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16 October 2021 at 15:53 #72217
That’s a good point but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for now. Not crazy about those Sontarans though. Am I the only one who thinks they look like they’ve escaped from a Bill Baggs video production?
16 October 2021 at 00:02 #72214New trailer has dropped. I have to say it looks the most promising of all of Jodie’s run…
15 October 2021 at 23:58 #72213So sorry to hear your news. I think I’d also go with the ‘good things’ quote from Vincent and the Doctor. Again, my deepest condolences and thinking of you and your loss.
24 September 2021 at 23:55 #72097I’d say the odds of Olly Alexander as the next Doctor just shortened dramatically.
I’m not so sure. I doubt RTD will want to return to YoungWhiteBloke territory plus Olly has a lot of irons in his fire to be taking on the life-consuming task of the Being The Doctor. I am hopeful though that it gives T’Nia Miller (currently top of my wishlist) dramatically shortened odds of getting the part. (Given that RTD had a future Doc who sounded really very like her indeed in his novelisation of Rose.)
He brings the best out in other writers (as well as being a bloody good writer himself)
Absolutely. As a manager of writers, I suspect he was better than Moffat and he’ll almost certainly be a massive improvement. I have only a couple of reservations, one of which I very much had even when he was showrunning before — and that was that Who is never really his best work and while he’s tied up running the show, we’re going to be denied the high-quality personal work of the likes of Years and Years and It’s a Sin. RTD to me is one of those figures (Chris Ecclestone and Jodie Whittaker being another two actually) who while not exactly being ‘too good’ for Who can’t fully play to their individual strengths within the confines of the show. It’s almost like they’re slightly forced to pull their creative punches.
Yep, I think that’s all spot on. I definitely think that RTD and Moff got to tell stories that they’d been rehearsing in their heads for years and the Chibs didn’t really know what he wanted to do, didn’t even, in fact, have that firm a grasp on the character of the Doctor — to the point that he felt the need to rewrite her backstory. And as you say, Moff and RTD definitely still seem to have absolute love for the show. I’m not sure they’ll ever lose it.
I think RTD phase 2 may throw more than a few people who are expecting more of the same a curveball
I think so too. My other reservation about RTD was that he seemed to be running on fumes by the time he was going. He’d fallen back on Rose returning just one time too often and the year of the specials was a very mixed big indeed imo. But as you say, he’s had 12 years to ruminate on new ideas and it’s not as if the wider world hasn’t been given him plenty of food for thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw an iteration of Who that isn’t even more socially engaged than it was last time he was in charge, given that seems to have been the direction of travel of much of his other work since.
It’s very exciting though. If I were foolish enough to make predictions, I’d say we’re looking at a Tennant-focused 60th Special, with guest Docs (I’d like to that we’d get Ecclestone back but I’m sure he’s sworn never to work with RTD again). But it will, I’d guess, bring in a new Doc and then a new series that will initially be as pared back to basics as Ecclestone’s first one was till it finds its feet again.
It would certainly be fascinating to know what’s been going on behind the scenes. The whole thing has that vibe of the family computer being taken back to the manufacturers to be returned to factory settings cos one of the teens tried to install some dodgy software and now all they can get is the BSOD.
24 September 2021 at 16:14 #72088Well, here’s a belter of a bit of news….
30 July 2021 at 17:54 #71921I believe the Beeb’s centenary year is 2022, which is the year the specials and Jodie’s regen story are planned for with the 60th the year after. That would mean a new showrunner having to introduce a new Doctor (and presumably new companions) as well as marshalling through 60th celebration duties and that strikes me as something of a seriously big ask for anyone. If it’s indeed the case, then I wouldn’t be surprised if an old hand (a Moff or an RTD, say) were on hand in the background to help out.
Personally, I think @blenkinsopthebrave is probably correct and that if there is no new production partnership in the offing that they might well be willing to let the show die for a while, no matter how short-sighted that might be. As you say, the corporation has got a lot on its plate at the moment and Who is (or has become) a complex and expensive proposition and maybe one that they feel they can do without for a while.
That said, in an age that’s hungry for IP with already built-in fanbases, I think there’s no way we’ll be looking at another 14 years without Who on-screen. It’ll pop up somewhere or other in some form or other. My money, as I said, is on some streaming behemoth snapping it up.
Yeah, Mercy is a quite underrated ep indeed. I’ve never been the biggest Whithouse fan and consider the Under the Lake two-parter to be his best Who work but he certainly wouldn’t have been a terrible showrunner. In terms of their stories, I would maybe have preferred Jamie Mathieson or Sarah Dollard but there’s more than writing to running a show — as Chibs has demonstrated. But in Chibs defence, the mess that is The Power of Three (and it does have some great little domestic moments with the Doc and the Ponds) are less Chibs’s fault and the way that Steven Berkoff threw a veritable hand-grenade into the filming of the episode.
As to a future showrunner, I suspect that Neil Gaiman might be a more credible proposition than he was a few years back, now that he’s got a few seasons of American Gods and Good Omens under his belt. Whether he’s available and willing is quite another matter though, of course.
30 July 2021 at 14:18 #71914And almost as if he’s showing Chibs how to maintain and breadcrumb anticipation for a new series, Moff drops a bit of a s13 spoiler (sort of)
30 July 2021 at 13:45 #71913@phaseshift et al
Is this the time to release a really bitter long form post entitled “F*** Chris Chibnall, and all his works”?
