Doctor Who – What The Flux?

Topic

I remember when 2020 seemed a long way away!

Hope we get some news soon on exactly when this is coming.

Replies

I think it’s fair to say this was the best single year of Doctor Who. “Robot” is a fairly low-key start, but the next four stories form a perfect sequence and cemented Baker’s position as the best Doctor, with “Genesis of the Daleks” obviously being the all-time #1 Doctor Who story.

DavidM wrote:

I think it’s fair to say this was the best single year of Doctor Who.

This sentence made me think David had really gone off his rocker.

A university recreation of Mission to the Unknown is debuting on Youtube next week, on the 54th anniversary of the episode’s original airing.

I watched ‘Voyage of the Damned’ a couple of nights ago for the first time ever – somehow I missed it first time around and never went back to it.

It’s quite good in a disaster-movie type way, but as part of that it does something quite un-Doctor-Who-ish and has a surprisingly high bodycount, which is a bit jarring. (Especially as there are some obvious get-outs that the Doctor doesn’t take.)

Still, there are some fun ideas in it and the presence of Kylie Minogue helps to paper over the cracks in the story.

I also liked the meta gag about everyone in London leaving town on Christmas day because that’s always when alien attacks happen!

Dave wrote:

something quite un-Doctor-Who-ish and has a surprisingly high bodycount

Err… you *have* watched Doctor Who before?
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Doctor turns up. People start dying in droves. That’s SOP.

Yeah, Horror of Fang Rock, objectively one of the best Doctor Who stories ever, kills off every single supporting character.

Yeah, sorry I meant to write nu-Who. They’ve made a big thing in the past about saving lives and going to certain lengths to avoid/reverse casualties, so this felt unusually bloodthirsty.

I just listened to the third locum Doctors story – The Secret History – where 5th replaces 1st. Really enjoyable and a nice mix of the much more historical focus of the 1st with the 5th being earnest through it all. Nice continuity to another Doctor’s stories leading to the reason behind it all.

Then Ghost Mission which was a delight and makes me want to listen to more Torchwood. Samuel Barnett was brilliant and would love to hear more of his character.

[Jason]

So are they going to do animated recons on all of the missing episodes? Looks like they’re trying to get Troughton’s first and second years filled in (Power of the Daleks, Macra Terror, Fury from the Deep, Faceless Ones).
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In the case of “The Faceless Ones,” they’re even animating episodes that exist.
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So, from Troughton’s first season, that leaves “The Highlanders,” “The Underwater Menace,” and “Evil of the Daleks” missing and unanimated. And from Troughton’s second season, “Abominable Snowmen,” “Web of Fear,” and “Wheel in Space,” still incomplete, though the only missing episode of “Web of Fear” is known to be out there somewhere.
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And from Troughton’s third season, only “The Space Pirates,” is still incomplete.
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Hartnell’s first season is mostly complete, only the full “Marco Polo” story is missing, and Hartnell’s second season is only missing two episodes of “The Crusade.” “Marco Polo” exists as a really nice telesnap recon, and it’s a historical and the primary appeal of it seems to be with the sets and costumes, which would seem to not translate well to animiation, so they might as well leave that one as a telesnap reconstruction.
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I’m guessing that they’re go ahead and animate all of Troughton’s missing episodes, which would only leave Hartnell’s third season missing a significant number of episodes.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Jason.

Any news on series 12 lately? It feels like the show is a bit dead at the moment as we wait for more, even more so than during Capaldi’s ‘off’ year.

Jason wrote:

And from Troughton’s third season, only “The Space Pirates,” is still incomplete.

I’m surprised they haven’t done Space Pirates next, as it means they could do a Collection blu-ray set of his final season sooner than later (after giving time for the solo release of SP to sell through a bit).

The last thing I saw was last week, but it was just social media pics by someone who saw the show filming on location. It might be for a special rather than reshoots.
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https://www.instagram.com/raggedywho_/

Have they announced whether they’re doing a Christmas or New Year special yet? It feels like we’d usually know by now.

[SteveUK]

Not that I’ve heard. The show is due back early next year but there’s no confirmed date.
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I’ve bitched a lot about all of this before so I wont indulge again.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by SteveUK.

