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Doctor Who [Spoilers]

I think there's a danger Moffat's era will be underrated, just as RTD's was before him. Moffat's last series was one of the best DWs in a while, even if the ratings were down. But Chibnall seems to have the populist touch of RTD, so far at least.
 
GNC said:
I think there's a danger Moffat's era will be underrated, just as RTD's was before him. Moffat's last series was one of the best DWs in a while, even if the ratings were down. But Chibnall seems to have the populist touch of RTD, so far at least.
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I see where you're going, but isn't "populist" a bit of a pejorative term?
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
The historical events weren't, but the simplistic way they were shoe-horned into DW along with the clumsy politics certainly was.
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The success of a children's programme rests largely with writers who don't treat children as children. I was never scared of DW as a kid but I didn't feel patronised either (well except for K9 and Bessie, that awful kit car driven by Worzel Gummidge). The BBC would have us believe that Van Gogh was the greatest artist who ever lived (cue a Brian Sewell cameo), Shakespeare was the greatest Playwright, Churchill the greatest Statesman, Muslims and Hindus are natural enemies etc. Its like being hit over the head with School curriculum, taught by Teachers who you know don't believe any of it.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
With hindsight, I now recognise how good some of the genuinely creepy scenarios from the Moffat era were. Skeleton walking in a spacesuit, isolated dalek believing it was a human etc.
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Absolutely - Moffat can tell a story, no problem.
GNC said:
think there's a danger Moffat's era will be underrated, just as RTD's was before him. Moffat's last series was one of the best DWs in a while, even if the ratings were down. But Chibnall seems to have the populist touch of RTD, so far at least.
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Yeah, go along with that. Had Moffat remained principal scriptwriter rather than show runner I think he'd could have kept it reined in a bit. There were some cracking stories but often the story-arcs eclipsed them: no problem with a unifying strand, but when the strand makes the episodes of secondary importance it disturbs the basic point, which is that you should be able to watch any episode (or two-parter) as a self contained story. There are a few from especially the Smith and Capaldi era where episodes felt like spacers, marking time towards a finale which I think contributes to the major criticisms of each incumbency, ie that Smith wasn't really allowed to grow into the character as the whimsy was laid on so thick, and Capaldi's mixture of gravitas and mercurial humour were only allowed to shine periodically. In addition, my usual criticism that there was no real jeopardy any more, instead some oh-so-clever, timey-wimey, screwdriver-waving bollocks will instantly solve everything, seems to have abated somewhat in this series. I'll keep watching.
 
GNC said:
I think there's a danger Moffat's era will be underrated, just as RTD's was before him. Moffat's last series was one of the best DWs in a while, even if the ratings were down. But Chibnall seems to have the populist touch of RTD, so far at least.
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Amazing how people can see things differently. Moffat put in the frankly weird love interests for the Doctor, built him up to be basically a god-like being, introduced irritating companions, (mostly feisty smart-mouthed, irritating types like Clara and the later Pond/Rory). and often, whilst pursing some hidden plot twist, lost the bit about telling a story.

I also think the Capaldi Doctor was a horribly missed opportunity. He lacked energy and looked out of sorts, like he didn't know what he was doing or how he should be playing it. The last series was just so boring and it wasn't fun at all.

The worst thing though was the show reeked of how amazingly impressed it was by itself. Cloyingly smug.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
I also think the Capaldi Doctor was a horribly missed opportunity. He lacked energy and looked out of sorts, like he didn't know what he was doing or how he should be playing it. The last series was just so boring and it wasn't fun at all.
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Exactly. Capaldi is (arguably) the most technically gifted actor of them all, Eccleston included, and a writer / director to boot, but he clearly wasn't being given any central vector to follow. When he did have a good script he shone, but I agree entirely that the last series had overtones of "you're going so let's just get this out of the way" to it.
 
stu neville said:
Exactly. Capaldi is (arguably) the most technically gifted actor of them all, Eccleston included, and a writer / director to boot, but he clearly wasn't being given any central vector to follow. When he did have a good script he shone, but I agree entirely that the last series had overtones of "you're going so let's just get this out of the way" to it.
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I wouldn't say I'm amazed, but I take NF's point about two people seeing an item of pop culture in two different ways. The reason I liked the final series was Capaldi finally nailed his interpretation for me - before he was trying to be the nasty old man that Hartnell was, but eventually his warmth was allowed to show more without losing sight of the alien quality Moffat was trying for. Capaldi had settled properly into the role.

Just shows you, DW can be all things to all people... to some a childhood hero, to others a rampant do-gooder, or a gay icon, or the scariest family show on TV, or even in a weird way the friend you wish you had in real life. It's no wonder everyone has an opinion on the character.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Just been perusing some of the reviews over at the BBC site and the following probably explains a lot:

”After the era of Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who, which featured often high-concept, complicated plots, showrunner Chris Chibnall has made it clear he’s keen for the show to be more easily accessible family viewing, and for it to educate children in the way it was originally intended to”

So brace yourselves for more simplistic storylines and some very specific "education" .

I agree with you that it didn't tackle islamic extremism. The jibe against Mountbatten, whose partition plan was an attempt to stop the escalating sectarian violence, seemed cheap and misguided too.

