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

Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I just hope that someday, the footage they supposedly shot of more Tenth Planet stuff for Twice Upon a Time comes out.

But yeah, I like The Tenth Planet a lot. It's eerie in sequence, too - it's the first time the Doctor knows what's going on about the future rather than something from Earth's past or whatever. This is commonplace nowadays, of course, but it hadn't happened at the time. It was a new thing the show was doing, and it's quite a wtf moment.

And I'd buy the alchemic reading of gold dust being effective against the Cybermen if the series itself made more sense of it, but the show doesn't seem to think beyond "what beats silver? Gold!" and then doesn't do anything alchemical with it.
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Finished off The Trial of a Time Lord over the last couple days. It's not top-notch Who by any stretch, but I found things to enjoy in every story.

Mindwarp. BRIAN BLESSED indeed livens up every scene he's in, and despite Nicola Bryant's protestations I think living as his warrior queen would be far preferable to... whatever was supposed to have happened to her. I don't really have a lot else to say about this one.

Terror of the Vervoids. I liked the brief scene of the Mogarians playing holographic Galaga. Someone interviewed on the making-of special suggested that the Hyperion III is a 1980s-themed retro luxury cruise liner, and I kind of like the idea. The whodunit plot is a bit of a change of pace from the usual (even if The Robots of Death did it better), and the show lampshades it by having Professor Lasky lounging around reading Murder on the Orient Express in a couple of scenes. Cute. I like Mel's energy, and setting a serial in the Doctor's future is a little different, though it seems from the next story that the two already know each other somehow in the current time. Is there any supplemental material that portrays their meeting?

As one of the officers is leading Mel into the hydroponics lab, he says "I'll go first. Wouldn't want you to break your neck, at least until--" and then he touches an electric fence and dies. How was that sentence possibly going to end?

The Ultimate Foe. A megabyte modem!!

I didn't realize the Master was in this, so seeing him pop up was a bit of a fun surprise. And getting Mel and Glitz back to run around made it feel like a proper capstone to the season... though wouldn't it have been nice to grab Yrcanos too, and have someone from each story? (Okay, okay, I just want more Brian Blessed.)

Weird that I happen to be watching this now, as Loki recently had a similar gag where the main character is ignored by someone behind an information desk until he rings the bell. And the hands reaching up from the beach in the Matrix to drag the Doctor below looked like they inspired the "handmines" from The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar, which I also rewatched the other day.

The Valeyard is a truly strange concept that I'm surprised wasn't revisited somehow in the modern series... or even dealt with in a throwaway line to explain that the Doctor's timeline has changed somehow and his existence is no longer a possibility. I guess there wasn't enough time in between establishing that Matt Smith was secretly the Doctor's final life all along and giving the Doctor his new regeneration cycle. But if they did, he's supposed to be "between" the twelfth and final incarnations, right? According to Moffat's counting, that'd line him up with the spare Tenth Doctor from The Stolen Earth / Journey's End. (This is a bit of a tangent, but if any incarnation of the Doctor was ever to turn "evil," I've always seen Tennant's as being the most likely candidate, given how often he walked the line between light and darkness, and how he raged in The End of Time at realizing he was going to regenerate. If something ever happened to Rose in Pete's World I could see him going mad with grief and turning to desperate measures. The Valeyard Victorious? But he was human... Oh well. In terms of a foil to the Doctor, we already have the Master, so the Valeyard seems a little surplus to requirements anyway.)

The Sixth Doctor's final words: "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice..." Glad I picked up The Last Adventure.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Vaeran said:
Finished off The Trial of a Time Lord over the last couple days. It's not top-notch Who by any stretch, but I found things to enjoy in every story.

Mindwarp. BRIAN BLESSED indeed livens up every scene he's in, and despite Nicola Bryant's protestations I think living as his warrior queen would be far preferable to... whatever was supposed to have happened to her. I don't really have a lot else to say about this one.
Click to expand...