I feel a bit more like you do this time around. If it doesn’t come back on New Year’s Day or earlier then this is going to be the longest gap since the series returned, isn’t it?

As I said; not going there.
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This is an interesting article. It points out the UK television has often diverted from the regular, annual schedule more common to American TV.
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It also points out there there’s a potential downside to that, especially with an audience with a large proportion of younger viewers;
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https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2018/12/taking-year-not-unusual-british-tv-series-it-s-still-bad-doctor-who

Yeah, that article makes lots of good points.
It is a huge amount of time for children, their interests could have shifted wildly in that period (especially given the continual churn of media aimed at them).

SteveUK wrote:

As I said; not going there.

I hope I didn’t seem like I was baiting you. I was talking about it in the expectation that others might respond too.

Trailer coming in two weeks.

I’m not sure that the Doctor’s last line is something I ever needed to see.

As if those horrible corporate videos weren’t cringey enough…

Bloody hell.
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It was a different world back then.

I guess the point is to give him such a deliberately un-Doctor-y line at the end as a gag. But still, it’s very jarring and not that funny, and by today’s standards very unpleasant.

I was expecting some cheesy corporate slogan at the end, not what we got!

As you say a very different time.

Well, that all looks quite exciting. Scary Cyberman! Let’s hope the writing lives up to the production values this season.

Dave wrote:

Well, that all looks quite exciting. Scary Cyberman! Let’s hope the writing lives up to the production values this season.

Bwahahahahaha. As if.

I remain hopeful. I liked a lot of what they’ve chosen to do with the new Doctor. I want more and better of course, but I’m relieved it went as well as it did.

As expected, back on New Year’s Day.

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I’m with Martin – I have no issue with a female Doctor but I’m not feeling tbis iteration and Whittaker hadnt charmed me. She feels like Matt Smith – lite.

Anonymous wrote:

I’m with Martin – I have no issue with a female Doctor but I’m not feeling tbis iteration and Whittaker hadnt charmed me. She feels like Matt Smith – lite.

Chibnall has very much written her Doctor as somewhere between 10 and 11, which makes sense in a way, the show was at its peak with them. But Whittaker isn’t really suited to doing the dialogue tics of those Doctors (the self-argument banter that trails off, for instance) and Chibnall, as not only head writer but someone who has worked with Whittaker before, really should have written to her strengths as an actor (whatever they are) instead of trying to push her into the mould of generic Doctor.

So is this the start of the new season on Jan 1, with no special?

It seems a bit confusing so far. I’ve seen the New Year’s Day episode variously described as a feature-length special, a two-part special and the start of series 12. I guess it could be all of those things.

Yeah, it seems confusing, especially as the second episode is the one that’s getting a big cinema push (in the US at least) on Sunday January 5th, which is I guess is the same day it’s airing.

 

Some truly great journalism on display here:

 

Doctor Who goes full on James Bond for hotly-anticipated series 12

Fans are eagerly counting down to the new episodes, with one person enthusing on Twitter: ‘Oooooh I’m so excited! Can’t wait.’

You can’t fault the accuracy there. Their source was on the record and everything!

I got the blu-ray of the Macra Terror for Christmas. It’s pretty great. The story’s a lot of fun to begin with, featuring some subtly big concepts (although a ton of plot holes too) and the animation is great.

I used to be a bit of a purist on the animated reconstruction front – 4:3 and in black and white, thank you. And while that still makes the most sense when you’re filling in gaps for incomplete stories, for totally missing ones like this, going to widescreen and colour makes sense and works really well. There are some liberties taken in reconstruction terms (the Macra waving Polly about by the ankle for instance) but they all fit and work well. That said, there are a couple of instances where the animation seems a little flummoxed by the script (no-one noticing the obvious air vents the bright green gas is coming through) and doesn’t quite match the soundtrack occasionally (Jamie getting in the lift). But those are minor quibbles and it’s impressive how far the quality of these have come along since the execrable Reign of Terror recon.

I’m much more interested in getting the Faceless Ones than I was before and I might upgrade my (black and white only) DVD copy of Power of the Daleks to the colour blu-ray.

Series 12 starts in a couple of hours and I feel like I know less about it than any other series since the relaunch.

Partly, I like that, as I really don’t know what to expect (other than some spy antics in the first two-parter). But partly it makes me feel as though the show’s profile is lower than it was in the past – that people aren’t out there hyping it in the same way as before.

