Doctor Who

[renton]

5 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

I live pie and bovril for this kind of post.

 

A respectful nod to geekdom, sir. Well played.

 

 

I am such a fucking geek, Doctor Who is nowhere near being my favourite piece of TV sci fi either.

[DA Baracus]

The worst thing about the casting is how many people can't spell her surname, with 'Whittacker' being the most common culprit. 

[diamond_for_life]

9 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

The worst thing about the casting is how many people can't spell her surname, with 'Whittacker' being the most common culprit. 

Guilty 

[GordonD]

On 20/07/2017 at 10:39, DA Baracus said:

The worst thing about the casting is how many people can't spell her surname, with 'Whittacker' being the most common culprit. 

I wasn't going to point out that renton kept spelling the fifth Doctor as 'Davidson' - it's actually 'Davison'. But if there's one thing a geek can't do, it's stay quiet when another geek makes a trivial mistake...

[Bully Wee Villa]

Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield) dead.

[RandomGuy.]

Just finished the season. Last two episodes were superb I though, disguised Master one of the best characters they've had. Genuinely felt sorry for Bill too.

Huge, huge disappointment at the utter shitehawk way they saved her, with a "twist" which fanboys will likely pass off as obvious as she cries in every episode or some such pish.

[killiefan27]

49 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Just finished the season. Last two episodes were superb I though, disguised Master one of the best characters they've had. Genuinely felt sorry for Bill too.

Huge, huge disappointment at the utter shitehawk way they saved her, with a "twist" which fanboys will likely pass off as obvious as she cries in every episode or some such pish.

The Master twist was excellent - or would have been if they hadn't ruined it in the "next time" and the trailers.

In fact, they ruined both that and the fact they were creating Cybermen. Can't imagine how pissed off you'd be if you'd written and shot those things as reveals, only for the BBC to spoil them.

Still took me a while to twig that it was Simm, but once I did it ruined a lot of it.

One of my favourite episodes - when the nurse deals with the "pain" but it turns out she only turned down the voice box: chilling - but I wish I'd seen it without the spoilers!

[TheGreenElves]

11 hours ago, killiefan27 said:

The Master twist was excellent - or would have been if they hadn't ruined it in the "next time" and the trailers.

In fact, they ruined both that and the fact they were creating Cybermen. Can't imagine how pissed off you'd be if you'd written and shot those things as reveals, only for the BBC to spoil them.

Still took me a while to twig that it was Simm, but once I did it ruined a lot of it.

One of my favourite episodes - when the nurse deals with the "pain" but it turns out she only turned down the voice box: chilling - but I wish I'd seen it without the spoilers!

Luckily I don't watch the next time bit as they usually give away twists. It's the same reason why I rarely read the info bit about the show I'm about to watch(as there's been a few times where it has given away the entire plot ). I had heard that Simm was going to be in the series, but totally forgot until the reveal

[GordonD]

11 hours ago, killiefan27 said:

The Master twist was excellent - or would have been if they hadn't ruined it in the "next time" and the trailers.

In fact, they ruined both that and the fact they were creating Cybermen. Can't imagine how pissed off you'd be if you'd written and shot those things as reveals, only for the BBC to spoil them.

Still took me a while to twig that it was Simm, but once I did it ruined a lot of it.

One of my favourite episodes - when the nurse deals with the "pain" but it turns out she only turned down the voice box: chilling - but I wish I'd seen it without the spoilers!

The all-time classic spoiler was the one with the Daleks in 1930s New York - the cliffhanger at the end of the first part was the reveal of the hybrid human/Dalek. Supposed to be a shock moment. And then they put it on the cover of the Radio Times.

I didn't realise it was Simm until he took off his disguise. But then I wasn't paying close attention.

And I also didn't realise until I read it here (not this post, the one immediately after the episode was shown) that the nurse was turning down the volume control - I thought she was turning up the morphine flow!

[Sergeant Wilson]

On 7/20/2017 at 10:27, renton said:

I suppose, back in the start in 1963 it wasn't set in stone what regeneration was, indeed, it wasn't until Pertwee left that the term was explicitly used. In the beginning it was something more akin to 'renewal' - more a reversing of aging  of the threadbare first doctor into the second, than the random body change it became later. Troughton's change to Pertwee was called a 'change of appearance' without really referencing the implicit mental changes the character must go through as one actor and writer's interpretation gives way to another's. So we're into the mid 70s before we actually start seeing more of the Timelord society put into perspective. Actually, then would've been a good time to do it, the Doctor, at the time was played very asexual, or at least, above human concepts of gender, loved his line in City of Death: "Your a beautiful woman, probably".

So really, in the original show, back in times when genre writers didn't do series bibles, canon or continuity on a show that managed 26 years it's simply a case of a concept changing from one thing (rejuvenation) as a device required to write out an ailing actor, to another (complete metamorphosis) without ever really embracing the latter concept's implications. It just never occurred to them. And the longer it went, then there was more inertia against it.

