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4 March 2024 at 18:15 #75402
Chib… virtue/unforgiveable sin/urghh that man REALLY is an ijit… signalling… until the very end.
The man WAS part of the problem. The sooner RTD admits it, the better. (He won’t)
Moff is laughing like dog.
4 March 2024 at 10:28 #75400caricature of Trump? Jack Robertson in Arachnids in the UK maybe? And Revolution of the Daleks… I wasn’t really paying attention by then. Or he was just a generic dodgy yank. Apologies to all yank-kind.
But yes you did hear orange… I think its when The Sekjen mentions the president of earth and Bill doesn’t realise he means the Doctor.
I had a feeling Moff really only wanted to cross Hitler off his conceptual time travel wish list… LKH almost felt like he was going through the motions.
Pope Joan is obviously a fable: I think it’s first recorded during the C13th row with Frederick II (aka stone cold genius). A historical dealing with the Guelphs (papal supporters) and Ghibellines (imperial supporters) would be interesting: you could shove in Romeo and Juliet, Shylock, (rewrite) the Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing; Frederick II refuses to defend Hungary against the Mongols (‘Are you crazy?’)
The laundry basket… https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/documents/doctor-who-s10-ep6-extremis-shooting-script-steven-moffat.pdf
I was wrong. The Tardis had materialised around the laundry basket. Nardole warns the priests away from it. So the ‘hell’ line comes previously; must be just Bill’s frustration when Penny runs away.
Moff is on record as saying he just wanted to see what was the worst thing he could do to Bill’s date. He did the same thing with Clara in Listen. RTD only ever humiliated Jackie in ‘Love and Monsters.’ Funny though.
3 March 2024 at 10:56 #75396I thought I’d post on the Extremis thread, but I had been following your reviews of series 10 and reacted to your comment on The Winchester.
When The Monks were first broadcast I was still smarting from the apparent unresolved elements from the previous arc, and didn’t really appreciate Moffat’s work here. I really like Bill, from the ‘I fatted her’ digression in The Pilot to ‘you are an arse!’ (and 1’s reaction) in Twice Upon a Time.
Yes, the BBC apparently did tell Peter Harness he could notuse Jezzer, Don and Kim. Or maybe it was caricatures of those three stooges. Of course RTD referenced Obama directly and Harold Saxon was a bit Blairish. Geopolitically you might think the three interested parties should be Vlad, Xi and Modi. Don’t suppose anyone took Modi seriously then; saying nothing about Novochok or Winnie the Pooh!
Benedict IX was deposed and reinstated at various points in the C11th. The legendary Pope Joan may have been confused with the C9th John VIII. Interestingly, the survival of the legend of Joan is cited as ‘feminist and anti Catholic wishful thinking’ by Philip Jenkins in ‘The Last Acceptable Prejudice’… Moff lampshading his own knee jerk maybe?
I remember seeing a read through script of Extremis in which the Priests in Bill’s bedroom are very interested in her laundry basket. Shortly before the ‘you’re going to hell!’ line.
2 March 2024 at 22:05 #75392saw/anticipated your post on The Monks and decided to revisit them myself… I remembered it as impressive and a bit flawed.
So, my considered opinion on the The Monk’s Trilogy…
In many ways it’s a four parter, ‘Oxygen’ being the basis of The Doctor’s blindness, the chink whereby The Monks conquer earth, having run their pesky Veritas simulation.
Within the Whoniverse, The Doctor is being called out over the ‘this world is protected’ schtick. Interestingly The Monks didn’t see fit to run their simulation for another six months. Apparently that’s how they roll.
Now, the meta method being my fave, I do wonder what The Monks really represent in the mind of Moff. Interesting that Missy had encountered them before. Obviously, The Monks ‘control’ method bears a passing resemblance to The Archangel Network utilised by the Master in Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords.
Well, nothing in Who is very new. The view within the Whoniverse might indicate the Master stole the tech or even that the Monks were also somehow behind the Toclafane. Woah! Otherwise, my meta hat safely installed, its worth noting that the Archangel network satirised demagoguery. Now, don’t start shouting at me but could The Monks have something to do with that there social meeja and cancel cultcha?
No, please don’t shout. Compared with what preceded it, my considered opinion is that most things ‘woke’ are utterly unobjectionable; I may have decided to dismiss a handful of elements, but I also note that opposition in those areas was woefully devised. What I really don’t and never will buy into is the populist ‘faux traditional’ reaction.
Actually, all this populist outrage seems a bit weird because wokery is hardly an adequately defined ideology, more the logical conclusion of single issue politics. Aside from the manufactured positions created by The New Despotism, hostility for the World of Woke stems directly from the attempted denial of the digital world to ANY opposition.
‘You people caused the problem, so we will redact your opinion and eventually you will die and your ideas with you.’
And the IRA were in due course saddled with Eamon DeValera.
And yet the algorithms assume OUR consent everytime WE like or unfollow. Rewrite the past. Colonise the past. Never grow old. Never learn; doomed, frozen, withered and pseudo religious. They are Monks! They gain control through ‘love’. That’s Moffat/Harness/Whithouse speaking.
Or, more obviously, The Monks are the opponents of democracy. Vote for me and… that’s it. Could they be The New Despotism itself? The West is bankrupt: that thing that happened in 2007? Nevermind Dubbeyuh, Bliar and the fall of International Law, the Hague went and stuck what the Despots regarded as perfectly serviceable dictators behind bars.
