Doctor Who II

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

Love and Monsters might be the worst episode of anything ever. It's magnificently awful. You could teach writing classes based on it.

Yes. And the writers/producers seem to think it was unpopular because the Doctor was barely in it (which may be why Blink was so good, because they worried it might flop too).

Rather than the nastiness and out of characterness of it (poor Who fans becoming Peter Kay’s arsecheek, and  the Doctor sticking Moaning Myrtle’s face onto a paving slab for ever more)

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

and  the Doctor sticking Moaning Myrtle’s face onto a paving slab for ever more)

 

With the most uncomfortable blowjob joke in history to top it off

[Ghostlydragon]

Yeah that was awful. It really is a shame though because Elton is a very likeable guy and there are good ideas with his group of friends. It's just such a shame how quickly it falls apart.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Wow, you might be older than I thought if you gave up on the show in the 1960s!

It's amazing how familiar all this griping sounds if you're familiar with the comics scene. Complaining about continuity in media that was, when it started, barely bothered with continuity because nobody involved expected it to last long enough for those things to matter. Blaming perceived unpopularity on your personal dislikes driving away consumers. Grumbling about heavy-handedness in a medium that has frequently been extremely heavy-handed. Talking about how it just recently became political when anyone familiar with it understands that it has always told political stories. The tick boxes are just about complete.

Again, I'm only speaking for myself. I'm not quite sure why you think I somehow feel my own personal experience, speaks for the rattings dropping, but that's on you. When Who came back in 2005, the entire series wasn't filled with jokes mocking George W Bush or Dick Cheney, or any other unpopular political figures at the time, for example. They just focused on telling good stories. That's all I really want from a sci-fi show; to be transported to a different world and not have to think about the real one for a little while.

Also I don't read U.S. comics for exactly the reasons you've mentioned. I do read Japanese manga though, since they're usually is only one author who has a vision, not 20 people writing about Iron Man or Captain American each decade and changing their backstories.

[Ghostlydragon]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Rosa isn't even vaguely close to the worst episode ever and suggesting that it is honestly makes me question your priorities. Being so obsessed by keeping politics out of mah entertainment (that as others have pointed out was political from the off anyway) that you describe an okay-as-worst historical as that to try to make your point is... well, it's not helping your point. 

Okay so the reason I can't stand Rosa is quite simply, it's not a sci-fi story and doesn't feel anything like doctor who. Even Idiot's Lantern in it's awfulness used a doctor whoy type of villain.

Rosa though has a... racist space alien? A guy so far from the future that racism aimed at people solely based on skin colour shouldn't exist, and he time travels back to stop the moment things get start changing. I mean come on? That's the best they can do? Much like Demons of the Punjab, the episode Rosa just doesn't feel like doctor who or sci-fi. Just an in your face history lesson where everybody from that time period is a racist - okay I get that people may have been less keen to stand up for black people in public but they could have showed some more balance.

And historical episodes have been so great in the past. Vincent and the Doctor had a creature only Vincent could see while also focusing on his depression. The Fires of Pompei used those fire creatures to force the Doctor and Donna to kill 20,000 people to stop them. The Unquiet Dead showed victims of the time war that had lost their way. Rosa had a racist space alien cause the Doctor to make her friends become part of a nasty part of history.

There's clearly a difference and it's absolutely why Rosa is in my top 10 of worst new who episodes.

[sifth]

2 hours ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Okay so the reason I can't stand Rosa is quite simply, it's not a sci-fi story and doesn't feel anything like doctor who. Even Idiot's Lantern in it's awfulness used a doctor whoy type of villain.

Rosa though has a... racist space alien? A guy so far from the future that racism aimed at people solely based on skin colour shouldn't exist, and he time travels back to stop the moment things get start changing. I mean come on? That's the best they can do? Much like demons of the punjab, it just doesn't feel like doctor who or sci-fi. Just an in your face history lesson where everybody from that time period is a racist - okay I get that people may have been less keen to stand up for black people in public but they could have showed some more balance.

