Dr Who News (5)
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Dentarthurdent 1 week, 5 days ago.
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29 June 2025 at 17:40 #77931
@dentarthundert
I can’t emphasise enough that people must remember Doctor Who didn’t start in 2005, so it’s essential for fans to watch the classic series which it’s based on! This isn’t like just another version of “Sherlock Holmes”, which was originally in short story or book form. It’s not a reimagining like “Battlestar Galactica” (2003) either! It’s a continuation of the original series.
Some classic Who hallmarks which have been lost are the amazing atmospheric electronic BBC Radiophonics music, which was incidental music during episodes, as well as the theme music, plus companions not going home until they left the Doctor, if ever. However, classic Who didn’t feature mainly electronic incidental music until well into the Fourth Doctor’s era, although the first electronic score for a story was “The Sea Devils” during the Third Doctor’s era. The BBC Radiophonics Dept was closed down in 1995 and the BBC hasn’t bothered to set up a replacement, just making do with the BBC Wales Orchestra to play all the Doctor Who music. The first non electronic Doctor Who theme was used for the TV Movie in 1996, but I thought it was sacrilege.
After years of me watching classic Doctor Who, having only the background information that The Doctor was a Time Lord who travelled through time and space in his ship called the TARDIS, I felt much better when I saw various First and Second Doctor episodes, which explained things in more detail. The Doctor had a granddaughter who he left behind on Earth because he thought it was for her own good to give her roots instead of wandering through space and time. This would have been really traumatic if it was in real life and may even count as child abuse! In theory the Doctor could be considered as having kidnapped Susan because she was too young to decide to go with him and may have been required to return her to Gallifrey. It seems the Doctor never went back to check on her, but then she re appeared with him in “The Five Doctors”. The Daleks were descended from the Dals, one of two groups which survived a nuclear war, while the Thals were their old enemies. The Cybermen were a prediction of what humans might become if they transplanted replacement cybernetic organs into their bodies, and they seemed to be upgraded in each adventure. The Ice Warriors showed what green Martians might be really like. Transmat or teleport should be a reality in the future, although scientists say it’s impossible to deconstruct and reassemble a person’s atoms, especially because too much data is involved. Other theories about this are Quantum Entanglement, as well as the claim in an old sci fi novel “Mission to the Stars” by AE van Vogt that what comes out at the other end is actually just a copy and the original has been destroyed. The Doctor’s people the Time Lords had a strict policy of non interference, but the Doctor had broken this law, so when he gave away his location by asking for help they soon caught up with him and forced him to stand trial. His punishment was to be exiled to 20th Century Earth with his TARDIS disabled and his knowledge of how to operate it blocked from his memory.
Of course, it’s essential for Doctor Who fans to know who Sarah-Jane Smith was, instead of just “a former companion”. They can soon find out by watching all stories featuring her either on BBC iPlayer (with a VPN if outside the UK) or by other means. Unfortunately, “Terror of The Zygons” and possibly some others have now been deleted from iPlayer, so they need to look elsewhere for them. She was a journalist who first appeared in “The Time Warrior” (Season 11) which also introduced the Sontarans, then appeared in every story up to and including “The Hand of Fear” (Season 14). This is a total of 18 stories or 80 episodes of about 25 minutes each. Her era spanned the Third and Fourth Doctors. She also appeared in “K9 and Company” a pilot episode for a spin off series that was never produced, although she’d never been involved with K9 before. She re appeared in “The Five Doctors” 20th Anniversary Special. She appeared in the NuWho episode “School Reunion”, then finally got her own spin off series “The Sarah-Jane Adventures”.
Mel is another classic companion who’s recently been featured in Doctor Who. Fans should watch all episodes featuring her from “Trial of a Time Lord” (Season 23) until “Dragonfire” (Season 24). This is a total of just 5 stories, totalling 28 episodes. She didn’t appear until the final 4 episodes of “Trial of a Time Lord”, but fans can’t watch just the last four episodes. Unfortunately, her origin story was never made after her being taken out of her time stream.
An amazing opportunity for a spin off series was missed when the Time Lord/Lady companion Romana left in “Warriors’ Gate” (Season 18) to stay with a time sensitive race called The Tharils who travelled through space and time using a gateway. She said she planned to do “What we’ve always done” using the Gateway.
There were lots of continuity errors, starting quite early on. The Doctor was the only person who was supposed to be able to open the TARDIS door lock, otherwise it would melt or fuse. However, even by the second story “The Daleks”, not only Susan, but in theory, even Ian could do it. Later still the Doctor started handing out copies of the TARDIS key. Another error was that The Doctor had to leave Sarah-Jane behind on Earth when he had to go to the Time Lords’ Planet Gallifrey because no aliens were allowed there. However, his next companion Leela not only went there twice, but stayed permanently. The Time Lords’ costumes and their culture changed as from “The Deadly Assassin” (Season 14). Later still, Nyssa was welcomed there by The High Council in “Arc of Infinity” (Season 20). Of course, no one can be sure at what point in the 20th Century the Third Doctor’s UNIT adventures took place. They were originally shown in the early 1970s. Actor Nicholas Courtney said he was first told that they were set twenty years in the future from that point, so starting in about 1990. However, various other people think they took place either in the 1970s or the 1980s. A lot of advanced technology was shown in these episodes, so it wasn’t the 1970s, no matter what recent comments about this have claimed. There was a continuity error about this in the Fifth Doctor story “Mawdryn Undead”, which showed that The Brigadier had retired before 1977.
Eventually, the BBC management turned against Doctor Who and actively tried to sabotage it! Michael Grade forced it to take a break and had the cheek to compare it to the totally crap and cliched Star Wars films, which are largely hated by Star Trek fans. Star Wars lacks much of a story, relying on special effects, props, and music. Grade claimed that special effects were what really mattered and even cited an example from the amazing “Warriors of The Deep” (Season 21) where Dr. Solow (Ingrid Pitt) tried using martial arts against the Merkur. Star Wars had only a few stories, but Doctor Who had hundreds! He also denied fans the chance to see how the Sixth Doctor first met Mel after she’d been taken out of her time stream. Doctor Who in the UK was also moved into the same time slot as the soap “Coronation Street”. It was moved from Saturdays to weekdays. There were sometimes two episodes per week instead of only one, which meant that it was only running for about 25% of each year. Finally, there was a reduction in episodes and lot of censorship during the Seventh Doctor’s era, which led to a decline in viewing figures, giving another BBC executive called Peter Cregeen the perfect excuse to “rest” it. After that, it was off air until 2005, apart from a pathetic 30th Anniversary special and an Americanised TV Movie.
After all this, as well as being conned out of 5 series plus 10 episodes of Doctor Who during the last 20 years, some fans think they should be grateful for whatever crumbs the BBC throws them, but I don’t! I think a wave of big protests is called for. The World might even end or I might die before the next series of Doctor Who if that’s not planned to be shown before 2027! Of course, in that case, any hackers leaking unfinished episodes before then would be welcome. I first saw “Rose” about two weeks before it was originally broadcast thanks to a courageous hacker who leaked it. It seemed identical to the version finally shown.
30 June 2025 at 05:21 #77935@translatercircuit I can’t emphasise enough that people must remember Doctor Who didn’t start in 2005, so it’s essential for fans to watch the classic series which it’s based on!
