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Doctor Who [Spoilers]

Mr. Banooka said:
Must. Not. Make. Comment. About. Amy. Pond's. Crack.

Shnerk...Shnerk...
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I fear I probably did exactly that, back when that series was broadcast. I tried to choose my words a little more carefully this time!

By the way, someone tell Russell T Davies that it's not big or clever (or remotely amusing after the 75th time) to have someone say "mavity" every episode.
 
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Peripart said:
By the way, someone tell Russell T Davies that it's not big or clever (or remotely amusing after the 75th time) to have someone say "mavity" every episode.
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watch the programme as part of a happy clutch of children from 7ish to 60 but mostly under 20 and you'll discover it is very funny indeed! :rollingw:
 
Frideswide said:
watch the programme as part of a happy clutch of children from 7ish to 60 but mostly under 20 and you'll discover it is very funny indeed! :rollingw:
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Fair enough! But Newton didn't invent the name or the concept, and the correct word comes from the Latin gravitas, meaning weight, so there's not a chance that Sir Isaac would have thought to say "mavity"...
 
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"I’m building a Dalek at the minute," says tv writer Tom Neenan, "It’s based on the plans for the new series and it’s all built by me but I’m very jealous of people who have a screen-used Dalek."

"So many of us collect stuff we remember being affected by, terrified by, intrigued by,” says Chris Balcombe. “I was probably first scared by the Daleks around 1965, when I would have been five.” I ask Chris to tell me the story of how he got his Dalek. “It’s quite a long story, I’m warning you,” he says, before explaining that he bought the rear-third of the extraterrestrial from the show’s producer John Nathan-Turner at a “Doctor Who Day,” then did “some research” to work out that it came from a front half currently being used as a “walk-in Dalek” at an exhibition in Llangollen. After some canny negotiations, he had a whole Dalek – even if it did mean him exchanging other collectibles including a giant fly used in a Jon Pertwee episode.

It is now on show at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. Why did he lend it out, I wonder? “A lot of stuff is in private collections and it’s never seen,” says Balcombe. “But I’ve always been very open. Also, it frees up some room in the garage.”

(Guardian)
 
I haven't been watching Doctor Who since nigh on 15 years. There are two reasons for this. Firstly I have been living abroad for most of that time and secondly, from at least Tennant onwards I no longer feel that the show is at all aimed at my demographic and am okay about that and happy to cut loose. It became a show about a sexy superhero aiming at the post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer viewership and aiming to rival Marvel. I was happy to let the kidz have it.

However, I do find myself avidly consuming reviews of the new show and its new director So you can see this as an outsider's take on things There are two unavoidable aspects of the new show that really stick out like a sore thumb> These are:

1) This time the programme really, really has alienated it's older fanbase for sure. I am not a `Who fan` by any stretch of the imagination and yet my Youtube account has been peppered by a welter of reaction posts where the reviewers are downright criticall of the new content and direction. This makes me wonder how many more there would be if I were a `Who fan`! Now let's be clear: many of these lambasts issue from the usual suspects - people who prejudge the show just for including people of colour and trans people in the action, people on an `anti-woke` crusade and those who object to any kind of modificatiion of what tthery see as the essential canon. However, I would say most of these critics do not belong to that camp. Many of them are people who have been more or less happy with how things have been going up to now. But, boy, are they now pissed off! It's as if this is the straw thast brolke the camel's back.

2) The show has made a clean break with its reputation as a `science fiction` product.
Again, let's be clear: Doctor Who was always more `science fantasy` than it was `science fiction` - especially when seen in comparison with, say, Star Trek. It featured many fantastical events that belonged to the realm of magic which were only just painted over by a veneer of science. Nevertheless, you could still imagine the show to belong to the camp of `science fiction`. The Doctor was a `man of science` and his opponents made use of technologies recognisable from known science or were hypothetical aliens derived from known biological science. Often the stories drew heavily on sciience fiction precedents - what are the Daleks if not Wells's Martian Fighting Machines put on rollers?

