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Doctor Who [Spoilers]

I am possibly one of the biggest fans of The Doctor that you could ever wish to meet (boringly so, in fact). And I love Jodie Whittaker, I have warmed to her team, I even like Bradley...

but the writing is making me itch. It is, as my son put it, as if they've got two teams writing, one doing the beginning, one doing the end and then a spare person is jamming the two ends together'. It is the 'cut and shut' of TV writing. There are plot holes and things mentioned that just never have any pay off (OK, so the 'planet affects your mind...' but we never see it doing so. Feeling a bit 'travel sick and headachey' is not really 'affecting your mind' is it? It's drinking too much sherry.) I get that they needed the 'neural blockers' for the story, but, for the love of Davros - don't tell us about exciting stuff that we never see happen! SHOW US!

And I really like Chris Chibnall too. It's almost as though he's trying to write with a team of marketing specialists tied to his wrists.
 
Does anyone have ratings figures?
 
Average has been 7.7 million viewers, the best it's been since the Tennant years.
 
That's normal for TV ratings these days, I'm afraid, there seems to be an increasing number of viewers who don't stick with anything they watch. Bodyguard and Killing Eve are exceptions. Must admit I'm guilty of it myself - I still haven't finished Maniac on Netflix, and don't know if I ever will. We are always being told attention spans are getting shorter, so maybe TV ratings are proof?
 
That's normal for TV ratings these days, I'm afraid, there seems to be an increasing number of viewers who don't stick with anything they watch. Bodyguard and Killing Eve are exceptions. Must admit I'm guilty of it myself - I still haven't finished Maniac on Netflix, and don't know if I ever will. We are always being told attention spans are getting shorter, so maybe TV ratings are proof?

But logically, if you make a Dr Who for people who don’t normally watch Dr Who, some of those are going to drop off. And then you’ve potentially already distanced yourself from traditional Who fans in the process.
The attention spans of those who’ve been watching streadily since the sixties can hardly be questioned.
 
I wonder if it's also suffered from the drop back of much episodic television - particularly when there's no 'tie in' story to wind it all together? That's one thing I've missed this series, the lack of a cohesive plot arc which made watching each episode essential if you wanted to piece it all together. I know that could be a bit wearing (Mr Moffat, I'm looking at you...) but the whole 'Bad Wolf' and River Song narratives only really made sense if you watched every episode (and sometimes not even then, still looking at you, Steve). This series it seemed possible to watch one episode and not bother for a couple, pick it up later and then watch the last one and you didn't miss anything important.

I think that's one reason that this series felt a bit lacking. There was nothing weaving the stories together, apart from the whole 'Grandad' and fist bumping of Ryan and Graham - which is hardly plot arc material.
 
There is so much to watch out there. If you take the stuff that I only watch with the other half, we've still got about 10 shows that we're only half way through.

If you look at how Netflix, Amazon, etc have taken off in the last couple of years. I think even Tennant would have lost a few million.

I'm not a big fan of his doctor, the writing at the time, companions or the convoluted stories. Although I think he's brilliant in other stuff. He was way too powerful a doctor.

I know it's been done to death but they just need to get rid of the deus ex machina of the Sonic Screwdriver it just creates such lazy writing.
 
But logically, if you make a Dr Who for people who don’t normally watch Dr Who, some of those are going to drop off. And then you’ve potentially already distanced yourself from traditional Who fans in the process.
The attention spans of those who’ve been watching streadily since the sixties can hardly be questioned.

Despite what some loud complainers have been claiming, there are plenty of dedicated Who fans who have watched the whole lot of the 2018 series, millions of them, and I'm one of them. They're the core, and if Chibnall can snag two or three million more that's not to be sneezed at. I'm not saying it's the best it's ever been, but I had a good time watching it. It'll be interesting to see how many people watch the New Year's special.
 