A forthcoming DW episode in this series apparently features The Doctor saving a woman accused of witchcraft from being burned at the stake.
While The Doctor was in Pakistan, couldn't she have jumped forward a few years and foiled some jihadi plots or maybe saved an innocent Christian woman from a sentence of death for "blasphemy" ?
But I suppose that sort of topicality isn't on the BBC's agenda. Looks like the degree of education in DW is going to be rather select and simplistic!
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I mean, seriously? Sure, the DVD is ctor could have saved someone by jumping a few years into the future. I mean, sure that wasn't the story of the episode, but the Doctor being a time traveler could also jump around in time and save every soldier about to be shot or otherwise killed in WWII.
Personally, not having an encyclopediac memory of Doctor Who I don't remember it ever tackling topical events directly.
There's a story, they do a thing, they scarper off to another thing. A space battle, alien invasion on a distant planet, Cybermen in mall shops.
Treads close to why doesn't the doctor fix every problem ever.

Anytime the Doctor has meddle with a real historical event, it's simplistic. It's not a nuanced event. Much like history in class.
I don't mind the return to earlier, simpler stories. Frankly after awhile I get tired of complicated, nuanced, follow the thread plots. Especially when the writing isn't up to par for them.
The world is pretty complicated right now, I don't mind my escapism being a bit more simplistic.
 
GNC said:
I think there's a danger Moffat's era will be underrated, just as RTD's was before him. Moffat's last series was one of the best DWs in a while, even if the ratings were down. But Chibnall seems to have the populist touch of RTD, so far at least.
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Moffat is a great writer, but as a showrunner he became far too self-indulgent. The best thing he could have done would have been to hire a very strong script editor and give them the authority to overrule him on his scripts, to tighten them up and insist that they had to be up to the standards he set with his stories during the RTD era.
 
Kryptonite said:
Moffat is a great writer, but as a showrunner he became far too self-indulgent. The best thing he could have done would have been to hire a very strong script editor and give them the authority to overrule him on his scripts, to tighten them up and insist that they had to be up to the standards he set with his stories during the RTD era.
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Totally agree with this. Moffat was too much of a controller and no one would dare say anything negative to him, which is what was needed.
 
gordonrutter said:
Totally agree with this. Moffat was too much of a controller and no one would dare say anything negative to him, which is what was needed.
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I'd go as far as to call it a wankfest. Moffat was capable of genius, as already said though, he needed someone to keep him from vanishing up his own you know where.

Incessant dicking with the doctor's backstory didn't help much either.
 
gordonrutter said:
Totally agree with this. Moffat was too much of a controller and no one would dare say anything negative to him, which is what was needed.
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If he'd never written any more Who after the RTD era, I really believe that he'd be ranked up there with Robert Holmes as one of the best Who writers ever, I just think as a showrunner he spread himself too thin, fell in love with his own cleverness and, as I said, needed to delegate a bit of authority to a strong script editor.
 
Ah, getting a strong Robots of Death vibe about tonight's episode, no bad thing: creepy killer robots, mystery whodunnit (I didn't guess). Surprisingly decisive about killing off sympathetic characters too. Felt a bit sorry for Twirly and his near-meltdown at doing something outwith its programming, but it was refreshing it wasn't all Black Mirror anti-technology, which is an overused trend these days. What I'd call a traditional episode, and better than the energy eater one.

Next week: Doctor Who vs Matthew Hopkins!
 
I thought Whittaker said she wanted to stick with the role for a while?
 
These days, actors don't stick in the Who role for very long.
 
The Starburst article seems to contain "if", "might", "could" etc an awful lot. IIRC Tennant was on the cusp of leaving for about three series' worth if you believed reports.
 
When Chibnail first took over I read / heard somewhere that he wanted a different actor for the role very season to allow him to try out differetn things.
 
Kerblam felt like an echo of the whimsical Sylvester McCoy episode "Paradise Towers".
Switch the high-rise tower block for an Amazon-esque warehouse, populated by similar robotic guardians, and it had a very similar vibe.

Here's the Doctor striking that pose with her sonic again .....

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blessmycottonsocks said:
Kerblam felt like an echo of the whimsical Sylvester McCoy episode "Paradise Towers".
Switch the high-rise tower block for an Amazon-esque warehouse, populated by similar robotic guardians, and it had a very similar vibe.

Here's the Doctor striking that pose with her sonic again .....

View attachment 13165
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To be fair, Broadchurch may have been a bit different.

1542666156785.jpeg
 
GNC said:
Ah, getting a strong Robots of Death vibe about tonight's episode, no bad thing: creepy killer robots, mystery whodunnit (I didn't guess). Surprisingly decisive about killing off sympathetic characters too. Felt a bit sorry for Twirly and his near-meltdown at doing something outwith its programming, but it was refreshing it wasn't all Black Mirror anti-technology, which is an overused trend these days. What I'd call a traditional episode, and better than the energy eater one.

Next week: Doctor Who vs Matthew Hopkins!
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I think we've seen the back end of that one!
 
Seems to be some industrial strength whooshing going about last Sunday's episode where viewers believe the Doc was endorsing harsh business practices by Amazon and other online corporations, just because of the twist that the business heads were not behind the conspiracy. I thought it was a lot more to do with acknowledging working conditions can be bad, but setting right a wrong with violence, or in this case terrorism, was seriously not the way to go about it. Also, demonising those who have the power to change the problems doesn't help, and increases the us vs them mentality. It's not as if Doctor Who is going to stop being right on halfway through this series anyway, is it?
 
Analogue Boy said:
Even though there’s only a tiny supporting cast in these episodes, I’ve noticed there's an unusually high bodycount of people she’s failed to protect.
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Me too. Hopefully it's building to something, because otherwise it leaves things needlessly bleak.
 
gordonrutter said:
There’s not supposed to be any sort of story arc so it shouldn’t be building to something.
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Except, we've had a mysterious reference - the Timeless Child - a recurrent villainous race, and many loose ends left dangling, like antagonists basically vanishing at the end of episodes. I prefer to hope that's not just careless writing.
 
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