Doctor Who *Spoilers Abound! We've lost Containment*

Just (finally) got a chance to watch Series 12,m. I nay post more later, but my general feeling is that there should have been had the episodes and then all be 2-parters. I liked some of the characters, but we didn’t get a chance to know then. I liked done of the morals, but they were do short that the writing was forced to be preachy and inelegant. I liked the villains, but they were gone so fast as to never be a real threat.

I hope the Christmas-New Years-whatever special is long enough to tell a complete story and not too ambitious as to ruin it. But the setup at the end of Timeless Children and the presence of Daleks leaves me with little hope of either.

Can we get a new showrunner? I like Whitaker as the Doctor, she is just given such mediocre stuff to work with.

Just when I thought 2020 couldn't get anyway worse Captain Jack is coming back for the christmas/new year speical.

onewild wrote:

Just when I thought 2020 couldn't get anyway worse Captain Jack is coming back for the christmas/new year special.

And that is supposed to be a bad thing? I beg to differ...

It's an awful thing, I hate that character (well not at first but what he became) like no other in Doctor Who. It's like watching a 5 year old after drinking 10 cups of coffee whenever he is on screen these days. He was good at first then slowly but surely just become more and more zany whacky working annoyence.

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting Mr. Big.

Guess Spoilers although it's from the BBC website

Spoiler:

I swear if they mess up Graham leaving, I'm going to be so upset. Series 11 Graham is the best companion.

Why didn't you tell me there was new doctor who? Oh wait you did. I'm still mad at you.

I didn’t like that they...

Spoiler:

... kept the least interesting companion.

Also, why do they need to swap companions at all? I feel like they think overlapping will cushion the blow of having a new Doctor, but I’d rather the whole cast turnover at the same time so the show feels like it’s own brand new show.

I need to give the most recent doctor another chance. I powered though the first couple of episodes and it wasn't connecting with me very well, to be polite. I started watching Doctor Who reruns when I was 8 or 9 years old so the nostalgia has pushed me through low points in the revival but I feel like it has run out.

For me, the Davis Tennant Doctor was the first and the best. I flamed out on both Smith and Capaldi, but I’ve really liked the Jodie Whittaker series - likely due to the change in showrunners.

PoderOmega wrote:

I need to give the most recent doctor another chance. I powered though the first couple of episodes and it wasn't connecting with me very well, to be polite. I started watching Doctor Who reruns when I was 8 or 9 years old so the nostalgia has pushed me through low points in the revival but I feel like it has run out.

if by "new" you mean Jodie Whitaker, I would just skip ahead and watch Demons of the Punjab. You don't really need any backstory to enjoy it and I thought it was one of her best.

I didn't use the word "new" in my post, but yes by "Most recent" I mean Jodie Whitaker. I'll probably just put them on in the background while gaming but I'll keep an eye out for that episode as one to actually watch, thanks.

So the Christmas Speical was a thing that happened. So if you don't like sport, this is what it feels like to support a rubbish team, like you watch them out of a sense of duty that they might regain their glory days but deep down you know its not happening with the current manager in charge. All the parts are there but they just can't be bothered. Chris Chibnall has had long enough to make his mark and apart from the season 11 Graham dealing with Grief, and a couple of episodes not written by him, it's been awful.

Yeah, Chibnall is a terrible showrunner. I watched Jodie's first season, but I dropped it after that. I'm just waiting for him to leave before I come back. Hopefully Jodie stays on after he leaves so we get a chance to see her with some good writing.

To be fair though, modern Doctor Who has never had a truly great showrunner. Moffat was a better writer than a showrunner and RTD was far too bombastic.

She's bowing out after this upcoming series, and I'll miss her even if Smith and middle Capaldi have been my favorites. I grew up on the original series, and can see that it's damn hard to write well for. Personally I think Chibnall has a knack for having his characters express deep emotion without histrionics, and the more somber tone feels appropriate for the world we're in now. The series feels more episodic now, though, and I'm not sure I want that in anything that's not a traditional sitcom any more.

I liked the special for the most part. To bad for covid messing with production. I could see the many scenes where it was clear the actors weren't there at the same time.

That Mirror article does not sound all that reliable. I'll wait for official word before I believe she's leaving.

I really liked the special. I don't know, but it kind of hit the spot as a fun little holiday Dalek romp. And it was nice seeing Jack again, even if i couldn't get his Arrow character out of my head.