Well, they’re not doing that to us. Nah. We don’t need you anymore.
Or is it both, because this is BOTH sides of t’internet? The Despots looked at the net pumping the West’s chaotic mind into their tidy Corporate computers and yelped. They were reminded that they really could not tolerate any alternative: Taiwan, Ukraine, Xinjiang; the oppressed below the 38th parallel; oh and you never stop being Iranian no matter where you hide.
This is interesting because not all of this had taken form back in 2016. Moff IS making a remarkable farsighted point. Never mind the coincidence of the deadly microbe in the lab, the whole concept is incredibly impressive. Also imminent cultural extinction doesn’t just sell well, what it is NOT is Woobie Destroyer of Worlds. Or ‘Reality’ or ‘Time’. Hoorah! Seriously, got to be a good thing.
Whatever. We also need to remember what the developing digital burden of the internet meant for the creative in the West. Cos Moff does have a history with feminist critics. Having epically and serially failed the Bechdel test, he and Mathieson had even set a joke about it in the luggage car of the Orient Express!
This is what makes The Monk Trilogy slightly uncomfortable. It might logically be Piers Morgan and Laurence Fox’s fave Who.
Truth be told there is indeed something just a little creepy about Moff’s women, even or especially the overlong ‘welcome to Darillium’ closing shot from the end of ‘Husbands’. I can hear Capaldi saying, ‘not sure I can bring this off Steven.’
Well, this is Doctor Who and at that point he was still a bloke and his companions predominantly female, many of them really quite young. That’s nought to do with Moff. Nonetheless, he insisted ‘yes, I’m a bloke, but I’ve won awards, and I think women are great!’ Really, that sounds more than a little like the bass player from The Stranglers. Not saying anything at all about The Stranglers’ sexual politics, just that the world has moved on.
More nit picking.
I haven’t really got a problem with Rome getting a pummelling, just question how medieval you really need to get on their sorry asses. Obviously, an equivalence is made between Rome and The Monks, the new religion on the bloc. And its just a bit of fun. Like Father Ted.
Harness’ original plan called for Trump, Corbyn and fat Kim vs the Turmezistan Pyramid. Now that could have been a LOT of fun. Without them, the Bill part of the story, The Monks juggling various military hardware and reducing the Sekjen to dust, sagged just a tad.
Critics liked the third part the least. Basically The Monks Broke like the Wind; if only solving the issues of the digital world was so simple. If indeed that is what the trilogy is about. Perhaps it was only ever Moff and his mates Pete and Tobe throwing mud at the Wall on Which the Prophets Wrote. Whilst disposing of some agreeably ugly aliens.
Despite all the talk of sacrificing Bill (far too interesting a character to be any kind of Messiah) the denouement is very very reminiscent of Last of the Timelords except, rather than The Doctor rapidly progressing from Dobby to floaty god, Bill airdrops all the pictures The Doctor handily took of Bill’s biological mum into the collective brain of humanity. Poor Moira: bit of an obvious target. I’m sure she meant well.
So, All You (really do) Need Is Love.
Aahhh.
Have you ever heard Fodderstompf by PIL? Jah Wobble could have defeated The Monks with a fire extinguisher, couldn’t he?
Or are Moff and Tobe saying, ‘don’t listen to that. Just remember who you are?’ That didn’t really come across.
The pyramids and the memory crimes are indeed straight out of Orwell. Always nice to see.
So, not perfect. Maybe not quite as coherent as the previous Zygon two parter (also by Harness) which it superficially resembles. But The Monk Trilogy was insanely ambitious… made you think, made you stare.
As for Moff’s feminist issues, that was only going to be solved by A Lady Doctor. And lo! One day Dull Chris came to town and he said ‘I can do that! Gissa job.’ Except apparently he couldn’t.
21 February 2024 at 07:33 #75387Yes, those interesting aliens (a nod to the 70’s series The Curse of Peladon?) and lots of hints as to the fate of Gallifrey. And without the oft unsuccessfully employed device of the ‘regeneration trauma’, Ecclestone makes a convincing and intriguing alien in a humanoid body.
If you’re a huge 10 fan (and there are a lot) then Ecclestone must seem an oddity. He clearly left the show unhappy with someone and we must assume that was RTD. I thought it was a great performance. Having (unfortunately) also seen his teeth grinding, shouty Macbeth, I thought this Doctor was a great interpretation.
Series 1 had its issues (as you will see) but The Doctor wasn’t one of them.
6 February 2024 at 00:59 #75380<p style=”text-align: left;”>@dentarthurdent @vickymallard</p>
if you are to venture into Classic Who, Phillip Hinchcliff/Roberts Holmes tenure is by far the best… 1975-1977. From ‘ark in space’ to ‘talons of weng chiang.’ Mostly gold. It fell foul of the ‘is this a kids’ show or what?’ controversy.There are classics from all eras… ‘terror of the autons’ is terrifying and rightly revered… but, apart from the Tom Baker golden age, you must expect at least one utter clunker per series and several more with pointless crawling in ventilation shafts, or perfectly reasonable characters crucified by the terrible dialogue of moronic hacks.
And there were lots and lots of quarries, laughable monsters, worse effects and teeth grinding male chauvinism.
You tuned in and you didn’t know what you were going to get.
