Doctor Who: 60 Years of Mayhem (SPOILERS for latest episode)

[Derfel Cadarn]

The new series will be called season 1, again … again.

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by Derfel Cadarn

[Werthead]

Season 1 (Series 14/Season 40)?

Fuck off.

It was acceptable in 2005, if grating for older fans, because there'd been a 16-year gap since the last full season and it was aimed at grabbing younger viewers' attention, and they were very careful to minimise continuity callbacks.

This is just silly. The last new episodes aired less than a year ago and the new series will have very heavy continuity connections to previous episodes.

If it's because of the deal with Disney+, fair enough, but just say that.

[Werthead]

The first Dalek story from 1963 has been recut as a 75-minute event movie and colourised, with a new Murray Gold soundtrack, and will drop on BBC iPlayer on the day of the anniversary itself (23 November).

Interesting idea. The 1960s Doctor Whos (and to be honest quite a few of the 1970s as well) are slow-as-fuck in pacing, so tightening them up with an optional movie edit version is not necessarily a bad idea (despite the purists fuming), as long as the originals remain available. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they've colourised the entire story for people who want to see it in colour but not cut.

[felice]

Not surprising - colourising the whole thing would probably have cost close to twice as much. It will be interesting to see!

[Derfel Cadarn]

16 hours ago, Werthead said:

The first Dalek story from 1963 has been recut as a 75-minute event movie and colourised, with a new Murray Gold soundtrack, and will drop on BBC iPlayer on the day of the anniversary itself (23 November).

Interesting idea. The 1960s Doctor Whos (and to be honest quite a few of the 1970s as well) are slow-as-fuck in pacing, so tightening them up with an optional movie edit version is not necessarily a bad idea (despite the purists fuming), as long as the originals remain available. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they've colourised the entire story for people who want to see it in colour but not cut.

There’s been a few edit cuts of classic stories included in the DVD’s. Some definitively needed it.

[Werthead]

Carole Ann Ford, who played the very first Doctor Who companion, Susan, looks incredible for 83.

Meanwhile, the newest companion Millie Gibson was born just a few months before Doctor Who's return in 2005 and the first Doctor she even vaguely recalls watching on screen was Matt Smith (arrrrgh).

[Werthead]

That was - very easily - the corniest and cheesiest ending anyone has ever written for Doctor Who, ever. Breaking through the wall of cringe into a new dimension where the upper limit of arrrgh has not yet been defined.

Still, the episode also had far more pace and energy than anything for the last five years, and that TARDIS interior earns a lot of latitude. Interested to see where that goes. Also, seeing RTD's greatest hits is amusing (crashing alien spaceship over London, faux-BBC news reporting, invoking the Shadow Proclamation yet again).

RTD is usually good at keeping his turbo-panto instincts limited to one episode a season. It reminded me a lot of the 2005 comeback episode, Rose, which was and remains one of the worst episodes of Who ever produced, and that ended up being fine. Hope the next episode is stronger though.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Werthead

[Jaxom 1974]

Geez...forgot I had to watch this on Disney+...

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Donna tossed the coffee on purpose… didn’t she?

[Derfel Cadarn]

When your thousands (millions?) of years old time machine gets fucked over by someone spilling a beverage on it…

Bit like Star Trek ship consoles being exploding deathtraps

[mormont]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

That was - very easily - the corniest and cheesiest ending anyone has ever written for Doctor Who, ever. Breaking through the wall of cringe into a new dimension where the upper limit of arrrgh has not yet been defined.

I think you're being too harsh on it, and I say that as a noted Donna hater. (Weirdly, I really like all of Donna's family, including those introduced in this episode. It's just Donna herself I can't get on with.)

Nice to see Pat Mills finally getting some of that Disney cheddar. And Dave Gibbons, of course, but he got paid for Watchmen.

[polishgenius]

It was cheesy, but cheesy in the right way. 

 

Also just tons of fun. And you really could see the budget. It's not an all-timer episode but after Chibnall's era- which I enjoyed in large parts but was held back by just frankly half-baked writing a lot of the time- seeing something with dialogue that actually worked was a relief. And full of joy of life. 