Sorry about Whittaker – what might have been,eh?
My sentiments exactly and I to was wondering if it’s time for an examination of the Chibs era. Possibly best to wait to until s13 in case there’s a dramatic rise in quality. I have my doubts and like @blenkinsopthebrave I’m less than enthusiastic about this whole ‘linked story’ thing. It feels like Chibs is planning to end his rein with his very own Trial of a Time Lord.
For my money, the Chibs era (so far) has neither been as awful as the NMDs have tried to make out nor as brilliantly groundbreaking as the JodiStans would have us believe. I tend to put it on a par with late Colin Baker/early McCoy. I’m glad it’s out there and that there are people who are into it but I’ve found it largely charmless — I haven’t even managed to summon the willpower to watch Revolution of the Daleks yet. Like the above-mentioned eras, there are great ideas and isolated moments of greatness but it’s mostly been dragged down by an over-arching sense of half-arsed mediocrity. And what’s struck me most about the Chibs era is the combination of really long production gaps/reduction in episode count and a disinclination to fill those gaps with other, sanctioned but fan-led, material. Even during the Wilderness Years, the show had a more vibrant public profile than it does at the moment. The fact that it’s been the most politically conservative era of the show, despite trying to appear otherwise, hasn’t helped either, of course.
Sad for Jodie though. When she was announced, I was hoping for a vibrant, quirky out-there Doc, largely based on her performance on Adult Life Skills but she so far hasn’t been given the chance to shine — saddled, as she has been, by a terrible costume and an over-abundance of pretty dull and under-developed companions. I would definitely have liked to see what another showrunner would have done with her Doctor — Moffat, for example, seemed to make the character shine far more in his short story than Chibs managed throughout his run. Perhaps she’ll undergo a Colin Baker-esque revival on Big Finish. She’s actually a pretty good Doctor and the best thing about the current iteration of the show but just not being allowed to fulfil her character’s potential.
But what strikes me most about this announcement is the lack of an immediate replacement for Chibs. Wasn’t RTD’s last mission to get his replacement in situ and I’m pretty sure they held off on announcing Moff’s moving on until Chibs was in place. This seems to be the first time that there isn’t any sense of urgency or continuity about the show moving forward. We’re still talking about quite an extended time-frame, of course, and there’s plenty time yet for a new head honcho to be announced and get started but it just seems odd that they leave this gap at the top, however temporarily. It could mean outright hiatus/cancellation, of course, but I find it hard to believe that the Beeb would do that just in time for the show’s 60th.
So, here’s some wild speculation:
- A new showrunner who’s just not been announced/finalised yet. If that’s the case then I find it odd that they wouldn’t have held off until they can make an announcement. (Unless Jodie or Chibs are about to announce a new project that would have given the game away.)
- A game-changing alteration in format or distribution. Is Who about to make the jump to streaming and get into bed with Amazon, Disney or Netflix? This strikes me as inevitable and the 60th might be considered a good jumping-off point. BritBox has been going big on Who and they’re starting to dip their toes into production. I imagine having exclusive New Who on their service would be a big pull to new subs. (It would also perhaps explain why there’s no announcement as to a new production team — it’s just not the Beeb’s place to make that kind of announcement anymore.)
- A big-screen movie for the 60th with a film Doctor. Not beyond the realms but strikes me as less likely at this time.
- A one-off past-Doctors 60th special. Or perhaps a mini-series culminating in the unveiling of a Doc 14/new showrunner for s15 onwards?
But who knows really? And it seems I’ve gone off on an epic diatribe, so apologies for that (I shall look forward to Phase’s bitter rant also). But interesting times — which in itself makes a nice change.
27 July 2020 at 02:22 #70855@toinfinityandbepond and @phaseshift
Yeah, saw that. Very sad news. Dan was genuinely enthusiastic and as the article says deeply passionate in his writing. And this forum definitely owes him a debt.
16 April 2020 at 15:37 #70472Late to this one too, although I did more or less watch it ‘live’.
Heaven Sent is actually a really difficult story to talk about as it’s so unique, such a one-off. Others in the watchalongs, like Vincent and the Doctor and The Doctor’s Wife, also have very unique and special aspects but they still seem to exist within the general narrative of the programme. Heaven Sent, like Listen and Midnight, are more experimental and seem to demand to be discussed on their own terms.
The obvious reference point, aside from the highly effective writing is Capaldi’s performance. This could have become very stagey and static but there’s always a kinetic energy to the episode. This is largely thanks to Rachel Talalay’s brilliant direction but also, of course, to Capaldi’s deft performance. It’s also a nicely defining episode for 12. By the end of this episode, you get a very clear sense of who this Doctor is. It is, in fact, an episode that perhaps could only have been made with 12. It’s hard to imagine too many other Doctors being able to pull it off.
But as others have said, the score deserves some kudos too. Murray Gold has produced some incredible work over the years but this really has to be his defining moment. I can’t think of another episode of Who (or of too many other programmes, in fact) where the score has been such a significant component of the narrative. If you removed it, or changed it in any way, then the entire episode would be different.