Tell it like it is.
5 February 2024 at 12:47 #75376Plastic Mickey. Man eating bins… ‘leave it to me, I’m a gymnast!’ (in so many words) and yes lots of planets have a north.
Rose the story was lightweight in a good way. Light touch. We all know Who can do Preposterous and Pompous. But a nod to Spearhead from Space/Terror of the Autons, nothing too alarming, and away we go.
Well done RTD. And well done Chris Ecclestone. Possibly the best actor in the role, as good as Davidson or Troughton (saying nothing about the script)
Not sure what the final analysis of his departure was. The fact that Tennant became the new Tom Baker can’t be a coincidence. Presumably RTD wasn’t bothered about keeping Ecclestone on board.
4 February 2024 at 20:37 #75366did you START with Ruby Road?? You need to see the previous 3 too really… I’m sure you are/have…
the singing… a shock I admit. But I think RTD was channeling the Steven Moffat’s annual raid on popular Xmas culture. Otherwise everything will be fantastic after The Toymaker (which is why you need to watch the others).
I took a breath… and thought it was fine.
Most companions only last a season.
ratings? Do they matter that much once you have s deal? Not saying that aint a poisoned chalice. But really, who are the people chucking bricks? You tube? Ooh 10,000 zombies vs Alexander the Great. Memo to self: stockpile bog rolls.
The Chibwitch is dead. Hooray.
3 February 2024 at 01:17 #75359cheers. I need to look at that!
Blink territory? Absolutely! I stress ‘almost!’ Blink is the gold standard, from the casting of Cary Mulligan to the gorgeous subplot with the detective, and the scene in the backroom of the video shop.
A shame the Angel’s mystique then became a bit tarnished.
Those Moffat stories from NuWho 1-4 were all incredible.
2 February 2024 at 18:07 #75357Mummy was Mathieson’s favourite? I really like it. Almost Blink standard. Maybe the questions of why Gus suddenly releases the girls or who it was/represented nag a bit. And the business of not seeing the Doctor rescue everybody at the end. In an AU that’s the season ender and Missy was actually manipulating the Foretold while she shoves stiffs into the Gallifreyan data slice.
hmmm. That could have worked…
Is there really an issue with Flatline? So much to admire, from the ‘hard’ speculative sci fi to the characters and dialogue. What motivates the Boneless tho? It’s horror, stoopid! Very good too!
Someone mentioned crime dramas… I think these two are on a two year production run, but did anyone catch:
the ‘darkness’ series… the remake? Scandi noir but limited misogynistic horror (after the first one) and the female lead is believable and presented sympathetically.
Top notch psychological drama. I highlighted the first one but it’s a peerless examination of the mind set. As chilling as ‘Oxygen’ in its own way.
Also the ‘paris 1900’ series… the end of series 1 was slightly daft, but not completely ridiculous; there must be at least one more in the pipeline. Love background of why France imploded in the C20th
31 January 2024 at 21:17 #75355The Girl Who Died was co-written with Moffat. I love the hints of what I see as an abandoned story arc – unless it’s yet to ‘mature.’ Not many people agree and I doubt anything will come from it. But I haven’t quite given up yet…
The Girl Who Died… Katarina died and so did Sara (in the same series!) AU uberLiz got roasted with ze entire AU Reich. Peri was terminally mind wiped… and then she wasn’t. Hi Brian! Turn it down, mate.
Jenny died and regenerated. Bye!
Amy lived by finally going to a place where The Doctor can’t get at her. That sounded a bit weird.
Clara and Bill have treats in store!
So, is TGWD just a random story? Two parter… a story-arc ending in The Doc getting mind wiped?? Is this about the lethality of the Doctor or the objectification of his (many) companions? Moff has kinda planted his flag in this territory… without really wanting to. But yeah… it’s a recurring theme.
So, The Doctor intervenes and Ashildr survives. After that she becomes as big a problem as getting Tegan to Heathrow.
As a random story, even serving something like a whole series, can you really say that works?
Then you have the eels. And the Benny Hill Theme. And baby talk! One of these things has to be lazy writing. Nevermind a fake Odin turning up when it really didn’t matter… that is if it really was just The Girl Who Died.
It still beat any one of Chib’s output into a cocked hat.
Mummy, Flatline & Oxygen were certainly all way better. Jamieson is great writer tho…
31 January 2024 at 09:40 #75351Huge fan of Oxygen… to paraphrase 4 in City of Death, ‘I love your high threat space horror. It’s so scary.’
If Mary Whitehouse had still been with us she’d have been frothing at the mouth.
Awesome. Curiously quite difficult to rewatch. I tried and maybe I was depressed about Chib and the damage done. Maybe I was genuinely chilled. The Monk story arc needs careful analysis too… if I was to apply the meta-method, what the hell would they be?
Gonna have to rewatch the whole series, straight after I’ve finished Invasion of Time…
That was probably the best series since 4 (if you ignore RTD’s habitually rocky season-ender)
26 January 2024 at 21:05 #75345Of course the ‘Hand’ taken by 7 was Omega’s, not Rassilon’s. This also effects my comment on Hell Bent.
23 January 2024 at 19:23 #75343this is all very well and good but give us some jokes about cheese…
23 January 2024 at 15:35 #75341No. The jump from Vinvocci ship wasn’t great. I suppose the glass ceiling slowed him up, and he’s been around so long that by then, like Ashildr, he’s become brilliant at Crazy Stuff that should kill you. And we know he’ll regenerate soon.
