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31 October 2015 at 21:48 #45995
@doctordoctorwho — post deleted. If you like you can repost it but only in the spoilers section…
31 October 2015 at 21:16 #45985More detailed thoughts later but I thought that was absolutely excellent.
And it now becomes painfully clear why The Times were desperate to give Who a kicking this week.
31 October 2015 at 13:50 #45964A quick style proposal for the bloggers. It’s probably best if blog titles are kept in upper and lower case. All caps headings look rather like SHOUTING and unbalance the rest of the site from a design perspective.
31 October 2015 at 13:47 #45963@bluesqueakpip — that’s an excellent theory and I think you could well be right on the money there.
30 October 2015 at 12:42 #45907Just to say that on rewatch I enjoyed this far more. I still see vague glimmers of the tenth Doc in this story — I don’t know whether because it reminded me slightly of The Shakespeare Code or whether Tregenna views the Doc through a Torchwood lens that’s bound to be a Tennant-ey. Or possibly because the plot was a bit Waters of Mars-ey.
The arc stuff is really good though. That ‘purple is the colour of death’ line is so arch as to having to definitely mean something. Not convinced Clara is actually going to die but something bad’s definitely going to happen to her. I quite like the idea that she’s still in the Dalek. It might explain the anachronisms if she’s constructing these adventures to deny that reality to herself.
I’m still clinging onto my theory that either Clara or Ashildr are going to be aligned to Missy in some way. Maybe what we’re going to see ultimately is not a death or a sacrifice, but a betrayal.
30 October 2015 at 12:25 #45904@plainolddave–
I won’t surrender to the new numbering style because it’s wrong. I have never made a habit of apologizing for being right and see no reason to stop now
No, you are wrong, I’m afraid. Doctor Who originally ran from 1963 to 1989. Then it was cancelled. Over. Finished. Then there was a one-off TV movie that didn’t go anywhere. And then there was a revived series that picked up some elements of the original, now-defunct series and added its own. The ultimate arbiter in these matters is the BBC, I’m afraid, not you. And this is the numbering sequence they use and therefore so do we. To insist otherwise is (apart from being more than a bit ‘comic book guy’ is disrespectful to everyone else on the forum, it also creates confusion unnecessarily. If you’re going to engage with people here, then I suggest you respect the basics.)
the program is diminished by Clara’s unseemly crawling all over Twelve
We seem to be watching entirely different shows. Can you point to one scene, just one, where this happens? Because I must have missed it. Clara and Twelve do not have a romantic relationship, as has been (I think successfully) argued by many above.
Basically, your argument seems to boil down to ‘the modern world! Booo!’
29 October 2015 at 15:56 #45837@arbutus — absolutely. You can love one period or style more than another. But its pointless to try and isolate and refuse to acknowledge the worth of anything that comes after it. And of course nothing emerges divorced from the cultural contexts around it.
29 October 2015 at 15:28 #45834@plainolddave —
Has the original series been somehow deleted or re-edited in some way? No. It’s still there in exactly the same form as it always was, so it’s hardly been molested in any way. And every series, not just Series 9, have been quite clearly faithful to what had come before.
But your refusal to stick to the conventions that just about everyone else is using in this discussion makes me think that @pedant is indeed correct and you’re being nothing but an on-topic troll. As such, I don’t think it’s really worth bothering with you any further.
29 October 2015 at 13:18 #45829To echo @pedant — Veronica Mars — well worth a binge at some point. It’s great.
Orphan Black took me a long time to get into and it’s still a case of like but don’t quite love. Tatiana Maslany is going awesome work on it though….
29 October 2015 at 11:43 #45824DW is ONE TV show, that went on a significant hiatus. This is why I call current programs S34 instead of S9; Jon Pertwee was the Doctor for S9.
The key word is ‘significant’. And much had happened in between, both in the world of Who and in the world of entertainment generally. It’s foolish to try and assert that it’s a case of ‘it was off air for a while and it’s now business as usual’. It wasn’t. The show was cancelled. It was gone. It took a lot of energy to bring it back and it came back significantly retooled and essentially built again from the ground up, with lots of new elements, most notably the Time War. It was to all intents and purposes a ‘reboot’ to use the parlance and that should be reflected in how we talk about the show. But no one here is really divorcing the two, as can be seen in pretty much any conversation on this forum.
However, the BBC and pretty much everyone else makes the distinction between the old and new series. Hence Series 9 is the current one. Use AG and BG to make the distinction. Everyone else does and it’s basic politeness to use the terms that have been established as the common terms of reference on the site. Being a contrary-Mary is just impolite.
But what many call distinctions are in reality distinctions with no substantive difference. Doctor Who is still an SF adventure serial about an alien who travels through time and space
Well, it’s never been an science fiction series. Not really. It’s got some SF trappings. It’s probably even stretching it to say it’s science fantasy. It’s not really. The science content is minimal and always has been. It’s a fantasy series.
