"It feels different this time..." - The new Doctor Who Thread

I've watched enough of his videos now to fully recommend Mr. TARDIS, a youtuber who makes lots of videos about the show, from a plot perspective to reviews of old stories to videos about rumors etc. He's thankfully not a right wing chud, though his videos aren't explicitly political, but he's entertaining and just prolific enough.

Josh Snares has also come back to Youtube and has been making weekly videos - they have some absolutely EXCELLENT mini-documentaries about the missing episodes, as well as plenty of other content. They have a unique perspective because they watched Torchwood first, then the new series, then the classic series, and their favorite Doctor is Hartnell. They're also hilarious.

I also finally finished the Galaxy Four animation after putting it off forever, and even being able to see it animated hasn't convinced me much of anything is going on in it. Hartnell's kinda funny in it, Vicki is great as always, but there are so many languid, boring shots of Chumbleys beeping that, cute as they are, just make the story drag. Somehow I doubt being able to see this one as it originally aired would save it - the third episode, even though we can see it that way, is dull dull dull. The animation is fine, but I can kinda see why they did it - once you've rigged up the character models and a few backgrounds, you're all set, really. It's a very static serial.

I will check out both of those Youtube channels, thanks!

I have a recommendation of my own, though it comes with a bit of a caveat. Richard D. Carrier a/k/a Clever Dick Films has been working on a years-long project to review all of DW, with episodes focusing on each Doctor's era, having covered up through Matt Smith so far. He looks behind the scenes and at the circumstances of each Doctor's casting, and examines the themes and highlights of that era's stories. I think he's insightful and well-spoken, and very easy to listen to. Here's the short introduction to the project, or the Hartnell era episode if you want to skip right to the meat of it.

So what's the caveat? Well... If you watch that introduction video (originally uploaded in 2016) he mentions that he doesn't think the Doctor should be played by a woman, for the reason that the Doctor was, at the time, a rare male hero and role model who doesn't solve problems through violence, and therefore his gender is integral to the character. I don't necessarily agree with him but I can at least see his point. I fully understand if anyone hears that and decides that's all they need to hear from this particular guy, but that one unfortunate note aside, the rest of his videos have been entirely free of anything I would consider questionable. If you can get over that hurdle I think he's worth watching, but I certainly won't blame you if you disagree.

I get his videos as recommendations in my feed often, and just haven't checked them out (as I'm sure you're well aware, there's tons of DW youtubers, many of whom... aren't worth watching, to put it kindly, so sometimes it takes me a while to get around to it. Mr. TARDIS was in my recs for years lol). I'll take a look given that you said that unfortunate opinion doesn't taint his whole series, and doesn't seem to be a sticking point, at least through the Matt Smith era. I wonder what he thinks of Jodie Whittaker? I sure wish she'd have gotten better writing to maybe convince these sort of fence sitters that having a female Doctor is cool...

Yeah, these videos are pretty good. I watched that intro video and it at least seems like he's at least open to the idea of a female Doctor, which is something, I suppose. He certainly isn't foaming at the mouth about it or anything (I've not watched one of his videos from after Jodie Whitaker is announced, though, so maybe he ends up losing it lol).

I sure wish he'd pick weirder choices for episodes to focus on for each Doctor, though. An Unearthly Child is understandable of course, and I even understand Marco Polo being picked to represent the missing episodes, but The Web of Fear, The Tomb of the Cybermen, and in Pertwee's episode, Inferno, are all very traditional picks. Well trod ground, you could say. Nothing wrong with liking those episodes, but there's lots of interesting, weird stuff in those years that would have been nice to talk about! He picks The Savages - of all things - out of later Hartnell as a story he clearly enjoys and recommends, but doesn't talk about it much, which is a shame, as that story is certainly underdiscussed in fandom (even if other season 3 serials are much much better, such as The Myth Makers or The Massacre).

Oh well. I'm watching, so that's the whole point, I guess. lol (and this is no judgement on you, Vaeran! I'd not have watched through to the Pertwee video if I didn't overall like these lol)

I want to stress that I'm enjoying his videos. However, Richard's unfair to Eric Saward in his video about the Sixth Doctor era. I can't believe I'm coming to Saward's defense - I do think he was a poor choice for script editor - I don't think he was actively trying to "sabotage" the show or try to teach his boss a lesson for casting someone he disliked by writing him as rude and violent. That was the direction Nathan-Turner wanted to take the show, and had he taken issue with the Doctor's disposition or actions he'd have put a stop to it. For me, the problems of seasons 22 and 23 are entirely the fault of the whole production team - not one dude. Sure, Saward wrote some poor stuff - I don't like The Visitation or Earthshock all that much, even though Richard seems to - but he was far from the only problem in the production back in the mid 80s. For all the stick rightly given to JNT for his choices around this time, I still think he did a decent job with the show - he did hire Andrew Cartmel and produced the fantastic Sylvester McCoy era, and I really enjoyed Tom Baker's last season and much of the Davison era. He has more hits than misses, even if it's a close call. And Saward, even in the Colin Baker era, wrote some bangers - Revelation of the Daleks is amazing, flaws and all.