Not it is not. Fans can start watching with the most recent series if they wish. It is entertainment. there are no rules. We are not about to write thesis on it. the same is true of any show. someone can love B.5 and never watch the first series, or Star Wars not watch the films. (Yes. the films are the worst part of the franchise) However, if Dr Who were to employ someone to oversee continuity then that person would need to watch as much old Who as possible and I don’t envy them trying to sort out the mess. To start with one that is currently bothering me, time Lords are infertile but there were how many children on Gallifrey when the Doctor destroyed it?
Umm. some attention to continuity would be nice.
cheers
Janette
30 June 2025 at 07:33 #77937I could be wrong but I think the Rani implied the infertility was caused by the Death Particle Event when it was released as some kind of secondary effect thus ensuring the supposed death of the Timelord race so the continuity was actually preserved as up until that point they could have children it’s just that any Timelord that managed to survive the DP event couldn’t reproduce.
30 June 2025 at 08:52 #77939@ps1l0v3y0u Love & Monsters? While I have a sneaking perverse fondness for it – because the little Who club are kind of sweet – I couldn’t rate it among RTD’s best. The Dalek/Cybermen face-off in Doomsday – I love it. “This is not war. This is pest control.”
@nerys Good point on the hostess’s sacrifice in Midnight. She saved the occupants of the bus, but the alien entity could presumably separate itself from Sky and remain as a threat. Hopefully the tour company knew to take safety precautions, I guess it just depends on which period of history it was. Was it one where any failure got investigated in detail by the regulators, or was it an entirely capitalist one where companies could hide “Passengers assume all risks up to and including death, irrespective of any negligence or act by the Company” in a microdot on the ticket and get away with it?
@translatorcircuit Obviously I fundamentally disagree that it’s essential to have watched all of oldWho to appreciate nuWho. I have an idea of what oldWho was like, and I could even name all of the Doctors, in order, if I think for a moment. I certainly don’t think a knowledge of all the continuity errors in oldWho, intriguing though they may be, would help in appreciating any episode of nuWho. Not even the movie. (I thought McGann was great as 8 in The Night of the Doctor, but – watching the movie later, it didn’t throw any more light on the events of Night).
In fact, and I’m not trying to be rude, I find your encyclopaedic knowledge of oldWho, together with your insistence that any fan needs to know it, rather off-putting. It makes it sound like an obligation rather than enjoyment and it’s unikely to inspire me to want to watch them. (Same goes for Lord of the Rings purists). In fact I can be quite remarkably and perversely stubborn about not doing things everybody says I should do 🙂 (This is why it took me about ten years to get around to watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I thought was a popular-science book.) I do like talking about favourite episodes, I try not to show off my (limited) knowledge in discussions. I don’t want to be dismissive about oldWho but… OK, I’ve gone on long enough about that.
30 June 2025 at 08:54 #77940@janetteb Agreed. Yes, ensuring continuity would be a full-time job (or a nightmare, depending how you look at it) with a long-running series with dozens of writers like Dr Who. I suspect the timeline is so convoluted by now that I’m not sure any writer could be expected to know it all, even absent inconsistencies. (And Chibs’ cavalier attitude to continuity – as evidenced by his advice to Whittaker not to bother watching previous episodes – surely didn’t help.) Battlestar Galactica famously had a ‘Bible’ that outlined where the series was going – but that was a limited series that was all pre-planned. Not possible with Dr Who. I do get disconcerted by big, obtrusive lapses in continuity, especially if they break the timeline – always a risk with a time-travelling series like Who. Like, who knew what when. But I’m more than happy if it all resolves itself, as in ‘Blink’. Even if I have to watch it three times to disentangle it in my mind.
Of course, Who solved the biggest continuity problem with any long-running series – what happens when the main character quits – in brilliant fashion with regeneration. That was sheer genius. I do suffer a certain nagging uneasiness when watching James Bond with each new Bond because it blows a massive and unpatchable hole in continuity. I was particularly unhappy when it was rumoured the new 007 would be a black woman – that was just too big a change (I’d be fine with that for Who). Quite relieved when it turned out that the number ‘007’ had simply been reassigned (was that the producers trolling the fans I wonder?) I didn’t like the new 007 as a personality but I was fine with the continuity there. (Wonder how they’re going to deal with Bond being dead?)
30 June 2025 at 09:14 #77941@ps1l0v3y0u The Blurays? Thanks for the good wishes. I couldn’t get VLC to recognise the disc, but Handbrake did. So I ripped them all to my hard drive and now I can view them in VLC. Expect a spurt of posts from me shortly 🙂
Each file just got numbered 1,2,3 etc so I consulted the episode guide and found there was a special, Joy to the World, before the last season. I checked the first file and it was The Robot Revolution. So, cursing the BBC’s stinginess, I ordered a DVD of Joy to the World, meanwhile wondering if I should have waited until they incorporated it in some future issue of the set. Then I got to renaming the files and of course, the very last file was – Joy to the World. I hate it when that happens!
30 June 2025 at 10:00 #77942Then I got to renaming the files and of course, the very last file was – Joy to the World. I hate it when that happens!
Annoying. You could rename it Episode 0, after all it worked with the Laws of Thermodynamics 🙂
And adding @janetteb
Continuity? Main approach seems to be not to bother / ignore past events if you have a (good) story you want to tell.
Moffat was good at explaining the continuity gaps, Chibnall adept at steamrollering the continuity.
The only way I can think of tying 60+ years of multiple writers ideas is to say that each Doctor’s adventures occur in their own Universe. A Multiverse of Doctor Who Madness, if you will. And that multi Doctor stories are universe crossovers where the Doctors’ memories are affected. Hence the anomalies.
But, this only (kinda) works if each Doc is consistent in their own run, which is probably not the case.
Also, why bother (to some extent) to retcon everything just for continuity?
30 June 2025 at 10:08 #77943The gap is the gap is the gap. But the reboot really started with Cartmel. Only Grade still said ‘no thanks.’
Pre Cartmel Who ain’t some holy relic: they all made it up on the hoof, and after fifteen years it began to show. Given good writers it sparked along nicely. But good writers like strong meat: Holmes, Davis, Moff and Matthieson all got it in the neck from the ‘kid show pleaders.’ It’s an intractable problem for the corporation: the show is guaranteed to offend someone, probably right wing. But not if you’re a cheeky chap like like Moff.
On the one hand Who is unflushable. On the other you only have to avoid multiple companions, big chunks of exposition and VR. And yet the show-runners still go puppy charging all three of those patio doors.
@ dentarthurdent
Joy to the World was good, if baffling.
Love and Monsters? If it’s perverse it must be Russ.
Another great RTD story, effectively from the same era, is of course Dot and Bubble
1 July 2025 at 07:41 #77947@whohar Well, I used Handbrake to just rip each file in sequence. So then I had files 1 to 9 on my drive, which i set out to assign names to (and, as you suggested, numbers), for which I consulted tardis.fandom.com, which told me there was a special (Joy to the world) before the season started. I viewed the first file on my drive, it was Robot Revolution. So then I ordered Joy to the World on DVD. Then I continued renaming the eps and the very last one on Disc 2 turned out to be Joy to the World, too late. I really should have looked more carefully.
I agree with your comments on continuity. I don’t usually worry too much unless it interferes with my comprehension of a story. Same goes for factual or historical errors, I can note historical errors (such as the Battle of the Currents wasn’t really Tesla vs Edison), and minor geographical errors (like the Orient Express crossing the Landwasser Viaduct in ‘Joy’ which caused me to explode in a frenzy of anorakery, just because I could 🙂 without it spoiling the ep for me. Or the magic arrow in Robot of Sherwood.
