RTD back for Doctor Who

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I care more about new Doctor Who being made than whether I personally like it, so RTD coming back is fine even if he runs me off.

And nothing he does can possibly be worse than Chibnall's origin story stuff, as well.  Even having Tennant as a brief 14th Doctor wouldn't be so shit, if that's the worst case scenario right now.

At the very least, he will refresh the show in a way that series 10 and Chibnall didn't - it's just unfortunate that it gives the impression only RTD is capable of such a thing, and to stay afloat Doctor Who is now completely dependent on the man who brought it back in 2005.

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It's just the smugness of it isn't it? The incredibly amazing Doctor in the incredibly amazing TARDIS having the most incredibly amazing adventures there ever were... All that "madman in a box" stuff. You literally couldn't have a TV show more pleased with itself. Except, as has been pointed out, it has always been quite variable in quality right from the start.

Is this smugness of characters, more than the show itself?  The Tenth Doctor and Rose holding hands running was incredibly smug, but I'm not sure that was the show being in love with itself.

I'm confused because one of the pivotal aspects of the show is that everyone goes on amazing adventures through time and space, and if anyone in the frame grumpily treats it like a trip to IKEA they obviously aren't worthy of being a companion.

I take the point that during Chibnall's time nobody was amazed at what they experienced, but this was the case with Clara as well.  And then it was a breath of fresh air when Bill came onboard and gawped in open eyed wonder at the magic and mysteries of the cosmos.


Still not sure how any of this equates to the show being in love with itself or smug.

[McDead]

Is this smugness of characters, more than the show itself?  The Tenth Doctor and Rose holding hands running was incredibly smug, but I'm not sure that was the show being in love with itself.

I'm confused because one of the pivotal aspects of the show is that everyone goes on amazing adventures through time and space, and if anyone in the frame grumpily treats it like a trip to IKEA they obviously aren't worthy of being a companion.

I take the point that during Chibnall's time nobody was amazed at what they experienced, but this was the case with Clara as well.  And then it was a breath of fresh air when Bill came onboard and gawped in open eyed wonder at the magic and mysteries of the cosmos.


Still not sure how any of this equates to the show being in love with itself or smug.

I don't want to speak for Pigamus here, but it's not really any of these things in particular (though in a sense it's all of these things) it's more a sort of smug aura that the show has acquired. Little details like Murray Gold's inane triumphal musical cues, the preponderance of the colour gold, the hubris of delivering inane concepts like they're the epitome of sheer bloody brilliance. Then Moffat's ultra competent heroic characters, delivering their deadly bon mots with a smirk. At its worst, it *is* a smug show, bordering on smarmy at times. I think this is because - and this is pure conjecture now - one of the cornerstones of the modern show is the City of Death. A story that is beautifully told, rated very highly, looks incredible, but is also, yes, pretty smug about itself.

In a way, Who is at its best in moments like we have now, where it has to once again prove itself. It can't rest on its laurels anymore, those laurels are forgotten and irrelevant. It has to once again show that it works. This, for me, is why the Eccleston series is the strongest of the modern run; coming from a position of weakness, it had to pull out all the stops.

[Psybro]

The smugness comes at least as much from Buffy as from City of Death, although that show allowed its central characters to get their comeuppance more brutally.

[McDead]

The smugness comes at least as much from Buffy as from City of Death, although that show allowed its central characters to get their comeuppance more brutally.

Yes, I agree. CoD is one of the cornerstones of the modern show, I know that Buffy and Smallville are in there too (among others).

[McDead]

Despite all that, if I look back at any single scene from the RTD era - even a deeply annoying one - it stands head and shoulders above what we have now. As bloated and self satisfied as the show might have gotten under Davies, at least it wasn't this dreadful inertia.

[Alberon]

At least there are things to talk about. Beyond the script and production errors there's usually very little to discuss about Chibnall's efforts.

