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14 December 2023 at 03:33 #75009
Why adapt The Star Beast?
The story was written in the first year of Doctor Who Weekly in 1980. Very different times. I was 10 for a start! Living in the industrial Midlands in a mining town.
Obviously @jimthefish has talked enthusiastically about the production transition from comic to screen and I share his awe. 10 year old me would have been amazed. I’m not going to talk about that aspect, it’s more about the peripheral details and ‘feel’ of the comic book story. It also deals with representation. @juniperfish and others have talked about representation for the Trans community with Rose, but the original Comic also tackles some representation issues.
I’ve mentioned elements of The Star Beast before. In 2016 I wrote that I didn’t recognise the term Soap Opera as valid criticism and explained why in relation to the history of Doctor Who. I included The Star Beast as an example of Doctor Who that was much more progressive than, say, much of the early to mid eighties run of Doctor Who on TV.
Largely, during the 70s and 80s much of TV had a distinctive ‘Middle Class’ feel. I pointed out that the main place you’d hear a working class accent was a soap like Coronation Street. The fact that this middle class attitude extended to Doctor Who isn’t that contentious. Especially when stories were set on Earth. All those quaint picturesque villages next to suspicious barrows, standing stones or secret government facilities? Working class characters seemed restricted to tramps, poachers, gamekeepers and comedy Welsh miners. Not great representation is it? At least we had Sergeant Benton, I suppose.
Enter Pat Mills, comic writer, who certainly didn’t think this was great. Pat was in his late twenties, had been into punk music and was very socially aware. Very interested in representation of class and race. He wanted to base a story in the ‘real world’. Talking it through with Dave Gibbons, artist, they decided to set it somewhere everyone would immediately recognise as ‘working class’. That’s right – they used Coronation Street as the basis for the fictional town of Blackcastle.
That’s genius. The introductory panels showing Fudge and Sharon walking in school uniforms through streets of Victorian Terraced houses. The strange skeletal structures of industrial buildings looming in the background. Litter blowing about. A scene those living in the industrial areas of the UK would easily recognise. Fudge – excitable, going on about spaceships. Sharon – more subdued, assuring him that sci-fi will rot his brain.
It’s strangely similar to the approach used by RTD in 2005 to indicate the class of the Tyler family. In the space in between 1980 and 2005, some git had invented EastEnders as the BBC answer to Coronation Street, and the Powell Estate drew on EastEnders style in much the same way.
Much as Jacquie Tyler is functionally an EastEnders character, when you meet Fudge’s mum in Star Beast, she’s functionally Hilda Ogden from Coronation Street. Apron, hairnet, chain-smoking. The humour in these scenes is quite Pythonesque/Douglas Adams.
Moving on, remember Trinity Wells (the American newsreader from 2005-10)? The one who’d explain the wider ramifications of a story? In The Star Beast it’s actually Angela Rippon on TV, telling you that UNIT forces are deploying to support the local troops and other little details. It’s bizarre that before this, the TV show had never really used the TV medium in this way to expand a story.
It’s also very cute with Pop Culture references, something the TV show at the time didn’t really do. For example, A Wrarth surgeon, asked to implant a bomb in the Doctor, is revolted. “His Skeleton is on the inside…..I’m a surgeon, not a vet!!”. Hey, at 10, I could spot a Star Trek gag.
At one point the Doctor, Meep and Sharon escape the Wrarth by jumping onto a double decker bus. I mean, the Doctor. In an adventure on a bus! Who would be crazy enough to think that up (looks pointedly at Planet of the Dead). Tucked away in the corner of the bus is a chap looking panicked. The thought bubble reads “Oh no, Please don’t let them sit next to me”! It’s actually a comedian called Jasper Carrott who was very big at the time. He had a routine asking “why does the nutter on the bus sit next to me”. It’s a pop culture joke and Celebrity cameo rolled into one. All flavors of awesome.
All this before you get to the fact that Sharon is black. She’s a black teenager with issues in a working class environment. Whose loneliness and empathy make her think she’s forged a bond with the Meep only to discover he’s a hate filled narcissistic xenophobe. How woke! Sorry, this predated casual usage of that term by some time. In fact it predates ‘politically correctness gone mad’ by some time as well.Let’s sum up. Back in 1980 Star Beast used the conventions of Soap Opera to tell an allegorical tale of Tolerance V. Intolerance that was fast paced, funny, nodded to the pop culture that kids were consuming and set in what to many was their world. That’s not bad. It took TV 25 years to really catch up.
I’m not accusing RTD of stealing or anything ridiculous like that. He would have been 15 at the time. I bet ‘being in charge of Doctor Who’ didn’t even occur to him back then. He also added a considerable amount of character work and other tricks he’d developed over the years to his mix. When he says he genuinely loved this story I don’t think was lying. Maybe the similarities have been pointed out to him over the years and this was an opportunity to say thank you. Let’s face it – that credit to Pat and Dave on the bottom on the intro screen was well deserved.
We never got Sharon’s story as envisaged by Pat Mills. He and writing partner John Wagner stopped working for Marvel not long after this story. Dave Gibbons followed months later. Marvel had promised them a modicum of control of how reprints would be used and went back on that promise. Firstly reprints in the UK, and then runs of the first few stories in the United States in Marvel Premiere (#57 was the first one I think).
Marvel in the US had realised that the weird property their UK guys had obtained was actually being talked about in comic shops as PBS were showing it. The reaction trial in Marvel Premiere was strong. Comics readers in the states liked the humour, weirdness and loved Gibbons art which was different to what they were used to. A US Doctor Who comic was started. The first story? The Star Beast.
At best estimates, between Doctor Who Weekly, The US Marvel run, Graphic novel collections by Pannini, IDW and Marvel themselves, Star Beast has been reprinted at least 1.6 million times. In contrast, the most well respected New Adventure novel, Human Nature, only ever got a run of 35,000 copies. As soon as those set pictures leaked #beepthemeep trended worldwide on social media. How bizarre is that?
So I’m glad the BBC did the right thing and got Pat and Dave involved at the filming, treated them well, gave them credit and invited them to the premiere. As Dave has said “They even paid us, which they didn’t have to do”. Not all artists and writers who have worked for Marvel have been even that lucky.