At any rate, the show was `sciency` enough to turn this poster, as a kid, on to Science fiction in general, science (chemistry and astronomy) and Fortean areas of enquiry (such as Ancient Astronauts). Now let's look at the latest Christmas special. The antagonists are goblins who fly around in an arial wooden ship. Correct me if I'm wrong, but no real background exposition is given to explain these critters - they are just goblins from fairy tales. They are not even given special names - like `the Silurians`, the primords` etc - they are just `goblins` (again, correct me if I'm wrong!) They are even given a song to sing - which is straight out of something Roald Dahl might have come up with.
It seems the new Who belongs to the Sword and Sorcery genre more than it does `science fiction` - and that's quite a stark transition.

So, are the producers - under the tutelage of Disney -now aiming for a much younger post-Harry Pottter audience and deliberatly jettisoning their older fanbase in the process?
 
Peripart said:
But Newton didn't invent the name or the concept, and the correct word comes from the Latin gravitas, meaning weight, so there's not a chance that Sir Isaac would have thought to say "mavity"...
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I've fixed this!

But Newton didn't invent the name or the concept, and the correct word comes from the Latin mavitas, meaning weight, so there's every chance that Sir Isaac would have thought to say "mavity"...

(sorry) :twothumbs:
 
Zeke Newbold said:
So, are the producers - under the tutelage of Disney -now aiming for a much younger post-Harry Pottter audience and deliberatly jettisoning their older fanbase in the process?
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With the now mandatory song and dance routine in the middle of the story, I wonder if Disney is hoping to attract fans of Bollywood?
 
I'm not looking for an argument - my attitude is anyone is free to watch anything they want and to react to it in anyway they want - but does anyone really go to Doctor Who looking for actual, real, genuine, serious science? It has always been a bit iffy on the science front.

The 'mavity' thing is clearly one of two things : either it's a daft joke that is just a bit of fluff or : it is something that will have some sort of plot significance later on. I have no idea which, and either will be ok by me. Just too easily pleased, I guess.
 
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CharmerKamelion said:
I'm not looking for an argument - my attitude is anyone is free to watch anything they want and to react to it in anyway they want - but does anyone really go to Doctor Who looking for actual, real, genuine, serious science? It has always been a bit iffy on the the science front.

The 'mavity' thing is clearly one of two things : either it's a daft joke that is just a bit of fluff or : it is something that will have some sort of plot significance later on. I have no idea which, and either will be ok by me. Just too easily pleased, I guess.
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Who was originally planned as a means to educate children in world history and basic science.
It adhered to the very basis of the BBC’s mission to inform, educate and entertain. That’s why the first companions were school teachers.
We find the core premise in the show’s pilot episode and original 4‑part series, An Unearthly Child, which introduced William Hartnell as the Doctor, Carole Ann Ford as his granddaughter, Susan Foreman (originally named Barbara, or “Biddy”), and Jaqueline Hill and William Russell as school teachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton. BBC drama head Sydney Newman had tasked writers with creating a family educational show to meet the network’s public service mandate, and came up with the idea of a science fiction show as a way to have characters visit historical periods and talk about science in an entertaining way.
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https://www.openculture.com/2021/08...-as-a-family-educational-tv-program-1963.html

So what we have now is a series that claims it doesn’t even know what gravity is, race swaps key historic figures and - ok - hold on to your seats - recently had a white english woman facilitating the noble gesture of Rosa Parks.
The ‘Women’ Doctors criticise Tennant’s latest incarnation, lecture him on pronouns and say his approach to dealing with universe-shattering events is male centric. Compare the two.
I’d say that RTD has lost the plot. Previously there would be people in the BBC who would rein him in a little but after the Chibnall Disaster, they were desperate to extend the franchise for cash. And reports of John Barrowman draping his cock over other members of the cast as a joke is just another symptom of what has been going wrong here.
In case you new readers haven’t seen my previous posts, I thought Jo Martin was brilliant. In ten minutes, she blew Whittaker off the screen and rendered her into insignificance and yet the culmination of Whittaker’s Who storyline destroyed the whole concept of the show and the canon and relevance of major plotlines.

Davros is now happily entering a Knobbly Knees Contest in Minehead Butlins this summer. And he’ll probably be wearing a dress.

I’m still puzzling at the minds who looked over the storyline of actually wanting to eat a baby on Christmas Day. You know… Baby Jesus’ birthday.
 
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I'm suspecting that the 'mavity' may well link in to the whole 'alternate universe' of people not being the people they were at the beginning if you alter one thing in the timeline as we saw in the Christmas episode.

