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Doctor Who - Series 11 (Part 2)

Started by Mister Six, November 02, 2018, 01:50:06 PM

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MojoJojo

Quote from: Mister Six on March 21, 2019, 02:23:47 PM
Honestly if Who got cancelled now I think I'd shrug. Cancelled at the end of season 10 would have been a disaster, but at this point? Ehhh, it'll come back eventually. My only hope is that Chibnall's mediocrity emboldens people who would previously have been too scared to take over after Moffat.

While it's not really what you were commenting on, it being cancelled with a female lead would make a lot of arseholes happy, so I hope it doesn't happen.

Mister Six

Oh, well, that's true. That would be a fly in my cup of lukewarm water.

VelourSpirit

I think I've gotten past all of the sadness I'd have felt if it had been cancelled, because the show I loved is as good as ended for the time being. Yeah, people are always saying this every time Who changes hands, but I've never felt it before. It's just difficult going from two visionaries to... this.
Reading the Writer's Tale has really brought me back to just how exciting everything about Doctor Who used to be. What a mad few years!

Replies From View

It hits home when you go back through the RTD and Moffat DVD sets as well.  Admittedly the commentaries thinned down from 2009 onwards, and we lost Doctor Who Confidential, but you get a strong sense of the popular family phenomenon Doctor Who was when you see events like the Proms concerts.

Phil_A

We need another Wilderness Era, clearly. Let a few dozen new writers loose on a novel range while they learn their craft, ready for the show's eventual triumphant return.

Of course, I know the circumstances that allowed the New Adventures to happen are unlikely to be repeated due to the "brand" being so much more tightly controlled than it ever was back then.

Replies From View

I don't want the show to go off-air for a significant number of years though.  It's depressing to think of the age I might be when it eventually comes back.

daf

I've been watching the old series in order, and have just finished the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era.
Hitting the sterile blast of The Invisible Enemy after lovely cosy Horror of Fang Rock is like going off a cliff.

14 years in - That's your lot : 'Golden Age' over.

14 years in - We've just gone off the new series cliff.

BritishHobo

To be honest, thinking about it now, the end of Moffat's reign seems like it would have been a pretty good place to knock the show on the head for another long while. RTD did a brilliant job of bringing the show back in a fresh format, feeling like something new and original, while slowly reintroducing aspects of the original show. Moffat then did some really amazing and experimental things, and ended up really diving into the history of the show and tying it into big big questions about the character of the Doctor and all the taken-for-granted aspects of the show (his reputation, his companions, the TARDIS, his villains) in truly brilliant ways, rounding it out by going right back to the First Doctor. That could have capped off a perfect run, really. Now it's trundled on with something that feels like it's going through the motions of the show kinda doing a watered-down RTD thing, eventually to fizzle out.

Norton Canes

Ha! Doctor Who is up for a Bafta: Doctor Who Nominated for Must-See Moment

QuoteDoctor Who has been nominated for a BAFTA award as the Must See moment on television in 2018.

The episode Rosa has been nominated for its portrayal of the moment in history when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The episode won plaudits when first shown last year.

The episode is competing against The Bodyguard, where Julia Montague was assassinated, Coronation Street and Gail's monologue on the suicide of Aidan Connor, Killing Eve where Eve stabs Villanelle and the finale of Peter Kay's Car Share

So it's up against a load of populist shit rather than some actual drama series.

Kelvin

I thought Rosa was quite good, certainly compared to most of the other episodes, but the only moment that really stood out and shocked me was Ryan getting slapped for helping that woman near the start.

lipsink

The scene with Ryan's dad's microwave was robbed.

Quote from: daf on March 21, 2019, 10:05:45 PM
I've been watching the old series in order, and have just finished the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era.
Hitting the sterile blast of The Invisible Enemy after lovely cosy Horror of Fang Rock is like going off a cliff.

14 years in - That's your lot : 'Golden Age' over.

14 years in - We've just gone off the new series cliff.

original Dr Who starts going downhill when Sarah Jane leaves rapidly followed by Hinchcliffe. The next season has some good episodes (Fang Rock, Sun Makers, maybe Fendahl, but they're the ones clearly leftovers from the previous team).

Circumstances don't help - the industrial actions and slashed budgets make some of the next series look cheap, especially compared with what else was being made at the time.

We're not yet at 'any old f_cker with an equity card' mind.

Harsh on McCoy/Cartmel, obv.

Just needs someone with a different vision. Or more talking frogs on chairs. One of the two.

Norton Canes

Quote from: A Hat Like That on March 29, 2019, 12:36:07 PM
original Dr Who starts going downhill when Sarah Jane leaves

Rubbish. It was a godsend that we got four Hinchcliffe stories that weren't weighed down by Sarah Jane, three of which featured the best companion actress ever.

Replies From View

Quote from: A Hat Like That on March 29, 2019, 12:36:07 PM
original Dr Who starts going downhill when Sarah Jane leaves rapidly followed by Hinchcliffe. The next season has some good episodes (Fang Rock, Sun Makers, maybe Fendahl, but they're the ones clearly leftovers from the previous team).

Circumstances don't help - the industrial actions and slashed budgets make some of the next series look cheap, especially compared with what else was being made at the time.

We're not yet at 'any old f_cker with an equity card' mind.

I tend to think of Doctor Who as an entirely new show once it shifts production to the reduced episode count in 1970.  If you don't include the 1960s stretch, the comparison between Classic Who and post-2005 Who is a lot neater.

