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12 November 2018 at 01:16 #65555
I continue to be conflicted. Clive James once had a line that went something like whenever he found that he shared an opinion with Jane Fonda he immediately had to examine it to figure out what was wrong with it. Similarly, it’s frustrating me that while I have absolutely no truck with the #notmydoctor #whotoopc moron brigade, I find that I’m annoyingly aligned with them in the sense that I’m really, really not liking Series 11 and that the last thing I want to do is give said red pillers succour by being too critical of it.
That said, this was without a doubt the best episode of S11, superior even to Rosa in terms of character at least. I would never have thought that historicals could work in this day and age and I’m surprised to find myself wishing that with both this and Rosa that they’d had the nerve to ditch the SF trapping altogether and just have faith in the historical drama because it was more than strong enough to carry it. Here the alien assassins while a great design and a great concept too were just distracting from all the interesting family and historical dynamics I found. Chibnall deserves props for really managing to do historicals with a genuinely Hartnell vibe, right down to the ‘non interference’ credo and I’m enjoying that we’re seeing subjects and periods that didn’t fall into the ‘approved white person’s view of history’ that we had in the 1960s.
The show continues to look and sound great and how awesome was that arrangement of the theme at the end. I loved Murray Gold’s work but Segun Akinola is certainly giving him a run for his money.
But overall, I’m really not loving this to the point if this week’s hadn’t been quite so good after the two pretty lacklustre episodes that preceded it I would have been hanging up my sonic at least for a while. Punjab has probably piqued my interest sufficiently that I’ll keep stumble on until the end of the series at least but I must admit I am getting deja vu to Season 24, as someone said online I think. I’d also concur with the view I think I saw on Twitter that it feels like a series full of what would be filler episodes in other earlier eras.
It’s down (at least partially — the overfull TARDIS crew, dodgy writing and weird editing aren’t helping) to WhitDoc. She just doesn’t convince me at all. There’s still that nervousness, like she’s looking out of the screen and going ‘is this Doctorey enough? I think it’s Doctorey enough. Maybe it isn’t….’ It’s not that she’s Colin Baker bad or anything, she’s just bland. It’s like an impersonation or like she’s a Curse of Fatal Death Doctor, although some of those felt as if they brought more conviction to the few lines that they had. Or maybe it’s the mawkishness. Her wedding speech this week (rather like last week’s little speech about love and hope) kind of gave me the boak a little bit. (sorry, @juniperfish) I like a grandstanding, speechifying Doctor but this incarnation of the Doctor seems to be somehow more sentimentally naive than passionate with it.
10 November 2018 at 17:51 #65537Your life is certainly being rather on the eventful side at the moment. Glad you emerged from this (relatively) unscathed. Hope you’ll be quickly on the mend….
6 November 2018 at 21:10 #65455I think we are all taking the color of the shirt too far
Ah, you must be new around these here parts….
It did strike me that some of the sets did look quite TARDIS-like. Maybe they were part of an earlier redesign and just repurposed….
5 November 2018 at 16:49 #65418So it’s a machine that goes PTing?
I can’t believe you went there.
What the P’Ting (and CC really needs to stop with the random apostrophe villains, if that’s indeed how you spell it) really reminded me of was the Purple Minions from Despicable Me 2.
4 November 2018 at 23:59 #65402Well, it looked nice. Sort of 80s Who meets Space 1999 vibe to the sets. And doesn’t The Tsuranga Conundrum just sound like the title of an annual story from the 70s?
Apart from that, I got nothing.
3 November 2018 at 14:43 #65379I’ll definitely be interested in giving it a read when I get a chance….
And as you’re ‘funemployed’ at the moment, surely no better time to sit down and write something else?
31 October 2018 at 02:54 #65269And yet, here you are, being all triggered.
31 October 2018 at 02:50 #65268Again, a blase piece that dwells on the text of the GFA but has zero understanding of how that actually affects people on the ground on both sides of a hard border. It’s more useful, I think, to heed the warnings of former NI secretaries on both sides of the political equation, contemporary PMs who actually had to deal with the (boak) ‘Irish question’, still-living architects of the GFA and former heads of British intelligence, all of whom maintain that the existence of a hard border will reignite sectarian violence.
