Doctor Who II

[AncalagonTheBlack]

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Doctor Who Seasons 13 and 14 Confirmed, Coming to HBO Max

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Comicon.com reports that the BBC’s deal with HBO Max includes making all existing 11 seasons on the streaming service at launch, with “an additional three seasons to come.”

With season 12 already planned to air some time next year, this means seasons 13 and 14 are guaranteed to follow, with as-yet unnannounced air dates. It’s not clear whether HBO Max will stream any of these three seasons as they air on BBC America, or if they’ll be made available on HBO Max after they finish, instead .

Season 12 will once again feature Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, with Chris Chibnall as showrunner. Filming wrapped up in February, according to Cultbox. There’s no word yet on the cast or crew for seasons 13 and 14 which have yet to be announced by the BBC, as The Doctor Who Companion notes.

 

[polishgenius]

New trailer.


I mean, Cybermen again, bleh, but I do prefer them to the Daleks. Also, return of the Judoon. And a trip to Nazi-occupied Paris.

[polishgenius]

Well the first episode- first part of the Spyfall two-parter- was good fun. The kind of balls-to-the-wall nonsense only Doctor Who can really pull off.

And a terrific twist at the end. Great reveal of a great villain.

[williamjm]

32 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Well the first episode- first part of the Spyfall two-parter- was good fun. The kind of balls-to-the-wall nonsense only Doctor Who can really pull off.
 

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And a terrific twist at the end. Great reveal of a great villain.

 

I was vaguely mistrusting that character, but I wasn't expecting that particular twist.

[KingintheNorth4]

Despite the pacing, it was a good premiere with an unexpected twist at the end.

[Maltaran]

17 hours ago, williamjm said:

I was vaguely mistrusting that character, but I wasn't expecting that particular twist.

The actor was in my year at school, so it's always a bit weird when I see him in something, but now it's even more weird.

[john]

It was a good looking episode.  I thought the new cinematic approach was a bit hit and miss in the last series but it really worked here (barring the odd bit of BBC naffness like bullets repeatedly pinging off the frame of the motorbike).

It was also good fun, the best it’s been for a while.

Spoiler

I’m thinking this Master is possibly from another universe, along with the glowing aliens.  Alternatively Missy survived her imminent death and went right back to being stereotypically evil.

 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, john said:

It was a good looking episode.  I thought the new cinematic approach was a bit hit and miss in the last series but it really worked here (barring the odd bit of BBC naffness like bullets repeatedly pinging off the frame of the motorbike).

It was also good fun, the best it’s been for a while.

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I’m thinking this Master is possibly from another universe, along with the glowing aliens.  Alternatively Missy survived her imminent death and went right back to being stereotypically evil.

 

There's been speculation that:

Spoiler

This is a Master from between Simm and Missy, since we never saw him directly regenerate into her. It'd also be more amusing if he stole the idea of regenerating into a woman from the Doctor (retroactively), especially since Moffat made the Master a woman as a test run for the Doctor doing the same thing.

Alternatively, him being from an alternative universe is a good idea, as it raises the idea of what happened to the Doctor in that universe. It may also tie in with the alternate universe Cybermen apparently being back later in the season.

 

[john]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

There's been speculation that:

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This is a Master from between Simm and Missy, since we never saw him directly regenerate into her. It'd also be more amusing if he stole the idea of regenerating into a woman from the Doctor (retroactively), especially since Moffat made the Master a woman as a test run for the Doctor doing the same thing.

Alternatively, him being from an alternative universe is a good idea, as it raises the idea of what happened to the Doctor in that universe. It may also tie in with the alternate universe Cybermen apparently being back later in the season.

 

 

Spoiler

That works too and it would explain how he’s back to hating the Doctor despite Missy’s sacrifice. However, he seems to have stolen his form from that agent guy which iirc is an old Master trick when he can’t regenerate anymore.

And apparently Simm Master did zap Missy to stop her regenerating so it would follow that she’d then have to steal a body or possess somebody or something.

On the alternate universe theory (btw my wife would like me to point out it was her who first brought up the idea of it being an alternate universe Master ) - that would explain why the aliens said they planned to conquer this universe and also why the Master said the Doctor didn’t understand anything about what was going on.

 

[polishgenius]

 

The Master doesn't really need an explanation for being either not dead or evil, those are kind of the Master's thing, but I read somewhere that Chibnall has said this Master is before Missy.

There definitely is something with alternate universes going on but I don't think the master will be from there. There's some speculation that the aliens are some version of the Voord, an enemy from way back with the first Doctor, based on a similar head shape and the company name being Vor, but it seems quite thin considering what I've read about those guys. Mind you, there is also apparently an extended-universe comic saying the Voord were one of the Cybermen's source races and we know they're on the way so... maybe?

I do wonder if 'everything you know is a lie' is just for this episode or to become an arc word.

 

Also it feels like the chatter this has generated was desperately needed coz coming into it this season generated no heat whatsoever from what I could tell - even I only really started getting hyped for it after watching Rise of Skywalker and feeling a craving for a sci-fi property to do something good - and initial ratings seem to have been poor. The purely-bottle-episodes and general tone of last season didn't seem to go down great- not badly, for the most part, except with 'diversity is bad' idiots, just not enough love to overcome the general fan lassitude that set in towards the end of Moffatt.
 

