The Devil’s Chord

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  • #75602
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    The Doctor and Ruby meet The Beatles but discover that the all-powerful Maestro is changing history. London becomes a battleground with the future of humanity at stake.

    This is once again written by Russel T Davies. It is directed by Ben Chessell, who has directed two episodes this year. He is an Australian director with a lot of TV experience (although nothing I’ve ever heard of I’m afraid).

    And, interesting, Murray Gold, our bombastic composer, plays himself in this one.

    #75623
    ScaryB @scaryb

    I think it was a really good idea to show both these episodes together. They show the fun side of DW and (as I said on the Space Babies thread) get us familiar with the new Doctor and companion and firmly establish them  as people we’d like to hang out with for the rest of the season. Ncuti continues to be awesome!

    There are more shades of darkness in this one, and technically I think it’s better than the Babies one. Monsoon manages to keep it just to the right side of not being pantomime, and dives deep into the character. Related to the Toymaker (did I pick up correctly that she’s his daughter?) and sneaking into our world in 1925 – the same year as the Toymaker. Hmm.  Also mention of salt (losing its power to keep them out) – a call back to Wild Blue Yonder when the Doctor wonders if he’ll regret using the superstition to defeat the no-things, and that it might mean that other (very bad) things can now enter our universe.

    I liked the concept, and the music is well used. Better informed forum members will have lots more to say on the subtleties of it I’m sure! Using the sonic to cause silence then balanced by the tuning fork to create vibrations.

    The actors playing the Beatles looked absolutely nothing like them (and the wigs took the term “moptop” to an extreme!), but fortunately they weren’t overused. Any more would have been irritating (but maybe that’s just someone who’s old enough to have grown up with the Beatles. Speaking of old – I’m hoping that gratuitous bumping off of old ladies isn’t going to be a thing! 😀 )

    The dance sequence at the end just about justified itself (with a good 60s feel to it), and made a sort of sense in a story about music (and with a play on “story twist” and the 60s Twist dance craze), but like the babies, I’m hoping RTD has now got it out of his system, LOL

    And there was something like snow again. I’m sensing a theme!

    (I did like Ruby’s “where’s my mum?” line when they landed in a devastated 2024).

    There’s definitely a feeling of a new era, of freshness and ambition; the acting and the production values are carrying it, and I’m hoping things will be a bit less fluffy going forward. I’m optimistic, taking  into account Wild Blue Yonder in particular, which is one of my favourite episodes ever. Looking forward to the return of Stephen Moffat next week.

    #75628
    Devilishrobby @devilishrobby

    Well I have to say this was an episode of two halves for me. It started out fairly good ok must say Maestro’s performance was very OTT but given this is supposed to be one of the Celestial Toymakers Pantheon what do you expect especially after Neil Patrick’s  rendition of the character they needed to have someone who reflected this which Jinx did very well. My big problem was the way they finished the episode with a  60’s pastiche musical song and dance ending. It felt as if RTD was doing a combined homage to Austin Powers and a Disney musical. It also reminded me of the Buffy musical episode Got to Sing and Dance.

    #75629
    ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u

    Can I state my admiration for the number the Beatles were recording when the Doc and Ruby turned up? Clearly an influence on Colon from Indie Club. I won’t post the video again.

    I thought the actor who played Ron Nasty looked more like Dirk McQuickly, whereas Dirk’s actor should have been Barry Wom!

    Hilarity aside, music is one of the corner stones of culture, and this is improbably powerful stuff. Amazing performance from Jinkx Monsoon. I don’t really watch musical theatre so I can’t say if the last numbers were good or bad but I’m sure Jonathan Nathan Turner would be green. Beats running diwn corridors or reaching for big red buttons.

    On the other hand, both my daughter and my partner LOVE musical theatre, and they were duly amazed, maybe not in a good way. I doubt if they’ll be converts.

    #75630
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    Like you, @scaryb <waves> I’m optimistic overall, despite hoping the bombast dial gets turned down just a smidge going forward. Gatwa and Gibson are both excellent, and charmingly believable in the Doctor and Ruby’s newfound excitment at hanging out together.

    I love ’60s style and thought the Doctor and Ruby were also smoking in their era outfits. Enjoyed the joyful dance-off at the end in block-colours in the studio canteen and corridors too.  We need some of the optimism of the ’60s in our own currently miserable era, and maybe that was the point of the episode.