@ps1l0v3y0u I think Dr Who is quite kid-friendly enough. Kids are a lot less childish than they’re given credit for, just consider how gory many fairy tales are. Right from the start, Who had people being ruthlessly killed by Daleks, Cybermen and the like. This was, apparently, OK. I still recall the reported fuss when Rose had the temerity to fall in love with Ten, something that happens regularly in every soap on TV – but, I gather, never on oldWho. I doubt any kids were seriously harmed by that storyline. I’m not a fan of romances as such, but from my point of view, the possibility, and the fact that the Doc can have ‘human’ feelings, adds a bit of depth to the series.
Dot and Bubble was pretty good. Not merely because you have to lose some occasionally, to make the suspense – and the wins – credible.
1 July 2025 at 08:51 #77948‘kid show pleading’ is a fraud really. These people know kids like a thrill. They really just don’t get sci-fi and would rather it was a soap. You could say this goes back to Sidney Newman.
Pre gap romance? Briefly hinted 5/Nyssa flirting during Mawdryn Undead, but she was about to leave. And of course 4/Romana 2! Dear viewer, I married him!
I think Who Historicals could be more adventurous in structure. The fixed point canard is clearly quite wibbley wobbly. Also, like many non historical stories, you really don’t need a monster… it was the monsters that mar good stories like Inferno or Androzani.
Nice trainspotting though, literally! My personal problem is brainless dabbling in popular science: Adric curating the Chicxulub is one thing; The Earth’s unusual satellite being a space bat egg, or magic forests cancelling out Carrington Events is something else.
1 July 2025 at 12:16 #77949which caused me to explode in a frenzy of anorakery, just because I could
I love things like this. I learned something new from your post and it made me smile as comments often do when I realise the passion and knowledge of a poster.
And adding @ps1l0v3y0u
Re the Doc’s romantic entanglements. Pre-gap you can make the case that Doc1 was, at some point, romantic and infer his heterosexuality. The rest of pre-gap I don’t think there’s any real evidence, apart from Doc8.
Post gap we had 9, 11, 12 all pretty non-romantic on screen, with 10 the obvious outlier.
And then: 13, 14, 15 and RuthDoc who all wore their sexuality on their sleeve (eventually). And those last four are all either bi-sexual or gay. So, based on the evidence, there have been more bi/gay Doc’s than straight. An intetesting development I think.
1 July 2025 at 14:25 #77950@dentarthurdent (Wonder how they’re going to deal with Bond being dead?)
I’m guessing retcon. I have read a fan theory elsewhere that speculates we’ll see yet another version of “young Bond‘s struggle with authority, having to find himself, and finally embracing the surrogate family he is surrounded with.” Sadly, that strikes me as being highly plausible in this day and age. I hope that Villeneuve comes up with something more imaginative.
1 July 2025 at 15:00 #779519? Have you READ the Empty Child/Doctor Dances script? Jack: “Much bigger on the inside!” 9: “You’d better be.” Battle of the bears. And Micky quickly sussed out what was occurring.
10? The Doctor admitted in End of Time he didn’t just leave Liz 1 at the altar.
11 & River? Two times on one of her birthdays (but no Stevie Wonder) + all that too much pleading and quoting Sexy Fish Vampires in Good Man goes to War.
12 & River? (though no-one needs to see the final shot from Husbands again)
13. She didn’t like Byron but who can blame her? Should have called a cop.
14… exactly how does he spend his time in Chiswick?
15 has Rogue. How is Rogue going to feel when Billie rocks up. What will Anita think of Billie?
2 July 2025 at 01:08 #77952Yes River, you are 100% right and I am in error. So definitely 11 and perhaps 12. The 9 thing is interesting though – I don’t recall that line, was it broadcast? If so, it seems to suggest 9 has the hots for Jack, although I just think it’s banter rather than anything serious.
Re 13 – it was confirmed in the last ep that she had feelings for Yaz.
Re 14 – in the first Mavity episode when they meet Issac Newton, Donna remarks “he’s hot”, and 14 replies something like “yes he is. Oh is that what I am now”
RuthDoc – they put in that cameo in The Story and the Engine about her relationship with the Goddess.
15 – as you say: Rogue.
So, to update:
1-7: pretty much asexual, along with 9 (I’d say), and War Doctor(?)
8, 10, 11 and, at a push, 12: opposite sex attraction
13, 14, 15, Ruth: same sex attraction
I would say that the 10-Rose and 10-Martha arcs were fairly integral to the show at that time. Similarly with 11 and River, albeit Moffat had a completely different writing style in this regard to RTD.
13, 14, Ruth didn’t explore their sexuality in the same way, and I felt it rather superficial. This is a real shame as, especially with 13, there was so much material that could have been worked into interesting stories on the subject of gender, identity and sexuality. But instead we got TTC.
15-Rogue did drive the story in that episode but I found it jarring because he effectively left his companion in danger with his actions, which seemed very un-Doctory to me.
Just to be absolutely clear here, while I prefer the Doc to be not romantically involved with his Companions, if they are going to do it, I don’t really mind how they do it as long as it leads to interesting stories. See the Last of Us Season 1 Episode 3 which was outstanding television and dealt with this subject in the context of a sci-fi / horror setting.
Doctor Who has always been about inclusivity at its core, and I have seen many comments on here and elsewhere from people who are happy that they are now more openly represented on the show. Representation is important, and I think the show serves this best when the stories do it justice, rather than as an afterthought.
2 July 2025 at 10:39 #77955OK this is all the metaphor/simile and innuendo from the script of Child/Dances/Boom Town. I think it all survived, but I’ll have to check.
JACK: Excellent bottom.
ALGY: I say, old man, there’s a time and a place. Look, you should really be off.
JACK: Sorry, old man. I’ve got to go meet a girl. But you’ve got an excellent bottom too.JACK: Captain Jack Harkness, One Three Three Squadron, Royal Air Force. American volunteer.
(He hands her his ID card.)
ROSE: Liar. This is psychic paper. It tells me whatever you want it to tell me.
JACK: How do you know?
ROSE: Two things. One, I have a friend who uses this all the time.
JACK: Ah.
ROSE: And two, you just handed me a piece of paper telling me you’re single and you work out.
JACK: Tricky thing, psychic paper.
ROSE: Yeah. Can’t let your mind wander when you’re handing it over.
(She gives it back.)
JACK: Oh, you sort of have a boyfriend called Mickey Smith but you consider yourself to be footloose and fancy free.
ROSE: What?
JACK: Actually, the word you use is available.JACK: Okay. This can function as a sonic blaster, a sonic cannon, and as a triple-enfolded sonic disrupter. Doc, what you got?
DOCTOR: I’ve got a sonic, er. Oh, never mind.
JACK: What?
DOCTOR: It’s sonic, okay? Let’s leave it at that.
JACK: Disrupter? Cannon? What?
DOCTOR: It’s sonic! Totally sonic! I am soniced up!
JACK: A sonic what?!
DOCTOR: Screwdriver!JACK: Who has a sonic screwdriver?
DOCTOR: I do.
ROSE: Lights.
JACK: Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, ooo, this could be a little more sonic?
DOCTOR: What, you’ve never been bored?ROSE: Okay, so he’s vanished into thin air. Why is it always the great looking ones who do that?