[Mister Six]

I wonder whether it might end up being key in bringing people back on board, the nostalgia-bait element of it. One surprising thing I've noticed while reading comments elsewhere is that a lot of people who love the show and love RTD's era don't seem to have realised RTD is coming back. I saw a lot of reactions to Ncuti's casting where people were saying "I love the casting but I just can't return to the show with how shit the head writers are now". Lots of pleasant surprise from people upon being told RTD is back. I wonder if there's a big chunk of audience who wouldn't have watched the next series on its own - assuming it was still under the same umbrella as the last few - but will get enticed back by Tennant/Tate adventures and then keep watching into Ncuti's era once they realise it feels more like the show they enjoyed, and not the one they stopped watching.

Definitely - like I said before, Tate and Tennant are there to get the thirty/fortysomething parents back, bringing their kids with them. Ncuti and Finney, both big YA Netflix stars with millions of Instagram followers, are there to bring in the late-teen, early twentysomethings who either dropped out after Smith or never signed up during Capaldi/Whittaker (hopefully with their younger siblings in tow).

It's all calculated. Not cynical, because RTD obviously believes in on-screen diversity and wouldn't hire anyone who's not right for the job, but very calculated.

[pigamus]

I don't want to speak for Pigamus here, but it's not really any of these things in particular (though in a sense it's all of these things) it's more a sort of smug aura that the show has acquired. Little details like Murray Gold's inane triumphal musical cues, the preponderance of the colour gold, the hubris of delivering inane concepts like they're the epitome of sheer bloody brilliance. Then Moffat's ultra competent heroic characters, delivering their deadly bon mots with a smirk. At its worst, it *is* a smug show, bordering on smarmy at times. I think this is because - and this is pure conjecture now - one of the cornerstones of the modern show is the City of Death. A story that is beautifully told, rated very highly, looks incredible, but is also, yes, pretty smug about itself.

Yeah. And the whole fetishisation of the Doctor thing, the whole insistence on going on about his total amazingness all the time  - I think it got to the point where to the casual viewer it all got pretty self-involved and annoying, and so much smoke being blown up the show's arse when half the time it wasn't even all that great, as Kelvin said. Chibnall's stuff didn't feel so much like that- at least until you got to all that Tecteun shit...

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I agree with all of this.  I guess I just never considered it a smugness of "the show" before; it was all within and about the characters.  Like everyone gasping and blubbing over the astonishing nature of the Doctor - it was horrible but I never thought of it as the show being in love with itself.

Fair enough take on it though.  I've no issue with it.

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Chibnall's version just had no emotional responses going on full stop.  I think it might be unfair to assume that if he could have featured wall-to-wall show-not-tell about the Doctor's awesomeness, he simply wouldn't have done.

He was copying RTD's and Moffat's worst excesses to the best of his ability.  He was just too shit to match the exact manner in which they could be bad.

[Mister Six]

I agree with all of this.  I guess I just never considered it a smugness of "the show" before; it was all within and about the characters.  Like everyone gasping and blubbing over the astonishing nature of the Doctor - it was horrible but I never thought of it as the show being in love with itself.

That came to an end with Capaldi, though, didn't it? Clara was basically taking the piss out of him constantly, while S8 (and to a lesser extent S9) Capaldi was neurotic and self-doubting. Even S10 Capaldi was regularly undercut by Bill being impressed by the "wrong" things ("It's... smaller on the outside!").

And Smith was allowed to have pratfalls and a general air of bookish nerdiness. As was Eccleston, actually. It's really only Tennant that was fawned over by the characters and the show, and maybe if RTD had stuck around for another Doctor after him, we'd have gotten a less assured and cool Doctor. 

Of course, now we're getting Tennant again, one way or another, so we could see a reversion to that for a bit, but that doesn't mean it'll continue with Gatwa's Doctor.

[BritishHobo]

It's a tough thing to quantify, but I definitely agree with it. As a whole I adore Moffat's Who and will defend it to the death, but I always felt he was a bit too in love with his characters (Clara most of all, but also River and Amy to an extent) in a way that felt very very smug. All the nicknames and terms for the characters, the Impossible Girl and the Girl Who Waited and so on and so forth. I guess at its base its the loss of the idea that these are ordinary - but still brave and brilliant - people having these adventures, and that instead they're THE GREATEST PEOPLE. Tennant and Rose were definitely the starting point of that. All the banging on about Rose and nobody measuring up felt less like a heartbreaking romantic plot and more like the feeling of making friends with someone who just keeps saying you're not as cool as their old friend.