I guess I'm not well-versed enough in the show's behind-the-scenes history to have an educated opinion on it myself, but I will agree that reducing a large problem down to the fault of a single dude is usually too simplistic an explanation so you're probably right on the money about that.

I feel bad that I haven't gotten around to your YT recommendations yet but I surely will. I'm still catching up on all the runs from AGDQ that I missed, so it might take me a little while lol. Thanks for giving Richard Carrier a try and I appreciate your honest evaluation of him.

Do not feel bad if you never get around to it! Doctor Who content is endless lol. I really do like it, it's mostly a great history of the series! But like any nerd, I only post to complain lol

I don't know a ton of the background stuff but what I remember of Baker is that it's an interesting experiment that just didn't work. First of all, each Doctor is a reaction to the previous so it makes sense to follow the noble, angel-faced, optimisitic fifth Doctor with someone who is arrogant, rude and darker. And in the era, it also makes sense that Doctor Who would follow a darker tone in the 80s, the era of Margaret Thatcher and when, to me anyway, British sci-fi meant more cynical, satirical stuff like 2000 A.D. the work of Alan Moore. And while a cynical, angry Doctor Who (I mean more in terms of as a series rather than the character) seems counter-intuitive, that's almost the reason to do it; it's a series that is constantly reinventing itself. It's just a shame it's interesting ideas came out when the show was in decline. Good concepts and notions don't always translate into good results.

I remember watching that on YTV when it was on the afternoon slot and sort of getting a bit fed up with it even at age 9. It and a lot of what I remember about the fifth Doctor era just seemed too nihilistic. Then by the time the 7th Doctor episodes were released, they were on late at night and I had to work hard to remember to record them. I was excited by Sylvester McCoy and the more fun tone but was never able to catch the last half of Survival and had no idea it would be the abrupt end for a very long time.

An angry Doctor can work - I'm an enormous 12th Doctor fan, after all, and that includes his first season that turned many people off (weird sexist insulting of Clara aside). The thing about Capaldi, though, is that he wasn't written to attempt to kill his companion via choking her to death on the TARDIS floor, never even apologizing for it, instead threatening to become a hermit and force her to serve him (presumably) forever - and all that being the last thing the audience sees for several months, coming at the end of the season.

The Twin Dilemma has a lot to answer for. It's first episode has got to be the worst in the entire series.

I'm jealous of those who found Doctor Who as a kid. I'm pretty sure I would've liked a lot of it back then.

Yeah, it was nice to grow up with a male role model who actually thought things through and didn't resort to shooting problems until they stopped

Which is why, thinking about it, the Sixth Doctor doing that was an even worse idea. Twelve was a similar idea, but he only pretended to be a dick because he cared too much. Whereas Six started out as an actual dick.

As always, through all of that, I feel sorry for Colin Baker, who as far as I can tell is an absolutely lovely man. I met him at a convention a few years back, and while being lovely to talk to for a minute in person - there wasn't a huge line for him, it was a small convention in New Mexico - he also made it extremely clear during his panel that it was about time a woman was playing the Doctor, and he was excited to see what Jodie Whitaker did with the part (this being before her episodes starting airing). He also charmingly (in other words, kindly and playfully) made fun of the admittedly very tired person hosting the panel who mistakenly called him "Tom Baker" during his introduction lol

Yeah, I'm glad people are fond of him. He seems like a good dude who had a horrible mandate.

Anyone who has and raises four daughters, two goats, three cats, three dogs, two horses, thirteen guinea pigs, two degus and a hamster and still remains that charming is a goddamn saint.

I just finished the novelization of "Rose" and enjoyed it a lot. It has less clever writing than "Day of the Doctor" but has better character work - which basically sums the difference between the RTD and Moffat eras. I particularly liked the extra time spent in the heads of the supporting cast, particularly Clive and his family - most well adjusted conspiracy theorist evef.

(although RTD teasing us with Rose taking a look at Ten and never doing it feels too cruel ;_;).