One Vinvocci is a very funny man from the Horrible Histories team. The other was a Werewolf in Being Human (alongside midshipman Frame). They’re one reason I watch this every Christmas.
Then there’s John Simm. Not everybody’s cup of tea but I’ve previously expressed my admiration for ‘I like you. You’d taste great!’ and ‘No no no. You’re not going to THINK like me. You’re going to BE me!’
And that cliff hanger! Wow!
The problems?
The big jump maybe. Never sure about voice overs and exposition… then realised RTD was doing his own nine sermons and carols. He really doesn’t like Christmas. People eat too much. It’s commercialised. And it never snows. And someone will get bloody self important sooner or later, if not accidentally spit in your face. This time it’s Rassilon who’s rocked up with his own brand new ‘fighting’ hand (7 nicked the other one).
But maybe the voice over isn’t too bad in this case: better than the end of Family of Blood or Time of the Doctor. And at least the voice spouting off doesn’t belong to The Master (yes Timeless Children talkin bout you).
In fact the one thing I really can’t face is the ‘Broadfell’ explosion. We know you like camp Russ but… uhh really?? The ‘chuck the white point star across the universe while the doctor does silent running’ was a bit of a yawn. The Visionary is ridiculous but a homage to The Ribos Operation I suppose. I laughed.
It kind of holds together and we know RTD likes to take the mick. And so I watch it every year.
And the more I watch it the more I notice 10’s glance at Donna when Wilf asks ‘who was the woman.’ I know RTD denies it but that’s spoilers; what else is he going to say?
23 January 2024 at 12:18 #75339Just a theory… application of The Razor of Occam; do not duplicate broken chamelion circuits unnecessarily.
As far as we know only the Doctor has a sentient tardis. But maybe not. Maybe chamelion circuits are always prone to failure. Like the legendary British Leyland fully detachable door handles…
Not even saying that it’s a ‘live’ plot line… still think Moff was got-at/changed tack after aeries 8.
23 January 2024 at 09:38 #75336well… actually I SPECULATE there could be just ONE police box/diner/sexyidris tardis
My bonkers flow chart looks like this:
Hell Bent: 12 steals tardis
> taken by ‘frozen’ Clara and Ashildr, who reunite mindwiped 12 with his tardis and tour the cosmos in an American Diner
> in due course one or t’other or both realise 11 has a potential exploding Tardis issue (never really well explained) but the universe and eyepatch baroness is out to get him, all that, so they help him host the River Song face-slapping party in the Diner Tardis
> eventually they go back to Gallifrey, find renegade doctor 1 and donate the SAME Tardis, complete with its now knackered navigation system and chamelion circuit, unless that was sexy/idris gone all ‘Moment’ while in prolonged contact with the awesomeness of ‘frozen’ Clara and Ashildr
> 1 uses the tardis to deliver the Hand of Rassilon to London (question: why did he do that? It might seem like a handy thing to have around but really quite likely to attract Daleks and/or other intergalactic gits… so not that clever)
> events of unearthly child etc
> somehow Clara gets back to Trap Street I suppose. No rush.
22 January 2024 at 01:25 #75330sorry for the spoilery… in fact, although some sources quote The War Games (1969!) as the origin of the idea of the stolen tardis, I can’t find a single mention. The doctor admits to being a renegade and at that point his navigation is hopeless so you might infer that he shouldn’t be left in charge of a tardis.
21 January 2024 at 20:21 #75326The doctor lies. The writers mislead.
but apologies for spoilery…
We think Clara stopped The Doctor from stealing the ‘wrong’ Tardis because…
1. That was the point of the episode
2. Clara said ‘I’m the impossible girl!’ So the event must be a case in point (??)
BUT
in Hell Bent, the Doctor also stole a tardis which ended up in the hands of ‘frozen’ Clara, and Ashildr, and they disguise it as an American Diner. In this guise it seems doomed to remain because, believe it or not, this one has a faulty chameleon circuit! Fixable maybe but not for long.
Well maybe that was a problem with the type 40; can’t get the parts guvnor. Or it was the same tardis, maybe even a crazy one who thought it could steal a timelord? Gone a bit ‘Moment!’
Was it frozen Clara who sold her dodgy type 40, with god knows how many miles on the clock, to Doctor 1? Or timeline Clara, who just did that weird abstract thing that Moff presumably understands but doesn’t really bear inspection?
But… why The Diner in the first place? You have to suspect it’s the same one in The Impossible Astronaut. Which begs another question. Was Ashildr (assuming she was still travelling with Clara) in contact with Doctor 11 over Trenzalore? Which might be one reason 12 recognised her in Scandinavia.
Presumably Clara stayed in the back room when River slapped 11 in the mush!
21 January 2024 at 11:03 #75322Planet of The Dead got a lot of stick when it came out. Cracking adventure, I thought, with lots of interesting angles: no Tardis; interesting alien species – maybe reminiscent of the swarm in Invisible Enemy and the Formasi in Leisure Hive – but there a finite number of tropes; antagonistic prospective companion; proto fam on the bus even?? The fact that the double decker bus was dropped in transit to north africa (hence the damage to the top deck) sold it to me.
