Doctor Who

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Doctor Who

#26 Post by knives » Wed Aug 07, 2013 12:08 pm

Mostly because of his age I'm hoping for a rougher doctor in the mold of the first, but even if they intend to go full Tucker and use Colin Baker as a model it should be a pleasing step away from the teen lit that New Who generally is.

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Doctor Who

#27 Post by Matt » Wed Aug 07, 2013 12:43 pm

knives wrote:It certainly should be a thankful change of pace from the last four doctors.
I liked Eccleston's pissed-off 9th Doctor and Matt Smith's boyish 11th Doctor, but absolutely could not stand David Tennant and had to stop watching the show until he was replaced. Honestly, though, the bigger draw for me recently was Amy and Rory, the best companions in the newer series.

I was hoping they'd cast the 12th Doctor as an older man, partly as a change of pace and partly because having an older man who's comfortable with a TV career (as opposed to a movie actor who feels he's slumming or a young actor eager to break into movies) might mean that the role wouldn't need to be recast yet again in a couple of years.

I never saw Paul McGann's TV movie as the 8th Doctor, so no idea what he was like.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Doctor Who

#28 Post by knives » Wed Aug 07, 2013 12:59 pm

He was okay for the material, but definitely was the blueprint for Tennant's Doctor. I don't think I've actively disliked a Doctor, but I do prefer the older rougher Doctors. For example I adore the weary resign of later Tom Baker to the youthful exuberance of his early serials.

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Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
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Re: Doctor Who

#29 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:42 pm

I rather liked the idea of John Hurt as the doctor, as teased in the season finale (about the only interesting thing in that mess).

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
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Re: Doctor Who

#30 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:56 pm

I seem to remember Paul McGann being fine in the 1996 TV movie but the revamp was scuppered by attempting to do a lot of unnecessary Americanising (for example Sylvester McCoy stepping out of the Tardis and immediately getting gunned down, allowing for a scene in an Emergency Room that seemed desperately trying to link the show in with the currently popular ER show).

I seem to remember there being a lot of talk in the science fiction magazines at the time that it was mostly the fan lobbying (and name brand recognition remaining stubbornly strong) for the show that led to the slightly half-hearted McGann version, something that paid off afterwards in McGann getting a whole arc of talking book stories (sorry 'audio adventures'!) produced for his Doctor in lieu of an actual TV series.

It might seem surprising now with all the hoopla surrounding Doctor Who (and its "50th Anniversary") but there were a good fifteen years where the BBC ran shy of producing in house anything sci-fi related. Apart from some radio dramas (and the 1995 Screen Two drama starring Trevor Eve, Black Easter, which was only vaguely futuristic, being set in the year 2000 and dealing with a racist illegal immigrant killing and a shifty Europe-wide police state) the only things that immediately come to mind in that fallow period from 1989-2005 are Red Dwarf and Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus, with the latter being a co-production with Channel 4 and preceded by its contemporary set companion piece Karaoke!


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knives
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Re: Doctor Who

#32 Post by knives » Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:19 pm

Wow, it feels like just yesterday Capaldi took over the role. Hopefully the progressive improvements with each Doctor keeps up.

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Big Ben
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
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Re: Doctor Who

#33 Post by Big Ben » Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:10 pm

If you're a maschcist be sure to check out the reactions to the new Doctor being a woman. Every claim under the sun is being levelled at the show from hatred of men to political correctness. What I truly cannot fathom however is how these individuals, some who have claimed to have been watching for many years have failed to pick up on it's messages? I mean they missed the digs at Thatcher and Brexit? They missed the inclusion of LGBT characters? Why is this only now an issue?

I've actually answered my own question. It's because it's a woman.

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Dr Amicus
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Re: Doctor Who

#34 Post by Dr Amicus » Mon Jul 17, 2017 7:25 am

My nine year old - who has watched the whole post-2005 over the past 18 months - saw the new announcement and was SO TRAUMATISED he said "that will be interesting", and then went off to play Pokémon...

I'm disappointed we're not getting another Capaldi season - he's been wonderful and this last series has been a triumph with the addition of Pearl Mackie as Bill, with Matt Lucas and Michelle Gomez the icing on the cake. The final two-parter was probably the best finale of the reboot (although season 5's The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang is strong competition) and just leaves anticipation for the Christmas special at an unbelievably high level.