Trade is not the issue — and fantasyland electronic scanning solutions have already been rejected on the basis that the necessary tech does not yet exist. The Canada/US analogy does not really translate, largely because citizens of Canada and the US do not have a tradition of hooding, knee-capping and car-bombing each other, and as recently as 20-odd years ago. The fear of a few cheap DVD players slipping across Lough Foyle is secondary to the psychological wound that the necessary infrastructure and boots on the ground again in Ireland will reopen.
And this is the real problem. There’s a lot of blue-sky thinking by people who have no conception of what life on the ground in Ireland was like before the GFA (and by extension in the UK). The EU is not scare-mongering but merely has the advantage of having members of the Irish Government to tell them this stuff. The UK Brexit team has notably kept Ulster, and any other ‘region’ out of negotiations. Probably because of the embarrassing fact of Northern Ireland, never known as a hotbed of leftie liberalism, voted to Remain.
Also probably not a good idea to make the automatic assumption that a resumption of sectarian violence would be solely down to the IRA. There’ll be plenty of Unionist balaclavas getting dusted down as well.
The question around feeding ourselves and self-sufficiency is not so much whether we could or not (almost certainly couldn’t) but more what planning has been put in place to make sure that food supplies keep coming into the shops, regardless of where they come from. Personally, I don’t think telling people that they can no longer have broccoli and can only have meat once a week but can make up for it with lots and lots of potatoes is not going to be a vote winner, let alone a recipe for civil harmony. And let’s not get started on there being British Army-run electricity barges off the coast of Northern Ireland to keep the lights on once it loses access to the supplies largely generated south of the Border at the moment.
31 October 2018 at 01:58 #65263Hmm, didn’t follow that link, did you? Hope I didn’t inadvertently trigger you.
30 October 2018 at 21:30 #65239Yes, I’m afraid the animosity between Slab and the SNP (which seems kind of one-sided actually) is incredibly vicious and unlikely to go anywhere soon.
Yes, sorry about that. I was actually quite dismayed to find that I’m not half as Scottish as I always previously assumed.
30 October 2018 at 21:27 #65238Ooh, that Macra Terror analogy is a good one. I think the point about the more fraught political climate is accurate. Geek culture is far more front and centre in society now than it was in the 60s and so is far more likely to get dragged in to culture wars these days (is nothing sacred when Russian bots and the alt right start screwing around with Star Wars?) and there’s no reason to think that Who will exempt.
What dismays is that Who has always had a pretty blatant message of tolerance and a defence of diversity (second only to Star Trek probably) so anyone who calls themselves a fan should really know better than to spout this kind of nonsense, or be ready to call out those who do. Though sometimes I must admit that I sometimes wonder if some fans, especially those most fervently nostalgic for the old unreconstructed days, are attracted to the show because it was a supercilious, always slightly superior, if not sometimes downright arrogant, white dude, who had the respect of all around him and had pretty girls looking up to him with awe. Was it the fantasy and the myth they enjoyed or was it the superficial patriarchal trappings it often had?
30 October 2018 at 21:09 #65234OK, I’ve been deliberately staying the hell away from Brexit (one of the advantages of no longer being a hack is that I don’t have to engage with this stuff every day).
That’s a pretty fair assessment and I pretty much stand with you on this. (Although I am one of those annoying gits who also has Irish citizenship so will avoid most of the visa hell at least.)
Where to begin…
I wonder if Scotland will still get free University if they leave the UK
Bearing in mind that Scotland gives more to Whitehall than it gets back, I’d say that tuition fees will be fine. Also if they left the UK, Holyrood would also have far more freedom on how the block grant was actually spent and this could have a positive effect on spending for the NHS, education etc. (And given your love for small Government, care to explain why Scotland staying in the UK union and being governed by people they emphatically didn’t vote for at Westminster is somehow preferable to the EU?)
Scottish fishing industry feel about Brexit?
Well, historically they’ve obviously resented EU quotas but as they’ve recently found that Westminster are intent on bartering their fishing rights to the highest bidder and without the protections that the EU offered, there’s been a considerable political shift in that opinion over the last year or so. Ditto agriculture.
If the EU continues to insist on a hard border then any issue with the IRA will be on them!
