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10 August 2017 at 15:56 #61687
@wolfweed — jealous! And if you happen past any, um, experiences then do enjoy them….
10 August 2017 at 14:44 #61683@wolfweed– to be fair I don’t think Pern is all that worse than the real Tereliptil…
and kudos to Davison and his excellent comedic chops….
7 August 2017 at 14:57 #61656@wolfweed–
Cheers for that link. She comes across brilliantly. Really enthusiastic. And I really hope she gets to keep her accent as Capaldi and Eccleston got to keep theirs….
5 August 2017 at 00:13 #61622To save @whisht from stumbling onto spoilers, which I know he dislikes…
@nick is right that it’s been a kind of rolling, evolving thing. But where it’s at at the moment is a rough discussion of AI, automation and cultural production with me arguing that how we consume culture — meaning everything from TV to music to books — is ultimately going to change as the centralising nature of traditional distribution channels, meaning corporations established in a 19th/20th century industrial environment, are forced to increasingly give way to a multi-platform, essentially DIY, digital future. A bit utopian, I know, and not something I’m saying is going to happen next week or even in the next couple of decades btw….
Definitely interested to hear your thoughts @whisht….
4 August 2017 at 18:04 #61614I’ll stick this here because, although possibly it should go in TV shows or On The Sofa. But, let’s face it, Brian Pern was a musical legend. Lots of Who references here too which are fun, including Peter Davison, Matt Lucas and Christopher Eccleston (proving that he really can do comedy). But it’s Michael Kitchen who once again steals the show.
4 August 2017 at 17:29 #61612Can I suggest that both religious debate and economic future discussions make their home here and keep the Spoilers forum free for spoilers. (Although both discussions are fascinating and part of why this site is so great.)
Couple of belated points.
@bluesqueakpip–
Well, there is a need. Because if you think you don’t need to explain and justify your liberal and tolerant values you’ll discover that those values are being walked all over by people who don’t believe in them. Paraphrasing Nick, you might never convince those Orangemen, but you might convince someone else.
Except if that were actually the case we wouldn’t have Trump in the White House, the lacerating self-harm of Brexit, or here in Scotland those self-same Orangemen finding their way onto local councils. Rather what’s happening is the aggregation of headlines, of tweets, of FB posts. The arguments are not being listened to one way or the other, just the soundbites being endlessly repeated ‘make America great’, ‘take back control’, ‘strong and stable’.
For the record, I’d like to make it clear that I’m talking about people who have reservations about JW, a female Doc, etc. Discussion and debate on those terms is fine and interesting and to be encouraged. I’m talking about the ‘it’s all a big SJW/Feminazi/misandrist conspiracy’ brigade. Yes, you might change the mind of a couple of observers to the conversation but really all you’re doing is helping keeping their argument visible in the mainstream and shifting the Overton window in their favour. I can’t help but feel it’s best not to play their game.
@Nick–
On technology, AI and economics. Really interesting post which has given me lots of food for thought. Not sure I’ve got a whole lot to add at the moment except that I’m still of a mind that we’re at the beginning of a process that’s ultimately going to fundamentally change our consumption and attitudes to culture(s). Look at the debates around ratings that Whovians (I really hate that word for some reason) get into. During the last 10 years, concepts of overnights, ratings, even schedules, have changed dramatically, perhaps are even on the cusp of obsolescence.
How much more is that going to change in the next 20, 30, 40 years? You’re right, I think, when you say that the media environment has not been overturned, but I don’t think this is how these things work. It’s more like a Darwinian process, a gradual erosion. And there’s every sign that old media are failing to adapt. At the moment the ‘ecosphere’ allows them to cling on but that won’t be the case forever. Record labels, publishers, newspapers, studios, broadcasters, few of them are not taking a digital hit of some kind or another, some more so than others.
4 August 2017 at 16:23 #61610@missy–
Not sure why JW being politically active should count for or against her. Quite apart from anything else, you could say the same thing for Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant for that matter.
However, perhaps they have decided to try the same thing with Doctor Who, and save some money. *she says cynically*
You surely can’t have missed all the furore over the gender pay gap at the BBC. Or the news that JW is going to receive the same pay rate as Capaldi did.
Thank goodness Kris Marshall won’t be the new companion – I hope. It would dash his chances of ever becoming the Doctor.
Frankly, given all the grief he’s got over the past few months, I don’t think KM would touch Who with a bargepole now.
Also not sure you can berate JW for ‘only acting as herself’ (not true, I suggest you check out Attack the Block or Adult Life Skills) and then offer up Tilda Swinton as an alternative.
But I think we’re at the point now where some people think JW will be great, some have doubts, but really the only courteous thing to do is reserve judgement and give her the benefit of the doubt — just as you would with anybody about to start a new job.
