Doctor Who Series 13: Goodbye, Mr. Chibs

[Mister Six]

Haha, fucking hell.

Are there lots of bits that go

EXT. DAN'S STREET, NIGHT
Dan materialises on his street. It is night. He looks around.

DAN
I'm on my street and it is night! My name is Dan.

?

[JamesTC]

EXT. DAN'S STREET, NIGHT
Dan materialises on his street. It is night. He looks around.

DAN
I'm on my street and it is night! My name is Dan.

Skimmed over the post and genuinely thought that was a quote for a second there.

[Replies From View]

Part of the fun of the modern show, innit? A new TARDIS interior gets almost as much heat as a new Doctor. And it almost always marks a new direction of some sort - new tone, new Doctor, new showrunner, that sort of thing.

Plus, it means that you're never stuck with a particularly awful design for too long. I won't be sad to see the back of this very strange mish mash of a console room, it's a bloody mess.

It was tragic to know Capaldi's superlative version was being pulled down to make room for Whittaker's cheap and shitty one, though I do agree.

[mothman]

Haha, fucking hell.

Are there lots of bits that go

EXT. DAN'S STREET, NIGHT
Dan materialises on his street. It is night. He looks around.

DAN
I'm on my street and it is night! My name is Dan.

?

I really couldn't tell if this was genuine or not...

[Jack Shaftoe]

A bit of insight into working for Chibnall here, or at least what it was like to be on the writing team for season one of Torchwood...

My god, that was a stressful read, but fascinating, cheers for that!

[Mister Six]

My god, that was a stressful read, but fascinating, cheers for that!

No worries, glad you enjoyed (?) it. Am I right in thinking you do some writing for TV? If so, does what happened there sound particularly surprising/terrible?

[Jack Shaftoe]

Mmm, written for drama (never made), comedy and kids' telly. Had some rubbish-ish experiences, but not as bad as that - thinking particularly of getting someone to leave a steady gig (the soaps can pay *very* well if you're getting regular work), leaving them hanging for a long time when you've demanded exclusivity, very rare in the UK, then rushing them to get a first draft in. The 'we all have to go the main writers' house and get this done' is a particularly piss-poor move, smacks of powerplay and shit organisation.

All the warning signs were there, but to be honest, potentially-decent genre telly gigs are so rare, I can imagine thinking 'just power through this and I might have something really exciting on telly'. And then you see the end result and think 'oh'.

Christ, UK telly is so half-arsed sometimes, it's a miracle anything good slips through the net. One particular problem at the moment is writers thinking they're the next Joss Whedon (or the Joss Whedon of the early 2000s, anyway) and going a bit mad with power and their 'vision', telling everyone they're a showrunner, but not having the production experience to back it up, so scripts don't get finished in time and the crew have to work insane hours to make up for it, with all the accompanying mental and physical health issues.

[Bingo Fury]

10:04:03 EXT. MASON STREET, LIVERPOOL - DAY X1 1032
A half-built street in the Edge Hill district of Liverpool, in
the 19th century. The area around is sandstone, unused land,
quarry style. On other bits of the land, PEOPLE are moving,
working. One house in the middle is built, there are a couple
of others in early stages of construction.
CAPTION: LIVERPOOL, 1820.
10:04:12 Music Out 'M02 Opening Titles'
CUT TO:
10:04: 19 INT. WILLIAMSON'S TUNNELS - DAY X1 1032
Long tunnel. WORKERS are digging further along. A couple are
working on a doorway. Other workers are moving rubble along.

I haven't looked at many actual TV scripts, so I have to ask: are writers supposed to specify timings to the second when they submit their scripts? I thought it would be the job of the director and editor. What if they thought nine seconds was too short for establishing the Mason Street scene and wanted to fill it out a bit? Or shorten other scenes?

It's almost like someone went back and added timings to the script after comparing it with the finished edit.

[Mister Six]

Yeah, that must have been added later, surely. You can't predict how the final thing is going to be edited.

One particular problem at the moment is writers thinking they're the next Joss Whedon (or the Joss Whedon of the early 2000s, anyway) and going a bit mad with power and their 'vision', telling everyone they're a showrunner, but not having the production experience to back it up, so scripts don't get finished in time and the crew have to work insane hours to make up for it, with all the accompanying mental and physical health issues.

Oof. Rewriting every script and micromanaging things, you mean?

[canted_angle_again]

Yeah, that must have been added later, surely. You can't predict how the final thing is going to be edited.

Oof. Rewriting every script and micromanaging things, you mean?

