Doctor Who Discussion

Discussion of non-Disney entertainment.
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Dr Frankenollie
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Dr Frankenollie »

Hmm. I rather like the change of style that comes with Dalek, because it signifies the darkness and brutality of the Daleks. The only episodes in S1 that are as dark are Father's Day and The Parting of the Ways (the Moffat scripts are the creepiest, yes, but full of wit and cheery charm too). It's better that the Daleks were reintroduced in such a "gritty" fashion, because it firstly gives them the opportunity to be frightening again, and secondly creates an even more emotional connection between them and the Doctor.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by supertalies »

So excited for tomorrow!

I really hope it's good...! :float:
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Dr Frankenollie »

I'm incessantly exploding with happiness and nervousness.

To honour 798 episodes of the Doctor's ongoing adventure through space and time...

Doctor Who 50 Greatest Moments:

1. Ian and Barbara enter the TARDIS
2. Daleks rise from the River Thames and glide across Westminster Bridge
3. The First Doctor accidentally gets engaged to the Aztec Cameca
4. The First Doctor introduces the TARDIS to Steven, and his "space-helmet for a cow" gag
5. Regeneration
6. The Second Doctor speaks to Victoria about his family
7. The Second Doctor ends up in the Land of Fiction
8. Shop-window dummies come to life
9. The Second and Third Doctors meet and squabble
10. The Third Doctor and Jo board a miniaturised ship stuck in a time loop
11. The Fourth Doctor is medically examined by Dr Harry Sullivan
12. Davros and the Fourth Doctor debate; and the latter questions whether he has the right to stop the genesis of the Daleks
13. A Zygon attacks Sarah Jane
14. The Fourth Doctor is controlled by Sutekh the Destroyer
15. The Fourth Doctor in the Matrix
16. The Fourth Doctor investigates the mystery of the Robots of Death
17. Jago and Litefoot in Victorian London
18. The Fourth Doctor is captured and taken to Countess Scarlioni in Paris, rapidly using his mere wit and arrogance to take control
19. "It is the end...but the moment has been prepared for."
20. The Fifth Doctor's post-regenerative crisis
21. The sailing ships in space
22. The Fifth Doctor searches for a cure within the caves of Androzani
23. The Sixth Doctor's apparent demise is televised on Varos; the villains give the cue for the cliffhanger
24. The Special Weapons Dalek
25. The Kandyman
26. The Seventh Doctor destroys Ace's faith in him
27. The Seventh Doctor and Ace wander off into the sunset
28. Surrounded by Autons, the Ninth Doctor grabs Rose's hand and shouts: "Run!"/Clive speaks to Rose about the legendary Doctor
29. The alien guests arrive on Platform One to watch the end of the world
30. The last of the Time Lords meets the last of the Daleks
31. Pete Tyler says goodbye to his daughter
32. The Ninth Doctor exuberantly uses the nanogenes to cure the Empty Child/"Are you my mummy?"
33. The Ninth Doctor's regeneration
34. The Tenth Doctor battles the Sycorax
35. Cassandra possesses Rose and the Tenth Doctor
36. Sarah Jane and the Doctor's reunion
37. Jackie is betrayed/Elton's closing monologue about the strangeness of life
38. Daleks versus Cybermen
39. Sally and Larry try to escape the Weeping Angels
40. The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble are reunited at the Adipose offices
41. The Tenth Doctor is 'possessed' by the Midnight Entity
42. Wilf watches his immigrant friends get taken to 'labour camps'
43. "I don't want to go."
44. The Eleventh Doctor, Amelia Pond and fish custard
45. Vincent Van Goph is taken to the modern day Musee d'Orsay
46. The Eleventh Doctor defeats the Silence with Neil Armstrong's foot
47. Victorian Clara enters the TARDIS/"It's smaller on the outside"
48. The Eleventh Doctor tells the God of Akhaten a story
49. Clara enters the Doctor's time-stream on Trenzalore
50. The Eighth Doctor's surprise minisode return (The Night of the Doctor)
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by 2099net »

Seems like Marco Polo has been "recovered", although this will be taken from a 16mm filmed recording taken from the TV at the time (silent) with the soundtrack added.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ed-TV.html

Now, this may or may not be true - but given the same odd, carefully chosen wording of the BBC's denial ("we cannot confirm") I'm willing to say it is. But does this mean as well as Marco Polo, other missing episodes could have been recorded in the same manner by the same person?