14 December 2023 at 03:26 #75008I’d been meaning to come back to this story for a while, and then Tuesday saw the sad news that Ian Gibson, noted comic writer and artist had passed away. I’d touched on his and Alan Moore’s Ballad of Halo Jones in a blog I’d done for our retrospective of the 2007 episode Gridlock and its relationship to the comic 2000AD. I thought I should change what I was intending on writing and take another approach.
In truth I would have liked to have done something similar to that blog with blended graphics to illustrate certain points, but to be frank I don’t have easy access to the same resources as I did back then.
But I think with that generation of writers entering their seventies we should really take the opportunity to pay some dues. So, if you’re ready for a long read – time for a simple question:
12 December 2023 at 14:52 #74987Gutted to hear that myself. If anyone doesn’t know about the impact Halo Jones had on Andrew Cartmel’s run on Doctor Who can I post this link to the blog on 2000AD I wrote back when we were doing retrospectives?
12 December 2023 at 14:40 #74984The Toymaster did go full Prince Ludwig from Blackadder @ps1l0v3y0u, @phaseshift. But showed his sinister side with that “sunnier climes” comment. With the excellent “I was born in Cheltenham” as the response.
I thought that was particularly well handled myself, and although RTD went for it in the behind the scenes stuff I think he should get bonus points for using “Celestial” in the script as “amongst the stars”.
Funny how these things work out. My two nieces used to sing Spice Girls stuff when they were young to annoy me. 🙂 I had a reprisal of that when watching this with the youngest (who is now almost 30). She was belting it out, including a line that was faded out for some dialogue. The line was “Yellow man in Timbuktu”, which made me laugh heartily.
10 December 2023 at 14:14 #74926There seems to be a lot to unpick in this episode and I’m away from home. I’m looking forward to rewatching it when I get back home on Tuesday so I’ll post some thoughts then.
I’m pretty certain there is a lot of evidence that RTD is going to lean into the more fantasy arm of Doctor Who history as we discussed last week. The question of who the Toymaker would be afraid to play a game with is interesting. If he claims to have defeated the Master, the Guardians and the Gods of Rrrragnarrrrok (small nod to Sylvester there) who can he be afraid of?
The natural (and probably wrong) answer must surely be Fenric, and his addiction to ‘The Game of Traps’.
9 December 2023 at 22:57 #74904@devilishrobby beat me to it, but the start of End of Time Part one has flashbacks to the scene indicating it was ‘The Cult Of Saxon’.
Time to break out that copy of Lord Voldermorts Bumper Book of Resurrection Spells again!
9 December 2023 at 21:04 #74897This is interesting. On the commentary to this episode you have RTD and Phil Collison on talking and suggesting this ‘biregeneration’ has echoed back through all the other regenerations.
I’ve had a go at transcribing:
RTD: So then, the whole timeline bi-regenerated. Sylvester McCoy woke up in a drawer in a morgue… and Jon Pertwee woke up on the floor of the laboratory.
Phil: And Colin Baker got out up and sorted out the Rani
RTD: Yes, he did. And they all did.Which I guess is what the Sixth and Seventh Doctors in the Tales of the Tardis have suggested.
Not sure what to make of that to be honest.
Hope nothing got stained!
9 December 2023 at 20:35 #74893It’s almost like RTD can never let David Tennant go
I think you’re right @craig, that RTD can’t quite ever let Tennant go. But honestly, what’s not to love about that?
I honestly don’t think it’s that controversial to be honest but I think it’s bound to be read by some as a lack of faith in N’Cuti. They have Tennant in reserve.
And … I can remember when Matt Smith took over. We had a over a year of ‘bring back Tennant’ when he was regenerated and gone. I can’t help feeling that having him in the background as a possibility is going to be unbearable.
I just made a comment on the Guardian that I felt sorry for Martha Jones. Why couldn’t she also get a pet Tennant to keep her company. 😉
9 December 2023 at 16:10 #74882are you suggesting that there’s a link between the Fendahl and the Great Vampires — maybe relates species or sub-species? Cos I like that idea a lot.
Yes, although I blame Steven Moffat who had Missy musing that maybe all lifeforms may hit a technological point that they think “let’s give cybermen a go! What could go wrong!!”.
Maybe vampirism is a bit like that – all systems will eventually go down an ‘evolutionary dead end’ as the Fendahl is termed. Something that just consumes life force on an immense scale. Thinking of the heamovores from the McCoy period, they are a far future variant of the same principal.
I do think it might be an approach for the 15th Doctor. That pantheon from the more fantasy side of Doctor Who hasn’t been overused and may present something a bit fresh, but with links to the past. Perhaps that’s the function of this episode? Its unusual to talk about the ‘edge’ of the Universe in a sense these days. But if the Flux took a huge bite out of the Universe it may have new edges to the Toyroom, The Howling and all those other dark places.
That’s spooky with regard to the use of salt, having just been responding to @blenkinsopthebrave about the ‘celestial’ questions. The Celestial Beings included both Archangels and the Fallen ones, so if RTD wanted to emphasise the ‘demonic’ nature of the Toymaker that would work!
9 December 2023 at 15:37 #74881And @phaseshift, I suspect RTD2 may continue to refer to him as the Celestial Toymaker, in keeping with the dictionary definition of being from the heavens or the stars.
It would be nice to think he had the choice. I don’t want you to think that I buy the criticism is any way, but it has been fashionable for the past decade to hold the story up as evidence of how racist Doctor Who was.
You see, for me Celestial means heavens as well. With a side order of ‘Celestial Beings’ as mentioned in the bible. In the wider Christian Mythos (as it where) these were Archangels (including the fallen ones like the Morningstar). Then, as you get older and learn about Empire and the opium Wars you learn about ‘The Celestial Empire’, which is basically a European translation of what the Q’ing dynasty called itself.
It’s used a lot in Victorian Literature, including Sherlock Holmes BUT it’s a general discriptor of the people of the Empire. Using ‘Celestials’ as we’d use ‘Britons’. The fascination with Chinese magic and philosophy means that theatrical magicians go through a phase of adopting oriental mannerisms and billing themselves as ‘The Celestial…’.Much like Talons of Weng Chiang. It buys into the concept of both the mystery of the orient and ‘being of power’. To me, that’s what the intent behind the Toymaker is.