And historical episodes have been so great in the past. Vincent and the Doctor had a creature only Vincent could see while also focusing on his depression. The Fires of Pompei used those fire creatures to force the doctor and donna to kill 20,000 people to stop them. The Unquiet Dead showed victims of the time war that had lost their way. Rosa had a racist space alien cause the Doctor to make her friends become part of a nasty part of history.

There's clearly a difference and it's absolutely why Rosa is in my top 10 of worst new who episodes.

I mean it doesn't help much, that the accents in Rosa were some of the worst I've seen in Who. That might just be me, but I have a close friend who lives in the American South, who I speak with almost every night on Skype or Zoom and the characters in that episode really came off as sounding fake in my ears as a result. They weren't quite as bad as the accents in Daleks in Manhattan though.....................I really hate when everyone thinks all people in NY have a Brooklyn accent.

[Ghostlydragon]

2 minutes ago, sifth said:

I mean it doesn't help much, that the accents in Rosa were someone of the worst I've seen in Who. That might just be me, but I have a close friend who lives in the American South, who I speak with almost every night on Skype or Zoom and the characters in that episode really came off as sounding fake in my ears as a result. They weren't quite as bad as the accents in Daleks in Manhattan though.....................I really hate when everyone thinks all people in NY have a Brooklyn accent.

It feels like how for example, a series 3 Family Guy episode portrayed all english people as the biggest stereotypes ever, much like a random bit involving Hugh Grant, but we brits were meant to laugh at that part because it was so funny. Except this was meant to be taken seriously and agreed, it's as if they think the whole of NY sounds like that.

Ah well at least, much like Carey Mulligan, we got Andrew Garfield before he became famous.

[sifth]

1 minute ago, Ghostlydragon said:

It feels like how for example, a series 3 Family Guy episode portrayed all english people as the biggest stereotypes ever, much like a random bit involving Hugh Grant, but we brits were meant to laugh at that part because it was so funny. Except this was meant to be taken seriously and agreed, it's as if they think the whole of NY sounds like that.

Ah well at least, much like Carey Mulligan, we got Andrew Garfield before he became famous.

Was the Tesla vs Edison episode in the most recent series? If so it was the only episode from that series that I watched. I remember my friend telling me about it, because I love the history surrounding both of those men. I only bring it up, because I don't recall having any issues with either of accents for Tesla and Edison in that episode, so both actors clearly did a good job.

[Ghostlydragon]

2 minutes ago, sifth said:

Was the Tesla vs Edison episode in the most recent series? If so it was the only episode from that series that I watched. I remember my friend telling me about it, because I love the history surrounding both of those men. I only bring it up, because I don't recall having any issues with either of accents for Tesla and Edison in that episode, so both actors clearly did a good job.

Yeah it was, although I've not seen that one in full. Yeah who has always been pretty good for finding great actors. And as much as I hate that she is set before 13, Doctor Ruth was actually really good. If only she was a future regeneration.

[Denvek]

1 hour ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Yeah it was, although I've not seen that one in full. Yeah who has always been pretty good for finding great actors. And as much as I hate that she is set before 13, Doctor Ruth was actually really good. If only she was a future regeneration.

I didn't think there was confirmation which way round Ruth and Jodie were. It was implied with the Timeless Child stuff that she was one of the pre-Hartnell ones, but she also had a blue police box TARDIS, and there's no reason for that in modern-day Gloucester if it's not the one Hartnell stole when he and Susan left Gallifrey.

[Derfel Cadarn]

25 minutes ago, Denvek said:

I didn't think there was confirmation which way round Ruth and Jodie were. It was implied with the Timeless Child stuff that she was one of the pre-Hartnell ones, but she also had a blue police box TARDIS, and there's no reason for that in modern-day Gloucester if it's not the one Hartnell stole when he and Susan left Gallifrey.