I'm just not sure why all the damn secrecy. If it is true, why not announce it with Enemy/Web? Would it really hurt them to say "restoration pending" or something? If anything they could revisit the news and generate more interest by releasing "restored" clips and segments as they were done, and then once more by a BFI screening.

BTW, I cried at An Adventure in Space and Time. But I tend to blubber a lot. I nearly cried when I saw the faux Barbara's magnificent do. A solid steel-like helmet of hair which if anything out shined the original.

Oh BTW additional:

It's criminal that there will be no Blu-ray release for An Adventure in Space and Time and absolutely disgusting that there will be no Gatiss commentary. I say this with all due respect, but Gatiss will turn up for any old commentary recording if asked. Because he is an enthusiast first and foremost. I know some people have issues with his scripts, but to me he radiates positivity and enthusiasm. Even while watching the docudrama I was thinking "I bet Mark will have so much to say about this" at certain points. For shame BBC Worldwide.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Dr Frankenollie »

My All-Time Favourite Doctor Who Stories:

1). The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
2). City of Death
3). Love and Monsters
4). Midnight
5). Genesis of the Daleks
6). The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon
7). Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
8). The Aztecs
9). The Talons of Weng-Chiang
10). Gridlock
11). Rose
12). The Robots of Death
13). The Three Doctors
14). The Mind Robber
15). Human Nature/The Family of Blood
16). The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang
17). Dalek
18). Carnival of Monsters
19). Father's Day
20). The Snowmen
21). The Happiness Patrol
22). Turn Left
23). The Time Meddler
24). The Caves of Androzani
25). Vengeance on Varos
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by 2099net »

My all time favourite companions (all media):

1. Barbara Wright
2. Izzy (8th Doctor/Doctor Who Magazine)
3. Donna Noble
4. Jackie Tyler (hey, she travelled in the TARDIS, she's just as much a companion as Sara Kingdom!)
5. Vicki
6. Lucie Miller (8th Doctor/Big Finish)
7. Romana (Lalla Ward)
8. Polly (Wright?)
9. Liz Shaw
10. Nyssa

Yes, no Sarah Jane. But she would probably be 11 or 12.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by 2099net »

THE RANI IS STILL ALIVE!
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Escapay »

I screamed quite a few times.

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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

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Escapay wrote:I screamed squeed quite a few times.

Albert
Corrected.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Dr Frankenollie »

It was good. Enjoyable, funny dialogue, clever time-wimey loops and so forth...and obviously the Tom Baker and Peter Capaldi cameos were great. Nevertheless, the Doctor's new quest - finding Gallifrey - is a bit nonsensical. The Doctor never liked Gallifrey, or the Time Lords. He ran away to see the universe, away from the dusty old non-interventionist politicians of the Panopticon. Why would he ever want to go back?
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by 2099net »

OK Need I say it [River Song]Spoilers[/River Song]

Personally, I could do without the Time War. Not that I dismiss the concept – I feel it was very needed and necessary at the "time". But it's over now, and so was the plot arc. It had a perfect ending in "The End of Time", where we learn the Time Lords had become as bad as the Daleks… perhaps more so.

I liked that. I liked that a lot. I wish Davies had gone the whole hog and had the Time Lords conspiring with the Daleks in "The End of Time" (as he mentions in A Writer's Tale). To me, "The End of Time" justified the Doctor first leaving Gallifrey and choosing to become a renegade. He would never fit in with his own people.