I’m interested in the stolen tardis origin. Was it hinted at in The War Games?? It certainly became a big thing in The Doctor’s Wife (Thief! Where’s my thief??) Did Moffat discuss that with Gaiman? He had a big hand in writing the dialogue apparently.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Observation… did the Doctor steal a tardis twice, or did he steal the same one twice over? Or rather was the original stolen tardis donated to the doctor by Clara and Ashildr after they’d got bored with it?</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>And when will we see The Diner again??</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>How common are faulty chameleon circuits? Everyone assumes the Clara shown at the beginning of Name of the Doctor is ‘Clara in the Doctor’s Timestream’ but that was lampshaded by Clara’s impossible girl soliloquy.</p>
20 January 2024 at 18:44 #75318… no footprints in the snow…? Legolas? Maybe Galadriel… it was an episode with goblins!
Or just bad CGI!
Mrs Flood? Still haven’t given up on River post spacesuit girl, and pre Mel. Maybe Captain Jack rocks up with vortex manipulator and sends her back to Amy’s timeline.
Clearly the no DNA match for Ruby is a big deal. Elf you reckon? Viking? (I have my own line on this one) Shobogan? Leela??
15 January 2024 at 11:37 #75305The McGann conundrum deserves a bit more research… the one quote that keeps coming up is that Moffat couldn’t ‘envisage 8 as the Doctor that ended the time war.’ On Reddit someone quotes ‘DW & the end of the Time War’ where RTD seemed to show he definitely thought 8 burned Gallifrey. I suppose it was a complex creative decision with both the Pandorica and Trenzalore being developed.
Or did Mofffat take the character development of the novels and audio dramas into account? I don’t know them. Just rather liked both McGann and Hurt.
Grant was also an incarnation of the doctor in the Curse of Fatal Death.
Withnail and I is both cult 90’s student fare AND hilarious. Don’t do the drinking game.
’What’s your name? McF**k?’ I can also imagine Nicholas Briggs doing that line with ring modulator.
The Moment might be Moff’s greatest achievement if you can ignore the fact that Doctor seems perfectly willing to ignore/accept Billie’s sudden appearance. Perhaps it’s a kind of ‘psychic paper’ power. The War Doctor needs to concentrate on the fractals.
14 January 2024 at 21:04 #75302Re my comment about RTD’s choice of villains, I meant of course David HAREWOOD (not Haywood) in The End of Time. Doh
14 January 2024 at 20:51 #75301As it happens we’ve been listening to a lot of ‘Night Tracks’ on Radio 3.
Who this raised a chuckle!
14 January 2024 at 20:37 #75300I thought John Hurt was great as the War Doctor, and I suppose Moffat may have come up with the idea some time before: 10 regenerating his hand and the Trenzalore shenanigans rescuing a decrepit old doc who’d run out of regenerations (even though it turned out he/she/they had a free pass anyway… I think I got that right). BUT… I do feel cheated of McGann’s turn versus Billie Piper as The Moment.
I think Moff could have told McGann to channel ‘I’ from Withnail & I: “We are entering the realm of the unwell”, “An expert on bulls you are not!”, “A stopped clock is right twice a day”, “My thumbs have gone weird!”, “I’ve just been called a ponce…”
”Get in the back of the van!!!” IS Nicholas Briggs with a ring modulator.
Actually my daughter once asked if Withnail & I was a Harry Potter film… point proven when Richard E Grant appeared. “See, that’s Voldemort!”
11 January 2024 at 19:06 #75283The Next Doctor… I enjoyed it. Cyberpunk! Nice. Teased the end of 10. Ooh you card Russ. Nice turn from Dervla Kirwan… even though, like David Haywood in The End of Time, her casting made me a bit uncomfortable.
Interesting point… should you be wary about exactly who you cast as villains? Not sure that’s RTD’s style. Perhaps Russel might say it’s the powerful outsiders who step beyond the pale (so you wouldn’t get that from the establishment? Is the it Russ?) but I was more comfortable with the sub incel nerd villain in the Sontaran Strategy say, cos everyone was getting to hate the techno dorks even then. So is Russell asking if we still have an issue with chippy women and rich black men?
The thing is, compared to Moffat, RTD never really went to the next level on his Xmas specials, apart from the glorious Voyage of the Damned. The Next Doctor is not meh exactly, just a slightly longer story with a seasonal flavour. And that’s it.
Donna does divide opinion. Series 4 was very strong and Catherine Tate was one reason for that. If you want eye candy and unquestioning worship of The Oncoming Storm, that’s a problem.
Should 10 mourn Donna? Perhaps he’s running away; blotting it out… actually he don’t half get through companions. Can’t get dewy eyed about all of them. In fact the ‘beyond series 4’ specials were about the people who were NOT chosen as companions IMHO. ‘The Waters of Mars’ is the stand out, but I enjoyed all of them.
6 January 2024 at 01:24 #75266Anthony Stevens’ story was the infamous ‘Twin Dilemma.’ And the quote was his typewriter exploded ‘literally’ NOT ‘liberally.’ Fortunately neither Anthony nor Eric had to contend with predictive text.
When it comes good science, I would like someone to try making explosions in space silent.
5 January 2024 at 20:24 #75262Ok, agree to disagree then. But some historicals are better than others.
As far as science is concerned Kill the Moon is as bad as almost anything CE, though I’ve not watched Flux. Spyfall made me want to scream. And not in a good way.