16 April 2020 at 15:27 #70471The Moment, especially. And the calculations.
I’d have to check but I’m pretty sure that The Moment as a Who concept predates both Moffat and Gaiman. Part of me wants to say that it feels like a Lance Parkin thing, though it’s possible that it was one of the Time War names reeled off by RTD at one point. Certainly, I’ve always felt that it must be some kind of close relation to the Apocalypse Device of the comics.
The eccentricity and strangeness is great in one episode, but at that level, over a longer period, it would drive the audience insane
It would certainly be toned down over the long term, yes. But that’s not wholly what I was meaning really. I was thinking more in terms of the whole look, the fairytale madwoman costume as well as the un-selfconscious alien oddness of the performance. Yes, she’s playing a TARDIS and the performance reflects that but there’s still a sense of how a female Doctor could be played, rather than the ‘over-caffeinated Play School presenter on the school run’ that we currently have.
See Jo Martin for an example of a one-episode performance judged for probable call-backs
Yes, I’d agree. Although what do we actually know of JoDoc other than she’s kinda ruthless. We were given very little of actual personality in Judoon (and even less in Timeless, when she was reduced to a Exposition Node). All Jo Martin’s character work was done for the character of Ruth and next to none for her Doc. Perhaps they’ll be some in s12. I’d be tempted to say that Chibs can’t write the Doctor if it wasn’t for the fact that he did great work writing for 11. But it says something when I find that the most vividly I’ve ever seen 13 written is in a short story by the previous showrunner.
But it’s proof of Crowley’s demonic nature that, whenever he’s around, every piece of music anyone tries to play invariably turns into a track from Queen’s Greatest Hits
That’s undoubtedly true on the meta level. But counterproductive on the level of actually getting people to watch your show. I have to admit I only got through one episode of Good Omens before deciding not to bother with the rest. And it wasn’t just the annoying levels of Queen either. While the performances were good (Well, Michael Sheen was as great as ever. Tennant, I felt, was phoning in something pitched halfway between 10 at his most dickish and Kilgrave) but the writing seemed to me to be Gaiman at his most overly mannered. I do think he’s a very good writer when he trusts his own ideas but descends into a self-conscious ventriloquism at times, especially when he’s collaborating on something. (It might be argued that it’s there in The Doctor’s Wife a little too. There are a few moments where you get just the slightest feeling that he’s trying to ‘write like Moffat’, although it’s maybe difficult to tell what with rewrites and everything.) But in Good Omens, the moment we got the faux-Adams God voiceover, I had a feeling was going to struggle with it. If you start a show by rolling your eyes at it then you’re probably not going to recover.
16 April 2020 at 15:01 #70470Duly signed…
14 April 2020 at 15:38 #70454I don’t normally post here but here’s a (very tenuous) link to tie in with The Doctor’s Wife. Amanda Palmer (Mrs Neil Gaiman) doing a really evocative version of Bigger on the Inside….
14 April 2020 at 15:34 #70453A little late to this party but here we go. Like Eleventh Hour, this was always another one of my comfort Whos, although I have to say I seem to have gone off it just slightly of late. I do love the metatextual cleverness of the title (JNT had it as fake story in his notes at one point to see if there were leaks in the Who office, or so the story goes.)
I think perhaps I’m feeling a little ambivalent to Neil Gaiman at the moment. This is partly because I just couldn’t get along with Good Omens — I’m sorry, but I just can’t listen to that much Queen, even ironically. I do feel though that his best work was in Sandman, which was proper inventive and weird, compared to often mawkish and self-conscious quirk of recent years. And for me, TDW was falling into that category (and Nightmare in Silver doesn’t survive it as a story). The junkyard world and Uncle and Auntie especially seem to be the major examples of it in this ep.
However, this rewatch has made me amend my curmudgeonliness a little. It’s a great episode and provides all the right feels and thrills. The only really flat stuff is the Amy/Rory stuff in the TARDIS and as Gaiman’s really interesting and definitely worth checking out Twitter feed explains this was largely down to budget constraints. It would have been great to see the planned scenes in the swimming pool etc. As it is, while they’re low-key, these scenes are still effective because they’re rooted in the character work already done — and it speaks to Gaiman’s skill as a writer that this is the direction he went in. On a more superficial level, it’s a shame that both this and Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS haven’t managed to give us a really interesting TARDIS interior yet.
In fact, he writes 11, Amy and Rory really brilliantly. So much so that it’s odd that Silver is so lacklustre. Perhaps he just didn’t like the 11/Clara dynamic quite as much. But all the callbacks to Rory the Centurion, fish fingers etc etc. are just great here.
As are 11’s interchanges with Idris, which form the real joy of this episode. Their ‘goodbye’ scene is genuinely touching and Suranne Jones does great work in suggesting what a great female Doctor could look like.
It was also kind of nice seeing the Eccleston TARDIS again, if briefly. It might have been nice to have seen another console room from the past (or perhaps even from the future) but that was obviously beyond the realms of budget.
And if nothing else, this episode should probably be lauded for making everyone go off to look up the meaning of petrichor….