As the show was keen on saying during the RTD era, "everything has its time", and the time of the Time War has passed.

It seems strange as well, that in "Night of the Doctor", Moffat seems keen to remind us that to those on the peripheral of the Time War, the Time Lords are seen as being as bad as the Daleks. (By the way, I cannot praise "Night of the Doctor" highly enough – Moffat starts by presenting us with the unexpected and continues to do so throughout the mini-episode. Does anyone think the pilot was an SSS agent? If so, it would make her comparison of the Time Lords to the Daleks even more damning.) After all, at the climax to "Day of the Doctor", he wants us to feel pleased that the Time Lords have been saved. He attempts to get around this dilemma by focusing on the children, but, like Frankenollie, it just doesn't seem to fit with the RTD era. Unlike some, I can sort of reconcile the events of "Day of the Doctor" with the events of "The End of Time" if I mentally squint. But I can't reconcile the emotion of "Day of the Doctor" with the emotion of "The End of Time".

But saying that, given the impossible brief, it would he hard to write a story about Doctor Who without focusing on something iconic in the show. The Time War is certainly the most iconic aspect of the show since its revival, and this something the majority of the audience would be familiar with, it has Daleks and it has Gallifrey. I can understand absolutely why this was chosen, there's very little else to choose from, perhaps the only other alternative would be to show exactly why the Doctor left Gallifrey with his granddaughter – but of course there's logistical issues with that which wouldn't be easy to solve.

So the Time War it was. And we actually got a thoughtful story out of it. I have no idea the extent of Eccleston's Doctor's original role. Would he have simply served the same purpose as Tennant and Smith, or would he have been "The War Doctor"? In the end, I don't think his absence mattered too much, because thematically the point still stood.

Billie Piper being the Moment's "conscience" was a flash of genius. After all, this is the role Rose played to Eccleston's Doctor, a conscience and a bridge for the battle scared Doctor to humanity. If, as the Doctor Who Magazine story "Hunters of the Burning Stone" stated, Ian and Barbara taught Hartnell's Doctor about humanity and how to be more human, it was Rose who gave Eccleston's a crash revision course. Plus, it allowed Tennant's Doctor to be taken from near the end of his life, where he travelled alone, still hurting from Donna's fate. A time when he was slowly, perhaps, appropriating some of the attitude of "The War Doctor". Smith's Doctor too has seemed to cross close to the line of "The War Doctor" at times. As much as I hated the idea of a "forgotten" incarnation (and you can tell, I still have some resistance, refusing to number the Doctors in this post) it actually makes a lot of sense. It makes Tennant and Smith's Doctors make more sense. It even makes Eccleston's Doctor make more sense and I believe it makes more sense for "the War Doctor" not to be Eccleston. After all, given a new regeneration after the Time War and a chance to start again, wouldn't it make sense this new Doctor would be as hands off and distant as possible? Who knows, perhaps Eccleston's refusal did the series a favour?

But, I'm not sure about the Zygons. I never was (and I still think these Zygons are a step down from the original design). The "B" story wasn't bad, but was, I feel, too humorous – I know that the special was to be watched by many more people than normal so had to walk the tightrope of mainstream appeal as well as backward looking celebration – but I would have preferred the Zygons to be more formidable, and the humour in the episode to have come from character – more interplay between the Doctors. It also sort of mirrored the main "A" storyline when it came to sacrificing London to save the planet, but then sort of fizzled out. Yes – the Zygons introduced the concept of the "Time Paintings" but… if that was Time Lord technology, how did they get the ability in the first place?

I know there's going to be many people – fans – who wanted something else, something more. More classic Doctors, more companions, more monsters. But I honestly think that Moffat has weaved a story much more nauanced and much better than anyone could have expected with his overloaded "shopping list". Daleks, Time Lords, UNIT, Time War, Tennant, Rose and Cameo's aside, we got plenty of visual and dialogue "nods to the past" and, remarkably, "nods to the future" too – including the upcoming Christmas special and Smith's upcoming death.