Then the internet is born, which is a huge mistake. 😉 It allows Americans to tell us we’re all racists because their forefathers used the term Celestial as a slur. It reached a peak when Deadwood became ‘the must watch TV show’ of its time. Unfortunately the internet is dominated by US voices and trying to explain the actual context is like pissing in the wind.
9 December 2023 at 15:06 #74880Yes to a bit of Blackadder! That’s exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. Having the Doctor mock him in that way would definitely work.
(Talking of Blackadder, I watched the millennium special ‘Back and Forth’ a while ago for the first time in a decade. I actually found it a lot funnier than when broadcast for some reason. The reason I mention it is that there are a couple of cute Doctor Who references. For Vincent and the Doctor, Richard Curtis described himself as a ‘time travel virgin’ so I wondered if they came from Ben Elton or whether Moffat had contributed a few jokes. It was filmed shortly after Curtis got Moffat to do ‘Curse of Fatal Death’ for Comic Relief).
4 December 2023 at 22:12 #74795Did anyone else think about E-space from Tom Baker’s day, and the Great Vampires?
Actually your musings on salt and mythology reminded me of something else from Tom’s era. If you fancy looking at it on i-player, it’s in season 15 and called ‘Image of the Fendahl‘. It shares a link with ‘State of Decay‘ in that the Fendahl is an entity from the past that the time lords ‘dealt with’. Salt plays a critical part in fighting the Fendahl in a couple of ways (barriers for defence and shotgun shells filled with it for offence). It has Sherlock’s mum in it.
The idea of the not-things actually reminded me of a story called Enlightenment in season twenty. ‘The Eternals’ were creatures from outside spacetime. That got form and thought by telepathically reading humans minds. They are more thought and emotional vampires than the body horror of these things but share a lot of similarities. The Eternals got a couple of name checks in RTD1 and, spookily, in the Chibnall episode where The Toymaker is also referenced. If anyone hasn’t seen it I think it’s a good story. Very rare example of both a female script writer and female director. You can’t beat images like tallships in space!
4 December 2023 at 21:45 #74794Sorry I couldn’t comment last week. I enjoyed it as I enjoyed this one. It’s actually a pleasure to be faced with Doctor Who that I actually want to watch a second time (or even more). But …
I’m actually finding myself weirdly disconnected from the episodes to the extent that I’m wondering what they are for exactly.
When the Disney deal was announced, and the 60th Anniversary was to be the start of that, I kind of decided that a multiple Doctor anniversary was probably not going to happen. Too confusing. I imagined a short ‘seasonette’ to ease new viewers into the show while throwing enough references to the past to sate long time viewers. The kind of stuff Steven Moffat did throughout his run (montages of the Doctors, the First Doctor on Elevens Library card, you know the sort of thing).
Only that isn’t really the case is it? The Star Beast starts with an off-putting exposition dump to explain the Donna situation that rivals “It was on the planet Skaro” from the eighth Doctor movie. That’s a real parallel for me. Back then we knew the future looked like Paul McGann, but before we got there we had an exposition dump and then spent some time with an ersatz seventh Doctor. We seem to be in a similar position now as we await the next Doctor. It’s better written stuff, but I honestly wouldn’t recommend these episodes to start anyone off on a Doctor Who journey. Would you?
Couple this with the (apparent) unwillingness to engage with the history of the show (other than 2008-2010) and you start to get the feeling that it’s taken for granted you should be happy enough with the dynamic duo back. I am, as it happens, but I can understand the point of view which suggests this is arrogance. I enjoyed Tennant and Tate the first time round, but you all know I rate the Eleven, Amy and Rory years much higher.
I was pondering the ‘mavity’ sequence and suddenly thought ‘this is a problem with history that needs sorting out’. I’m willing to guess that’s emblematic of what RTD is doing. ‘Solving’ perceived problems with the history of the show.
So we have Davros-gate from the CIN special and behind the scenes commentary. Davros is emblematic of a monstering of the disabled (as someone who increasingly uses a wheelchair I think he got this one wrong and blended a number of tropes together). Disabled people need better representation it’s true, and the way to do that is to introduce cool disabled characters. Like he did last week.
We spoke some time ago (the Chibnall reintroduction of the non consensual mind wipe) about how Clara and Bill calling the Doctor out on this was a ‘corrective’ to Donna’s fate. Here RTD goes back to Donna and corrects.
In this episode we get a firm indication that he’s going to be addressing both the Timeless Child and Flux ‘revelations’. Well, give him points for attempting to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He managed to give more emotional heft to those ideas in 10 minutes than Chibnall managed in 3.5 hours of specials. I think Chibnall should be quaking though. If RTD actually does make something useful out of all this, he’s going to look like even more of a useless plank in the long term.
So – what further things can we correct from the past? Phew – Mel. Literally, for many years she perilously hovered just below Adric as ‘companion we were most glad to see the back of’. Bonnie Langford. Hired for her ability to scream at a certain pitch. Bonnie Langford. Who was promised so much character development in order to come back after Colin Baker was sacked. Who had to witness what little character she had AND her performance lampooned mercilessly by Kate O’Mara for the entertainment of the audience. Maybe her reappearance can heal those wounds and give her an actual character.
And finally, The Toymaker!
This is just a guess but don’t be surprised if RTD gets serious again behind the scenes. He may explain how the original Toymaker was called The Celestial Toymaker which is offensive in the context of the clear ‘yellow peril’ tropes he operates in. That was the past, he’s now like this. He’s always been like this through the ‘new lens’.
Problem though – is having a German sounding supervillain in any way better? (Yeah, I can guess that he’s going for a ‘Geppetto’ kind of thing, but still) . Maybe we can discuss that next week if he doesn’t make clear that the Toymaker is just the kind of guy who finds adopting foreign stereotypes hilarious.
So celebrating the 60th anniversary through some of the perceived ‘mistakes’ of those 60 years? Not the way I would have done it, but what the hell. It’s still more entertaining than Chibnall.