I like it less each time I see it. It's not really a finished story, since the Trial intervenes at the end, and even though there's the coda involving BRIAN BLESSED later, we never really get a proper conclusion to Mindwarp, so it just doesn't make any sense. What happened after the Doctor left that planet? How did Peri un-bird herself? etc etc etc

Terror of the Vervoids. I liked the brief scene of the Mogarians playing holographic Galaga. Someone interviewed on the making-of special suggested that the Hyperion III is a 1980s-themed retro luxury cruise liner, and I kind of like the idea. The whodunit plot is a bit of a change of pace from the usual (even if The Robots of Death did it better), and the show lampshades it by having Professor Lasky lounging around reading Murder on the Orient Express in a couple of scenes. Cute. I like Mel's energy, and setting a serial in the Doctor's future is a little different, though it seems from the next story that the two already know each other somehow in the current time. Is there any supplemental material that portrays their meeting?
Click to expand...

This book by Gary Russell, apparently, though I've not read it. Also as you probably can imagine, Big Finish has played around with it, most notably with The Wrong Doctors, which I've yet to hear, but I want to listen to it just to see what they do with it. No idea if that's any good, either, unfortunately.

Also, are you Scott Sharkey? lol

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1408252660986175488

As one of the officers is leading Mel into the hydroponics lab, he says "I'll go first. Wouldn't want you to break your neck, at least until--" and then he touches an electric fence and dies. How was that sentence possibly going to end?
Click to expand...

I... hadn't noticed that, somehow. I guess Mel was planning on killing him, until the electric fence did her job for her? lol

The Ultimate Foe. A megabyte modem!!
Click to expand...

It's so weird. What is that device actually even doing? Dialing up a BBS? Downloading some ascii art? It's so weird they made it a modem.

The Valeyard is a truly strange concept that I'm surprised wasn't revisited somehow in the modern series... or even dealt with in a throwaway line to explain that the Doctor's timeline has changed somehow and his existence is no longer a possibility. I guess there wasn't enough time in between establishing that Matt Smith was secretly the Doctor's final life all along and giving the Doctor his new regeneration cycle. But if they did, he's supposed to be "between" the twelfth and final incarnations, right? According to Moffat's counting, that'd line him up with the spare Tenth Doctor from The Stolen Earth / Journey's End. (This is a bit of a tangent, but if any incarnation of the Doctor was ever to turn "evil," I've always seen Tennant's as being the most likely candidate, given how often he walked the line between light and darkness, and how he raged in The End of Time at realizing he was going to regenerate. If something ever happened to Rose in Pete's World I could see him going mad with grief and turning to desperate measures. The Valeyard Victorious? But he was human... Oh well. In terms of a foil to the Doctor, we already have the Master, so the Valeyard seems a little surplus to requirements anyway.)
Click to expand...

I don't usually recommend looking up production history stuff, but the documentary on the DVD called "Trials and Tribulations" does a pretty good job of explaining why Trial happened the way it did. It mostly comes down to that last episode that Pip and Jane Baker had to write in like a weekend, with Saward having quit after Holmes' death. The whole season was a colassal clusterfuck.

Some fans like to think the spare Tenth Doctor eventually becomes the Valeyard, re-enters our universe, and then begins the Trial. I just... like to not think about the Valeyard, to be honest lol.

The Sixth Doctor's final words: "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice..." Glad I picked up The Last Adventure.
Click to expand...

Even more ignominius than "keep warm!"
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
I watched the animated reconstruction of Power of the Daleks over the last two nights, and had a great time with it.

The Daleks are actually effectively creepy this time around, perhaps partly because they have moments of menacing silence instead of just shrieking EXTERMINATE every time the camera's pointed at them (though of course there's plenty of that too.) The supporting characters are pretty enjoyable, and Lesterson's rapid descent into madness is very memorable. It's a shame that this of all serials is entirely lost, as the rather stiff animation doesn't really convey most changes in facial expression, and I would have liked to see these performances in full.

The real story here, though, is the debut of Troughton's Doctor. I was struck by how coy and mysterious he is about whether he's really the Doctor, referring to his previous incarnation in the third person and outright refusing to answer questions about his identity.

BEN: OY M8 R U THE DOCTOR OR WOT
DOCTOR: ...
BEN: OY GUVNOR U 'EAR ME???
DOCTOR: ... [playing recorder] 🎵
BEN: ... M8

You would think the program would want to do everything possible to establish a sense of continuity and reassure audiences (particularly the children) that this in fact the Doctor, and it's super interesting that they chose a different angle. The Second Doctor does some things here that seem at odds with his later characterization and make him a little hard to warm up to -- the aforementioned stony silences, and having Bragen call in his guards to use as cannon fodder against the Daleks to buy time -- but I'm willing to chalk that up to the first-ever instance of regeneration sickness. This is one of the greats.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
The Daleks are terrifying in Power of the Daleks. After years and years of seeing the Daleks shrieking "EXTERMINATE!" and such, I still get creeped out by "I AM YOUR SERVANT!" especially as they try to shout the Doctor down when he's saying they're dangerous.