Sorry but that’s just gobsmacking in its blase ignorance. Let’s leave aside the threat of bombing that people in the UK used to live under, or the suspicion, prejudice, and outright miscarriages of justice visited upon the Irish by the British state throughout the Troubles (a euphemism I hate. Let’s just call it what it was, shall we? A civil war), let’s look at the general improvement on both sides of the Border in the 20-odd years since the GFA. Ireland, with a few ropey years, has largely boomed and even Ulster has seen a dramatic improvement in its lot — much of it thanks to EU regeneration subsidy.
The reinstatement of a hard border is nothing to do with the EU and their approach has been very far from scaremongering. They didn’t ask for any of this but seem to me be just trying to protect the people who will still be within their union, as they should be. It’s down to the UK to show how a border is going to work and they haven’t a clue — and they’ve shown every sign that they’ll throw the people of Ulster under a bus if it comes to it. But it’s one thing to be so cavalier about trading relationships, it’s quite another to essentially potentially restart a civil war for no apparent, easily definable, reason.)
It’s not for the EU — or Remainers — to define the reasons for keeping the status quo. It was up to the Brexiters to give solid reasons (beyond ‘sunlit uplands’ and mystical trade deals) for wanting to make that change. They haven’t. And misinformed and dangerous handwaving and shifting of blame is really not helpful, especially at this critical juncture.
30 October 2018 at 16:00 #6520130 October 2018 at 12:47 #65194I don’t really mind the on-topic trolls as there’s enough intelligent and articulate voices to put them in their place. And as @craig says, it’s only to be expected this year and it really hasn’t been half as bad as I was expecting. The only thing I’ve really modded was one comment that was to my view pretty damn misogynist. I did briefly ponder just editing out the offensive phrases but figured that’s a dangerous rabbit hole to fall down and blanket deletion is probably better.
I think I’m with @craig that unless it becomes out-and-out offensive it’s better just to leave the posts up for people to engage with or ignore as they wish. Most of these posts do little but expose their idiocy and lack of thought anyway and I think it’s better that’s out there for all to see.
30 October 2018 at 03:06 #65170@craig @blenkinsopthebrave @pedant
I’m not going to dignify him with a link but if you truly want to see the Whoflake idiocy at its absolute nadir then pop over to YouTube and type in ‘bowlestrek’. But I warn you, it’s not pretty.
29 October 2018 at 22:39 #65160Jeez, what’s with all the ‘won’t someone please think of the poor, endangered under-represented straight, white males’ chest clasping?
29 October 2018 at 18:08 #65148Racism isn’t a white only thing
No, it certainly isn’t. But if you’re setting an episode in Alabama in 1955, chances are its white racism that you’re going to have to engage with. Quite apart from anything else, that’s the particular brand of racism that’s causing the most toxicity in the world today, so it’s a pretty good place to start.
29 October 2018 at 18:05 #65144Am I the only one who is noticing that in every episode so far, the “baddy” is white and male (unless they are a “monster
So, it’s a white male except when it isn’t, is that what you’re saying? And out of four episodes, two had white male antagonists. That’s a pretty even split, don’t you think?
it would be great to see a female “baddy”
Missy? Madame Kovarian? Ms Delphox? Miss Kizlet? Looks like there’s been plenty of those. And I’m sure CC plans to add to that roster.
White male children need positive role models too
Somehow I don’t think they’re doing too badly for them. Pretty much all of western culture still prioritises them. Including having 50-odd years of male Doctors for a start.
29 October 2018 at 14:08 #65130@kevinwho
Think it was said last week that Who was always kind of preachy. You don’t have to go far to find any of the Doctors giving a big speech — and it’s in fact often one of the more enduring memories of each incarnation and the clip you’ll usually see recycled most often.
On another note though, wasn’t the time vortex effect in this episode just bloody stunning?
28 October 2018 at 22:53 #65093I didn’t know that and that pleases me greatly. They worked really well together in ALS.
28 October 2018 at 21:21 #65079Things tend not to gel for me until the second watch but on first impressions I really didn’t love this. In fact, I found myself even checking the video playback bar a couple of times to see how much of it I had left. My main complaint, I think, is that it seemed built on just too many coincidences to bring the everyone together into that hotel. There’s an element of that in Who at the best of times but it was just a bit too clumsily done in this story I think. It wanted to evoke The Green Death I think but really by the end this was feeling more like The Lazarus Experiment to me.
