Doctor Who

Moffats now gone, too? That’s too bad. I didn’t care for his writing right after Davies left because it became more fear focused but, still a shame.

How many writers are still left from the Eccleston and Tennant era?

I haven’t watched DW since Matt Smith. Saw a couple Capaldi episodes and haven’t really followed it since. I sort of lost interest and never got over how the ponds died. After that the show sort of had a “where to go now?” feel.
 
I'm willing to give Jodie a fair chance. I was absolutely sure I would hate Matt Smith because of his youth, yet he ended up being one of my favorite Doctors.
 
Season 10 is now available on Amazon Prime. Watched E01 last night. Eeehhhhhh. Mixed feelings.

Was it explained in season 9 why The Doctor is stuck on Earth at that university? Did I miss that or will that be explained later?
 
CrzRsn;n3545324 said:
Season 10 is now available on Amazon Prime. Watched E01 last night. Eeehhhhhh. Mixed feelings.

Was it explained in season 9 why The Doctor is stuck on Earth at that university? Did I miss that or will that be explained later?

It'll make sense later, although the reason behind the explanation that results in it making sense is still a mystery. :|
 
Powered through episodes 2-5. I'm done with this.
 
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Latest episode in a nutshell

How's everyone feeling Series 11 so far? Love Jodie and the Rosa Parks ep but not convinced by Chibnall as showrunner yet.
 
stiggie;n3554426 said:
Its like being repeatedly hit over the head with the BBC Patented Sledgehammer of Political Correctness.

Yep.

Except for the old man who lost his wife, up to date all the white men on this show are dumb assholes.
 
It's very northern, a little too much so. I don't think we've heard so many people with the same type of accent since Rose Tyler and her mum were in the show. I actually recognised the filming location from this weeks episode (the house Brian goes back to) from visiting Sheffield not too long ago. Having Bradley Walsh in the show isn't doing it any favours, especially as he's on a competing channel at the same time presenting The Chase!

Stories aren't impressing me either, the latest one was OK but was let down by the CGI. We need a proper space-based story to bring this around for me.
 
So far we've had-

1. A transgender Doctor
2. Three companions of three different races
3. An even male-female ratio among the main characters
4. A senior-citizen companion
5. A companion with a physical disability (albeit one that can be ignored when its inconvenient, then resurrected when needed as a plot device)
6. An entire episode dedicated to lecturing us about the history of racial politics in the US
7. An episode where it took less than 30 seconds for a random character to needlessly point out that she was a lesbian.

None of these things are bad. There is nothing wrong with including any of them. But when they are all thrown at you within the space of three episodes it becomes clear that the desire for diversity and political correctness (or more accurately the desire to be seen being diverse and politically correct) is a higher priority for the producers and the BBC than good storytelling.

And nothing should be a higher priority than good storytelling.
 
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For me, Doctor Who's always been very liberal-thinking so I haven't been taking much notice of all that, but so far the writing's... just generally not been there (barring the Rosa one though to an extent thanks to Malorie Blackman). So far I don't think Chibnall's imaginative enough to be the new showrunner. None of the stories or concepts he's presented so far have been particularly original or creative, last episode definitely felt like he was reaching for ideas... the dialogue (although getting better) feels empty sometimes. The companions seem to spend too much time just being there to ask questions. I've heard good things about this week's one though so hopefully it'll encourage me.

Having gone to uni in Sheffield, I'm still not tired of seeing locations I recognise on TV. I recognised Park Hill last ep (been there myself). :p Actually clapped when she built her new screwdriver with Sheffield steel.
 
I'm generally in favour of liberal-thinking television programmes. I am a Star Trek fan after-all. But this has been done so excessively and with so little subtlety that it is destroying my suspension of disbelief. Instead of being immersed in the show, I am thinking about the motives of the production team.
 
Be prepared to call a misogynist, xenophobic, racist scum when ratings drop and the beeb has to post results.
 
^ None of the stuff in stiggie's list breaks my suspension of disbelief personally but what I do mind is the discussion around the show being so politicised that I can't just enjoy it as a show. If you look at the IMDB ratings for each episode before they air and compare it to previous years (one episode got a pre-air rating of 4.8 or something where every episode in previous years gets straight 10s before they air), it's clear that a lot of people are still openly hostile to Jodie, and that causes others to get overly defensive about any criticism as a result. I'm not a Star Wars fan but I heard that the same thing happened to The Last Jedi (didn't it turn out that half of it was provoked by Putinbots or something? Scary times we're living in when even sci-fi discussion on the internet gets manipulated for political gain).

I have to say though that the ratings are holding surprisingly well 4 episodes in. Part of that is the move to Sunday, I think.
 
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PaperBiro;n3554510 said:
^ None of the stuff in stiggie's list breaks my suspension of disbelief personally

It's not the first time I've been bothered by a production team's agenda taking precedence over the creative process. For the final season of UK sitcom My Family a whole new team of writers was hired to make the show "edgier". They decided to have a character who had been resolutely heterosexual for ten seasons suddenly become gay. It was ridiculous. Roseanne did the same thing with Beverley, the grandmother. But that was in the final season where everything they did was beyond disbelief.