    No actual Beatles songs in the episode.  Too expensive, apparently, even with Disney’s money.

    The Doctor mentioned one or two, Lady Madonna being one, which paen to a single Mum trying to make rent with babies to feed, fits with the theme of orphans and abandoned babies running like a neon streak through the Gatwa era.

    I think the first song which the Doctor and Ruby should have heard the Beatles recording in a Maestro-free universe (rather than the soul-sucking dirge about a dog) would have been Besame Mucho or Love Me Do, but the musicologists on here will know better than me.

    Jinkx Monsoon, playing the Toymaker’s non-binary daughter Maestro, clearly had a blast chewing the camp scenery to the max. RTD2 is absolutely determined to make Gammons’ heads explode this time around isn’t he – refugee babies followed by drag queens.

    #75632
    ScaryB @scaryb

    <waves back at @juniperfish >

    Good catch on Lady Madonna, and yes indeedy – the Doctor’s and Ruby’s outfits looked fab gear 😉 (although  maybe a little too Motown inspired for ’63 (I would’ve killed for Ruby’s boots back then!!)).

    Talking of costumes, a little Easter egg – the old lady who got unceremoniously murdered by Maestro was played by June Hudson – who was BBC costume designer in the 7os including Blake’s 7, and Dr Who. She was responsible for Tom Baker’s late 70’s look.

    Couple of things with bonkers theorising potential –

    Who was the boy (Henry?) who was evaporated/(dematerialised?) at the beginning (piano pupil)? He reappears peeking round a door at the end.

    And what the hell is going on with the actor Susan Twist?! Apparently she’s been in 4 episodes so far – Isaac Newton’s servant, woman watching Ruby’s band (in the Xmas special – she asks if they can play Gaudete), as recorded Comms officer in Space Babies and as one of the Tea Ladies in The Devil’s Chord. And she’s listed in the cast for next week! No info yet about later episodes. Link here.

    #75635
    penguindog @penguindog

    Awesome episode, was a true successor to The Giggle in a lot of ways. Highlight for me was the anxiety 15 felt in the middle, that felt very real.

    #75637
    ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u

    The post Maestro nuclear winter is an obvious nod to Pyramids of Mars. I’m afraid we’ll not see ITS like again. But that has been true since Jonathan Nathan Turner stepped into Graham William’s shoes. And not all of the golden age was THAT good. In any case we’re talking Nuwho.

    What do we have with ‘Chord’ and ‘Babies’? Yes relief that Zchib is gone. Russ tiptoeing around the subsequent damaged continuity. Not a lot of Moffat style razor chat/sci-fi literate/chutzpah/occasional gender cluelessness. Sparkly budget set against almost Chinese cultural diminution of threat.
    RTD will delight and offend and won’t be told what not to say, exactly. He will obviously adjust what he shows because it’s not his money. If I thought we might have a whole series of ‘Babies’, I might start thinking, ‘Woman Who Fell to Earth’ or ’Spyfall’ and then ‘not again.’

    As it is this is more than just about good enough. It looks great. It’s coherent. It doesn’t leave me thinking ‘maybe Denis Waterman (as well as my partner) was right.’ The actors deliver. The politics are, at the very least, acceptable.

    It is very much like RTD’s first run. Successfully beaten into compact and uniform shape. But, as was the case then, sometimes something is missing.

    ‘Babies’: another element was needed. Something to make the babies a little less cute. Then Russ would have less time to be tempted to telegraph stuff. More = quick.

    ’Chord’: music is difficult. Song fics are very uncool. Not everyone over 25 liked the Beatles.

    What if the nuclear war was about the Scruton/Hague/Traditional Religious view of the sixties winning? Not so much Devil’s Chord as Devil’s Decade. Russ was nearly there but the argument was light. Just needed more unpleasant contemporary view: see, that’s what happens when the servants reading Lady Chatterley; can’t have the Minister sharing a girlfriend with an immigrant. The Animals could be animals and Stones, real thugs. Bob interests John: he has the right idea about Indo China, and leaving folks in The South to their own devices.

    Because the death of music must be recent, or why did the boys buy their Rickenbackers in the first place? Could the allies have won WW2 without jazz?

    Yes, you couldn’t drop many ideas into the script without more expo, which obviously you don’t want. Just make everyone mean little pathe news caricatures. But then there would be precious little time for the dance number, or the music, and that is what’s on the tin. As John said later, ‘who wants to talk about sex?’

    It just needed another element. Wouldn’t take much.