But things to like: the spiders looked great for the most part, although maybe the CGI was a little ropey in parts. And Chris Noth gave a fantastic, utterly batshit performance as Robertson. I do hope we see him again — if for no other reason than I was hoping for the Doctor to do a ‘doesn’t she look tired’ moment on him at the end and I’d still like that to happen.
Bradley Walsh continues to be great as Graham too. I really like that we have a TARDIS companion like him, one who you’d just never expect to travel with the Doctor. And he’s really conveying a man struggling with grief, even in his quieter, more mundane moments. Although his scenes with Grace were just wonderful too. The scenes with Yaz’s family were terrific too. If there’s one thing CC can do it’s families, family dynamics and ordinary, likeable characterisation. He’s better at it than even RTD, I’d say, and certainly than SM. I think WhitDoc might be the first one since Pertwee who could work pretty well in a prolonged Earth setting.
Talking of which, Whittaker is just not working for me. Which is annoying because I really, really want to like her. It’s not that I dislike her performance as such as it seems to be unable to break free from the generic Doctor template. And her performance in Adult Life Skills, if nothing else, leads me to believe that she could do so much more with it if she let herself go a bit. I just keep getting a vibe of nervousness from her so far.
I tend to divide the Doctors into ones who truly were The Doctor for me — Troughton, Pertwee, Baker I, McGann, Smith, Capaldi, even McCoy by the end — and ones who are just a Doctor, ones who are just kind of there and who never really sold me — Davison, Eccleston, Tennant, Baker II, Hartnell — and I suspect WhitDoc is going to be the latter for me.
Maybe it’ll improve on another viewing, but I was significantly underwhelmed by this one and it was really only the lovely character beats that kept me watching.
25 October 2018 at 22:47 #64985I absolutely agree. I think that’s totally what Blackman was going for and managed it brilliantly. Here was my own take on the video:
I totally understand your sentiments but I do have a couple of reservations. On the Obama thing, I wasn’t crazy about the little coda either but I think it was there because the episode as a whole had been constantly reiterating that this was not a problem that had been solved, that it was and was going to remain an ongoing issue. So I don’t think it really did end on a note of complacency — but more of one of an awareness of not to end the episode (of a kids’ show, after all) on a total downer but rather a note of hope.
I’d also argue that Graham’s realisation that he was going to be the one that was the catalyst for Rosa’s protest was key in circumventing your helplessness argument. Yes, there was no way of showing the time travellers being in any way actively involved in that moment but that very passivity was rendered with such emotion that I think most viewers would feel themselves impelled to action in similar situations. It was, for me anyway, a rallying call to action, rather than the opposite.
On the question of allegory, I see what you mean too, but unfortunately it also makes it easier for the whole argument to be dismissed by those who have a vested interest in doing so. They can just wave a hand and say ‘yeah, but this is just hokey kids’ stuff’. That’s harder to do if they’re faced with someone like Rosa Parks being represented onscreen.
But your point that a 50-minute episode can’t hope to provide a completely nuanced representation of the civil rights movement is undoubtedly true but from my (admittedly limited) perspective it did manage to hit as many of the beats as it could possibly manage. The main problem for me is that it’s too aware of its own limitations in this regard and ends up coming across too tentative and earnest in places.
But the nuance issue is one that affects any ‘historical’ Who. As you say, it’s the relative lack of distance that renders it more raw for people. But it’s entirely the same argument that you could hold up to, say, The Highlanders. Did that show present a nuanced view of the Jacobite uprisings? It really didn’t, but the distance is such that most don’t get quite as concerned by it (although, believe me, this is still very much a ‘hot button’ and emotive issue in my part of the world). The question though ‘is there any periods/issues that should be off limits to Who?’ is an interesting one. Could you do a story about, say, the Easter Rising. My initial instinct is ‘no’, but then again if you can more or less successfully do Rosa Parks I’m not sure there’s anything you can’t do.
25 October 2018 at 21:48 #64978Offered without comment but another take on Rosa…
25 October 2018 at 03:02 #64926Feel free to wrangle the Brexit issue as much as you like but it’s just best to restrict it to the pub. (Maybe start with some examples of how the EU has actually robbed the UK parliament of any kind of meaningful control? 🙂 )
25 October 2018 at 02:57 #64925Come on, the St John’s sign had been absent for most of the series post-early Hartnell. And the sign was white on black through Pertwee, Baker, Davison and beyond…
24 October 2018 at 16:05 #64907This is a couple of years old but I’ve just discovered it and its bloody great. (And a little fix for anybody missing PC).