It seems implied Ruth predates Hartnell. Could be explained as the TARDIS is sentient (and a time traveller), it essentially sensed the shape it would mostly assume in the future and assumed it early.

Or a pre-Hartnell landed in an era where it assumed that form, got stuck, and that happens whenever it assumes thst form.

[john]

Yeah, that Demons of the Punjab episode was the last straw. Stupid BBC always banging on about the Indian partition. 

[Werthead]

23 hours ago, Ghostlydragon said:

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.

That number was actually reached by looking at the various previous ages given, and was consistent with the ages given by the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors as well. The number was only thrown off by the later introduction by the War Doctor, but that was a Moffat retcon, so at the time that RTD said the Doctor was 900, that did seem broadly accurate.

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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.

The Doctor has been described as a Lonely God - a phrase invented by Davies - since at least the Seventh Doctor's time, when he even said "I'm far more than just a Time Lord" and outright said that he was present with Rassilon and Omega when they created the Hand of Omega, the device used to create the Eye of Harmony, even though that would supposedly have been millennia before his first incarnation was born.

As for the mechanics of the Doctor dying versus regenerating, that've always been fairly well laid-out. Anything that disintegrates a body would kill the Doctor or any other Time Lord outright, as would any weapon that scrambles their internal organs (the operating principle of Dalek weaponry), or having their bodies torn apart (up to a certain point; losing a limb isn't necessarily such a problem as we saw with Ten losing his hand). It's relatively easy to perma-kill a Time Lord, it's just that the Doctor keeps being taken out by less devastating causes (old age, an early trigger of the regeneration cycle, poison, falling too far, poison again, apparently suicide, gunshots, another early trigger of the regeneration cycle, holding the energy of the Time Vortex, radiation again, old age and another gunshot).

As for the cycle, the logical answer is that the Time Lords imposed the twelve-regeneration limit on the Doctor as well as other Time Lords. It might be they didn't know if it would work or not, or (maybe more likely) that the Time Lords who granted the Eleventh another cycle of regenerations didn't know about the Timeless Child stuff and simply granted him another set of regenerations anyway, which may or may not have helped.

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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.

As mentioned before, Doctor Who's rules of "established canon" are so vague and unsubstantiated that they might as well not exist. The show has had major revisions or retcons of its background before and it will have them again.

 

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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.

Doctor Who's ratings decline has been fairly consistent over the years. In fact, the mega-massive ratings that were occasionally achieved in the Tenth Doctor era were offset by the weekly episode ratings being much lower, dragging the Tenth Doctor's average down to around 7.75 million, or actually less than the first season of Thirteen. Of course, Thirteen's rating average for that season was dragged up by the massive bump of the start of her run. After that bump, ratings returned to levels consistent with the Capaldi era (about 6 million, with some drops don to 5.4; shared by both Capaldi's last season and Whittaker's second). In fact, ratings had not been consistently higher since halfway through Smith's run.

Or to put it another way, Doctor Who's ratings have not been down just through Whittaker's reign but also through Capaldi's; ratings had not consistently hit 7 million on average since 2014 and the first season of the modern era to see ratings dipping below 6 million was Capaldi's second; the first season with episodes dipping below 5 million was Capaldi's last season. Whittaker's first season saw a strong rally to over 7 million on average; her second season saw a drop to around 5.5 million on average, which was consistent with Capaldi's run.

Obviously continuity concerns, the Timeless Children etc, would have zero impact on ratings because we haven't seen any ratings for episodes produced since those revelations, apart from 2021 special which saw an uptick in ratings to 6.35 million (though that is still disappointing by Special standards, but notably it was another non-Christmas special).