It’ll be interesting to see whether it can maintain its momentum after the year away.

I have never watched an episode of Doctor Who.

There, I said it. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

I would start with something nice and accessible like a Moffat season finale.

Heh.

[Spoiler]Death by sat nav! [/spoiler]

Well, that was a lot of fun, I thought. One of the good things about the show is that it can support so many different styles of story, and I thought they did a Bond-esque spy romp quite well (with a touch of X-Files thrown in).

Everyone seems a little more comfortable in their roles now and there’s a bit more meaningful character development than last series.

Plus, I liked the Master reveal, which I didn’t see coming at all.

(And the ‘hiding behind the sofa’ gag made me chuckle.)

Yeah, I liked that quite a bit.  Quite smart that it concludes Sunday too.

I liked it

Someone’s just reminded me that it’s ten years to the day since this.

 

 

I found that pretty interminable. Chibnall’s still a crap writer:

“He withdrew support. We think he became a double agent. Maybe even a triple agent.” Except to be a double agent he’d need to continue the pretence of being your agent and to be a triple agent, he’d need to let you know he’s a double agent.

I stopped giving it my full attention about 20 minutes in.

I won’t be bothering with the rest of the series.

He’s definitely not cut out for this sort of thing, but he’s trying for fun, light and breezy much of the time, and direct to important points the rest and he’s… well close enough I guess? Not a bullseye but still on the board… somewhere.

Everyone’s overdoing it a bit really and it transcends “daft” far too often to be my thing, but I’ll stick around and hope for improvements. I still like the cast, the look, and most importantly the intention behind it all.

I would enjoy it more if they kept the level of absolute bollocks to less than 20% or so, and let the story and characters flow from there. That seems unlikely though.

SteveUK wrote:

but I’ll stick around and hope for improvements.

I mean, as a die-hard long-term Doctor Who fan, that is the temptation for me too. But it’s like people who keep buying an ongoing superhero comic that they haven’t liked since 1992 on the off-chance it’ll get good again – living in sunken cost fallacy. I’ve seen enough of Chibnall’s run to know it’s not for me and if it was ever going to magically improve, it’d have been between seasons, but it’s got the same problems it had before. So that’s why I think it’s time to cut my losses.

I understand.

But I’m prepared to FF the crap bits. Even if there are a lot of them.

45 min minutes of dull dull dull then 15 min of hammy excitement. I guess I’ll come back for the next episode but, like last season, Doctor Who has fallen from “must watch” Saturday night tv to “catch up on iplayer whenever it’s convenient” tv.

When is the next episode on anyway?

Sunday

The twist was okay, but overall I was underwhelmed.

I wish the rumours about Chibnall leaving after this season had been true. He’s not a good Doctor Who writer.

I was expecting the twist to be that Yaz had been replaced with an alien, so the Master showing up and being back to near-panto levels of ham was welcome.  But a lot of the build up to the reveal was fairly standard Doctor Who placeholding.  Better than a lot of last year, but that’s a low bar.  It still looks and sounds great though, just needs a bit more pep in the writing.

The twist was expected. Rule one being don’t trust anyone. He acted like a crazy goon just barely containing himself, which was a great way to play it really. And he even pointed out the need to find the “spy master”. Not so keen on the faux Upside Down gimmick but happy to see more of the new zany Master on Sunday.

I rather liked that. Didn’t see the reveal coming. He got a little too wacky for me at times but overall I liked this take. I thought this had some really good moments. The scene with the security lights was really well done and Yaz talking about thinking she was dead was really good too.

paul f wrote:

I wish the rumours about Chibnall leaving after this season had been true. He’s not a good Doctor Who writer.

All as predicted then.

Haven’t seen any of the last season yet, and it’s looking like I won’t be bothering to, either, and just wait until Chibnall’s gone.

Spyfall was fantastic but I do think Chris Chibnall slightly overdid it with all those captions #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/qOhEWMMGjr

— Happy New Pip (@pipmadeley) January 1, 2020

I wish they’d done this now.

I was impressed by that Yaz scene too. Good to see proof that she can actually act!

Still wouldn’t really care if her and/or Ryan got sucked out of the plane, though. Reduce the number of companions, get the new Master over as something deadly…

saga wrote:

The twist was expected.