The Doctor, is most eccentric and alien. It is at its worst when he tries to pretend he’s something he’s not and never will be, no matter how much he tries: Human.
This is rather rigid and unimaginative, don’t you think? You’ve got a very fixed view of what the Doctor is and isn’t. But as Marc Platt said, the real reason for the show’s longevity is that it is such a plastic format. It’s a madman in a box and everything else is up for grabs. That’s it’s genius. And I know which definition I prefer.
Terry Nation never really made the case for an eccentric, alien Doctor.
Terry Nation was essentially a jobbing hack who got extremely lucky with the Daleks. He can be given next to no credit for forming the character of the Doctor. For that you should look to Newman, Lambert, Whittaker and probably even Hartnell himself.
The City of Death (the most watched DW episode ever)
It almost certainly isn’t. Not anymore. The one which achieved the highest ratings in the old analogue days (and benefiting from a strike that hobbled the competition) maybe but not the most watched by a long chalk.
But on to your more general point:
Then came the Genuine Article and the Hinchcliffe-Williams era
This is the era I too grew up with and have a lot of affection for. And the Hinchcliffe/Holmes partnership probably more BG classics than any other production team. But your attitude seems to be to treat this is the pinnacle of Who achievement, with everything before leading up to it and everything after a corruption of this alleged golden age. In reality, it was not just the coming together of a creative team that worked well, it was cultural flashpoint whose success lies in lots of other external factors. It worked brilliantly at the time (and some of it still stands up really well today — and some of it, frankly, doesn’t) but it can’t be used as a template for everything that comes after it is pointless and self-defeating.
Times move on, nothing exists in a vacuum and every cultural artefact exists within the context of everything going on around it. The Pertwee UNIT years worked partially because they existed in the context of Jason King/James Bond etc and partially because they existed in a backdrop of the death throes of the British Empire, economic depression and so on. The Baker years at their best worked because as @bluesqueakpip says, Baker chimed with the boho undergraduate nonconformist vibe of the mid 70s. He’s the Doctor as Howard Kirk in many ways.
It strikes me that you’re suffering slightly the same rose-tinted spectacles view that afflicts a regular correspondent over on the Graun (assuming you’re not one and the same). Each era of Who has to be approached on its own terms and not peered at down a disapproving pince nez as failing to exactly match ‘the good old days’. Those days aren’t coming back. If you tried to exactly recreate Who from 1975 forty years later it would fail. Look, for example, at the new Dad’s Army film. It looks kind of fun and I’m quite surprised to find myself looking forward to it. But it basically amounts to a piece of post-modern play. It’s appeal seems to lie largely in modern actors doing impersonations of the original cast rather than creating something new and vivid. It’ll be diverting and then be forgotten. It would have no lasting impact at all. If you hired someone just to slavishly copy Baker and Hincliffe and Holmes, it would have had a similar novelty value and then died a death. It certainly wouldn’t have lasted 10 years, with no sign of giving up yet.
One which note:
Is that why the audience seems to be going away? The ratings this season have been between 2/3 and 1/2 of previous seasons. I don’t think this is explained by changes in television watching, since other programs don’t seem to suffer the same erosion.
On the contrary, it is happening to every programme. EastEnders, the Beeb’s other old warhorse, aside from a shot in the arm for the 30th anniversary episode is continuing to shed viewers at an alarming rate — far more than Who. As is Corrie, Emmerdale and just about every other soap. And as @pedant says, you can’t even compare the viewing landscape to what it was even five years ago as the market penetration of tablet set-top box ownership continues to make its presence felt.
Pick up just about any copy of Broadcast and you’ll find an interview with some commissioner or other banging on about how much the landscape is changing, how ratings are becoming next to useless as an indicator of success and so on….
28 October 2015 at 23:57 #45771@plainolddave–
There’s very little to add to what @bluesqueakpip just said. Except:
Fictional characters do not radically change worldview and motivation mid-story
Well, take out the ‘radical’ and that’s a highly fallacious statement, I’d say. Fictional characters do nothing else. Or at least they should. Or else, what’s the point of watching them if nothing they experience changes them in any way?
And between BG and AG (and as to numbering can we stick to the standard Series 1, 2, 3 etc when we’re talking about the AG series? It just makes life simpler) the Doctor did evolve but I wouldn’t say it was radical. As damaged as Ecclestone’s Doctor was, he was still the Doctor, even more so when the ‘gaps’ were filled in by the Name/Night/Day of the Doctor. And, as Pip says, just because it took place off screen doesn’t mean that it’s been overly radical or illogical character development.
he lacks a basic motivation to be a romantic lead
I don’t think this is true either. The enduring popularity of McGann’s Doctor as well as the phenomenal success of both Tennant and Smith’s Docs suggest otherwise. Besides which, to repeat, he’s not really a romantic lead any longer anyway.