2 August 2017 at 01:03 #61581@bluesqueakpip–
Well, these days Dawkins is pretty much a bad example of everything and the last thing I really want to be doing is defending the sanctimonious old git but I think you’re doing him a bit of a disservice. It’s not that RD has refused to discuss Creationist arguments — he’s spent a large part of his career doing just that but more, as I understand it anyway, that he realised that his opponents were not actually interested in the debates but merely in being to headline advertise that the debate took place. They weren’t interested in talking to someone but talking at them from an intractable unreasoning position. Not unlike a politician taking broadcast time, not in a spirit of debate, but for an opportunity to parrot ‘strong and stable’ over and over again. That’s not democracy either.
I don’t think conflating that with ‘silencing’ techniques, especially in terms of gender politics, is particularly helpful. It’s not the same thing at all. Nor is it ‘no platforming’ of any kind — which is something I’m vehemently against, by the way. Interestingly, RD himself was no-platformed recently but I think it’s unfair to suggest that he’s been guilty of doing it himself. It’s more that the arguments have been gone over. They’re there as a matter of record. It’s more that rather than debate the whole process has been reduced to a piece of theatre or a marketing opportunity. It’s not that an assumption is being made that the opposing side has NO legitimate arguments, merely a recognition that they no longer have any interest in actually making them.
In terms of ‘legitimising arguments’ let me throw a RL example into the mix. There was a story covered recently here in Scotland about a Halloween Party at an Orange Lodge halls in which members were photographed as a) child-abusing Catholic priests, b) Popes with nooses around their necks and c) Nazis complete with children dressed as concentration camp victims. Leaving aside the mind-boggling crassness of this, the Orange Lodge issued a statement defending this as ‘part of their culture and beliefs’. Now personally, I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that such behaviour should be tolerated in any civilised society and I don’t accept that there is a need to enter into a sustained dialogue to explain that point of view. The same way I don’t accept that ‘freedom of speech’ can be used as a defence for hate speech against any group of people, whether that be on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, whatever.
1 August 2017 at 22:54 #61578@nerys and @juniperfish–
I must admit that I have to share a bit of Clara-fatigue in the current rewatch. Jenna is great but Clara is definitely hard work. (I’m sure part of it is because I could never quite forgive her for not being Amy though.) While still disagreeing with ‘waaah it’s just the Clara Show now’ buffoons, I definitely to get the feeling that the fit with Capaldi’s doc was slightly off and it never did quite recover from the flirty dynamic laid down in the Smith era.
1 August 2017 at 22:47 #61577@Nick–
Shifted the general ‘economics of the future’ chat over hear for fear of boring everyone else on the Spoilers thread to death. Just a couple of things I’d like to say.
I don’t think it ever be the case for films and much TV as a whole (as well as other cultural pursuits, which require significant training to become skilled). You really do need the $ to generate a “product” which reaches a mass audience
But I think that’s changing — and really quite dramatically. It’s certainly easy to overstate the skills and training angle. Most people with an interest in, say, filmed narrative can pick up the skills from observation and from online tutorials on everything from YouTube to Lynda.com to DigitalTutors (or whatever it’s calling itself these days). You only have to look at sheer level of competence in fandom these days to see that (let’s not forget that the Capaldi titles were conceived by a fan, albeit one with a professional background in motion titling). It’s possible with enough application to teach yourself the rudiments of film-making without ever setting foot in a formal training establishment.
Nor is money the big stumbling block that it once was. I put together a short film that was considered decent enough to pick up a nomination at a film festival in a couple of days. You can film perfectly creditable footage on an iPhone these days. You can download a free version of Nuke from the Foundry website which not only allows you to edit it but incorporate professional-standard postproduction effects. Really, professional training and apprenticeships etc with big-name broadcasters etc were necessary in the old days because they basically were the only ones who had the equipment for you to learn on. It as once again a distribution issue. Sure, you’re not going to be able to do Game of Thrones or Star Wars on your laptop but you can easily, with passion and application, still make something perfectly watchable and, more importantly, that people want to see. The real challenge for modern filmmakers is not distribution, or even money, it’s publicity. It’s making sure people know about you.
things are as stagnant as they were in the light entertainment orientated 40’s and most of the 50’s, at least in terms of the mainstream, which is what most of us get to see.
Well, I’d say that’s not an argument against music but once again against the traditional channels of distribution which are increasingly no longer fit for purpose. There is lots of exciting music out there but yes it is a bit harder to find. But it’s not so much stagnation as an explosion in choice, I think. In times past, artists were competing with their contemporaries and not much else. It was whoever was in the charts, on Top of the Pops, in the papers — artists of times past, while you could obviously still discover them were ‘yesterday’s news’. iTunes and Spotify have exploded that. What I’m struck by these days when I meet young people and talk about music is just how wide-ranging their tastes are, how their playlists span the decades in a way that my generation probably didn’t, or at least not to the same extent. Your average band now is not just competing with their contemporaries but also the biggest acts of decades ago too.
New technology has always increased employment in the long term
Hmm, tell that to a worker in a car plant, or a travel agent, or a typesetter. While it’s true that technology creates jobs that never existed before while getting rid of others, that’s not an endless process (leaving aside the quality of the jobs they create.) We’re looking at what more than 60% unemployment in 20 years down to automation. That”s going to change things dramatically.