23 October 2018 at 21:24 #64874@kevinwho
Yes, there is a danger in othering racists — we all surely know someone who holds views like this and the challenge is to change their mind through reason and engagement otherwise they just go and away and fester.
I’m going to reserve judgement on Krasko until the end of the series though. At this point, I suspect we may be seeing him again and that could change the discussion considerably.
I took the meeting at Ryan’s house to be illustrating Rosa’s involvement in civil rights activism, so would argue that the episode did address this aspect, even if it did not make it central to the narrative.
23 October 2018 at 20:11 #64857No worries. That was the only one that I thought should go. The others provided useful context for the continuing idiocy of some people and the sheer timeliness and relevance of the story.
Yeah, I saw that and thought you were dead right about it….
23 October 2018 at 19:43 #64853Leaving aside the less coherent of your arguments, the idea that Ryan or Yas wouldn’t recieve police discrimination is just bollocks. This, pulled strictly at random from the top of Google….
As to Irish being more victimised more than BAME citizens, I think I’d call nonsense on that too. Unless you’re talking about at the height of the bombing campaigns and that’s not yesterday….
23 October 2018 at 16:54 #64846I’m actually surprised that it hasn’t been worse than it actually was. Mind you, I haven’t delved too deeply into YouTube yet…..
23 October 2018 at 14:36 #64839Not sure how you can call the characters here remotely one-dimensional. As @bluesqueakpip pointed out, both Rosa and Blake are given depth and nuance, aided by really great performances by the respective actors. In fact, I’d say it’s so far a trait of Chibnall’s era that all the supporting characters have been written really well and have been living, breathing individuals in their own right, from Karl in ep 1 and Angstrom last week. Krasko was kind of lame but that’s just because I think the actor didn’t quite have the menace and presence to pull it off. And I suspect he was just being set up for a reappearance anyway.
Let alone the fact, that the Doctor suddenly gives a damn about affecting small details in History
Oh, I dunno, how about The Aztecs for a start. And pretty much any pure historical from the show’s past you could care to name. Not to mention the SF tinged ones. It’s key in The Masque of Mandragora, The Visitation and Time and the Rani, to name but three.
WTF is this preachy rubbish about something I really don’t give a damn about.
Well, I’d say that if you don’t ‘give a damn’ about racial equality then Who is not a show that’s ever been on your wavelength anyway. You might have to take a long, hard look at yourself as a fan, and possibly as a human being too.
I suspect we will see Grace again and that this issue will be addressed. Or should I say I hope we see Grace again because I really do.
I’m not sure that there is another episode where we see the Doctor go all the way through with the funeral service, going inside the church and listening to the eulogy – even if she does prefer to stand at the back.
It’s heavily implied that he does so in Black Orchid from what I remember.
23 October 2018 at 00:40 #64825I’d certainly agree that the last little speechifying coda was dramatically unnecessary, although thematically I’d say it worked, And as others have pointed out, Who has always been a social justice programme and it’s never been above a bit of preaching — the moments that are often brought up by fans of the classic show as emblematic of its greatness are just that. Think Hartnell’s ‘love, pride, fear, hate’, Troughton’s ‘evil must be fought’ to Baker’s ‘indomitable’.
I think this episode was judged nigh on perfectly in its approach and I think to consider it a ‘special’ episode is probably a mistake and that there’s an interesting question to be asked here why this episode has left many fans feeling so uncomfortable.
But Who is not a refuge from social issues. It never has been. Rosa is just continuing that tradition. In many ways, this is as traditional Who as you could possibly get.
22 October 2018 at 18:48 #64816The show has done little but give voice to injustices across the world. It’s almost its mission statement and has been making politically charged stories right from 1963.
If you fail to grasp that, I have to wonder what show you’ve been watching or indeed what attracts you to a site like this, beyond a desire to provoke.
22 October 2018 at 18:00 #64812Yeah, good point. I do like that’s she’s pretty fearless. And on reflection, this more pragmatic approach to problems is pretty cool too.
@everyone
I know I’ve just prodded that particular cage, but probably the best thing is not to encourage the troll contingent and they’ll soon get bored and go away….