14 April 2020 at 15:02 #70452Have to say that I love that trailer. It’s probably my favourite of all the ones so far.
7 April 2020 at 19:09 #70425@craig and @blenkinsopthebrave
I’d very much like to see Moffat do a story for 13. This is probably too short a sample to give a definitive sense but it seems to me that he can certainly write her character and that even now he still seems to have some interesting things to say about Who. I do wonder how much truth there is in the rumours that they don’t get on. Certainly Chibs’s era seems to have been antagonistic to Moff’s right from the get go.
Maybe @blenkinsopthebrave is on to something and that this story is essentially SM clearing his throat meaningfully….
But it has to be said, I did like this story a lot and I hope that even if he doesn’t write for the show again, I’d at least like to see another novelisation from Moff….
7 April 2020 at 13:14 #70412Here’s rather a spiffy new story from Mr Moffat. Not only is it rather nice that he seems to be absolutely capturing 13, it rather brilliantly encapsulates Who’s mission statement…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/a094ba61-81b2-465b-9b87-2f509fe2a117
4 April 2020 at 16:20 #70397This is one of my favourite comfort Who watches. It was interesting of how dismissive Moffat was of it plot-wise on Twitter and, yes, it is kind of plot-lite but only in the same way that Rose was. It’s what works best for introducing a new Doctor. Whittaker suffered from having too much screen time taken up with Ryan, Grace and Graham and Capaldi from a slightly overly complex plot and then being sidelined by his predecessor for the crucial final five minutes.
But this is a joy. Smith has nailed the Doctor almost right from the off. It’s an incredible performance not bettered by any other actor in the role imo. Also I’d been swithering between Amy and Bill being my favourite companion but I think I’m down for Team Amy. 11, Amy, Rory and River are my Fam I think.
However, beyond the leads, there’s so many other great elements in place here. SM perfectly pitching from comedy to drama. So many great lines. The Atraxi are by no means a classic villain but still offer up some genuinely creepy moments. And Olivia Colman brings a nice line in truculent insolence to the final confrontation. Oh, and the score, this is Murray Gold at his best, if you ask me.
All in all, I’d say that if I was looking for one episode to introduce a newbie into the world of Who, it would quite probably be this one….
1 April 2020 at 13:32 #70368Well, Richard Curtis getting the blame for romantic gloom rather than vice versa. There’s a certain irony there, I suppose.
I agree. It’s Curran’s performance that makes this episode and it’s definitely the best portrayal of a historical figure in Who. Only Vinette Robinson as Rosa comes even close. Normally they have a much more broadstroke, almost Horrible Histories edge to them. (Yes, I’m looking at you Simon Callow.)
And I must admit that this rewatch has prompted me to finally read that copy of Lust for Life that’s been sitting on my shelf unloved and untouched for years.
1 April 2020 at 13:26 #70366That’s a pretty colossal piece of news. Wonder how they managed to keep that hushed up, if true. Certainly would much rather see Smith back than Barrowman — but that’s just me.
Notices date….. hmmmm
31 March 2020 at 18:34 #70355Yes, I must admit that I can see your points about Love Actually and while I’m not sure I’d say it actually enrages me, it’s not one that I’d ever really want to watch again. But I do kind of like Four Weddings and I thought About Time was OK when I watched it recently — clearly Who had had an effect on him for that one.
31 March 2020 at 13:11 #70352Yes, you’re quite right, I was being a bit literal and focused on the Who-i-ness of it. But those tweets from RC were very interesting and I too will be seeking out Sabine. I definitely would have liked to have known more on how the writing process had worked. What the interaction with Moff had been, what his brief had been etc.
It’s odd about Curtis’s other work. I have to say I find Blackadder terribly overrated and too sixth-form smartarse for my liking but I have to say that any time I’ve sat down to watch one of his movies, I’ve always done so grudgingly but always come away happy and in a better place than where I went in…
30 March 2020 at 23:05 #70346Well, that was just excellent. Not sure that I’ve got much to add from my original review above (although interesting to see that I’m grousing about Chibs even back then. No bandwagon jumper me.)
However, just to heap more praise on Tony Curran’s fantastic performance as Vincent as well as a very subtle one from Bill Nighy (he would have been a fantastic Doctor if things had gone that way). And it really brings home how much I miss Amy. Best TARDIS team for me, I think, with Bill, Nardole and 12 coming a close second.
There’s almost nothing to bitch about in this episode except perhaps the Doctor getting it so spectacularly wrong about the Grafayiss. But then, the Doc has got it wrong before (and since) and Matt’s performance here is so spot on that it’s easy to forgive. His moments with Vincent in his bedroom, of comforting the dying Grafayiss and of comforting Amy at the end are just pitch-perfect and really quite wonderful. (And frankly show 13’s ‘socially awkward’ callousness to Graham to be the bollocks that it is. The Doc is plenty empathetic and has, in fact, learned it the hard way throughout all her regenerations.)
The Twitter feeds were a bit lacklustre this time. I think these things probably work best with a showrunner involved as they’re perhaps more deeply involved in the lore and production of the show as a whole. So, it’s good that Moff is back for The Eleventh Hour on Friday. But I have to say that I’ve probably enjoyed these rewatches far more than I have the entirety of s12.
But, all in all, that left me feeling quite teary and frankly all ready for a full rewatch of s5, which remains easily the best single run of the show since Hinchcliffe and Holmes walked the earth….