But I think looking at cultural norms of 30 or even 50 years ago are not going to be that helpful. We’re currently undergoing a paradigm shift that’s as remarkable as the introduction of the printing press, or the industrial revolution. Those changes fundamentally altered the very fabric of every aspect of society. Something of the like is happening now. It’s not going to be just a case of the same players (or similar) with different shopfronts and fancier computers. It’s going to be a lot more far-reaching than that.
1 August 2017 at 22:14 #61576@Nick–
Using the same sort of language or argument back to will certainly achieve nothing, whereas the opposite at least has a chance. It also descalates the conflict.
In principle, I agree. But at the same time, there’s a danger here. Richard Dawkins said that he stopped debating with Creationists because by doing so he was on some level legitimising their arguments, even if they were successfully debunked. The mere fact that he was sharing a platform with them was enough to appear to give their arguments credence.
I think the same applies here. It seems there is a majority who’ve happily accepted JW as a putative Doctor. There’s a smaller group who have understandable reservations and an even smaller percentage whose arguments against a female Doctor are just sexism, and sometimes outright misogyny dressed up in arguments that are easily debunked. But to engage with them is to give these frankly attitudes a veneer of legitimacy. Rather, they should be being dismissed. They should be condemned and called out as unacceptable. Because in the last few weeks they’ve been having the effect of toxifying fandom as a whole.
31 July 2017 at 13:45 #61561@juniperfish — I too am enjoying a Capaldi restrospective at the moment. But I am finding that my list of faves is shifting slightly under the rewatch. The Zygon two-parter has definitely slipped in my estimation but some others like Listen and Face the Raven have shot up the list. And Heaven Sent is still for my money the single best episode of Who in its 50-year history.
Capaldi has never been anything less than amazing. Jodie Whittaker has got some seriously big boots to fill when her time comes.
31 July 2017 at 13:42 #61560@thane15–
Send your mum my best wishes. Hope she had a great day. She’s very much missed on the site.
@Nick–
No, not everyone opposed to JW’s casting could be dismissed as a misogynist. But many clearly were, or at the very least guilty of sexism and unexamined prejudice — including, sad to say, a few of the posts we got on here in the initial wave after the announcement. The debate did initally generate rather more heat than light but I think thanks to discussion and debate that seems to have softened a bit. I’m sympathetic to the arguments of resistance to the idea, but at the same time there were some clearly unacceptably prejudiced attitudes riding on the coat-tails of the more reasonable arguments.
I am cynical enough not to believe universal income will be sufficient to change this. Will they be able to afford to consume culture. It seems more like creating fertile ground for revolution to me.
I agree that UBI as its proposed at the moment probably isn’t going to be the full answer or anything like sufficient. It’s more the starting point for a debate that we’re going to have to have at some point, a solution that’s going to have to be found. Because at some point the current system just isn’t going to work any longer. It’s the start of the conversation, not the end. As to the affording of culture — not culture as it functions under the current economic paradigm, no. But there’s never been such a thing as human community that didn’t have some kind of culture. (Punk, for example, was borne out of necessity in dole-queue Britain. Hip-hop for similar reasons in the US.) If people are economically denied culture, they’ll create their own.
And if we are facing a future of less employment — and let’s face it, we are — then people will have more time not just to consume culture, but create it too. I suspect the future will be far more culturally fragmented, but more diverse, and quite probably less economically lucrative. But really the only people who will ultimately lose out will be the monolithic corporations who until now could control the channels of distribution. A few will survive but many won’t as it becomes easier and easier to bypass them.
30 July 2017 at 11:13 #61546@nick — well, I am talking decades rather than immediately, of course, but the signs are definitely there that the very infrastructure of our cultural consumption is going undergo a radical change at some point. Rising global populations with more and more automated jobs mean that something’s going to give at some point and something economic mechanisms like Universal Basic Income (or something like it) will ultimately come into play. That will fundamentally change what we think of as ‘work, career and industry’ as well as how and why we consume culture.
But you’re right that in the short term things will continue much as they are, or a variation of it anyway. I think you’re right that subscription channels will continue to be a thing. I don’t agree that schedules will survive in the medium to long term though and that ultimately you’ll switch to BBC 1 and find something like a Netflix-stylee carousel. The only things I can see that will be scheduled for a particular date and time will be the talent shows.
But I really don’t see Who going anywhere. There’s next to no chance that the Beeb will kill what is pretty much it’s last remaining global brand. In fact, I suspect what will continue to happen is what’s happening now — stronger pushes into the Asian markets, emulating Hollywood. How that will actually affect the show is anyone’s guess. But from what I can gather from the peeps in broadcasting is that ratings are less and less a decider of a show’s worthiness to survive. There are lots of other metrics at play too. Who fans do, I think, sometimes obsess a bit too much about ratings maybe because the hiatus/cancellation was such a traumatic experience for them. 😉
29 July 2017 at 22:54 #61540@nick @thane15–
I think it’s always worth bearing in mind that we’re pretty much all twits here. (What other word describes (mostly) grown adults spending a not insignificant part of their time discussing a 50-year-old British children’s TV show?)