28 October 2015 at 12:13 #45735@plainolddave–
DW has lasted 50 years because it’s a comfortable haven from an ever-changing world
Sorry, you’re wrong here, I think. Who survived for 50 years because it rolled with the punches. Hartnell’s Who is very much still evolving from a late 50s patrician mindset. By the time you get to Troughton, the counter culture Beatles-esque anti-authoritiarian vibe had kicked in. The Pertwee years are tapping into Bond/Jason King trends and so it goes. You only have to look at The Three Doctors to see how far the show has travelled in its first ten years. You could in fact argue that the show only began to lose its way when it failed to tap into the zeitgeist of the wider culture around it.
It’s evolution that’s made Who’s success, not it being some kind of comforting fixed point. And the last thing the show should be — any show should be actually — is some kind of security blanket to give the viewer a comforting pat on the head against the big, bad world outside. All the best episodes of New Who — and the ones that get most fondly remembered from the old show — are the ones that pushed the envelope of what the show to that date could do. Hence Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace, Turn Left, Vincent and the Doctor resonate where Journey’s End, New Earth, The Lazarus Experiment etc don’t. Someone once said that good drama should be the emotional equivalent of a punch to the face. Who doesn’t need to go that far but it does need to grow.
This is Doctor Who, not a chick flick
Not only is that insulting, it’s wrong. It’s an odd mindset that sees any expression of emotion as equating to ‘chick flick’. Rather limiting and unimaginative to put it mildly. We get the Doctor that the times demand. Baker worked for times he lived and was performing in. And the show was doing something very different then. Personally, while I no doubt loved it when I was a kid, I now find that Baker clip hammy beyond belief and rather irritating. It’s pure pantomime. Compared to the Tennant one, which still has an emotional resonance and power (although it did also lay it on a bit thick for my liking, even at the time).
If you had a performance like Baker’s now, the show would fail. He did funny and shouty, sure, but there wasn’t much emotional resonance there at all. You talk about the departures of Romana and Sarah Jane as being how it should be done. I’d say that they come across as unsatisfying dramatically — which is why Liz Sladen’s return in School Reunion worked so well. It was unfinished business.
The show isn’t just a teatime serial primarily for British kids anymore. It belongs to the world. And it exists in a much larger cultural ecosphere. And that means it has to have a deeper emotional and dramatic resonance. It also means creating more connection with the Doctor.
As to romance. Even by the end of the original run, the Doctor’s relationship with his companions was becoming something of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink elephant in the room. It had to be addressed and one of the things RTD did brilliantly was integrating that into the show. Not only is it something that there’s no reason shouldn’t happen in Who, it’s something that had to happen.
But be that as it may, there’s no suggestion of the Doctor being romantically involved with anyone except River now (and he is married to her, so why not). The show has moved through the process and has come out the other side, all the stronger for it.
But of course this is all utterly subjective, and in Who perhaps more than any other show. What we’re talking about is not really one show but 12, with every actor, every production team, bringing something new to the mix, changing the show and transforming it. It’s probably not possible to enjoy every aspect, every era, as equally. It just doesn’t have the cohesive uniformity of something like, say, Star Trek.
27 October 2015 at 11:33 #45654@pufferfish — afraid @pedant is right. Check out Great Myths of the Brain by Christian Jarrett.
26 October 2015 at 19:03 #45612@arbutus — Yes, I don’t mind the sunglasses or the guitar either. I do find it slightly depressing in that the rock star thing is as much a historical persona now as Edwardian scientist or whacky Bohemian used to be (thanks to Messrs Cowell and Internet). It seems perfectly appropriate for the Doctor to adopt his guise now in a way that it wouldn’t 15 or 20 years ago.
Although I do wonder if the likes of The Wand Company etc are pissed off that the sonic is gone, now that they’ve got a new remote just out in the shops. However, I believe SM has strongly hinted that the glasses’ days are numbered. I suspect they’ll die a death eventually, quite possibly at the hands of the Doc’s missus.
26 October 2015 at 17:42 #45605@drben–
Presumably the X-rated Doctor Who outtake would also include Capaldi employing some of the language that made him so famous as Malcolm Tucker.
It never gets old, so here it is again. Not for the easily offended obviously.
26 October 2015 at 14:18 #45582No, you listen to yourself. This is utter tripe you’re talking here.
I think I’ve got a pretty strong grasp on the Scottish culture and mindset, and, a few jokes aside, it absolutely does not manifest itself in Who. No more than RTD’s Welshness did when he was showrunner. This really is an idiotic argument. Sure, a writer’s upbringing will inform their work to some extent but it absolutely does not colour the entire show.