As for the search for Gallifrey – it doesn't really make sense if we consider the Time War as presented. I hope it's not the overriding goal of Capaldi's Doctor. I hope it just exists in the background, to be referenced when and if the story demands it. Because, the Doctor should always be an exile, apart from Gallifrey and… let's face it, what can they do when/if he finds it? We've already had The Time Lords are corrupt and there's not much drama or surprise in "everyone lived happily ever after."
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by blackcauldron85 »

How Disney nearly brought Doctor Who to Disneyland, just before Star Wars soared into theme parks
http://www.insidethemagic.net/2014/12/h ... orrowland/
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Dr Frankenollie »

Resurrecting this topic to discuss the oncoming Christmas special!

Who should be the 13th Doctor? Personally, I think it has to be a woman - both on a thematic, storytelling level (considering the precedents of Missy, Clara Who and the like) and an ethical one. But whoever they are, it's been a long time waiting to find out. There were only 18 days between Eccleston standing down and Tennant being announced; we learned Smith & Capaldi were the successors 67 days and 65 days, respectively, after their predecessors announced they were departing. It has now been 162 days since Capaldi said he was leaving! Ridiculous.

I so want it to be Tilda Swinton, but I know that's impossible...
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

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Now I know this isn't going to make me that popular, but I worry the casting of Jodie as the Doctor runs the risk of being a "gimmick". While I'm not against the idea of a sex-change (I adore Missy) I don't feel that it was necessary. While the companions in classic Who were a mixed bunch with only a few standing out as positive female role-models (I would say Barbara, Liz, Sarah-Jane, Leela, Romana (II) and Ace are the only ones) without exception in New Who that has been the case.

The series is awash with strong, female characters. Companions, regulars or single story characters. Also, we sort of had had a female Doctor in River Song, just as classic Who had Romana.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have a female Doctor, just that (IMO) we don't NEED one, and people who say we do - mainly media commentators and pundits, clearly haven't been watching the show if they think its the only way to inspire young girls, or the only way the show can give young girls a role-model to look up to.

I don't know most of Jodie's work - I did see her (small) roles in the St Trinians movies and even then, I thought she stood out, just from the personality she gave the role. I mean, I took the time to look up who played the role. She made an impression. So I have no real issues with the casting. I'm certain she will be a great Doctor. Just don't let the fact the Doctor is a woman dictate the show.

The question is what happens when Jodie decides to leave? Could we go back to a male Doctor without a backlash?

Personally, I'm more concerned about the new showrunner and his record...
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Nandor »

I find myself not having any reaction to the gender change.
I'm not happy about it, not upset, angry or sad. It's just a new Doctor, with all the positives and negatives any new Doctor brings with them. I somehow, surprising myself, don't care in the least about the change.
That said, I do feel they've added too much emphasis on changing genders with regenerations lately. After Missy, we got the Gallifreyan guard (don't really remember, it's from Hell Bent...) and now the Doctor. Not that many people, sure, but three in pretty rapid succession, taking in account the series has been around for 50+ years. That part does bother me, as does anything new that's supposedly been happening since the beginning.

Overall though, I've lost much of my DW-mojo. I loved the RTD era, though that wore out its welcome (the specials showcase every problem RTD had). Moffat had good ideas, but lost interest or the end goal before they were brought to fruition. I hated series six when it first aired, but grown a fondness for it. Ironically, I now rewatch the episodes dealing with the bigger arc more than the standalones. I liked Amy and Rory, but they too stayed on too long. Then came the Impossible girl, and it became all too clear that Moffat is a story guy, not a character guy. In essence the opposite problem RTD had.

