Doctor Who Series 12B: The Timeless Chibnall (Xmas special & pre-Series 13 chat)

[daf]

I love all that. Shows the flaws of this Tweetalong format, though. They're not interacting, because it's too difficult, and you've got two contrasting accounts of the placement of the opening credits that aren't discussed. A benefit is the storyboards and other images.

Yes, a lot of stuff is scattered around - so I grouped a few tweets together in a few places so they were all discussing the same thing at the same time (mainly 'The Fall' at the end of part 1 & the 'Skull' chat in part 2).

Apologies to Kate Walshe - I skipped quite a lot of her tweets * as there were A LOT of pictures, and it was threatening to take me almost 4.5 billion years to wrestle this bugger to the ground as it was!

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* (They can be viewed in their original context here - scroll to the bottom and work upwards)

[Thomas]

daf, you're doing the (Time) Lord's work. I love the scribbles and original scripts and unseen photos we're getting to see.

[Deanjam]

Sharing a charming Peter Capaldi video. I refuse to put him in the old Who thread.

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1250167604708163584

[Mister Six]

Wonderful as ever, daf, thank you!

Capaldi is definitely the default Doctor for me too. I love Matt's performance more, I think, just for how fully he embodied that role, and how instantly he found it, but for me Capaldi had become the Doctor by the end of his run. Love that combination of imperious, righteous power and warm vulnerability. Definitely the Doctor I'd want to travel with.

[daf]

Aw, bless you - my pleasure!

Think I need to re-charge my megabyte modem after that last one - what a beast!

[Thomas]

Sharing a charming Peter Capaldi video. I refuse to put him in the old Who thread.

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1250167604708163584

At primary school our headteacher similarly awed us by trying a sour apple Toxic Waste sweet without reaction.

[olliebean]

Paul Cornell done a fanfic: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/ea758c64-014d-40f3-ba6f-3136207abfa2

[Old Gold Tooth]

It's a bit strange that Cornell chooses to focus on the inconsistency and passive nature of 13 but isn't able to reach any conclusions (or at least not any I could make out). I liked the name on forehead game.

[Malcy]

RTD, Graeme Harper, David Tennant & Catherine Tate all confirmed for the rewatch on Sunday.

[Mango Chimes]

It's a bit strange that Cornell chooses to focus on the inconsistency and passive nature of 13 but isn't able to reach any conclusions (or at least not any I could make out).

Yes, and the gender issue is conspicuously raised in a similarly direct-but-vague fashion. Quite awkwardly written in general, and that Somme joke was odd. As was the reference to

Spoiler alert

undoing the end of Family of Blood

[close]

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[Replies From View]

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[Norton Canes]

I had some Who fanfic published once in a fanzine that also featured an early effort from Cornell. Suffice to say, after that our Who writing careers took a divergent route.

[lipsink]

Thoroughly fascinating, love that ep.

Lovely. Peter's is the default face that comes to mind, quite by its own volition, when I think of the Doctor.

Yeah, same here and I'm not really sure when that happened. Series 8 and 9 I struggled to get a grip on his Doctor but Series 10 he seems like the definitive Doctor.

[Thomas]

Yeah, same here and I'm not really sure when that happened. Series 8 and 9 I struggled to get a grip on his Doctor but Series 10 he seems like the definitive Doctor.

It's the same for me - and many others, I think. Characterful episodes like Mummy on the Orient Express, Listen. and, indeed, Heaven Sent did a lot to fix Capaldz as the Doctor, and the beautiful final scene of The Husbands of River Song - where Capaldi and Kingston get to do some emotional acting together - was the last thing we saw of Doctor Who for an entire year. Even though the show wasn't on our screens for ages, we were left with a lasting flavour of what Capaldi's Doctor could be. Quite magnificent and romantic and clever. Good move to flood that scene with lush golden light, too. A lasting impression of warmth.

Eventually series 10 comes along and he's perfectly realised. The lecturer role, TARDIS parked in his office, the truly complex relationship with Missy - fantastic.

And, of course, it is always so evident that Capaldi loves the show.

[Kelvin]

I think it helps, as well, that Capaldi's Doctor in series 10 became a sort of walking mission statement for the character; that repeated refrain of Kind Without Reward. More than any other version post-2005, The Doctor in series 10 feels like an attempt to distill everything down to a very simple, compelling moral core. I think that's a big part of why he resonates for so many of us long-time fans; when you strip away all the things that make individual Doctors unique, Capaldi ultimately came to explicitly embody what makes them all consistent.     

[Replies From View]

I am still aggrieved that we didn't get a fourth series with Capaldi in his series 10 form.  And for that matter still a little miffed that we didn't get a fourth series with Matt Smith to explore his connection with Gallifrey prior to being granted an extension of his regeneration limit.  Both the eleventh and twelfth Doctors feel truncated to me.

[Thomas]

I'm sure I've read that even Matt Smith regrets the timing of his departure, wishing he'd hung around a bit longer.

[Replies From View]

I'm sure I've read that even Matt Smith regrets the timing of his departure, wishing he'd hung around a bit longer.

I'd love to read that interview.