But the funniest people on TV over the last 50 years has always been the British
utterly, utterly subjective. And not necessarily true. So, yet again, jingoistic bs.
I’d watch 10 Monty Python episodes a day over and over for years rather than have to watch 1 episode a week of “the King of Queens”, as an example
Cherry-picking will get you nowhere. Quite apart from the fact that Monty Python, like all sketch shows, is moments of inspired genius surrounded by lots and lots of overrated and mediocre crap, I could just as easily say:
I’d watch 10 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm over one episode of Gavin and Stacey. Or Hannah and Her Sisters over The Sex Lives of the Potato Men. Or Arrested Development over Love Thy Neighbour.
What you actually need to do is go away and take a good look at yourself and why you think that it’s somehow just not possible for America to produce good TV drama and comedy. Sure it produces some crap as well — as does the UK — but taken like for like, the US has dramatically and consistently outperformed the UK in the past decade and a half.
26 October 2015 at 13:44 #45577@seeoswald — Canadian influence? What does that even mean? Aside from just being more jingoistic pish.
It pleases me greatly that Steven Moffatt, Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez hail from my part of the world but that doesn’t mean that there’s remotely any kind ‘Scottish influence’ in Who currently. Just that several key members of the crew happen to come from there.
With regards to US TV, the fact of whether you’ve sampled it or not (or ‘consider it worthy’) is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the body of work coming out of that country is sufficient to utterly dispel the nonsense that appealing to an American market somehow constitutes ‘dumbing down’. If anything the opposite is becoming increasingly the case.
@bluesqueakpip — yes, Moffatt is very much the master of hiding plot points in plain sight from the media. He’s like a Weeping Angel with a press release….
26 October 2015 at 13:12 #45568@bluesqueakpip and @spacedmunkee —
Yes, the Mirror is usually disinformation central but this time it’s got attributed quotes from Moffatt, Williams etc. And a lot of the info is very specific. And Moffatt wouldn’t lie to the Press, right??
Right?? 🙂
26 October 2015 at 13:04 #45566I’ve been trying to give up engaging with the trolls, but I’ll fall off the wagon just this once.
But this…
Americans are not funny and rarely clever and of course if there is anything truly good on US TV it lasts 1 or 2 seasons and gets canned because it’s to clever for the viewing public.]
Except of course Buffy, Angel, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Wire, Treme, Generation Kill, The Sopranos, Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, The X Files, The West Wing… I could go on. And on. Because there are many more.
Frankly nothing on British TV — not even Who unfortunately — comes remotely near the quality and cleverness of the drama coming out of the States and that’s been the case for knocking on for 15 years now. To try and pretend otherwise is nonsense — and jingoistic and patronising nonsense at that.
But as Pip says, some lameass anecdote about geographical ignorance does not in any way constitute an argument about the quality or otherwise of the quality of writing in Who. So again, give some examples of this ‘dumbing down’ (that doesn’t actually exist anyway). Or how about an easier one, explain why appealing to the American market is actually a bad thing in the first place.
Oh, and insulting other forum members will get you modded from here on in. Just so we’re clear.
26 October 2015 at 11:45 #45552see, the thing is just making those kind of broad, unsupported opinions just isn’t what happens here.
If you think the writing is poorer this year, then spell out, with examples, why you think so. That way, people can engage with you, offer counter arguments or perhaps even be won over to your way of thinking. You could then, for the purpose of comparison, offer examples of what constituted stronger writing in previous years and why.
To just rock up with the kind of posts above just makes you look, well, something of a bridge-dweller.
Personally, I view the last six episodes, occasional missteps aside, as one of the strongest runs of episodes in the show’s history. And overall, I’d say the last couple of years and Moffatt’s run in general as having consistently higher quality of writing than the era that preceded it.
26 October 2015 at 11:38 #45551I thought Maisie Williams was pretty good and for my money (bar Dinklage) is the best thing in Game of Thrones. She maybe didn’t quite capture the worldweariness that her character required in the second episode but she was still pretty effective. The episode belonged to Rufus Hound though, I think.
And while lauding @kharis‘s excellent spot, I’m also a bit sceptical that she’s going to turn out to be Clara’s mother. As has been pointed out above, it’s too elliptical (at the moment) to be a major plot point and there’s the casting issue too. But it’s probably not coincidence. It’s possibly more yanking of fans’ chains by the production team is my thinking.
I am thinking that there is going to be some kind of connection between Missy and Clara though. Possibly she’s some kind of ‘sleeper agent’ for Missy or Missy’s surrogate for her to travel with the Doctor. Or possibly not.
Was also initially sceptical of @juniperfish‘s (and others) Tarot theory but will have to admit that I’m on board with it now. Not sure what it means or what the ultimate relevance of it will be but it does seem to be ‘a thing’ this series.
