Doctor Who II

[Mindwalker]

4 hours ago, Ghostlydragon said:

 

It's so wrong that the role is no longer based on the actor's skill but on their skin colour or gender.

So when it was a white man each and every time, that was a coincidence and not by design?

[dog-days]

8 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I don’t like Chibnall either.  Whittaker is a great Doctor 

I think I might have felt she was a great Doctor if she'd had a different showrunner. But I find Chibnall's writing so bland that I can't really get that enthusiastic about her. 

[mormont]

5 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

So when it was a white man each and every time, that was a coincidence and not by design?

Quite. The argument here seems to ignore the fact that for over five decades, across all media, only white male actors were cast. It's actually OK to consider diversity as an important aspect now that it is established that being a white man isn't the one constant physical characteristic the Doctor has to have in every regeneration. There are white male actors I'd be happy enough to see in the role, but if the BBC decide to go in a different direction, they would be completely justified in doing so. (And Olly Alexander was heavily touted as the next Doctor, so clearly it's not necessarily a done deal that the BBC won't consider a white male.)

Some of the touted choices are clearly not going to happen - too high-profile - but at least announcing now should give them time to consider folks who are currently tied up in other projects. Wunmi Mosaku would be a terrific choice IMO. Kelly MacDonald was a name I saw linked. I love Michaela Coel but not as the Doctor, I think.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Asia Kate Dillon (Taylor Mason from Billions) would be one of my choices.

[Werthead]

On 7/29/2021 at 11:48 PM, polishgenius said:

Sheen's been in the odds for every doctor for the last while, along with Nathalie Dormer. Can't really see the BBC going for either.

Sheen is committed to Good Omens into next year as well, when they'd need to start filming the first full season for the new Doctor. They might make the dates work, if they decided to go in that direction.

It'd be more instructive to find out who the new showrunner is and then look at their past projects. Davies cast both Eccleston and Tennant from prior collaborations (Second Coming and Casanova, respectively) and Chibnall cast Whittaker from Broadchurch. Smith is sort of the outlier in that he and Moffat had no prior history.

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Unless of course the show is gonna be put on a break for a while. With the expense and with how unpopular it is atm, I'm sure the BBC would love to give it a rest for a while. I imagine it isn't that different right now to how it was in 1989.

In 1989 Doctor Who was getting less than half of the viewers in the UK than it is now, and virtually none of the international viewership. Its fanbase was an absolutely tiny fraction of its current size, and it was languishing on Monday or Wednesday nights opposite Coronation Street, getting systematically destroyed in the ratings (a quite deliberate move by the BBC so they could cancel it). A lot of average people in the street had forgotten it was even on.

The key difference is that Seasons 25 and 26 of Doctor Who had, by far, the strongest critical reception since Peter Davidson's early run (okay, not Silver Nemesis, but still) and the show was being praised by having much stronger companions who were more equal to the Doctor, embracing its heritage and continuity more than in the prior few years and by, er, retconning the origins of the Doctor. Still, the critical praise was in stark contrast to the drubbing the most recent season took. There was also a bit of a boom in popularity in merchandising, thanks to the huge VHS sales of the earlier stories and the first high-quality lines of action figures. There was also a bit of a boost in the show's popularity among schoolkids (almost my entire year was playing Daleks in the playground after Remembrance of the Daleks aired in 1988, which our headmaster was shocked into saying he hadn't seen since the 1960s).

So even at that low point, the show had some quite positive things going on and the BBC "resting it" was a huge mistake, as they admitted later on. The show in 2021 is nowhere near that nadir in terms of popularity and viewership and is comparatively even cheaper to make now than it was then.

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True but they used to follow established lore. Moffat remembered that there are thirteen lives in a regeneration cycle. But as Chibnall was able to write whatever he wanted, it changed what was established.

Doctor Who never had established lore, at least nothing it can stick to. The Doctor was a human inventor from the 49th Century. No, wait, he's an alien, now he's an alien called a Time Lord, no, he's the reincarnation of some being called "the Other." Three years in, he can suddenly change appearance when this was never mentioned at any point before. He's immortal and can regenerate forever and ever, but no, wait, he can only regenerate twelve times. The Cybermen are from Mondas, nope, they're now from Telos and now they're from a parallel universe. Skaro is around or it's been destroyed and now it's around again.

Even in the confines of Neo-Who alone, the show's never been able to stick to a consistent canon and continuity. Suddenly bashing Chibnall over the head with it when Davies and Moffat were just as bad, if not far worse, is cherry-picking.