Chibnall has an uncompromising vision for his shitness.

[JamesTC]

Oof. Rewriting every script and micromanaging things, you mean?

Honestly I feel like RTD was bad for this more than anybody. The fact that he ended up re-writing every episode (aside from Moffat episodes apparently), says to me that either he wasn't getting the right writers or he was overly fixated on his vision.

[Mister Six]

Didn't Moffat do the same? Gaiman complained about his episodes getting rewritten (the big bloody diva) and I'm guessing Chibnall is behind the deranged ending to Kerblam.

[canted_angle_again]

I'm not sure anyone is behind the deranged ending of Kablam, unless it's Lawrence Fox. 

[Jack Shaftoe]

Oof. Rewriting every script and micromanaging things, you mean?

Honestly, that's not so bad. When you're a writer for hire on someone else's project, that's kind of bundled in - or it should be made clear that's the case, anyway. The warning sign for me is you write a thing, don't hear back for a long time then suddenly it's 'we're going in a different direction so we're going to need you to do a big rewrite' without telling you much else - because then it seems like they don't know what they want either and you're going to have to go through this a number of times. I'd rather they just took it away and did it how they wanted, in that case.

I'm probably less inclined to put up with all this these days because a) I'm developing my own stuff so don't have to (for now) and b) I've got friends who are actual showrunners in the US and they seem to be able to get stuff done calmly and on time and without having to mess their writers around or cause production staff to die from stress.

[Alberon]

There's going to be some very interesting books written about the behind the scenes story of Doctor Who since 2005, but I suspect it's going to be another decade or two before we see them.

[crankshaft]

Honestly I feel like RTD was bad for this more than anybody. The fact that he ended up re-writing every episode (aside from Moffat episodes apparently), says to me that either he wasn't getting the right writers or he was overly fixated on his vision.

He rewrote anyone who wasn't an exec on their own show. So, Moffat, Greenhorn, Chibnall and Graham were left alone but everyone else was subject to (sometimes drastic) rewriting. This is, for example, why Matt Jones never got interviewed about The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit because the whole thing was a page one rewrite by Russell and Matt was somewhat miffed.

[Mister Six]

I'm not sure anyone is behind the deranged ending of Kablam

You think it was AI-generated? Would explain the absence of human emotion or morality, and the computer literally getting away with murder.

The warning sign for me is you write a thing, don't hear back for a long time then suddenly it's 'we're going in a different direction so we're going to need you to do a big rewrite' without telling you much else - because then it seems like they don't know what they want either and you're going to have to go through this a number of times.

I would love to see the original pitch document for Torchwood, and even more so to know how Davies envisioned it. As it stands, it's such a mess of high camp (Cyberwoman vs pterodactyl), teenage sex 'n' gore (the Species rip-off, the cannibals episode) and the occasional worthy-if-dull drama episode (the one with the 1940s people arriving in the present day) that it borders on incoherence. And yet a bunch of those things must have been suggested by (or at least given the nod by) Davies. I suppose he has the chops to make something coherent out of that random assemblage of items, but I'd love to know how he would have gone about it.

[canted_angle_again]

Sorry, I pressed the wrong button.

[Malcy]

According to the director the regeneration is

Spoiler alert

taking place outside the TARDIS. Just Pertwee, McCoy & McGann to have done this previously I think.

[close]

[Replies From View]

1 floor of TARDIS
2 swirling somewhere unspecified (Troughton into Pertwee)
3 on floor of UNIT lab (Pertwee into Tom Baker)
4 in field (Tom Baker into Davison)
5 floor of TARDIS
6 floor of TARDIS
7 inside mortuary (McCoy into McGann)
8 with sisters of thing (McGann into Hurt)
9 inside TARDIS, standing
10 inside TARDIS, standing
11 inside TARDIS, standing
12 half inside bell-tower, half inside TARDIS, both standing
13 inside TARDIS, standing

[Mister Six]

Edit: damn, miscounted my Doctors.

What about Doc 10.5 (with the severed hand)? Was that in the TARDIS? I don't recall.

[Replies From View]

In the TARDIS I think, yes.

[daf]

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray South Pole morn'
And a poor little Doctor, Who is born
On the floor of TARDIS

(In the TARDIS)

And his mama cries
'Cause if there's one thing that she don't need
Is swirling somewhere unspecified
(Troughton into Pertweeeeee)
Not in the TARDIS

(Not in the TARDIS)

[Replies From View]

For a long time I thought that was meant to be sung to the tune of Little Donkey.

