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21 July 2016 at 09:33 #53378
@missy One of the Big Finish audios tackled Boudica, “The Wrath of the Iceni”. It was a good, if dark, Fourth Doctor/Leela adventure (Leela initially decides to leave the Doctor to fight alongside her!). As with most all Fourth Doctor audios, it’s only an hour long, so it could be adapted into the TV show without having to drop much of the plot; obviously it would have to be rethought for a different Doctor/companion team, but the basic “bones” of the story are very strong.
20 July 2016 at 22:40 #53367Looking above at the comments about people who complain the show’s not what it used to be…
I confess to being a bit of a sinner in that regard. I sampled all of the classic Doctors when I got into the show in the ’90s, and lots of expanded universe stuff. I found the Fourth Doctor to be my favorite and focused on his era (as a young, hungry college student I had only so much money for VHS tapes!). When the series was revived in ’05, I wound up binge watching Series 1 and later worked my way through most of Series 2…but while I knew it was quality work, it wasn’t my preferred “flavor” of Who, much the way I wasn’t a fan of the New Adventures novels. So I just moved on to other interests, but I kept up with major news about the show and didn’t waste time complaining about it in forums and the like. Why be a negative Nellie? 😉
Last summer, I was feeling a bit guilty about not being better caught up with things, not liking the feeling of being an outsider in a larger, bigger fandom. I was nervous about sampling the Twelfth Doctor’s stories, because an online critic I respected, who’s been a Who-fan for years, had been dismissing Moffat-era stories right and left and was coming down especially hard not only on Twelve’s stories, but on Twelve as a character. With all that negative talk, and the understanding that Series 8 did have an often-gloomy story arc when all was said and done, I was prepared to sample one or two of the better-regarded episodes, and move on. Just to have some headcanon.
But I worked my way through the bulk of Series 8 and wound up loving the character of the Twelfth Doctor, warts and all, and feeling awful that I hadn’t just gone in cold and instead let online chatter scare me off. Soon I started writing fan poems — I’d never felt such a drive to create before — and not a month had gone by before I sent Peter Capaldi a fan letter and one of my better poems, just as I’d done once upon a time with Tom Baker. (Both men sent me a sweet personal reply.)
And that was how I watched Series 9 as it unfolded, bearing up under mountains of feels, ending with the sheer joy of the realization that he got a “happy ending” at last. And while I still respect that critic, a good person, it breaks my heart that she thinks so little of the show right now; save for the Zygon 2-parter and “Sleep No More”, oddly enough, she disliked/hated every episode of that season. Yes, even “Heaven Sent”. I couldn’t bear to read the full reviews.
I’ve felt very happy to become a part of this forum — I feel welcome, the conversation is fun and constructive, and positive! <3 <3
20 July 2016 at 22:14 #53364Yeah, I think that by the time he regenerates, or perhaps when he regenerates, the whole business about memory and Clara will be settled, done and dusted. After all, Ten said goodbye to his companions and other associates, and Eleven had a vision of Amy. Twelve will likely find final closure regarding Clara when he comes to his destiny.
Actually, I think one of the most intriguing questions about Twelve is what his total story arc will turn out to be. It has to be something bigger than Clara, bigger than finding Gallifrey…something cosmic that will tie everything together.
20 July 2016 at 22:02 #53363@roshin I think it would be nice to have a fanworks corner at the official website. Actually, the official Tumblr for the show already features a lot of that. (http://doctorwho.tumblr.com) It’s run by BBC America and alongside basic show news and updates, it basically combs the whole of Tumblr for the best fan art, cosplay pictures, etc., updating a few times every day. (A poem I wrote about “Under the Lake” was reblogged by them.) It’s well worth a look!
