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

[Vaeran]

My understanding is that BBC iPlayer only works for UK IP addresses, so do with that information what you will.

The only thing that's been definitely confirmed as coming to Disney+ so far is the main series itself, starting with the 60th anniversary specials and going forward.

 

[Kazin]

iPlayer is UK only, and I believe you need a log in even if you have a VPN, though I haven't checked in a while.

Poor Matthew Waterhouse... lol

 

[Kirin]

Yeah, that's the impression I was getting, which seems... dumb. I know there's the whole UK TV license thing going on that's paying for stuff but... just slap some adds on there for international IPs, seriously.

 

[Kazin]

Welllll... The BBC is publicly funded, and there are a bunch of rules for what they can and can't do with regards to charging for their content abroad. It's murky, and I'm not expert, but BBC Enterprises and BBC the network are two different entities, and depending on how contracts are drawn up and whatnot, some stuff cannot be exported. Throw in Bad Wolf Productions and the Doctor Who license, and who knows how all that works. My guess there is that RTD wanted something exclusive to the BBC, given his affection for it, and so this sort of thing is what they're getting.

I could be completely off base, and am happy to be corrected by UK TTers, though!

 

[Phantoon]

Sounds right to me. The BBC owns Doctor Who, and probably haven't sold on the rights for this. BBC Enterprises are different from the BBC proper.

 

[Kazin]

I don't know how long they'll be up for, but this channel is uploading as much of the "Tales of the TARDIS" as they can.

EDIT: Huh! Apparently when Ace left the 7th Doctor, he dropped her off in London Ontario on accident, roughly an hour from where I grew up lol

These are scraps. They're fun, but very minimal. Inessential, I'd say. I wonder who wrote them all. The strike me as McTighe-ian but I have no idea if that's the case.

 

[Kazin]

WENT TO BED AND SAID GOODNIGHT TO NYSSA, BLESS YOU RTD

 

[Vaeran]

Glad someone's putting these up for those of us who are too lazy to figure out a way to get to BBC iPlayer. I'll check them out when I get home tonight.

These are scraps. They're fun, but very minimal. Inessential, I'd say. I wonder who wrote them all. The strike me as McTighe-ian but I have no idea if that's the case.

The article you linked earlier says it's RTD, Phil Ford and (indeed) Pete McTighe.

WENT TO BED AND SAID GOODNIGHT TO NYSSA, BLESS YOU RTD

I knew what this was going to be before I clicked it lol

 

[Kazin]

The article you linked earlier says it's RTD, Phil Ford and (indeed) Pete McTighe.

This is why I shouldn't skim articles at work and forget to go back and read them in full later lol

 

[Vaeran]

Russell T Davies confirms that Doctor Who Series 14 will be rebranded Season 1

Not at all confusing for a series that already has two "Season/Series 1"s (1963 and 2005). It doesn't make much difference to me what they call it since I know what's what, but this is going to make it even harder for new fans to get a clear understanding of the show's history. I'd bet my shirt this is because of the Disney deal, and them not wanting people to see "Season 14" pop up on D+ with no previous seasons available.

 

[Daikaiju]

So, this is NuWhoTwo?

 

[Kazin]

Oh for fuck's sake.

 

[Kirin]

Yeah that sounds like it’s absolutely for Disney purposes. When they originally said the new season was coming to D+ I had assumed the long term plan was to put the rest of new Who on there too, but I guess not? Doesn’t matter much to me since I already bought it all through Prime.

 

[Phantoon]

Russell T Davies confirms that Doctor Who Series 14 will be rebranded Season 1

Not at all confusing for a series that already has two "Season/Series 1"s (1963 and 2005). It doesn't make much difference to me what they call it since I know what's what, but this is going to make it even harder for new fans to get a clear understanding of the show's history. I'd bet my shirt this is because of the Disney deal, and them not wanting people to see "Season 14" pop up on D+ with no previous seasons available.

People assume that Doctor Who is a strict progression of season to season, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.

 

[Purple]

Season 1 of Reiwa Who eh?

 

[Vaeran]

RTD Says He Will Not “Unwrite” Controversial Timeless Child Reveal

In a conversation in the new issue of SFX, RTD asserted: “Let’s stare that question right in the eye. I’m not going to unwrite my good friend Chris Chibnall’s work on ‘The Timeless Children’.

“I’m not going to deny what he wrote. I’m going with it. It’s absolutely fine. It’s canon, it happened. It was transmitted. You cannot unwrite things, that would be absolutely rude to a great colleague and a lovely friend.”

I figured this would pretty much be the case; RTD's too classy to take something the previous showrunner wrote and go "lol nah this actually didn't happen," even if it's drivel. My guess is it will just go entirely unremarked upon, and audiences will be free to pretend it never happened.

Still.

It would have been nice.

 

[Phantoon]

He'll ignore it. Some retcons stick (two hearts) others don't (half human)

Timey wimey, innit

 

[Kazin]

Even if he were to rewrite it, he certainly wouldn't say he'd do so in a freaking interview. Still, yeah, there's no chance he messes with it, I don't think. A future showrunner might, but yeah, he'll just ignore it, most likely. That, or somehow find a way to make it work (how, I don't know, but I'm no writer, certainly not of RTDs caliber).

 

[Phantoon]

The big issue of it is that it takes the Doctor from someone that is the hero through choice to somebody who's the hero because they were born special.

Introduce the Doctor's actual species, make him an unexceptional member of it, make them fusty and out of touch and call them Bime Gourds.

