Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:
The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration
Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.
I watched the video, and he makes some good points, but.... Well, I mean, sure, if it all ends up being an availability question, then really it's Chibnall's fault for being so shit and leaving the show in the state he did (did they really think Power of the fucking Doctor might've been the last episode of the show? lmaoooo). I still feel like we've had enough Tennant... yes, some dangling issues many of us had with his era could get resolved, but I like Tennant being the childish, tantrum-throwing incarnation who didn't want to go, and got irradiated to death for his hubris. It actually felt resolved to me, at least that particular point, so I feel nearly the opposite there (Donna's exit needs fixing, though, so I'll be happy to see what they do with her, though I still really think Clara's season 9 exit is a sort of "apology" for how the show treated Donna, no matter how many times Moffat says it wasn't).
It still just doesn't sit well with me. I'm sure I'll enjoy the episodes (I'm sure the dialogue quality will feel like Shakespeare compared to what we've been getting since 2017), but I just don't like that we may be forced to have eras of the show where we just randomly go back to an old Doctor just to cheaply bump the ratings (and yes, I do think it's a cheap, lazy way to get viewers back, regardless of production difficulties forcing their hand). Like, can I have Capaldi back for some solo episodes? That's never going to happen. What about people who'd like to see Whitaker come back? Not going to happen! We get Tennant and new guys.
I'm sorry I'm so negative. Guess I've become a "true fan" now, complaining about the show no matter what they do lmao
Nah, no need to be sorry! You feel what you feel, and no one's opinion is "right" here. I always appreciate your insight on the series, good or bad, and lord knows I've been negative as hell about it in the past.
I agree that what we're getting isn't ideal, but I really think this was just a one-off quirk of bad timing all around (the incumbent Doctor and showrunner both leaving*, with an important anniversary on the horizon) rather than a preview of the status quo going forward. Well, I guess we'll see.
Every time I hear that this legitimately might have been how the show ended, I shudder a little. Truly the darkest of all timelines.
( *I'm just imagining the mess that would have resulted if Moffat had peaced out after series 7 and left no plans for how to address the approaching 50th anniversary. "Good luck to whoever's next, bye!" God. Now I'm blaming Chibnall for leaving when that was what I wanted most in all the world. Time to go to bed.)
( *I'm just imagining the mess that would have resulted if Moffat had peaced out after series 7 and left no plans for how to address the approaching 50th anniversary. "Good luck to whoever's next, bye!" God. Now I'm blaming Chibnall for leaving when that was what I wanted most in all the world. Time to go to bed.)
Series 7 was Moffat's nadir on the show imo so that'd have been a terrible time to leave lol. Day of the Doctor started his turnaround, then the Capaldi era was my favorite of nuWho...
Ooh, I wonder what that means. Being off Twitter really sucks because Doctor Who Twitter is about the only thing I miss, so I have no idea what has been said about that scene!
I probably won't do a whole effortpost about it, but that trailer got me fired up for some Tenth Doctor action so I'm rewatching Army of Ghosts / Doomsday. I'm struck by the quality of the dialogue; I'd forgotten just what a skilled writer RTD is compared to the dreck Chibnall's been feeding us. This scene stood out to me in particular:
JACKIE: You've changed so much.
ROSE: For the better.
JACKIE: I suppose.
ROSE: Mum, I used to work in a shop.
JACKIE: I've worked in shops. What's wrong with that?
ROSE: No, I didn't mean that.
JACKIE: I know what you meant. What happens when I'm gone?
ROSE: Don't talk like that.
JACKIE: No, but really. When I'm dead and buried, you won't have any reason to come back home. What happens then?
ROSE: I don't know.
JACKIE: Do you think you'll ever settle down?
ROSE: The Doctor never will, so I can't. I'll just keep on travelling.
JACKIE: And you'll keep on changing. And in forty years time, fifty, there'll be this woman, this strange woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human.
Looking at it on the page, it's not Shakespeare, of course, and there's no particularly clever turn of phrase. But there doesn't need to be, because Jackie Tyler doesn't talk like that. It's powerful just in its simplicity and sincerity: a mother afraid that her daughter will have no use for or interest in anything that a normal human life has to offer. Afraid that Rose is losing the ability to relate to everything that Jackie knows about the world. Afraid that she'll be forgotten when she's gone.