    But yes Henry Arbinger will be important. Lot’s of foreshadowing going on, isn’t there? A little bit annoying really.

    #75638
    Anonymous @

    Morning,

    New fan here I’ve loved Dr Who since it came out in 63, me and wife massive fans. Now I’m old and opinions differ to others, I’m not here to offend.

    Last night’s episode with the babies was watchable, the one with Maestro in was awful and Maestro was OTT.

    As I say I’m old but trust me Sci Fi does not have singing and dancing in, and hope it’s back to normal next week.

    I know it was done to coincide with Eurovision, but it was Political Correctness gone too far.

    #75639
    GotTheJam @gotthejam

    Finally someone said it.

    One of these days people will realise that not everything has to be filled with gay, transexual, non binary or whatever people.

    It’s ok to just have normal straight people occasionally you know.

    #75641
    janetteB @janetteb

    @scaryb Thanks for the link to the Radio Times article. Did they chose the actor because of her name, Susan Twist? is the song at the end a sneaky reference to her?

    Reference to the Rani and to Susan. I know that I have a bad track record here, always looking for a possible return of Susan but I am theorising again that Susan might be going to make a reappearance finally.

    Likewise we might finally have a return to the Rani or is RTD simply teasing, throwing in random references just to fuel our bonkers theorising?

    Cheers

    Janette

     

    #75644
    Miapatrick @miapatrick

    OK so this time – I’m just not that into the Beatles. I find Beatleworship irritating, but for all that, I did like it when Paul joined John at the piano and they finished the sequence of keys. I found the ‘we need music to make us us, otherwise disastrous war’ a little twee given that we are, on the whole, a reasonably warlike species that loves music.

    But at the same time – there’s a lot of focus on time. The butterfly effect last episode. The moving back and forward and the world changing on this. Isn’t the Doctor supposed to get into it with Time itself at some point?

    @scaryb, so you’re saying is that so far there’s always a Twist, if not necessarily at the end?

     

    #75645
    penguindog @penguindog

    @blade58

    @gotthejam

    There were plenty straight white guys in both the two episodes and in the 60th special so it’s not “everyone.” It’s strange how diversity is the fixation of people’s complaints on the political correctness, and not the overt and not-so-subtle messages on abortion and asylum seekers. It feels like a convenient shield to hide behind real disdain for trans people, rather than any sort of conviction on the merits of political messages in media

    #75646
    penguindog @penguindog

    The Beatles was a misstep I think. Those who enjoy The Beatles seem sad there was not more of them and their songs, and those who don’t enjoy The Beatles didn’t really care for their inclusion at all, By taking this middle approach, you barely please anyone.

    This is just a theory so grain of salt in mind, but The Beatles’ Let it Be restoration is coming to Disney+ very soon, the cynic in me thinks it could be some meddling. But then again, it could just be coincidental.

    #75647
    janetteB @janetteb

    Just regarding the cost of playing Beatles songs I guess things have changed in the last thirty years because I am sure that Goodnight Sweetheart would not have been paying huge royalties in the 90s.

    Wondering if the Margaret Lockwood reference was meaningful but can’t see anything on her IMDB that would suggest any link. The Lady Vanishes?

    @miapatrick. Hi nice to see you back. Hope all is well with you. I agree the “music makes us better” concept is questionable. Armies march to music. Ride of the Valkyries springs to mind. Music can be and frequently is misused to manipulate. Buy at least we didn’t have to endure five minutes of moralising about it, so that is a plus.

    Family members liked my suggestion that Ruby might be linked to Susan. It is a stretch but it is more than time that we found out what became of Susan and a lot is being made of him being the last timelord. Last time RTD did that it signalled the return of the Master so I am think this time it is signalling either the Rani or Susan..

    Cheers

    Janette

    #75648
    GotTheJam @gotthejam

    Penguindog

    It’s not diversity though, it’s shoe horning

    #75649
    penguindog @penguindog

    @gotthejam

    The political messages about aslyum and abortion is shoe horned, not the fact that non binary people exist in Doctor Who. It’s a strange take I must admit.

    #75650
    ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u

    @penguindog @gotthejam

    what you to have to remember is there is a pecking order at work here.

    At the top… Trans is fraught. Drag is the target. This is the Mailspress feeding zone. Entirely irrational. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH REALITY! I have had people try to talk to me about this over dinner. No Tofu. And could I meet their eye? No. There was nothing there…

    I admit Jinkx Monsoon is scary. GREAT! Sounds a bit like real Who to me. Mary Whitehouse would complain. Again GREAT!