New Year episode. First the positives. I thought it was well structured and the pacing worked well.
But it all seemed a bit like a fan fiction version of a Dalek invasion and like a lot of this series rather derivative. One (alien) Backhugger mind squid. And a pretty rubbery one at that. The Worzel casing that has all the futuristic tech you’d be able to construct on a farm in a few hours. An excruciatingly tedious exchange when trying to contact UNIT by phone. Like the Doctor, who has a time machine, would.
Chekhov’s Microwave appears fairly early on and replaces the sonic as a way to attack the Dalek squid at the end.... entirely predictably.
Alien must have made a big impression on Chibnall as the same idea of sucking the huggy Dalek into space was used here.
The dialogue was childish when it was intended to be moving. Where did the (tiny) army come from?
Biggest bollocks was this. Remember the script from the bandage monster episode that must have read, ‘They are surrounded by robots on both sides. Just as they raise their guns and shoot, our heroes duck and both sides shoot each other’?
Well tonight’s was a tank that shoots a shell at the Dalek but the Dalek fires a rocket which nudges it out of the way and destroys the tank. Bollocks did it.

Assistants multiplied to the point where even the Tardis was straining for space. Oh. And Bubble was just as Bubble as usual.

Overall, better than most episodes of the series but that’s not really saying much. I’ll probably not bother with the next series based on this one.
 
Great holiday episode, just the thing to unwind with after dinner, who says Chibnall's stories are the worst? This was a cracking little thriller, taking a leaf out of RTD's first Dalek episode by keeping it small scale but with big consequences. Once again Bradley handles the emotional stuff with skill - we could forgive Ryan's dad for being human, but couldn't forgive the Dalek for being a big alien bastard. There's degrees of these things. Plus it rocketed along. Some good laughs, a dash of self-awareness, the ruthlessness this new series has contained giving it an edge, the only bad thing is that we have to wait a year for more. But this bodes very well, very well indeed.
 
Does your tv show programmes from an alternate universe because what I saw was very average bordering on crap.
 
Does your tv show programmes from an alternate universe because what I saw was very average bordering on crap.
Or it could be that some people enjoy different things.

Not having seen it, yet, I'll reserve judgement, but on the whole I'm willing to let other people enjoy things they like.
 
I enjoyed it!

There were a few WTF moments but it's a sci-fi kid's show so I don't really care. The body-possession stuff was creepy and great (Charlotte Ritchie was brilliant) and a single Dalek was actually scary again.

(By the way, they didn't knock-up all the hi-tech stuff in a workshop, they just made the casing in there. The kit was in those boxes they nicked from the arms company.)
 
Does your tv show programmes from an alternate universe because what I saw was very average bordering on crap.

Although we disagree, I do appreciate reading your comments for another perspective, but I'll never get on with the popular view on the internet that everything is either the worst thing ever or the best thing ever, with no in between. Something doesn't purely have to be a masterpiece for me to respond to it favourably. Plenty of things are just fine. I found a lot to like in last night's episode. Maybe DW isn't for you anymore?
 
Although we disagree, I do appreciate reading your comments for another perspective, but I'll never get on with the popular view on the internet that everything is either the worst thing ever or the best thing ever, with no in between. Something doesn't purely have to be a masterpiece for me to respond to it favourably. Plenty of things are just fine. I found a lot to like in last night's episode. Maybe DW isn't for you anymore?

It’s all gone downhill and I don’t think it is for me anymore. I’m not alone in this by any means and there’s a huge amount of criticism for this series. It’s not just that the scripts are weak, the casting is woeful and there are glaring contradictions and plot holes in each episode. It’s not just the fact this series has been very derivative of other sci-fi plots but has concentrated on the soapy exposition of the weak assistants rather than delving into the more interesting character of The Doctor. Who is just Bubble but without the range.

Oh.... and it didn’t help that the Dalek laughed like a Smash Robot.

I’m with the viewers on Rotten Tomatoes who’ve given it an audience score of 24%.
 
I enjoyed it. I wasn't overly happy with the Ryan storyline, it really did seem to bog down the narrative somewhat, but the race against time stuff was fun.

And for future reference, a rel seems to be about the same as a second, so it was about 2 and a half hours.
 
We also learned that Daleks can regenerate under UV. Which, of course, is in natural sunlight so all those Daleks killed on Earth could simply teleport themselves together, regenerate and continue their conquest as laughing mind squids. Bet The Doctor will be carrying a lot of Factor 50 from now on.

Or, more likely, it’ll be forgotten.
 
It was... okay. I actually stopped watching halfway through the last series, and I've watched Doctor Who my whole life. I guess the modern series just isn't for me any more. It just doesn't bear much resemblance to the series I love (still love) from my childhood / teenage years. I imagine some William Hartnell fans might have thought the same about later years too. hope it has a happy future though... now, where's that Twin Dilemma DVD...?
 