Forest of the Night was just an unhappy collision of interesting ideas. There was also the plea against the chemical coshing of neurodiversity, which I would applaud, but even that was simplistic.
I suppose it’s a bit mean to criticise writers for riffing on their favourite obsessions, and Moff never exercised the same editorial grip that RTD exerted in his first run. The problem is before you know it Anthony Stevens has submitted half a story based on his observations of the birds and gastropods in his garden (after his typewriter had liberally blown up) and the only man who can finish it is Eric Saward.
5 January 2024 at 12:07 #75258I didn’t think we disagreed exactly. My point is, if you’re not prepared to do the past honestly, then why go there? To plaster a monster or alien over an events kids and adults should know or be informed about can be potentially dubious.
Mind you science stories can also suffer from this. Earth’s large satellite would seem to be a fascinating and significant anomaly; you really want to make it into a space bat?? Carrington events and understanding paleo atmospheres are both really important; Forest of the Night doesn’t have a monster, unless the trees are monsters, but the result is at best glib and in any case nonsensical.
Thin Ice is the worst example because it painted a society where Sutcliffe seems like a repellent Millwall supporter who wants to argue about Brazil/England 1984. In fact, 50 years later, Lord Palmerston had to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin 3 times cover to cover (not making this up) before he realised he couldn’t act like a Whig grandee anymore: in fact it might not be very smart to intervene on the side of the Confederacy.
On the other hand, The Shakespeares Code or the Fires of Pompeii seem acceptable. Vincent and the Doctor is slightly disturbing. Cold War gets better with time; I have learned to tune out David Warner’s Duran Duran tape. I thought The Empress of Mars was magnificently bonkers. The Eaters of Light reminded me of Alan Garner…
I have heard spirited defences of Let’s Kill Hitler but, aside from Moffat’s admirable chutzpah, I don’t buy it and not just the mysterious case of the disappearing Reich.
The Tessalecta torture ‘bad’ people just before they die? Presumably they’re a Star Trek stylee temporal commission; can’t change the past so they get in just before the defendant would snuff it anyway. Er… haven’t they got the wrong year? Or was Hitler meant to die in 1938 and Rory preserved him so he could destroy Europe when he locked him in the cupboard?
Then they decide to improvise on River. Oh. Maybe they’re not bothered about time paradoxes at all!
I think the idea got away from him.
4 January 2024 at 15:55 #752461807: slave trade act – abolished the trade into the colonies
C16th-18th status of slavery not recognised in English common law and finally made illegal (not in the colonies). Indentured service was used as means of paying debt.
1833: the institution actually abolished in the colonies
Desperate people driven to the towns to perform badly paid piecework is as much a part of the Industrial Revolution as any number of fancy technological innovations.
The story is a mess of these ideas and seemed to concluded that a bad man had chained a ‘creature’ in the Thames. Boo!
Yes WHO is sci fi. Yes you would struggle to handle these themes in a ‘history’ story even where there is a consensus. No wonder WHO doesn’t do history stories.
So, why go there? It was tone deaf. Almost as if the awkward stuff had been chalked off. Done that! Now what about the Ice Warriors? (btw that was a story I really liked)
4 January 2024 at 11:54 #75244My least favourite story from series 10. There are a lot of buzzwords that could be plastered over a late Georgian story with a nod to slavery. It does come over as just that: a nod. And a monster in chains. And the reason the Thames froze was the climate was very very different.
It’s an uncomfortable salad of ideas. And the critter makes the Magma Monster look critical to the story of the Caves of Androzani. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to turn important history into sensible and sensitive drama. Bill could be in real peril, rather than gaping in outrage. You don’t need a steelworks to talk about the impact of industrialisation on people. The slave trade wasn’t invented by early modern Europe but they definitely industrialised it.
Not saying it would be easy to write but what they actually produced was poor. Great series otherwise.
2 January 2024 at 11:21 #75221Midnight: bbc iplayer has an embarrassment of riches on this side of the pond. Hope it’s there for a while!
that whole series was quite excellent; RTD must work like an auxiliary script editor beating everything into shape.
Shame about the barking mad season ender – great one liners though…
’it’s YOU!’
’Oh yes!’
’Your naked…’
’Oh yes…’
1 January 2024 at 21:51 #75215I just hope, loon that he is, The Master has been told it wrong.
1 January 2024 at 12:06 #75212sorry about my user name…
the Silence, The Papal Mainframe, Madam Kovarian: was The Tardis exploding with River inside because the universe was collapsing, or the universe collapsing because it was disappearing up its own crack because of the exploding Tardis? Or did Kovarian’s bunch of crazy crazies (shomebody shtop me!) do it (how?) because they needed to stop 11 going to Trenzalore. Hey! That worked.
Don’t say wibbley wobbly.
I always thought something was missing. The use of exposition in Time of the Doctor is telling.
But… themes repeat in WHO. Metaphysical speculation often ends up in the same place. So you could say it’s same theme.
1 January 2024 at 10:52 #75211I meant ‘The Girl who Died’; ‘The Girl who Waited’ was Tom MacRae; that was very good, ‘The God Complex’ too, a strong return after ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ aka the day the Third Reich disappeared.
I always wondered if ‘Midnight’ was a steal from AC Clarke’s A Fall of Moondust… just a bus full of tourists versus an incredibly hostile environment tho, no synchro talking spooky monsters.
