Dr Who News (5)

[syzygy @thane16]

@ps1l0v3y0u @whohar

Sounds exciting, PS: Whilst I hadn’t followed this particular link back to the tender process I very much enjoyed your italicised comments. Absolute risk is expected but not too much!
And not too much Dr Who lore either ….And it can be a little expensive but it mustn’t ever look cheap….

Your mention of Salvor Hardin had me wondering about Apple+ Foundation series? I enjoyed season 2….

Puro

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16

Thank you!

I did actually copy the entire ‘Editorial’! With my humbly submitted commentary. You know my regrettable opinion of the Beeb. Though I do LIKE the Beeb… but…

I still haven’t tackled more than 10 mins of Apples’ ‘Foundation’. I must sound like a curmudgeon, but this IS a very grown up story. They fatally misjudged the tone.

In the books, Salvor Hardin (beautifully written) uses symbolic logic to get to the bottom of Lord Dorwin’s diplomatic, reductive meaning. Which is… NOTHING. Dorwin is a genius. His message is… NOTHING. Bye!

The Corp is under acute financial pressure; really, it’s like a charnel house.

WHO MAY return. But, should it bear any relationship to the show WE love, whoever has taken it on WILL be a hero.

But I’m not holding my breath. Ready to be heartbroken. Poison pen ready.

[syzygy @thane16]

@ps1l0v3y0u

I see where you’re coming from. But I was never a fan of Asimov’s writing -it felt like work & lacked, for me, the beauty of other quieter authors from Atwood, to Antonia Byatt or Mantel. In fact, surprisingly, I never read sci-fi or fantasy. My first & possibly only fantasy came from Who, though I recently read the recent Silo series which rambled & focussed so much on plot & theme that characters were muddy & confused.

I know, I know!! I have a lot to learn! However, in Foundation I do remember Hardin’s use of symbolic rationalism to be very interesting as he was focussed on how science “is” rather than something just learned & that it’s mostly a philosophy of the mind.

When you blend that with Hardin’s belief that an unwillingness to alter the past is just a worship of the past (a stagnation), I tend to think that any modern adaptation of Foundation is rather in keeping with Asimov’s philosophy & themes as outlined by Hardin?

I’m happy to have my opinion countered though! And whilst I enjoyed some of the TV show, it was probably the second season which held it together better -I didn’t find that with the most recent season on Apple+ which aired late last year.

Puro. xx

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16

Female authored ‘speculative’ fiction, even May or LeGuin, does seem to be qualitatively different. How would they have written Bayta Darrel? Better than Isaac I’m sure. Though Issac is himself qualitively different to Samuel Butler say. Then you remember Azimov is as much removed from us as he was from Erewhon.

Scifi I like: Star Trek ToS and DS9 both problematic but rewarding, some worthy exceptions aside, I can leave the rest; WHO in patches; Dark Star and the original Alien; Hammer’s Quatermass & The Pit; the remake of Bodysnatchers… an element of horror perhaps? I used to be a big fantasy head but no more.

Azimov’s early writing is superior. More description and some dense dialogue but more balanced: he was drawing up a template. Foundation, of course, is the Decline and Fall in Space. General Bel Riose is Belasarius. So, Hardin is a technocrat Germanus or Patrick? Mind you, Ike was deeply uncomfortable with the fascistic turn the Second Foundation took… are they in fact Jesuits? Perhaps what we need is a Foundation/Godfather III crossover?

The point of Foundation is you can’t fight City Hall ie psychohistory. Unless you’re a mutant. Yes, Daneel Olivaw is immortal until his brain overloads but the protagonists have to do stuff in 50-60 years tops then hand over the baton; that’s the entire premise. But then you’d need new actors every other week. TV isn’t done like that! OK. And I don’t have to tune in, do I?

In fact I’m struggling to tune into<span class=”Apple-converted-space”> </span>Silo series 3. I had my doubts from the start: small town sheriff, deep state, birth control, heroic blue-collars but urban monocultures. Err? Who produced this? Oh! HE’s a MAGA Republican. Yes.

Series 3 has Iran and a new and terribly familiar ‘azure’ antagonist.

Don’t mind me: I suspect Trek’s Prime Directive is the Monroe Doctrine.

I WILL have another go. Maybe at both. Looking forward to the return of Severance.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

Just seen this. Probably clickbait… Jed Mercurio is in the running for WHO??

That might not be too sad…

[nerys @nerys]

Not really news, per se, but RTD reflects on his Doctor Who run with Disney in this memoir excerpt:

‘Goodbye Whoniverse. God, that was fun!’: Russell T Davies on writing the end of Doctor Who

[janetteB @janetteb]

@nerys thank you for posting the link. Interesting article. somehow I missed it when it was published.  He really does have a bit of a gripe with fandom, understandable perhaps for someone who is on the receiving end and the negatives always seem to outnumber the positives even if they don’t in reality. RTD needs to be a lurker here. “We’re nice.”

