Doctor Who - Series 8

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I don't think any of us want the dust to settle on the 50th anniversary year before we start properly discussing series 8 of Doctor Who. 

So I thought I would get this new thread going for our endlessly riveting speculative pursuits before we finish up contaminating the 2013 thread, which is anyway bound to be locked and sealed soon.


Series 8!  Capaldi!  Filming begins in January apparently!  All episodes to hopefully air in 2014!  Will there be a new male companion and will you fancy his youthful self?  Stay tuned to find out!

[mycroft]

I hope the new Doctor wears a hat.

[Deanjam]

I hope the new male companion is an emasculated comedy character to go with Clara's sassy wiseacre. That would be different.

Anyway, the big bad for series 8 is apparently

Spoiler alert

The Master

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.

[303]

I wonder if we'll also see

Spoiler alert

a return of the regenerated Susan

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as some have speculated.

[BritishHobo]

I was reading a post somewhere else, fucked if I can remember where, that theorized series 8 as a mirror of the very first series.

Spoiler alert

Capaldi as an older, slightly grumpier Doctor, at the start of his regeneration cycle, travelling with two teachers from Coal Hill School (this is purely based on the unverified rumour that this character Tom who briefly appeared in the 50th will be joining the team next series).

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Likely just grasping at straws, but who knows? Gallifrey back in the picture as well.

[mycroft]

I'd love that to be true, especially if we can go back to a series of adventures with actual villains rather than everything being about the Doctor himself.

[biggytitbo]

I'd love that to be true, especially if we can go back to a series of adventures with actual villains rather than everything being about the Doctor himself.

It's only very recently that the story has been about the doctor, since 2005 it's been the story of the companions mainly.

[Bad Ambassador]

Since Moffat took over, the focus of the series has overwhelmingly been on the Doctor as the core of the increasingly inward-looking series. Series 8 should be the opportunity for a fresh start with no baggage, clear storytelling, developed characterisation and thought given to how audiences engage with scripts. To date, Moffat has done few if any of these things.

[mycroft]

Yeah, wot he said.

Also, I'd like the stories to pretty much follow on from where the last one left off, rather than all of them opening with the Doctor dropping by to pick his companion up again.

[Deanjam]

Speaking of dropping by his companions house at the start of every episode, can we not have any family appearing in the future. Aside from the fact that every companions family is annoying as fuck, it's not what I watch Doctor Who for. Less kitchen sink, more alien worlds please Mr Moffat.

[mycroft]

It also undermines the exciting endings, as someone on my Twitter commented earlier today: "Wow, there's an incarnation of you no one ever knew about! But first I gotta do a PGCE!"

At least having a year elapse between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords' made sense.

[Replies From View]

Speaking of dropping by his companions house at the start of every episode, can we not have any family appearing in the future. Aside from the fact that every companions family is annoying as fuck, it's not what I watch Doctor Who for. Less kitchen sink, more alien worlds please Mr Moffat.

I get the feeling Moffat can't win whatever he does, to be honest.  A few months ago the lack of Clara's family background apparently meant we couldn't attach ourselves emotionally to her character.

People want Moffat to ape RTD, and then when Moffat does a new spin on an old trope it turns out people just don't like Moffat whatever he does.

[Replies From View]

thought given to how audiences engage with scripts.

Everyone's different, though, and I'm one of the few people who finds Moffat's scripts extremely engaging, including the pace at which they unfold and resolve, and their usage of time as a narrative device.  I enjoyed Amy and Rory as companions far more than any other since 2005, and generally love the business with peripheral characters like River Song and the comedy Sontaran.  It's only really Clara who's missed the mark so far.

If it's any consolation I've warmed to RTD a lot more since his time as showrunner ended and he's become part of Doctor Who's history rather than its present moment, so it's possible a lot more people will take to Moffat once his time as showrunner is over.  If you don't like the current showrunner it can be infuriating, but once they're in the past you realise that any damage you thought a showrunner had done to the show can't harm it in the long run.

[Bad Ambassador]

Imagine saying that in 1986.

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Imagine saying that in 1986.

That's an example that I think supports my argument.

Doctor Who eventually came back after its hiatus and later axing, and most fans felt it would return.  I don't think the 1980s have harmed the show in the long run, but while it was happening a lot of people thought it would never recover.  From 2005-2010 I was personally far more upset about where RTD took the show than where it went under JNT.