I don’t think the writers were entirely Chibnall’s choice… remember Gatiss’ and Whithouse’s farewell turns in Twice Upon a Time? The structure of the corporation changed after 2016… no more channel controllers, more goal oriented execs; not making a point other than they were trying to create change. As Savil and Bashir and the salary row unraveled, it was needed. But did WHO suffer? Mainly from Chibnall’s own writing really.
The problem comes from the nature of the show. Is it sci fi, fantasy, contemporary commentary, kids show? We’ve been round the houses on this before. No wonder execs thought ‘soapy family drama? Good pitch!’
1 January 2024 at 09:53 #75210Q & The Pit, the film is a bit Hammery, and die-hard fans criticised it, but I thought it delivered.
I don’t remember the tv show. Spike Milligan lampooned the original version in ‘The Scarlet Capsule’
”unexploded German skulls? I hadn’t thought of that…”
1 January 2024 at 01:03 #75205Chibnall. Whitaker. I won’t start ranting again. Everyone is probably being a bit unfair, conscious of a previous show runner who may have saved the show for a few years but ultimately got it cancelled. We don’t want that again. The people involved with the show don’t either, so they stay schtum and we won’t find out what went on for a few years.
Speculation: was there a real continuing Cartmel masterplan, expanded later by RTD and Moff to reflect the earlier cancellation? Chibnall either didn’t get it or was told (and Moff too) that they couldn’t do that? The BBC under Tony Hall was having a big shake up. It was time for less meta. Less Mail baiting. More diversity in production. Fewer jobs for mates. You can see why a safe writer like Chibnall would get the nod off the back of his mega hit. Or, if the management were really interfering, was he the only one willing to give it a go?
It’s hard to see why Chibnall would want to ape JNT… but he oversaw the loss of strong co-writers, the crowded Tardis (aka the fam) and a difficult characterisation for 13. It’s downright spooky!
I started watching series 11 with interest. Which dwindled. I was appalled by Spyfall. The next series was no better. I gave up with the Timeless Children. Exposition! No! It never works. Exposition almost ruined the otherwise excellent Human Nature/The Family of Blood.
I should watch Flux I suppose, but… are there the hours in the day? It struck me that this arc might be a rehash of The Silence and eyepatch woman. Was the exploding Tardis (never really explained) meant to be another aspect of the flux? Can I be bothered to check? The big stories are meh.
The thing is, this doesn’t explain the character of 13. She was, I’m afraid, a little bit annoying, mainly because of the fam, but Whitaker herself must have had some doubts. There is that resemblance to Shona from Last Christmas – a well written character acted brilliantly. Is it a case of a former potential companion first ditched and then grown into a new Doctor? Except they couldn’t make it work?
Bad time to have a fail!
31 December 2023 at 16:19 #75200If 60’s sci fi is to anyone’s taste, I just got back from the gym to see ‘Quatermass and The Pit’ on the schedules. Genuinely terrifying. Recording the second half.
Reluctant to watch ‘Chicken Run’ because the gits told Julia Sawalha she was too old. As a voice artist. Don’t chickens get old? Almost mentioned Mel Gibson’s tendencies there… breathe. Breathe.
I might watch ‘Withnail and I’ tonight, just to hear Brian Jone’s percussion at the start of ‘All along the Watchtower.’
31 December 2023 at 16:02 #75199@dentarthurden
Flatline was… as good as you could get in 45 minutes. I fully expected the return of The Boneless, once they’d mastered the dimension of time. The only issue was their motive.
I always admired Asimov’s ‘The Gods Themselves’; the problem of communicating with the truly alien when, as Wittgenstein kinda said, ‘if a lion could speak, you wouldn’t understand him.’
One of the worst aspects of the reign of Chris (and maybe not his doing) was Mathieson was cast out into the cold: The Mummy, Flatine, The Girl, Oxygen… some would say, as sci-fi, all four were better than half of Moffat’s output.
31 December 2023 at 10:44 #75197Black Orchid… I checked! Well the first 2 minutes anyway. The Tardis materialises at The Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. We get a brief glimpse of a 2 cylinder GW tank. I think it must be a guest loco or this was a composite shot because their current 7200 class is not yet fully restored and only left Barry Island in 1981.
Maybe there’s more footage later in the story, but checking involves risking exposure to Davison’s “I can’t be a murderer because I’m actually a time travelling alien. You see?” ploy which might result in irreversible brain damage.
30 December 2023 at 20:01 #75193Black Orchid… 5 matierialised the Tardis at an actual railway station. Can’t remember a train. I could check on I-player but, well, that was Black Orchid.
George Stephenson made an appearance in Mark of the Rani but without Locomotion or Rocket I’m sure.
Dimension robbed by The Boneless, a itsy bitsy teeny Tardis nearly got pranged by some Bristolian suburban stock in Flatline.
30 December 2023 at 11:50 #75191Apparently Taw Valley was used to promote the books, but Christopher Columbus thought it looked too ‘modern’
You can paint a Hall red. The newly inaugurated British Rail painted a ‘King’ blue!
Tom Anderson: “ain’t you the kids who painted my King blue?”
Butthead: “no no no…”
Beavis: “we made you sell your house and then rented it out!”
