Doctor Who - Series 12, Chibnall's Revenge

[kidsick5000]

Does speculation need Spoiler tags?
Anyway, I hope they do bring him in. It's about time, he's champing at the bit to do it, a precedent has been set with that meta crossing David Bradley turn.
Go on, make it happen. We've only got a few more series before it goes off*, go for broke.

[olliebean]

Well, this looks fucking dreadful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HDo-X-AW0E (gameplay from the VR game)

On the basis of this, gameplay = do what you're told, and if in doubt use the sonic.

[Replies From View]

I watched that clip with the audio off but I didn't think it was terrible.  It surely can't end up worse than the Adventure Games from 2010 which gave you no leeway for experimentation or deviation whatsoever.

It obviously depends what happens after that scene.  However I encounter this in the future it won't be through playing it myself; presumably there will be a range of Let's Plays uploaded to youtube over the coming months.

[Replies From View]

Rewatching it now with the audio on.  It is worse this way - I think it's partly the use of "sonic" as a verb and also the in-universe name for the sonic screwdriver itself.  I've never been able to settle with that.

And yes the voice of the Doctor yammering away does emphasise how much you are just following instructions rather than looking around and putting items together (which is what I assumed with no audio).

[Deanjam]

Lots of rumours knocking about re Chibnall & Whitaker leaving. And the beeb are apparently putting out a press release late. Maybe a lot of nothing of course.

[Alberon]

Trying to think of a year where rumours like that haven't circulated to be honest.

I'm not saying it isn't true but stories like these, mostly from wishful thinkers annoyed the current version of Who isn't the 'correct' version they like, always do the rounds.

[Deanjam]

True. But we've had so little to talk about.

[Norton Canes]

Hmm. Last time they trailed up a big announcement it turned out to be for 'Class'.

[Norton Canes]

'Yaz to be given meaningful line of dialogue'?

[Norton Canes]

Nothing to see, move along

[Deanjam]

Oh well. Time to put the thread to sleep again.

[Mister Six]

Shame. Would like to see Whittaker in a competent version of the show. Especially as the longer she's in the role, the longer Biggy stays out of this thread.

[lipsink]

I'd love to see Chibnall's 'The Writer's Tale':

"I noticed in the kitchen that there was a microwave and thought loads of people have microwaves, don't they? Wouldn't it be good if Ryan's dad had a microwave? So I put that in. Done! Then I took a break for a year."

[Huxleys Babkins]

"I had this amazing idea for a title: Arachnids in the UK! Brilliant! Problem is, Russell T. Davies already did a story about giant spiders, so I made it about Yaz's mum working in a hotel instead. It gave me a brilliant opportunity to really flesh out Yaz's character so I was extra careful to not do that that and make it about the Doctor hating guns and the human race being worse than monsters, something I believe Russell very rarely touched upon."

[weekender]

"Someone has sent me a script in which Kevin Eldon appears as a frog on a chair towards the end.  That's great, it'll be a really crap episode which will surely make mine look great by comparison!
I wonder how they will achieve the special effect of a frog on a chair?  Oh look, a bee."

[Phil_A]

There's an interview with Jed Mercurio in the current TV Years magazine (about his forgotten one series sci-fi effort Invasion: Earth) and the subject of Dr Who comes up.

From memory (havent got it to hand at present) Mercurio says bluntly he'd never take the showrunner role himself as he knows Moffat & Chibnall and has seen the effect it had on them personally.

I do think that speaks volumes about the job, that the kind of people whom you might want to have a shot at it are running a mile because they all know what a massive yoke it is to take on. It should be one of the dream jobs in telly rather than the kind of thing only a maniac would willingly take on.

[Alternative Carpark]

There's an interview with Jed Mercurio in the current TV Years magazine (about his forgotten one series sci-fi effort Invasion: Earth) and the subject of Dr Who comes up.

From memory (havent got it to hand at present) Mercurio says bluntly he'd never take the showrunner role himself as he knows Moffat & Chibnall and has seen the effect it had on them personally.

I do think that speaks volumes about the job, that the kind of people whom you might want to have a shot at it are running a mile because they all know what a massive yoke it is to take on. It should be one of the dream jobs in telly rather than the kind of thing only a maniac would willingly take on.

That's a bit off the mark, I think, what he actually says is:

Because, in my heart, I'm not a Doctor Who fan.  I think it needs someone who loves it to do it.  I mean, in every respect, bar that, it would be an exciting opportunity.  But I don't love the show enough to throw my heart and soul into it, in the way Steven Moffat - who I know very well - did.  And the way that it's taken over Chris Chibnall's life.