I think in the end we embrace Doctor Who in its entirety, and this is easier once we can judge a particular showrunner's efforts as a total thing rather than something evolving.

[Bad Ambassador]

I think in the end we embrace Doctor Who in its entirety

No, we don't. And I think that you're underestimating the resistance to bringing Doctor Who back in the early 2000s if you think it was inevitable that it would return. Without someone like RTD who was hardheaded enough to do things his way and actually get it working, it would never have happened or been a complete disaster that consigned the series to the duxtbin forever.

My point about 1986 is well-founded. Though it returned to its former creative strength in 88-89, Doctor Who was spent as an audience force by 1985 because of the same mistakes Moffat is making now.

[Replies From View]

Doctor Who was spent as an audience force by 1985 because of the same mistakes Moffat is making now.

Not really sure I follow the comparison, to be honest.

[biggytitbo]

In 1985/6 they had a bad doctor and some terrible stories, and an overall pal of tiredness and failure about the series


What we have now is a superb, massively globally popular doctor, some mixed stories and more buzz about the show than it's ever had in its history.


Slightly different then.

[Catalogue Trousers]

In 1985/6 they had a perfectly adequate actor let down by lousy scripts and an equally lousy costume, with woefully lacklustre effects for a series set IN SPACE AND TIME, with a production team in constant crisis.

What we have now is a perfectly adequate actor who's been hyped like buggery let down by overly-self-involved stories. As for more buzz now than ever, I say thee nay. There was way more buzz when Eccleston started his run, and when Tennant started his.

The effects are better, and so is the hype, but all things told old and new Who are pretty much equal otherwise.

[El Unicornio, mang]

People want Moffat to ape RTD, and then when Moffat does a new spin on an old trope it turns out people just don't like Moffat whatever he does.

Do a lot of people really like RTD? Out of the first three series', his episodes seem to be, by and large, the ones I dislike the most. Seeing there was another writer (Gatiss, for example) in the intro credits was always a bit of a relief.

[biggytitbo]

In 1985/6 they had a perfectly adequate actor let down by lousy scripts and an equally lousy costume, with woefully lacklustre effects for a series set IN SPACE AND TIME, with a production team in constant crisis.

What we have now is a perfectly adequate actor who's been hyped like buggery let down by overly-self-involved stories. As for more buzz now than ever, I say thee nay. There was way more buzz when Eccleston started his run, and when Tennant started his.

The effects are better, and so is the hype, but all things told old and new Who are pretty much equal otherwise.

That's not remotely borne out by the basic facts though - worlds most watched simulcast drama, most tweeted about drama of all time, front cover of entertainment weekly in the US, beats breaking bad and true blood in the US iTunes Charts, 2013s best rating drama, worlds 2nd biggest tumblr account, biggest iplayer figures etc etc. Granted some of those didn't exist back in the RTD days, but it's just plain silly to argue that Doctor Who has ever been bigger than it is now.

Even Tennant's most successful season, the one with Tate and the fake regeneration hype, got only 800,000 more viewers than Matt Smiths least successful season, but that was more than made up by the increased number of Iplayer and other online views.


As Moffat correctly points out, it's Matt Smith, not David Tennant, who made Who arguably the worlds most successful sci-if show.

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What we have now is a perfectly adequate actor who's been hyped like buggery let down by overly-self-involved stories.

In the opinion of some vocal people who have been complaining since series 5 that Moffat has wrecked RTD's Who.  Doctor Who will change again, and if they have any sense critics of Moffat will soon wonder what all their fussing was about.

I still can't get my head around the comparison with 1985 Who, which was considered an embarrassment on so many levels by mainstream audiences and even its committed fans.  If the problem nowadays is with (what some people perceive to be) convoluted, self-involved stories, then surely a better point of comparison would be a story like Ghost Light, which comes from when people largely agree that Doctor Who was picking back up again.

[mothman]

I've never been a great[nb]In quality OR quantity, I admit.[/nb] contributor to Who threads - I guess I just don't have the critical depth, background knowledge or passion for the show as a whole that many here do. But if I had to make one observation based on past experience, it does seem that average reaction to individual Moffat/Smith episodes (the Doctor's mannerisms, the ep's dialogue, the storylines themselves) has been usually much more positive than with RTD/Tennant ones.

[mothman]

First Doctor (William Hartnell)

'"It's all over." That's what you said. No, but it isn't. It's far from being all over. I must get back to the TARDIS immediately! I must go now... I must go at once. [Ben passes a cloak to The Doctor] Ah yes, thank you. Keep warm.'

Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)

'Is this some sort of joke? No, I refuse to be treated in... What are you doing? No! Stop! You're making me giddy! No! You can't do this to me. No! No! No! No! No! No! No!'

Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)

'A tear, Sarah Jane? No, don't cry. While there's life, there's...'

Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)

'It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for...'

Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)

'Going soon. It's time to say goodbye. Might regenerate, I don't know. Feels different this time. Adric?'

Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)

'Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice...'

Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)

'The Master! He's out there. I've got to stop him.'

Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)

'Physician, heal thyself.'

War Doctor (John Hurt)

'Oh yes, of course. Suppose it makes sense. Wearing a bit thin. I hope the ears are a bit less conspicuous this time.'

Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)

'Rose, before I go I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I.'

Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)

'I don't want to go.'

Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)

'I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.'

Based on Thomas' above quote from the old thread, I was wondering about the FIRST thing a Doctor ever says (after Regenerating) and if you can ever read anything from it about what sort of Doctor he'll be... It seems there are elements in there of 10th and 11th (jokey references to physical changes), plus amnesia (8th) and possibly personality change (6th, uh-oh).

Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)

"Slower. Slower. Concentrate on one thing. One thing. It's over. Hmm, hmm, hmm. It's over... The muscles are still a bit tight."

Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)

(Note sure about this one, did he say anything when he first appeared?) "Oh. Oh, no! That's not me at all!"

Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)

"I tell you, Brigadier, there's nothing to worry about! The brontosarus is large and placid! And stupid! If the square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the square on the other two sides, why is a mouse when it spins? Never did know the answer to that one."

Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)

(Again, unsure what his first words were though I'm sure I remember him saying something at the end of Logopolis) "That's the trouble with regeneration. You quite never know what you're going to get."

Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)

"You were expecting someone else? ...  That's three "I"s in one breath — makes you sound a rather egotistical young lady... Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon. "

Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)

"No, no, Mel... That was a nice nap, now down to business."

Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)

""Who am I? Who... Am... I?!

War Doctor (John Hurt)

"Doctor no more."

Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)

"Fantastic!"

Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)

"Hello! OK... New teeth. That's weird. So where was I? Oh, that's right — Barcelona!"

Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)

" Legs! I've still got legs! ... Good. Arms, hands. Ooh, fingers. Lots of fingers. Ears? Yes. Eyes: two. Nose...I've had worse. Chin - blimey! Hair... I'm a girl! No! No! I'm not a girl! And still not ginger! There's something else. Something... important, I'm... I'm... I'm... Crashing! Geronimo!"

Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi)

"Kidneys! I've got new kidneys! I don't like the colour...  We're probably crashing! Stay calm! Just one question: do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"

[Thomas]

Perhaps the Tenth Doctor just really liked his new teeth.

[mycroft]

I think the third Doctor's first line was, "Shoes... Must find my shoes. Unhand me madam!"

And of course, Hartnell's first line that we hear is, "What are you doing here?"

[Thomas]

I liked Capaldi's gesture as he tells Clara 'we're probably crashing.' I'm very hopeful for his stint as the Doctor.

[mycroft]

I liked Capaldi's gesture as he tells Clara 'we're probably crashing.' I'm very hopeful for his stint as the Doctor.

I liked how his lines were worded ("Would you happen to know...?"). Seems the Doctor has become a grown-up again after that bollocking from Hurt. Hooray!

[Norton Canes]

Davison: "Ah, you've come to help me find the Zero Room. Welcome aboard. I'm The Doctor... or will be, if this regeneration works out..."

Essentially, all I'm hoping for with Capaldi's first season is that each week (for 13 consecutive weeks) he turns up in some random, far-flung location, sorts out whatever problems they've got there, and disappears back into the TARDIS before they get a chance to make him their leader. That's all. Everything else will fall into place after that.

Spoiler alert

IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

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[Ambient Sheep]

No, we don't. And I think that you're underestimating the resistance to bringing Doctor Who back in the early 2000s if you think it was inevitable that it would return. Without someone like RTD who was hardheaded enough to do things his way and actually get it working, it would never have happened or been a complete disaster that consigned the series to the duxtbin forever.

Actually, while I concede that you may know more about this than I do, from reading that recent DWM two-part article about how the show was brought back, it seems to me that the real person to thank is Jane Tranter, who actually pushed both the BBC and Rusty into doing it.