    Next on the list: refugees. Well, we need these poor souls to do all the shit jobs we don’t fancy. Suella thinks the snowflakes and chavs should run around the land with big knives (for the brassicas natch) but wouldn’t it be even better if they were serfs? Then they couldn’t run away! Or mess up the property market for the Oligarch’s daughters. Which is really important.

    Then reproductive rights. I dunno. Anyone from America or Northern Ireland in? Embarrassing isn’t it? Stockpile lemons and clingfilm, that’s my advice. Shoe-horning? Seriously?

    Where next? What’s wrong with British food eh? aka ‘that’s a nice bit of fish, doesn’t taste of anything!’ Or ‘I met some English people abroad. They didn’t seem to want to talk to me. I like the songs from the shows. Until it got suspect. Oh and cider.’

    Bottom of the list. Who. Try talking about that. It’s a great leveller.

    #75651
    GotTheJam @gotthejam

    Penguindog

    What exactly are these political messages about asylum and abortion?

    Now compare that to the effect that having a man dressed as an ugly woman (and not having any consequences) will have on impressionable people.

    #75652
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    @scaryb – Ah thanks for clueing me in to the Susan Twist mystery – love it.

    I agree, @janetteb , given the Doctor’s line in this episode, “There’s always a twist at the end” and the fact that his granddaughter Susan is also given a mention in-episode, it seems perfectly logical to wonder whether the “twist” is Susan. Perhaps Susan is Ruby’s birth grandmother…

    Of course the showrunners are fully au fait with the speculative element of their fandom, so they’ll no doubt be enjoying immensely sending us off on various bits of bonkers theorising and misdirection across the timelines.

    As for people making accounts on here merely to trollsplain why Doctor Who, a speculative fiction show chock full of aliens, needs more “normal straight people” – my eyes are rolling so far back in my head:

    I wonder what gender/sexuality Daleks are, or the Nestene consciousness, or how “normal and straight” the Alzarian tripartite lifecycle is (Alzarians/ Marshmen/ Marsh-spiders) or Gallifreyans, given their gender-fluid regenerative capacities etc., etc., etc…

     

    #75653
    GotTheJam @gotthejam

    Yeah, because someone having the slightest issue with a programme shoe horning in a load of woke crap has got to be a troll.

    You’re pathetic

    #75656
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    Mrs Blenkinsop and I just finished watching it. And my response? Well…there were no babies!

    Beyond that, I don’t think we can accuse RTD of subtlety. Or perhaps that is unfair. His basic point about the need for music to live is, obviously, one that no-one should disagree with. I suppose my reservation was that I think he could have made that point in half the time. And while  Jinx Monsoon can, I imagine, do their schtick really effectively in short bursts in a variety hall setting, it came across here as more bombastic than effective.

    I was more intrigued by the opening sequence, set in 1925. Am I correct in thinking that 1925 was when the Christmas special started, with the role of the Toymaker in the invention of Television?

    If so, we find both the Toymaker, and his child, Maestro, both initiating ways, in 1925, to destroy humanity.

    Anyway, looking forward to the next episode, written by…Moffat.

    @juniperfish Loved the clip of Baker’s Doctor playing dress-ups! I must have seen that when it first screened, but had forgotten. Great to see it again!

     

    #75659
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    As Mrs Blenkinsop quite rightly pointed out to me, the opening sequence featuring the role of the Toymaker in the invention of Television takes place in The Giggle, not the Christmas episode.

    So 1925, both the Toymaker and Maestro, intervening in ways designed to destroy humanity.

    Coincidence?

    #75660
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    I think you (and Mrs B) are spot on with 1925. That’s exactly the year the Toymaker sneaked in (and I think it’s related to the Doctor blowing the salt superstition in Wild Blue Yonder (he says something then about having made it up, and that he’ll pay for it, now that it’s out there that it’s a fallacy.).

    @juniperfish “trollsplaining” is my new favourite word.

    Great video clip 🙂

    Links well to the tone of  the current series.

    @everyone – Can we agree that “woke crap” is not a welcome phrase in this forum? Neither is calling fellow forum members pathetic. I don’t mind being called woke, and DW has been “woke” since its earliest days, and all the better for it. If you don’t like it then this isn’t the forum for you.