26 October 2015 at 11:26 #45547@craig — this is Time Quake, the 20-odd page kids’ book written way back in 1980-ish? I’d be tempted to assume this was an April’s Fool that’s somehow gone chronologically awry. But if it’s genuine, my money is on the ‘awful’ end of the spectrum.
And to be really anoraky about it, I seem to remember the story involved K9 being sent by the Time Lords to defeat Omega (with suspicious ease). Presumably that’s going to be rewritten otherwise it’s going to play hell with the parent show’s current backstory….
26 October 2015 at 11:22 #45543I too am loving the ‘hayness’. Hmm, what’s wrong with the show? Oh yeah, there’s too much hay.
Also the assumption that to appeal to the US market requires ‘dumbing down’ shows a profound ‘out of touchness’ with the current realities of TV production in both countries….
25 October 2015 at 21:12 #45481Congratulations on providing us with a highly informative textbook example of ARSE.
That’s an excellent spot. I think you could well be on to something there….
25 October 2015 at 00:17 #45395I might change my mind on a second viewing but this is the first episode this series that’s really left me cold. It felt for all the world like a second-level RTD episode to me. Even Capaldi’s Doc felt as if he was being decidedly Tennant-esque in places — although there were still moments where he once again truly shone.
The saving grace was the arc-heavy meat to chew on. I’d agree Missy is definitely going to be seen before the end of the series, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Me makes a return to (assuming they don’t turn out to be one and the same, of course).
And Rufus Hound was great too.
But overall, while both episodes have had their high points, my overall impression of this story has been of an infodump wrapped in some jokey historical set pieces but lacking too little overall coherence for my liking.
24 October 2015 at 13:26 #45366@fatmaninabox — I’m actually loving your BTTF theory. I’ve often thought that Clara was probably named in tribute to BTTF3.
23 October 2015 at 21:08 #45344Happy birthday, @ichabod
22 October 2015 at 14:02 #45301To me it’s not a matter of how sciencey or not-sciencey Doctor Who is. I simply watch it with a different set of eyes – a different frame of mind
Absolutely. It’s not SF. Never was. It’s not strictly fantasy either. One of the great things about the show is that it has its own frame of references. You also have to just roll with the ‘rule of cool’ a lot of the time.
21 October 2015 at 00:17 #45228@janetteb–
I disagree regarding Susan. I would not want her to return as a companion which is something that often seems to be suggested. I would however like to know what became of her, a Gallifreyan presumably with the ability to regenerate left on earth
Actually, that’s probably fair enough. There are ways that a return to Susan might be interesting and I don’t blame people for wanting to see that. She’d possibly be extremely resentful. Her life with David Campbell would take up what 70-odd years and then she’d have been stuck on the ‘slow path’. Could be interesting but personally I’m happy for it stay in the past.
I’d actually really like to see something that we’ve possibly not seen since the mid-1960s — a series that has no returning elements of the series, no old villains, no old characters. Just the core premise of the original show. The Doctor and his current companion(s) visiting strange new worlds, meeting entirely new characters and that sense of limitless wonder of the early show. Would never happen, of course, but I like to dream.
I’d say your analysis of the episode’s flawed structure is pretty spot on. I think what I meant when I said when I said Mathieson didn’t have a story he enjoyed was that there’s little indication that he wanted to engage with the idea of the Vikings at all. That was possibly a tonal decision before the story was even written (Moffatt: Give me a romp.) Agree with @phaseshift that it’s deliberately riffing on The Time Meddler, which had a similar rompey vibe. But I kept getting the impression that the treatment of the historical characters became so post-moderney was because it helped to keep Mathieson’s interest. You’re probably right that the training scene was padding but I must admit I quite liked it. It felt like they were giving Capaldi a chance to do a riff on the Tucker-esque side of his Doc’s characterisation.
I also suspect that the horned helmets and the eels were quite deliberate and not bona fide ‘errors’. Someone on the Other Place described it as ‘trolling the fans’ and I suspect this might be the case. I also concur with those above who wrote that we might even be seeing something even more meta going on here and that the whole Viking story is just that — a story (whom it is being told by is a question possibly for another day but that some poetic licence is being used even here). Personally, I don’t care a jot about the eels but suppose can understand why it bugs some people — and have probably been more tetchy than I should have been with some expressing their dissatisfaction with it over on the Graun.
With regards to the teaser not having anything to do with the actual episode, you’re right it might turn out to be relevant in a way that we haven’t seen yet. But sometimes teasers just don’t. I can think of a few instances in Buffy/Angel where the teaser pretty much stands alone (filler again) and I’m sure lurking at the back of my mind there are examples in Nu-Who too. I’m just struggling to dredge them up at the moment.