As for the companions:

Spoiler:

I'm really excited that Yaz is sticking around. It felt like the past two series did some great work on Ryan and Graham's characters and relationships, and that Yaz didn't get the same opportunities. I was* looking forward to some dedicated time letting her character develop. Then they're adding some other dude, so we'll have to see how the dynamic plays out.

And as a few podcasts i listen to pointed out, this was almost unique in that it was a companion choosing to leave out of growth and not trauma, or being forced to leave. I hadn't noticed that while watching, but it really does make it feel better, especially as a holiday special

They lost me somewhat with the heavy handedness of Ryan and Graham's exit. For anyone that cared enough to have watched, just seeing Ryan and his change in attitude tackling the bike and his relationship with Graham bookended their run as companions well. The whole "sun in their eyes" thing made me feel like Chibnall was treating the fans like idiots having to spell it all out like that.

onewild wrote:

Sthis is what it feels like to support a rubbish team, like you watch them out of a sense of duty that they might regain their glory days but deep down you know its not happening with the current manager in charge.

This! The problem my wife and I have is that we both Genuinely WANT to like Jodie Whittaker's run but the storytelling in the majority of her episodes has been some of the weakest in Modern Who. If she does exit I'd really like to see them give the nod to another actor that isn't White and Male.

Did I just watch The Doctor

Spoiler:

murder a Tardis?

Hey all. I did a podcast with a prop maker - I think the senior boss propmaker - on the Ecclestone and Tennant Dr. Who series. He also worked on Torchwood and made an Eddie for Iron Maiden

Skip to 52 minutes in for the prop stuff:

http://istya.libsyn.com/ep-293-quate...

https://linktr.ee/isawthatyearsago

That was one of the few bits of the last couple of seasons I really liked, the idea of another of the doctor's lives out there doing stuff that the doctor didn't know about. If Jodie Whitaker does end up leaving the show and they made Jo Martin the next doctor that could be fun and interesting--I don't recall the specifics of that plot or what ended up happening with Martin's doctor, but it's Doctor Who, they can come up with a timey wimey reason Whitaker regenerates into Martin and just move on and I wouldn't particularly care.

My wife and I finally finished watching the Xmas/new years special the other day, and I agree with the general sentiment here that Chibnalls' tenure has been pretty underwhelming. It hasn't been as convoluted and overly tricky as some of the things Moffat did that frustrated me, but he hasn't gotten away from the problem I felt with Moffat of trying to make everything too big: rewriting all of history, discovering that everything we know about something was wrong, etc. I think given how much Moffat's episodes stood out during the RTD era, and because of the many charming performers he had, it took me a long time to realize that I was enjoying the show much less overall. I should go back to the first few seasons of the relaunch and refresh myself on what that was all like. I think Doctor Who stuff is on HBO Max now, right?

It was all on Amazon Prime

Every Episode of Popular Time Travel Show

I guess this season is one long story. After watching the first two episodes I'm not really digging it but that could change. The first episode had a lot of setup that might pay off later. Already some stuff came up in episode 2. Still I think there will be pacing issues. There were a number of things that didn't get touched on in episode 2 that were introduced in episode 1. I'm thinking those things could have been pushed to later episodes since they didn't add much if anything except confusion.

New bad guys are interesting. New companion seems like a clone of the old guy companion.

I am going to save these and binge it when it gets closer to done. I am hopeful that there will be something interesting in the pipes, but I can't remember the last time I really loved an episode of Doctor Who.

Episode 3 of the new season is really good. Might be the best episode with the newest doctor. lots of things come together and some interesting things teased.

Minor spoiler about a outfit change I didn't get.

Spoiler:

In one scene the doctor's coat is black. No reason is given why this is. Later the coat changes back to normal. There is a lot of time space jumping in this episode but the doctor's outfit is always the same except for this one scene she has black coat on.

I doubt it even means anything. Probably just a mistake.

I also liked everybody in this episode. The companions or tag a longs were all used really well in this episode.

This makes me hopeful for new Doctor Who. I will probably start watching this after Thanksgiving to try to hit the season finale live, but that almost never happens.

Besides, I still need to watch Dune, a bunch of Marvel stuff, and the new Masters of the Universe cartoon releasing soon-ish.

Well after making an decent episode with Village of the Angels (although I still think they were miles better as just predators and not master villians). That was a hot mess of all plot and no story. How he plans on wrapping it all up in just one hour I have no idea but I sure don't think its going to be pretty.