[McDead]

Of course, now we're getting Tennant again, one way or another, so we could see a reversion to that for a bit, but that doesn't mean it'll continue with Gatwa's Doctor.

Agreed. But I think that's because the show itself is on thin ice, and has nothing to be pleased about. So I'd expect confidence, brio, lots of energy, but none of the complacent (imo) smugness that attended the show during the late RTD/Moffat era

[pigamus]

It's a tough thing to quantify, but I definitely agree with it. As a whole I adore Moffat's Who and will defend it to the death, but I always felt he was a bit too in love with his characters (Clara most of all, but also River and Amy to an extent) in a way that felt very very smug. All the nicknames and terms for the characters, the Impossible Girl and the Girl Who Waited and so on and so forth. I guess at its base its the loss of the idea that these are ordinary - but still brave and brilliant - people having these adventures, and that instead they're THE GREATEST PEOPLE. Tennant and Rose were definitely the starting point of that. All the banging on about Rose and nobody measuring up felt less like a heartbreaking romantic plot and more like the feeling of making friends with someone who just keeps saying you're not as cool as their old friend.

Yes - and all the tricksy cutesy stuff - I remember being taken aback by how many people fucking hated Let's Kill Hitler for example - I love the Moff as well but he was really starting to get on people's tits

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Ah, so it's perceived complacency maybe.

[Midas]

Half the stories serving as metanarratives about the show itself didn't do them any favours either.

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With Amy, Clara and River, Moffat was entertaining the idea of the 11th Doctor being drawn towards people who are themselves puzzles, or temporally broken or what have you.  Unless I'm mistaken this ended with Capaldi - Clara stuck around but she had been reconfigured as an ordinary (albeit aloof and largely unimpressed) person rather than the impossible girl, and Bill was a great characterisation regardless of whether there was a mystery at her core.

Let's Kill Hitler, in its throwaway rendering of River's origins, was an example of Moffat opting for whimsy after building everything up so much that he couldn't handle it.  Some people reacted to the opening scenes of The Big Bang in a similar way.  But in Let's Kill Hitler what could have left River's origins undefined and open-ended plonked in a load of cartoony flirting from a besotted River Song, in a manner that sat really badly after we'd been told to expect something much deeper.  And we learned that for no good reason she was now much much younger than the Doctor, which brought additional problems.

Still, though.  On the other hand the episode showed us exactly how close the show should get to real historical traumas and tragedies, so you don't accidentally have the Doctor passively standing around on a bus while Jews are being rounded up.

[BritishHobo]

I don't think I minded it so much with Amy, because the puzzle, incorporating her mysterious childhood, felt like it gave depth of character. Clara just always felt mysterious in a very shallow way. The mystery came first ("How is she a dalek AND a Victorian maid?!") and so the reveal, when it came (she walked into a wispy timestream AFTER getting to know the Doctor) it told us nothing about her character or who she is or what drove her.

I had a whole other problem with her direction alongside Capaldi because it felt like Moffat started writing her as a very unpleasant figure, shouting at and berating the Doctor in a way that was less like Donna's brassiness, and more just like one of those couples who always make a party awkward because they get into genuinely horrible arguments in front of everyone.

I have been meaning to rewatch series 8 and 9 for a while though, as I've read many posts here with other interpretations of their dynamic, and I'm hoping I'll finally get what he was going for if I watch again.

[Mister Six]

I know there's a "rewatching Who" thread, but that's sort of died. Is anyone up for a proper watchalong thread, going through all the RTD (maybe also all the Moffat) episodes in the lead up to the 60th?

[Blinder Data]

to the doctor/Donna naysayers: it makes sense to bring back a doctor for an anniversary special, for that doctor to be the one RTD wrote for the most, for that doctor to be the one that everyone remembers when the show was at its most popular nationally, and for the returning companion to be the one who didn't have a happy ending and had the best chemistry with the doctor.