Deanjam

The show was always pretty good right up to Colin. Even the crummier Graham Williams productions had a verve and wit amid the pantomime. It was the lethal mixture of shit Doctor + shit companion + shit scripts + uninterested producer from The Twin Dilemma onwards that was the real drop off. And while Cartmel's last two series were an improvement I still never cared for his omnipotent godlike Doctor, especially as McCoy never had the gravitas to pull it off.

Replies From View

There's something inherently wrong about having a fat Doctor, in my view.

Deanjam

Quote from: Replies From View on March 29, 2019, 03:39:59 PM
There's something inherently wrong about having a fat Doctor, in my view.

Indeed. Patrick Troughton rejected the idea in War Games. He was trying to warn us.

Norton Canes

Quote from: Deanjam on March 29, 2019, 12:54:48 PM
The show was always pretty good right up to Colin. Even the crummier Graham Williams productions had a verve and wit amid the pantomime. It was the lethal mixture of shit Doctor + shit companion + shit scripts + uninterested producer from The Twin Dilemma onwards that was the real drop off

Davison is my favourite Doctor so it pains me to say, but the rot did start to set in on his watch. JN-T rightly takes a lot of the flack but Eric Saward is equally culpable, with his dreary, clunking scripts and the horrendous dialogue that wormed its way into most of the stories he script-edited. Davison's tenure also saw way too many unimaginative, get-the-job-done-on-time directors involved: Peter Moffatt, Ron Jones, Pennant Roberts, all bringing their lackluster vision to the programme. The early 80's seemed to be the time where lighting engineers completely forgot how to light sets atmospherically, although I know there were BBC guidelines in place to ensure the sets didn't get too moody or, you know, dramatic. Also, season 21 in particular seemed to be the tipping point for special effects, where viewers suddenly thought, this really doesn't look good. So yeah, pity really.

Mister Six

Quote from: Norton Canes on March 29, 2019, 03:48:19 PM
I know there were BBC guidelines in place to ensure the sets didn't get too moody or, you know, dramatic.

Really?!

Replies From View

Quote from: Deanjam on March 29, 2019, 03:46:55 PM
Indeed. Patrick Troughton rejected the idea in War Games. He was trying to warn us.

His remark "I've never seen such an incredible bunch," was referring singularly to a photo of Colin Baker that he saw off-camera.

Replies From View

Quote from: Mister Six on March 29, 2019, 05:15:01 PM
Really?!

I think it was just JNT preferring unambitious directors who would work quickly and not fuss about with getting the lighting right.  There were enough moodily lit stories under his watch to show that with a director like Graeme Harper Doctor Who still had a lot of potential, and no BBC guidelines seemed to prevent those stories getting made.

In some commentaries Peter Davison says JNT believed old ladies would reckon their tellies had broken when the lighting wasn't stark white, but I think he was taking the piss.

pigamus

Yeah, I think there were probably directives about picture quality and whatnot, but it sounds like laziness more than anything. I know Johnny Byrne wanted Warriors of the Deep to have a moody, underwater feel to it - it makes much more sense that way - but the default setting was 'lit up like a football pitch'.

Phil_A

Quote from: Replies From View on March 29, 2019, 05:49:06 PM
I think it was just JNT preferring unambitious directors who would work quickly and not fuss about with getting the lighting right.  There were enough moodily lit stories under his watch to show that with a director like Graeme Harper Doctor Who still had a lot of potential, and no BBC guidelines seemed to prevent those stories getting made.

In some commentaries Peter Davison says JNT believed old ladies would reckon their tellies had broken when the lighting wasn't stark white, but I think he was taking the piss.

There's a story about Harper coming in to do an episode of Star Cops, and getting them to turn all the studio lights off so it instantly looked moody and atmospheric compared to what had already been recorded. For the next episode another director came in and turned them all back on again.

pigamus

To be fair, this is the early 80s we're talking about. Bright! Shiny! Glossy! Escape the doom and gloom of the 70s!

Replies From View

Quote from: pigamus on March 29, 2019, 06:08:23 PM
To be fair, this is the early 80s we're talking about. Bright! Shiny! Glossy! Escape the doom and gloom of the 70s!

But anyone with functioning eyes could see that blanket white studio lighting was making everything look cheap and plasticky (or failing to hide the materials that were being used in the production).  Nobody making Warriors of the Deep would have believed they were replicating Star Wars - they knew they were running against the clock and had little choice but to do everything quickly and cheaply.

St_Eddie


VelourSpirit

Quote from: Norton Canes on March 29, 2019, 11:06:07 AM
Ha! Doctor Who is up for a Bafta: Doctor Who Nominated for Must-See Moment

So it's up against a load of populist shit rather than some actual drama series.

How fucking toothless. Any idiot could turn 'Rosa Parks not giving up her seat' into a precious must see prestige TV moment.

VelourSpirit

Quote from: Replies From View on March 29, 2019, 03:39:59 PM
There's something inherently wrong about having a fat Doctor, in my view.

There was an idea to have Richard Griffiths play the 8th Doctor with Julia Sawalha as the companion had the series not been cancelled. I think that would have been brilliant. https://imgur.com/a/SKwwa

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: TwinPeaks on March 30, 2019, 03:49:16 PM
There was an idea to have Richard Griffiths play the 8th Doctor with Julia Sawalha as the companion had the series not been cancelled. I think that would have been brilliant. https://imgur.com/a/SKwwa

Yes, that could have been excellent.