DOCTOR: I’m making an effort not to be insulted.
ROSE: I mean, men.
DOCTOR: Okay, thanks, that really helped.ROSE: He saved my life. Bloke-wise, that’s up there with flossing. I trust him because he’s like you. Except with dating and dancing. What?
DOCTOR: You just assume I’m
ROSE: What?
DOCTOR: You just assume that I don’t dance.
ROSE: What, are you telling me you do dance?
DOCTOR: Nine hundred years old, me. I’ve been around a bit. I think you can assume at some point I’ve danced.
ROSE: You?
DOCTOR: Problem?
ROSE: Doesn’t the universe implode or something if you dance?
DOCTOR: Well, I’ve got the moves but I wouldn’t want to boast.JACK: As soon as I get the nav-com back online. Make yourself comfortable. Carry on with whatever it was you were doing.
DOCTOR: We were talking about dancing.
JACK: It didn’t look like talking.
ROSE: It didn’t feel like dancing.JACK: There it is. Hey, they’ve got Algy on duty. It must be important.
DOCTOR: We’ve got to get past him.
ROSE: Are the words distract the guard heading in my general direction?
JACK: I don’t think that’d be such a good idea.
ROSE: Don’t worry, I can handle it.
JACK: I’ve got to know Algy quite well since I’ve been in town. Trust me, you’re not his type. I’ll distract him. Don’t wait up.
DOCTOR: Relax, he’s a 51st century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing.
ROSE: How flexible?
DOCTOR: Well, by his time, you lot have spread out across half the galaxy.
ROSE: Meaning?
DOCTOR: So many species, so little time.
ROSE: What, that’s what we do when we get out there? That’s our mission? We seek new life, and… and
DOCTOR: Dance.DOCTOR: Welcome to the Tardis.
JACK: Much bigger on the inside.
DOCTOR: You’d better be.
ROSE: I think what the Doctor’s trying to say is you may cut in.
DOCTOR: Rose! I’ve just remembered!
ROSE: What?
(The music changes from waltz to swing – Glenn Miller’s In The Mood.)
DOCTOR: I can dance! I can dance!
ROSE: Actually, Doctor, I thought Jack might like this dance.
DOCTOR: I’m sure he would, Rose. I’m absolutely certain. But who with?JACK: Who the hell are you?
MICKEY: What do you mean, who the hell am I? Who the hell are you?JACK: Don’t tell me. This must be Mickey.
DOCTOR: Here comes trouble! How’re you doing, Ricky boy?
MICKEY: It’s Mickey!
ROSE: Don’t listen to him, he’s winding you up.
MICKEY: You look fantastic.
(Rose and Mickey hug. The Doctor is up a ladder mending something.)
JACK: Aw, sweet, look at these two. How come I never get any of that?
DOCTOR: Buy me a drink first.
JACK: You’re such hard work.MICKEY: Sounds like you’re staying, then. So, what’re you doing in Cardiff? And who the hell’s Jumping Jack Flash? I mean, I don’t mind you hanging out with big-ears up there…
DOCTOR: Oi!
MICKEY: Look in the mirror. But this guy, I don’t know, he’s kind of…
JACK: Handsome?
MICKEY: More like cheesy.
JACK: Early 21st century slang. Is cheesy good or bad?
MICKEY: It’s bad.
JACK: But bad means good, isn’t that right?
DOCTOR: Are you saying I’m not handsome?Also… The Girl Who Died… Clara offers to fight 12 for Ashildr.
Inclusivity? Sec, Rusty, Strax, Handles, Bill… hmm. Now try that with a Weeping Angel.
2 July 2025 at 11:38 #77956@ps1l0v3y0u @whohar Re the Landwasser Viaduct, it is quite famous and very distinctive – a high stone viaduct on a sharp curve into a tunnel in a sheer cliff. I did check Google Images (plenty of pics of it) to confirm that it was the exact same viaduct. I don’t think I can claim ubergeek status on that, just medium geekery 🙂
While I’m at it, I don’t think the mountain in the background of ‘Everest Base Camp’ was actually Everest, but I can’t be certain. Its pointiness led me to suspect K2 or the Matterhorn, but I think they’re a bit too pointy. But I couldn’t find a mountain that matched, on a brief search (which leaves out most of the Earth..)
ps1l0v3y0u – I share your reservations on popular science. Which is why Kill the Moon is my absolute worst episode. “What if the Moon were an Egg?” probably sounded good as a story idea, but some ideas become untenable when you try to work them out.
Re Empty Child / Doctor Dances / Boom Town, I never noticed / don’t remember so many double entendres, but maybe I wasn’t looking for them. Where did you get your dialogue from? I get mine from chakoteya.net (Chrissie’s transcripts site), which I think comes from transcripts of the actual broadcast episodes. So far as I can see, the two are identical, at least the ones I looked at.
@nerys Bond being dead. I’m trying to remember if, at the end of No Time to Die, if Bond was definitively and permanently blown up. Or did he survive by a miracle – I suppose that wouldn’t technically be a retcon. I do rather hope they don’t do a ‘young Bond growing up’ though, that sounds rather too – Disney.
2 July 2025 at 12:14 #77957quotes. Yes Chrissie’s transcripts.
I think we were all gaping at the gasmask people and missed the dialogue. What a story.
2 July 2025 at 13:02 #77958I think that people need to have a good knowledge of classic Who to understand everything about NuWho but don’t have to watch all the stories. There are a few stories even I haven’t seen, such as “The Smugglers”, “The Savages” and “The Myth Makers”. I plan to watch these soon to find out what I’ve missed, though. I think that some of the best First Doctor stories are “An Unearthly Child”, “The Daleks”, and “The Web Planet”. I think that some of the best Second Doctor stories are “Evil of The Daleks”, “Tomb of The Cybermen”, and “The War Games”.
NuWho has been written so that viewers can start at the beginning of a Doctor’s era and understand most of what’s going on but not everything. The Fifteenth Doctor soon summed up The Timeless Child storyline to Ruby in a few words, but that’s no reason not to bother watching the amazing two part season 12 finale.
It’s obvious to me that the BBC doesn’t care about Doctor Who, except making money out of episodes already produced and merchandise. I think the rights to the series should be given to someone who DOES care!
As for the situation with TV or the death of live TV, being replaced by streaming, I think I should point out that Star Trek has survived in the form of a few streaming series. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is returning any day now and there are even plans to make some new Star Trek streaming series. I won’t count the animated Lower Decks or Prodigy, but since the beginning of 2020, a total of 30 episodes of Star Trek: Picard have been streamed, a total of 36 more episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, and a total of 20 episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, making a total of 86 episodes, soon to be 96 after the next season of Strange New Worlds. All of these series were on paid streaming platforms. Compare that with only 49 new episodes of Doctor Who shown as from 2020. I think that during that time there should have been 83 new Doctor Who episodes including Christmas Specials.
2 July 2025 at 17:44 #77961@dentarthurdent Bond being dead. I’m trying to remember if, at the end of No Time to Die, if Bond was definitively and permanently blown up. Or did he survive by a miracle – I suppose that wouldn’t technically be a retcon. I do rather hope they don’t do a ‘young Bond growing up’ though, that sounds rather too – Disney.