[mothman]

1 floor of TARDIS
2 swirling somewhere unspecified (Troughton into Pertwee)
3 on floor of UNIT lab (Pertwee into Tom Baker)
4 in field (Tom Baker into Davison)
5 floor of TARDIS
6 floor of TARDIS
7 inside mortuary (McCoy into McGann)
8 with sisters of thing (McGann into Hurt)
9 inside TARDIS, standing
10 inside TARDIS, standing
11 inside TARDIS, standing
12 half inside bell-tower, half inside TARDIS, both standing
13 inside TARDIS, standing

Wasn't War to 9 filmed, but cut out? Or was that a fan edit I saw? Used a bit if film for the transition into Eccleston, he didn't film it. Anyway, if it's legit, it was standing in the TARDIS.

EDIT: Or was that meant as 9 in your list?

[mothman]

Aargh! I'm so confused...

1 floor of TARDIS
2 swirling somewhere unspecified (Troughton into Pertwee)
3 on floor of UNIT lab (Pertwee into Tom Baker)
4 in field (Tom Baker into Davison)
5 floor of TARDIS
6 floor of TARDIS
7 inside mortuary (McCoy into McGann)
8 with sisters of thing (McGann into Hurt)
War inside TARDIS, standing
9 inside TARDIS, standing
Metacrisis inside TARDIS, lying?
10 inside TARDIS, standing
11 half inside bell-tower, half inside TARDIS, both standing
12 inside TARDIS, standing
13 outside TARDIS, ?

[Malcy]

Totally forgot about Baker to Davison. I just don't really get on with Tom's tenure so forgot.

[Replies From View]

Wasn't War to 9 filmed, but cut out? Or was that a fan edit I saw? Used a bit if film for the transition into Eccleston, he didn't film it. Anyway, if it's legit, it was standing in the TARDIS.

EDIT: Or was that meant as 9 in your list?

Eccleston hasn't shot anything for Doctor Who since leaving in 2005.  The Hurt into Eccleston regeneration merely featured a glimpse of Eccleston's eyes - enough to show who it was he was turning into - then it cut away.  There has been at least one fan edit on youtube, yes, expanding on it.

Yes that's what I meant by number 9 on my list.  I just meant that particular regeneration happened while the War Doctor was standing in his TARDIS, as it rules it out of the regenerations taking place outside it.

[Replies From View]

Aargh! I'm so confused...

1 floor of TARDIS
2 swirling somewhere unspecified (Troughton into Pertwee)
3 on floor of UNIT lab (Pertwee into Tom Baker)
4 in field (Tom Baker into Davison)
5 floor of TARDIS
6 floor of TARDIS
7 inside mortuary (McCoy into McGann)
8 with sisters of thing (McGann into Hurt)
War inside TARDIS, standing
9 inside TARDIS, standing
Metacrisis inside TARDIS, lying?
10 inside TARDIS, standing
11 half inside bell-tower, half inside TARDIS, both standing
12 inside TARDIS, standing
13 outside TARDIS, ?

I wasn't using the Doctor numbers - I was using the regeneration numbers.  Hurt into Eccleston is regeneration number 9.

Yes I suppose the regeneration of Tennant into himself should count as well, but he doesn't lie down while he does it.  He spawns a lying-down clone of himself from the hand but he's himself standing up the entire time.  If you want to include that regeneration I'd add it to my original list as number 11 below:



1 floor of TARDIS (Hartnell into Troughton)
2 swirling somewhere unspecified (Troughton into Pertwee)
3 on floor of UNIT lab (Pertwee into Tom Baker)
4 in field (Tom Baker into Davison)
5 floor of TARDIS (Davison into Colin Baker)
6 floor of TARDIS (Colin Baker - ok, to be pedantic it's McCoy in a wig - into McCoy)
7 inside mortuary (McCoy into McGann)
8 with sisters of thing (McGann into Hurt)
9 inside TARDIS, standing (Hurt into Eccleston)
10 inside TARDIS, standing (Eccleston into Tennant)
11 inside TARDIS, standing (Tennant into Tennant)
12 inside TARDIS, standing (Tennant into Smith)
13 half inside bell-tower, half inside TARDIS, both standing (Smith into Capaldi)
14 inside TARDIS, standing (Capaldi into Whittaker)


It doesn't change the examples in bold anyway, which are the regenerations occurring outside the TARDIS.

[mothman]

Ah right. Curse the War and Metacrisis Doctors, they really make keeping track of all this very difficult!