[Werthead]

The Voord only appeared in one story of the original series. They only became a big thing (with their connection to the Cybermen) in the comics, which are non-canon.

If they are going to tap the comics for anything it should be making Frobisher an on-screen companion, now that the effects can handle him.

Doctor Who has hit an interesting milestone, becoming the first scripted drama series to air a new episode in each of seven decades in succession (beating Coronation Street by one hour and five minutes to do so). The only shows to go longer are factual (The Sky at Night and Blue Peter for eight decades, Meet the Press in the USA for nine decades and the BBC's sports coverage of Wimbledon for ten).

[dog-days]

The opener was better than I expected, though still, for my particular tastes, a bit bland. Admittedly I was spoiled about Sacha Dhawan's character. 

I have more hope of later episodes from the rest of the writing team rather than from Chibnall himself. It's odd that his career has been so full of sci-fi and fantasy stuff - I just can't shake the feeling that he'd do a better job writing everyday comedy-dramas. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

34 minutes ago, dog-days said:

The opener was better than I expected, though still, for my particular tastes, a bit bland. Admittedly I was spoiled about Sacha Dhawan's character. 

I have more hope of later episodes from the rest of the writing team rather than from Chibnall himself. It's odd that his career has been so full of sci-fi and fantasy stuff - I just can't shake the feeling that he'd do a better job writing everyday comedy-dramas. 

I was not pleased when he was selected as showrunner.  His stories have always been very meh

[The Mother of The Others]

So.... the new writers are the main reason the new doctor didn't get the awesome treatment Capaldi got, with all his emotional soliloquies and big deal moments backed by an orchestra, I'm left to surmise.   Ready and waiting for them to grow into the awesomeness of past seasons.

[polishgenius]

If only Capaldi had got some actual plot and credible character direction and consistency to go with the occasional awesome soliloquy.

[Werthead]

19 hours ago, dog-days said:

I have more hope of later episodes from the rest of the writing team rather than from Chibnall himself. It's odd that his career has been so full of sci-fi and fantasy stuff - I just can't shake the feeling that he'd do a better job writing everyday comedy-dramas. 

By far Chibnall's biggest hit was Broadchurch, which was a very harrowing, straight-up drama. It was admittedly excellent. However, the fact that he couldn't sustain the same hit rate for another two seasons (Seasons 2 and 3 of Broadchuch are fairly weak, though Season 2 did at least have an excellent and trope-puncturing resolution to the trial of the murderer from Season 1) indicates he got lucky with a one-hit wonder. Just about everything he's ever been involved with, including all of his prior Doctor Who and Torchwood work, has been poor to mediocre at best.

[williamjm]

On 1/4/2020 at 7:42 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I was not pleased when he was selected as showrunner.  His stories have always been very meh

I think he's turned out a lot better than I was expecting him to, I think his first season was a lot more consistent than Davies or Moffat usually managed.

21 hours ago, polishgenius said:

If only Capaldi had got some actual plot and credible character direction and consistency to go with the occasional awesome soliloquy.

I think Ecclestone and Capaldi are the two 'modern' Doctors who didn't really get the opportunity to live up to their potential. The Capaldi Zygon double episode might be the best example of it, the story had a good ending with a great speech by Capaldi but we had to sit through over an hour of utter nonsense to get there.

I thought today's episode was good, particularly the Doctor's journey. I liked Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan, even if they could maybe have been given a bit more to do. Sacha Dhawan seemed to be having fun as the villain and the Gallifrey portion of the plotline seems to set up some interesting future plotlines (although hopefully Chibnall already has a good idea for where to go with this). The Companions left in the modern day had the less interesting story arc, and although the laser shoes were somewhat amusing they were also a bit to silly.

[john]

Personally I never found Chibnall’s sparse collection of pre-showrunner episodes to be particularly offensive.  I quite enjoyed 42 and Power of Three.  He’s not as skilful a writer as Davies or Moffat but, on the strength of one series at least, it does look like he’s more consistent, like @williamjm says.

I prefer him to Gatiss, who was the only other show runner we were ever going to get this time round.  Presumably this tradition of handing it off to a worthy successor from the Who fandom old guard will have to come to an end now though.

Anyway, I appreciate that they seem to be back to making episodes big events with some sort of overarching structure but I did think they seemed to be throwing an awful lot of stuff at the screen in the second episode.  Including what seems to be a new Timelord force power.  Have they ever psychically chatted before?

[williamjm]

4 minutes ago, john said:

Personally I never found Chibnall’s sparse collection of pre-showrunner episodes to be particularly offensive.  I quite enjoyed 42 and Power of Three.

I thought his earlier Dr Who episodes were decent episodes, I was more concerned about his terrible contributions to Torchwood and Camelot (although the first season of Broadchurch was excellent).

[john]

5 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I thought his earlier Dr Who episodes were decent episodes, I was more concerned about his terrible contributions to Torchwood and Camelot (although the first season of Broadchurch was excellent).

Ouch, did he do Camelot, didn’t know that one.  

I think Torchwood (which was a successful show as far as I know) was really hampered by its brief of like Doctor Who but with swearing.  Nobody knew what it was supposed to be. And Russell T Davies must have had a lot to do with it’s conception and direction. But yes, Torchwood was pretty bad the first two series.  (Then bad again for the fourth series but Chibnall had nothing to do with that).