This season's ratings will be more interesting to watch. I think the show is generally safe as long as it keeps pulling in international sales and profile for the BBC, and question marks won't arise until consolidated ratings start falling regularly into the 3 million area. In particular, the BBC no longer has a battery of shows it can sell internationally alongside Who, with Top Gear a shadow of its former popularity and David Attenborough too old to keep producing massive natural history programmes.

 

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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.

Chibnall always said he had plans for 3 seasons to unfold over 5 years, and I think his post-Broadchurch plans did not involve getting tied to Who for too long. I also think he shared the view that Moffat stayed on for at least two years too long, and Davies maybe one year too long, and wanted to bail before that point. It is unusual in that the last showrunner to do less than five seasons was in the late 1970s, though.

Whittaker was a given: no Doctor has done more than three seasons in the role since 1981. Literally, Tom Baker was the last Doctor to do more than three seasons (he did seven; his predecessor Jon Pertwee did five) and no-one since then has matched that. Tennant stretched it with three seasons and then a number of specials, but they were technically counted as part of his third season. The only reason I think people thought she might stay is because her third season was only six episodes, so could have counted that as a half-season with the possibility of doing another half-season or something later on. But clearly she decided that two-and-a-half seasons in five years was enough.

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It also makes the Doctor into a special chosen one type, which strikes me as poor storytelling whenever it happens,

The Doctor has been a "special chosen one type" pretty much from The War Games (1969) onwards, when the Doctor argued the Time Lords into abandoning their policy of non-interference pretty much on the spot and got himself converted into their #1 agent of free-roaming batshittery in subsequent seasons (after a fairly brief exile on Earth, which was just-so conveniently timed to help fend off several alien invasions of the planet). We then got the whole Valeyard thing; the Third, Fourth and Fifth Doctors saving Gallifrey; the Fourth and Seventh Doctors starting the Time War and the whole thing with Seven claiming to have been present at the founding of Time Lord civilisation (though that was impossible).

That's not even touching the whole idolisation of the Doctor into a Lonely God by Davies and Moffat, long before Chibnall took over. That ship sailed a long, long time ago.

[Werthead]

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I mean if you think that is the role of Doctor Who thats up to you.

The second-ever Doctor Who story was an extended seven-episode metaphor about the evils of racism and the rise of totalitarianism. Almost every other Doctor Who story has been about railing against the industrial-military complex and favouring negotiations and peace over war (although granted the show has been fairly consistent in having negotiations fail and the Doctor having to blow the bad guys up, but still).

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And as others have said. The preachiness is a joke. Having her practically look at the camera and tell us how we are gonna destroy the planet unless we change is not what a lot of people want to see in doctor who.

You mean, like Jon Pertwee did almost every single week in the 1970s, including whole serials about the environment (The Green Death), racism (The Silurians) and the threat of nuclear war (Day of the Daleks)?

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That's just a part of it. Audience fatigue in the show going back to Capaldi's era,

The rest of your point is nonsense, but this at least is a valid point worth exploring.

"Franchise fatigue" is a thing. It doesn't matter how good or bad the show is, at a certain the point the audience goes "too much!" and needs a break. If you're clever, you'll program in a break for a set amount of time and then bounce back with new episodes. If you're a money-hungry corporation, you won't and will run the thing into the ground and flog its corpse until it stops twitching before giving it a rest. The simple fact is that Doctor Who has produced (as of the end of this year) 13 seasons and 166 hour-or-longer episodes in sixteen years. That's an absolutely absurd amount of television by British and especially BBC standards. For contrast, Red Dwarf has only produced 74 half-hour episodes in 33 years.

There also hasn't entirely been a clean break in production all that time, with producers and writers heavily overlapping; Chibnall's first script was in Tennant's second season, fourteen years ago, and he was more heavily involved in Torchwood. So whilst there have been different people in charge, they've still been fairly heavily influenced by the Russell T. Davies era. My view is that they probably need to sever that altogether and actually do a real paradigm shift in terms of tone and style, as they really haven't since 2005 (and, before that, 1981). Otherwise resting the show for ~5 years might be a good idea.