I think, @nick, that we’re probably going to have to agree to disagree on The Tenth Planet and the TUAT (however it treats it). I understand your misgivings but really I just consider the show’s back catalogue as raw material for the current writers to use as they see fit.
On SM in general, I think there is a danger (as with the canon itself) that to defend him against some unfair criticism can lead into defending him against everything. His tenure as a writer and showrunner has been far from perfect — no one’s has. He’s had more than his share of clunkers and not all his choices have been brilliant ones and we shouldn’t find be afraid to be critical of him (or anyone else for that matter).
@nick — on ratings. I think it’s fairly clear these days that the licence fee is not going to last much longer (although personally I think it’s pretty excellent value for money). But I don’t think that Who placed in a streaming/subscription would necessarily become a cheap crowd-pleaser. Mostly because these days those two things seldom go together. The big streaming outfits seem to have learned from the mistakes of 80s/90s cable channels and realised that churning out cheap content is ultimately self-defeating and that it’s better to produce prestige content. I think that Who, whoever ends up producing it, would definitely be considered ‘prestige’ content.
But the streaming vs terrestrial model is a misleading one to pin any hopes on, I think. Ultimately I think even making any assumptions about a similar broadcast landscape to now with streaming firms instead of old-school broadcasters is misleading too. I think we’re going through a cultural change that is going to be far more fundamental. The concept of the big distributors (in any media — the publishers, the studios, the broadcasters) will eventually be swept away as there becomes less and less need for them. A few will survive and they will hoover up the big, successful content but it’s going to be so much more fragmented, with so much more ‘self published’ content of various levels of proficiency and backing. Creativity will become less and less of an industry or a career and more of a general human activity, I think. What that means for something like Who is open to question. Perhaps it will be owned by one of the few remaining big distributing channels. Or maybe different aspects of the IP will be licensed out like franchises to various bidders, with the line between fan fictions and professional productions far, far less delineated.
28 July 2017 at 23:52 #61517@missy–
Many happy returns!!
28 July 2017 at 18:49 #61513@nick, @bluesqueakpip et al–
I must admit that this persistent meme that Capaldi has suffered from ‘poor’ writing really grinds my gears. He hasn’t. No more than Smith or Tennant did. In fact, I’d argue that he’s suffered from far fewer obviously rushed or ‘filler’ stories than any of his predecessors. There’s no Love and Monsters or Fear Her lurking in Capaldi’s era.
What these commentators really mean (thanks for the link btw, @nick. An interesting read) is that they personally don’t like Moffat’s writing and preoccupations. And that’s fair enough but it’s arrogant presumption to dismiss it as lacking in craft or ability. (It also gets right on my goat in my own line when BTL comments decry a piece as ‘bad journalism’. It’s not. Structurally, it’s fine. It just happens to be telling you something you don’t want to hear or agree with.) I happen to prefer SM’s approach over RTD’s but I’d never say he’s a bad writer. He’s clearly not. He’s just making different choices to the ones I perhaps would have preferred. And really that’s about as much as SM’s critics can say about his work too.
This criticism of SM’s, particularly later, era annoy me for two reasons. Firstly, it suggests that they’re not engaging with the piece at hand, instead just offering up a ‘Moffat Baaaaad’ kneejerk reaction. Secondly, it seems to be a deliberate attempt to create a false narrative — that they last couple of years have been ‘failures’ of some kind, that SM is going out on a low. I don’t see that as being the case either.
With regards to the ratings — first of all, the show’s been on-air for a decade now. That it’s holding up as well as it is puts it well ahead of the curve of pretty much any other show you could care to name. Who fans live in perpetual fear of cancellation but to my mind it’s pretty much inevitable that it’s going to happen at some point. It seems safe for the next five years or so but I fully expect it to be rested not long after that, maybe with a movie or a few specials easing the way. And I’m pretty comfortable with that happening. Because it will endure. It always does.
But, no, there’s not as many people watching the show as there was five years ago. Possibly not as many watching it on iPlayer either, although I’d like to see some firm figures on that because most arguments point to the contrary. But the fact is people are not doing as much of any of the stuff they used in terms of media consumption. They go to the cinema less, they buy less music, read fewer newspapers. There are just so many more demands on their time, so they’re doing more stuff, spreading their consumption out over multiple channels and multiple media. We’re living through a fundamental change in cultural consumption and the old models are still in the process of being ripped up. Streaming services are eating into the Beeb’s traditional model and will continue to do so and their attempts to get a slice of the action have so far failed. I strongly suspect that if it does survive more than five years, Who will be a streaming-only property, perhaps a joint production with the likes of Netflix or Amazon.
I’d dispute we’ve hit peak Who, except maybe in terms of media perception. The late Tennant/early Smith era was probably the last time that mainstream old-school media had true cultural saturation and until two weeks ago Who just wasn’t that newsworthy anymore. That centre is now starting to fall away from them — they no longer get to define success in the same way that they used to (any more than they can successfully reflect political opinion, it seems). I’m not sure that that translates into a clear-cut ‘decline’ of the show, although it’s certainly true that the Capaldi years have been more ‘difficult’ viewing than the kinetic sugar rush of the Tennant/Smith years.
