was (IMO) the main character). Very obviously ‘Heaven Sent’ would fail it. ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ would fail it. I think ‘The Pilot’ probably fails because Moira is a sentient puddle. ‘World Enough and Time’ – fail (even though it’s almost all about Bill).

(I’ve just found out that there was a second woman in Alien, the navigator. I’d forgotten that. They had a row about whether to let the crew back in. Who were male. So it still fails the test.)

[Snarky mode ON]: If I ever write a screenplay I’ll make sure it passes the ‘test’, I’ll just have two extras in some unrelated scene who just say “Hi Jane, nice day, isn’t it?” “Hi Sarah, yes it is” just before a Dalek shoots them. Test passed. [/snark] Okay, sarcasm aside, I think it’s a patently spurious ‘test’ based on spurious criteria and one which utterly fails to measure what it purports to measure. And, it makes no allowance for degrees of meaning. So it passes what it shouldn’t pass and fails what it shouldn’t fail.

Just to make my position clear, I detest ‘macho’, I like almost all women Companions as characters (irrespective of their gender) and often find them more interesting than the Doctor. I was – disappointed – to see many of them turned into UNIT operatives, as RTD had a habit of doing.

@syzygy I agree about the steadily increasing capability of the Doc’s Companions, at least under RTD (1) and Moff. On another tack, as it happens the Eurovision episode (I assume that’s Interstellar Song Contest) is next on my list, so I’ll see how it strikes me.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16 @dentarthurdent

The Test. I did kind of say Moff didn’t really care. Do I? Well, it’s there now. You would think it might be successfully extolled at some point. And yet examples are few. To the extent that Dan ended up giving Yaz the talk… I mean… ah???

But Moff (and Jamie Matthieson) did lock Clara and Maisie in the baggage car of The Orient Express in Space, where Maisie is heard to say ‘here we are, talking about some man.’ Now, I think that’s hilarious. The current Commissioner of Drama (I assume he’s still there) wasn’t yet in place.

Some people were annoyed that Moff’s companions were obvious bloke adjuncts. They have a point. I’ sure Bill ‘molested by a puddle’ also had some people frothing. It’s either that or laugh. Moff was a trooper for carrying on for another two years, but he wad on his way. All hail The Commissioner.

It’s not so much Hell Bent, though The Diner, the Star Wars Elevator, and the bust chameleon circuit is begging for Occam’s Razor to fall. I’m thinking Day of The Doctor (Gallifrey), Time of The Doctor (regenerations), and Twice Upon a Time (the First and Original). I think some people questioned the elegance of the first two solutions… ‘Time’ was a bit duff… but the quality of Moff’s other invention and writing bore all before it.

And I actually think RTD was on board re Gallifrey… and indeed Chib’s Cyberlords also echo The Doctor Falls; maybe so does Missy turning up with Gallifreyan tech and an army of Cybermen. It seems to me there was a plan. And Chib was encouraged to turn it against itself.

The Plan puts Who beyond the BBC’s editorial control and that means perpetual trouble. Right wingers don’t like ideas. That’s the kind of thing that gives people funny ideas. But sci fi IS about ideas. Hmmm. Can’t you make it more like a soap?

People only want to look at David Tennant anyway.

[nerys @nerys]

@dentarthurdent (I’ve just found out that there was a second woman in Alien, the navigator. I’d forgotten that. They had a row about whether to let the crew back in. Who were male. So it still fails the test.)

A bit off-topic: I rewatched The Birds for the umpteenth time over the weekend. It’s a timeless classic, and I never tire of it (even though, after finding out about Alfred Hitchcock’s treatment of Tippi Hedren and what she was subjected to, some scenes, like the attic scene, are even harder to watch).

I was reminded that Veronica Cartwright (who played the Alien navigator you mentioned) made something of a career of screaming and crying. I came across this fascinating interview, in which she reflects on the highlights of her career:

Veronica Cartwright on “The Field,” “The Birds,” “Alien” and Much More

[Classic car @classiccar]

Hello, I have just signed into this site but I can’t work out how to ask a question so please forgive me but I am trying to find out information on a Vhs tape I have, it is labelled Sylvester McCoy The Movie presented by Jim McManus but there does not seem to be anything on google about it.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@classiccar

Welcome, just post a question on a forum and someone will respond if they have an answer.

Suggest The Winchester may be a more appropriate forum, but it doesn’t matter too much.

Have you watched the tape?

My first thought was the 1996 Doctor Who Movie which had McCoy and McGann in it.

And I found Jim McManus on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McManus_(actor)

Seems he was in the Who story The Invisible Enemy but this is a 4th Doctor adventure with Tom Baker.

It may not be Who-related at all: both McCoy and McManus had long careers as actors, so they may have been in something else together.

Hope that helps.

 

 

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

@dentarthurdent    @thane16

@ps1l0v3y0u

Ah, the infamous Bechdel test, aka the Bechdel–Wallace Test, was developed in the 80s, named for Alison Bechdel and Liz Wallace.