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The argument here seems to ignore the fact that for over five decades, across all media, only white male actors were cast. It's actually OK to consider diversity as an important aspect now that it is established that being a white man isn't the one constant physical characteristic the Doctor has to have in every regeneration.

Indeed, and they were talking about casting a woman in the role as early as Tom Baker leaving (and for several regenerations, Joanna Lumley was one of the most constant, popular viewer choices), but never quite had the balls to do it. Romana's "cosmetic" regenerations in Destiny of the Daleks showing Time Lords could even regenerated into completely different species was supposed to help lay the groundwork for that.

[polishgenius]

Moffatt couldn't even keep straight his own damn canon, let alone that set up by other people. I get why people don't like the Timeless Child thing but 'it's too big a change to reverse and that's just not Who' is not a criticism that stands.

[Werthead]

10 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Moffatt couldn't even keep straight his own damn canon, let alone that set up by other people. I get why people don't like the Timeless Child thing but 'it's too big a change to reverse and that's just not Who' is not a criticism that stands.

Yeah. The difference between RTD and Moffat is that RTD would set up an idea and then deliver on it, but he was usually clever enough to do it within a single season. Sometimes that idea was horseshit, but he'd at least be consistent about it. Moffat would set up a potentially interesting idea but five episodes later would be bored of it and then shoot off and do something else. He also had arcs expanding across more than one season, which given his magpie tendency to get distracted by a shiny new idea and leave the original arc dangling was quite bizarre. It's all the weirder because Moffat is so good at individual episodes when that's all he needs to focus on.

Chibnall's thing - he says - was having the idea for one story that would unfold over five years and three seasons, which suggests that the Timeless Child stuff will continue to be important in the new season, and then the next showrunner can decide to keep it or retcon it out of existence (or just ignore it and say there was a gas leak in the TARDIS).

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Moffat would set up a potentially interesting idea but five episodes later would be bored of it and then shoot off and do something else.

What Moffatt did to the Silence is a crime against storytelling. In a different way, so was how he butchered the character of River Song, and the whole thing of setting up a potentially good bittersweet moment of Rory and Amy choosing to leave, leaving the Doctor feeling abandoned, only to switch it out last second for the utterly nonsensical Angel kidnapping was just baffling.  

[john]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

the whole thing of setting up a potentially good bittersweet moment of Rory and Amy choosing to leave, leaving the Doctor feeling abandoned, only to switch it out last second for the utterly nonsensical Angel kidnapping was just baffling.  

That was Chibnall that wrote the choosing to leave thing to be fair. Moffat was probably happy to play with the idea but always had his own ending in mind. Also it’s a fake out, since the audience knew they were leaving.

[Werthead]

I think the general rule with Doctor Who is that each showrunner should cope with the continuity on their watch by itself and if he or she remembers that the Time Lords are supposed to be alive or dead at the moment from the previous era of the show, that's pretty good going. Bonus points if they occasionally throw in a reference to an episode from 40 years ago to show their cred. Otherwise it seems to be regarded as a strength of the show how little of a shit it gives about consistency. The show would be unwatchable - hell, unwritable - otherwise.

[Ghostlydragon]

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

What Moffatt did to the Silence is a crime against storytelling. In a different way, so was how he butchered the character of River Song, and the whole thing of setting up a potentially good bittersweet moment of Rory and Amy choosing to leave, leaving the Doctor feeling abandoned, only to switch it out last second for the utterly nonsensical Angel kidnapping was just baffling.  

Oh agreed. The silence really went nowhere. The question about how the tardis exploded was turned into a few seconds of how the silence blew it up, with nothing else to explain how the hell that was even possible. And where are the silence run by eyepatch lady? She was killed in an aborted timeline but why was she never seen again?

And the Ponds' exits made no sense. Yes 50s New York cant be accessed due to the paradoxical damage but why can't Amy and Rory just fly or get a train to a different part of America or another country and meet the doctor there?

What was the line? "You are creating a fixed time, I won't ever be able to see you again." That made no sense. The characters should have been killed or just remained in the present and only saw the doctor offscreen.

Moffat, just like RTD was just too scared to kill his companions off, or the ones that died had their deaths undone so they could live on, even though it made no sense, eg Clara can just return to 2015 to be killed by the raven, even though her lust for adventure and failure to be like the doctor got her killed and will almost certainly kill her before she can return to 2015 to face the raven again. Moffat and RTD always found ways around killing the companion even when it was heavily foreshadowed, eg Rose and Donna, and even Bill. Much like Astrid she died but her consciousness lived on anyway.

