I remember when 2020 seemed a long way away!
Hope we get some news soon on exactly when this is coming.
Doctor Who – What The Flux?
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The irregular release of series now seems to be, at least in part, down to the BBC seemingly being determined to make a few actual episodes of Doctor Who as they can without cancelling it. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the COVID-related reduction in series length was quietly kept as the standard length of the series going foward.
The popularity of Doctor Who seems to have taken a precipitous nosedive after Matt Smith left. Nobody really seemed to warm up to Capaldi, and the people who liked David Tennant and Matt Smith seem to have abandoned ship at that point. The merchandise at places like Hot Topic and Barnes & Noble, which was a mainstay at those stores during the late aughts and early teens, dried up immediately and never returned.
And it also didn’t help that Capaldi’s Doctor was an abrasive asshole, Danny Pink was an annoying side character, and the writing was fucking dreadful. You’d think they would have learned their lesson from the Colin Baker fiasco. Though Danny Pink wasn’t nearly as grating as Mel.
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Replace “long-running plot points” with “The Timeless Child” and “wrapped up” with “written off and never spoken of ever again” and I agree entirely.
I’m thinking also of the Ruth Doctor stuff. I feel like it would be good to address that before Whittaker leaves.
Doctor Who doesn’t really do long-running plotlines very well, does it?
I mean, you had Smith’s Doctor where Moffat had all of this stuff like that crack in spacetime, the exploding TARDIS, the Pandorica, the Silence, the Impossible Astronaut, the wedding of River Song, the Great Intelligence, Tranzalore, and every one of those just fizzled out by the time it ended. A lot of interesting ideas, but absolutely nothing interesting came out of them.
And then, with Capaldi, it sort of promised the search for the Time Lords, but that plotline was DOA. And Clara as the impossible girl or something, and Danny Pink might something important, but no he’s just some guy they killed off, Missy turns out to be the Master and that weird steampunky Mary Poppins storyline ends up being about some harebrained scheme by the Cybermen to rob graves (the fuck, dude?), and Arya Stark becomes immortal because the Doctor gives a trinket, and then the Time Lords sort of came back, but really didn’t. And then there was the final season with Bill and the girl with the star-shaped eye, which was the simplest and most coherent arc of Moffat’s tenure.
And then Chibnall comes along and delivers the dullest season of the modern era, and then takes a massive shit on six decades worth of established canon. Oh, and kills off the Time Lords again because nobody seems to know what the fuck to do with them other than eliminate them.
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I think Moffat is a bit unfairly criticised for his series arc plots. My feeling is that he had a reputation for writing smart, coherent stories like Blink and people projected that expectation onto his larger arcs in a way that they couldn’t support.
Really the Smith and Capaldi-era arcs are just as good as the RTD ones, but RTD gets away with a lot of fun-but-nonsensical story bollocks by coasting on sheer exuberance and energy (I’ve been rewatching the Tennant era with my daughter recently and honestly he saves a lot of it just through his great performance).
Whereas Moffat had a reputation as more of a smart intricate plotter and his version of the show took this stuff a bit more seriously and made the arcs a bit more prominent, so people had different expectations and were disappointed when they were often just as woolly as the RTD era.
Still, in amongst all that he managed to give us some fantastic individual episodes like Heaven Sent and the 50th anniversary special, and Smith’s Doctor is probably the best of the modern era, so overall Moffat’s is still my favourite showrunner tenure of the revived series.
I’d take either the cartoonish RTD era or the ambitious but flawed Moffat era over Chibnall’s tenure so far though.
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I’d take either the cartoonish RTD era or the ambitious but flawed Moffat era over Chibnall’s tenure so far though.
Same.
Regarding the increasingly shorter and more sporadic series, it really feels like Doctor Who’s next cancellation won’t be an axing as before, it’ll just be left to gradually peter out until hardly anyone even notices that it’s not being made any more.
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They’ll never shift all those leftover Graham action figures.
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Whereas Moffat had a reputation as more of a smart intricate plotter and his version of the show took this stuff a bit more seriously and made the arcs a bit more prominent, so people had different expectations and were disappointed when they were often just as woolly as the RTD era.
That’s what was so frustrating about Moffat for me.
His episodes were always the highlight of the RTD era. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, Silence in the Libary/Forest of the Dead. These were weird and complex and always had a good payoff.