The tonal shift from the 50th anniversary story to Smith's final episode is so jarring.  All of a sudden Moffat has to jam in the revelation that the Doctor is on his final incarnation and needs a new regeneration cycle, and it never gets to sit properly because as a Christmas special it's seemingly rule-bound to waste precious minutes dwelling on pantomime elements like chucklesome invisible clothes and fourth-wall poking asides about wigs.  You go from the delicate, carefully placed meditation of "Home - the long way round" to rushed exposition about Gallifrey behind the crack, Tennant2 and the War Doctor counting as lives used up, and the promise of Day of the Doctor comes crashing to an immediate, never mind premature end.

Imagine a full series exploring that arc instead.  Such a shame.  But then I suppose "the Doctor will die for real in this series and can't escape it" had been exhausted with the arc of series 6 (which already came too promptly after the Tenth Doctor's grievances about dying in 2009).  It's just that Moffat didn't know in 2011 that the Eleventh Doctor was the thirteenth incarnation, so the finality of that aspect couldn't be explored.  Again, shame.

Hard to believe it's been ten years since series 5.  Brrrr.

[Thomas]

Soon we'll be as far from The Day of the Doctor as that episode was from Rose.

And in another ten-ish years, new Who will have been running for as long as classic Who did.

Time. Passes, dunnit.

[Replies From View]

Time. Passes, dunnit.

NO.  WRONG.

[Thomas]

Quite awkwardly written in general, and that Somme joke was odd. As was the reference to

Spoiler alert

undoing the end of Family of Blood

[close]

.

Just returning upthread to Cornell's story - the Somme joke struck me as a definite misfire. It follows the well-worn formula of the Doctor being flippant and offhand about recalling historical events, but the Somme? 'kin ell. It's also strange, as you say, that Cornell singles out the little girl from the Family of Blood - especially as it's not actually a little girl trapped in a mirror, but an alien who killed a little girl and stole her form.

It is quite funny to offer the explanation that the Thirteenth Doctor's entire onscreen persona has been 'deliberately annoying', and to do so in a quick short story.

[Thomas]

SUNDAY 5pm! Farewell, Sarah Jane. The final Sarah Jane Adventure. A very special story made with the blessing of Lis's family; come and say goodbye. Available on Doctor Who YouTube, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram, and both the global doctorwho.tv and BBC Doctor Who sites.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Hn-tonI1E/

[Malcy]

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Hn-tonI1E/

Excited about this. Wonder what it will be.

[mjwilson]

Agyeman and Barrowman are joining the next tweetalong.

[Thomas]

I've warmed to it over the years, but I've never loved The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. Some people regard it as the show's zenith, but I wonder if that's largely because it's packed with companions (with about two lines apiece).

It's bright, sugary fun, but quite rushed and the night-time lighting is weird, and it has a button-tapping, lever-pulling deus ex machina (think I'm using that correctly) brazen enough to challenge even The Last of the Time Lords. And it plunges the human race of the Whoniverse beyond relatability as far as the ambiguity and denial of aliens is concerned. Why would Amy or Bill or any of the 'fam' be startled by the Doctor's life in a universe where the planet was recently dragged through space, beseiged by flying saucers, and invaded by thousands of alien Nazis? The events were wisely swallowed by the cracks.

I've come to admire the metacrisis regeneration for its sheer cheek - and RTD's ability to write and smuggle in a massive cliffhanger like that, a national talking point - but it crumples the logic of regeneration; next time the Doctor regenerates, he need only lop off a limb (it'll grow right back) and save it in a jar. Never has to change his face. Don't know he gets so tormented every time.

However, I think Donna's departure is wonderfully done, wonderfully sad. Best bit of the whole two-parter. In The Writer's Tale, RTD is trying to figure out why a companion like Donna would ever leave the TARDIS - and he realises it would never be by choice. Davros is fantastically performed, and Dalek Caan's cackling transformation is a nice idea.

And let's remember, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos had the same job as Journey's End. Only one of those acts like a series finale, never mind a mad, memorable, colourful one that fans still talk about. Sometimes, I suppose, from time to time, being absolutely, breathlessly insane - even by Doctor Who's standards - is what the show is all about.

[Kelvin]

Stolen Earth and Journey's End are both pretty awful. A bunch of nice moments, lines and visuals, but it's mostly just people stood on the spot talking. It's also the pinnacle of RTD not giving a shit about plotting, with stuff like the computer that magically finds companions, Dalek Caan forseeing everything, and Donna just pulling a lever to disable every Dalek.

[mjwilson]

Tremendous fun though.

[Kelvin]

Is it? They're all stuck in bedrooms and offices for the Stolen Earth, then on screens and in force fields for Journey's End. There's definitely fun stuff in there, as mentioned above, but it's weirdly stilted for large chunks of both episodes.

Love the scene of the Daleks doing a Nazi salute at the Supreme Dalek, though.

[mjwilson]

OK then, I remember it as being tremendous fun.

I really like the Harriet Jones joke for example, obvious as it is.

[Replies From View]

Is it? They're all stuck in bedrooms and offices for the Stolen Earth, then on screens and in force fields for Journey's End.

So RTD was ahead of his time then, really.  Chibnall will need to use a few of these tactics for series 13 and 14 at least.