I had absolutely no idea and some comments on Twitter had me prepared for a twist. I was looking more at what was going on with Yas when she entered the weird tree world. I could only see it coming right at the end with the ‘sprinting’ line and The Doctor’s reaction to it.

I enjoyed it a fair bit. I liked the change in putting the big bad and twist upfront in the series and the limited previews are a plus, I think they often damaged previous stories when they revealed too much in advance. I’d still love to have seen that last Moffat story without them having already told you the old school Cybermen were coming and ruining what would have been a big surprise moment.

I mean I know Graham and gang won’t die in the aeroplane but I appreciate they don’t just remove any brief tension there could have been with them chatting away in the ‘next week’ bit straight after the ending.

 

 

I agree. When I mentioned the limited preview stuff yesterday I had no idea there would be such a big reveal in the first episode. I think the last time the show succeeded in keeping something like that under wraps it was when Missy was revealed to be the Master, and even then people had been given plenty of time earlier in the season to make that guess. This worked really well.

Yes, credit where it’s due, it’s very impressive they managed to keep this twist under wraps for a year and didn’t splash it over the Radio Times and internet in promotion for the series.

I liked it.  Only problem is the Master’s speech pattern.  Still don’t know what happened to Chibnall’s version of Millar’s Prodigy. Panto Master is good. loved how angry he got when Doctor pulled out her sonic.

That was alright I thought. The main plot was wrapped up a little too easily and neatly, but there were some nice details and the Gallifrey stuff has potential.

Not a big fan of this one. It really didn’t need to be an hour, and all of the Lenny Henry stuff felt like a rethread of so many “new gadget is evil” stories they’ve done in the past. I liked Dhawan though.

Is this the first time that the writers for a season haven’t been revealed beforehand?

There’s usually an article in the magazine laying it out, right? Maybe they hadn’t decided on the order?

Surely for them to know which directors are on which episodes they must also know who wrote those specific episodes.

I liked the Doctors scenes with the two women from the past. And the whole Gallifrey/Endless Child plot has my attention.

but I can’t stand the three companions. The show grinds to a halt whenever it cuts back to them. And the scene with the Master getting the Doctor to kneel and say his name……That was just creepy. And not in a good way.

paul f wrote:

the Lenny Henry stuff felt like a rethread of so many “new gadget is evil”

It did, but I thought his speech was quite well-written.

Surely for them to know which directors are on which episodes they must also know who wrote those specific episodes.

It comes from the CVs of people who work for the director, so it lists the director names and the episodes they worked on, not the writers. None of them seem to have been officially announced, except for next week, and that’s only because the Radio Times interviewed the writer:

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-12-27/doctor-who-series-12-monsters-orphan-55/

I was responding to the suggestion that it had something to do with the episode order being undecided. If we know the order of directors (as per that list) then surely we know what order that the episodes are going to be in, even if the writers haven’t been revealed yet.

Yeah, I guess they just decided not to announce anything?

Must be.

Perhaps it’s part of the changed approach to spoilers, but if so it’s going a bit far! Surely the details will be published a fair time ahead of transmission either way, so I’m not sure why they would hold it back at this point.

Ian Smith wrote:

And the scene with the Master getting the Doctor to kneel and say his name……That was just creepy. And not in a good way.

Having the Master be currently male and the Doctor currently female definitely gave it a different dimension. But presumably deliberately so.

This season is 2 for 2 with me. I liked this second episode a lot. Maybe more than the first. The Victorian weapons were silly in a fun way while the timey whimey stuff was simple enough that it was cute and not obnoxious the way Moffat’s stuff got.

That was ok, still went on a bit and Lenny Henry’s character never went anywhere.

Can any parents confirm that kids loved the laser shoes? Because if they didn’t then that was a waste of time.

But it was mostly ok.

An OK conclusion.  It was a bit too earnest for its own good and the whole Master-Doc scene with the kneeling was tone deaf, although I did like that the whole Aryan aspect got brought up with Master hooking up with the Nazis.

Can’t really go with the whole ‘Doctor can’t do anything to Master because s/he still sees him as their lost friend despite him being a total bastard’ angle.