28 July 2017 at 01:01 #61497@Nick–
Here’s a brief taster…
With regards to writers and rights, I believe that it used to be more standard for writers to keep the rights to creatures or characters they created until Haisman and Lincoln created such a fuss with the Yeti and the Quarks that the contracts were changed to ensure the Beeb retained all rights unless, presumably, there were special arrangements made. (All this from hazy memory, I’m sure @phaseshift or @bluesqueakpip did a blog on it once upon a time.)
27 July 2017 at 22:10 #61493@nick — I must admit that I have more than a little sympathy for that POV and I think I would have really liked to see hard reboot of Who. If for no other reason than there are some great stories and ideas in the early years which now suffer from the approaches and attitudes of the times and it would be great to see them revisited with a modern sensibility. (How great would The Daleks be revisited with modern questions of resistance/terrorism/racial intolerance? Or the sexual politics of Galaxy Four?)
But in the end, I can see why RTD made the decision he did. It speaks to his love of the show and wanting to see a continuation rather than a restart. Plus it offers the best of both worlds, so to speak.
27 July 2017 at 22:04 #61492I must admit I thought this little tribute was done quite well too….
27 July 2017 at 17:49 #61487@doctor2222 — no worries at all. Thanks for doing that.
27 July 2017 at 15:14 #61481@Nick–
I’m possibly overstating that aspect and you’re probably right that it didn’t need to be done but something that SM perhaps felt the show would be better off doing by formalising the conflicts inherent in the show’s history. (cf RTD’s infamous ‘ming-mong’ comment a few years previously.) The other aspect of it is that as the 50th approached, he knew that he wasn’t going to bring back any BG Doctors in the strictest sense (Curator notwithststanding), so I guess he wanted a way to tie the BG and AG eras in a more direct way than just the sly references and this was his way of doing it. It’s pretty much down to matter of personal taste whether you like it or not. Personally, I love The Name of the Doctor, it’s one of my favourites. And as for the IG arc, to be honest, I wasn’t crazy about it when it was first mooted but it ended up having a conclusion far more satisfying (I think) than I could have hoped for.
But I don’t see Gaiman – in Amercian Gods TV or GRR Martin handing over control of there artitistic endeavour to someone else
It’s a bit different though, as those are their clear intellectual properties, their ‘babies’ if you like. Davis and Pedler were essentially guns for hire (or a salaryman in Davis’s case — indeed it’s odd that he gets a credit. I thought that was verboten under Beeb rules of the time). They get a fee and unless they’ve secured the rights to the monsters, then the BBC can do what they like with their scripts. Same applies today — there’s probably very few scripts of SM’s tenure that don’t have his fingerprints on them in some way or another — and there’s no real statute of limitations on that.
Why then should Moff want to mess around with Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler’s story (Gerry was script editor as well. He probably wrote the regeneration scenes).
Well, as Pip says, if it was all done in such a half-arsed way at the time — and has since proven to be an important piece of the show’s history, why not revisit it? The other interesting question is why does SM and MG revisiting Arthur Conan Doyle’s material raise nary an eyebrow, but doing so with Pedler and Davis is considered problematic? Is it purely time? Or the fact that he’s not the first with one to do it with the ACD?
27 July 2017 at 00:23 #61471@Nick–
The only thing I can easy see that this arc did, was give any show runner/writer free reign to rewrite any existing story the way they want to. Is that not fankwank at its simplest ?
No, I personally don’t think so. I think I’d call it streamlining the canon, getting the show in shape for the next 50 years. I agree that there would always be ways around inconsistencies for future writers without invoking the Claricles but then again it was something that both SM and RTD cited as a problem and I can totally understand SM’s desire to tidy the backstory up while rendering it unobtrusive.
And like @bluesqueakpip, I don’t really have any problem with SM (or any other writer) using old serials as raw material for new ones. I definitely don’t think that the old stories should be considered holy relics to be considered forever off limits. As SM himself said when discussing canon, ‘there are no parameters’ and I think I agree. If, for example, in Hell Bent, say, he’d had Rassilon tell the Doctor that he wasn’t in fact a Time Lord and was in fact a foundling who floated up the Capitol sewage outflow in a basket of rushes I’m not sure I would have been that bothered. I would have accommodated this new information in the canon and watched with interest as it evolved in a new direction. (Because that to me is the essence of the show, it’s ability to change and mutate, to not be bound by some kind of sancrosanct series bible.) But at the same time, as I say, I don’t think Who has ever had a showrunner more respectful of the canon than SM. Even RTD played far more fast and loose than he does/did.
With regards to Tenth Planet, I think I’m also with Pip that the story does have fundamental problems — a third episode that’s cobbled together out of last-minute necessity and a regeneration scene that’s just kind of tacked on right at the end and which I always thought kind of jarred in its illogicity (is that a word?) If that can be smoothed out to the benefit of both TTP and TUAT then I’m good with it.
Of course this is all personal choice on Moff’s part and each of ours in terms of how we react to it.