I don’t know if he is right about the impact of spoilers either but then, I like spoilers, so maybe I am not a good judge on that. I knew about the B.P regeneration surprise before watching the episode because we are always a bit behind in viewing. It did not spoil it for me, rather made it more interesting.

there was a lot of insight into the back room processes behind the making of the series too. It would be nice if RTD, Moffat and Chibnell all got a say in the final choice of tender, as previous show runners. I suspect they would have very different opinions though on what the series should look like going forward.

@ps1l0v3y0u Jed Mercurio does not seem like a natural fit for Dr Who to me, though not sure I have actually seen any of his work…

Cheers

Janette

[janetteB @janetteb]

Oh and I should add, how inspired was it to bring in Billie Piper at the end. I am not at all surprised that it was an after thought. It is a gift to the next show-runner. They can ignore it if they wish, or have her return for five minutes then move on. Her appearance is a glitch in the regeneration. it does not even need explaining. B.P. is also an audience magnet so it would be rather fooling not to make use of that.

I guess we are going to have to wait a long time to find out..

Cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb
It would be great to see Billie Piper again. And very fitting, since she played a major part in the re-launch in – when? – decades ago.
She could be a place-holder for the next Doctor, but plot-wise, it would be very easy for her to become the new Doctor. The Doctor and the Tardis seem to be somehow psychically linked (as in e.g. The Doctor’s Wife), and Rose did peer into the Time Vortex, the heart of the Tardis, and absorbed the Time Vortex energy which the Doctor then took from her to save her life, presumably with some of Rose’s psyche with it, how much more (as Clara said in another context) do you need.

(As an aside, I checked the wording of that line with Google AI and it got it bizarrely wrong:
“Clara Oswald says the line “How much more do you need? I’m the Doctor” while impersonating the Time Lord to a Cyberman (Cyber-Skarosa) in the Series 9 episode “Hell Bent”
• Context: In the diner on Earth at the end of the episode, Clara and the Doctor have their memories of each other wiped or altered, though they both realize who the other is.
• The Dialogue: Clara mimics the Doctor’s classic backstory and identity—listing her birth on Gallifrey, stealing a TARDIS, and losing her family—to prove a point about how much she has come to mirror him.
• Significance: The moment highlights their co-dependent dynamic and how Clara pushed her boundaries so far by the end of her arc that she practically adopted the Doctor’s persona and reckless habits.”

No, just NO. That’s a wildly distorted view of Hell Bent, and Clara NEVER said it in that episode. It was Series 8, Death in Heaven.

AI does that, what it doesn’t know, it guesses. It’s surprisingly human to conflate different occurrences in memory. Computers aren’t as infallible as one would think, they can make mistakes. Reminds me of the clockwork droids in The Girl in the Fireplace, hunting Reinette because of their limited comprehension.

Back to Topic One, Billie has an infectious persona, the camera loves her, which is why she was so good as the Interface to the Moment in Day of the Doctor. And the Moment confirmed that Rose was significant in the Doctor’s memory, if more confirmation was needed.
Coincidentally, I’m typing this on my spare laptop ‘Rose’, since the USB-C connector broke off the power lead on my default laptop. Also quite by coincidence, my home network is named ‘badwolf’, well I had to pick some arbitrary name for it, didn’t I? 🙂

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent that is a good name for a home network. someone in our town has a TARDIS registration on their car. Saw it again today. Always makes me smile.

Cheers

Janette

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys @janetteb @dentarthurdent

the dropping of Jed Mercurio’s name is very much to do with media reacting to his profile as an established BBC showrunner.

But, Line of Duty is a VERY good police procedural/organised crime group/vice and corruption drama. Lots of mystery, shock, twists and tension. Also humour. Transferrable skills.

The Billie conundrum. Personally, I would love a good run for a second Ladydoc, but the circumstances do seem unpromising. Equally you’d like developments that might resolve the arc left dangling by the Disney fiasco. Not about to place any bets.

[nerys @nerys]

@janetteb Oh and I should add, how inspired was it to bring in Billie Piper at the end. I am not at all surprised that it was an after thought. It is a gift to the next show-runner. They can ignore it if they wish, or have her return for five minutes then move on. Her appearance is a glitch in the regeneration. it does not even need explaining. B.P. is also an audience magnet so it would be rather fooling not to make use of that.

Very true. I meant to ask before, but forgot: RTD says this near the end of the article:

Yes, that leaves us with a Billie puzzle, but c’mon, that’s easy. Doctor Who problems are simple to solve (remember, in 1996, it was proclaimed that the Doctor is half-human – that was fixed by everyone discreetly never mentioning it again). A new production team can either seize hold of that appearance happily, or – and this is more likely – they can explain the event away with exactly seven words.