SteveUK wrote:

Can any parents confirm that kids loved the laser shoes? Because if they didn’t then that was a waste of time.

The kids loved the laser shoes. It provided their biggest laugh of the episode.

Ben wrote:

Can’t really go with the whole ‘Doctor can’t do anything to Master because s/he still sees him as their lost friend despite him being a total bastard’ angle.

It’s interesting that they’ve essentially had to ignore the Missy/Master stuff from Moffat’s last series to make this all work. I think it’s the right decision to reset the relationship though, and it could easily be explained away in-story if they wanted to.

I liked it overall.  A lot of the episode was plate spinning.  It could have been a one-parter if not for reintroducing The Master as a cliffhanger moment and then having him and The Doctor chase through time.  As soon as Ada introduced herself I knew she was going to turn out to be Ada Lovelace, and I liked how they tied that back to the Kasaavin’s plans even though it wasn’t really explained beyond “they were keeping an eye on pivotal figures in the history of computers” – but that lead to Alan Turing’s portrait being front and centre on the screen, so ayyyyy.

I got a strong Claws of Axos vibe off the episode as well, even a little bit last week in retrospect what with The Master having an uneven alliance with aliens that winds up being his undoing.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

As soon as Ada introduced herself I knew she was going to turn out to be Ada Lovelace

My daughter studied Ada Lovelace as part of a history module last year, and also recognised her as soon as she called herself Ada. She was really happy to see her.

As much as people have complained about the slightly obvious way that Chibnall’s stories have treated historical figures, I do think it is nice to have those elements in there clearly for younger viewers. My daughter is eight and I think this was pitched just about right for her, as was the Rosa Parks episode last series.

Ben wrote:

Can’t really go with the whole ‘Doctor can’t do anything to Master because s/he still sees him as their lost friend despite him being a total bastard’ angle.

In what way was the Doctor not doing anything to the Master? Telling the Nazis he was a spy, and a non-Aryan one at that, and then leading them to him is pretty much as brutal as it gets.

The Doctor doesn’t really have any ultimate solution to total bastards, Master or otherwise. She’s not going to kill them, and she’s got no way to lock them all up. All she ever does is thwart their schemes and let them go with a stern talking to.

And then trap them in an alternate dimension.

Which he’ll get out of, probably just in time for the final episode.

Ian Smith wrote:

I liked the Doctors scenes with the two women from the past. And the whole Gallifrey/Endless Child plot has my attention.

but I can’t stand the three companions. The show grinds to a halt whenever it cuts back to them. And the scene with the Master getting the Doctor to kneel and say his name……That was just creepy. And not in a good way.

The whole story could have been told without any of the companions and nothing would have been lost. Except for the laser shoes, I suppose, but Ada could have pulled them off.

Maybe it was the feed on my provider but I still had problems with understanding the Master.  I liked the Doctor and her adventure with the historical women. The companions were complete filler but i’m glad the kids liked the laser shoes.

I would have loved to see more of the Doctor hopping genres and with famous people as companions / people to meet , with the master on her tail – I could have watched a series of that.

Yeah I think i agree with the criticisms of the companions.

I’m not particularly enamoured with this version of the Doctor (I really liked Capaldi) but, fine.

The companions: I don’t really like.  I have no idea who Yas or Ryan are apart from young people and Graham is slightly more three dimensional but he still just feels like a boomer.

I would have preferred the idea of historical figure companions. Or even something more radical like a Time Lord companion or the Master even, with some stooge human vehicle for the audience to balance things out and be played by the two.

I agree. The last episode could have been a template for the whole season. The Doctor lost in time, trying to catch the Master, teaming up with various historical figures for adventures along the way, with Lenny Henry as the human stooge who doesn’t realise how much trouble he is in until it is too late.

Oh that’s just perfect.

I’m catching up on Doctor Who to escape from all the news.

And now they’re Tardising about in the bloody bush.

Anonymous wrote:

Graham is slightly more three dimensional but he still just feels like a boomer.

He is a boomer that’s why.

I really like Graham, it’s a change to have an older companion who’s a bit grumpy sometimes. Yas and Ryan are rather bland though.

okay boomer

It’s the social group that it’s ok to mindlessly discriminate against!

I just assumed it was a reference to the X-force character?

I thought it was a Battlestar Galactica reference.

It’s these guys