29 March 2020 at 13:21 #70324Crikey! That’s harsh
Yeah, it was a bit. In my defence, it seemed funnier in my head. And I definitely agree with your point that it was perhaps easier to shock in those days. Not sure I’d agree that the Pertwee era deliberately set out to push boundaries. It wasn’t afraid of injecting political ideas into Who, certainly and there were topics that Letts wanted to discuss but I’d also say he had a pretty good barometer of tone and decorum and that he didn’t deliberately set out to shock in the way that Hinchcliffe/Holmes and JNT/Saward did.
Treating a beloved vehicle as a joke, less so. S1 veered to much toward the latter for my taste.
Which is totally fair enough. And I’d agree that the first three or four episodes are tonally inconsistent. But it’s by no means the most egregious example. I find s17 all over the place, for example, and far less to my taste than Series 1 of Nu Who. (If there’s ever been a seriously overrated Who story then it’s City of Death imo.) And I’m inclined to give s1 a bit of a free pass as it probably took the production team a while to figure out where Who was going to fit in the 2005 media landscape.
I would have preferred a better actor in the role
Again, it’s subjective I suppose but I struggle to see how Tate (or anyone) else could have been better in the role. I do sometimes feel that Tate gets looked down a little by fandom because she was so popular as a comedian but she’s a proper actor and an alumni of the Central School and the RSC.
a proper audience proxy with zero hint of nausea-inducing will-they-won’t-they
I think in this day and age we probably have to accept that the Doctor is as much a romantic/sexual being as any other dramatic character (which is why River is such a good and necessary character — having the Doc married off takes a bit of that immediate heat away. Although it seems to have returned with a vengeance with all the Thasmins of the Chibnall era.) With Martha, I’m not sure the unrequited love angle was really the problem — beyond the fact it showed that RTD had become overly infatuated with the character of Rose. The problem was that he didn’t take the time to not make it the only aspect of her character. Agyeman did great work but I’d argue that she wasn’t given half enough to work with as Piper was.
My problem with Moffat companions is, however great they are on paper, he always made them part of the plot rather than the viewer’s avatar
That’s a common criticism but I always feel it needs a bit of qualification. Yes, the companion is the viewer’s avatar but I’m not sure that’s all they have to be (or can be). They can’t be too passive either and they have to have an arc (some of those arcs both in RTD and SM were a little grandiose admittedly). It was a different case when the show was more serialised, when the real narrative was that of whatever serial the main characters had been injected into — that the story arc was that of Marco Polo, or the inhabitants of the Moonbase, or of Jago and Litefoot, to use random examples. Now the focus is far more on the Doctor and the companions and because it’s a cosmic and fantastical show, then their arcs have to be to an extent cosmic and fantastical (which, in the end, even Bill’s was).
Amy and Clara were mysteries to be solved
Again, I’d argue that it’s easy to overstate this. Amy wasn’t really a mystery to be solved. We knew everything we needed to know about her right from the Eleventh Hour. Again, yes, her endpoint is slightly cosmic in that she’s River’s mother and maybe her career as a model is less than relatable (but still not the most outlandish career a companion has ever had) but she’s essentially the same girl from Ledworth with her Raggedy Doctor that she always was.
It’s definitely more of an issue for Clara but I’d say only between The Snowmen and Name of the Doctor, which isn’t that long really. SM had kind of painted himself into a corner character-wise there but I’d argue it was necessary for the very clear endgame that he had in mind there. And I’d also argue that the Clara we get with Capaldi has freed herself from the Impossible Girl schtick and is a pretty strong and memorable companion in her own right. Again, it’s all very subjective, but I think both she and Amy are still highly relatable. Being ‘ordinary’ isn’t necessarily the key, I’d argue. The Fam are all very ordinary and all have very clearly defined backstories but I don’t really consider them terribly relatable, largely because they’re all so terribly boring.
28 March 2020 at 19:01 #70311I thought it was great. The series was consistently strong throughout. And I immediately went off and rewatched both parts of ‘All Good Things’ which I thought was also extremely pertinent….
28 March 2020 at 14:26 #70306Oh, and in a shameless piece of (sort of) promotion, if you’re at a loose end during self-isolation, there’s an online literary festival happening for the next two weeks (I’ll be moderating a few of the events). And there is a Who connection — Who author Una McCormack will be reading from her new Star Trek Picard novel tomorrow at 4pm and Una, Simon Guerrier, Jonny Morris and Jac Rayner will be in discussion on Wednesday. Do dive in if you fancy any of it.
28 March 2020 at 13:54 #70305The killer doll provoked a lot of complaints at the time for making children scared of their own toys.
Yes, it did, but all that really suggests is that people were just as idiotic in 1973 as they are now. And while Robert Holmes definitely had ‘scaring the little buggers’ in his sights as part of his remit, I don’t think he wasn’t considering doing it in a tongue-in-cheek way.
The armchair didn’t work, but there was no hint of tongue in cheek about it.
I think it’s totally tongue in cheek and the cast and crew know it. It’s in everything from the twinkle in Delgado’s eye to the rather arch death performance of Harry Towb. The entire series is pretty tongue in cheek and I think you really only have to compare it to his sister serial to see that. In the first few episodes, RTD is definitely still calibrating the tone but I don’t think he was wrong to think that absurdity and humour are just as much a part of Who’s DNA as scares are.