I agree. All highly subjective and all that and I understand while some might have an issue. But I’m not sure I really share their reservations.
That doesn’t mean can’t also be egotistical and entitled on his part. Which other Who show runner has fixed someone else’s story for them to this extent ?
Well, I’m not sure I’d call it particularly entitled or egotistical. As I said, it’s not like he’s erasing the original of The Tenth Planet and replacing it with his own. That story will be there in the future, even if TUAC does retcon it slightly. We’ll all be at liberty to ignore or incorporate the amendments according to personal preference.
But to be honest, I really don’t think we’ll see anything that will remotely affect how we view TTP in the future.
26 July 2017 at 12:45 #61451@Nick–
That’s a bit harsh. Rather than a moment of Ego, I’d argue that the culmination of the Impossible Girl arc (I think I’d have to go with ‘girl’, ‘woman’ sounds a bit Theresa May for my liking) is the pinnacle of SM’s achievements on the show. And he did it for a very good reason, I think. To free future showrunners from the burden of 50 years of canon without erasing that canon in the process. In future, if CC or those that come after him decide to bring back, say, the Sea Devils and want to do it in a particular way, then he’ll no longer have the obsessives (who? us?) on his case ‘that can’t happen because blah-de-blah-de-blah’. In future, they’ll have access to the canon without being constricted by it and that to my mind is the greatest gift any writer could have given to the show in its 50th year. It also shows more respect for the show than say Terrance Dicks who on more than one occasion said that he and Holmes didn’t really give a stuff what had come before and would pick and choose from continuity for what they needed to make the current story work.
The idea that there is any need to add a scene so that Polly is more attuned to the idea of regeneration than Ben – not withstanding that they both watched it happen – (if that is what he has done) would be high level fanwankery
Well, it’s not strictly necessary, no but at the same time another of SM’s mission statements seems to have been to tidy up what contradictions in continuity that he can, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to do this one too. And, yes, while both Ben and Polly both see the regeneration, it takes Ben a lot longer to accept it. If there’s an inserted scene where she gets prior clues to what’s happening to the Doc then that makes more sense.
Rewriting someone else’s story because some fans think the end doesn’t quite make sense ?
I don’t think he is doing that though. He’s writing a story called Twice Upon A Time that might (but quite possibly might not) include scenes that overlap with another one called The Tenth Planet. It’s not like he’s rewriting TTP and presenting us with that at Christmas.
25 July 2017 at 23:37 #61445@wolfweed–
Love it. Maybe we’ll see 1 regenerate into someone else entirely and Ben was right and we’ve been watching the exploits of an impostor for the past 50 years.
But with regards to ‘new’ scenes of The Tenth Planet — if they do happen, they’ll be totally faithful, I reckon and with no word changes. (Though part of me would be amused if SM did insert the First Doc saying ‘wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey’ just for the sheer outrage value.) No, I think the best analogy will be it’ll be like the Tribbles episode of DS9. A nice adjunct that doesn’t in any way affect the original.
But I have to say I do like the idea of seeing some Tenth Planet action. For me that Hartnell scene is the most compelling of the trailer and I find it fascinating the way that Bradley has recreated those lines while not just copying them. There’s some subtle inflections of his own take on the character there. I’m really looking forward to seeing more of that.
And I do think Pip’s idea of a rewatch of the Tenth Planet before Christmas might be good. Not only to refresh our memories in case it’s a significant part of the spesh, but also to see how it segues into WEAT.
25 July 2017 at 21:56 #61439@Nick–
Refilming a small part of an old episode around the regeneration is one thing, but adding new scenes into someone else’s writing shows nothing but Moff’s hubris.
Don’t know about that. Both Branagh and Olivier took it upon themselves to insert scenes and modify others when they filmed Shakespeare. Not sure this would be much different. But as I said, SM has always shown a real care and consideration for the show’s history and continuity so I think it’s the last thing he would think of doing, or at least not without a lot of care and respect.
Personally I don’t see why not. If it’s possibly to use 50-year-old source material and make it fresh and relevant again, I think that can only be a good thing. It’d only be hubris to my mind if he was also somehow inserting it into the original Tenth Planet as well in some kind of weird Lucas-ey way.
25 July 2017 at 20:51 #61436@wolfweed–
personally I like the Cyberman asking for names. (Don’t tell him, Pike!) Plus I’ve always felt that the Cybermen are misunderstood good guys here. They’re trying to save people in their own cack-handed, bureaucratic way.
25 July 2017 at 20:26 #61433@nick–
I’m not sure the existing regeneration footage is of good enough quality to do anything but a reshoot with. As far as I recall, it’s second generation stuff and only exists because of being incorporated into a Blue Peter episode.
As to the Polly clip, looking at the trailer (yet) again, it’s pretty clearly not inside the TARDIS but in the control room for the South Pole base from The Tenth Planet — and a pretty impressive reconstruction it is too, so that suggests either a reconstruction of a scene from episodes 1-3 or a previously unseen scene. Either way, that’s pretty easy to account for narratively.