RTD's plots were often pretty corny, but he got you invested in them anyway because you cared about the characters and what happened to them. I could give a shit about Yasmin Khan because after three seasons I still know nothing about her. This used to be a show that concerned itself with the companion's inner life and relationships outside of the TARDIS, and how something extraordinary like traveling with the Doctor could affect them. And soon it will be again. I can't wait.
I went through a phase of reading Doctor Who scripts when I was bored onsite. It was fascinating to see how the words came across unadorned; you got a feeling for the writer and what they valued. Moffat scripts crackled with cleverness and excitement with being clever. They fired new ideas at you like a machine gun. Davies scripts were very different; not as detail obsessed or clever, but the characters were much more believable. There's a real skill in writing something that looks like it came out of the mouth of a real person, and it's apparently effortless for him.
To be honest, we Doctor Who fans have been spoiled. For years we legitimately had two of the best writers in the industry writing for our show, and we got somebody mediocre and it was a horrible shock.
I'd argue he was worse than mediocre. He wrote worse than most classic Doctor Who scripts, too. I don't find myself uninterested or confused when I watch much of classic Who, whereas a solid chunk of Chibnall's era is just straight garbage. I find myself equating the quality of his stuff and, say, The Dominators or Timelash - not great comparisons.
Wasn't RTD's original pitch for the new series something like "Adventures in the human race" as sort of a pun on "adventures in time and space"? I think he was always keenly aware of his strengths and how to apply them to DW to give a throughline of human relatability to even the most wacky alien encounters.
I bet it would be enlightening to rewatch the first RTD era with that tag line in mind and see how closely he hewed to it.
Continuing my skipping around the entirety of DW, tonight I rewatched one of my favorites: Midnight. It's still great. I'm sure plenty has been said and written about this episode by people smarter than I, but I'm gonna ramble for a bit anyway.
Two things really stand out to me. The first is that this is a story perfectly suited to have been done as a Big Finish audio: we spend 95% of the runtime on a single claustrophobically small set, and the entire premise and threat is communicated through speech. The only thing you'd really lose is the (admittedly remarkable) facial expression acting done by Tennant and Lesley Sharp (Sky's actress). I guarantee that if this had originally come out through BF it'd be hailed as one of their all-time greats.
Secondly, it's essentially the anti-Doctor Who episode, either subverting or outright eliminating just about every familiar element of the show we come to expect. A quick list off the top of my head:
The TARDIS doesn't appear, and the Doctor effectively has no companion for this story as Donna sits it out. There's nowhere to run or hide, so there are no scenes of characters being chased down corridors by a man in a rubber monster suit; in fact, we never even get so much as a glimpse of the Midnight entity. We never learn what it ultimately wants or anything concrete about it. All the Doctor's charm and persuasiveness with which he usually takes control of situations either comes to naught or works against him: for example, the other passengers are unnerved rather than intrigued that he won't give them his name and take umbrage at his suggestion that he's cleverer than them. There's very little of the optimistic view of humans as resourceful and kind that is usually highlighted in the modern series; with a couple of exceptions these people devolve into a shouting, bloodthirsty mob as soon as they get frightened. And ultimately, the Doctor is powerless against the creature and plays no part whatsoever in the resolution of the threat, aside from having the quirks of his speech get picked up on in a lucky bit of happenstance.
Midnight is a bleak portrayal of the dangers of mob mentality, and perhaps the most chilling part of the episode is the humans' absolute certainty that they witnessed things that never actually happened, in order to justify their intended murder(s): multiple remarks are made about how something is wrong with Sky and the Doctor's eyes when in fact they're completely normal, and people insist that they saw "something" pass from her to him when the audience sees nothing of the sort. DW can often be creepy, but it's usually a fun, fantastical sort of creepy. Midnight is a different sort of horror altogether, as it unblinkingly examines the dark side of human nature, and leaves an uneasiness in the pit of your stomach after you turn it off. "Maybe we're the real monsters after all" is of course well-worn ground, but it's rarely covered in DW, or at least not to this extent.
And hey, look! David Troughton!!