However, no Doctor has survived more than three whole seasons since the reboot, and with ratings at a low this may have been as much pushing as jumping. And Whittaker is fine casting - she was decent in Broadchurch (the problems for me came with the development of her character in especially the later seasons) and great in Attack the Block - so I'm happy enough. And she's not Kris Marshall.

I'm frankly more concerned over Chris Chibnall as the new showrunner - his past Who stories haven't been the strongest, albeit solid enough, but the second series of Torchwood was MUCH stronger than the first so I'll wait and see.

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Dr Amicus
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Re: Doctor Who

#35 Post by Dr Amicus » Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:04 am

And so, with the Christmas special, the Capaldi (and Moffat) era is over. After the spectacular season finale a few months ago, this was a much quieter affair, a rather touching look at the acceptance of death and / or change. It was also very funny in places with the interaction of the 12th and 1st Doctors (maybe a BIT overplayed with the changing attitudes, but it made me laugh). Rather a lot of fan service going on (probably inevitable), but most of it did not feel particularly excessive - only the reveal that
SpoilerShow
the Captain was the Brigadier's grandfather
was one thing too many, but I didn't mind it.

On the whole, I enjoyed this more than any other Regeneration Story since 'The Parting Of The Ways' saw Eccleston depart. The two (well, three by the end) Doctors were fun, Mark Gatiss had his best role in Who so far, Pearl Mackie was as wonderful as ever, and the final 10 minutes reduced me to tears at least twice.

What of the future? We know the next series will be 10 episodes, not 12 or 13, but they will be longer, there will be 3 companions and Chibnall has promised a radical shake up. Based on the final minute of episode, there has been speculation that this will be
SpoilerShow
a TARDIS-less series, at least for much of it, with the large cast acting more as a support network for the stranded Doctor than the traditional travelling companions.
So far there's been no news of writers (beyond Chibnall) - now we've said goodbye to Capaldi, I would expect the first announcements in a couple of months or so.

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JSC
Joined: Thu May 16, 2013 9:17 am

Re: Doctor Who

#36 Post by JSC » Thu Feb 15, 2018 11:51 am

This is a bit curious.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Doctor-Wh ... ay/196885/

For a release of Tom Baker's "first season," I don't see how this
warrants a blu-ray release (other than the convenience of putting
multiple stories on a single disc). If I remember correctly, all of
these shows were shot on 2" videotape and can't really be upscaled
to HD. I'm also assuming the 16mm exterior location footage is no
longer extant.

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Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: Doctor Who

#37 Post by Ribs » Thu Feb 15, 2018 12:01 pm

America was never really interested in the individual episode release model and a good preponderence of the releases have gone out of print - really the only necessary reason (also they can get more resolution onto a BD from a 576-line source then is possible on DVD in R1)

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Dr Amicus
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Re: Doctor Who

#38 Post by Dr Amicus » Thu Sep 27, 2018 11:12 am

With 10 days to go until the new season starts, it's impressive how little has, or seemed to have, leaked - and there has been VERY little information supplied by the production team, indeed the writers were only announced a couple of months ago (the one name I was familiar with is Malorie Blackman, a former Children's Laureate).

Anyway, I'd have to say that anticipation (and attending hype) for the new series seems to have been more than most season launches since the return in 2005 - primarily I would guess thanks to the gender of the lead actor being seen as such a novelty by the press. Also, the first reviews of the first episode have now come out - and are generally extremely favourable (being spoiler averse, I am only glancing at them or looking at summaries) with a lot of praise going to Whittaker. Also, a lot is being made of how little baggage this season will have (no past monsters, including Daleks, or returning characters) making this an ideal place to jump on. I'm hoping my daughter can be coaxed into watching it - I've got my son watching it a couple of years back - and it would be nice to have a show the whole family will sit down and watch.

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Dr Amicus
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Re: Doctor Who

#39 Post by Dr Amicus » Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:19 am

Three weeks in and the series is going well. A format of 2:1 and new cameras has made it look very impressive (especially the two episodes shot in South Africa and directed by Mark Tonderai), the music (from Segun Akinola) is an interesting contrast to Murray Gold's, and the lengthened running time has led so far to the episodes feeling a tad less rushed than they could occasionally be. Jodie Whittaker has made a great impression so far and the new companions (sorry, friends!) are a likeable group who have been better served by the scripts than some large casts have been in the past. The one are I was concerned about, the casting of Bradley Walsh (probably best known for being a game show host, but also an actor), has turned out surprisingly well - an older companion makes a interesting change from casting in the past (although Big Finish had the wonderful Evelyn Smythe, a history professor, travel with the sixth doctor).