It’s all gone downhill and I don’t think it is for me anymore. I’m not alone in this by any means and there’s a huge amount of criticism for this series. It’s not just that the scripts are weak, the casting is woeful and there are glaring contradictions and plot holes in each episode. It’s not just the fact this series has been very derivative of other sci-fi plots but has concentrated on the soapy exposition of the weak assistants rather than delving into the more interesting character of The Doctor. Who is just Bubble but without the range.

Oh.... and it didn’t help that the Dalek laughed like a Smash Robot.

I’m with the viewers on Rotten Tomatoes who’ve given it an audience score of 24%.

It seems to me too many viewers (read: old time fans) are approaching the new series expecting to be disappointed, which is one way to protect yourself against what you may not like, but is also a way of preventing yourself enjoying what you might have ordinarily enjoyed. It's happening with Star Wars too. But plenty of people loved The Last Jedi, and plenty of people thoroughly enjoy the new DW, many of them newcomers without all this baggage and near-pathological need to denigrate the new fans.

You can either stay in the past or move with the times. If DW doesn't suit you anymore, move onto something else. A friend of mine hates most music post-1986 and nothing I say will convince him that, for example, 2018 was an excellent year for music (I think it was). Doesn't make him a bad person, he's just stuck with what he liked when he was younger. Although saying that he does enjoy the new DW... Then again, he thinks any SW after RotJ is worthless.
 
It seems to me too many viewers (read: old time fans) are approaching the new series expecting to be disappointed, which is one way to protect yourself against what you may not like, but is also a way of preventing yourself enjoying what you might have ordinarily enjoyed. It's happening with Star Wars too. But plenty of people loved The Last Jedi, and plenty of people thoroughly enjoy the new DW, many of them newcomers without all this baggage and near-pathological need to denigrate the new fans.

You can either stay in the past or move with the times. If DW doesn't suit you anymore, move onto something else. A friend of mine hates most music post-1986 and nothing I say will convince him that, for example, 2018 was an excellent year for music (I think it was). Doesn't make him a bad person, he's just stuck with what he liked when he was younger. Although saying that he does enjoy the new DW... Then again, he thinks any SW after RotJ is worthless.

If the future of Dr Who is going to be anything like that shit frog thing, include me out. Sod it, I’m already out.
And the Star Wars franchise is flopping for the pretty much the same reasons as Who’s ratings drop.

Don’t blame the mental approach of the viewer when the fare dished up is a thin, poorly plotted, badly acted, awfully executed shadow of a show people have stuck with for decades.
 
I'm just not seeing it like that, I'm seeing a conscious attempt to keep the franchise alive by making it change while keeping its core aesthetic. It's divisive, but it has to move on to stay vital, or else we get... the Colin Baker era. And nobody wants that.
 
I'm just not seeing it like that, I'm seeing a conscious attempt to keep the franchise alive by making it change while keeping its core aesthetic. It's divisive, but it has to move on to stay vital, or else we get... the Colin Baker era. And nobody wants that.
I missed out the entirety of the Colin Baker and Peter Davidson eras.
 
I missed out the entirety of the Colin Baker and Peter Davidson eras.

I liked Davison and was sad when Adric died (!) because I was a kid, but nobody I knew liked Colin. Revisiting his era, it's a mixture of ice cream headache gaudiness and the downright unpleasant. But it wasn't only DW going that route in the mid-80s, I suppose.
 
Only got around to watching it tonight.
Was one of the better stories of this relaunch, but Bubble's slack-jawed, gormless, gob-smacked expression is REALLY irritating me!
 
Be sad to see the Dalek shed exterminated but it is in front of a listed building.

A family-run science fiction museum may be exterminated because a Dalek display does not comply with planning regulations.

The owners of the Museum of Classic Sci-Fi have been ordered to remove a shed from the front of their home which houses the replica Doctor Who villain. It has been on display since the museum opened in Allendale in October. Northumberland County Council said the shed did not fit in with the character of the couple's Grade II-listed home. Art teacher Neil Cole, who owns the museum with his wife Lisa, teamed up with members of an after-school club to build the Dalek.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-46990874
 
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