But then Moffat becomes the showrunner, and he’s still setting up all of this neat stuff… Van Gogh painted the TARDIS exploding, and the payoff is some gobbledygook about rebooting the universe. And the Doctor’s enemies put him in the Pandorica, in inescapable prison cube, and he manages to escape from during what amounts to a commercial break. Rory just opened it up with the Sonic Screwdriver. That’s about as bad as Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder…
I will agree that “Heaven Sent” is a brilliant episode (and “Face the Raven” as well), but the payoff in “Hellbent” was terrible.
And “The Day of the Doctor” was quite good as well — I really liked the idea of a lost incarnation of the Doctor — but I was disappointed that the Time War, as presented, just seemed to so mundane. The few things we heard about the Time War — the Nightmare Child, the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, and the Could’ve Been King with his Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres — made it sound like some kind of hellish Lovecraftian nightmare, barely comprehensible to human minds — and when “The Day of the Doctor” showed us the final days of the Time War it was just a bunch of people and Daleks shooting at each other, and not the fabric of reality being ripped apart.
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Doctor Who doesn’t really do long-running plotlines very well, does it?
No and it shouldn’t really. People looking for that are looking in the wrong place and will be forever disappointed at looking for something in a place it never existed.
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With Moffat, it just got so annoying for me that every single storyline was about The Doctor and how important he was, with the Pandorica and whatever. Disappearing up his own arse. But RTD had the same weakness, towards the end, and I liked Moffat better as a writer overall.
I think their big mistake was making Capaldi all confused and weird when he started out, and it took them too long to recover from that. He never got to be as great as he should have been, but he did have some amazing episodes.
I an still decided that I will never ever watch any Chibnall-produced Doctor Who, I am sorry to say. I do miss The Doctor a lot and wish they’d finally get someone else to run the show.
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I an still decided that I will never ever watch any Chibnall-produced Doctor Who, I am sorry to say
You’re really not missing anything. But it is such a weird feeling knowing that there’s new Doctor Who and choosing not to watch, isn’t it?
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I have never been a dedicated viewer but have watched a number of episodes.
A factor I think that hobbled Capaldi’s run was Clara. She should have only appeared in two or three episodes then should have been replaced with new companion(s). He could have gone one or two episodes without any then realized how important they are when he encounters some prospects.
Instead, we got Clara who was seemed like she was more important and smarter than the Doctor. That was very off putting for me.
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I have never been a dedicated viewer but have watched a number of episodes.
In truth the show is actually fairly designed that way.
Because it’s sci-fi even some big fans want / don’t want huge forays into continuity but in essence it’s always been a bit of an anthology programme. Even at its best you can have a sublime episode or storyline followed by a crap one.
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There are 2 definitions of the show I like.
1. Within the show: Every time the TARDIS travels they end up in a different timeline, there is no continuity other than the people in the TARDIS – that’s why it so sad when someone leaves. (I know this does not work, don’t spoil it)
2. Outside the show: Dr Who’s job is to keep telling interesting new stories in the spirit of the age. Mashing up Genres, using Top of the Pops effects.
In both Doctor who fails when it looks backwards too much
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Instead, we got Clara who was seemed like she was more important and smarter than the Doctor. That was very off putting for me.
I think that was exascarbated by the Doctor being so lost in Capaldi’s first season. Clara had to take over the reigns completey. Other than that, I don’t think she’s much different from Amy or the other companions in that regard – they’re always smarter than the Doctor in some ways and moments, that’s the show compensating for the Doctor being a bloody know-it-all 90% of the time.
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I have never been a dedicated viewer but have watched a number of episodes.
A factor I think that hobbled Capaldi’s run was Clara. She should have only appeared in two or three episodes then should have been replaced with new companion(s). He could have gone one or two episodes without any then realized how important they are when he encounters some prospects.
Instead, we got Clara who was seemed like she was more important and smarter than the Doctor. That was very off putting for me.
Only watched a handful of episodes and yet you still understand the programme better than the writers
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An animated reconstruction of Evil of the Daleks was announced today. Same deal as the other recent ones – full colour with a black and white option, across 3 DVDs or 2 Blu-Ray discs. Out later this year.
It’s pretty cool the amount of Troughton recons that have been done the past few years. I hope they stretch out to doing some Hartnells as well at some point. The Crusade ideally.