    I didn’t think the anti pro-life and refugee comments were “shoehorned” into Space Babies – it’s very much part of the whole story.

    Now on to more intriguing things… what gender/sexuality ARE the daleks?! And would that explain a lot about them? 😉

    And indeed – Susan Twist – is RTD teasing us?

    #75663
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @juniperfish

    Perhaps Susan is Ruby’s birth grandmother

    Now you’ve got me! So where does Mrs Flood fit in? 😉

    Maybe Susan is actually the Rani – went wrong as a result of being abandoned by the Doctor.

    @janetteb @miapatrick – I take your point about martial music but I think music is actually the best of us; and it’s inbuilt – babies respond to it before they can walk or talk. Warmongers just misappropriate it for their own purposes.

    #75664
    GotTheJam @gotthejam

    Scaryb

    Firstly, I’ll stop calling people pathetic when they stop calling me a troll.

    Secondly, Dr Who hasn’t been woke since it’s earliest days, not like this at least.

    Lastly, why should ‘woke crap’ not be welcomed on this forum? Are people that scared when people won’t bow down to this excessive woke stuff that’s polluting all aspects of our life?

    #75665
    janetteB @janetteb

    @juniperfish. I was thinking that but I also thought that Danny and Orson were Susan’s grandchildren so I tend to look for Susan descendants everywhere.

    @scaryb. It was such a good post that I read half the repeat one before I realised.

    As to “woke crap” well I welcome a return to the sincere politics of RTDs writing. His writing for Who at least, has a tendency to be “bombastic” but his character development is excellent. I disliked aspects of both episodes, the creepy cgi babies, the music notes, but the characters and dialogue carried me through. It was still enjoyable and the family are all still talking about it today.

    On writing that I realised that both episodes are about story and “created realities”. The swirling music notes are very reminiscent of the original magic toymaker or the story teller in The Mind Robber. The snot monster is reminiscent of the creations in Mind Robber.

    cheers

    Janette

    #75667
    Miapatrick @miapatrick

    @janetteb @scaryb re music – I think it is a part of the best of us. Though I’m reminded how, just to really drive home her psychopath status, when Villanelle in Killing Eve was asked was kind of music she liked she said ‘national anthems’ ;). I think it’s just tat – not only is it appropriated for war-like purposes, this, pretty universal aspect, I think, of human beings… doesn’t tend to keep us from mongering war. Would we be worse without it? Very probably. We’d certainly be less human. But our human qualities aren’t always our best. Music also often ties into our tribalism.

    @gotthejam there are oh so many places on the internet for you to rant about ‘woke crap’ and make weird comments about consequences and impressions from drag queens. This just isn’t one of them.

    @juniperfish I’d never really thought about Dalek gender identity – I think in general, there are a few species, like the ones you mention, which don’t fit into a binary (like some humans). I think Daleks entirely identity as Daleks, firstly, and then whatever rank secondly.

     

     

    #75669
    bunface @bunface

    Hello everyone. Just joined but been reading a while, having needed therapy to get me through the Chibnell years, which I’ve only just caught up with.

    Still thinking about the new episodes, but I have a niggle about the billboard shot at the end of TDC, where Doctor and Ruby are on the roof, just before the musical number. The board advertised a new record by “Chris Waites”.

    It’s so prominent. (I took a screenshot but don’t know how to upload it, maybe someone else can wiz that?)

    So there’s something about the big bad unknown ‘waiting’…? Maestro’s parting shot, “The One Who Waits is almost here.”

    Shades of Bad Wolf?

     

     

     

    #75673
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @bunface

    Here you go 🙂

    Chris Waites billboard

    #75674
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @gotthejam

    Can you please read the Etiquette page. We have tried to cultivate a site where everyone shows respect for everyone else.

    Phrases like “woke crap” are actually denigrating to people who share those values. You are basically saying “your beliefs and values are crap”.

    Take a deep breath, and consider a different way to make your points. Maybe something like “I’m not sure I like the current episodes. The series seems to be moving in a political direction that I’m not comfortable with”. And then expound why you think that is bad. That would add to the debate. “Woke crap” does not add to the debate.

    #75675
    bunface @bunface

    @craig

    I got the exact same shot! Thanks.

    #75676
    ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u

    Chris and The Carrollers?? A preview of the xmas special perchance? And SLC… something. Any ideas?

    Tom Baker dressing up was from Robot 1974… which was a pretty poor story. Though it did have a cabal of very useless crypto fascists. Curiously apposite.