24 November 2023 at 23:14 #74603I’d been meaning to pop in before tomorrows return, but it was the new blog by @jimthefish and the mention that finally woke me up.
Happy 60th to you all.
I’ll definitely respond to the blog in depth. To be honest I’ve struggled to organise my thoughts when approaching the Chibnall era, so maybe having your thoughts to bounce off may be helpful to me Jim.
I just wanted to mention the last time we talked it was about Marvel starting Doctor Who Weekly and them owning ‘Beep the Meep’. I get the feeling this is the ‘shared creative vision’ the BBC and Disney are talking about. The thing that convinced me was ‘Tales from the TARDIS’.
For those not familiar with Doctor Who Weekly it was a real attempt to create an ‘expanded Doctor Who Universe’. As it was being launched, to provide cheap material while original stories were being written and drawn, the Editor Dez Skinn got Marvel to approve reprints of some old adaptations of ‘classic’ sci-fi tales. He bookended the stories with new panels of the Fourth Doctor introducing and summing up these tales like ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘The Invisible Man’.
So you can see the inspiration here for what Bad Wolf are doing with the TV version. Forty odd years later, early Doctor Who is ‘classic sci-fi’ and with the benefit of new intro and outro scenes you have a relatively cheap way of breathing life into old material and hopefully introducing it to a new audience.
I do hope someone has bought Dez a few pints for his inspiration. 😀
31 December 2022 at 13:08 #73911As I’ve not been a regular for a while I thought it best to bring a gift. A brand new Sofa! This snazzy little number is from IKEAs kerplunk range. Enjoy! Oh, and…
HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY DOCTOR WHO FORUM!
Yes – it was 31st December 2012 when @craig very kindly set up this place to kill time and celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who. We’d just watched a Christmas Special and were complaining that we only had eight episodes before the anniversary special in November. Frankly, didn’t know when we were well off!
Anyway – as you see in 2023 raise a glass to old, new and absent friends, but above all a thank you to @craig. Cheers!
31 December 2022 at 12:44 #73903@jimthefish & @blenkinsopthebrave
Hi and Seasons Greetings!
Yeah, I really enjoyed the trailer and was delighted to see the comic characters you mentioned Jim. If you’d told 10 year old me that we’d have this 42 years later … well, I would have probably dropped my Curly Wurly!
It’s fascinating really – on the one hand it’s a big statement of intent. The characters will probably be the biggest use of cgi in the shows history, and probably made possible because of the work done by Bad Wolf in developing His Dark Materials.
It’s kind of interesting in another way. The story and the characters are actually owned by the company that set up Doctor Who Weekly, which was, of course, Marvel (UK) Ltd. So getting the rights may have been facilitated by the Disney+ deal? It could work in that wider context of building the brand on Disney. A Karen Gillan narrated documentary on the relationship between the Doctor and Marvel (Doctors 1-8 are still listed in Marvel’s Multiverse visual references) could get a few more people tuning in.
It also makes me wonder if the rumored Dalek & Cybermen spin offs could be from that era. RTD is a big fan of Mr. Daak. Kroton the Cyberman? Apocalypse Device? The mind boggles!
I’m hyped for the future. 🙂
8 November 2021 at 22:51 #72325Talking of ‘The Timeless Brenden’ I can remember on that thread probably confusing a lot of people with talk of Sony negotiating with the BBC to obtain rights for Doctor Who. The main point was that the BBC may have suddenly been keen on this radical change to lore to facilitate this move. Well, a year and a bit later and Bad Wolf is announced as an outsourced production partner. Then it’s announced Sony is in a deal to buy Bad Wolf.
I mean, it’s a thing. Potential opportunities and dangers are about equal with a partner like that. Be interesting to see how it progresses. I can’t help but wonder if Sony/BBC actually did take some notice of Moffats criticism of the proposals, and see Russell T Davies as a kind of ‘Kevin Fiege’ figure for Doctor Who?
8 November 2021 at 22:45 #72324Hi all,
I’m playing catchup as well and I’ve just binged the first two episodes.
I have to say I probably enjoyed them more than I was expecting, but confess that I started with such low expectations that I probably had a lot of room for manoeuvre. I thought the Halloween Invasion was interesting in terms of structure (although I thought it may have benefitted from focusing on the more immediate story strands to reduce the ‘messy’ feel), and as a followup this was strong.
In plus points, the humour seemed more naturalistic and less laboured than in previous shows. Some of the direction and visuals (I really liked the vision of the floating ‘haunted house’ at the beginning of the episode) were impressive. I’ve often thought that the Direction on the show recently consisted of magnificent establishing shots of locations allied with a dynamism of live action that can only be compared to a stagnant pond. There were some interesting camera angles and a flow to this story that made it seem to live a bit more.
There are problems on the horizon though. Not least is the fact that Flux promises to give more information on the revelations of “The Timeless Brenden”. This episode did contain a fairly big chunk of Chixposition on the nature of the Fates, Guardians of Time and all that jazz. I have a horrible suspicion that this series is going to end with a steaming dollop of Chixposition that will leave even The Master saying “Tone it down a bit, love”.
So I get a bit anxious whenever Swarm goes into this mode. As good as the actor is, he wouldn’t be the first good actor to be undone in this way. I picked up on Azure and Passenger being butterflies as well @bluesqueakpip and Swarm is an accepted collective name for butterflies (although when the delightful alternative ‘a kaleidoscope of Butterflies’ exists, swarm goes down my list). A reference to the Butterfly Effect perhaps, as time is in ‘flux’. Given the term used by Swarm for his ‘regeneration’ was the old term ‘renewed’ and he has a collective name, possibly echoing The Doctors assertion that she contains ‘a multitude’, I think it’s likely he originates from the supposed home Dimension of the Doctor.
If the later episodes contain the phrase “
LukeDoctor, I am your Father” uttered by Swarm, can we all just agree to post that meme of Picard doing the facepalm as a review. It’ll be the kindest thing.24 September 2021 at 21:15 #72094@jimthefish (+ everyone else, big wave!)
Really unexpected development that really makes you wonder what’s been going on behind the scenes. Not only Russell “The” Davies, but outsourcing production to Bad Wolf Productions (first time since the Eighth Doctor movie, fact fans) would seem to indicate that the BBC may be admitting they’ve screwed the pooch for some time with Doctor Who.