My favourite episode to date has been the most recent, Rosa, co-written by Malorie Blackman. Having a celebrity historical about Rosa Parks was clearly a risky move, with so many potential pitfalls, but despite an occasional Racism For Beginners tone (the very last scene for example) this was a really impressive and moving episode with a standout performance by Vinette Robinson in the title role. One scene in particular near the end was especially good:
SpoilerShow
For the historical bus ride, the Doctor and her companions are forced to remain in their seats to be the extra white people ensuring the bus is full - no motivational speeches, just letting history move on around them against everything the Doctor normally represents.
I'm hoping the upcoming episode about the partition of India is tackled as well...

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MichaelB
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Re: Doctor Who

#40 Post by MichaelB » Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:25 am

I can't in any way claim to be a Doctor Who expert (I watched pretty much everything from very late Jon Pertwee to very early Peter Davison when first broadcast, and about two-thirds of Christopher Eccleston thirteen years ago), but I started watching the new series out of curiosity with the rest of my family (who have watched everything from Eccleston to Peter Capaldi umpteen times), and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was always pretty relaxed about Jodie Whittaker pulling it off (and I think that a female Doctor is something that they really should have attempted literally decades ago - Patrick Troughton suggested as much, and he died in 1987), but I've been very impressed with how well everything's hung together - and also the gratifying dearth of finger-wagging preaching in Rosa, which was written by someone aware that a casual reference to someone of Pakistani origin as "a Mexican" would be far more effective than a multi-paragraph speech.
JSC wrote:
Thu Feb 15, 2018 11:51 am
This is a bit curious.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Doctor-Wh ... ay/196885/

For a release of Tom Baker's "first season," I don't see how this warrants a blu-ray release (other than the convenience of putting multiple stories on a single disc). If I remember correctly, all of these shows were shot on 2" videotape and can't really be upscaled to HD. I'm also assuming the 16mm exterior location footage is no longer extant.
Analogue videotape is a notoriously tricky source for MPEG/AVC-type digital media because the nature of the medium means that there'll be a pretty huge number of differences between individual frames - which means that you really need the bitrate to be as high as you can realistically get it, which is where Blu-ray has the major advantage. I can't comment on this release, but the BFI's Alan Clarke project got some astonishing results out of standard-definition videotape, purely by going back to the source, doing an uncompressed scan, and then whacking up the bitrate in the final encode. Obviously, there's no way of getting round inherent limitations in the source, but Blu-ray can do a startlingly better job of recreating that source.

By way of comparison, have a look at an analogue tape-sourced video on a streaming service like Netflix (pretty much any 1970s/80s BBC sitcom should do the trick) - it'll look pretty hideous, because the bitrate will be even lower than it would get on a DVD.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Doctor Who

#41 Post by Orlac » Sun May 08, 2022 5:56 pm


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soundchaser
Leave Her to Beaver
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:32 am

Re: Doctor Who

#42 Post by soundchaser » Mon May 09, 2022 1:00 am

Personally, I was hoping for another woman to take the lead (partly because I think Whittaker was done a disservice by Chibnall’s writing, partly because I think it’s important not to let a certain contingent of “fans” think that RTD is coming back to make things less “woke”), but Gatwa certainly seems like he’ll have a different take on the character, so I welcome that — what I look for most in the show, generally, is something I’ve never seen before.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Doctor Who

#43 Post by Orlac » Mon May 09, 2022 3:25 am

Some of the posts I've seen relating to this casting on other forums are basically full-on psychotic meltdowns. Very disturbing.

But as you said, Chibnall or RTD or anyone shouldn't be holding back from picking an actor based on upsetting people. Because if the Radio Times letters pages of 1964 proved, Doctor Who fans are an odd bunch.

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MichaelB
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Re: Doctor Who

#44 Post by MichaelB » Mon May 09, 2022 4:07 am

There’s a guy on the Twitter whose biography says something like “Doctor Who fan, 1963-2017”, which doesn’t need translating!