On a final note, I watched this short interview with RTD and Moffat talking about their Target novelizations, and one exchange struck me as so emblematic of their differing writing styles. I'll paraphrase a bit:
MOFFAT: I was incredibly happy with it, up until the exact moment I read Russell's. It arrived and I read it and thought "Ohh, that's how you do it, oh look, it's got funny backstories, character.... not 17 twists a page."
RTD: And I felt the same when I read Steven's, because you've got Gallifrey and Daleks and timey-wimey stuff... and mine's set on a council estate and a shop.
MOFFAT: But with such people, Russell!
I in fact have copies of Rose and The Day of the Doctor on their way to me, so I look forward to doing the Pepsi challenge with them when they arrive.
Continuing my skipping around the entirety of DW, tonight I rewatched one of my favorites: Midnight. It's still great. I'm sure plenty has been said and written about this episode by people smarter than I, but I'm gonna ramble for a bit anyway.
Two things really stand out to me. The first is that this is a story perfectly suited to have been done as a Big Finish audio: we spend 95% of the runtime on a single claustrophobically small set, and the entire premise and threat is communicated through speech. The only thing you'd really lose is the (admittedly remarkable) facial expression acting done by Tennant and Lesley Sharp (Sky's actress). I guarantee that if this had originally come out through BF it'd be hailed as one of their all-time greats.
Secondly, it's essentially the anti-Doctor Who episode, either subverting or outright eliminating just about every familiar element of the show we come to expect. A quick list off the top of my head:
The TARDIS doesn't appear, and the Doctor effectively has no companion for this story as Donna sits it out. There's nowhere to run or hide, so there are no scenes of characters being chased down corridors by a man in a rubber monster suit; in fact, we never even get so much as a glimpse of the Midnight entity. We never learn what it ultimately wants or anything concrete about it. All the Doctor's charm and persuasiveness with which he usually takes control of situations either comes to naught or works against him: for example, the other passengers are unnerved rather than intrigued that he won't give them his name and take umbrage at his suggestion that he's cleverer than them. There's very little of the optimistic view of humans as resourceful and kind that is usually highlighted in the modern series; with a couple of exceptions these people devolve into a shouting, bloodthirsty mob as soon as they get frightened. And ultimately, the Doctor is powerless against the creature and plays no part whatsoever in the resolution of the threat, aside from having the quirks of his speech get picked up on in a lucky bit of happenstance.
Midnight is a bleak portrayal of the dangers of mob mentality, and perhaps the most chilling part of the episode is the humans' absolute certainty that they witnessed things that never actually happened, in order to justify their intended murder(s): multiple remarks are made about how something is wrong with Sky and the Doctor's eyes when in fact they're completely normal, and people insist that they saw "something" pass from her to him when the audience sees nothing of the sort. DW can often be creepy, but it's usually a fun, fantastical sort of creepy. Midnight is a different sort of horror altogether, as it unblinkingly examines the dark side of human nature, and leaves an uneasiness in the pit of your stomach after you turn it off. "Maybe we're the real monsters after all" is of course well-worn ground, but it's rarely covered in DW, or at least not to this extent.
And hey, look! David Troughton!!
On a final note, I watched this short interview with RTD and Moffat talking about their Target novelizations, and one exchange struck me as so emblematic of their differing writing styles. I'll paraphrase a bit:
MOFFAT: I was incredibly happy with it, up until the exact moment I read Russell's. It arrived and I read it and thought "Ohh, that's how you do it, oh look, it's got funny backstories, character.... not 17 twists a page."
RTD: And I felt the same when I read Steven's, because you've got Gallifrey and Daleks and timey-wimey stuff... and mine's set on a council estate and a shop.
MOFFAT: But with such people, Russell!
I in fact have copies of Rose and The Day of the Doctor on their way to me, so I look forward to doing the Pepsi challenge with them when they arrive.
Not only could it have been a Big Finish audio, it could be - and was - a stageplay. Wild! I didn't know that until I went looking for quotes from The Writer's Tale, the book RTD and Benjamin Cook wrote (which I recommend). I'm going to paraphrase since I don't feel like finding the relevant quotes in the book - RTD wrote Midnight as a sort of emergency script when another one fell apart - he essentially wrote it in a weekend, which was a very sleepless, fever dream, cigarettey kind of writing session, apparently. He also said that although he usually tried to present the show as optimistic and positive as you say (and I do think it should be presented that way, generally), that Midnight's view of human nature is closer to his own, that when push comes to shove, we will quite literally throw each other under the bus when we're just a little afraid.