It does seem a somewhat retrograde step, harking back to the past rather than look to the future … but?
I’ve read a lot of (possibly wrong headed) comment pieces since the announcement of Chibnalls departure. Along the lines of “old fans shouldn’t be running the show”. You know the sort of stuff. Thing is, Davies was the one who made the show insanely popular at home, and Moffat was the one who made it arguably the biggest international success for some time. So – what went wrong with Chibnall? I think the simple answer is a few short years.
When Doctor Who was rested it’s no secret that Davies and Moffat were independently lobbying Andrew Cartmel for a writing gig on the show – both buoyed by successes in Children/YA TV. Chibnall had become disillusioned with the show and gone to University. A traditional student life of beer, study and exciting times lay ahead I’m sure. I think it stung Davies & Moffat – being that close, but so far.
So while Chibnall forged ahead in his early career, he wasn’t doing silly things like writing well received Who novel ‘Damaged Goods’, or composing letters to Doctor Who monthly congratulating them for making comic companion Izzy gay. He wasn’t writing well respected short story ‘Continuity Errors’, or taking the opportunity of sudden fame to do something crazy like ‘Curse of Fatal Death’ for comic relief. I’m sure he didn’t have the time to argue the toss on early internet forums about ‘that kiss’, and why it didn’t really matter. He didn’t read spinoff novels or listen to Big Finish and ultimately didn’t engage with a big conversation about how and why Doctor Who worked. Davies and Moffat had 16 years of dead space to think about how they would ‘do’ Doctor Who.
Like or loathe their respective takes on the Doctor, I don’t think anyone would deny they had a clear vision for who the Doctor was and what they stood for. I don’t think Chibnall ever really had that, and I think that fundamentally harmed the show and especially JWs character of the Doctor.
So Davies had 16 years to consider how he’d do it. What the Doctor meant to him. Since he left he’s had (believe it or not) 12 years. 12 years and two show runners. We know he kept in close contact with Moffat, and their jocular exchanges are legendary. I’m wondering how his thinking has evolved in that time. I think RTD phase 2 may throw more than a few people who are expecting more of the same a curveball. He’s not the same writer and these are certainly not the same times.
It was a delight to see both RTD and Moffat engage with the lockdown watchalongs last year. They seemed energised by it all. Short stories, extra scenes, drawings, early scripts. However they protest, I don’t think those guys will ever stop wanting to tell Doctor Who stories. If that process got RTD energised again, perhaps we have something to add the ‘good stuff’ of Covid.
30 July 2021 at 03:51 #71911Is this the time to release a really bitter long form post entitled “F*** Chris Chibnall, and all his works”?
Sorry about Whittaker – what might have been,eh?
26 July 2020 at 23:25 #70854At 41! I popped in to share the link myself, after I put a short comment about his encouragement over the years.
Hope everyone else is fine. Sorry I haven’t been around but .. it’s a long story.
Best regards.
22 March 2020 at 19:58 #70225@jimthefish @jannetteb @blenkinsopthebrave
The novelisation of Day of the Doctor is an absolute joy. Other books in the range by Russell ‘the’ Davies (a nod to ‘fiveish doctors’ there) and Paul Cornell all seemed to try to go for the Terrance Dicks approach (and why not). Day of the Doctor has a clear authorial voice – if you’ve listened to Moffat speaking, you almost hear him reading it to you. It’s incredibly barmy and all the better for it. The three way narrative between the Doctors as they are transported to the Tower is a thing of beauty. A writer writing for the format (because you can’t do that stuff on TV).
We actually formed just after the Snowmen in Series 7, believe if or not. Check out that thread and you’ll see us all staggering into the light. All praise our saviour @craig.
We’ve missed a few episodes, mainly the early RTD and Moffat years. We covered a lot in the RTD and Moffat retrospectives, but we haven’t covered episodes like Father’s Day, School Reunion and about 12 – 15 others.
If we are in need, the ‘best of the rest’ could be an option?
21 March 2020 at 19:42 #70206Well, I’m settled down in the Lakes (our nearest neighbour is half a mile away – and she’s a sheep) with a small, but still medically inadvisable glass of wine, and enjoying the shit out of this.
It brings back a lot of warm memories.
Just to note Moffat has temporarily rejoined Twitter and is posting a Twitter commentary which is quite nice of him. It’s typically very funny.
https://mobile.twitter.com/StevenWMoffat
Other thoughts (including from other people involved) can be found on the #savetheday hashtag (you don’t need to join Twitter to follow these threads).
I’d love to post a running commentary myself, but a bit knackered after a long trip. See you later!
18 March 2020 at 19:11 #70166I hope everyone is well and safe. Best wishes to @bluesqueakpip – hope you have a speedy recovery.
I disappeared after the finale because the Coronavirus issue led to some emergency work with a couple of utility clients about emergency preparedness. It’s actually been a sobering experience looking at the reaction to this. I apologise to @rob if he was expecting me or anyone else. I’m in the same boat @rob – projects cancelled left and right. I’ll finish the work I have tomorrow and then I think I’m heading to our country retreat in the Lakes (not nearly as impressive as it sounds, but isolated.)
Hopefully I can use this time to write a Chibnall blog (sorry for the delay @jimthefish ) and contribute a bit more. I’ve taken @blenkinsopthebrave s recommendation for Picard, but only watched two so far. I’m impressed, but hope to have a bit more to say when I’ve caught up.
Also up for Penny dreadful.
I’ll leave you for the moment with sound advice from Mitchell and Webb (aka the robots from Dinosaurs on a Spaceship).
8 March 2020 at 00:35 #70075While I take your points and believe you can rationalise these choices of dialogue either way I think my main point is still that when you go down the path that this seems to be going, you have to be very trope aware so you don’t fall into those narrarive traps.
The above article from @jimthefish is a good exploration of how Moffat played with tropes and audience expectations. He often didn’t land a story in the way a media literate audience suspected.
Chibnall, on the other hand just seems oblivious to their existence. There was a bit of ‘high fiving’ after “Can you hear me?” aired because a gay couple had lived. This was said to be a ‘corrective’ to Chibnall having fallen into the ‘bury the gay’ trope last season.