30 December 2023 at 00:45 #75188@mallow
Someone else made the point that the appearance of the goblins may be related to the line of salt in Wide Blue Yonder… I am reminded of Time Bandits and the heroes’ drift out of history into the realm of fantasy. So… yes the ship disappears. It wasn’t particularly robust was it?
Was the ending abrupt? When it comes to WHO it’s not just RTD who is guilty. This is the nature of the show. It’s speculative, timey-wimey and you don’t want too many two parters. Moffat had the thing about the ‘big red reset button.’ Might be a bit meta, might be a bit of lampshading but this is not typical of his strongest writing.
The brilliant ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’ had a strangely truncated explanation at the end. Did they run out of time? Probably. Wouldn’t the business of rescuing everyone have been a bit prosaic? Matthieson and Moffat gave Capaldi a facetious line. Job done
It should be a fast moving show. Do you really want Jodie and Bradley grinding on about what everything means every week?
30 December 2023 at 00:19 #75187Film adpaptions…
I have two theories about The Hogwarts Express:
1. The GWR actually sent 2 Castles to be tested against Gresley’s A3’s but the magical world liked them so much they snaffled one, obliviated everyone and painted it red.
2. It’s supposed to be a rebuilt Royal Scot. Kings Cross… St Pancras…
In any case, the closest Warner Bros could get was a Hall class.
However, I admit no one has yet come up with an explanation of what the rev Awdry’s ‘James the Completely Unrealistic Engine’ is supposed to be.
27 December 2023 at 23:15 #75172The other thing I really really liked was RTD’s deployment of the lampshade.
”What are you doing? Do you usually grab rope ladders descending from the sky?” (I may not have that word for word)
Reality of the situation… quite correct
Get the Doc to say it… and it has been said. No going back now. Cut!
He saved the show twice. And he’s getting better.
But @jimthefish is perfectly correct. Apart from the magnificent VotD and (bits of) The End of Time, RTD’s old Xmas specials could be a bit meh. This one had promise and tied in unanswered questions from late Moff and Chib.
27 December 2023 at 23:01 #75171<p style=”text-align: left;”>@dentarthurdent</p>
Yes. I should probably read Fleming. What am I saying? I really haven’t the stomach for it.The best of ‘The Schoolboy’ leads from Le Carre research into the state of Indo China in 1975. He was apparently so horrified that he abandoned his publisher’s wishes for a longer Tinker Tailor arc. Hence the hurried and almost comic book account of the newly arisen Circus under Smiley.
Westerby’s travails are easier to read. And for him to write perhaps, even before we get to the story of Liz Worthington. Perhaps the secret of producing THS would be to tell it from the pov of Mrs Hibbert, or her daughter, or Connie Sachs, Mrs Pelling, or Lizzie, or the Orphan, Val Lacon, Molly Meakin, even Anne Smiley herself. And that’s just the Caucasian girls.
Then get the geezers ponce about like the big bankers they are!
Are you going to move on to Fleming from there?
27 December 2023 at 14:18 #75165<p style=”text-align: left;”>That should read ‘The Honourable Schoolboy was the sequel to Tinker Tailor (the book) – sadly never adapted, and pretty flawed.’</p>
Don’t post on the bus!27 December 2023 at 13:48 #75164sorry, the handle is an infeasible mix of letters and digits. My advice is type @ and copy the rest from the ‘grey’ unhyperlinked name from the previous email.
Some adaptation leeway is essential. Haydon is shot in the film. In the tv adaptation Prideaux rabbit punches him. In the book you just don’t know but Prideaux has previously ‘humanly’ killed an owl by breaking its neck. At least he didn’t get fed feet first into an industrial. As we all know only Saddam Hussein had one of those… that’s according to The Mail.
I’m not sure if Le Carre was conscious of the innuendo of Guillam’s girl being a very tall flute player (I’m not making this up) but a lot of his fans were blissfully ignorant and when Smiley warns his fellow conspirators to keep their loved ones well away the film shows ‘Cam’ to be a fellah. The warning didn’t happen in the film; it was a little fraught to tell the truth – were the 70’s really to expect a Soviet style pogrom of Rules, Minor Public Schools and Magdalene College?
Le Carre is developing a posthumous reputation for writing sexual diversity and ‘women’ badly: Roddy Martindale is a bit Fast Show. The women are given some good lines and are reasonably diverse but it’s a man’s world darlin.
The Honourable Schoolboy was the sequel to the film and it’s pretty flawed but dead sadly never been adapted. Probably impossible. But one one of the first fictions to go beyond ‘war is hell’ in respect to Indo China. The critique of empire is unflinching.
27 December 2023 at 10:11 #75157sorry for inflicting The Five Docs on you. Suppose I’ll have to look it again myself.
It was not a glorious WHO era… the next story ‘Warriors from the Deep’ was supposedly the one that killed classic WHO. Makes you wonder how (a) barnstormer like Androzani could still be made.
I still maintain that time lords and ladies tend to get around.
27 December 2023 at 09:34 #75156Tinker Tailor… a lot of people got very angry about the film: Haydon wasn’t dispatched in the right way. Guillams’s girlfriend was the wrong type of flute player… I thought it was fine. The tv adaptation is probably superior though equally claustrophobic and dry.
Le Carre’s Britain is broke, scruffy, compromised and no one can cook anymore. Kind of realistic and hopelessly idealistic. No wonder Smiley got fat and submerged himself in German poetry.
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