Midnight is one of my favorites, too, and I'm a little ashamed of that fact if I'm honest - it's close to my view of human nature in general, too, despite my aspiring to the values of the show generally being very human positive, optimistic, and hopeful. You're right that it's sort of the anti-Doctor Who episode, and I wish I liked it less as a result lol. Not that I'm judging anyone for liking it, far from it - I just like it a little too much haha. It creeps me out for reasons beyond the intended ones. Quite an effective thing, really.
It also fits in with the Tenth Doctor hubris narrative, too - as you say, he is not responsible for saving anyone, and actively just makes the situation worse. It even seems to rattle the Doctor, too - he didn't even want to talk about what happened with Donna, like he'd rather just forget that he not only failed, but his usual approach to solving problems and helping people backfired spectacularly. There's a lesson there, and he doesn't seem to want to learn it.
Both are excellent - I'm fairly confident in saying the Rose book is better than the episode, and Day of the Doctor is excellent in both forms. I relish the performances of the three Doctors on screen, but the jokes and depth Moffat adds in the book are incredible.
---
I spent the weekend ripping the Season 2 (1964-1965) blurays, and having finished ripping them yesterday, watched two things - the Crusade episode 1, "The Lion," and the special feature "Looking for David," a deep dive on David Whitaker, the first script editor of the series and writer of many classic episodes. All I'll say about The Lion is they did a great job restoring it - the print was in very bad shape when it was recovered in the late 1990s from a collector, and other than the one scene where the Doctor and Vicki steal clothes from a shop, you can't see the line that ran throughout the episode on the "Lost in Time" DVD, a sort of vertical dark spot that is extremely noticeable. Here, it's virtually gone for the most part, at least compared to the DVD version.
"Looking for David," though, wow. I bought this bluray set knowing it was the first thing I was going to watch, and I wasn't disappointed. David Whitaker wrote my two favorite 1960s serials (and two of my top five classic DW serials of all time), The Power of the Daleks and The Enemy of the World, and also script wrote for the show from day 1 until he went freelance after writing The Rescue. All we knew, generally, going into this special feature was that he wrote the first two episodes of The Ambassadors of Death, and then the last five were outlined by him but rewritten by Malcolm Hulke because the producers at the time didn't like his work (this all happened before Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts took over - Dicks said later on that he felt really bad about the situation, feeling the way Whitaker was treated was unprofessional). He then goes off to Australia in 1970, writes very little for Australian television, moves back to the UK, gets no writing work, gets cancer, and passes away in 1980. And that's kind of it, really, until this special feature (as far as I know, anyway). Simon Guerrier, who has been working on a biography of the man for years, appears, and we learn many new things about Whitaker, most notably that he went to the USSR in 1969 to fight the apparent blacklisting of a man who wrote a scathing book about living in Stalin's gulags, comparing that man's inability to get work or sell his book anymore to McCarthyism in the US. This appears to not have gone down well with his contemporaries, and while there is understandably no documentation saying "don't commission Whitaker," that does appear to be the case from then on - he gets bought off on The Ambassadors of Death, and basically never writes again in the UK, himself possibly being blacklisted. It's murky, though - we don't know if he just felt sour about the whole situation and quit writing, but he was absolutely prolific in the 1960s, so his near complete lack of 1970s scriptwriting is a stark contrast.
Thankfully, we do get some positivity from the special feature, too - for years, Doctor Who fans only had a handful of pictures of Whitaker, and Toby Hadoke goes to some relatives of Whitaker and sees and shows us a whacking whole photo album of him, along with a video of his first wedding in June 1963 - meaning around the time that footage was shot, he was up to his elbows in working on Doctor Who, so it's kind of bonkers to see. There's also a very, very short clip of him introducing someone else for an award, which is the only time I've heard his voice as well.
It was a very lovely feature, and worth the cost of importing the set from the UK because I can't be bothered to wait for the stupid delay until the US version is released. I'm glad that the man was celebrated, as I believe he deserves a lot of credit for infusing the show with many qualities that keep it on the air today.