25 July 2017 at 18:49 #61427@wolfweed–
yes, I think PC was doing himself a disservice when he said that his ‘eyebrows’ shot in the 50th special was his iconic moment because to me this is it. This is his ‘do I have the right/small beautiful moments/one day I shall come back’ moment and it’s a great one. It speaks to his whole arc as the Doctor. He moves from ‘Am I good man’, to ‘I’m a madman with a box and a screwdriver’ to finally understanding what it means to be the Doctor. That he’s just figured it out is one of the key reasons why he doesn’t want to go yet. Getting to that point involved no small amount of soul-searching and pain and he’s scared that it’ll all end up being for nothing.
Of course, the other great thing about this scene is that it’s also John Simm’s defining moment as the Master. And possibly Michelle Gomez’s too. She does amazing work in this scene with barely a scrap of dialogue.
25 July 2017 at 18:44 #61426@nick–
Moff could write and show that, but I rather hope he doesnt. If he wants to show the first Doctor regeneration then in my opinion he should use the original footage (adding some colour if he must).
Except that aside from the seconds of the regeneration itself, none of that footage exists any longer. I wouldn’t blame Moffat if he wanted to rectify the issue of at least having all the regenerations of the Doctor existing in some form or another. Now, knowing that SM is a massive BG fan and generally incredibly respectful of the show as a whole I don’t see him doing anything like that and that we won’t see the Hartnell regeneration at all. But personally I do kind of want to see it ‘done properly’. I think I’m more open to a bit of BG retconning than even SM is. It’s 50 years ago, after all, and as long as continuity isn’t directly contravened I don’t have a massive problem with a bit of tweaking to make a virtue of what was a necessity back in the day.
One thing no one seems to have commented on regarding the trailer is the apparent Polly footage with Capaldi Doctor. I’ll be interested to see what they do, but it seems plausible that the footage will alter the end of The Tenth Planet and the beginning of Power of the Daleks regeneration scenes, which continue on the theme is this really the Doctor well into that story. I think that would be a real shame.
As @genek1953 says, the Polly footage seems to be with Bradley’s 1st Doctor rather than the 12th, although that doesn’t mean they won’t meet during the course of the episode, of course. I don’t see that it will alter the end of TP or start of PotD. If anything (as pointed out by a commentator over at Radio Times) that scene might help clear up an age-old Who continuity question — why Polly was far more accepting that Troughton was the Doctor than Ben was.
25 July 2017 at 15:40 #61418@genek1953 — not necessarily (and I personally could see Reece Sheersmith’s execrable Troughton on AiSaT far enough). It could just end with both Doctors taking their leave of each other and returning to their own TARDISes to regenerate in peace.
24 July 2017 at 22:19 #61399@blenkinsopthebrave — I might have got there first, but your post expresses it far more elegantly…
24 July 2017 at 21:50 #61395@nick — Baker said that if JW wasn’t any good she could be replaced, which is hardly earth-shattering and doesn’t live up the spin the Star is putting on it. (Fake News! Sad!)
Purves said he would be ‘horrified’ by a female Doctor. But this was before the JW announcement. I wonder if anyone’s gone back to him since. And I’d imagine since DavisonGate, he’d go for a firm ‘no comment’ if he’s wise….
24 July 2017 at 21:46 #61394@wolfweed–
Yes, I was wondering about that myself.
24 July 2017 at 20:35 #61389@wolfweed–
It’s fair enough to challenge Davison’s viewpoint (But in a polite, constructive way). It’s not about winning – It’s about being kind.
If we had recommends on here, you’d get a thousand for this comment.
But yes the factionalisation of the whole debate is just horrible — and it’s what, I’m afraid to say, the Press seems to be doing more and more. We’re no longer allowed reasoned debate. It has to be House Stark vs House Lannister. Slytherin versus Gryffindor. Brexiter versus Remain. Cybernat versus Yoon. It’s not healthy and it’s degrading our society, I think.
I also suspect that the whole issue of a female Doctor has been co-opted on both sides by groups who don’t really give a damn about the show either way but who are just using it as another means to fight their usual special-interest battles.
24 July 2017 at 20:00 #61387@wolfweed — I saw Davison has quit Twitter and it is a real shame because his original comments have been totally misrepresented. He was very encouraging about JW and did little more than ‘wonder’ about the removal of a male role model. Personally I think he’s worrying unnecessarily for reasons gone into in detail elsewhere but that doesn’t mean his concerns are unjustified or should be ridiculed. And it certainly doesn’t mean he should be attacked or hounded from a public forum.
But really, it emphasises once again that aspects of fandom really need to take a long, hard look at themselves. SM was hounded off Twitter unnecessarily — and how great would it been if he’d been continuing to Tweet all this time? Davison’s been a great envoy on Twitter too. @nick is right and this all so unnecessary and really ‘wait and see’ is all anyone on either side of the debate should be doing. But speaking as someone who has been known to ply his trade in the murky world of newspapers, SM is still dead right that some journalists really need to be taken to task, particularly the ones who’ve taken it upon themselves to what essentially amounts to slut-shaming JW for having the temerity to take what they perceive to be an exclusively male role.