PaperBiro;n3554510 said:
what I do mind is the discussion around the show being so politicised that I can't just enjoy it as a show. If you look at the IMDB ratings for each episode before they air and compare it to previous years (one episode got a pre-air rating of 4.8 or something where every episode in previous years gets straight 10s before they air), it's clear that a lot of people are still openly hostile to Jodie, and that causes others to get overly defensive about any criticism as a result.

Review and ratings sites really shouldn't let people rate something that they can't possibly have seen yet.
 
I don't care about Jodie, in fact I like her.

What I care about is that most of the publicity on tv in north america show men like dumb people who can't even use a toilet brush while the rest of the family is all clever, and I am afraid that this show turns into something like that.
 
You guys make me sick. Not even a single discussion about the actual quality of the episodes (I think 1 and 2 were awesome, 3 is another example of Doctor Who overly moralized history episodes) but only whining about how liberal it all got.

I mean when "an even male-female ratio among the main characters" is something that is being pointed out as a liberal/left wing agenda one should wonder how screwed one's view fo the world is.
 
For the most part, I'm enjoying the new series. Liking Whitaker's take on The Doctor. The writing could be better, from a story perspective...I think Chibnall has a tendency to focus on developing the characters, rather than on the stories, so I'm hoping that levels off soon. As for the companions, I do worry it's going to become like the early days of Peter Davison's run - where one companion gets pushed to the side each week because there's just not enough story to go around. Enjoying things more than I have, really, since Rory & Amy left.
 
Dr_Grip;n3554553 said:
You guys make me sick. Not even a single discussion about the actual quality of the episodes (I think 1 and 2 were awesome, 3 is another example of Doctor Who overly moralized history episodes) but only whining about how liberal it all got.

I mean when "an even male-female ratio among the main characters" is something that is being pointed out as a liberal/left wing agenda one should wonder how screwed one's view fo the world is.

Hey, I tried to steer the discussion towards that. :p 1 was good, 2 was a bit filler but I liked how you got a sense of distance in that one without the TARDIS, 3 was an important one for me, 4 was dumb.
 
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Dr_Grip;n3554553 said:
You guys make me sick [snip] only whining about how liberal it all got.

I'm one of the most liberal people on the forum Dr_Grip. I fall on the progressive side of almost any argument. I'm pro-equality, pro-immigration, pro-voluntary euthanasia, pro-LGBTQI rights, pro-civil liberties, pro-socialised medicine and education. So what does it say that even I think they have gone over the top.


Dr_Grip;n3554553 said:
I mean when "an even male-female ratio among the main characters" is something that is being pointed out as a liberal/left wing agenda one should wonder how screwed one's view of the world is.

You may not have noticed that I clearly said that there is nothing wrong with that, or any of the other things on the list. Just that they were all part of a long list of actions carefully designed to avoid giving anybody the opportunity to accuse the BBC of not being politically correct. Such concerns should not be prioritised over good storytelling.

BTW, I don't use "agenda" as a dirty word. Everybody had some sort of agenda. That isn't a bad thing.


Dr_Grip;n3554553 said:
Not even a single discussion about the actual quality of the episodes (I think 1 and 2 were awesome, 3 is another example of Doctor Who overly moralized history episodes)

Be careful what you wish for. :p

The opening credits are terrible. The new recording of the theme tune does nothing for me and I don't know what the graphics are supposed to be, but they certainly aren't the time vortex. I can't comment on the closing credits sequence because every time it comes on it is spoken over by an annoying little man inviting me to switch to a sister channel to watch a bunch of tragically obsessed fans discuss the episode that just aired.

The crystalline-looking new TARDIS interior lacks character. It reminds me of being in a cave.

I'm on the fence about Jodie's performance as the Doctor. There are times (when she is acting manic) that she seems to be channeling David Tennant, who is my favourite Doctor. Even the shape of her smile reminds me of Tennant. But I don't think the writers are doing her any favours. I'm still waiting to see her demonstrate the sort of self-confidence usually displayed by Doctor. The kind of thing where the Doctor declared that Earth is defended, or revealed themselves as a Timelord, making the alien menace realise just how much trouble they're in. Or when they are faced with only having a few minutes to save the universe and announcing that it is more than enough time.

The episodes so far haven't impressed me much. The bad-guys haven't been very scary or very memorable. I've already forgotten what the bad-guy in the first episode was called and what his motives were, he was so forgettable. The Rosa Parks episode annoyed the fuck out of me. Instead of simply stopping the bad-guy from interfering with the timeline, they let him keep doing it then ran around after him trying to fix his meddling piece by piece. It made no sense. I also didn't like that he was just a racist bigot from the far future. It might be the Trekker in me speaking, but I like to think that humanity will have moved on from racism in the future. The arachnids episode wasn't as scary as it should have been. It was a trapped-while-being-hunted episode in the vein of the Scottish werewolf episode "Tooth and Claw", all the weeping angels episodes or the "Silence in the Library". It didn't live up to any of those. Generally, the episodes haven't been scary enough, funny enough or space-faring enough and none of the new companions have contributed much.
 
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