I take that as basically just meaning it has to be someone who really cares for it more than he does.

[Alberon]

Ian prepares his CV.


I'm joking.


I'm sure he submitted it years ago.

[lipsink]

There's an interview with Jed Mercurio in the current TV Years magazine (about his forgotten one series sci-fi effort Invasion: Earth) and the subject of Dr Who comes up.

From memory (havent got it to hand at present) Mercurio says bluntly he'd never take the showrunner role himself as he knows Moffat & Chibnall and has seen the effect it had on them personally.

I do think that speaks volumes about the job, that the kind of people whom you might want to have a shot at it are running a mile because they all know what a massive yoke it is to take on. It should be one of the dream jobs in telly rather than the kind of thing only a maniac would willingly take on.

It should be a joint thing. Head writer and showrunner.

[petril]

Ian prepares his CV.


I'm joking.


I'm sure he submitted it years ago.

probably submits it once a fortnight

[H-O-W-L]

when are we gonna get an episode where the doctor just goes "ah, fuck this" and picks up a sodding twelve gauge and whacks the cunt responsible for the day's evil?

[Replies From View]

when are we gonna get an episode where the doctor just goes "ah, fuck this" and picks up a sodding twelve gauge and whacks the cunt responsible for the day's evil?

Dunno

[H-O-W-L]

The last special I really liked (in fact loved, to the point it MIGHT be my favourite Moffat episode?) was The Husbands of River Song. Resolution was boring as shit honestly, I actually didn't even realize it was the special until I looked it up again.

That last part of Husbands of River Song is actually beautiful and probably the only moment since her original arrival where Moffat understood River Song as a character and what made her compelling. In that moment he managed to salvage her, for me, right as he put her to bed. Fucking brilliant.

Still love The Doctor Falls, honestly. I feel like if he didn't regenerate it'd make a fine ending for the show as a whole. The Doctor sacrifices himself to save a bunch of people who are utterly doomed and cannot be saved forever, who don't really MATTER in the grand scheme of the universe, and whom he knows will just be enemies of his future self anyway when the Cybermen catch up to them and convert them. Without hope, without witness, without reward. The scene where he runs around blasting cybercunts with his sonic, even if the fact he can blow up things with his sonic is sort of silly, takes my breath every time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWHtsVI1LLc

[BritishHobo]

Good post, really interesting. RTD had a similar idea in the early planning stages for Tennant's last episode - that he would just end up on a little ship with a few nobodies, a nice, quiet alien family of no importance to the universe, and he would wind up regenerating in order to save the lives of one of them.

[VelourSpirit]

I love that scene in The Doctor Falls too. The reprisal of the Heaven Sent breaking the wall music representing that sysyphean struggle, it's just perfect for him, and it would have been a much better end for the 12th Doctor. The 'without hope, without witness, without reward' mantra repeated throughout the story was beautiful. Such a bleak ending too with Missy dying without the Doctor knowing she tried to help, and not even finding out Bill survived.

[Mister Six]

Missy's death is brilliant. Because we don't see Simm actually regenerate, any future Master could either be from between Simm and Gomez (meaning Missy's death was absolute and final) or be after Gomez (meaning Missy somehow survived, just like all the times Delgado and Ainley somehow survived seemingly inevitable doom).

[VelourSpirit]

I don't know which would be preferable to me. I like the idea of Missy instigating her own birth through her attempt at redemption, so I wouldn't really want incarnations inbetween. I also like the idea of the Master trying to be a good person, and I doubt that'd be followed up on by a future showrunner, so I don't know if I'd even be keen on a new incarnation.
The Doctor Falls should have just been the finale to Doctor Who really

[Replies From View]

I don't think we should see any incarnations between Simm and Gomez.  While there's a desire to see all the Doctor's regenerations as completely as possible, I think they can afford to leave the Master's regenerations open without expecting them to come back and pedantically fill in all the gaps.

There's no doubt that we can have more incarnations of the Master after Missy, but I suppose after Missy's empathetic development there are some potential narrative/character decisions to be made around whether her successors are just evil bastards again.  I can imagine Chibnall fucking it up whatever he does so I'm not sure how I feel.

[A Hat Like That]

The audios went for Alex MacQueen as a Master and I would rather like to see that one on TV

[Kelvin]

I don't think we should see any incarnations between Simm and Gomez.  While there's a desire to see all the Doctor's regenerations as completely as possible, I think they can afford to leave the Master's regenerations open without expecting them to come back and pedantically fill in all the gaps.

Mister Six's point isn't that they should "pedantically fill in the gaps", though. It's that they could continue with evil Masters, while retaining The Master's final redemption.