RTD, like Moffat, at least has failings that are interesting. Even Russell's worst stuff in Who had a certain verve to it that let you feel some sense of excitement in the show.

this, basically

[Alberon]

Another set photo. Spoilered for those who don't want to follow too closely.

Spoiler alert

As expected with the announcement yesterday Yasmin is on set.

[close]

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Nothing spoilery - they're just stepping into the TARDIS.

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Youtube video, with the title potentially a spoiler but probably not.  Just in case I've put it in spoiler tags.

Spoiler alert

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Currently a live video, so it's revealing some news coming out at this very moment, including who'll be directing.

[daf]

I know there's a "rewatching Who" thread, but that's sort of died. Is anyone up for a proper watchalong thread, going through all the RTD (maybe also all the Moffat) episodes in the lead up to the 60th?

I'd be up for that!

I've got all the blu ray steelbooks up to Capaldi's first series, so the RTD years would be good for me.

I've only watched them once before, and there's still three or four I've never seen - so would be good to finally tick those off.

[Malcy]

I'd be up for that!

I've got all the blu ray steelbooks up to Capaldi's first series, so the RTD years would be good for me.

I've only watched them once before, and there's still three or four I've never seen - so would be good to finally tick those off.

That's a mad thing for me. I've seen all of the RTD Era several times. And that's being generous.

From Moffat onwards there are plenty i have only seen once. I just can't understand someone like yourself who is obviously a fan NOT seeing episodes but seeing plenty after(I think). Can I ask why?

Disclaimer, i may have asked this before.

[daf]

I just can't understand someone like yourself who is obviously a fan NOT seeing episodes but seeing plenty after(I think). Can I ask why?

I saw a few of the early RTD episodes when they went out, but stopped watching around half way through the series - stuff like the farting aliens just put me off - I remember just not enjoying it and deciding to stop. (I wasn't a Doctor Who fan at this point - I have memories of watching City of Death and Castrovalva as a nipper, but that's about it).

A few years later I started getting into Classic Who via the DVDs (honestly, it was because they were dirt cheap and had loads of extras - which I'm a sucker for!)

The next time I saw the new series was that episode with Rory as a Centurion - I just caught it flipping the channels. That hooked me in and I continued watching the new show as they went out - I loved Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi even more. So I was now a fan of both Classic and New Who.

BBC Three was still going at this point, and showing the RTD era on a loop, so I was able to catch the episodes I'd missed - all of series 2, 3 and 4. They didn't show the specials as often so I've still not seen two of those (plus Midnight - which I also seem to keep missing). I also saw all of the Sarah Jane Adventures - which I though were better than the main show!

At this point, having got all of the classic era DVDs I still wanted more and discovered Big Finish - just at the point that Tom Baker joined. Having only initially intended to get the 4th Doctor stories, I've ended up with close to 800 CD's (and counting - just orederd a 6th Doctor bundle this afternoon!). Ironically the 4th Doctor stories are probably my least favourite!

Skip on a few years and they start releasing the New series as blu-ray steel-books - so I decided I'd finally jump on board. By this point I was on my second chronological marathon - now including all the audios - and the plan would be to finally watch the RTD era when I got through the rest - I'm currently some five years in and about half way through the 6th Doctor's Big Finish years!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TLDR : I'd seen most of them once on BBC 3, and had other stuff to get to (for the first time) before I rewatched them.

[Mister Six]

Well it looks like there are 60 RTD- produced episodes (including specials, not including stuff like Time Crash), so one a week would take us up to the centenary, or thereabouts. If you include Moffat's episodes, it's 144, but if the thread somehow has legs we can press on anyway.

Malcy, you in too?

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Well it looks like there are 60 RTD- produced episodes (including specials, not including stuff like Time Crash), so one a week would take us up to the centenary, or thereabouts. If you include Moffat's episodes, it's 144, but if the thread somehow has legs we can press on anyway.

Sign me up for this

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Having 800 CDs would make me feel sick, I think.  Are they a tenner each?