There you go BBC, fixed it for you. I take cheques and all major credit cards

 

[Vaeran]

Over the last week or so I've seen a couple what-if threads pop up on reddit: "What if Children of Earth was a Doctor Who story?" and "What if Miracle Day was a Doctor Who story?" with the general consensus that the Doctor would have figured everything out in a quarter of the time and with minimal loss of life.

And then I had a thought: What about the opposite?

What if the Twelfth Doctor episode "In the Forest of the Night" was a Torchwood story? You know, the one where the entire planet turns into a forest overnight, and the Doctor and Clara just kind of wander around and look at stuff for 45 minutes because there's no tangible threat?

First of all it would be ten excruciating episodes long, so buckle up for that.

GWEN: Jack, what on Earth is going on?
JACK: The trees... Every tree on the planet has developed a mind of its own!
GWEN: My God... What're we gonna do?
JACK: [slow zoom in on his face, jaw set in resolve] ...
[cut to Jack and Gwen standing back to back in a forest, dual wielding machine guns at the trees and screaming]

Eventually Jack finds that random missing girl and then murders her to appease the trees. The end!

Anyway, to ensure this post wasn't a complete waste of your time, I'm also here to tell you that Josh Snares has a new podcast called Whoviana. There are only two episodes so far (a review of The Five Doctors and a 12th Doctor retrospective) but they're snappy and very enjoyable. If you're wondering whether to watch them or just listen, the only visual component to the video version other than a steady cam on Snares is the interstitial segment titles, so you're not missing anything. (I like watching them anyway.)

 

[Kazin]

Unfortunately, it seems like Josh isn't doing any more of them, which sucks, because I watched and enjoyed them too:

Hopefully they change their mind.

 

[Vaeran]

What? God dammit.

 

[Phantoon]

Over the last week or so I've seen a couple what-if threads pop up on reddit: "What if Children of Earth was a Doctor Who story?" and "What if Miracle Day was a Doctor Who story?" with the general consensus that the Doctor would have figured everything out in a quarter of the time and with minimal loss of life.

And then I had a thought: What about the opposite?

What if the Twelfth Doctor episode "In the Forest of the Night" was a Torchwood story? You know, the one where the entire planet turns into a forest overnight, and the Doctor and Clara just kind of wander around and look at stuff for 45 minutes because there's no tangible threat?

First of all it would be ten excruciating episodes long, so buckle up for that.

GWEN: Jack, what on Earth is going on?
JACK: The trees... Every tree on the planet has developed a mind of its own!
GWEN: My God... What're we gonna do?
JACK: [slow zoom in on his face, jaw set in resolve] ...
[cut to Jack and Gwen standing back to back in a forest, dual wielding machine guns at the trees and screaming]

Eventually Jack finds that random missing girl and then murders her to appease the trees. The end!

Anyway, to ensure this post wasn't a complete waste of your time, I'm also here to tell you that Josh Snares has a new podcast called Whoviana. There are only two episodes so far (a review of The Five Doctors and a 12th Doctor retrospective) but they're snappy and very enjoyable. If you're wondering whether to watch them or just listen, the only visual component to the video version other than a steady cam on Snares is the interstitial segment titles, so you're not missing anything. (I like watching them anyway.)

Also, they'd be sexy trees for some reason

 

[Vaeran]

That's true. Big honkin trunk titties

 

[Kazin]

Thanks to a Disney twitter goof, we now know that we are apparently getting a Christmas special this year, titled "The Church on Ruby Road":

So, that's cool, four new episodes of Doctor Who this year!

Oh, and also, we're getting a colourized, edited down to 75 minutes verison of "The Daleks" on November 23rd as well, which I'm looking forward to, since that story has a whole episode at least that could be cut out with nothing of value missed (the one where Ian and Barbara spend 25 minutes jumping over a two foot gap). They're cutting out nearly 100 minutes of that serial, so it will be interesting to see how quickly it zooms along. Also, the actual Hartnell era in colour is going to be wild.

 

[Vaeran]

Neat! I had heard a rumor many months ago that the Christmas special was going to be called Miracle on 15th Street, but I guess that turned out not to be credible. (Still, there's a Street/Road connection there...)

Normally I'm not that interested in things like updated special effects and colorizations of black & white programs -- I like to see things as they originally aired, unaltered. (That's just my particular taste; not saying it's correct or superior.) But it's not like anyone's coming to confiscate my b&w DVD of The Daleks, so I'll probably check it out anyway. It's been a hot minute since I've seen this serial, and my DW hype gauge is at maximum with the sun about to rise on RTD's second administration. I'll take whatever I can get!

 

[Kazin]

Well, that, and the original 7 part version is still available, both on disc and streaming. And yeah, I'm not usually interested in cut down versions of stuff either, but adding colour too kind of fascinates me.

 

[Vaeran]

David Tennant has a new hour-long documentary about the classic series called Talking Doctor Who, which is on BBC iPlayer, but as covered upthread that's only useful information to those of us with UK IP addresses. However, I can confirm it can be also be Acquired if you know where to look. It's mostly Tennant introducing a series of old interview clips, many of which I hadn't seen but all of which I'm sure will show up on the season blu rays if they haven't already. Fun stuff.

I'm given to understand there's more coming down the pipeline as well:

Two documentaries were announced as part of the anniversary celebrations. The first, Talking Doctor Who, presented by Tennant, showcases the history of the classic era. It was broadcast on 1 November 2023 on BBC Four.[72] The second, Russell T Davies: The Doctor and Me, details Davies' return as showrunner. It is set to broadcast on BBC One at a later date.[73]

 

[Kazin]

That must have been what that clip I saw on YT of Tennant watching behind the scenes footage of Baker regenerating into Davison must have been from:

 

[Vaeran]

Yup, exactly.