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An animated reconstruction of Evil of the Daleks was announced today. Same deal as the other recent ones – full colour with a black and white option, across 3 DVDs or 2 Blu-Ray discs. Out later this year.
It’s pretty cool the amount of Troughton recons that have been done the past few years. I hope they stretch out to doing some Hartnells as well at some point. The Crusade ideally.
I suspect that they’re filling out the Troughton run so they can release them as complete seasons on blu-ray like they’ve been doing with third through the seventh Doctors.
With “Evil of the Daleks” announced, that will only leave “The Highlanders” and “The Underwater Menace” missing from that season (presumably, they would move the two Hartnell stories from season four to season three for a complete season release just to keep the transition neater.)
At this point, Troughton’s second season is only missing “The Abominable Snowmen” and “Wheel in Space.” Oh, and that third episode from “The Web of Fear” that was recovered and then stolen.
And Troughton’s third and final season is only missing “The Space Pirates.”
Makes me wonder if they’ll bother animating the missing historicals like “The Highlanders.” They’re probably kind of low priority, even though “The Highlanders” introduced Jamie.
Hartnell’s first and second seasons are almost complete… the first season is only missing “Marco Polo,” which should probably be presented as telesnaps since, from what I’ve gathered, most of the appeal of that episode is from the sets and costumes, which would be lost in an animated recreation. And then Hartnell’s second season is only missing two episodes of “The Crusade,” which would probably be easy enough to whip out in animation for that season.
Hartnell’s third season is a real mess, though. Tons of missing episodes and stories, I think about seven in all, and one of them is a whopping twelve episodes. There are a few stories like “The Smugglers” and maybe “The Savages” that people might not miss too much, but I’d really like to see them recreate “The Daleks Master Plan,” along with “The Myth Makers” and “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve,” since there’s some continuity between those stories.
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Can they remake Silver Nemesis next? I’m fine if they make new audio too.
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It still makes me irrationally irked that they use American conventions for that kind of thing.
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Exterminate! Exterminate! Why it’s time for Doctor Who to die
I’m not sure about some of these arguments, they seem a bit contradictory.
The show suffers in comparison to other high-budget shows, but also looks greater than it ever has?
It’s suffering uder the weight of continuity, but also is tearing up continuity too much?
They’ve opened up loads of new story possibilities and everything is too high-stakes, but everything feels old and tired and boring?
I think there are plenty of decent criticisms of the current era, but this doesn’t articulate them very well.
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Exterminate! Exterminate! Why it’s time for Doctor Who to die
I’m not sure about some of these arguments, they seem a bit contradictory.
The show suffers in comparison to other high-budget shows, but also looks greater than it ever has?
It’s suffering uder the weight of continuity, but also is tearing up continuity too much?
They’ve opened up loads of new story possibilities and everything is too high-stakes, but everything feels old and tired and boring?
I think there are plenty of decent criticisms of the current era, but this doesn’t articulate them very well.
I couldn’t get past the first paragraph because it points out why it’s headline is so fundamentally wrong.
Doctor Who is the most flexible drama format on television outside of anthology shows (Black Mirror, Inside Number 9). That he feels the recent run is not good enough is nothing but the fault of the showrunner and writers who have the scope to do whatever they want.
It’s something that can be instantly invigorated if you just deliver the scripts. The showrunner (or script editor back in the day) doesn’t write it all themselves or use a committee so if you pick the right one you can have an all-time classic episode in the next series.
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It’s something that can be instantly invigorated if you just deliver the scripts. The showrunner (or script editor back in the day) doesn’t write it all themselves or use a committee so if you pick the right one you can have an all-time classic episode in the next series.
This is it in a nutshell. Get a new showrunner and some new writers. Hell, give some Americans a shot behind the scenes for a season just for a different perspective. Tell some stand-alone stories that don’t tie to some great season-long arc. The nature of the character and premise means you can be very experimental. As long as you don’t violate the core of the Doctor’s character, be bold and try different things.
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Jacob Anderson, Grey Worm from GoT, is going to be joining the series as a character called Vinder.
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-series-13-surprise-guest-newsupdate/
Apparently there’s speculation that we might not get all eight episodes this year?
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Our long national nightmare is nearly over!
BREAKING: Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall to leave Doctor Who in a trio of Specials, culminating in an epic blockbuster Special to air in autumn 2022 as part of the BBC’s Centenary celebrations.