[SpaceChampion]

19 hours ago, Werthead said:

Still, the episode also had far more pace and energy than anything for the last five years, and that TARDIS interior earns a lot of latitude. Interested to see where that goes. Also, seeing RTD's greatest hits is amusing (crashing alien spaceship over London, faux-BBC news reporting, invoking the Shadow Proclamation yet again).

Surprised you haven't mentioned this was an adaptation of a Fourth Doctor comic book, which was later adapted into a radio play. 

Never mind!  I see you did.

Edited November 26, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[Werthead]

7 hours ago, mormont said:

Nice to see Pat Mills finally getting some of that Disney cheddar. And Dave Gibbons, of course, but he got paid for Watchmen.

Pat Mills cried when he was introduced to the Meep (as seen on the new BTS show). That guy has a reputation for being pretty hardcore (cofounding and writing Action and Battle in the 1970s, cofounding 2000AD, doing a lot of the writing and worldbuilding on early Judge Dredd when Wagner stormed off for a bit) so that was surprising.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

It was cheesy, but cheesy in the right way. 

 

Also just tons of fun. And you really could see the budget. It's not an all-timer episode but after Chibnall's era- which I enjoyed in large parts but was held back by just frankly half-baked writing a lot of the time- seeing something with dialogue that actually worked was a relief. And full of joy of life. 

That’s because Chibnall is an awful writer… “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”.

I rest my case.

[williamjm]

It was a lot of fun to see Tennant and Tate back and the episode definitely moved along at a good pace. The plot twist could probably be seen from orbit, but The Meep was a fun alien of the week. I also agree that the action scenes benefited from the increased budget. The end was the weakest part, the actors valiantly do their best to try to make something dramatic out of a scene in which they have to flick lots of switches while yelling technobabble but it did all feel a bit ridiculous.

[mormont]

40 minutes ago, williamjm said:

The plot twist could probably be seen from orbit

Given that the plot twist was revealed in 1980, I don't feel that the writers were relying on the element of surprise there.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Given that the plot twist was revealed in 1980, I don't feel that the writers were relying on the element of surprise there.

On the BTS, RTD said that he estimated maybe 50,000 people max have read that comic and listened the audiobook, so people who knew how the story ended would be in the absolute minority. Although obviously people could go onto the TARDIS Wiki and learn immediately how the story was going to end.

[IlyaP]

How much hair gel is David Tennant using each day?! Jeezus, that man's hair defied gravity in every shot of the episode! 

[john]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:08 PM, Werthead said:

That was - very easily - the corniest and cheesiest ending anyone has ever written for Doctor Who, ever. Breaking through the wall of cringe into a new dimension where the upper limit of arrrgh has not yet been defined.

Surely not. What about James Corden resisting cyber conversion because he loves his son, or something? It was some cheesy bullshit all right but at least it was some original cheesy bullshit (well, apart from the bit where they “let it go,” Elsa did that first).

it’s quite hard to put your finger on what makes a fairly standard RTD episode better than a lot of what Chibnall wrote, it doesn’t seem like that high calibre an episode in concept but watching it is somehow more enjoyable. Part of that is Tennant, certainly, but the writing in general just seems to flow better.

I quite admire how direct RTD is with what he wants to get across. He needs a moment where the Doctor has to restore Donna’s time lord mind to save the situation but with tragic consequences for his best friend in the universe? Ok, so there’s a big barrier inexplicably comes down in the middle of the engine room. He’s used almost the same idea before with the weird pair of boxes that are apparently specifically designed so the Doctor needs to kill himself in order to unlatch the other box with Wolf trapped inside. The other writers (especially Moffat) might come up with some convoluted pot scenario to get to the same point but RTD is just like, nah, a big barrier comes down.

It’s like with his reaction to the question of why 14th Doctor’s clothes regenerated. I read an interview where he was asked this and he seemed totally unfazed by the idea that this shouldn’t work in the lore. He just thought it would be weird and possibly offensive to show Tennant wearing Whittaker’s costume so he changed the clothes. And this kind of direct approach definitely contributes to the streamlined storytelling.

Anyway, I’ll definitely watch this one again some time, which is more than I could say for most episodes of the last ten years.