[polishgenius]

13 hours ago, Ghostlydragon said:

She was killed in an aborted timeline but why was she never seen again?

 

I'd guess because Moffatt realised people had cottoned on that he just regretted finishing River Song's presence and decided to make a carbon copy.


Also he ended up making it that the Silence destroyed the universe because they were so scared of the Time Lords entering the universe. I mean come on. And the 'they're just super priests you can do confession too safely' was insulting. 

[Ghostlydragon]

I do wonder who will be hired as the future showrunner. There doesn't seem to be an obvious choice like when Moffat was the clear favourite. And didn't it come down to chibnall v gattis a few years ago?

Well I hope that this time they don't go with a fan and hire an established sci fi showrunner/writer who researches the show fully and just focuses on making a great show that is well written and enjoyable to everybody. And who retcons the retcon that is the timeless children. Please make it so that William Hartnell played the first doctor again. Not the first of a new regeneration cycle or anything like that. Just the first doctor, as he was for over 50 years.

[Derfel Cadarn]

God, no. The Timeless Child was a masterstroke, fixing so many continuity issues across the whole series. Ie the Doctor’s age, the hinted-at Other.

Hartnell’s Doctor not being the first was suggested in the pre-Davies era, notably in the Brain of Morbius (4th Doctor). The regeneration limit wasn’t set up until the 14th(!) season (The Deadly Assassin).

[Ghostlydragon]

5 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

God, no. The Timeless Child was a masterstroke, fixing so many continuity issues across the whole series. Ie the Doctor’s age, the hinted-at Other.

Hartnell’s Doctor not being the first was suggested in the pre-Davies era, notably in the Brain of Morbius (4th Doctor). The regeneration limit wasn’t set up until the 14th(!) season (The Deadly Assassin).

You're kidding right? It didn't fix the doctors age. Yes 9 said he was 900 but that was clearly RTD starting at a simple number, eg 100 lives per regeneration.

And exactly. Hartnell not being the first was Suggested. Nobody wanted to know if it was definite and 4 could have been seeing future regenerations eg the valeyard, or versions of his opponent. Nothing was definite. But making this change causes too many problems. It makes the doctor a god and not an ordinary time lord. He isn't even gallifrayan. If he will regenerate even after an instant death then why did he let so many others die for him when he was always going to come back to life, eg how could he die in turn left and not resurrect? 11 was the 13th life. If he could regenerate then he wouldn't have been on the brink of death by old age. It would have happened years before. And how the hell could the 12 life-cap be forced on the guy who had the power originally. And why did he need a new regeneration cycle, which was the only way he could survive. And memory loss is an awful excuse. That's like bad soap opera levels of explanations. Just rely on amnesia.

Chibnall simply took advantage of his position and made a change that interferes with so much established canon and has ruined the show. I'm not the only one who thinks that way. Thousands of fans have turned on the show. The likes of star wars were butchered but at least they can eventually move on because the foundations of it haven't been affected. Doctor who has. Without this all being lies from the Master, there is no getting around the damage caused.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Except the 3rd Doctor said he had been a scientost for thousands of years.

The 7thh Doctor aged himself as 953 years old. And thst was at the start of his regekneration, one of the few thst almost ended due to old age.

The 9th Doctor initially claimed tl have travelled ‘by police box’ for 900 years, which later became his age (ignoring the extreme age of the 1st doctor before the Tardis assuned thst shape).

 

The Dr has always had memory loss; hell, he forgot ablut a whole incarnation! Despite constantly referring to the last deed he did as thet incarnation. 

It’s clear the Dr’s memory is often subconscious due to time paradoxes. He always ‘forgets’ about meeting future incarnations. Except that not entirely; 11 remembers the Curator’s revelation about Gallifrey at the end of Day of the Doctor, but ‘forgets’ being told by a future incarnation, still believing he’s on his last life. But remembers the truth of ‘Gallifrey Falls/No More’ painting.
 

Except in Sarah Jane tv show he tells someone he has about 500 regenerations left. When in Time of the Doctor he thinks he has none. Had he died of okd age, he’d have regenerated. Had the daleks killed him, doubtless they’d have made sure of it. So the extra regenerations were only needed as a power jumpstart to take out the daleks.