20 July 2016 at 14:37 #53350Well, Matt Smith has debunked the “degeneration” rumors, so there’s that.
Elsewhere, Titan Comics dropped the ball on Supremacy of the Cybermen — Part Two was supposed to arrive today, but they’ve missed the deadline. Now, last year they botched their first multi-Doctor story Four Doctors by publishing the final issue two weeks late when it was supposed to be five weeks, five issues, so Supremacy being announced as biweekly was clearly meant to avoid a similar blunder, but instead, it fell behind far sooner…this one better be really good. (The first issue was strong, but I’m worrying that the structure/setup will take too long to team up the Doctors — at the end of Part One, they were all in separate time/space locations, with not a hint as to how they’ll get together.)
20 July 2016 at 14:30 #53349Ooooooo, that speech! Much as I love Doctor Who, and as moving as so many of Twelve’s episodes have been that’s the one scene that well and truly reduced me to tears when I first saw it. I should watch it every day, but I don’t. 😉
(Also, Bonnie the Zygon was my personal favorite of the Series 9 villains, not counting ones who were previously established such as Davros, Missy, et.al. And even then, she ranks pretty high.)
20 July 2016 at 14:21 #53348@missy As I noted above, Twelve <i>has</i> met Charlotte Bronte in the comics, in “Unearthly Things”. That story could easily be fleshed out into a one-off episode, the way some of the audio dramas and novels have wound up being adapted, if often loosely, into the series. But without Clara as the companion, it wouldn’t be the same — Charlotte’s not revealed as Bronte until the end, and the punchline is that the adventure winds up inspiring Jane Eyre, with Twelve and Clara the analogues to Mr. Rochester and Jane.
I’ve heard nothing about the launch date for Class either, and have no idea if it will air in the U.S. The Sarah Jane Adventures only aired its first season on SciFi Channel back when they were airing Who, before BBC America got first-run U.S. rights. (That said, it is available on U.S. DVD in its entirety.) I think one reason that show didn’t get a U.S. foothold is that here, children’s shows are pretty much limited to animation or broad live-action comedies these days; Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, et.al. have no interest in dramatic shows.
(Though Disney XD actually aired Who reruns last summer in a Saturday night timeslot, starting with Series 2 episodes, capping off a block of animated action shows. It didn’t take; they cut bait after “Human Nature”/”The Family of Blood”.)
I wish we’d hear more about the Christmas show soon! (bouncy bouncy) Especially as there’s so little information about anything else Who-related right now! (Titan Comics has already botched the Supremacy of the Cybermen rollout — Part Two of Five was supposed to be released today, but nope.)
20 July 2016 at 14:03 #53347About the whole issue of the graffiti still being on the TARDIS — I was asking at TVTropes why the Doctor’s mind wipe wouldn’t be more or less moot once he was back in it, because surely he had pictures, mementos, etc. of Clara in there that would jog his memory — and the TARDIS itself would remember her. Someone suggested that she must have “de-Claraized” it beforehand, since she had her own key, and did leave behind the message on the chalkboard and the new Crombie coat. But if she was being that thorough about it, why leave the graffiti intact? 😀
In the meantime, yeah, “pep talk” wasn’t the best choice of words regarding Clara’s final speech in this episode. But still, I bet she regrets telling him to heal himself. Because he tried…by burning a billion billion hearts in a confession dial! 😉
It just bugged me that she couldn’t have couched her “order” to him in a more positive fashion — saying that she can’t do anything about his suffering, etc. Why not ask Ashildr not to teleport him into the hands of his enemies? Now I understand that she knew that Ashildr only went along with the plot to keep the trap street safe, and Clara didn’t want the Doctor to hurt her or anyone else — as the Doctor himself put it in his closing lines. But even so, why does the Doctor have to be sold down the river and suffer? Sure, he loves the long game, but why not at least tell him that he isn’t really going to be alone — that he has to think not only of her but of all the other people in the universe who love and care for him. That perhaps if he is kind, good, and strong, he’ll get the help he needs. That would be more motivating than telling him he’ll be alone and might not be strong enough to resist his darker impulses. But that’s just me!