And, as I really love Alternate Timeline stories, I'm going to hang on for the ride. Plus Ncuti Gatwa is so ridiculously charismatic, I just want to see him do....stuff.
 
I watched Doctor Who as a child ... when it was a children's show.
I stopped watching it around the time of Sylvester McCoy. I'd grown up, had other interests, and it didn't have enough to appeal to me to continue watching. Clips and trailers don't make me want to watch it again. Song and dance routines? I hate most musicals.
All this is, of course, my own taste and opinion.
However, my observation is thus:
It started as a children's show.
In the period between McGann and Tennant, it was a children's toy marketing vehicle* ... and to appeal to the kid viewers who have grown up with fond memories. Since then, it's designed to appeal to the adults who were kids. It's not a children's show, and it's nothing like the fond childhood memory. In effect, it's meant to be fanbait - they want that sweet, sweet fandom: adults who have happy memories of childhood. Messing with gender or race is a red herring that does trigger some folks. But perhaps the most criticism comes from old fans saying "What have you done to my childhood favourite?"

* My own children were big Doctor Who toy collectors - to play with. They then went on to Pirates of the Caribbean, the 'new' Star Wars franchise etc. As adults they enjoy the shows and films, but no longer buy the toys.
 
Stormkhan said:
I watched Doctor Who as a child ... when it was a children's show.
I stopped watching it around the time of Sylvester McCoy. I'd grown up, had other interests, and it didn't have enough to appeal to me to continue watching. Clips and trailers don't make me want to watch it again. Song and dance routines? I hate most musicals.
All this is, of course, my own taste and opinion.
However, my observation is thus:
It started as a children's show.
In the period between McGann and Tennant, it was a children's toy marketing vehicle* ... and to appeal to the kid viewers who have grown up with fond memories. Since then, it's designed to appeal to the adults who were kids. It's not a children's show, and it's nothing like the fond childhood memory. In effect, it's meant to be fanbait - they want that sweet, sweet fandom: adults who have happy memories of childhood. Messing with gender or race is a red herring that does trigger some folks. But perhaps the most criticism comes from old fans saying "What have you done to my childhood favourite?"

* My own children were big Doctor Who toy collectors - to play with. They then went on to Pirates of the Caribbean, the 'new' Star Wars franchise etc. As adults they enjoy the shows and films, but no longer buy the toys.
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I think they are trying for the crossover appeal. A show that appeals to children on the 'toy, exciting story, scary monster' level, and the adults on a level of social comment and a grounding in reality. I'm not sure that it's unique in that approach.
 
Nerds??? I'll give 'em Nerds!

Doctor Who: Auctioneer 'relied on nerds' for Dalek price estimate​


John Rolfe with the Daleks

The Daleks are going under the hammer at John Rolfe Auctions in Tetbury on Sunday

Two Daleks due to be sold at auction have been attracting attention from Doctor Who fans.

The iconic aliens from the long-running TV series had been stored in a living room in Gloucestershire. The fully working human-sized models, one red and one gold, will be sold at an John Rolfe Auctions in Tetbury, with a guide price of £500-£800.

"We rely on nerds," said auctioneer John Rolfe, who depended on Doctor Who fans for an idea of the estimate.

Speaking to BBC Gloucestershire, he said: "I can't pretend I know everything, no auctioneer does. It's the first time I've handled such a creature".

In Doctor Who, the Doctor first encountered the tank-like aliens from the planet Skaro in 1963.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68239676
 
ramonmercado said:
Nerds??? I'll give 'em Nerds!

Doctor Who: Auctioneer 'relied on nerds' for Dalek price estimate​


John Rolfe with the Daleks

The Daleks are going under the hammer at John Rolfe Auctions in Tetbury on Sunday

Two Daleks due to be sold at auction have been attracting attention from Doctor Who fans.

The iconic aliens from the long-running TV series had been stored in a living room in Gloucestershire. The fully working human-sized models, one red and one gold, will be sold at an John Rolfe Auctions in Tetbury, with a guide price of £500-£800.

"We rely on nerds," said auctioneer John Rolfe, who depended on Doctor Who fans for an idea of the estimate.

Speaking to BBC Gloucestershire, he said: "I can't pretend I know everything, no auctioneer does. It's the first time I've handled such a creature".

In Doctor Who, the Doctor first encountered the tank-like aliens from the planet Skaro in 1963.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68239676
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I think they will go for more than £800.
 
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