My take on it is that Bond was not pining for the fjords. Yes, Bond had gotten himself out of tough spots before, but it’s hard to see how anyone could have survived that missile strike. Besides, after Bond was infected with nanobots that would kill Madeleine and Mathilde, he chose to sacrifice himself. Hence, his death on the rooftop of Safin’s nanobot factory.
I agree with you and hope that Villeneuve & Co. don’t go Disney-esque on us.
@ps1l0v3y0u So much double entendre. Thank you for reminding us! I’d forgotten about that. As you noted, the gas masks were a distraction from the hilarity of those scenes between Rose, Jack and the Doctor. I miss it.
3 July 2025 at 05:32 #77966@ps1l0v3y0u Yes, Chrissie’s transcripts site is a great site. And I am impressed by the amount of work that goes into transcribing an episode. I once transcribed an episode (not of Who) and it took me hours, going back and forward over each piece of dialogue to make sure I’d heard it correctly.
@nerys Oh yes, I recall now. Those nanobots put Bond in a diabolical no-win position. I’m not sure whether such a customisable DNA-linked disease would be possible, even in theory. I think the most one could do would be to target a particular genetic sequence, but likely only a large group of people rather than an individual. But as a dramatic device, they certainly worked.
9 July 2025 at 12:09 #78008Doctor Who wouldn’t even exist without the First Doctor and wouldn’t have continued for so long without the Second Doctor and regeneration. I suppose the BBC could have replaced William Hartnell with a lookalike, followed by another lookalike, ad infinitum, but they would have had to be good actors as well. I think Richard Hurndall (from “The Five Doctors” and Blake’s Seven “Assassin”) was already old enough in 1966. Personally, I’ve met two William Hartnell lookalikes, but I don’t think either of them did any acting.
James Bond films don’t give any explanation of how Bond’s face can change. I haven’t even seen most of the Bond films because I think they promote British nationalist isolationism, but I have seen the latest one, because of the story about the engineered nanites, so I wanted to know more. I heard that the number 007 AND the name James Bond can be re assigned.
I’ve watched and enjoyed lots of other sci fi series, including all of the “Star Trek” series (but not much of “Lower Decks” and only the first episode of “Prodigy”, “Red Dwarf”, “Blake’s Seven”, “Babylon 5”, all the Stargate series, “Timeless”, “Firefly”, “Starhunter” and “The Ark”. I think that anyone who watches any Star Trek series must watch the original series which they’re all based on to understand it properly. Don’t forget “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” returns in 8-9 days from now, after a cliff hanger ending involving The Gorn, a species which first appeared in Star Trek TOS.
9 July 2025 at 13:56 #78010@translatorcircuit The problem of changing the lead actor is one faced by all long-running series. Only Doctor Who came up with a perfectly logical (in the context of the story) explanation. And I think it was a huge advantage, stopped the series from getting stale.
Generally they just re-cast and hope the viewers will accept it. Batman, for example. And quite a number of Bond villains, I think Ernst Stavro Blofeld was at least two different actors.
The Bond series actually broke the fourth wall and addressed it directly when a girl turned down the second Bond (George Lazenby) and he said “This never happened to the other fellow.” Obviously the number 007 can be reassigned, I don’t think they ever suggested that Bond’s name could be reassigned. Though, if it was just a cover name, that would perfectly explain the change of actor. BUT the problem with that is that James Bond has the same personal backstory in all episodes – so, unless that was a deep-cover illusion, that’s a problem. (And why would they create such an illusion, there’s no reason for it).
I don’t think they promote isolationism, where did you get that from? You’re missing some good ones.
I’m not a trekkie, at all. The original series just failed to grab me, the only character I found interesting was Spock. The sequels are, if anything, less interesting.
WARNING: Blakes 7 spoilers below
Definitely an addict of Blakes 7 (even though it suffered from the same low-budget sets and FX as early Who) – I loved the sarcastic dialogue. You claimed ‘The Well’ was copying some Trek episode where only one crewmember survives – well, how about B7’s final episode ‘Blake’ where none of the crew survive? What a way to end a series. But then, it’s not a new trope in Sci fi, remind me how many of the crew survived in Alien, or Aliens, or Alien 3?
Firefly was, I think, very much a Western set in space. Didn’t really grab me.
Battlestar Galactica (the reboot) was absorbing, but mainly over the ongoing mystery of who was a Cylon ‘skin job.’ So I’m not sure that a re-watch would be as good. But I did like that not all the humans were good, and not all the Cylons were bad. Added some depth to it.
Farscape I was a keen viewer of, it had some insane plot twists and turns, double- and triple-crosses, some wild scenarios that I think only Red Dwarf ever matched, of course it had real ‘aliens’ thanks to the Creature Shop – who would have thought Muppets could ever be so sinister. And some very Aussie black humour. It occasionally overdid the ‘right stuff’ US jingoism but only in a very few episodes. Also, it tended to overdo deathbed scenes when a main character died. But on the whole, great stuff.
So my top four would be nuWho, Red Dwarf, Farscape and Blakes 7.
Oh, and The Prisoner, which was a groundbreaker and gave rise to so many memes.
9 July 2025 at 14:11 #78011We do a podcast looking at “cult tv” and one of the questions asked is “how does this hold up?” the youngest member of the group is ten, turning eleven this week.She is the next generation and she is never going to watch older stuff like original Doctor Who unless it is the odd story just out of curiosity. Dr Who has to re invent itself to meet the needs of an ever changing audience. it isn’t made for older fans like us because we are not a large enough audience. It has to appeal to new, younger audiences if it is to continue at all. Only the most dedicated will go back and watch original series.
And really, not all old Who was gold. A lot of it does not stand up. there are series i have never watched and never will. Yes I love the originals but they are certainly not to everybody’s taste and I would not expect them to be.
cheers
Janette
9 July 2025 at 21:28 #78013‘does it hold up?’ Sounds like time for a list! top 5 each Doctor anyone?
1 & 2 is difficult because so much is wiped and the production values are quite other…
1. Unearthly Child, The Daleks, Marinus… because it’s both complete and quite other, the Time Meddler, and whatever is left of Dalek Master Plan and 10th Planet.
2. The Evil of The Daleks, The Web of Fear, Fury From The Deep (reconstructed), Seeds of Doom, The War Games (too long but the recent hatchet job was a disgrace)
3. Spearhead from Space, Inferno, Terror of The Autons, Carnival of Monsters, The Time Warrior. Sorry, no Silurians. Getting the correct geological eon is not that hard.
4. The bar is high. Ark in Space, Pyramids of Mars, Genesis of the Daleks is too long but has to be there, Robots of Death and City of Death. And you know what? I really like the Leisure Hive.
5. The bar is lower. So… Four til Doomsday (huh? Did I say Revel Horwood could be a show runner? It’s a joke, a joke) Kinda, Snakedance, Frontios I suppose… Caves of Androzani. No, I don’t like Earthshock. What part of it is supposed to make sense?
6. Urghh. It’s nonsense but… Attack of the Cyberman I suppose for sheer chutzpah and invention. Then Vengeance on Varos, The Two Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks, Mindwarp.
7. I don’t know much about 7. Remembrance, Greatest Show, Ghostlight (on reputation), Fenric, Survival because the Doctor saves Ace.
8, War Doctor, 9 (see what I did there?): Day of The Doctor, Rose, Dalek, Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Badwolf/Parting of the Ways.
10. Could be the Moff Show: the bar is stellar; ha ha, Love and Monsters! Blink; flawed in many, many ways but… Utopia/Drums/Last of the Time Lords, Voyage of the Damned, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Voyage of the Damned.