Seriously though, I enjoyed the promise of sequel hooks, particularly Caroline - has she ever shown again ? Because that'd be a hell of an antagonist and, you know, with RTD coming back...

Yeah, the Rose novelization is great, glad you liked it! I agree the best part was the character work - Davies strongest suit, which he does better than Moffat, frankly. I don't believe Caroline has returned, no, although there are hundreds of Big Finish audios (of which Davies is fond) and novels I haven't read, so who knows lol

I've really been enjoying Leah T's "The Queer History of Doctor Who":


She's a new creator, this is only her second video, but it is comprehensive. Give it a watch.

That video looks right up my alley. I will surely be watching it soon and will let you know what I think!

Meanwhile, that little DWM DVD I got the other month with samples of the blu ray extras from Doctor Who: The Collection has whetted my appetite enough that I'm ready to jump in and start Collecting myself. I'm starting with season 26, as it's a significant season, I like all four stories in it (but only own three, having not gotten around to buying Ghost Light)... and it was on sale on Amazon, hahaha. I'm really looking forward to digging into it this weekend, as well as hunting down the rest of its kin when my budget allows.

Ooh, Ghost Light is a treat, enjoy. Those Blurays have an absolute ton of content on them - the Behind the Sofas are always a hoot, and there are tons of great documentaries and extras on them, and Matthew Sweet does a huge interview of someone at least once in each set (the recently released season 2 bluray has interviews with both Maureen O'brien and William Russell, for example). Some are extras carried over from the DVDs, but for each story, there's usually at least one new special feature that wasn't on the DVD. And if you didn't own the DVD in the first place, they're all new to you! lol

This site is a great resource for seeing what special features are on what collection or DVD, in case you want to pick only stuff you might be interested in.

Your post reminds me I have yet to pick up the first Colin Baker season, which has a Matthew Sweet interview with Michael Grade, which I'm sure is fascinating.

Kazin said:

This site is a great resource for seeing what special features are on what collection or DVD, in case you want to pick only stuff you might be interested in.

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I get the feeling there was meant to be a link in here.

Kazin said:

Your post reminds me I have yet to pick up the first Colin Baker season, which has a Matthew Sweet interview with Michael Grade, which I'm sure is fascinating.

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Picturing Colin Baker lurking in the background of the interview set, glaring daggers at Grade the whole time from behind a chair...

Vaeran said:

I get the feeling there was meant to be a link in here.

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I wasn't even on mobile when I wrote that post, I just straight up forgot to link it lol

Picturing Colin Baker lurking in the background of the interview set, glaring daggers at Grade the whole time from behind a chair...

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I'm surprised he did the interview in the first place - fans haven't exactly been kind to him, whether he deserves the hate or not. And yeah, he has plenty of haters within the industry too, whatever they think of Doctor Who, Colin Baker included.

Kazin said:

I wasn't even on mobile when I wrote that post, I just straight up forgot to link it lol

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Oh this site owns, thank you! The sections on what's missing from the original DVD releases (and whether it's been placed on another collection instead) are super helpful.

Yeah, no problem. Sorry I forgot to link it last night lmao

Looking over that special features wiki and havin' a bit of a think, the following occurred to me:

- The fact that Destiny of the Doctors (a series of linking clips from a 1997 PC game, featuring Anthony Ainley's last appearance as the Master), Search Out Science (the Seventh Doctor, Ace and K9 hosting a children's education program from 1990) and the 40th Anniversary tribute were not included in the Season 26 box strongly suggests to me that they're planning a Paul McGann/The Wilderness Years box. (Maybe that was already announced or obvious, idk.) What else could go on there, though? There's the More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS documentary (which I just bought the original DVD release of Shada to have) and Scream of the Shalka (which I haven't seen). The Night of the Doctor, just for fun? And while I know the intent of the original contracts was that they never see the light of day again, maybe it's time to finally untangle the rights to Dimensions in Time and The Curse of Fatal Death... No one in the 90s could have foreseen DW becoming the juggernaut it is today, and if they threw some of the proceeds at Children in Need, who could complain?

- Presumably The Collection range is selling well, or they wouldn't keep making these increasingly elaborate trailers for them. So what happens when they finally exhaust the classic series? THE COLLECTION IN 4K ULTRA HD Maybe they move on to the modern series. We're only two years away from its twentieth (!!!) anniversary, and while blu-ray sets already exist for all of the modern seasons, they haven't gotten the same love and attention that's been lavished on The Collection. I'd absolutely love Behind the Sofa segments for nuWho, for instance, and nearly everyone involved in its creation is still alive, so there'd be no shortage of interview fodder. And maybe we could finally get the full episodes of Doctor Who Confidential instead of the cut-down versions that came on the original DVD releases.

