Doctor Who

Torchwood was complete and utter bollocks. I've nothing against the Welsh as a nation, but the accent does not lend itself to being taken seriously as a defender of the planet from alien menace.
 
Just finished End of Time. I genuinely felt bad for The Doctor at the end. The "I don't want to go" really hits you in the feels. Didn't have the same effect after the 9th Doctor.
 
Torchwood was complete and utter bollocks. I've nothing against the Welsh as a nation, but the accent does not lend itself to being taken seriously as a defender of the planet from alien menace.

The accents never bothered me from a saving the world perspective. (there are probably worse accents to make one question the 'defender of the planet' status *G*) I enjoyed the first two series of Torchwood immensely, Children of Earth was good...didn't care for Miracle Day.
 
In the Eleventh Hour, why would the doctor hack into a call with NASA and Jodrell Bank instead of getting in touch with UNIT? Seems like this would be much more up their ally.

Also not a fan of the new TARDIS. Way too much going on with the control panel.
 
I don't like the new doctor!

Just getting a head start here ;)

I'm on episode 2 of season 6, and I don't like the still-new-to-me Doctor.
 
Any fans of MST3K or RiffTrax here?

The RiffTrax guys (former MST3K cast members) are going to be riffing "The Five Doctors" live in a theater in Nashville that will be broadcast live to a few hundred movie theaters around the US (not sure about Canada).I believe this will be their 13th live-via-satellite event, and I haven't missed one yet. Always a good time.

[video=youtube;m8vrYSwwz-o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8vrYSwwz-o[/video]

 
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Got the BBC on live...

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It's JODIE WHITTAKER!

With Chris Chibnall moving in, a Broadchurch alumnus is a logical choice. I know she can do heavy lifting, acting-wise, after seeing her suffer for two seasons on Broadchurch, I just wonder how she'll deal with the needed lightness. Any Brits able to chime in on her comedy chops?
 
I don't think I have the slightest clue who she is. Not really something new though when it comes to actors playing the doctor :D. And she doesn't look bad either. Why not a hot doctor instead of a hot companion for a change.
 
Yeah, given that Chibnall's taking over, it's not shocking that someone from Broadchurch would end up as The Doctor. This will be an interesting run.

Already seeing the online posts proclaiming that the show has been 'ruined'. Knew that wouldn't take long.
 
This move on the part of the political-correctness-infested BBC probably isn't going to fare well; ratings peaked during David Tennant's run in 2011 and have been way downhill since then. This lady may be a good actress, I don't know, but the writing keeps getting worse and worse and more and more PC. This is likely a combination of desperation to get the old Tennant-era international money firehose turned back on with their endemic PC BS. The only surprise here is that the actress isn't an African lesbian single mother paraplegic in a wheelchair.

(See video at 7:35)

Again, the real issue isn't likely to be whether Whittaker can do the job or even that she's female - even resurrecting Tom Baker in his prime and having him return wouldn't help - the issue is that this is just the latest symptom of the same old problems within the BBC that tanked Top Gear post CHM. It's a shame because Whittaker's going to get the blame (just like Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi have also been blamed) for the continuing ratings slump when it's likely not really going to be her fault.
 
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Got the BBC on live...

- - - Updated - - -

It's JODIE WHITTAKER!

With Chris Chibnall moving in, a Broadchurch alumnus is a logical choice. I know she can do heavy lifting, acting-wise, after seeing her suffer for two seasons on Broadchurch, I just wonder how she'll deal with the needed lightness. Any Brits able to chime in on her comedy chops?

Fantastic. :clap:

The only thing I know her from is Black Mirror, but she was pretty decent in that... I'm definitely looking forward to see where the new team takes the show.

Already seeing the online posts proclaiming that the show has been 'ruined'. Knew that wouldn't take long.

I mean, that happens every time they cast a new doctor anyways, but I am still surprised to see the amount of backlash in some places (browsing through reddit, I mean). I thought everyone except the Daily Mail had gotten used to the idea of the doctor potentially being a woman by now?
 