10 seemed to think he had many regenerations left, even suggesting it was indefinite. Davies seemed to ignore the 12 limit.

Dr Who’s ‘established’ canon has been bent and broken since day 1. Even the original pilot differed from what was broadcast!

Chibnall has offered an explanation that embraces all the contradictions, on the basis that every incarnation remembers different bits of the Timeless Child, and mostly subconsciously; 3 knows he’s thousaands of years old; 4 recalls pre-1 incarnations; 7 remembers working with Rassilon and Omega; 10 knows he has more than 12 regenerations; 11 sort of did, then forgot.

For years everyone believed 2 regenerated straight into 3; then The Two Doctors unofficially introduced season6b by suggesting 2 spent many years working for the CIA (thr time lord one, not US).

Absolutely no damage caused. Future showrunners can ignore it, or have the Doctor forget it all again.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Thousands of fans have turned on the show.

I feel like I've heard this tune before. About Who, about Star Wars, about Marvel, about Star Trek, about most SF franchises at one time or another. Usually 99% of fans of that franchise are completely unaware that there is even any controversy. I assure you that most Who fans and certainly almost all of the TV audience don't see any damage to the franchise at all - and who are you to say they're the ones who are wrong?

[Ghostlydragon]

10 hours ago, mormont said:

I feel like I've heard this tune before. About Who, about Star Wars, about Marvel, about Star Trek, about most SF franchises at one time or another. Usually 99% of fans of that franchise are completely unaware that there is even any controversy. I assure you that most Who fans and certainly almost all of the TV audience don't see any damage to the franchise at all - and who are you to say they're the ones who are wrong?

Well look at the numbers of viewers going from Series 11 ep 1 to Series 12 ep 10. Compare that to how many people watched Journey's End and the Stolen Earth in 2008, or even the huge drop in numbers that watched the End of Time 2 to the most recent new years day episodes.

Toys are not selling like they did in Tennant and Smith's eras and the dvds aren't selling either. Netflix UK never even added the chibnall episodes (although I admit that may well be due to the move to britbox and it's likely new episodes were not allowed on any service other than iPlayer).

And finally, why are Chibnall and Whittaker leaving after just 3 series each (with far fewer episodes than previous runs of the show? I get that Whittaker may feel that three years is enough but wouldn't Chibnall relish the chance to write for a new doctor? That has to be a dream for any showrunner and the last two got 2 each (more if you count specials) but they are both going. The show's unpopularity has to be part of that.

And I'm not saying anyone is wrong. Everyone has the right to think and watch whatever they want but there are problems that are clear to see.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Dr Who has been ‘back’ since 2005. The kids who grew up with it are adults. The Moffat era wasn’t geared for kids the way the Davies era was. The Chibnall era is imho in-between; less juvenile than Davies and less complicated than Moffat.

As Wert(I think) said earlier, Whittaker’s ratinga are comparable with Capaldi’s, apart from big spike at the start. It also sells well abroad. But to expect a show that’s been on for 16(!) years to maintain peak ratings is unrealistic.

DVD sales are down across the board for everything. Also they sell it as one boxset rather than 4 or 5 like they did in Davies’ era.
Kids nowadays will have different interests. 

Apparently Whittaker and Chibnall agreed at the start to do three years.

re the future, imho I’d maybe rest it, but do prequel specials, with earlier doctors (including the ‘Ruth’ Doctor), especially McGann. Maybe David Bradley as 1. Tennant, Smith and Capaldi would pribably only come back for a ‘big’ special, and Tennant is perhaps getting a bit old compared to how he looked 11 years ago. Eccleston probably still not interested. McCoy maybe? He was aged up for the 1995 special.

Maybe another Tom Baker cameo as the Curator?

[john]

I think the Timeless Child was deftly done compared to Moffat’s revelations but I don’t like it either. It retcons the time lords from time travellers to regenerators who happen to time travel and seems to make them purely evil, rather than geniuses who lost their way. It also makes the Doctor into a special chosen one type, which strikes me as poor storytelling whenever it happens, especially after Chibnall’s low key Doctor rowing back on the ideas of unique specialness introduced by the other showrunners. However, the Doctor coming from another, different universe is something that could be interesting to explore so long as it’s not just your standard alternate universe thing.

On the showrunner - latest rumour is Sally Wainwright (Last Tango in Halifax, Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack) after some youtuber claimed to have inside information. She is apparently already doing a show for Disney+ though so could be bullshit.