The Doctor Who thread

axisus

WezV said:

It was good.   Nicely unsettling baddies.

axisus said:

I think that you can say a bloke is hot without gay implications. 

Absolutely... but that's not the way it was done.

Donna said: “Is it just me or was Isaac Newton hot?”

And the Doctor replied: “He was, wasn’t he? He was so hot. Oh! Is that who I am now?”

Donna added: “Well, it was never too far from the surface, mate. I always thought you..."


...

RTD both reminding us that it isn't a big stretch for the character, but also preparing us for what is to come with the next iteration.   All done with the fan favourites, rather than have the character development placed all on the new actor.

fair point, I'd already forgotten the context! To be honest I'm going to be a bit disappointed if Russ T is going to be pushing his gay agenda on to the Doctor. I have nothing against his programmes written for that purpose, but I don't think the Doctor needs to incorporate a gay side. 

DefaultM

Whenever I hear a lot of people talk about the new episodes it seems like they're trying to like them because of what it used to be, but really they think it's terrible and just don't want to admit it.
My Dad is obsessed with the originals, but whenever he mentions the new episodes it's "well... I can see what they were trying to do... it's good... no it is... but..." and then he'll go on a 10 minute rant.

stickyfiddle

I've just caught up on these 2 eps. Best Who in years and it's great to see Tennant back even if just briefly. 

I thought the gender stuff has been done about as well as can be, and even played into the story in a genuine-feeling way (binary/nonbinary etc).

Black Newton will ruffle some feathers, no doubt. I don't have a problem with it other than the obvious fact that Newton wasn't a black guy, which means it felt like an obvious attempt to poke the antiwoke brigade. Personally I'd rather see diversity normalised the way the best sci-fi (esp Star Trek) usually does it, which is to just cast people in appropriate roles and treat them as meaty characters with fleshed out backstories and only mention anything specific when it's relevant to the character and plot.

But anyway, glad to have RTD back in charge for a bit. I'm sure we'll get annoyed with him in another 3-5 years but that's fine if we get some good eps in the meantime.

Also - GREAT creepy baddies in ep2. Hints of Midnight, which is probably my favourite single episode of new-Who.

WezV

axisus said:

WezV said:

RTD both reminding us that it isn't a big stretch for the character, but also preparing us for what is to come with the next iteration.   All done with the fan favourites, rather than have the character development placed all on the new actor.

fair point, I'd already forgotten the context! To be honest I'm going to be a bit disappointed if Russ T is going to be pushing his gay agenda on to the Doctor. I have nothing against his programmes written for that purpose, but I don't think the Doctor needs to incorporate a gay side. 

You might be better not tuning in for the new stuff.

EricTheWeary

Isaac Newton was Ash from Its a Sin. Apparently kept under wraps until broadcast. 
I like the running around in space episodes, single episode stories with something like a begining, middle and end. Less messy than last week's. 

english_bob

stickyfiddle said:

Black Newton will ruffle some feathers, no doubt. I don't have a problem with it other than the obvious fact that Newton wasn't a black guy, which means it felt like an obvious attempt to poke the antiwoke brigade. 

I'll take that- quite happy to piss off the sort of people who get pissy about that sort of thing. That said, I did catch a couple of references later in the show to "mavity" and wondered if they were cuing up some sort of more significant time altering, multiverse-y plotline...

stickyfiddle

english_bob said:

stickyfiddle said:

Black Newton will ruffle some feathers, no doubt. I don't have a problem with it other than the obvious fact that Newton wasn't a black guy, which means it felt like an obvious attempt to poke the antiwoke brigade. 

I'll take that- quite happy to piss off the sort of people who get pissy about that sort of thing. That said, I did catch a couple of references later in the show to "mavity" and wondered if they were cuing up some sort of more significant time altering, multiverse-y plotline...

Yeah, I think i'm generally pro if it splits the gammon-ire between this and the trans thing, diluting any noise complaining about gender stuff in the meantime. 

Mostly I was just enjoying a genuinely interesting threat that was as much of a thought experiment as a real "big bad"

Offset

stickyfiddle said:

Black Newton will ruffle some feathers, no doubt. I don't have a problem with it other than the obvious fact that Newton wasn't a black guy, which means it felt like an obvious attempt to poke the antiwoke brigade. 

It was totally ridiculous.  Not so much an attempt to poke a certain demographic as a clumsy, heavy-handed and unnecessary bit of gesture politics.  It's as dumb as getting a white actor to lead in a biopic of Neil deGrasse Tyson.

digitalscream

Offset said:

stickyfiddle said:

Black Newton will ruffle some feathers, no doubt. I don't have a problem with it other than the obvious fact that Newton wasn't a black guy, which means it felt like an obvious attempt to poke the antiwoke brigade. 

It was totally ridiculous.  Not so much an attempt to poke a certain demographic as a clumsy, heavy-handed and unnecessary bit of gesture politics.  It's as dumb as getting a white actor to lead in a biopic of Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Well, yes. That's my problem with it, really - this is really simplistic, poorly-implemented stuff that should be beneath RTD's writing skills.