OK, I’m thick. What seven words?

[janetteB @janetteb]

@nerys I want to know that those seven words are too.

cheers

Janette

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@janetteb @nerys

‘Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow’?

[nerys @nerys]

@janetteb I want to know that those seven words are too.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who couldn’t work that out.

@ps1l0v3y0u ‘Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow’?

Works for me!

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ps1l0v3y0u Brilliant. Quite right too. mumble something about a glitch in the regen’ process, the Tardis itself interfering, and the face of the new regeneration appears.

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb      Works for me too  🙂

D’you suppose that’s what RTD actually meant?   Admittedly I can’t suggest any others.

But I really would like to see a bit more Billie Piper than that.

[syzygy @thane16]

Or “it is the wrong face again? Oops!”

-The Moment ❤️

[syzygy @thane16]

@dentarthurdent

our son is also finding AI in work places (like law firms) often hallucinates cases or answers & with me, recently, I’ve found that it mixes up symphonic titles with the names of movements in relatively well known orchestral pieces & chamber music.

Scary stuff.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent @janetteb @nerys

Reverse the polarity…?

Well, if so, it’s a bit sad really.
The reason for the regeneration was a bit forced. Jodie’s reappearance decidedly non-valedictory. The fact that the new face WAS Billie was by far the best bit of Reality War… and that says it all.
Perhaps that’s RTD’s point: someone’s not available; your streaming partner is useless; the money’s run out; but the show MUST go on.

Ching!

I don’t want to paint myself into a corner where I feel I HAVE to hate whatever’s coming next. Partly because I’m not convinced it will happen. The BBC ditching or delaying stuff all over.

Coming back to Jed Mercurio, that Chib’s previous ‘triumph’ was also police procedural isn’t exactly promising. But Line of Duty is far better than Broadchurch. It even has a line humour.

On another note, I’m going back to review Moffat’s ‘arcs’… the beginnings, ends and other significant bits… though not every appearance of the cosmic crack. I wonder if the concept will survive the transition.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@thane16  syzygy    AI ‘knows’ a lot of stuff, but doesn’t actually understand any of it.    Youtube keeps feeding Mrs D videos of ‘divers exploring the Titanic’ and the like (never mind that any diver at 4000m would end up flat) where it’s obvious the AI doesn’t have a clue how a wrench works, for example.  Or the ‘cruise liner in a hurricane’ ones where no two scenes are of the same ship and things explode when a wave hits them…

But back to written AI – it often conflates different things.   In that respect it’s actually very similar to human memory, which has been proven fallible in many psychological experiments.   I find it useful for searching out commands when debugging my computer(s), because it can usually locate a (human-written) page dealing with the exact answer I want.   But when it’s trying to use its ‘intelligence’ to summarise or infer facts, be very wary.

[janetteB @janetteb]

Our second son was trying to deal with an A.I. the night before he flew to Jakarta. He received notification that his flight was delayed and the connecting flight cancelled .he rang the airline and the a.I had no clue as to what was happening. it just told him his flights were fine. He finally asked to speak to a human being and got it sorted in minutes. Listening to the interchange was funny, frustrating and a walk through uncanny valley. The A.I. was incapable of seeing the problem; it wasn’t straightforward though a human could see it instantly.

We are leaching humanity out of our world. I don’t understand why.

Cheers

Janette

[janetteB @janetteb]

But on a more cheerful note, back to regenerations. I was just thinking of the Romana regeneration in old Who. Very silly, but it showed that the rules can be “tweaked” at the whim of the show-runner. A good writer thrives on getting out of narrative dead ends. Innovation is driven by necessity, as shown by the very concept of regeneration in the first place.

@thane16 I like your suggestion too.

cheers

Janette

[syzygy @thane16]

@ps1l0v3y0u I actually liked the first season of Broadchurch & one could see Chibs being very taken with Whittaker.

She was recently in an overblown show on Netflix called The Diplomat,  in which the 2nd-4th seasons were full of plot holes & static factual inconsistencies…. but she was terrific! 😬😬

@janetteb @dentarthurdent yes! Mr Puro watches AI  slop on YouTube occasionally. We all say “it’s lies!” but I think he believes that if it’s on a screen, & it seems to be narrated well, it’s a legitimate television show.  😮‍💨

I think young syzygy is preparing a PowerPoint & as he’s behind, he asked ChatGPT to have a go. It seems strangely familiar…&  completely incorrect! It had a sense of humour though. Perhaps it’s a new version of a cyberman…

[janetteB @janetteb]

@thane16 My second did use ChatGPT to write out job applications, which he then modified, and it got him a job.

Yes. It does have echoes of cybermen about it.

cheers

Janette

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