19 July 2016 at 16:43 #53335@missy Yeah, those are all fan-favorites really! I think it would be neat if the promised “guest companion” in this year’s Christmas show turned out to be a historical figure. Trouble is, I can’t think of one that is perfect for the Christmas theme, since they already used Charles Dickens and I don’t think the prospect of the Doctor visiting the Nativity would go without major criticism! 😉
(grumblegrumble) With all of the ugh news in the world, Christmas and Series 10 can’t come soon enough, especially with so little expanded universe stuff besides the comics to tide us Twelfth Doctor fans over. Would a “bonus” short or two or three be too much to ask? (I loved “The Doctor’s Meditation”.) Something for Children in Need perhaps?
18 July 2016 at 18:10 #53326@missy It’s okay if you don’t like comics! I didn’t get into them until my late 20s, and even then, I have no interest in the titles most comic book shops stock — i.e. the standard superhero titles. Barnes and Noble actually has a far superior variety available, albeit in collected hardbacks and paperbacks (which makes it fascinating that they stock the monthly Who titles — which actual comic book shops in my area don’t seem to). And I can be very picky on the quality of artwork; the look of the Titan Comics title for the Eleventh Doctor was so off-putting to me I took a pass on it, though it sounds fascinating (it’s extremely serialized compared to its sister titles).
18 July 2016 at 18:03 #53325Oh yeah @missy, I was bringing this up on TVTropes the other day: Twelve hasn’t met a “historical domain character” yet on the show! Even Eleven got to meet Vincent van Gogh and Winston Churchill, after all. 😉
(It is a different story in the comics for Twelve. In the Titan Comics title, he encounters Charlotte Bronte in “Unearthly Things”, a good one-issue story. In the Doctor Who Magazine comic, he’s so far met Field Marshal Rommel in “The Instruments of War”, Harry Houdini in “Theatre of the Mind”, and Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, in “Witch Hunt”.)
The other big hope I have for Series 10 doing more one-off stories is that we’ll finally see some exciting, new alien worlds. In Series 8 and 9, there wasn’t a story spent exploring/dealing with an alien planet — its culture, creatures, etc. — that wasn’t already well-established in the Whoniverse (i.e. Skaro and Gallifrey); Karabraxos was as close as we got to something like that. Especially with all the teases of amazing places that the Doctor and Clara were always juuuuuust coming back from/heading off to, I’d like to see some fresh worldbuilding in Series 10.
18 July 2016 at 17:46 #53324@ichabod No, you’re not overthinking it; you and the other commenters make good points. At the very least you’re not overthinking it any more than I tend to overthink things. And as an autistic woman, I overthink things a lot! 😉
That smooch on the knuckles was improvised?!? Wow!
17 July 2016 at 21:27 #53311@ichabod Thank you!
Try Barnes & Noble for the comics. They have been stocking the monthly titles (Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve) in the entertainment magazine section. iBooks has the monthly titles and crossovers, plus the Free Comic Book Day anthologies. As well, there are now hardback collections of the monthly titles in the Graphic Novels section if you want to catch up on them — they only launched most of these series in late 2014, so it’s not hard. Nine’s title hasn’t been around a year yet.
One of the best Twelfth Doctor comics so far was Issue 2.5, “The Fourth Wall” — a wonderful one-shot story involving comic books gone awry thanks to the Boneless! Twelve makes some very funny snipes at superhero comics in the early going, too. “Amazona” (i.e. Wonder Woman) would be no match for Leela! 😉
Also — Capaldi is my favorite Doctor, too. I’ve been a fan since the 1996 TV movie, of all things, and Tom Baker’s Doctor is still my favorite old-school lead, but Capaldi brought me back into the fold after I abandoned the revival midway through Series 2 — I knew it was quality TV, but it didn’t give me the frission the original series did at its best. Capaldi/Twelve gives me that and more, although I’m often overwhelmed by feels as a result.
17 July 2016 at 18:51 #53309Hey — correct me if I’m mistaken, but there doesn’t seem to be a place to discuss the Expanded Universe. Seems chewing the fat over that would be a great way of biding time until Series 10!