Of course, that may also be the view of a middle-aged person to whom five years goes by way too fast these days. One of the biggest complaints I've heard from younger people is that the show has had too many hiatuses recently (three seasons and just 28 episodes airing over five years), and they don't watch the show live or even within months of it airing because they know it'll be 18-24 months for the next season, so why rush it?

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When Who came back in 2005, the entire series wasn't filled with jokes mocking George W Bush or Dick Cheney, or any other unpopular political figures at the time, for example.

I mean, they did the whole thing with the war-loving Prime Minister of Britain being cut down to size by the Doctor, something that at the time was acknowledged, even by RTD, for being a heavy-handed critique of the Iraq War.

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Okay so the reason I can't stand Rosa is quite simply, it's not a sci-fi story and doesn't feel anything like doctor who. Even Idiot's Lantern in it's awfulness used a doctor whoy type of villain.

You should probably stay well away from (checks notes) every single Doctor Who historical story produced in the show's first six seasons, then.

Some them didn't have aliens in them at all (gasp!) and just had the Doctor and his companions meeting historical figures and getting embroiled in whatever historical events were going on.

[polishgenius]

RTD turned the Doctor into more or less British Superman. Moffatt undid the destruction of Krypton Gallifrey but otherwise ran with that idea very very hard. Despite the Timeless Child thing, Chibnall if anything rowed back the superhero/godlikeness of the Doctor: witness the difference between Capaldi's fun-but-portentuous pondering of 'Am I a Good Man?' and Whittaker's 'I don't know who I am, oh I like helping people', for example. 

[sifth]

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

I mean, they did the whole thing with the war-loving Prime Minister of Britain being cut down to size by the Doctor, something that at the time was acknowledged, even by RTD, for being a heavy-handed critique of the Iraq War.

Yea, but that was a one and done deal. I can over look something like that once; plus the episode you're talking about was pretty horrible as a whole, in my book and the example you're giving me was done in a very subtle way, so subtle in fact that I had no idea that it had anything to do with the Iraq war, until you told me just now. My point still stands, Who for the most part stayed out of real world politics when it came back. If I want to watch a show that mocks unpopular political figures in the real world, I'll watch SNL, The Daily Show or Real Time. When I want a show that just gives me a fun sci fi adventure, I use to be able to watch Doctor Who.

[Ghostlydragon]

14 minutes ago, sifth said:

Yea, but that was a one and done deal. I can over look something like that once; plus the episode you're talking about was pretty horrible as a whole, in my book and the example you're giving me was done in a very subtle way, so subtle in fact that I had no idea that it had anything to do with the Iraq war, until you told me just now. My point still stands, Who for the most part stayed out of real world politics when it came back. If I want to watch a show that mocks unpopular political figures in the real world, I'll watch SNL, The Daily Show or Real Time. When I want a show that just gives me a fun sci fi adventure, I use to be able to watch Doctor Who.

Plus the Doctor's actions effectively led to him being killed. His hypocritical attitude over Harriet Jones having the sycorax ship destroyed changed the future negatively. It went from a golden age to one where the master took over earth and killed billions, just to come back 2 years later and inadvertently lead the power hungry time lord council back out of the time war, bringing everything else back too. And this all led to his regeneration where he even thought he might die before regeneration could kick in.

And me too. This is actually the first I've heard of it being a reference to that war and I used to watch doctor who confidential regularly.

[Werthead]

1 minute ago, sifth said:

Yea, but that was a one and done deal. I can over look something like that once; plus the episode you're talking about was pretty horrible as a whole, in my book and the example you're giving me was done in a very subtle way, so subtle in fact that I had no idea that it had anything to do with the Iraq war, until you told me just now. My point still stands, Who for the most part stayed out of real world politics when it came back. If I want to watch a show that mocks unpopular political figures in the real world, I'll watch SNL, The Daily Show or Real Time. When I want a show that just gives me a fun sci fi adventure, I use to be able to watch Doctor Who.