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Spectre, the problem is not whether the writing is getting PC or not. If you read your very own comment carefully you will find out that below all the blah blah minority representation posing your main point is that the writing has been very much hit and miss during the last seasons. Not being as PC wouldn't have changed that at all.

I think RTD stayed on too long as a showrunner and blew his last few series. And Moffat simply fucked up splitting his time between Sherlock and Dr. Who, making both worse as time progressed....

EDIT: I think CHM themselves are a very strong case here - taking the BBC's guardrails away made The Grand Tour worse, not better.
 
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Spectre, the problem is not whether the writing is getting PC or not. If you read your very own comment carefully you will find out that below all the blah blah minority representation posing your main point is that the writing has been very much hit and miss during the last seasons. Not being as PC wouldn't have changed that at all.

I disagree - the writing wasn't hit and miss, but mostly miss-miss-miss-miss-miss-miss-accidental hit-miss-miss-miss, etc. It wasn't 'just' the writing being inherently bad, either. The writing was bad *and* the ever increasing insertion of PC bits made it far worse. After the last season the only way it could get much worse is if the characters broke the fourth wall and began to lecture the audience about how they needed to be more PC. Yes, it began getting that obvious and that disruptive, not to mention heavy-handed.

I think RTD stayed on too long as a showrunner and blew his last few series. And Moffat simply fucked up splitting his time between Sherlock and Dr. Who, making both worse as time progressed....

Those may have contributed, but the increasingly preachy and screechy tone of all recent BBC shows is a large reason their overseas sales are tanking and they can't get anyone to take them up on merch licensing any more. The international money firehose that they had for Dr. Who is off and so is the one for Top Gear; now the Beeb is getting increasingly desperate and they're doubling down on their 'message' and PC elements at every possible juncture instead of concentrating on actually making entertaining shows.

If I want preaching and screeching, I'll go turn on a televangelist network. They'll do a better job of preaching than the BBC ever could.

EDIT: I think CHM themselves are a very strong case here - taking the BBC's guardrails away made The Grand Tour worse, not better.

Yes and no - it made them experiment more, but it also revealed the "I'm going to run it past my children! My children think it's cool" method of evaluating show segments isn't working. Not that they didn't know it before, but this time it's not the usual Moaning Myrtles that harass the BBC complaining (and can therefore be dismissed) but actual demonstrably paying customers. We'll have to see what Season 2 brings, because there's a *lot* more potential with TGT than the Beeb would ever allow Top Gear to explore. We began to see some of it towards the end of Season 1.

I would also point out that Season 1/Series 1 of CHM Top Gear was actually considerably shakier than S1 of TGT despite having BBC "guardrails" firmly in place.
 
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Underwhelmed but hardly surprised, I felt that it was given away in the last episode (although I may have just misinterpreted what Bill said). Never seen anything she was in very much, I saw a very small amount of Broadchurch and couldn't stand it. To be honest I hate drama TV shows and the sci-fi element of DW is the only thing that kept me watching. Fingers crossed the writing doesn't take a further dive.

We're used to the Doctor being quite eccentric now, ramping up from Eccleston through Tennant, Smith and Capaldi. I wonder if they will keep that up and how it will work, somehow I can't see it working without ending up with something cringeworthy like Donna again...
 
I admit that I haven't seen the latest season past the second or third ep yet, because of... the lackluster writing. I love Capaldi's Doctor, though, but the stories so far have been not that great, and I don't like Bill at all.

And I have to agree with Spectre. I don't have a problem with casting a woman as Doctor Who. The character is an alien from a fictional species that regenerates upon death into a new body, so what, it's no biggie switching the gender. It has been handled very well with The Master before.
I do have an issue with the move blatantly motivated by political correctness, gender diversity, whatever you may call it. There has been so much talk for such a long time about making The Doctor a woman, or black (why not Asian, though?), or both, that the casting just cannot be sold as "we have a great actress who can play the character in the direction we want him/her to go". It is "she was cast because this time, it had to be a woman". And this kind of following the PC lead also does not inspire confidence in the writing getting any better in the future.
 
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