- If they do go that way, though, the scattershot nature of some of the modern series' scheduling would make for some interesting decisions. I guess you bundle the Tenth Doctor specials in with series 4, Day/Time of the Doctor in with series 7, and the 2022 specials with Flux? Is the 14th Doctor box going to be called "David Tennant: Complete Season Four" in America? lol

Yeah, there's been some things I've had to download off Youtube or torrent or whatever to have and be able to watch, such as Curse of the Fatal Death and such (I even have Dimensions in Time, but I'm not quite sure why lol). Scream of the Shalka is an interesting piece of history, and it maybe wouldn't have been so bad, but Richard E. Grant is inexplicably bad in it, unfortunately. I mean, he's watchable, but he's clearly not trying too hard.

I'm still interested to see how they handle the rest of 60s Who - the only other relatively intact seasons are the first and the sixth, while the 3rd through 5th would have to be heavily represented with animations... which would be a tough sell for me, since I already own all of them. The special features would have to be substantial, or they'd have to find more missing episodes.

As for NuWho, the special features are so poor and fluffy, I haven't really watched any of them (some of the old commentaries are good, but the ones that Tennant, Davies, and Moffat did for the SIlence of the Library two parter weren't even included on the damn series 4 DVD for some reason). I assume we'll have to hold out until a lot of the people who worked on the series retire. For example, no Ninth Doctor special feature will be complete until we know what the hell happened with Eccleston leaving, and I can't imagine that story coming out until someone involved passes away, unfortunately.

Kazin said:

Scream of the Shalka is an interesting piece of history, and it maybe wouldn't have been so bad, but Richard E. Grant is inexplicably bad in it, unfortunately. I mean, he's watchable, but he's clearly not trying too hard.

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This can happen when stage/screen actors who are not used to voice acting are cast in voice roles, especially if they don't have a good voice director. They're accustomed to using body language and facial expression as part of their repertoire, but of course none of that comes through in their vocal performance and it ends up sounding a little limp.

For example, no Ninth Doctor special feature will be complete until we know what the hell happened with Eccleston leaving, and I can't imagine that story coming out until someone involved passes away, unfortunately.

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The more I think about this, the more I think that it can't be a coincidence that it also took over a decade for the allegations about John Barrowman and Noel Clarke's gross behavior to come out. Maybe Eccleston became aware of it and was told to keep quiet, or knew that someone else was told the same, or... something. There's gotta be a connection there.

Meanwhile I'm rewatching Battlefield for the first time in a few years. It's mostly good fun as always, but I sure forgot that the shouting match between Ace and Shou Yuing inside the chalk circle at the end of episode three turns uncomfortably racial. Obviously their minds are being influenced and it's probably meant to be a little shocking, but it's still not a moment that's aged well.

The Collection sets are so thorough they even include the interstitial program announcements from back when DW originally aired: "Tonight, Wogan has guests [celebrities I've never heard of], and then on Bergerac, [description of crime drama plot.] But first the Doctor battles knights from another dimension on Doctor Who, coming up next." etc. Like eight solid minutes of just that!

I thought they would be boring and excessive, but they were actually quite cozy to watch, somehow, as they had all the logos and animations and whatnot from when this aired in the late 80s. A little peek into someone else's evening relaxation. What's that long German word for feeling nostalgia for something you never actually experienced?

I promise I'm not going to liveblog the entire season set but I just got to the featurette about Sylvester McCoy most likely having saved Sophie Aldred's life when the water tank stunt in Battlefield went wrong. I'd heard this story before but never actually seen footage of the incident itself, and holy shit. There's about four different simultaneous ways she could have been killed (or at least very badly hurt) had he not reacted in time. Yeah, you can tell me all day about how Tom Baker's a genius and had the best stories, but did he ever save someone for real? I don't think so. This is why McCoy's the best classic Doctor, fuck the haters, peace

I need to check out some of those commercial compilations - I never really have. The old interviews from the time give me a similar feeling, though, sort of a cozy nostalgia even though I've never been to the UK lol

Yeah, it's wild that's on film, too. McCoy absolutely rules

Episode 3 cliffhanger: The Fourth Doctor infiltrates 10 Downing Street's secret innermost sanctum to discover the truth about Britain's government and Liz Truss's ouster, and is confronted with a talking animatronic lettuce

"WELCOME, DOCTOR! ...TO YOUR DOOM!!"



[credits]