You’re right though that this episodes has some fundamental structural problems. But now that I look back on it, I still enjoy it more than I did Before The Flood. Possibly because Capaldi’s performance is so strong. As I say, I think Mathieson has just shown himself to be really good at writing this Doctor.
19 October 2015 at 15:01 #45128Well, opinion is certainly mixed on this one. Could this be this year’s Kill The Moon? Certainly it’s got enough contentious elements to keep the Graun Brigade going for days, if not weeks.
As others have said, this is quite likely a highly arc-significant story dressed up as a romp. I can understand @bluesqueakpip‘s reservations about the episode and probably share a few of them. My interest did flag about midway through but definitely perked up by the end. I think this is possibly because I didn’t find the whole Viking stuff that interesting.
Part of the problem there, I think, is that I kept getting the impression that Matheson didn’t find it that interesting either and wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. Thus we get a Pythonesque take, with Norsemen with a decidedly 21st century outlook. Overall I actually think it works because all the performances are good, particularly Capaldi who, let’s not forget is great at this stuff. But this wasn’t really a Viking story (in the sense that The Time Meddler could be described as — although is the period signifcant because we’re now seeing the Doctor essentially playing the part of the Time Meddler himself. His motivation by the end of the episode is not that different.) The horned helmets, the out-of-character dialogue, the electric eels, I think, are all deliberate — possibly even with the intention of giving the more humourless corners of the internet a mischievous prod.)
And Capaldi has never been better than he is here. Matheson’s two stories last year and this one make me think that of all the non-Moffatt writers, he’s the one who ‘gets’ the 12th Doctor the most. It’s interesting how much Capaldi’s Doc has wrong-footed some. Part of it is down to the costume which has now clearly evolved. There were some who clearly wanted Capaldi to be a Pertwee clone, and the early promotional material seemed to point to that, but this episode shows most clearly that he’s a hybrid(!) of Hartnell and Tom Baker. With something of his own thrown in. As I’ve said before there’s a lot of the ageing rocker in here (and perhaps even a little of Capaldi’s take on Rory McHoan from The Crow Road). One the costume, by the way, I’ve seen some complain about it online but I love it. It’s got echoes of the traditional Doctors but it’s nicely punked up and contemporary too. It’s perhaps what Ecclestone was trying to aim for with his costume but didn’t quite get right. I love the idea of the Doctor in a hoodie and t-shirt.
This whole story had something of a Tom Baker feel to it I thought and I suspect that’s deliberate. The Mire’s leader is definitely riffing on The Pirate Captain and the generally crap end of the BG villain spectrum — he’s meant to be a scenery-chewer reminiscent of Professor Zaroff, Graff Vynda-K, the Borad. But it had to me something of the vibe of an Androids of Tara or a Pirate Planet. The verisimilitude of the backdrop being absolutely secondary to the romp in question. (And, of course, it’s a double bluff because the romp is not really the point. The interesting stuff here is about the Doctor. And about Clara. And I suspect Ashildr is going to be a huge piece of collateral damage.
On which note, I for one am very glad that she didn’t turn out to be Susan, or Jenny, or Romana or whoever. I do find it odd that the Susan trope is one that crops up so often. Susan was written out of the show in the first place because the writers had nowhere else for her to go. I’m not convinced that’s really changed in the last 50 years. There’s no reason to bring her (or any companion) back unless it’s progressing the story. The show, to continue, has to open its story up and out, not retreat into former glories and nostalgia. I think, anyway.
17 October 2015 at 17:34 #44935@whisht — a nice summing up with which I entirely concur. Villains have plans/schemes stratagems. Monsters have appetites and instincts. Possibly worth pointing out that Villains are essentially evil (although their motivations can often by sympathetic) but monsters can be good guys. Erato, Kroll, Aggedor probably have to count as ‘monsters’ but they’re not Rohm Dutt, Lady Adrasta or Hepesh.
In Who – it seems we have a lot of military fears
Definitely this too. BG Who is very much informed by the immediate post-war consensus and the fear of invasion, totalitarianism, oppression etc is never very far away. It’s also being written by the likes of Terry Nation and Terrance Dicks etc who not only lived through these times (or would almost certainly have had to National Service anyway) but were also brought up on wartime fiction.
But for AG those resonances have pretty much gone now. War means something slightly different to a modern audience — and certainly is informed by a culture far less infused with militarism than the 50s and 60s were. Perhaps part of the reason that the show started to lose its way in the 80s was that the tropes on which it had previously relied had just lost what currency they had left.
