Doctor Who 2005-2017 : The RTD & Moffat Years

[Mister Six]

I believe they have the rights to all new series stuff other than anything surrounding the current Doctor.

God, that's a thought, maybe Jodie could end up doing a Colin and having a really good audio run that redeems her character.

That would be nice, but I think that for me she's irreparably broken. You can write off Col's more excessive TV moments as post-regen trauma, and he was still fundamentally Doctory under the arsiness, but Jodie's Doc's wet liberal centrism, pro-capitalist/corporatist attitudes and absence of a moral core when faced with stuff like letting Koh Sharmus[nb]Or whatever his name was.[/nb] blow himself up have tainted her for me. It's really sad. Or I'm really sad. But still.

[jamiefairlie]

She's shite, get rid of her.

[JamesTC]

She was good in the film where she lives in a shed.

[Replies From View]

They already have, multiple times, RS has her own series.

I know, I mean "what happens" - ie what do they need to do, rights-wise.  Are the characters bundled automatically with Doctor Who, or do they need to license them somehow from Moffat.

[Replies From View]

She was good in the film where she lives in a shed.

Maybe she could appear in a spin-off of the Dr Who Peter Cushing movies where the inside of the TARDIS was just a shed.

[jamiefairlie]

I know, I mean "what happens" - ie what do they need to do, rights-wise.  Are the characters bundled automatically with Doctor Who, or do they need to license them somehow from Moffat.

I think they're bundled, never heard any different.

[Mister Six]

Again, I don't believe for a second that the BBC is going to allow contracts that treat Doctor Who as anything other than work-for-hire. Why open yourself up to endless lawsuits and having to pay through the nose to use the Daleks the weeping angels or the Slitheen or whatever when you can make sure that everything produced for your show remains your property?

This kind of thing is pretty standard in most companies' contracts. Something produced for the firm becomes the property of the firm. Sometimes that's extended to anything produced on company time/property, and/or with company resources (eg. laptops). There's a subplot in Silicon Valley about this, and it certainly applies to my work contract.

[Thomas]

Sometimes that's extended to anything produced on company time/property, and/or with company resources (eg. laptops).

So my employer has a 70% stake in my CaB posts.

[JamesTC]

Don't see what the bank that employs me wants with reviews of shit Simpsons episodes but if they can monetise them then more power to them.

[Mister Six]

It's more like if you figure out a way to montise them, they'll come knocking.

[Pinball]

It's weird how they get rid of Jodie and her producer, but actually not until 2023. So, um, they haven't got rid of her yet. Another year of political correctness gone maaaad beckons. Maybe a nice fluffy non-political storyline might be possible, like Daleks trying to blow up the earth. Light stuff like that. (Yes I know, Daleks are Nazis so it is political, but you get my point).

And what about James Bond? I wonder how they'll fuck up the new one? Ruining classic shows is what it's all about. In a good cause, of course.

[JamesTC]

Is that a joke?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

If there's one thing the Chibnall era will be remembered for, it's hard-hitting political commentary.

[Pinball]

Is that a joke?

On a comedy forum? Surely not.

[JamesTC]

On a comedy forum? Surely not.

I've seen similar sentiment expressed by somebody seriously so I genuinely couldn't tell.

[Zetetic]

This kind of thing is pretty standard in most companies' contracts. Something produced for the firm becomes the property of the firm.

It's also the default assumption in the UK that if you produce something in the course of actual employment (and not just being contracted to produce a particular work), then the employer owns the copyright.

(Some places also try to write much broader terms into contracts, as Mister Six also notes, but I believe the enforceability of this in the UK is often pretty dubious - but you can also pre-assign copyrights for works that don't exist yet.)

[mjwilson]

There are some monsters (like the Ood i think) which always have a "created by" credit in the closing titles, I understood that that triggered a payment to the original writer.

[Mister Six]

I'd be interested to know how that works. Were the Slitheen or any other Davies monsters in Moffat's run? In the Raven episode maybe? Billie Piper playing the Moment obviously doesn't count, and Moffat writing the first Captain Jack story might have messed around with that.

[olliebean]

Chibnall used the Judoon from Moffat's run, and I gather the

Spoiler alert

Weeping Angels

[close]

are in the next series.

[Zetetic]

I get the vague impression that (UK?) script writers usually retain copyright on their scripts, which I hadn't realised and is interesting if true.

(WGGB guidance on 'created by', but it's about shows rather than elements - but you can sort of see the principle at work.)

[Mister Six]

Chibnall used the Judoon from Moffat's run, and I gather the

Spoiler alert

Weeping Angels

[close]

are in the next series.

Ah, the Judoon were an RTD creation, so there we go. Did he get a credit in that? I'm not inflicting Chibnall on myself again, you can't make me.

[olliebean]

Ah, the Judoon were an RTD creation, so there we go. Did he get a credit in that? I'm not inflicting Chibnall on myself again, you can't make me.

Ah yes, of course they were, I don't know why I thought they were Moffat's. They did appear during Moffat's run as well, though.

[Replies From View]

Ah yes, of course they were, I don't know why I thought they were Moffat's. They did appear during Moffat's run as well, though.

Not sure if they did.  Fairly sure their return in Chibnall's time was the only occasion, unless they were background artists in that Pandorica Opens all-the-Doctor's-enemies scene (or a similar one in A Good Man Goes To War).

[olliebean]

Not sure if they did.  Fairly sure their return in Chibnall's time was the only occasion, unless they were background artists in that Pandorica Opens all-the-Doctor's-enemies scene (or a similar one in A Good Man Goes To War).

Yep, those two episodes and also (according to Wikipedia) in Face the Raven and at the Shadow Proclamation in The Magician's Apprentice.

[Replies From View]

I love that about Doctor Who.  Since its very earliest days raiding the costume cupboard for monsters to include in the background, crowds or cutaways.



THEN THERE WERE THE YETI

[Replies From View]

I always think of that episode of Pebble Mill or whatever it was where they were had a bunch of costumes and props and one of them was a Sea Devil with its eyes smashed in to fuck.

[pigamus]

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x78lobs

[Replies From View]

Brilliant.  And now the Cyberman pushes a free-standing window over and stamps on the glass.


Of course it would.  Whoever came up with it must have imagined the Cyberman SMASHING THROUGH IT like Autons, but how would it have done?



It's a routine watch for me whenever I feel like going through the anniversary specials.  It looks fucking freezing there, by the way.

[pigamus]

Thatcher of course completely decimated the free-standing window industry in this country

[pigamus]

I always get pangs when I go past the bottom of Pebble Mill Road on the bus. There's a dental hospital there now.

https://pinkforyouractualpterodactyl.com/2021/02/22/the-history-of-the-pebble-mill-foyer-and-everything-around-it/