11.This is practically impossible. Amy’s Choice, Vincent, The Doctor’s Wife, God Complex, Hide. Eleventh Hour should be there but it’s Moff. We know Moff can do it.
12. Mission Impossible 2: Listen, Flatline, Heaven Sent, Oxygen, World Enough/Doctor Falls.
13. The bar is notional: Rosa, Kerblam, Villa… I understand there were other things that might not drive you to chew off your own leg. Yeah them.
14/15: Wild Blue Yonder, Boom, Dot and Bubble, The Well… & Story and Engine I suppose… only because it’s somehow more explicable than 73 Yards.
10 July 2025 at 09:10 #78014I’m afraid people aren’t saying you shouldn’t watch Star Trek TOS, or early James Bond films, so that’s not fair! I think the only difference is that the first two Doctors’ eras were made in B&W. In that case, what’s needed is more colourisations, but without editing out parts of the story, which was done with “The Daleks” or discarding most of the story, as with “The War Games”. I think there should be a colourised version of the unedited “The War Games”, which was originally shown as one 25 minute episode per week over ten weeks.
I was fascinated to see some of the First Doctor’s stories and I plan to watch the few I haven’t yet seen ASAP.
BTW, here’s a list of the longest films ever made. A lot of of them are longer than “The War Games”! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_films
10 July 2025 at 13:38 #78015Good point about early Doctor Who being in black and white. I think the problem of the heavy editing of the early episodes in colourisation is that it costs a sh*t load to colourise them that and the digitalisation of the film so there has been a temptation to cutdown the stories as in the war games story so as to reduce the cost. The other problem with the early Who is that a good proportion of the stories were long runners ie more than 4 episodes. I think we will be lucky if more a couple a year are colorised in part because the department responsible within the BBC is a small underfunded department, that and the loss of so many early episodes. It also has the same problems for restoring “missing” episodes with animated versions it takes a long time to create them. I also agree that modern audiences should know where and how the show started but the main problem is the length of time the show has cumulatively been running. I think a modern audience has a much shorter attention span. I suppose it’s like say the modern audiences could have say Coronation Street they are unlikely to want watch the very early episodes as its original episodes have little relation to modern episodes.
10 July 2025 at 15:05 #78016@janetteb Even ‘older fans like us’ have grown accustomed to a vastly higher level of production values than we found acceptable in the early days. And even as late as Seven, there was a big (and visible) difference between Seven’s last eps and Rose.
@ps1l0v3y0u Ooh, lists. I must admit I can’t (or won’t) comment on docs 1-6. For 7, The Curse of Fenric had some fairly unconvincing monsters, The Greatest Show on Earth looked very like a ‘bottle’ ep and the ‘gods’ were only too obviously carved polystyrene shooting ‘little yellow points of light’. Even ‘Survival’ with the cat people, they looked more cuddly than menacing. As I recall, only Ghostlight really held up well, primarily because it was mostly ‘haunted house’ and no rubber monsters. But I have to admit I only watched those eps once each, about a year ago, I should probably re-watch.
For 8, The Night of the Doctor was very good for such a short episode. Written by Moff of course. The Doctor Who movie was – interesting, but didn’t really feel like Who.
Your listing of the War Doctor (Day of the Doctor) was a bit confusing, in Who’s timeline he came between 8 and 9, but in screening of course he was well into 11. Still one of the best eps of those seasons.
For 9, I’d pretty well go along with your list.
For 10, you do like Love & Monsters don’t you? I find it kind of cute, even though the monster is naff. But I’d go – Girl in the Fireplace, Human Nature/Family of Blood, Blink (of course!), Midnight,Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, The Day of the Doctor (already mentioned)
For 11, I agree, it’s hard to choose just 5. I’d go with Vincent, Hide, Doctor’s Wife, The Girl Who Waited, Asylum of the Daleks, A Town Called Mercy, The Bells of St John – and a few more
12, even more so. Listen, Dark Water/Death in Heaven, Last Christmas, Magician’s Apprentice/Witch’s Familiar, Zygon Invasion/Inversion, Hell Bent (rather than Heaven Sent, which was a tour de force but not nearly so much fun), Oxygen, Extremis, World Enough/Doctor Falls. I miserably failed to keep that down to 5, didn’t I?
13 is easier, for all the wrong reasons. It Takes You Away, Fugitive of the Judoon, Eve of the Daleks. I’d be scratching to nominate any more. But then I’ve only watched each ep once, so some I can’t really remember the plot.
14/15: Wild Blue Yonder, Boom, Dot & Bubble, The Well, The Story & The Engine – oh, we agree exactly on those 🙂
10 July 2025 at 15:33 #78017@translatorcircuit “I’m afraid people aren’t saying you shouldn’t watch Star Trek TOS, or early James Bond films, so that’s not fair!”
Well no, the two things are not equivalent. Doctor No and Doctor Who were nearly contemporary (in passing, I wonder if Who was a pun on No?) but there was a vast difference in production values. Dr No was a polished, big-budget motion picture in the well-established secret agent genre, based on a best-seller series of novels and shot on location – and it showed. Dr Who was made on a shoestring – and that too, showed. I don’t think fairness comes into it, it is what it is.
Even Blakes 7, made 16 years later, suffered from barely adequate props and FX and I only watched it because the characters and the dialogue were excellent.So, between Dr No and No Time to Die, there is not a huge yawning gap in production values. If you liked No Time To Die you’d probably also like Dr No.
Whereas, in Who, between Doctors 1 and 15, or even 1 and 9, there is. By the way, I don’t mind black & white. I don’t think colourising it helps much.
Danger Man pre-dated Who by a couple of years, but – being a Secret Agent series – it didn’t need much in the way of special effects so doesn’t suffer nearly as much.10 July 2025 at 21:18 #78019List compiled in haste. I missed out The Mindrobber. And included Voyage of the Damned twice. Though it is fantastic. Yes, I like Russell having camp fun; it explains Love and Monsters.
Really, for 5&6 it is so tough to pick worthy eps but. Apart from the Mara stories and Androzani, very few were remotely acceptable. And then there is the dross.
But then the last 2 Tom Baker series were pretty ropey. And so was the first McCoy series. I gave up on Paradise Towers. 7 incredibly poor years. The peak was the Leela run up to and including The Sunmakers. Though the previous 2 years were almost as consistently good. And so Baker’s reputation rumbles on. However, you really MUST watch Ark in Space to Sunmakers.
Makes you realise why Nuwho series 3-10 made such an impression. You could nominate another 15 eps for that run.
11 July 2025 at 00:33 #78020There’s a good reason I’m called TranslatorCircuit! I’m multilingual. I’m typing this on a German layout keyboard. Not only that, but apart from sci fi, most of my TV viewing is in German and French. James Bond is totally unrealistic British nationalist isolationist crap! In spite of all the defence cuts, James Bond is equipped to do absolutely anything. The stories totally fit in with all the Anglophonia CANZUK propaganda. Most of, or even nearly all of James Bonds’ friends are native English speakers, while most of his enemies aren’t. Lots of them are German, or of German descent. https://jamesbond.fandom.com/wiki/Germany
However, Doctor Who made an anti Brexit joke about UNIT operations being suspended in the story “Resolution”. Peter Capaldi attened an anti Brexit protest for scientists.