22 October 2018 at 16:21 #64805I can imagine there were a few difficult parent/child conversations around the country after Rosa. Is that what Doctor Who should be about ?
Like what exactly? ‘Mummy, Daddy, is racism always wrong?’ Can’t see there’s any room for controversy or ambiguity in anything that Rosa raised last night.
So what next – are we going back in time to prevent the Brexit vote, sort out rights for transexuals, me too campaigners, and how nasty the British were in India in 1947
One can only hope.
21 October 2018 at 23:24 #64772@miapatrick @juniperfish @pedant et al
Just on the Doc’s historical approach to racism, watched the first two episodes of Tomb of the Cybermen recently and it’s a story where it’s getting increasingly difficult not to ignore its racism, or just how little the Doctor seems to be troubled by it….
21 October 2018 at 22:40 #64762Yeah, that’s a really good point. The episode in general did a really good job of conveying that sense of constant implacable oppression.
21 October 2018 at 22:17 #64760Capaldi gave Bill a whole speech about keeping calm
I think he would certainly have been unable to resist the temptation for a speech if that had been a 12 and Bill story. I do often like to wonder what certain stories would have been like in ‘what if’ scenarios. (I.e. what s5 would have been like if Tennant had stayed, for example) and this is definitely one of those stories I’ll always idly ponder with other Doctors.
21 October 2018 at 21:28 #64753Well, that was great. Instant classic possibly. Certainly going to go down as one of the important episodes of Who. It definitely made me feel quite emotional at points and Vinette Robinson was just amazing. That’s surely one of the great guest performances in the show. However, it didn’t quite manage to completely avoid the preachy aspect and I could have lived without the closing monologue which wasn’t really dramatically necessary. Although if it jolts da kids into further research of Rosa and her legacy then I can live with it.
Blackman’s script was tight apart from that and I’d love to see her write more for the series. I did like that the SF elements were pretty low key and gave it an almost Hartnell historical vibe, or certainly the least SF-inflected historical story since Black Orchid maybe. Krasko, the time-travelling alt-righter is an interesting concept and I suspect that @bluesqueakpip might be onto something when we might get a multiple villain pile-up at the end of the series. But rather like Tim Shaw, I found the performance itself a bit weak. I’d have liked him to have been a bit more imposing than Mark Beale with a vortex manipulator.
On the general TARDIS front (ugh, I hate that interior. For something that’s bigger on the inside it looks like you’d struggle to swing a cat in it), there’s still a few niggles. Graham and Ryan are really gelling but again Yas still seems to be struggling for something to do. A Doc +3 team is just too big I think and while it looks like Yas is going to get more to do next week, I’m guessing that just means that someone else will be left spinning their wheels. (Though I strongly suspect this is all temporary until Graham bites the dust and the core team will be Doc, Ryan and Yas.)
As to Whittaker’s Doc, I’m still not feeling it. Still early days, I guess, but I’m starting to resign myself to her just not being one of ‘my’ docs. Delighted to watch her in action but she’s not graduated past the Davison/McCoy nexus for me yet. Quite brave of them to have Krasko grab her by the throat though. I wonder if we’d have seen that with a male Doc. It’s interesting that they addressed the difference in physicality but frankly I’m thinking it’s not something I want to see happen again really. We’re not presumably always going to have the Doctor facing villains who are technologically hampered from violence in some way and the implicit threat of physical violence ideally shouldn’t be there anymore than it would have been against Troughton or Smith, or any other male Doctor.
Interesting also that she goes along with the blending in and putting up with segregation route. That was almost Hartnell-esque too. Hard to imagine that 12 would have done the same and this makes it seem like a story that could only have been for Whittaker’s Doc.
Aside from the niggles, this was a great story and so far Chibnall has been producing sparkling, utterly fresh-feeling Who that’s way surpassed my expectations.
15 October 2018 at 23:25 #64535Cheers for that. A slightly unconvincing explanation to my mind (are they really the sort of thing 12 would be carrying about? Maybe they would.) But at least it shows that Chibbers is cleaning up after himself (narratively speaking) a bit more these days.
On a rewatch of both episodes, I have to say I quite like the focus on a more working class outlook on the universe in CC’s writing as compared to SM’s rather more middle class one. It’s a refreshing change and I hope it continues to play a role in his stories….