12 October 2015 at 11:49 #44594This series has so far struck me as one of the strongest of the AG run. Second in my book to s5 and if it keeps up like this then it’ll probably surpass it by the end. It’s very much been taking its cues from BG series in a way that the show has shied away from before. Apprentice/Familiar was very much an unofficial sequel to Genesis of the Daleks and a fine one it was too (have yet to catch up on those threads but will get to it soon), Lake was riffing on just about every base under siege story ever and Flood seemed to be throwing Fenric, Blink into an already rich mix. I think @phaseshift is right with his ‘hybrid’ theory. These, so far, haven’t been proper two-parters and a bit more like thematically linked two-handers with just the bare bones of the narrative carried over. But I think it works. It’s given these episodes room to breathe that the more frentic one-parters sometimes failed to.
It’s also interesting that despite the comprehensive embracing of the BG show in these episodes, the troll-brigade on t’other place are still baying for cancellation. Moffatt seems to be giving them exactly what they’ve been asking for and they’re still not happy. I just don’t get it. (Nice work on the drive-by troll btw.)
Having said that, I found this episode to be the least satisfying of the four so far. Like @blenkinsopthebrave I felt it was like Whithouse trying to ‘do a Moffatt’ and not really succeeding. It had the smarts but it didn’t have the light touch of characterisation that Moffatt brings to the party. It almost felt like an ‘interview piece’ in many ways, Whithouse pitching to be the next showrunner. But then I have to admit that I’m not as keen on Whithouse as some. I find his stories, while always containing some really great stuff, tend to be ultimately unsatisfying. And I really hate those feckin’ mole people. Prentis was a waste of Paul Kaye in my opinion who has a brilliantly sinister quality that just cries out to be used in Who. I could quite happily not see this race again.
The Fisher King also was kind of wasted I thought. Not sure I loved the whole character design as much as some. Bit bobbly-headed for my liking. And it seemed to just be there to do a bit of ‘raspy raspy rasp Tiiimeee Loooord’ schtick and then get quickly dispatched. If it had been more of a presence beforehand then I might have been more bothered by it one way or the other. It reminded me really of the Shakri from Power of One — a great idea for a villain but just not used like at all.
Lots of good things in the ep though. Liked the whole bootstrap paradox concept. Supporting cast was great and both Clara and the Doc had lots of really great stuff. The cards, Clara as pseudo-Doc (again). They really do have a chemistry together now in the way that she didn’t really have with the Smith Doc.
Oh, and loved the ‘rocked out’ new version of the theme. I really do hope they keep it. It really does fit Capaldi’s Doc. It took us a while to get a handle on his Doc. Is he the stern father figure. The aloof professor? No, he’s the ageing rock star. And I think it works really well.
11 September 2015 at 22:23 #42536I know the prelude is creating much squee this evening, but thought it only fair to post Jonathan Jones’s riposte to last week’s PratchettGate.
4 September 2015 at 10:15 #42343I feel I also have to put in a defence of Dickens too. In terms of the depth of his social vision, he’s possibly the greatest novelist who’s ever lived. As for the writing style — I don’t really like the word verbose — it was partly a symptom of the time he was writing in but also partly the point. Part of his appeal is in his use of language, use of what’s essentially rhetoric and irony and all the other tools at a writer’s disposal.
I can’t help but feel that modern prose has gone too far the other way and tends towards generic pared-down sameyness. It’s part of the reason I like writers like Chabon and Franzen so much. At least they’re not afraid to actually be writers.
Having said that, I’m entirely with whoever said above that they don’t want to read huge doorstop books. I entirely relate. Bring back the novel of sensible length, I say. Currently reading Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things which I’m finding profoundly annoying but too well written for me to stop. But the fact that’s it’s 600-odd pages is just insult to injury.
3 September 2015 at 17:33 #42329@kharis — the screening was actually in Scotland as part of the Edinburgh International Television Festival. There was quite a good Q&A with Steven Moffat too and other forum members lucky enough to be there were @scaryb, @wolfweed and @xad4.
Yes, it’s tough getting a BBC gig for residents in the UK, so it must be doubly daunting for those overseas.
3 September 2015 at 10:29 #42307@gunslinger — First of all, Moffat didn’t write Kill The Moon, Peter Harness did. It’s an episode not without controversy but I think you’ll find that it’s not without its fans here. I suggest you pop across to the episode’s dedicated thread to see the bunfight in its full, awesome majesty.
And speaking as someone who’s already seen The Magician’s Apprentice, I don’t think there’s any indication that SM’s mind is elsewhere. If the quality of that keeps up this year is going to be a belter. And I’d argue that s8 represented a freshness and a renewed boldness compared to Smith’s final season. The Sherlock argument is kind of bogus too. It’s hardly a full, concurrently running series. Its key challenge is finding the time in its leads’ schedules rather than overly taxing SM. (And even if it was, Joss Whedon at his busiest was running full runs of Buffy and Angel and a half run of Firefly and while it was with mixed success, I think Moff is up to the challenge of 12 eps of Who and three of Sherlock.)