I think part of the problem he faces is that when his production proudly announced it was more diverse than ever and tackle the sort of issues it has, then it will attract audiences who are invested in those issues, and their core experience/knowledge may be better than his own.
The kind of ‘on the nose’ writing and trope unawareness leads to what I’d consider pretty considered progressive commenters like Council of Geeks or Elizabeth Sandifer criticising the overall approach. He therefore has a problem with the unreconstructed knuckle draggers and some of the people he hoped to appeal to.
I may be wrong but I think I’m more inclined to think that Chibnall is more likely than not to write The Timeless Child and hit those Ubermensch (or Uberdammen) tropes with depressing regularity.
8 March 2020 at 00:02 #70074That is an excellent read Jim (it popped up in my Google recommend feed this afternoon) and I’d recommend it to everyone.
7 March 2020 at 04:19 #70050I hope the next series makes it clear that the reason the Doctor is so different, personality-wise, to most other Time Lords is not because she’s the Timeless Child, but because she’s the Doctor. I don’t think it would send a very good message to the audience if the only reason she decided to escape from being a puppet to the Time Lords and instead devote her life to exploration and kindness is because she comes from a different species
Thing is – from exposure to the two “types” of storytelling, the are completely divorced. I referenced Robert Holmes earlier and (not to start any arguments again here) he did more to advance this idea that the Doctor, by Gallifrean standards was a bit of a schlub. Mediocre. Possibly mad, but charming and inventive. It was carried forward by the Williams era.
I think that is a major reason why Tom Bakers Doctor was a success. Other Doctors had been unconventional but the combination of him and scriptwriters almost weapononised the unconventional. And if you were considered odd as a kid, you gravitated to him. Elizabeth Sandifer in her blog asked why Doctor Who had never actually engaged with the punk era, as Pertwee had engaged with the iconography of the glam period. Baker was already a punk before punk started. His oddness and aversion to ‘the system’ was his superpower.
Later writers started to construct more ever elaborate origins about the character. The ‘Cartmel Masterplan’, The ‘Leakley’ backstory for the Eighth Doctor movie. ‘Time’s Champion’. All wanting to make the Doctor the most special of special people. And once you do that, you keep having to remind people of that, with some unfortunate results occasionally. The later NA books fell into the trap. In my entry on them in the Faces of the Doctor for the seventh I noted the more the books developed the more remote they became from the core of the series. In my (hopefully humerous) post on summation of Gallifrey we had a discussion in which I suggested it was better to have a role model that rebelled against an oppressive and unjust society than one who was basically a reborn god. You can’t aspire to be a god successfully.
And this is why I loathe the new reality. You need those reminders. So the Doctor confronts the Master and tells him she is better than him.
Is it because she has a better moral code? Is it because that she realises they aren’t animals? Is it because she isn’t a giggling psychopath driven mad by the sound of drums? Is it because she’s kind? That where she stands is where she falls? Without witness or reward?
No, she tells him she’s filled with a multitude. Her genetic inheritance. Her DNA is better than the Master’s.
There is a lot to explore in that idea. None of it leading anywhere pleasant. The Doctor, under this tone deaf scriptwriter, would surely make a great Dalek.
7 March 2020 at 03:17 #70047You forgot to include the terms “SJW” and “woke”. Otherwise, a fine effort. Or, in real money, completely desperate.
A good evening to you.
5 March 2020 at 00:30 #69999@bluesquakpip
Let’s be clear here, because I think one of us needs to take a break from internet comment.
I went with you though your displeasure with the Capaldi era. I don’t think I hectored you or even tried to change your mind. I think I was the first person to highlight the unDoctorly behaviour of Capaldi in S10. But I gave you, I hope, the space to voice your criticism. Please allow others the same courtesy.
I think I’m coming to the end of my comments on the series. There is something sad about a fifty year old lamenting the present isn’t as good was the past. Even if the past was was four years ago. I am going to stick it to Chibnall in a final post though. Just because I think I’ve invested so much in the show from boy to Man I at least deserve to set our my case.
You won’t approve so don’t read. Good advice for your blood pressure. I think I’m going with “He’s a Chinball Wizard, there has to be a twist” as a headline.
4 March 2020 at 20:16 #69990Quick question.
If regenerative ability is down to the special ability of the Timeless Child, and therefore not exposure to the Time Vortex as has been established previously then how do we think that Amy got that extra bit of “Doctor juice” to create baby Melody? Perhaps it really was a ‘Big Bang’!
Of course that would mean that that … Oh no. Euuww. Seriously, Eeuuuwww!
The ramifications of this are going to be so funny as people unpick them!
4 March 2020 at 13:01 #69986And no apologies for misattriubution of comments. Does this demand a recount. Did we reach quorum!? We need answers!
4 March 2020 at 13:01 #69985And no apologies for misattriubution of comments. Does this demand a recount. Did we reach quorum!? We need answers!
4 March 2020 at 12:17 #69982I knew it was my first post that drew your ire @bluesqueakpip. The response spoke volumes.
But ‘I repeat’ this is as cynical a fanwank as you are likely to experience.
I’ve explained my reasons. Your response is pretty poor. I think that the obfuscation and misattriubution paints a picture. And then colours it in.
Go at it.I have no grist to grind here. You enjoyed the story. Well done!
4 March 2020 at 09:21 #69979But I suppose my main point is that I’m developing a deep suspicion that had the Holmes/Hinchcliffe/Nation plot points been broadcast under the name ‘Chris Chibnall’, you would even now be telling me how awful they are.
Well that’s a rather lame attempt to paint me as a ‘bowelstreak’ type naysayer, isn’t it? Especially when coupled with:
I think you and @phaseshift keep saying this retcon is pointless and forgetting that it’s a re-retcon.
Because I’ve carefully reread what I actually wrote and I have never suggested it is pointless. I asked what other people thought the point was. I suppose I should say that I’m developing a deep suspicion that you’re too invested in defending some pretty suspect writing to meaningfully debate these points without resorting to the above tactics.