Not sure that the Autons were wasted myself. They were in fact perfectly chosen. All you need to know is ‘alien’, ‘malevolent’, ‘plastic’ and so you don’t have to squander loads of time on backstory, exposition and motivation, leaving space for the important character stuff that’s needed in a new era episode, especially this one. It’s the same reason why Prisoner Zero is so sketchy (all you need to know is ‘alien convict’) or that Deep Breath riffed off The Girl in the Fireplace for its antagonist.
He understood their relationship to the audience in a way Moffat never really did, and Rose exudes this
I’m not sure I agree with this, although I do agree that Billie Piper was just terrific as Rose. But I think Moffat’s grasp on the companion dynamic was just as strong as RTD’s, possibly more so. After Rose, RTD pretty much dropped the ball with Martha, remaining too fixated on Rose. He just wasn’t interested enough in her. Donna was in improvement but a big part of that was down to Catherine Tate’s performance. After that, he gave up on companions altogether. Moffat’s companions were all pretty strong, I’d argue, with the only wobble really being the ‘Impossible Girl’ arc of early Clara. But aside from that, Amy, late Clara and Bill (and even a few one-offs like Sally Sparrow and Shona) show that Moff had a definite gift for companions, I reckon.
28 March 2020 at 13:38 #70304Happy Birthday, @craig
Hope you’re having a good one….
26 March 2020 at 21:22 #70289That sequel was fab, wasn’t it. It can never be stressed too many times that RTD is just an absolutely cracking writer. In fact, all the related content around this one was great. And was it just me but was it also subtly recontextualising The Timeless Children slightly?
I can’t remember commenting on Rose last time around, so apologies for any repetition. Firstly, I’ve been seeing people online talking about how ‘dated’ it is and it is incredible to think that this is 15 years!! ago. But to be honest, I didn’t think it felt all that dated. Even watching it this time around, it had an exuberance and a freshness to it. Almost a sort of 70s ITC Randall and Hopkirk-ey sort of vibe that works now and probably worked just as well back then. Interesting how Murray Gold’s music has changed over the years too. It’s more rambunctious here, maybe less lush than it becomes later but that’s probably as much to do with the show’s narrative evolution as much as anything else.
On which note, aren’t those opening titles glorious? Probably still the best iteration from Nu Who for my money.
It’s really Billie Piper who carries this story though, isn’t it? And it’s easy to forget just how much of a risk her casting was back in the day; just how much sneering there was around it. And she’s great from her first scene. And I’m not sure it’s until 12 and Bill that we see a companion and Doc click quite so immediately as 9 and Rose do here. (Amy and 11 don’t count imo because there is the slight ‘cheat’ of Young Amelia doing some of the bonding in that relationship).
It’s been a while since I’ve watched 9 and I think my estimation has gone up a little. I think Chris Eccleston is a fantastic actor but that he’s not a natural fit for the Doctor. But he does bring gravitas to the part: it’s just in the lighter moments he feels a little forced. Though I think part of my problem with him is that his costume is just not quite Doctorly enough. He obviously wasn’t going to be a McGann-style flamboyant and I like the leather jacket/jeans thing but I just feel there should have been more flourishes of the kind that we saw in The War Doctor’s costume. But looking back now, I do wish that he’d stayed for a second series. I think narratively speaking Doomsday would have worked better with 9 rather than a 10 who had just bedded in.
The sheer whackiness of this story can seem surprising looking back too. It’s easy to forget that the first half of s1 does tend far more towards this whackiness and it’s not until the halfway point of Dalek and The Empty Child that the more serious tone starts to take hold. Part of this will just be everyone finding their feet, still figuring out what sort of show they’re making. And part of it, I guess, is just an initial fanboy squee among the writers that they’re finally actually writing proper telly Doctor Who again.
But the Autons totally fit that tone and they’re actually the perfect BG Who monsters to choose. Not too heavyweight like the Daleks or the Cybermen, but still with a sense of genuine threat, a low-level familiarity for fans but also with that hint of the absurd. And tonally RTD gets them absolutely right too. The burping wheelie bin might have upset some diehards but it has the same absurdity as the killer doll or the suffocating armchair from Terror of the Autons. I have no doubt that both Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks would have approved.
Pacing wise, it’s a bit halting. The Doctor, Rose and Mickey spend an awful lot of time hanging about at the denouement and that 10 minutes with Rose and Clive does feel a bit draggy now but the sheer amount of pyrotechnics and action it contains is quite startling really. Even the later finales didn’t seem to have quite as many explosions and physical action from the regulars as this has. But I guess this episode very much has to be statement of intent. And boy, did it bloody work.
In short, I really enjoyed that. Russell’s Twitter commentary was quite entertaining and the prequel/sequels were great too. Now, bring on Vincent and the Doctor.
25 March 2020 at 18:16 #70266I honestly didn’t know where to put this, so it might as well be here. A short prologue to The Woman Who Fell to Earth, penned by Mr Chibnall…
https://www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=read-the-first-thoughts-of-the-thirteenth-doctor#_
25 March 2020 at 18:15 #70265Really sorry to hear that. Sending warmest thoughts and hoping you and yours and doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances…
24 March 2020 at 18:30 #70256That’s an excellent review and wholly deserved on Fellowes’ part.
On Picard, I’m limbering up for a promising finale. I had been hoping that Narek discovered a better nature but now I’m very much onboard with him getting what’s coming to him. The synthetics community was very much one of your typical TNG utopian communities that always made me kind of barf a little bit. Was I the only one being reminded of Insurrection at points in the last episode?