Read the full story ➡️ https://t.co/JB6PTifZUr pic.twitter.com/e6pMTwmLxY
— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) July 29, 2021
The full story the tweet links to confirms that of the 8 episode made of the final season, only 6 are coming this year, the final two are being punted off to next year as “specials” and a third has been added, presumably the exit.
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Whittaker’s finale is Autumn 2022, so she’ll have been The Doctor for 4.75 years,
It’s only felt like 10.
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I’d have thought that Pete McTighe would be in with a shout as new showrunner.
What’s Mark Gatiss up to these days?
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What’s Mark Gatiss up to these days?
About 17 stone, give or take a pound.
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Why is this, is it because of the pandemic or was there some other changes made to the show’s structure?
We discussed it a little while back. The pandemic won’t have helped but they have also seemingly allowed the makers to fix their own schedules in recent years.
To be honest this isn’t uncommon for the BBC. Jed Mercurio pretty much gets to make Line of Duty on his own schedule and wander off and do other projects from time to time and that’s their biggest drama hit. They don’t have a profit and advertising pressure commercial stations do, they often can’t pay as much so trade that off with creative freedom. While Doctor Who isn’t at the peak it was during the Tennant years for ratings it still does pretty well for BBC drama.
So it can form a situation where success can lead to less product. When RTD writes about starting Doctor Who he has pretty tough deadlines and budgets and sticks to them. Then Tennant decided he wanted to do a run of Hamlet and they indulged that and did specials instead of a full series. Since then they’ve had increasing delays and cuts in numbers of episodes.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea for BBC Wales to put that deadline pressure back on whoever takes over next. Maybe someone less experienced could face that as Davies, Moffat and Chibnall came in with track records of writing hit shows and a bit of a star billing (and for all the slagging Chibnall gets Broadchurch was a massive ratings and critical success, for the first season at least).
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Out of curiosity, it their an American you would like to see a showrunner?
Noah Hawley, based on Legion, would be my first choice.
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What about the guys doing What We do in the Shadows?
Is this the first time people are more interested in who’s running Doctor Who than who’s playing Doctor Who?
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How about getting away from the “showrunner” idea. Split the role a script editor who worries about the quality of the stories and a producer who understands how to make television. The producer can be anyone with a proven track record — there must be dozens out there who are good at the job (and we wouldn’t necessarily even notice their names). And for the script editor, hire the team behind Big Finish. Job done.
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and a producer who understands how to make television. The producer can be anyone with a proven track record — there must be dozens out there who are good at the job (and we wouldn’t necessarily even notice their names).
Doctor Who has a producer and has done since 2005. The show wouldn’t have worked at all when it relaunched without Julie Gardner’s input.
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So if he’s not producing, how is the “showrunner” any different to “script editor” anyway?
It’s worth reading Russell T. Davies’ The Writer’s Tale for an idea of his day-to-day work throughout his first few years on the show.
I don't know if the BBC would ever consider an American to show-run #DoctorWho, but if so, I would be there in a heartbeat. (Well, technically two heartbeats, since two hearts….) https://t.co/SD0N8gtNmL
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) July 30, 2021
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JMS? Please no.
After the timeless child and the Drs Name, the last thing I need continuity and ‘kisses to the past’.
More Ruthless Dr, less Gallifrey stories.I want new locations, actors and style every episode.
I still say they should give it to the Inside Number 9 team for a season.Or Armando iannucci for three seasons.
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As much as I love JMS, I don’t think he’d be a good choice for Doctor Who
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Or Armando iannucci for three seasons.
Oh my god.
If that happened, I’d have to start watching Dr. Who.
I both want and do not want this. Make it son’t.
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If they had more tv experience there are quite a few BF series runners who I’d want to take over. Chibnall has been about as bad as I expected so I just have to have hope for a new show-runner.
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The other American that came to mind was Bryan Fuller.
Naaaaah. Everything he’s done in the last years was gorgeous to look at and sometimes brilliant, but none of it had any sense of humour whatsoever, and it certainly all was very slow and contemplative, which is the opposite of what Who should be. I don’t know if Dead Like Me or Wonderfalls Fuller is still around.
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Now the Radio Times is running the story that JMS wants to run Doctor Who
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Why are we giving Americans special focus on running Doctor Who? Why not, I dunno, Australians? Let’s see if the guy who wrote The Girl From Tomorrow wants to run Doctor Who.