I'm also amused to hear that he, at one point, upset Terry Nation (creator of the Daleks, who, in my opinion, is a fucking hack) so much, Nation punched him in the face lmao (this comes from one of Nation's kids who was there at the time, but only heard the scuffle and had no idea what the fight was about, since he was about ten at the time).
If you have The Sensorites on DVD, there's a similar feature that's just as good called "Looking for Peter," about the writer of that episode, which prior to that special feature, we basically knew nothing about that guy, because he died in the 60s, not long after his episode aired in 1975, nearly 12 years after his episode aired. It seems I'm due a rewatch of Looking for Peter! lmao
It's not among the best, to be honest - many people think it's the worst season 1 serial (I don't. That "honor" goes to The Reign of Terror). It's extremely slow paced even for 60s Doctor Who. But, and yet again I'm cribbing from El Sandifer here, there's a reason RTD says the Ood Sphere is spatially near the Sense Sphere, the planet the Sensorites are from - they're the first "monster" the show ever does that turn out not to be monsters. Just like the Ood! I love the way RTDs uber nerd sensibilities come out on screen haha
"Midnight" is my absolute favorite Dr. Who episode. Just a great bit of horror with a set of rules that manage to be both easy to follow and utterly inscrutable. It feels like a lost Twilight Zone episode.
Blink creeped my sister out enough to where she doesn't want to watch more Doctor Who, maybe I should make her watch Midnight and really ruin it for her lol
lol, “Midnight” and “Blink” are the two episodes I recommend to everyone interested in Doctor Who, though so far none of them have gotten into the show. Oops!
Hahah yeah, despite me and her husband being fans, she was too creeped out! No matter how much I tell her "the show is usually goofy and not scary at all" she just has no desire to watch it. Maybe I should show her Love & Monsters, which was the episode I saw first, and, well, here we are lol
What's funny about Blink and Midnight is that while they're both some of the best the RTD era (and DW as a whole) has to offer, and great jumping-on points for new fans as they require very little previous knowledge, they're also very unusual DW episodes and not all that representative of the show in general. Not saying they're bad choices for a first taste. It's just a little tricky to find that perfect intersection of high quality, low arc/character continuity, and representation of the series. If someone seems like they're patient enough to start with a two-parter I might show them The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, or even Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead. (Human Nature / The Family of Blood is also a standalone classic, but requires you to already be somewhat familiar with the Tenth Doctor's mannerisms to appreciate that he's not acting like himself.)
I'm surprised (and glad!) you stuck around after that! I like Love & Monsters more than most people seem to, but it's an odd one to be sure. Did someone show it to you, or was it just what happened to be on when you started watching on your own?
I got into DW around the time that series 5 was airing, but rather than just jump in mid-stream I purposely went back and started with Rose. I had come in with the wrongheaded expectation that the Eccleston run was something to be tolerated in order to get to the good stuff, but I fell in love with the Ninth Doctor and the show immediately. So much so that I had to force myself to watch just one episode a day so I wouldn't burn through it too quickly, with seasons of Torchwood (bleh) interspersed between seasons of Doctor Who where appropriate. Ah, memories...
@Vaeran So my wife - the poor woman, she's sick of it now lol - got me into Doctor Who. In about 2012, we were dating and she was watching through the series on Netflix, and Love & Monsters just happened to be the episode she was on when she visited me once from college and asked me to watch it with her. I found it to be one of the most baffling TV shows I'd ever seen - it had Looney Toons-esque chase sequences, serious drama, good dialogue, and a monster who basically ate people, but they retained their consciousness on his body? What the hell? Then it all ends with a blowjob joke! We only had time for that one episode that day, so after she left, it bounced around in my head for a while before I decided to just watch it through (the new series, anyway, I didn't start with classic stuff until late 2014 iirc).
The much maligned series 6 is why she started watching it, though - we've since tried to find it again with no luck, but she saw a meme that was a picture of the Doctor getting shot at Lake Silencio, with some text along the lines of "when your wife kills you while also watching herself kill you while her mother, your father in law, and you watch along too" or something like that, she was like "welp, I have to find out what the hell that's about" lol.