I wonder how I'll look back on the Moffat era in a couple of years. At this point, I think he did a servicable job, even if he never reached the heights we all hoped for when he started. I certainly appreciate a lot of what he's done, and a number of characters he created. I'm ready for the series to reinvent itself. As for Chibnall, I'm iffy. I can't say I liked any of his DW episodes (scary), but I love some of his Torchwood-work (hopeful). I loved Countrycide. Even if I wasn't interested in DW anymore, I'd still check out Torchwoods return. Very excited about that, hope it doesn't disappoint.
Now bring back Toshiko.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

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I really worry about Chibbers. Not just his past Doctor Who writing but his "attitude". He's terrified of spoilers. I mean, we don't even know the writers yet! Is it sane to keep the writers secret? I can understand story spoilers - but a little tease helps anticipation. But hiding the writers? He seems obsessed with stopping any leaks or speculation.

He's never written a good Doctor Who story. But I think (reading between the lines in various articles) he's been told what to write (or at least, given a "shopping list" of what/who to include) - so it's probably not fair to fully judge him before he got free reign.

However, I wasn't impressed with pre-Children of Earth Torchwood, I mean, I guess individual episodes could be classed as good, but as on ongoing series with ongoing characters it sort of sucked. There was very little consistency between them, no real development - crazy stuff just "happened" to them, and they sometimes reacted in crazy ways.

But, taking episodes as individual entities, he wrote a good S2 ender, and the episode with the origins/flashbacks was good too (was it called "Fragments"?). But both of them were the end of S2 - too little too late.

I'm excited for the new start. It's like Matt's start - new Doctor, new Companions and new Showrunner. Moffat was worn out towards the end of his run, but overall I enjoyed it (apart from his misjudgement of Capaldi's Doctor in his first year). Yeah, he's a story guy, but damn some of those stories were good. He had issues with character - Clara never really had one and Capaldi's Doctor started too abrupt and unlikable. But I think he turned this around with Bill and Nardole. And I never expected Nardole could create such an emotional response as he did in The Doctor Falls.

Hopefully Chibbers will be somewhere in the middle of the RTD - Moffat scale. Story and character. I hope so for character having 3 companions (part of me feels this will be very hard to pull off in 45/50 min single episodes, and I hope its not a mistake to have so many)

Bring back Ianto.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Escapay »

To be honest, if they were going to source another writer to take over for the Moff, I would have preferred Toby Whithouse. Always enjoyed his episodes of the series, as well as "Being Human." I know it's too soon to start thinking about Chibnall's replacement, but I would love a Whithouse-led era of "Doctor Who" somewhere down the line.

As for current Who, to my shame I still haven't finished Series Ten. I've just not been as gung-ho about Capaldi's Doctor as I'd hoped. Whittaker's announcement happened while I was at D23 Expo last year, so I wasn't really in a Who mind at the time, but I do approve of the casting (well, as much approval as a random viewer can give over something over which they have no control anyway). I'll try to finish the series before the new one starts.

Bring back Danny.

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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

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The end of S10 is really good. You'll love what they do to Missy... and more.

The Xmas Special. Not so much.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

Post by Nandor »

Yeah, series ten was a step up, definitely finish it.
Christmas specials haven't been good in years, such a shame. I hardly remember anything about last year's, it was so bland. Plus, I didn't like how [series ten spoilers, to be discussed once Escapay has finished] came back. Know when to leave something, Moffat!

Agreed about Torchwood on the whole, but I can't help loving individual episodes. I love Small Worlds, Countrycide, They Keep Killing Suzie, Out of Time, Captain Jack Harkness, and that's just series one. Ironically, series two did better with the arch, but delivered less on individual good episodes. Weird trade-off.
I love Children of Earth, even if it suffers from Toshikoless-ness.
I expect they'll ignore Miracle Day, as should everyone.

Bring back Jackie Tyler. Not Rose, just Jackie.
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Re: Doctor Who Discussion

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Bring back Suzie
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