It did not stay out of real world politics when it came back, at all. The Long Game made a strong point about fake news and political manipulation ("The right word in the right broadcast repeated often enough can destabilise an economy, invent an enemy change a vote,"). In the alterno-history of Turn Left, Europe seals its borders to the UK and the UK retaliates by sending immigrants to labour camps, and Wilf tells Donna, "That's what they called them last time. It's happening again" (a line sold so well by someone who lived through WWII and served as a soldier in its aftermath). In Oxygen everything is so capitalised that you have to pay to breathe. Capaldi punches a racist in the face in Thin Ice. 

The Zygon Invasion gave us this massively anti-war message (after a whole story about the radicalisation of the Zygons by a fanatical branch of the species):

Eleven goes ballistic against humanity's mistreatment of animals in The Beast Below ("Nobody human has anything to say to me today!"). Boom Town has the Doctor asking if any living being has the moral authority to execute another.

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood and every other story involving the Silurians delves into the fate of indigenous peoples, colonisation and how two peoples with valid claims to the same land can resolve their differences.

[felice]

11 minutes ago, sifth said:

Yea, but that was a one and done deal. I can over look something like that once; plus the episode you're talking about was pretty horrible as a whole, in my book and the example you're giving me was done in a very subtle way, so subtle in fact that I had no idea that it had anything to do with the Iraq war, until you told me just now.

Before the Christmas Invasion, World War III was less subtle - lying about inspectors finding "massive weapons of destruction... capable of being deployed within forty five seconds" was an incredibly blatant Tony Blair / Iraq reference.

[sifth]

16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It did not stay out of real world politics when it came back, at all. The Long Game made a strong point about fake news and political manipulation ("The right word in the right broadcast repeated often enough can destabilise an economy, invent an enemy change a vote,"). In the alterno-history of Turn Left, Europe seals its borders to the UK and the UK retaliates by sending immigrants to labour camps, and Wilf tells Donna, "That's what they called them last time. It's happening again" (a line sold so well by someone who lived through WWII and served as a soldier in its aftermath). In Oxygen everything is so capitalised that you have to pay to breathe. Capaldi punches a racist in the face in Thin Ice. 

The Zygon Invasion gave us this massively anti-war message (after a whole story about the radicalisation of the Zygons by a fanatical branch of the species):

Eleven goes ballistic against humanity's mistreatment of animals in The Beast Below ("Nobody human has anything to say to me today!"). Boom Town has the Doctor asking if any living being has the moral authority to execute another.

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood and every other story involving the Silurians delves into the fate of indigenous peoples, colonisation and how two peoples with valid claims to the same land can resolve their differences.

You're really reaching with some of those. The Whale one for the Eleventh doctor was done in a very clever way, where both sides could have been right and no one could fully know what the right answer was, given the limited amount of info all parties had; until Amy pushes the button and randomly gets the happy ending.

The Long Game is a great episode about the dangers of the media and the influence it can have on people, but had nothing to do with politics as a whole.

I'll admit I don't remember much about The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood, so I can't speak much on that episode. I think it involved a race of lizard people being the original people to colonize Earth or something, again my memory isn't the greatest on this one. 

The later half of the Capaldi run, is when the show started getting preachy and the "Donald Trump sucks" jokes, started showing up all over the place. They've since continued into Jody's run, which is one of the main reasons I've given up on the show and I don't even like Trump; I just don't want to think about him while watching Doctor Who.

PS, thanks for reminding me about that horrible Zygon episode, that reminded me that war was bad. I totally forgot war was bad................by the way did you know war was bad. Though the worst part of that episode was how easily everyone seemed to fall for the Zygon's tricks, even the elite team that knew Zygon's were shapeshifters and would probably turn into their loved ones to trick them.