    #75677
    Charlie Cook @cookgroom

    I’m afraid I’m not too impressed with the two episodes so far

     

    in particular this episode. As someone pointed out the anachronisms should have started from 1925, so the Beatles would never have formed, having been influenced by Buddy Holly – perhaps that’s why they didn’t look anything like ‘our’ Beatles 😀

    I am more intrigued by all the easter eggs being planted. Who is Harold? Love the Susan Twist spot, hadn’t seen that. I had noticed all the baby references. Is Anita Dobson coming back? Are all the stories going to be fighting the Pantheon?

    Going to hang on in, plots look good on paper,  but they need to improve the actual stories.

    #75679
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @ps1l0v3y0u

    Yeah, the obvious interpretation is “Christmas Waits”. Given Ruby’s origin it seems to be going that way. Is “The one who waits” Father Christmas (or Kris Kringle)?

    #75680
    bunface @bunface

    So if the One Who Waits is almost here, is Christmas going to happen in summer? Which would be the right kind of havoc. (Tho actually not so far from reality…)

    @ps1l0v3y0u

    SLC has to mean something, agreed.
    <p style=”text-align: center;”></p>

    #75681
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @bunface

    Missed the Chris Waites (& The Carrollers) banner, nice spot. Apparently it’s an Easter egg – a reference back to the very first eisode:

    https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-chris-waites-carollers-newsupdate/

    Doesn’t rule it out being a current “bad wolf” type hint as well tho.

    @ps1l0v3y0u – SLC – there is a record label with that name, also a US based one called SLC-6. Neither of them with any particular profile.  Theorise away 😉

    #75682
    bunface @bunface

    @scaryb

    Ohhh, good link! More grist to the Susan speculations then.

    And then there’s the John Smith link too!

    All this gives me great hope that things won’t be as simple as they seem on the surface of the first episodes, and that RTD hasn’t lost his playful edge.

    #75683
    Miapatrick @miapatrick

    @cookgroom yes a more logical plot might have been they turn up at Abbey Road, it’s not a recording studio any more or if it is the Beatles certainly aren’t there and then they track them down and… the way they did it is more logistically handy. You’ve got a location to base it around, a famous piano etc but it’s not entirely clear why people are even bothering to make terrible records when its so disgusting and embarrassing to make music at all. I wonder if some of it started off as a commentary on AI generated music, art, writing etc and the story morphed. As it is, music is terrible now, people find it rather shameful, even when they work in the industry, but they’re still making and people are still buying it enough for any one to bother.

     

    Also, thinking about it – the idea is that music is effectively gone. People are only making this really bad music – and its bad enough to be safe? When someone plays or sings something good, Maestro turns up but the terrible stuff they’re recording is ok.

    #75685
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    hmm, I see we have an incursion from the tedious culture warrior brigade. Just to echo @craig if you want to contribute then make sure it’s an actual contribution and not the usual tired word salad of Clarksonisms. Plus make sure it respects the community etiquette guidelines.

    Full thoughts later but just to chip in on the billboard controversy. This on Threads from the mighty Pete Angelhides…

    #75686
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    ah, I see @scaryb has got there before me….

    #75687
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    And good point, @juniperfish and @scaryb

    I’d say Daleks are almost certainly NB. Ditto Cybermen. Not to mention Sontarans, Time Lords, Alpha Centauri and so on. I think it’s safe to say that the Whoniverse is and always was pretty genderfluid in its outlook.

    And as to the young uns being confused by a ‘man in a dress’ … I suspect centuries of traditional pantomime might have inured them to that. Besides, it’s my experience that they’re probably finding the question of why some grown-ups are so twisted with intolerance much more vexing…

    #75688
    janetteB @janetteb

    @jimthefish and @scaryb. Thanks for the info. Another reference to Susan. Significant or just RTD throwing us some red herrings and having a laugh at our expense. (I have fingers crossed that this time it really is going to be Susan.)

    Cheers

    Janette

    #75689
    Miapatrick @miapatrick

    @jimthefish I suspect that the drag aspect of the episode is another example of RTD going in hard. There are parts of the US I believe where there is a tremendous fuss about letting children see drag queens, whereas that’s just part of Christmas and often the first theatre they see for UK children. As signs go re: Disneyfication etc, the selling of souls to The Mouse etc, it’s a pretty good sign I think. I know she’s American, and the US has a long standing drag tradition, but throwing a drag queen into a family show feels quintessentially British, and well times given certain recent legislation.