She found the meme (spoilers for series 6 of NuWho):
---
I've been listening to some Big Finish while falling asleep lately. I really wish their Second Doctor output was more frequent. I really enjoy the ones they did a few years back - The Yes Men/The Forsaken/The Black Hole (The Isos Network is okay, but it's written by Nicholas Briggs, whose writing I don't particularly care for). I've been falling asleep quite quickly lately so the more recent releases haven't grabbed me. Anyway, has anyone listened to any recent Big Finish at all that's any good? Doesn't have to be classic series, I'm almost completely unaware of the quality of any New Series stuff.
I have yet to listen to any of the BF First/Second/Third Doctor Adventures, as I'm a little reluctant to engage when it's just soundalikes of the actors who are no longer with us. I keep hearing good things about them though, so maybe I'll have to just dip my toe (ear?) in and see. I do like that they use the Adventure in Space and Time crew for the First Doctor stories.
The only BF I've listened to lately is the Tenth Doctor Adventures, of which I own all three series. They're... fine. It's of course great to hear everybody back in their roles, especially as Ten/Donna is my favorite Doctor/companion pair. But the stories themselves aren't really anything special or memorable, though they do have their moments. I will give a nod to the story "No Place" on the third boxset, which features Wilf and Sylvia along with Donna, has several fun gimmicks that I won't spoil, and a few genuinely creepy moments, even if the actual plot's a bit undercooked.
I have yet to listen to any of the BF First/Second/Third Doctor Adventures, as I'm a little reluctant to engage when it's just soundalikes of the actors who are no longer with us.
A lot of the time, the actor playing the Doctor is either a fellow castmember from the time (Frazer Hines does a decent Second Doctor) or a relative (Michael Troughton does an impression of his dad quite well most of the time, but...
I do like that they use the Adventure in Space and Time crew for the First Doctor stories.
...I'm weird because this seems less "authentic" to me! Lol. Half of Hartnell's supporting cast are still alive and able to act! Get them in, do these later! Ah well.
By the by, I listened to "Last of the Romanovs," which is one of the ones starring the Adventures in Space and Time cast. It's abhorrent! Some of their other stuff may be good, but that one is somehow both dull and politically pretty neutral, which is baffling given the title!
The only BF I've listened to lately is the Tenth Doctor Adventures, of which I own all three series. They're... fine. It's of course great to hear everybody back in their roles, especially as Ten/Donna is my favorite Doctor/companion pair. But the stories themselves aren't really anything special or memorable, though they do have their moments. I will give a nod to the story "No Place" on the third boxset, which features Wilf and Sylvia along with Donna, has several fun gimmicks that I won't spoil, and a few genuinely creepy moments, even if the actual plot's a bit undercooked.
It's such a shame. Some of the early Big Finish stuff - particularly written by Rob Shearman - is absolutely fantastic. But they just are so mediocre constantly, pretty much across the board as far as I can tell and have heard from others. Dangit.
Every month for at least 23 years, too. They're so freaking prolific. I wonder if they've expanded their writer's pool beyond like three people since I last looked lol
Five new Target novelizations comin' in hot. My copies of Rose and The Day of the Doctor finally arrived but I haven't gotten around to reading them yet. Of the new ones, The Waters of Mars and The Zygon Invasion are the standouts for me, but then again I haven't seen Warriors' Gate.
I admit I'm curious what McTighe will do with the Kerblam novelization. I wonder if he'll fix it to not have a crap, sellout, out of character for the Doctor ending. Interesting we're getting another Warriors' Gate novelization - Stephen Gallagher didn't do the original, so I guess he wants to do his version now since he wrote the TV story. The other three - Planet of the Ood, Zygon Invasion, and Water of Mars - are just good episodes, so I'm looking forward to reading novelizations of those.
You gotta wonder if the whole new series will eventually be novelized, though. A lot of them would have to be written by showrunners, or at least enough of them to make it unlikely - Steven Moffat has to write The Eleventh Hour and Russell T Davies has to write The End of Time, etc. Too many episodes written by otherwise busy showrunnners. Then again, Paul Cornell did a good job with Twice Upon a Time, so who knows. It'd be neat to see all the episodes in book form, though.