And yeah - since the Second Doctor does seemingly everything he can to explicitly not explain what happened to him, I want to see Power more than any other missing serial, since Troughton probably does all kinds of interesting things we can't detect via audio. From what I gather, Power is one of the least likely to ever come back, too, since it wasn't sold widely to other countries, so almost definitely doesn't exist anymore. Such a shame.

I'm glad you enjoyed it though! I first experienced it as audio only, and even that way, its quality shone through. The animation is much more enjoyable, of course. Did they ever release the tweaked animation in North America? I imported the DVD and the animation is slightly less stiff in it, though is black and white only (as apparently, the animators intended - the color version was done especially for America, I guess).
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Kazin said:
I'm glad you enjoyed it though! I first experienced it as audio only, and even that way, its quality shone through. The animation is much more enjoyable, of course. Did they ever release the tweaked animation in North America? I imported the DVD and the animation is slightly less stiff in it, though is black and white only (as apparently, the animators intended - the color version was done especially for America, I guess).
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if it's tweaked or not -- the DVD I got has both color and b&w options, and of course I watched the black & white for the more authentic experience.

Oh, but I forgot to mention that unfortunately the DVD cover spine design is completely different from the rest of the classic Who releases. 0/10, chuck it in the binnnn
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Yeah, the European DVDs are better in that regard - the Power of the Daleks Special Edition DVD I have has a reversible cover to match all the other European spines.

You're not missing out on a ton with regards to the tweaked animation - episode 1 is a little better, particularly in the TARDIS which was my main gripe with the original animation, but honestly the differences throughout weren't super noticeable to me otherwise. Though it is dumb they never released the Special Edition over here.
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Watched The Moonbase tonight. I enjoyed it well enough I guess, but for all that it gets referred back to as the archetypal "base under siege" story, it felt like a bit of a limp follow-up to The Tenth Planet. The Cybermen have traded their creepy sing-song voices for generic robotic ones (though they also sound vaguely Italian? WE HAVE TAKEN-A CONTROL-A.) and do little of interest here besides snark about "stupid human brains." Clank clank. And while there's a varied multinational staff on the base, they don't have much in the way of individual characterization to set them apart from each other. Everyone's sort of blandly competent and cooperative, which is a letdown coming off of the strong personalities in Power of the Daleks. (I did like that everyone calls their leader Hobson "Hobby," suggesting a fondness on the part of his crew.) Pretty fucked up how that rocket gets deflected into the sun and, even though it'll take a week to get there, they're just written off as dead with no effort made to rescue them. Sorry lads! Jamie gets a bonk on the head in the first episode and spends most of the serial out of commission, though he's startlingly useful once back on his feet, responding instantly to Ben's command to "press the locking button." AH'M FROM 18TH CENTURY SCOTLAND, AH DUNNAE KEN WHAT A LOCKING BUTTON IS

Why does Polly always get stuck making the coffee during Cybermen stories?
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
It's the archetypical base under siege story *because* it's bland and generic, something the Troughton era increasingly had issues with as it went on* (okay, so that's my opinion, not necessarily fandom's).

Though, it has its charms. As always, Troughton is wonderful in it, and Polly comes up with the idea to defeat the Cybermen! ...and also is made to serve coffee. ...yep.

*I finally started watching the animated Fury From the Deep today. That story was rough to watch in recon form - by that point, I'd watched what felt like a dozen base under sieges in a row and was sick of them, and this one was particularly generic with seaweed as the monster. Suffice to say, I didn't like it! Hopefully the animation helps. I'm watching it slowly, one or two episodes at a time, too, to help the pacing not feel so slow. First episode was... fine. As always with these animations, I'm both impressed they made these with a shoestring budget, and bitterly disappointed I can't see Troughton's wonderful face.
 
Phantoon

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Troughton is probably an easier sell, as he really crystallises The Doctor. If you want to see someone Doctory doing Doctory things then Hartnell isn't necessarily the best choice.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Finished the Fury From the Deep animation, and overall, I liked it, though there was only enough plot for four episodes. Really, the first three are where most of the boring bits are, as the crew argues in circles about impeller shafts and who's in charge and whatnot. An edit of this serial down to three or four episodes would make it sing - I'd even say it'd probably be a classic.