14 October 2018 at 23:31 #64489Yay, wolfweed. Welcome back. And I do like that Celestial Toymaker theory.
14 October 2018 at 22:28 #6448214 October 2018 at 21:07 #64471Oh, and where the hell did those sunglasses come from?
14 October 2018 at 20:49 #64469Right, I think that’s going to take a bit of a rewatch but initial impressions are some things I loved and some things I really didn’t. It looked great for one thing. This is the most filmic we’ve ever seen Who I think. And the music was even better this week than last — real vibe of BSG/Firefly cultural fusion to the sound. The scenario of the episode kind of reminded me of Borderlands, with its desperate, amoral characters and lethal, desert landscape. And that can only be a good thing.
Writing-wise, we seem to be back with the Chibnall of 42 and Cold Blood (as opposed to The Hungry Earth). Seemed to veer towards really rather a lot of people running around in a plot that could have done with a bit more groundwork. Art Malik seemed kind of wasted too. I think I would rather have seen him play Epzo.
I’m still not totally sold on Whittaker yet either. It’s difficult to tell from a regeneration story but I’d have liked to have seen more suggestion of her own interpretation of the Doctor coming through and she still seems to be channelling a bit too much of a Tennant/Smith pastiche this week (perhaps with more emphasis on the Smith this time around). I just keep getting the feeling that there’s a great Doctor in there still struggling to get out. Mind you, plenty of time yet, Capaldi didn’t feel like he fully inhabited the 12th Doc until Last Christmas.
Yep, and it looks like an arc developing, so yay. Though I have to admit Chibbers is going to have to pump up the Stenza if they’re getting promoted from generic one-episode bad guy to the series Big Bad. That’s perfectly do-able I suppose, bearing in mind that Tim Shaw was meant to be a rubbish wannabe in their gang.
The new opening titles are a thing of beauty — very Pertwee-era, I thought. And didn’t go on for ages the way some of the Moffat-era ones did (though I must admit I did love the Capaldi-era ones). Seems like the fan-made ‘ink’ title sequence was something of an influence too. As to the theme itself, easily the best version to grace the show since the first Tom Baker version. (Though did it have shades of the version used on some of the McGann audios to my ears.)
As to the TARDIS, the new exterior looks much better in situ than it did on set photos. It’s very nice indeed and seems less ostentatious and blocky than the Smith/Capaldi version. But I have to say I’m hating the new interior with its Tennant interior meets the Fortress of Solitude look. The console seems rather small compared to all the structures around it and despite the scale of the set, it just feels cluttered, almost to Peter Cushing TARDIS levels. This is my main bugbear with the new direction at the moment, the overall design. I just can’t get on board with Whittaker’s costume, especially when she even managed to make Capaldi’s tattered outfit last week look stylish. A good Doctor’s costume might convey quirkiness or eccentricity but it should also convey authority. Even Troughton and Baker I’s did this. Baker II, McCoy and even Davison suffered as Doctors because their costumes erred to far on the risible side and so, I fear, does Whittaker’s.
13 October 2018 at 16:03 #64434Sorry to hear about the diagnosis. Do take care of yourself. Duly liked and subscribed btw.
10 October 2018 at 19:55 #64383Yep, I’m a big fan of the Honest Trailers guys. And that’s cool about the Tussauds invite but Blackpool is a bit out of my travel zone too, I’m afraid. (My abiding memory of the waxworks there is of being regaled by a set of animatronic Wurzels mannequins as I waited to go into the Chamber of Horrors. Unless, of course, I dreamt the whole thing.)
7 October 2018 at 23:09 #64241Yes, you’re right Moffat was aware of his class “issue” after RTD
Yeah, that’s true but then again does he really need to have ticked the ‘token working class character’ box anyway? If they don’t fit the story, or are going to be awkward or unconvincing, I’d rather they just weren’t there ins the first place.
Only Oxbridge colleges have rooms for Professors that look like the one the Doctor was inhabiting
To be fair, 12 had been at the university of something like 70 years. Plenty of time to have inveigled himself the best office in the place. The VC was probably relegated to a broom cupboard somewhere.