I’m a big fan of the Titan Comics Twelfth Doctor title (I’m now completely caught up with it, save for a few of the gag strips and last year’s “Four Doctors” crossover miniseries), especially in “Year Two”, which has superior artwork — Rachael Stott’s art, in particular, is gorgeous — and recently moved on to post-“Hell Bent”/pre-“Husbands of River Song” stories after spending the first “year” and the first five issues of Two with 12/Clara stories. They’re teasing the possibility of 12 getting an original companion at some point, the way Ten and Eleven do in their comics. 😉
In addition, Supremacy of the Cybermen, this year’s crossover comic miniseries (between the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors’ titles) recently started — and it’s a direct sequel to certain events in “Hell Bent”! Part Two of Five comes out this Wednesday.
17 July 2016 at 18:43 #53308Awww…(hugs Missy)
Yeah, I know puroandson — Ashildr does have reasons for her coldness. I imagine Twelve talking with Elphaba, the anti-heroine of Wicked (specifically the musical’s version of the character) about the troubles with making life-or-death choices with fantastical abilities in the heat of the moment! She has a whole song on the topic, “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”: “Sure, I meant well — well, look at what well-meant did!” 😉
I too wonder how Nardole will be incorporated into Series 10, but I liked the character. And if it means that the season can be at least a little brighter than Series 9 was, I’m all for it. The word that there will be more one-part stories suggests we’ll have some “fun” stories again. Not that Series 9 was humorless, far from it, but the focus on multi-parters meant there wasn’t any fun goings-on that couldn’t be shot to heck in the final 10 or so minutes. I didn’t have any major issues with “Sleep No More”, but maybe that should have been held off for a season in order to have a fun episode prior to “Face the Raven”…
17 July 2016 at 18:22 #53307I thought this episode was effective and moving, but the weakest part of the finale three-parter. Part of it was that Clara’s death felt too contrived — even with the rules laid out about how the chronolock worked, it never explained why the Doctor couldn’t just stop or destroy the quantum shade itself before it could unjustly slay Clara, given that he knew what it was and how it worked. Aren’t words his weapons? Why not talk to it before it was too late?
Also, it really bothered me that the other characters present for the climax didn’t do anything to help the Doctor. Couldn’t somebody have subdued Ashildr before he was teleported away, and/or gone for help? Heck, why didn’t he do that and make a break for the TARDIS and get to prying that bracelet off? (He’s got lots of keys, remember, to the TARDIS and otherwise.)
Finally, Clara Oswald gave a terrible “pep talk” to him before her demise — basically telling him “You can’t handle this and nobody cares about you and your feelings, but you have to be everybody’s martyr anyway.” No wonder he decides not to listen in the next episode!
I’m hoping that the Doctor calls in his debt to Anahson and her mum next season… 😉
14 July 2016 at 18:35 #53264I like all of PCap’s costumes as the Doctor so far!
I just keep trying to figure out what his story arc is building towards. Since it wasn’t finding Gallifrey, it has to be something else. I wonder what will drive the action in Series 10…
11 July 2016 at 18:37 #53224I think this particular rumor is terribly silly, and it’s a shame people are spreading it. From these and other rumors gaining ground, one would think that poor PCap wasn’t wanted as the Doctor. PCap brought me back to modern Doctor Who (I’m a big classic series fan, specifically Four’s era) after I grew bored with Series 2 — and that was really impressive given all the bad online press Twelve/Series 8 got. Once I actually started watching Twelve’s episodes, I regretted not getting into it sooner. Series 9 wound up being the first season I watched unfold in “real time”, as it were.
I’d rather see more speculation about what Twelve will be up to this season. Given that what looked to be his big, tenure-spanning story arc has already been resolved, I’m wondering if something bigger and bolder isn’t in the cards for him by the time he regenerates. Twelve hasn’t had a Bad Wolf, Big Bang, or Moment-style miracle yet…
24 June 2016 at 17:16 #52874It is a huge tonal shift from Series 9, which great as much of it was did have a frequent case of the glums, even with all of its fun dialogue and humorous setpieces. There weren’t any just-for-fun/low-drama episodes like “Robot of Sherwood” or “In the Forest of the Night”; the ones that came closest to those (“The Girl Who Died”, “Face the Raven”) turned out to be setting up extremely sad events. That was probably because of the focus on multi-part stories, since it’s difficult to make a low-stakes plot exciting enough to span two or three episodes.