So let’s cut to the chase. There could be a little bit of ego going on here as @blenkinsopthebrave suggested. It’s not likely though. BBC brand management have to OK most ideas that could fundmentally alter the character or even discuss his early life (Moffat revealed convincing them that he wasn’t going to name the Doctor in Name of the Doctor was fairly tortuous). No – this is something the BBC wants.
Chris Chibnall is about as interested in resolving barely remembered continuity issues as I am. And I remind everyone here that I have long expressed the opinion that Doctor Who doesn’t have a canon, more something like a mythos. Having a pretty good grasp of Who stories (my wife would opine “an embarrassingly encyclopedic knowledge bordering on ****ing scary”) I could point out that the story not only retcons the Doctors history, but the outcome of he Cyberwars themselves (see Revenge of the Cybermen, Ark in Space and the various stories about the mass exodus from solar storms for more information). But what the hell.
I’m sure @jimthefish is right in that the choice of a young female POC to play the original Timeless Child was meant to goad the few NMDs that are still watching. I treat it in the same way I treated RTDs efforts to goad religious people with his “the Doctor is like Jesus, but cooler” moments. The alternative is that Chibnall is actually an inept corporate SJW who thinks that having the original Doctor as a young female POC neutralises all those accusations that Who was sexist and racist in the old days. A bit like the idiots who thought Sulu should be gay in the new Star Trek films to address ‘inclusivity’ issues, and ‘honour’ George Takei. An actor who promptly gave them a well deserved kicking over it.
No – I think the real reason is the future. Some may remember the David Yates film argy-bargy? You know – David Yates (of Harry Potter film fame) has secret talks with BBC Worldwide. Announces development of film. Moffat suggests ‘over my dead body’, embarrassing wikileaks emails between Sony and the BBC emerge. If you don’t know about it look it up. It’s very entertaining. The final BBC email suggested the next showrunner would be much more amenable. Talks resumed in earnest last year. Interest in casting a female Doctor, but not JW.
So – not really the future, more the past. This move gives an almost infinite possibility of franchising, movies, audio, comics. “Don’t pay for likenesses of people who made the show what it is – make your own Doctor!” “Hey – have a Doctor per movie if that’s what you want!”. All without raising expectations that a famous film star must eventually become a Doctor on TV because they were future versions. “No mate”, says the BBC “She/He was pre-Hartnell”.
As I said. It’s a retcon that draws on fanwank. It’s entirely cynical. Designed to sell more content. Franchising. ‘The Doctor Who Universe(TM)’. Welcome to the future. Its set in the past.
3 March 2020 at 18:21 #69967I respect your opinion @bluesqueakpip , but also note that your response is an inelegant method of not answering my main point. What’s the reason for the Timeless Child retcon?
Holmes wanted to eventually write a high stakes story about the ‘death’ of the Doctor and seeded these ideas that would feed into it and establish those high stakes. Establishing the situation is good writing, yes? Unfortunately (or fortunately for you perhaps) the response from the Viewers and Listeners Association to Deadly Assassin saw Hinchcliffe and Holmes having to step down from their roles. It never came to pass. These things happen. The decision to use behind the scenes people was Hinchcliffe, because it was cheaper than hiring actors.
I do feel though that it is hugely ironic that a scene that was intended to establish that the Doctor had limits to his regenerative ability is now used in a huge retcon to establish the Doctor is immortal with no limits.
3 March 2020 at 09:32 #69957Well, what can I say? …
That was as cynical a bit of fanwank as you are likely to experience. A “story” that the legendary Craig Hinton (the undisputed ‘King of Fanwank’ in Doctor Who novels) would have cried at not being able to write.
Don’t get me wrong – I love a good rewrite of history. As a Doctor Who fan of old you come to appreciate when its done well. It helps when you understand the underlying reason for it though. I’m pretty sure most of us understand why ‘The War Doctor’ exists. You can argue that the role could have been taken by Eight (and many have) but as someone who was invested in his audios, I wouldn’t agree.
As it’s been mentioned a lot in conjunction with this episode (with a call out) let’s consider ‘Brain of Morbius’. As a ‘Retcon’ it sought to overwrite the Hartnell Doctor being the ‘first’ (as defined by the Timelords in the Three Doctors). A number of behind the scenes people appeared as previous Doctors and\or Morbius’.
What was the reason? Well – Robert Holmes, the script editor (and one of the past Doctor\Morbius) convinced producer Philip Hinchcliffe (also one of the past Doctor\Morbius) that this regeneration lark actually robbed the show of what little jeopardy it had. If the Doctor could regenerate endlessly then what was there to fear? Where was the jeopardy for the Doctor?
And so they first established that Tom may not be the fourth Doctor in Brain of Morbius, and then later introduced the 13 lives rule in Deadly Assassin. The last one stuck, but the idea that Tom Baker could be the 10th,11th or (aarrghh) 13th Doctor never did. Interesting.
To be frank, the above examples are people who considered story telling on a much deeper level than Chris Chibnall who is a mediocre mind with a small gift for self selling.
So – tell me viewers & listeners? If every retcon is done for a reason, then what is the reason for this one? I’ll give my solutions to this conundrum later. I’d be interested to hear yours.
16 January 2020 at 09:19 #69162Oh dear… Bored now.
Take it by PM to Craig. As I suggested. A good while ago. You remember?
Any further additions will be DELETED. To allow the rest of the Forum to get on with enjoying themselves.
16 January 2020 at 08:10 #69159Fair enough – get what you want from the site. It should be a place like that. I think that was the intention.
Have a good time.
16 January 2020 at 08:01 #69155I think most forum users here are experienced enough to see:
1. You started this chain of events
2. You’ve tried to propogate the argument to stupid lengths
3. Your grandstanding is embarrassing, even towards the lurkers who just want a bit of argy-bargyIf you want to have a laugh and and a joke, talk Who and post a couple of choona go at it. You can easily ignore me.
But your responses indicate you want something more. So make a complaint to Craig and keep it off the forum. I always encourage complaints. Especially when the reasons are as obvious as this one. 😉
16 January 2020 at 07:00 #69152Part of me wonders if Chibnall likes wearing hair shirts. His younger self accused Pip & Jane Baker of producing a story based on the Doctor & companion running down a corridor. For his first Who episode in “42” that’s essentially what he has Martha doing.