As others have mentioned, it was also great to see the Doctor fiddling about with technology and science again in a way that hasn’t really happened in the new series at all that much. I kind of wanted Whittaker to be based in that workshop for a few eps so if nothing else I demand that we see a Doctor’s workshop in the TARDIS.
Good to see some of the familiar faces back again. Waves to all.
7 October 2018 at 23:00 #64239Well, that was pretty damn good and easily Chibnall’s best work on the series. Long may it continue. It didn’t have the sheer energy of The Eleventh Hour (but what could?) but I’d say it was a stronger introductory story than The Christmas Invasion. Tonally, Whittaker seems to be pitching her Doctor somewhere between Tennant and Smith and that’s fine. Having a Doctor who breezes seems to be pretty much the default template for the new series and even Capaldi and Eccleston resorted to it on occasion. But she nails the essential Doctorey-ness, I think — more so in this episode than Eccy managed in his entire run. She’d going to be great, I think.
Was slightly bemused that Dan felt this episode was ‘small’. I got more of an epic sweep than most of Moffat’s fairytale book vibe, and this was despite it being confined to a Sheffield setting. It felt a little bit Torchwood initally but also with the absent TARDIS there also seemed to be a bit of a Pertwee vibe and to be honest I didn’t miss it. Could quite happily have had a few Earthbound episodes with this team.
I’m very much liking this new line-up too so far. They’ve obviously not quite bedded in yet but you can see that Chibnall’s real strength is character and these three very much struck me as living, breathing real people. Having them all tangentially linked was a great idea too, rather than having them total strangers. Hopefully this gives some groundwork for some character tension — the interplay between Ryan and Graeme is already interesting. Sad to see Grace killed off though. And kudos to Chibnall for making even Karl, who could have been generic victim, a real believable character.
The Streza were I guess veering towards the generic bit still pretty effective. Again, a little of a Torchwood vibe coming off them with the teeth thing but certainly a more imposing threat than the Atraxi or the Sycorax. An oddly Marvel vibe off them too perhaps.
The music’s sounding great so far. Very different from Murray Gold, maybe something slightly synthy and 80s about it while still retaining some of the old lushness. Couple with the great visuals, the Chibnall era is going to have a very distinct feel about it. One which I’m enjoying already. The new version of the theme music sounds fantastic too, reinstating the haunting quality of the Derbyshire arrangement with that ominous backbeat.
Not a whole lot else to say until a rewatch. Looks great. And the renewed emphasis on characterisation gets a thumbs-up from me — I liked, for example, the Doctor’s contrition and sense of responsibility for being at the centre of trouble. That’s a first surely. Actually attending Grace’s funeral was a nice touch too.
And I’m happy to see that the response is more or less positive. This wasn’t gob-smackingly ground-breaking Who by any stretch but it was a pretty solid opening that managed to dispel the introspection of the 12th Doctor’s era while still retaining a bit of darkness and not just turning the clock back to the chirpy bombast of the RTD years (as some suspected might be the case). Not everyone’s happy, of course. As @pedant points out, Jim Shelley at The Mail is being oddly (and illogically) petulant about it. And god knows what bowlestrek’s going to make of it.
6 October 2018 at 17:51 #64193@janetteb and @blenkinsopthebrave
The ratings thing is to my mind just a handy metric that journalists loved to latch onto, regardless of their actual continued relevance. I don’t imagine that even Dan is immune in that regard. And they’re even more moot in Who’s case than in others. Ratings probably do still have some impact in things like ‘The Bodyguard’ — notice the ‘watercooler TV’ narrative that developed around it but a show like that still doesn’t have the international recognition that something like Who has. I suspect that even if it’s not happening this year, Who is not that far away from being released en bloc onto iPlayer in Killing Eve stylee and that will end the ratings narrative once and for all.
But Who fans are and always will be sensitive to ratings chat, after the trauma of previous cancellations, which took place in different times. And really we should never forget that the show will be axed again at some point — and it should, it needs to rest and come back reinvigorated and reinvented — and it’s something that will probably happen sooner rather than later. And when it happens it will be nobody’s fault (although if it happens while Whittaker is still the Doctor, she’ll no doubt get the blame from all the misogynist broflakes out there). But it’ll just be time for it to happen.
29 September 2018 at 15:41 #64145Is it wrong that I kind of want Hacker to have a semi-regular companion spot. Kind of like Captain Jack, only likeable…
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