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Doctor Who

#45 Post by Orlac » Mon May 09, 2022 5:02 am

There's was a post last night on another forum, now deleted, where the post basically went off on a rant about, and this is me paraphrasing, that virtue signallers and the outrage bus are all bothered about wimmin Doctors, and don't care at all that a long-term member of Doctor Who fandom is apparently a convincted nerr-do-well. The post was also full of the C-word.

I needed an ice cold shower after reading that!

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J Wilson
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Re: Doctor Who

#46 Post by J Wilson » Tue May 10, 2022 8:22 pm

Funny how the people who complain so vociferously about these casting decisions never seem to take on board the lessons and spirit of the show they're supposedly such fans of. I've found the Chibnall era pretty uniformly awful, but that has way more to do with him than Whittaker.

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Big Ben
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
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Re: Doctor Who

#47 Post by Big Ben » Tue May 10, 2022 9:37 pm

J Wilson wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 8:22 pm
Funny how the people who complain so vociferously about these casting decisions never seem to take on board the lessons and spirit of the show they're supposedly such fans of. I've found the Chibnall era pretty uniformly awful, but that has way more to do with him than Whittaker.
There's a depressing amount of people who don't seem to take much of any show's themes (See also: Star Trek) to heart and it's uniformly depressing. What really irks me is that Doctor Who is made for all ages. You'd think people would be less dense.

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Dr Amicus
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Re: Doctor Who

#48 Post by Dr Amicus » Wed May 11, 2022 6:18 am

With one episode to go, Chibnall's Who has been a bit of an odd one. The first series was deliberately stand alone - no two parters and no returning characters (except the same villain in the first and last episodes). Indeed the main arc plot, previously often a universe threatening device threaded throughout the season, was effectively one of the team accepting his grandmother's second husband as his grandad. It was only with the first New Year's Day special - replacing the old Christmas Specials - that we saw a Dalek. The second series saw more call backs and a couple of two parters - generally I thought it improved a decent first series, but I know the central Timeless Child reveal was controversial. There was an occasional preachiness - lots of historical asides for educational reasons and a moment when Whittaker directly addresses the camera re Climate Change - but that has been inherent in the show since its inception. At its best though, such as the introduction of Jo Martin as a previously unknown Doctor or a great episode at the Villa Diodati, it was as strong as ever.

Unfortunately, COVID than hit - changing plans for the third season with the 6 part Fluxx the result. Generally this was quite an achievement under COVID protocols, but was let down by really needing the last two episodes spread out to three or four as they were a bit rushed. Still, there was much to like - not least John Bishop as a new companion and his sparky relationship with the alien / dog character Karvanista. A great New Year's episode was followed by a slighly underwhelming Easter episode - the former made ingenious use of COVID restrictions for its timeloop-in-a-storage-facility story, the latter though really needed a larger cast (and was rather oddly edited). Still, as a whole, I've generally liked Chibnall's era more than I feared I might - his earlier scripts for the show were solid enough but nothing special - and the cast, especially Whittaker, have been great.

Having not seen Ncuti Gatwa in anything yet - Mrs Amicus likes Sex Education but I have yet to watch it - I have no particular preconceptions. However, Davies picked his previous Who castings very well - look how good Billie Piper and Catherine Tate were despite early misgivings - and was an expert in publicising the show and being very visible, which is something that Chibnallhas been far less happy with doing. Also, Gatwa is clearly an up-and-coming star (with several award nominations to his name). Oh, and the fourth Scottish actor to play the role.

As an aside, there are persistent rumours that there may be a returning Doctor to fill the role for a couple of specials before Gatwa takes over. Persistent enough to be credible...

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captveg
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:28 pm

Re: Doctor Who

#49 Post by captveg » Tue May 17, 2022 6:20 pm

I agree with you, Dr Amicus, that the second Series for Chibnall/Whittaker was it's high point, though I have not yet seen the most recent Special. Looking forward to Davies' return and the new Doctor. In general, the writing does need a step up to match the Tennant/Smith eras again.

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soundchaser
Leave Her to Beaver
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Re: Doctor Who

#50 Post by soundchaser » Tue May 17, 2022 6:59 pm

captveg wrote:
Tue May 17, 2022 6:20 pm
I agree with you, Dr Amicus, that the second Series for Chibnall/Whittaker was it's high point, though I have not yet seen the most recent Special. Looking forward to Davies' return and the new Doctor. In general, the writing does need a step up to match the Tennant/Smith eras again.
If you loved the Tennant era, I have news about what’s being filmed right now…

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