    #75691
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @scaryb and @jimthefish

    Thanks for those excellent links. Love it when Ian points out that Aubrey Waites’ original stage name was John Smith. And, well, of course…

    I will watch again, but I seem to recall the Doctor telling Ruby that they are in London at the same time as The Hartnell Doctor and Susan. (Or words to that effect.) And at some point a bit later he stares wistfully across at where his earlier incarnation, Susan, Ian and Barbara would be. (Or did the romantic in me imagine that..?)

     

     

    #75692
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    well, that was … interesting…

    My main take-away from this was that RTD still hasn’t gotten over really, really wanting to be Joss Whedon but still not quite managing it. It’s seemed for years now that a musical episode of Who would always be on the cards and I always wondered how Who would be able to rationalise it and I guess this current fairy tale/fantasy iteration seems the best suited for it. But this episode seems to go out of its way to invite comparison with Once More With Feeling and is doomed to come up short in almost every way. (Which I guess is unsurprising because OMWF probably has to stand as one of the tightest pieces of TV dramatic writing ever.)

    So we have Maestro, who is incredibly similar to Sweet (from OMWF) crossed with Beetlejuice and is a pretty energetic and entertaining antagonist. A great performance from Jinkx Monsoon who makes the last few iterations of the Master look positively minimalist by comparison. Though I’m beginning to suspect that guest stars are probably going to feel that they’ll have to up their game when appearing opposite Gatwa. He’s surely got to be the Doctor with most powerful on-screen presence since the first Baker.

    My main problem, I suppose, is that the songs, including the finale one, are just … not that good. I found myself admiring the ambition of the episode rather than tapping my foot along. (Mind you, I didn’t think the supposedly ‘bad’ Beatles song we had in the episode was all that bad — not compared to, say, some of the drivel of the bona fide Beatles later years.)

    The other problem is that the narrative as a whole is kind of flat. We pretty much know all we need to know about Maestro as an antagonist even before the opening credits have rolled. Anything we learn after is merely detail so there’s no sense of mystery or rising tension to the story — just a series of set pieces between the Doc/Ruby and Maestro. And for an episode as mould-breaking as this one, it was starting to get a bit samey by the end.

    And in terms of niggles, let’s also have a shout-out for some of the worst casting for the Beatles in living memory.

    But as an episode, it was once again second-tier RTD. Quite fun, quite maddening in places but probably not going to be all that memorable in the long run. It did kind of remind me of The Idiot Lantern but mostly I think it’s following the template for the first half of Eccleston’s series in its romping, unserious nature. And, of course, that series also stepped up a gear in its second half in terms of seriousness. And  with this series more truncated run, I suspect that’s what I think will be needed shortly so I have high hopes for The Moff’s upcoming episode.

    The Chibs era felt to me like it was channelling Davison a lot of the time and if that stands then this era is currently feeling a lot like early McCoy (and maybe the references to the Pantheon is kind of reminiscent of the Gods of Ragnarok). It has the same twinkling absurdity to it that Seven had before he became the dark manipulator and I do definitely get a Seven/Ace vibe off the 15 and Ruby which is nice after the chemistry-free zone that was 13 and The Fam. And maybe we’re being lulled into a false sense of security here and that we’re about to be hit with something a lot darker going forward.

    As to Susan. I know there’s legions out there who really want to see her again but just to reiterate I’m really not bothered if we do. I’m struggling to see what the point would be and the only upside would be that it would at least get it over with. In fact, after Chibs’s shenanigans I’d be quite happy to have a moratorium on the return of old companions. Sarah Jane aside, I’ve found it to be a largely depressing experience when they’ve shown up. I’d like to see the building of some new mythologies rather than retreading old ones.

    #75693
    penguindog @penguindog

    @gotthejam there are oh so many places on the internet for you to rant about ‘woke crap’ and make weird comments about consequences and impressions from drag queens. This just isn’t one of them.

    wow @miapatrick, well said, well said.

    #75697
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    @bunface @craig @scaryb – loving the Chris Waites and the Carollers spot and Easter egg pointing to Susan again.

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    I seem to recall the Doctor telling Ruby that they are in London at the same time as The Hartnell Doctor and Susan. (Or words to that effect.) And at some point a bit later he stares wistfully across at where his earlier incarnation, Susan, Ian and Barbara would be. (Or did the romantic in me imagine that..?)