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I say we hire Peter Jackson and film it in New Zealand. Andy Serkis can play all the monsters.
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A silent Doctor…. With a loud companion…
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If you want to go with Australians how bout the guy who did Farscape?
Rockne O’Bannon is an American, Farscape was only filmed in Australia.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Carroll_(producer)
In 1999, he produced the first series of the science fiction series
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If you want to go with Australians how bout the guy who did Farscape?
Rockne O’Bannon is an American, Farscape was only filmed in Australia.
O’Bannon is currently writing on Evil, the series from the Kings, who created The Good Wife/Fight, and now I want to see their version of Doctor Who. Have them played by Archie Panjabi or Alan Cumming!
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Carroll_(producer)
In 1999, he produced the first series of the science fiction series
Note that he didn’t write for it. O’Bannon was the creator and showrunner.
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Isn’t the focus on Americans because there was some hoo-ha a while back when it was suggested that they wouldn’t let an American showrunner take over on principle?
Not just showrunner, they wouldn’t let Americans write for the show at all.
While I think not letting any American write for it is a bit extreme, I’m fine with discounting the possibility of an American show-runner. The British TV industry is relatively small, especially for sci-fi and fantasy. There’s plenty of opportunity for American writers in the US. There should be a place for a show run and mostly (though not necessarily uniformly) written by Brits and it should be the show funded by the taxpayer. It’s not about xenophobia, it’s about promoting and strengthening our own creative industry.
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what about those fellas who did the best Community episodes? What happened to them? Surely they would want some work?
I think they directed a few low budget indie films.
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what about those fellas who did the best Community episodes? What happened to them? Surely they would want some work?
I think they directed a few low budget indie films.
they need to move past these mickey-mouse set ups
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I picked up the season 10 blu-ray set (that’s the old season 10 with Pertwee, not the new season 10 with Capaldi) this week. It’s the new “unlimited” edition that BBC Studios has deigned to let the UK have. I’m still only watching the first disc, but physically it’s quite a nice thing, actually a bit better than the the US ones. There’s a swish booklet, each disc has its own design on it, rather than just the cover art and the case feels a bit sturdier than the US ones (which are thin to the point of actually breaking on one of the US ones).
You do have to sit through all that bumpf while each disc loads though, unlike the US ones. BBC copyright notice, BBC ident, Doctor Who ident, audio navigation notice, disc title for copyright reasons. Usually those last two are done by some robotic sounding woman who did the whole range, but they’ve got Katy Manning to do it this time, which is a nice little touch.
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I found it all a bit Alan Partridge. Surely a decent agent can contact the BBC without needing to ask for help on Twitter?
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Someone pass him Tony Hayers’ number already!
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I suspect using Twitter is to generate hype. As you say it can’t be that hard, scan the credits for who the producers are and get an agent to call them.
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There’s a line in The Daleks (1963) when the Daleks are interrogating the Doctor and he reveals (brags, actually) that he has a time machine.
Now, until the point the Daleks have been confined to Skaro since their creation. They have been living in one city for thousands of years, despite having advanced technology that would probably allow them to travel off-world if they had wanted. We have to assume that they had never wanted to. Because Daleks lack imagination. They would never consider there was more to the universe.
Then the Doctor comes and says, I’m from space and I have a time machine.
Then the Daleks travel in space. Then they travel in time. They conquer everywhere and commit multiple genocides. They become so powerful that they even start a war with the Time Lords that screws up the whole universe.
All because the Doctor bragged, “I have a time machine”.
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That’s an interesting theory, DavidM.
Which sort begs the question as to whether or not the Doctor is constantly changing events around himself as he gallivants around space and time in his TARDIS.
The Doctor is a Time Lord; he comes from a race of time travelers. Presumably, the Doctor and the Time Lords would know about a universal threat such as the Daleks. So if the Doctor is out nosing around the Cosmos, he could have set into motion a chain of events that led to the rise of Dalek Empire. Which would certainly explain why the Time Lords spend so much time sitting on their arses and not interfering with events. It’s the butterfly effect. One little change you make in the timestream can ripple and have dire consequences centuries or millennia later.
In which case, the Daleks were a rather minor and insignificant race until the Doctor encountered them and filled them with a lust for conquering the universe. And the Doctor looks like a right arsehole.
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