I watched the making of documentary they made for the DVD, and while I knew they'd used a real helicopter for Fury, what I didn't know is the oil rigs weren't models - they were actual sea platforms! Way to go deleting that footage, Beeb, sheesh.
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
I find most classic Who serials are about two episodes too long, if I'm honest.

Apparently there aren't enough Big Finish dramas out there for my liking, because now my brain's making up new ones as I sleep. This was a four-story boxset which revolved around UNIT acquiring a small island and trying to find something useful to do with it. The island is apparently cursed, though, as everything they tried -- building a base, setting up a communications relay -- immediately turned disastrous, with equipment breaking down and personnel going missing one by one. Eventually the Doctor convinces them to just leave the place alone, and the final scene is the Brigadier quietly selling the island off... to Iris Wildthyme? Okay. Well, I'd probably give it a listen.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Iris Wildthyme is another one of those branches of the extended universe that I'm pretty much 100% unfamiliar with. All I know is she was invented by Paul Magrs - a good writer (his audio "The Peterloo Massacre" is one of my favorites), and she is played on audio by Katy Manning, who's the brightest star in the Pertwee era as far as I'm concerned, so I need to read/listen to her stuff.

In any case... that audio sounds pretty entertaining lol. Do they ever figure out what's causing all the issues, or is it like a Midnight style resolution where they get out with their lives and decide not to ask questions?
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Details of my dreams scatter from my mind pretty quickly once I wake up, so what I posted is all I remember. I'm not even sure which Doctor it was! I am going to guess the cause was: aliens.

I also intend to get around to the Wildthyme stuff at some point, but there's just so much else I want to listen to first.
 
Phantoon

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Kate Herron please! I think she'd smash it. I'm really sad to see Jodie go, we never really got to know her character. I guess Big Finish will have to fix that later...
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Apparently series 13 will be six episodes long, be one continuous story, and then in 2022 we'll get three specials, culminating in Whittaker's regeneration.

I give Chibnall a pass for this because of Covid, but hopefully the next showrunner can consistently produce the show yearly, and hopefully not with dwindling episode counts.
 
Johnny Unusual

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Phantoon said:
Kate Herron please! I think she'd smash it
Click to expand...
I definitely like this one.

My wishlist for what I want the season beyond Jodie and Chibnall to be.

I'm not sure who specifically I'd want to take over but I think the next step is a female or even NB Doctor of color, maybe played by a trans actor. That's the kind of direction the show needs to go.

I only watched Jodie's so-so first season but I assume that her vibe remained "super supportive friend haver" and since each Doctor seems to be a response to the last one (note Jodie's Doctor compared to Capaldi's prickly/pragmatic Doctor), I feel like the next Doctor needs to be a bit of a con artist. Sort of what Sylvester McCoy did but less "10 steps ahead" and more "has a plan but is great at improvising when things go wrong, which they invariably do" and is talented at using a likable personality in getting a foot in the door. And the threats could be like the Doctor deceptive: evils that try to put a friendly or altruistic face on systemic and societal evils with the Doctor unveiling the hypocracy.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Doctor Who's worst fan, everyone:

ian.png


Love & Monsters continues to age like fine wine.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I don't like Chibnall either and am happy he's leaving, but Levine is on record as being dead set against a woman Doctor, so his use of "DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD" grates in a way anything you or I have said doesn't. Fuck him.
 
ThornGhost

ThornGhost

lofi posts to relax/study to
(he/him)
Isn't there some thought that this new series of regenerations shares some echo, character-wise, with their counterparts from the first regeneration sequence? So, Capaldi felt a bit like Hartnell and Whittaker felt just a bit like Troughton. So might whoever takes over have some more swashbucklery, secret agent type feel? Or am I off on that?
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
In what way does Whittaker feel like Troughton? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy her portrayal, but she seems more Tom Baker or David Tennant-ish than Troughton imo
 
ThornGhost

ThornGhost

lofi posts to relax/study to
(he/him)
To be honest, I'm not especially familiar with Troughton, so my opinion is sort of based on appearance mostly. They both feel like kind of silly hobos to me, with a splash of tinkerer.
 
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