    No, you didn’t imagine it – I saw that wistful look as well. Makes me wonder how often the Nu Who Doctor has been tempted, since the destruction of Gallifrey, to go back in time and see Susan again in 1963. I suspect, many times.

    Now – why is 1925 the year the Toymaker and Maestro pick to start messing with Earth? Yes, in The Giggle, this was tied to the invention of television, as a new medium for propagandistic control.

    1925 was also the year that Mussolini declared himself Dictator of Italy, so it was the beginning of European fascism. I reckon RTD2 is likely to want to comment on fascism, given its awful contemporary resurgence, and Doctor Who’s long engagement with such commentary, beginning in 1963 with Terry Nation’s The Daleks.

    @jimthefish <waves> Well Whedon wanted to be Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi, whose Xena musical episode The Bitter Suite (3×12) did it first, and brilliantly. Buffy really owes a lot to Xena – the quippy combination of comedy, action and drama. Lucy Lawless was absolutely superb at executing all three, as was Sarah Michelle Gellar.

    The thing is, you have to earn a musical episode, in my view. The Doctor and Ruby singing in The Church on Ruby Road worked as it was part of the Goblins’ own ritual. And I enjoyed the ’60s twist dance-off at the end of The Devil’s Chord, but I’m not sure I can handle a singing/ dancing number in every Who episode this series. On the other hand, I understand that if you’ve got two stars who can sing and dance as well as Gatwa and Gibson can, the temptation to utilise their talents is undeniably there.

    #75698
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @juniperfish Good to know that wistful scene did occur!

    I went looking for 1925 events myself after I posted and discovered it was also the year that saw the publication of Mein Kampf.

    I think it indeed likely that 1925 will be referenced again as the season goes on.

     

    #75699
    Mudlark @mudlark

    As so often, I’m late to the party, but for what it’s worth I thought this episode an improvement on the Space Babies and on the whole I enjoyed it. The basic concept had a lot of potential, but it was as if RTD, having seized on a good idea, never developed it so far as to explore all the implications. As @cookgroom   @miapatrick and @juniperfish have already noted, if Maestro first manifested in 1925, then that is the point at which the music presumably died and history diverged, and it is unlikely that by 1963 the Beatles would have ever got together or considered music as  a viable way of making money, even as a step towards a more conventional career. Who would be interested in buying their records if enjoyment of music had been so long repressed?  Then again, once Maestro was banished back to whatever Olympus this particular pantheon regard as home, was history supposed to spring back into the time line we know, or continue on a divergent path?

    @jimthefish and @juniperfish  I imagine you have both seen the interview in which RTD specifically referred to Once More With Feeling and said that he wanted to do something similar with Doctor Who.  Whether or not he is capable of pulling off anything similar-  and on the evidence he is no song lyricist – DW doesn’t lend itself to that kind of treatment. The Buffy episode worked as a one-off, not just because it had a supernatural explanation which fitted the context, but because the fact that the characters were propelled into singing of their inner thoughts and feelings helped further the plot. In the Devil’s Chord the song and dance sequence at the end was just about justified by the theme of the episode but it was clumsily tacked on, cued by the Doctor’s somewhat contrived reference to ‘a twist in the end’,* rather in the manner of the lighter kind of 1920’s and 1930’s musical comedies. It’s to be hoped that this kind of thing won’t be a regular occurrence. I did, though, like the conceit of the markings of the Abbey Road zebra crossing as piano keys.

    On the plus side, Nguti continues to dazzle – surely the most joyous incarnation of the Doctor yet, eclipsing even Tom Baker, although we saw glimpses of a more sombre and thoughtful side. And I relished Jinkx Monsoon’s turn as Maestro. Yes it was OTT, wondrously so; not just chewing the scenery but masticating it to pulp, but that goes with the territory if you are a divinity, even in a minor pantheon. If you are a god you can behave as outrageously as you like, give or take the few rules dictated by customary lore.

    Finally, if I were being hypercritical – and in my advanced state of crumblitude my memory could be at fault – I would point out that Ruby’s outfit looked a bit more 1964 than February 1963, while her hairstyle was more late 1950s. A geometric haircut ala Mary Quant would have gone better with the dress, but she did ask for a beehive.

    *And yes, back in the day I did risk back injury doing The Twist, and on at least one occasion to The Beatles ‘Twist and Shout’.  Sad, no?

     

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