I have high hopes for the finale though and this has been a really fun watch imo. It’s been fun and smart and compassionate. And the fan service by and large served a purpose in the plot rather than being tacked on. I’m not sure I really want a second series though (depending on where the finale goes). I think this would be a nice little coda to the character of Picard as it stands. Now, a spin-off with Seven of Nine being a badass in her rogue Borg Cube, on the other hand….
24 March 2020 at 18:17 #70255I think that’s one of those indefinable ‘lightning in a bottle’ things, partly down to writing but mostly to personal chemistry. I always tend to look at how Liz Sladen seemed to strike off Tom Baker far more than with Jon Pertwee (and also how Adric seemed to be less irritating with Baker than he became with Davison).
23 March 2020 at 10:57 #70241I think RTD injected something quite unique (but utterly different from SM) into his novelisation of Rose but, yes, Cornell very much gives you a straight up-and-down, no-nonsense adaptation. Which is fair enough as it isn’t his story.
@craig, @blenkinsopthebrave et al
Yes, I believe Rose is coming up next to be followed by the Eleventh Hour. Definitely up for those. (Must admit those gaps are going to bug me now that @phaseshift has pointed them out. But maybe that’s something for the future.)
22 March 2020 at 18:07 #70221I’ve just had a rummage through the archives and it looks like we’ve covered every episode of Nu Who, some of which obviously retrospectively. That’s no reason we can’t dig into them again, of course, it people want to do that.
22 March 2020 at 15:06 #70219Yes, that’s exactly what DotD is. Very well put. You can feel the love and affection oozing out of every pore of this story.
Yes, I know that there are many out there who love the Zygons and they’re very much the epitome of Old Who men in rubber suits. Which, now I think of it more, are why they’re maybe the perfect monster for this story. I even loved the way that old-school sound effects were used for their technology.
Just a heads-up that there will be a similar thing happening for Rose later this week, with RTD live-tweeting throughout. That will be worth tuning in for too, I would think. I believe there’s also plans to do The Eleventh Hour at some point too. (It also makes me wonder whether we should as a forum go back and revisit the RTD and early SM eras, maybe week by week, as if its being broadcast. I think we only came into existence round about s6, so there maybe be a gap to be exploited there. I can’t recall offhand.)
21 March 2020 at 22:00 #70209Well, that was just fantastic and certainly revived my love for Who. A nice palate cleanser after Timeless Children. Love the little Strax intro too. I’d still love to see a proper Paternoster spin-off. The Big Finish audios are nice and all but it’s just not the same. And to echo @phaseshift, I’d recommend checking out Moffat’s Twitter feed for the rewatch. Nothing ground-breaking in there but it’s very amusing and worth a scan.
But what to say that hasn’t been said already? The performances were all terrific. Matt and Jenna were at the top of their game and John Hurt is incredible in solidly convincing as a Doctor within the space of one special episode which he has to share with two established stars in the role. It’s such a shame that we never got to see more of him in the role. The interplay between all three Doctors is terrific throughout. (A note to Chibs for when the 60th comes — three is the optimum number for screen Doctors at any one time. Remember not to overcrowd them.
It’s a terrific opening too, isn’t it. From the blast of the old-school opening titles to the sly giving us of both Coal Hill School and Barnes Common. And the airlifting of the TARDIS to me cements Kate as very much her father’s daughter for sheer operational ineptitude. I could totally see this scene being played out with the Brigadier and the Third Doctor with not much of a change.
The plot itself seems to be rather typical of peak Moffat — seemingly complex and timey-wimey but actually far less complicated than it seems (something he points out in his Twitter feed. It’s Queen Liz who saves the day!!). But it’s the journey more than the destination that is the point and I think it’s often forgotten that the appeal of SM’s Who is as much the well-handled character work as much as the involved plots — and, in fact, one of his defter writing skills is the careful dancing around massive infodumps as we’ve seen recently by circumventing them with a load of playful nonsense about Cup-a-Soups or whatever.
Then there’s the Zygons. I get that they were a little present to David Tennant but I’ve never particularly liked the Zygons. Terror of the Zygons is a fun enough story in a generic, 70s alien menace runaround kind of way. Even at the time of broadcast, it felt rather incongruous — as if a Pertwee story had escaped to run amok in another era. Their rubbery unwieldiness is, for example, a little at odds with the otherwise charged nature of the Zygon Invasion/Inversion. But here the Zygon plot is unobtrusive enough that they don’t overturn the emotion of the Gallifrey arc.
The denouement of which is nicely elegant too. Having Gallifrey found but lost, in existence but in a pocket universe was a clever way of returning Gallifrey to the Whoniverse, removing the angst of the ‘Last of the Time Lords’ shtick but without making them too dominant, without returning the universe to the parochial place it had become in the 1980s. It was a delicate balance to achieve and it’s a shame that it’s been (apparently) lost now.