As @pedant says, no one, not even SM, gets a free ride here. But critical faculties do have to be engaged.
@supernumerary — welcome
29 August 2015 at 11:08 #42124@janetteb — yes, I saw @juniperfish‘s post and gave it a hearty recommend. A lone voice of sanity in a wilderness of Murdochian eye-swivelling over there….
29 August 2015 at 10:57 #4212128 August 2015 at 23:40 #42095@xad4 — brilliant. Thanks for that. A close relative of our own Frank Spencer. And a cautionary tale to smart-arse cafe bars who get too creative with their picture framing…..
And it was great to see the northern contingent again. @wolfweed is much missed so it was good to catch up. And to put a face to @xad4. And of course to see the mighty purple yeti again….
And now we’ve got to wait all those weeks to see how this is going to be resolved….
28 August 2015 at 20:36 #42088No memory worms required. Not going to say a thing about the ep, except that Moffatt has clearly opened a fresh can of awesome at some point in the past year. The Q&A afterwards was really good too.
26 August 2015 at 13:28 #42064@scaryb — I absolutely defer to your ties point….
26 August 2015 at 13:26 #42063@scaryb — How about 6pm in the Filmhouse bar then? We can mix with the rest of the meeja types.
It’s Mr Moffatt and Brian Minchin at the Q&A by the way….
26 August 2015 at 11:24 #42060@scaryb — yeah, I saw that before and it’s been surprisingly well done. And probably fits the s5-6 era more than any other, I suspect. They should use them in one episode, I think — if only to watch the internet melt down in the wake of the attendent ARSE that would no doubt follow.
On another note, who’s going to Edinburgh tomorrow and should we convene for pint-age beforehand? Is there anywhere decent near the Filmhouse? Haven’t been in years. Presumably the Filmhouse itself still has its own teeny tiny hostelry?
26 August 2015 at 11:20 #42059@craig — yes, I saw that. Lots to agree with in it. She says something that I’ve been fumbling towards expressing myself in that part of the appeal of Who in the classic days is that he is a hero that appeals to the marginal, the awkward, the loner (and the lonely). For those of a certain age when he was around in this form, he had an enormous appeal. Compare with Star Trek and even Star Wars, its two main SF rivals of the time, where the characters are embedded in an Establishment, an socio-technological infrastructure where even individualists like Han Solo are ultimately made to conform.
But to be the Doctor, to be footloose, to almost revel in your lack of ties or friends, to make it a strength rather than a weakness, to have a self-contained home (and one that lets you see wonders) that is a potent fantasy for many growing up. The Doctor represents an absolute intellectual, social and even economic freedom. I share a lot of ALK’s nostalgia for Who on that level.
However, I feel her argument teeters a bit close to ARSE at points. A sort of ‘it was much better when it was just the Doctor fighting monsters with an assistant’ and looks askance at the New Adventures as being somehow detrimental. (I think the NA are about 60% rubbish btw but that other 40% has massively informed the new series and was, let’s face it, a lifeline for many during the interregnum. And I think you could argue that the reason the show is back now is as much down to them as to any residual nostalgia of the BG series.) ALK also said recently that she doesn’t think there should be a female Doctor. On these two points, she is, I feel, wrong. (It actually pains me a little to say it. As she is, to my mind, one of the best British novelists of the past 20-odd years.)
20 August 2015 at 21:46 #41946if there were a surprise regeneration on the cards, I don’t think Peter Capaldi would be even mentioning the word ‘leave’
You’re almost certainly right there.
And if it does turn out to be a year of ‘Specials’ then I suspect it’s unlikely they’d lumber a new Doctor with that. They really need a full run to find their feet.
20 August 2015 at 14:28 #41938@bluesqueakpip — Yeah, I don’t think Capaldi will stay for more than one more season (and next year is already rumoured to be some kind of truncated affair). But I wouldn’t be completely surprised if they sprung a surprise regeneration on us this year.
Still a tenuous conclusion to leap to from those quotes…
20 August 2015 at 11:43 #4193312 August 2015 at 23:55 #41776@indigomoose — I do like the idea of a ‘senile’ TARDIS. Like it a lot. I seem to remember an old Marvel comic strip flirting with the idea of the ‘untrustworthy’ TARDIS — the Stockbridge Horror, I think.
12 August 2015 at 18:19 #41762@lisa — new trailer should be live at 7pm apparently
12 August 2015 at 16:03 #41759I must admit that I quite like the Romana theory and she’s definitely one of the companions who could fit into the show as it is now — I can actually see Lalla Ward as she is now and Peter Capaldi being quite a good fit.
And @indigomoose, it’s definitely a bonkers enough theory to fit in quite nicely here. Keep ’em coming.
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