I mean, even with just a tiny bit of tweaking, it could've been made into something that made a lot more sense. For example - they made the gravity/mavity joke later, such that him getting the word wrong actually changed their memories. That hasn't happened before (ie the Doc and companions were immune to changes in the timeline), so...since they were suddenly remembering it differently, something must've changed. So...something they'd previously changed caused Newton to suddenly have non-white ancestry, and the rules of time travel have changed for some reason. Does the Doctor suddenly need to be a lot more careful? Is this an external influence causing it? Is there a new race of Time Lord-esque beings from elsewhere, seeking to control time?

Bingo. A whole new plotline, and a race change that actually plays into it rather than just being a childlike attempt to make people angry, completely divorced from the actual show.

euan

I think it was a surprisingly good and fun episode and you are all overthinking it. 

Jfingers

I watched the first new David Tennant episode and despite the fact I was glad to see him back, thought it a bit too woke for my tastes. That stuff felt shoehorned in to me.

Saturday just gone myself and my partner had been down to Brighton to see my Daughter and her boyfriend and bought them a meal in a pub in Rottingdean. They were both keen to get back to see it.

Having made it home we eventually watched it around 9 that night. I really enjoyed the allusions to AI, Tennant was excellent as usual. The Dr being gay thing and the idea on here that you can't say a Man is hot without being so is just silly.

My first Dr Who was John Pertwee, my two favourites are Tennant and Smith

Offset

euan said:

I think it was a surprisingly good and fun episode and you are all overthinking it. 

Possibly.  But if you leave out the silliness and concentrate on the plot and storyline I still think it was pretty poor I'm afraid.  And as I said earlier, I really wanted to like it and enjoy it - and unfortunately I didn't.

WezV

Jfingers said:

The Dr being gay thing and the idea on here that you can't say a Man is hot without being so is just silly.

They didn't say that. The Doctor recognized a change in his perceptions of men, they are not trying to apply it beyond that.

digitalscream said:

I mean, even with just a tiny bit of tweaking, it could've been made into something that made a lot more sense. For example - they made the gravity/mavity joke later, such that him getting the word wrong actually changed their memories. That hasn't happened before (ie the Doc and companions were immune to changes in the timeline), so...since they were suddenly remembering it differently, something must've changed. So...something they'd previously changed caused Newton to suddenly have non-white ancestry, and the rules of time travel have changed for some reason. Does the Doctor suddenly need to be a lot more careful? Is this an external influence causing it? Is there a new race of Time Lord-esque beings from elsewhere, seeking to control time?

Bingo. A whole new plotline, and a race change that actually plays into it rather than just being a childlike attempt to make people angry, completely divorced from the actual show.

i'd be very surprised if there was not a bigger story at play here.  I doubt the "mavity" thing is just the joke it seems at the moment

EricTheWeary

The actor playing Newton is RTD's mate (well, they've previously worked together) so I find the nepotism annoying (I was recently listening to a podcast about Phoebe Waller Bridge and the nepotism and cliqueyness of it all left me angry with television so it got me at a bad moment). But otherwise worrying about an Asian Newton in a programme about space monsters and time travel and...I give up...


I assumed the mavity thing was just a passing joke but I gather that the next Dr is effectively a reboot so maybe it is part of building up to 'and here is The Dr on an alternate timeline.' 

WezV

NPH was great.  I enjoyed that one a lot

digitalscream

Yep, I really enjoyed that one. They could've ratcheted up the tension a bit, and the first confrontation could've been far more threatening, but...well, for a show broadcast at 6:30pm, I'll forgive it.

Also, it can't have escaped anybody's notice that they now have a get-out-of-jail-free card in case they ever have a Chibnall moment again in the future. Gotta say, I don't entirely disapprove of that.

EricTheWeary

It's not faultless (who would design a massive cannon that could fire on their own building,the splitting into two doctors seemed to have no story behind it at all,etc,etc) but a nice romp. The puppets were suitably creepy, Neil Patrick Harris was ace, huge nod to hardcore Whovians with the toymaker, there was humour and I had a bit of a tear in my eye at the end.
Sort of reboot from now on, I think that's probably a good thing. Just needs to find some trousers. 

axisus

It was a lot of fun! Neil PH was superb, I loved all those scenes in his shop, and the musical number was great. That's only the second time they have stuck a song in after that brilliant jazzy 'Don't stop me now' from one of the very best episodes ever (Mummy on the orient express).

It was weird, I felt that pang of sadness when Tennant got zapped and I assumed he was going. I didn't want him to go, so it was rather nice that he didn't. Having said that, it didn't really make sense they way they left it with him. Oh well, I'm not going to get hung up about it. 

It was a masterstroke from Russ TD to bring David Tennant back for the specials, it's gone down a storm in our house.

Looking forward the the Xmas episode.

english_bob

Very pleased to see the new Doctor wearing trousers in the trailer for the Christmas episode. That was.... a choice, but I'm glad it's not a permanent costuming direction for 15.

monquixote

In summary I thought all three episodes were superb and I'm looking forward to the next series.