11 July 2025 at 07:01 #78021@translatorcircuit I flatly disagree with you about James Bond, amongst many other things. Of course it was unrealistic, that’s the genre, you reckon “The Man from Uncle” or “The A team” were any more realistic? I’m buggered if I can see where the Bond movies were isolationist, since they were located all over the world, with characters from many countries. I honestly can’t see where Bond was any more anglocentric than Dr Who. And since Bond worked for a variety of British Intelligence, OF COURSE his enemies were foreign. Beside, if he’d been confined to hunting down spies in London or Birmingham or Newcastle, it wouldn’t have had the same appeal to British audiences anyway, a large part of the attraction of Bond movies is that they travelled to exotic overseas places. So of course his enemies were foreign, as were quite a lot of his friends.
I’m surprised you can stand to watch Dr Who, which is also very British in places.
Incidentally, not that it matters, but I think Brexit was one monumental cock-up, though it pales into insignificance compared with electing Trump.
11 July 2025 at 11:16 #78023I meant that James Bond’s friends and allies spoke English as their native language, but could have been from anywhere, such as the USA, Canada, or Australia. There were only 14 Bond books written by Ian Fleming, but I’m not sure how many stories there were. Two of the books were published after his death in 1964. Only two or 3 film versions were produced before he died. Some other authors have written Bond stories after he died.
I didn’t know until recently that lots of James Bond’s enemies were German or of German descent, but this was quite ridiculous because the stories were written years after WWII ended and the USSR was the new enemy. Of course, some of them might have been East German, but I don’t know, because I’ve been avoiding watching these films. BTW, Ursula Andress from “Dr. No” and a friend of Bond’s is Swiss German and her Dad was German, but her Mum was Swiss German. The language spoken in most of Switzerland is called Swiss German, but the spoken version is often unintelligible to stndard German speakers, due to the pronounciation, but also some different words and word order. It’s written the same as standard German, though. It may as well not be called German at all!
I like Doctor Who because I started watching it as a young child, but it’s stood the test of time and is the only thing that remains constant in my life, apart from the gap years. I’ve just started reading some more Doctor Who books by getting some software to read them aloud, otherwise they’re too difficult to get through. Unfortunately, the Doctor’s companions tend to be almost all from English speaking countries and space colonies. Not many Doctor Who stories have been set in other European countries either. Some exceptions to are “Arc of Infinity” (partly in the Netherlands) and “Planet of Fire” (partly Spain).
11 July 2025 at 14:07 #78024@translatorcircuit There were quite a lot of Bond books written after Ian Fleming died, I don’t regard them as canon and haven’t read many of them.
Of course the movies are quite different from the books – Dr No was quite close to the original but they soon diverged and many of the later ones are entirely different from any of Fleming’s books.
Bear in mind that the movies were made for British and American audiences, I think that explains why so many characters – even the villains – spoke English. Of course this is always a problem for movie makers making a movie for a specific audience – they really have to stick to English (or French, or German, or whatever audience they’re targeting) – the audience needs to understand what all the characters are saying. Subtitles are a very clumsy way to ‘solve’ this.
Danger Man (pre-Bond, pre-Who) solved this quite cleverly – many of the foreign characters spoke their own language but you could tell from the context what they were saying. You didn’t need to speak e.g. Spanish to understand that the boss villain said (in Spanish) “Cover him! Get his gun. If he moves, shoot him” or that sort of thing.
At the time of the early Bond books, the USSR was the main enemy, and this was reflected in Casino Royale and From Russia With Love. But as the Cold War thawed, Bond’s enemy became international crime syndicates like Spectre, and the villains came from anywhere – Italy, Germany, Spain, USA, and Britain itself. Why so many German actors? I think because when they speak English their accents sound a bit foreign (not necessarily German). Bond’s most famous villain, Enrst Stavro Blofeld, was German-Polish-Greek, and became a Polish national. Played by seven actors of various nationalities, three of them British. Goldfinger was American (I think).
I find it curious that you find it easier to understand Dr Who when read aloud, rather than reading it yourself. For me it’s quite the opposite, I can read French fairly well (just have to look up the occasional word), but spoken French – I just can’t keep up with. And this is because, spoken French I have to first interpret the sounds I hear into French text I understand, then translate that into English, all the while listening to the next bit of French. When reading, I can read at my own speed.
But good translation is extremely difficult to do. I think, the better the writer, the harder it is for a translation to do it justice. Because words have many shades of meaning, and a good writer like Moffett can write dialogue with many levels of meaning – the same words directly translated into e.g. German will have different alternative meanings, so much of the flavour is lost. And, there is cultural background which is different. It is said that Germans don’t ‘get’ British humour – but that’s nothing, Americans often don’t ‘get’ British humour either, even though they share 95% of the same language.
I didn’t mean to write so much about it.
11 July 2025 at 14:25 #78025@translatorcircuit P.S. I know about Schweizerdeutsch (have I got that right?)
Oh, and Honeychile Ryder was an interesting case. In the book, she was a half-caste Jamaican. Having read the book, I thought Ursula Andress was shockingly miscast, she certainly didn’t look Jamaican – though I guess most audiences didn’t notice. She was OK in the role. Interestingly, she was ‘re-voiced’ for the movie by Nikki van der Zyl (also German) because of her strong accent. Also different – she walked out of the sea wearing the famous bikini. In the book, she wasn’t. Wearing anything, that is. I would have loved to see that!
12 July 2025 at 14:55 #78028I’ve seen Danger Man, but I don’t remember the dialogue in various languages.
I don’t think I’ll bother to watch any more Bond films.
My native language is English.
I’ve seen various episodes of Star Trek: DS9 and Star Trek: VOY in German first of all on the channel SAT.1, because at the time that was the easiest way for me to see them. You can now watch them via satellite or Internet on the German channel Tele5 https://tele5.de/serien
I started reading the New Doctor Who adventures years ago. At first it took me about 4.5 days to read each book in between doing everthing else I needed to do, but the amount of time gradually kept increasing with later books, until it took me about 18 months to read “White Darkness”, after having to stop then go back to the beginning again. After that, I stopped. I took some of these books to a creative writing night class I was going to. I asked the people there why it was taking me so long to read the later books. One student said she thought it was because the later books were written in more complicated language. Years later, I started reading that series of books again, this time using e-readers, starting with the following book “Shadowmind”. I managed to carry on until reading “Tragedy Day”, but then I stopped. I wrote summaries of each book to help me remember the stories, but now I’ve lost them.
A few days ago, I started using KDAN PDF reader which can read PDFs aloud. I find this is much easier than reading the printed Doctor Who books, or even e-book versions. Unfortunately, I have to pay a subscription of £8.99 to use this software after the trial period of 3 or 7 days is up. I didn’t cancel it after being able to read the BBC past Doctors book “Business Unusual”, telling the story of how Mel first met the Doctor, which Michael Grade prevented from being made with his 18 month gap and sacking Colin Baker. I think it took me about 4 days to read it, thanks to it being read aloud to me. I think the story in this book, as well as in the New Adventures books, is much more complicated than a classic Who story. I don’t know how long it would last if it was made for TV without deleting various details. I’ve now written a summary of the story and I plan to continue with The New Adventures “Legacy” soon.
12 July 2025 at 15:17 #78029@translatorcircuit The only Doctor Who book I’ve read is The Day of the Doctor, which reflects all the events of the TV episode but also (I think) has a bit of extra content in it.