It's always been a bit of a pull on Doctor Who to present the main character as alien, but also recognizably human. It's interesting in other future set shows - like Star Trek - that humans in the 24th century are no different from 20th C humans, in terms of physiology and morality, when indeed you wouldn't ever imagine us being so static. The reason being is that, incorporating any kind of evolved humanity onto these shows, whether it was the incorporation of cybernetic components, or psi powers, or being faster rand stronger generally, would serve to sever the audience link to the characters. The Doctor is alien, but in so many ways, also very, very human. Much more so in the new show. They kinda got away with regeneration because, there is, or was, quite a narrow interpretation of the character, and until Davidson in 1982, a narrow(ish) age range of actors to choose for the role. In that respect it's easier to look at the Doctor as the same person even with a different actor. At 29, Davidson was quite a big departure for the show, but again, like Tennent and Smith later - it worked because Davidson played him as much older than he himself was. The big thing here being the suspense of audience disbelief that someone who looks and sounds different, and, depending on the writing, even have a bit of a different personality, is the same person. It's a fragile thread that runs through the character development.

Whittaker is a break from that. She shouldn't and won't play it as the previously recognizably male doctor now in female form. She, and the writers, will have to find the distillation of the Doctor's character beyond the surface beats that the other actors have used previously. I reckon she'll be fine, but it's worth noting the low level disquiet that went with Capaldi's casting: What once would've been the quintessential actor to play the doctor was met with uncertainty because  the production team thought people might struggle to identify with the 55 year old Capaldi vs. the two younger, swashbuckling men who preceded him. You can see that anxiety in Capaldi's first episode, where, unlike all the others - at least in the new show, he had to share screentime with his predecessor, who's phone call to Clara was such an obvious thing for the audience: HE'S STILL THE SAME GUY being the slightly angsty, screamed message.

As long as she can monologue she'll be fine, that's basically the doctor's job (and no one can do a big set piece speech like Peter Capaldi). After a couple of episodes it'll not even really be an issue. For me, it's more the fact that Chibnall's episodes have been interminably dull and plodding. The writing could well be the major issue here.

The Cybermen were my favourites.

[RandomGuy.]

Worth mentioning in the second last episode The Doctor makes it pretty obvious he can be female after a regeneration. Just watched the episode yesterday and have to wonder why people were so shocked at the announcement considering the last five or so episodes seemed to be signposting it

 

 

[dogmc]

On the app so dunno how to link it but the trailer for the Xmas episode looks pretty impressive. Potentially the best capaldi one yet and Bradley looks spot on as 1st Dr. Thankfully they haven't managed to give away the entire plot. Could also live without the gatiss appearance.

[Bully Wee Villa]

There's still at least one minor spoiler in the trailer.

Agreed that it looks impressive. Looking forward to it.

[GordonD]

1 hour ago, dogmc said:

On the app so dunno how to link it but the trailer for the Xmas episode looks pretty impressive. Potentially the best capaldi one yet and Bradley looks spot on as 1st Dr. Thankfully they haven't managed to give away the entire plot. Could also live without the gatiss appearance.

Here you go.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40700897

[salmonbuddie]

If a female Doctor is such a bad thing and ruining the show, how come there wasn't this hysteria with The Master becoming Missy? The same "reasoning" applies, surely?

[GordonD]

On 24/07/2017 at 12:12, salmonbuddie said:

If a female Doctor is such a bad thing and ruining the show, how come there wasn't this hysteria with The Master becoming Missy? The same "reasoning" applies, surely?

Maybe because we didn't find out it was the Master until she'd been appearing for a while so people had got used to her.

[salmonbuddie]

2 hours ago, GordonD said:

Maybe because we didn't find out it was the Master until she'd been appearing for a while so people had got used to her.

The timing doesn't change the fact that people are currently getting all upset because a Time Lord is becoming a Time Lady but they didn't before, though, does it?

[Jaggy Snake]

39 minutes ago, salmonbuddie said:

The timing doesn't change the fact that people are currently getting all upset because a Time Lord is becoming a Time Lady but they didn't before, though, does it?

The difference is the Doctor is the main character the whole show revolves around. Even if you disagreed with the Master changing sexes it wasn't going to impact most episodes as it's a much smaller role.

[salmonbuddie]

Just now, Jaggy Snake said:

The difference is the Doctor is the main character the whole show revolves around. Even if you disagreed with the Master changing sexes it wasn't going to impact most episodes as it's a much smaller role.

Aye, but the upset is because a Time Lord is becoming a Time Lady. Which has already happened.

And it hasn't been that much smaller in the latest series, anyway.

[Jaggy Snake]

19 minutes ago, salmonbuddie said:

Aye, but the upset is because a Time Lord is becoming a Time Lady. Which has already happened.

And it hasn't been that much smaller in the latest series, anyway.

Equally you could say that the upset is because the change is to the title character. Which has not happened before.

Also, a lot of the furore is from people who don't actually watch the show as the Doctor changing sexes makes headlines that Missy never did.