On polls, the Radio Times, I think, did a poll a few days back which gave the 80/20 split. And I’m starting to think that sympathy with the ‘traditionalist’ POV can only go so far and @juniperfish might have a point on @cathannabel‘s blog that the argument from tradition is often (although obviously not always) used as a cover for something a little more insidious (and that’s leaving aside the clearly rug-chewing unpleasant misogynists that you’ll find on Twitter, FaceBook and YouTube and who can safely be discounted completely).
24 July 2017 at 18:50 #61382@blenkinsopthebrave–
One would hope that certain sections of the Press take SM’s advice, given here….
24 July 2017 at 12:38 #61378I’d agree with @drben and @hiker that Capaldi does have a definite arc and it’s a truly satisfying one.
Just for yucks, my favourite of his episodes would be:
1. Heaven Sent
2. World Enough and Time
3. The Doctor Falls
4. Listen
5. The Magician’s Apprentice
6. The Zygon Inversion
7. Kill The Moon
8. Hell Bent
9. The Pilot
10. Mummy on the Orient ExpressBut just going back over those episodes myself, I’m amazed at just how strong his whole run was. There’s a couple of clunkers in there but not many….
24 July 2017 at 00:33 #61365@blenkinsopthebrave — you’re probably right that the War Games might be too involved a link to bring into the mix. (Although there are ways you could do it, and there are ways you could reference Troughton without actually having someone playing him — body double from a distance, CGI’s footage etc.) It just strikes me as a massive coincidence to have a double regeneration story that just happens to be (partially?) set somewhere associated with yet another regeneration.
I think the resonant link thing does suggest something to do with the Brigadier, although at the moment there’s really nothing else to suggest it except the uniform. And if that is the sole link, then surely there are other conflicts they could have chosen (although WWI does have the Christmas link too, I suppose).
Hmm, very interesting. This could prove to be an absolute belter of a Christmas special.
23 July 2017 at 23:59 #61358@lisa–
But which Time Lord would want an Earth army and why?
Off the top of my head, this fellow maybe?
23 July 2017 at 23:42 #61354Oh, and can I just say I’m kind of unsurprised but still bummed out that Pearl won’t be back next year….
23 July 2017 at 23:41 #61353@wolfweed–
I wouldn’t be massively surprised to see Missy one more time, despite the vehement denials. It would give the 12 era closure. Plus it would be fab.
But what I really, really want to see is Bradley turning to the camera and going ‘and a Merry Christmas to all you at home’.
23 July 2017 at 23:25 #61350@wolfweed–
Looks like. And I love the recreation of the base from the Tenth Planet. Looks like we might even get ‘missing scenes’ from that story. And there’s something quite cool about seeing the First Doctor having, or at least starting, a modern regeneration.
23 July 2017 at 22:25 #6133623 July 2017 at 22:13 #61333@wolfweed–
Michelle Gomez is ace. It’ll be such a shame if this is the end of her involvement in the show because she’s been just fab on and off screen….
23 July 2017 at 19:31 #61326A Cushing nod would be great. Am I the only one who thinks that Daleks Invasion Earth 2150AD is superior to The Dalek Invasion of Earth? The first film, not so much.
Some great bonkerising on the Gatiss link btw….
22 July 2017 at 01:39 #61275@miapatrick–
Belated congratulations….
21 July 2017 at 23:17 #61270@drben–
I want to see his regeneration be much more peaceful — not fire and destruction like 10-11, or crash landing the TARDIS like 11-12. Just a change, and 13 opens her eyes without confusion or dread, but in full awareness of her past and an eagerness to move forward. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
Yes, it would be. I really like that idea. We haven’t had a ‘peaceful’ regeneration for such a long time. Since Hartnell>Troughton, interestingly enough.
21 July 2017 at 21:50 #61266I didn’t mind the Rose/10 thing, although its conclusion was a bit soupy for my liking. My rationalisation was that the Doctor had had loving — and probably sexual — relationships with certain BG companions, it was just that it hadn’t been made explicitly clear before because of the nature of the show. Certainly in my headcanon, Doctor 4 and Sarah-Jane acted like a married couple in their interactions and I see no reason why they can’t have been in a relationship. Similarly, Doctor 4 and Romana and Doctor 6 and Peri.
But, yes, the problem is that in modern Who that aspect of the Doctor’s life does need to be addressed and the Martha storyline made it clear that a mooning, unrequited companion isn’t really going to work long-term, any more than rehashing the Rose story would. River to my mind was an elegant way around the solution and I loved every minute of that arc. By having the Doctor a married man, it establishes his romantic credentials — to persist with the ‘s/he’s not interested in sex would just not convince these days and might even be treated with some suspicion — while getting around the constant wondering about the precise relationship with the companion.
It’s going to be interesting to see how CC deals with this now that the Doctor is a woman. It’d be fun to see River return but I highly doubt she will. It’s unlikely that CC will want to use SM’s characters, any more than SM had any interest in using RTDs.
21 July 2017 at 14:47 #61246That’s sad news. And going too young too.
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