It’s pretty broad and, yes, limited in its usefulness. I believe it was originally developed to bring a focus on the roles of women in film, with their being quite the number in the 70s and 80s where women characters had a more ornamental role and less agency, particularly compared to the male characters.

I watched a lot of 30’s, 40’s and 50’s movies growing up, and most of the best films had strong female characters that more than stood up to their male counterparts (think Screwball comedies and, say, Noir movies).

Doing some research today, I found this:

[the Bechdel Test] was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, which highlighted the limited and one-dimensional portrayal of women in fiction. Originally intended as a humorous commentary on queer women’s representation, the test has since become a widely recognized tool for examining gender inequality in media.

So, it seems to be both an ongoing concern, and also something that has deviated away from its original intent.

It’s imperfect but it has endured – I mean, we’re still talking about this today, so it seems to have done its job in that respect.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@whohar   I was aware that in devoting a couple of column inches to the Bechtel test I was maybe giving it far more significance than it (IMO) merited.   But that’s one of those can’t-win things.

I do like strong female characters who don’t just stand on a chair and scream when they see a mouse.   (Though I did have a female acquaintance last year who had a mouse in their washing machine and wanted me to get it out.   Bloody thing bit me.   True story).   Where was I – oh yes, strong female characters.   Ripley, Sarah Connor, Aeon Flux… (by the way, I think that movie was under-rated – probably because, so I hear, it diverged too much from the cartoon so the fans hated it.   I wasn’t a cartoon fan so I liked it.   Also had Liz 10 in it.)   And Amy, Clara and so on.

By the way, when considering female heroes, it sometimes crosses my mind that these are fantasy characters and real women wouldn’t be able to do that.   But then, it’s just occurred to me that not every guy is Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Doctor or James Bond.   So my slight misgivings about female heroes just got neutralised.   Which is good.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u

Some people were annoyed that Moff’s companions were obvious bloke adjuncts. They have a point. I’ sure Bill ‘molested by a puddle’ also had some people frothing. 

Not sure what ‘bloke adjuncts’ means.   They were normal heterosexual people (like, the 90%) who naturally had boyfriends (or, in the case of Bill, girl-puddle-friends  🙂   Amy had Rory and Clara had Danny.   And guess who was the dominant character in those relationships.   I think the blokes were the adjuncts, not the other way round.

[syzygy @thane16]

@dentarthurdent I think @ps1l0v3y0u meant that women could sometimes be written as “another bloke” as opposed to a well thought out female character. If I’m wrong please chip in.

There are so many rules or concepts associated with writing for any character that I don’t know how anybody does it without facing criticism. But I was impressed with Amy, Clara, Bill & Jaz.

(I can handle mice, but by heaven, if there’s a cockroach I yell for help . These days I’ve moved on a little by throwing a plastic container over the top to trap the thing temporarily).

@whohar thank you for this information. I’d not heard that it was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s essay. Sad to say I haven’t read A Room of One’s Own since high school.

On screwball, did you see Bringing Up Baby in ‘39 with Katharine Hepburn?

@classiccar welcome to the site!

Puro.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@thane16

On screwball, did you see Bringing Up Baby in ‘39 with Katharine Hepburn?

Oh, yes. Many times. It’s great, She’s great and a young Cary Grant is also great.

Anything with Hepburn, Grant or James Stewart is always worth my attention. And The Philadelphia Story has all three. Would recommend, if you’ve not seen it.

That trio are probably the most well-known but there are a host of other stars of that era who maybe haven’t hit the public consciousness in the same way: Myrna Loy, Irene Dunn, William Powell, Fred MacMurray, Jean Arthur, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Rosalind Russell, Fredric March…

Two of these (Loy and Powell) starred in The Thin Man, which I’d also recommend if you’ve not seen it. There are 4 sequels of varying quality but worth watching.

Just realised, I’ve rambled on a bit there. Anyhoo.

@dentarthurdent

 I was maybe giving it far more significance than it (IMO) merited

I’d agree. It’s often quoted by people as a bit of a “gotcha” and denigrates some truly fantastic movies and shows. Used with caution, if at all imo.

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

 

 

[roobotech @roobotech]

I always enjoy keeping up with Doctor Who news and new technology. A Buy Refurbished MacBook can also be a great choice for reliable everyday use.

[WhoHar @whohar]

Update from Billie Piper on her appearance at the end of The Reality War. Minor spoiler if you click through:

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-fans-chill-out-piper-107348.htm

[WhoHar @whohar]

Also this.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-hollywood-production-company-exclusive-newsupdate/

Not much by the way of solid news, but at least it shows there is some interest.

[WhoHar @whohar]

AI reaches the DW world via a fan-produced 55 min episode:

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-fan-reboot-ai-107380.htm

I’ve not seen this yet, but here it is on youtube:

https://youtu.be/-aAYUBOqfRM?si=KBzzZXDWSYpMNgkm

 

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