I tend not to read book versions of TV/movies. In general, I usually don’t find ‘the book of the film’ very satisfying. Because film is primarily a visual medium, and the skill of the actors in conveying emotions and expressions is hard to capture in print.
But in general, books have a far more complicated plot than TV / movies. A movie screenplay would often shrink down to the size of a short story, so a lot more plot needs to be added in, to make a decent-length novel. (And here I’m talking 200 pages, not a 800-page blockbuster). As a result, books are often very different in tone and style than the movie of the same title.
14 July 2025 at 01:52 #78033It’s looking more and more likely now that the BBC think they can cancel Doctor Who forever, or at least indefinitely! They also think that Doctor Who fans will sit back and take any old SH**!
I say enough is enough and it’s time for some Doctor Who riots soon! Close down CBeebies as well, to prevent the travesty of a Doctor Who animated series for pre school kids. If other groups can hold riots and get away with it, then why shouldn’t we?
I’m also going to contact as many people as possible to try and get the rights to Doctor Who REMOVED from the BBC!! I hope this will lead to a group which actually CARES about Doctor Who making a Christmas Special, followed by a new series. It could be produced in a few months, like in the classic era.
14 July 2025 at 03:08 #78034Classic Era Who on YouTube:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DL-kU16hziC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Not sure if it’s still live…
14 July 2025 at 20:55 #78035I think you mean CBBC not Cbeebies. If DW IS indeed being pitched at pre-schoolers then, yes, the end has come.
And perhaps… the end has come. Can you square the iconoclastic demands of the frothing anti-woke brigade with trimming critiques of beancounters and filmschool script neuterers who would much rather be talking about a soap? DW has ended up as a very small Venn diagram indeed; therefore a rapidly shrinking audience. Possibly all that is left is continuity.
I’m not sure it is just DW. I have said before that I’m fussy about scifi, but the televised genre seems to be in some trouble.
Severence is cool. Silo is slightly meh/downright dodgy. One day someone will strap me down subjected to Clockwork Orange stylee eyeball clamps to make me watch Foundation. I’ve managed 10 minutes so far: sententious exposition, infantilisation, the inability to drop a bridge on key characters, and some bright spark obviously had the blinding insight that Cleon is an anagram of clone. Duhhh oh yeh!
Ok I didn’t get all of that from the first 10 minutes. I was looking for reasons to stick with it because I like early Azimov. Obviously my mind is too highly trained.
15 July 2025 at 09:36 #78036@ps1l0v3y0u Was that Lunkwill or Fook? (Weird the random bits of information lurking under the piles of debris and broken typewriter bits in my memory). – and (looks it up) it was actually Vroomfondel. Bugger!
@translatorcircuit Who is actually going to ‘remove’ the rights to Doctor Who from the BBC? It’s not like some magical licensing authority decides who gets rights to what. The Beeb would have to sell them and they wouldn’t come cheap.
Also, it’s a matter of copyright law and who-owns-what. There’s an interesting article at
15 July 2025 at 16:28 #78040I think the BBC should be forced to give a licence to anyone wanting to produce a new series of Doctor Who, as it looks like they want to kill it off. The licence should be free so that the group producing the new series can have more money to produce it.
I also think the TV licensing law should be updated to apply only to people watching BBC TV, listening to BBC Radio, watching BBC iPlayer, or Channel 4. At the moment, the law says that people need a TV licence if they watch ANY live TV at all! This includes live TV from outside the UK.
15 July 2025 at 17:37 #78042The BBC have finally made a statement about Doctor Who! Unfortunately, I don’t know what it means. Can anyone translate?
https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/doctorwho-bbcstudiosceo-commentsrep1
15 July 2025 at 20:08 #78044WOW! It really IS for pre-schoolers! Urghhh. I DO apologise. I GENUINELY thought that was a mistake/joke.
Embarrassing. Kids Show! Official.
So, the Venn Diagram HAS become THAT small. I don’t like it, and some noise might just help, but this COULD be the end. Though to be fair HE mentioned US, I mean us, the weirdos. In the minuscule Venn Bit. Whoever Tom Fussell is.
Expect the anti-woke brigade to proclaim a victory. Loudly. Annoyingly.
btw any tax system, not based on regular income/business/large individual expenditure, really is unenforceable. The only people who ever pay are those with some money who HAVE to. No point making it ‘fair’, if you can’t make ‘fair’ people pay. There’s no point in making people, who can’t pay, pay because they’ve nothing with which to pay. Unless you chip them at birth, so they’re always in debt. Ah. That’s The Sunmakers, isn’t it?
Best bet is a tax on streaming services, but not even Mark Carney can get that past Trump and his crawling, arrogant tech mates. Or The Usurians.
It’s The End of The World as We Know It and I haven’t felt that happy about things for a while (if you hadn’t guessed)
16 July 2025 at 00:21 #78045@ps1l0v3y0u @translatorcircuit
Yes, this is real. They put a call out for pitches for a Prod company to produce a Cbeebies version of Who about a month ago.
The pitch said that it should be aimed at pre-school and therefore stepping back from the scarier aspects and focus on the Doc solving problems and overcoming “villains” who were more misguided than evil.
I don’t think this is an either / or with the main show. It may be something they are doing and thinking long term strategically – get the little ones on board and create more demand for the main show down the line.
I do think another option for the BBC is animation (in the short term), maybe using the existing Big Finish scripts as a basis for the stories. I don’t know if this would work financially, but there are a number of lower cost animation houses all over the world, so it might be a go-er.
As and when the main show does return, it would be good to see some of the Big Finish writers (or stories) involved.
26 July 2025 at 08:49 #78056Fugitive Doctor Multimedia adventure “Circuit Breaker” announced:
https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-circuit-breaker-106056.htm
Spanning audio dramas, comics, mobile games, novels, and digital storytelling,
The story sounds interesting.
21 August 2025 at 21:27 #78081Been gone a while (real life got in the way) but back with news from the BBC
Of course, saying that “the TARDIS is going nowhere” lends itself to multiple readings.
22 August 2025 at 01:09 #78082The “BBC Remains Committed” headline sounds good. “The TARDIS is going nowhere” comment doesn’t exactly instill confidence, given that the TARDIS is usually going somewhere.
22 August 2025 at 04:11 #78083@blenkinsopthebrave thanks for sharing. that does sound promising though as @nerys points out, what we want is for the Tardis to be “going somewhere”. I suspect that the BBC is considering their options right now and I hope that “reduce the special effects budget and put more focus on good story writing” is a feature of the discussion,
Cheers
Janette
22 August 2025 at 04:21 #78084I had a what may be horrible thought reading through some of the comments. Are Disney vacillating on purpose in an effort to force the BBC to sell the rights to Who to them, maybe it’s just my distrust of American Corporations and my current total distrust of their current government (meaning Trump).
22 August 2025 at 08:56 #78085I’m disgusted with the BBC! This latest comment makes no real difference. As for “The War Between The Land and The Sea”, even that has been delayed now. When I first heard of it, I thought that five episode series was why Doctor Who had been cut from 13 down to 8 episodes per series. I’m so sick and tired of hearing about it now that I think the whole thing should be dumped in a skip and burnt! Last night/this morning I was very drunk and writing a new series of Doctor Who, featuring Billie Piper’s Doctor up against a new, very powerful, time travelling enemy, who may have been created by the Time Lords. This isn’t much good for me, because then I’d know everything that was going to happen!
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