Frankly, I was glad to finally see poor Twelve get thrown a bone in this story, after he was put through the wringer and turned into a punching bag for other characters from “Face the Raven” onwards. It really, really would have helped if a significant character besides Clara actually cared about what he was going through and/or tried to help him, especially since all of them are in his and/or Clara’s debt. Instead, I wound up despising the ungrateful, cowardly Time Lords, coldhearted Ohila, and snotty Ashildr, and hoping he calls in his favors to Rigsy and Anahson and her mum sometime!
“The Husbands of River Song” is actually the one Series 9-related story I’ve watched the whole way through more than once so far, in part because it manages to be goofy and funny, yet poignant and romantic. It’s the best Season 17 story we never had, and I’m with those who regard it, and not “Hell Bent”, as the real Series 9 finale! 😉
23 June 2016 at 13:52 #52856Hi, thanks for the welcome! 🙂
I’m a little unclear on your comment — are you saying that my idea of an epilogue in which the Doctor goes back to Karn, and he and Ohila mend fences and he’s finally shown compassion by someone else, actually happened? If that’s the case, why wasn’t it shown onscreen?
Come to think of it — why doesn’t he just go back to Gallifrey now that he knows the way and clear things up? What can they hold against him? Who wants to be the guy who condemns a poor old hero to death over the actions he took when he was mentally unstable thanks to torture…torture they can be seen as responsible for (since nobody tried to free him from the dial)? Way too many holes in the ending there. Perhaps this year’s Christmas special will focus on Gallifrey and getting things patched up.
23 June 2016 at 10:35 #52854I’m a newbie here, but my Doctor Who poetry Tumblr Poems of an Unknown Companion has been around for a few months. All poems featured are original to me unless noted; I do occasionally reblog pretty poems from other writers, but there’s a surprising dearth of Whovian poetry out there. A big gap to fill! I am also working on a lengthy fanfic set between “Hell Bent” and “The Husbands of River Song” featuring the Doctor’s healing process between the two stories — and the surprising heroine who helps him. I hope to start posting that this fall.
I try to give all of the Doctors some love (I’ve been a fan since the gap years), but the bulk of the poems are Twelfth Doctor (aka The Deep and Lovely Dark)-specific. Beware spoilers if you haven’t seen Series 9 yet!
I don’t consider myself a shipper, but I do acknowledge and explore the canonical, and to my mind romantic, relationships between 12/Clara and 12/River.
23 June 2016 at 10:21 #52852Hi, I’m a newbie!
I liked this episode more when I saw it back in December, but over time, I’ve been rather troubled by a major shortcoming of the story: Namely, that <i>only Clara</i> treats a poor, insane, bereaved torture victim with any measure of kindness or compassion for his pain. The Drylanders treated him kindly, but it doesn’t look like they were having heart-to-heart talks about bereavement with him.
Basically, the Time Lords and Ohila were so lacking in compassion for his recent losses and hideous torture and mental breakdown that part of me wanted to see him prove ’em all wrong and get what he wanted — perhaps his true love proving powerful enough to hold the universe together.
Failing that, I would have preferred an ending in which Clara just returned to her death ‘cuz she has to at some point, and the Doctor expects the Time Lords to punish him — but as he showed compassion to so many others this season no matter what they did, they and Ohila treat him compassionately for his returning to the light, to make up for how wickedly he was treated.
Or maybe we could have had the ending we did, followed by a brief epilogue on Karn. The Doctor turns up again to talk to Ohila, but they just share a long, long, hug…what a beautiful ending that would have been — healing and forgiveness. A beautiful bookend.
Why didn’t the Moff do that? I still like the episode fine enough, and loved the Christmas show afterward, but all this seemed like a huge missed opportunity. Anyone agree that my Karn epilogue would have been great?
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