All of which leads me to ask: are we witnessing the John Nathan-Turner years of AG Who?
And you’ve just called it basically. I’ve been working up to it, but when I suggested I was going to work a blog on s11 into the mix, this was going to be my lead proposition. Is Chibnall the new JNT? Because there are some striking parallels when you look at the history.
As a wise Cylon once said “All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again”.
16 January 2020 at 06:25 #69147I don’t know if the Doctor himself knows how to travel the timelines. Poßibly just the TARDIS operating in 11 dimensions can work it. The only time I can think that the Doctor did it (other than Pyramids of Mars, where it was inevitable) is the implied reunion between 11 and Amelia at the end of Angels take Manhattan. Amy and Rory seem to have memories of two different timelines, and the Doctor traveling back to tell the young Amelia what she can expect is possibly a third?
16 January 2020 at 06:05 #69146What a great track! I am blessed!
I did get MrsP to help me (with my arthritis) and she loved it too!
Wishing you the best xxx
Thanks for bringing so much joy into our lives!
16 January 2020 at 05:36 #69143..And yet you initiated this exchange and continue to do so. How very
pedanticsorry pedestrian of you? All I want is for you to enjoy your time by conversing with like minded people. I’m guessing that’s not what you want is it?16 January 2020 at 05:06 #69141You….almost died…?!
Break out the tambourines MrsP and let us praise the Lord!!
(You started this newbie – as you say, get over yourself, deal with whatever inner demons you have 😉 )
16 January 2020 at 04:23 #69138With discussions of alternative timelines and a certain cognitive dissonance required to watch the upbeat Doctor 13 takle climate change then what can I do?
Well, this guy Bill McClintock could help. He’s a You Tube remixer of some repute.
His channel is seriously funny if you have a bit of knowledge about rock/metal.
His mashup of slayer & Katrina and the waves is cognitive dissonance personifiedBut,the featured track is pure brilliance. River said the Doctor got Stevie Wonder to play at the frost fairs get her birthday. I’d like to think that in a Aborted timeline this actually happened!
16 January 2020 at 03:57 #69137My dear @peacefrog, I didn’t realise you had such talent!
To pick up on the everyday finger fumble by the arthritic trying to use a touchpad! Lawks alordy! Trances \=\ Frances.
God bless you! Your parents must be so proud!! I’ll show MrsP your post tomorrow. She. Will. Be . ASTOUNDED!!!
16 January 2020 at 03:35 #69136While I’m sniggering I’ll just point out I may have arrived at a (admittedly poor) reason for last week’s mindwipe.
The first Mindwipe was completed by the Timelords on Jamie & Zoe. If we are looking at the lies of Timelords then the memory wipe will do. Could be a reminder the TLs do have this power and the Doctor\Master may have experienced it. To forget ‘The Timeless Child” (or whatever).
16 January 2020 at 03:18 #69134I did mean to post a response to your question earlier, but things happen.
In the BG episodes the mindwipe never happened. Well, once, but in a different way. And is wasn’t the Doctor who performed it.
When we finally meet the Timelords at the end of Patrick Troughtons’s run (The War Games), they mindwipe Jamie and Zoe (the companions) but leave them with the memories of their original encounter with the Doctor. They remove all the knowledge and experience they have accumulated since though.
It didn’t happen after that. Oh, the Doctor did have mental powers to be sure, but it was mostly healing\putting people into Frances.
Spin forward to the AG years and it’s one Steven Moffat who brings the mind powers back. In The girl and the fireplace The Doctor and Madame de Pompadour have, essentially, consentual mind sex (I’m pretty sure that’s how Moffat felt about it anyway).
Spin forward again and you have Donna. Poor woman. I’m always reminded of that line in The Doctor, The Widow & The warbrobe “THINK OF THE VISUAL”. Because the Doctor bearing down on Donna while she’s saying “no, no” isn’t the greatest visual is it?
And then you have the corrective. In Hell Bent Clara demands the Doctor respect her and her memories. She refuses the mindwipe. With Bill she asks “how would you feel if someone did this to you”.
Consider Adam in Chris Ecclestons first series. Modern guy, degrees out of his ass, used to tinkering with alien tech. went to the future, sought to profit from it. The Doctor left him on Earth after deleting his download but with his memory (and future headtech implant) complete.
Consider the Doctor took HG Wells (as @jimthefish has pointed out) to a future on a different planet (Timelash -don’t watch it, it’s awful). It inspired him to write the Time Machine. Consider that the Doctor took Vincent van Gogh to see his future legacy, but it didn’t help.
Consider that Ada could not comprehend the words “dimensional” and “portal” together. As much as Ada was a genius for her time, she was not a chemist, physicist or electrical engineer. Looking at or even working with a modern computing device would have been like magic. There is a reason it’s taken us so long to get here. It’s all those little steps, like how to purify a mix of ammonium fluoride/hydrofluoric acid to contain less than 5 ppb Sodium to etch (via photomasking) a circuit base on a silicon wafer. That’s how we do it people! Well, since about 1996 when the ultrapure chemicals could be made.
And I always prefer my Who to be inspirational rather than regressive. I think her experience should have been positive because she was a good character. More HG Wells than ‘mind rapey’.
15 January 2020 at 10:07 #69111Just on the timelines question, yes there is a lot of history here. They are distinct from Alternate Universes in that they exist within our universe as possibilities and can be accessed only by time travel. From one starting point a myriad of possibilities are possible and the Time Lords used to monitor them all looking for danger points. An alternative Universe started the same as ours and was essentially the same until one event was different, and significant enough to fundamentally change its overall range of possibilities.
The idea that timelines are essentially a ‘new universe’ that is created by a decision (turn left/turn right) doesn’t really work because you need an awful lot of energy to create a Universe.
Essentially though, 50 odd years of basic scientific understanding has led to the point where ‘it’s Timey Wimey is a catch all’.
I wrote a blog to try to illustrate a couple of points. I may have confused matters even further.
15 January 2020 at 09:50 #69109I’ve seen Tim Minchen a few times. The last time was a few months ago. For a 50th Birthday treat we spent a week in Cardiff, with his gig being the cornerstone of the trip. Highly recommended to everyone.
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