And then there’s Tom’s cameo. Which was lovely. The man is clearly still bonkers after all these years and his performance is nice in that it evokes the Fourth Doctor but which also allowed Tom to play to the strengths of his ‘oldness’ instead of just trying to ignore it (in a way that some of his Big Finish audios have to do with sometimes mixed success). I do still hope that we’ll see some ‘old favourites’ revisited in the future.
Finally, I’d say to any fans of this story who haven’t read the novelisation, I’d encourage you to do so immediately. It changes and deepens the story in all kinds of ways and contains oodles of SM’s engagingly tricksy humour within it to boot.
21 March 2020 at 13:34 #70200You just beat me to it. New Moffat-written content dropping online at 6.30 this evening (for the benefit of those who don’t click through)….
19 March 2020 at 22:04 #70183An admirable policy. So you literally do have your own Fortress of Solitude….
19 March 2020 at 20:36 #70181I imagine it’s happening largely on social media — Twitter and Instagram being likely candidates. But perhaps we could prevail upon @craig to repost our Day of the Doctor thread back to the front page and we can join in here?
19 March 2020 at 20:01 #70179@bluesqueakpip (and @miapatrick)
Glad to hear you’re hopefully in recovery mode now. We’re in self-isolation mode now and I’ve had to conduct the last of my lectures and seminars via online technologies. Which has all worked out pretty well so I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes increasingly standard in the future.
Books and TV bingeing are definitely the way to go. (There is, by the way, an international communal rewatch of Day of the Doctor happening this Saturday at 7pm. Steven Moffat is one of those on board for it, so maybe those of us on the forum might wish to join in too.) I was about to start reading Boomsday by Christopher Buckley but it now seems horribly inappropriate to do so. Instead, I’ve gone for Tomorrow by Damian Dibben, which I’m liking a lot so far. It’s like Orlando but with a dog.
I shall look forward to your blog, @phaseshift. Wasn’t trying to rush you or anything but just didn’t want to steal your thunder by starting Penny Dreadful too early. On which note, I propose a season by season blog as we did with Buffy, giving everyone a chance to weigh in on the comments. I’m happy to do these but also for anyone else to do the honours.
16 March 2020 at 20:01 #70151Hope you’re doing OK. And to everyone who’s having to self-isolate. Make sure you all take care of yourselves.
12 March 2020 at 12:47 #70113There was some talk of doing a Penny Dreadful rewatch blog after S12 was over. Just testing the water to see how many would be interesting in doing it. (Will probably leave it a couple of week anyway till we’ve had @phaseshift‘s blogpost on s13 and Chibs, if he’s still planning that….)
10 March 2020 at 13:44 #70107His Dark Materials was really good, wasn’t it? And I’ll bet you’ll really enjoy Picard too. It’s great.
10 March 2020 at 13:43 #70106Yes, the treatment of the actual Good Place is really interesting and the point that for anything to be truly ‘good’ that it has to have ‘an ending’ and basically ‘death’ in it is actually a pretty challenging one for what’s essentially a sitcom. It’s essentially critiquing mainstream Christian assumptions really. (I wonder how this show would have fared if it had been on regular network television and if it would have attracted some criticism.)
And I bet Moffat really, really wished he’d come up with Jeremy Bearimy….
10 March 2020 at 11:17 #70099Also Jeremy Bearimy deserves to enter the pop culture lexicon in the same way that ‘time-wimey’ has.
10 March 2020 at 11:13 #70097I thought it was mostly adept at knowing when one particular approach to the concept was wearing thin and to shake it up a bit. The s3 stuff back on Earth was to my mind the weakest scenario but even that was still lots of fun and it worked because the characters had well and truly bedded in by then and the jokes were always good. Sure, there will be scenarios that some like more than others. Personally, I preferred the first two series when we still got a ‘bad’ Eleanor and and ‘evil’ Michael. The later series where everyone was ‘good’ was maybe less delicious in it’s humour. But it was all great. And it possibly has one of the best finales to a show ever. All down to character, of course. I actually found Jason quite annoying initially before growing to love him by the end. And I don’t mind saying I was in bits when he stepped through the doorway.
And yes, I’m glad I got to binge it. I don’t subscribe to this fogeyish view that it’s better to get streaming shows week by week. I like to binge. Give me it all, man. I’m finding it quite maddening, for example, having to wait for Picard every Friday. I guess I can see the point, in that encourages subscribers to stick around but largely I prefer to wait until the run is finished so I can watch it at my own pace.
9 March 2020 at 22:12 #70093That’s a great scene. I’ve always loved it. And a great performance. It’s an interesting one because we’re seeing a pretty arrogant, self-obsessed character and yet by the end of it he’s captured our sympathy and the insecurity behind the intellectual bravado is exposed. It’s great writing, great direction and great acting.
9 March 2020 at 19:49 #70091@craig and @nightingale
He was an actor of astonishing range and rare unpretentiousness and he never, to my knowledge, phoned it in. Even when he was doing something like voice work for The Elder Scrolls there was something compelling in his performance.
9 March 2020 at 11:50 #70085@nightingale and @blenkinsopthebrave
Yes, I’d concur with the both of you on Nolan. I’m not a massive fan either. Jordan Peele is a good call though, maybe with a side of Rian Johnson thrown in. But I think @blenkinsopthebrave might be right on the money with Preston Sturges….
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