The Doctor Who thread

darthed1981

I liked both episodes, the second one more.

Seem to be setting up for the Doctor to find out he is one of the "Pantheon".

Offset

I watched Space Babies tonight.  It was truly dreadful.  I like Gatwa but he's appallingly miscast.

RTD is finishing off what Moffat started - consigning DW to the dustbin.  I thought Whittaker's tenure couldn't be worsened, but obviously it can.

Tripe 

skullfunkerry

It would be a boring world if we all liked the same things, wouldn't it? I liked Space Babies, it made me laugh out loud in a couple of places (and Eric going downstairs with his little sword was the cutest thing I've seen for a while).

I thought The Devil's Chord started promisingly, but went downhill. I'll still be watching though, it's entertaining, and I like both of the main actors so it's all good

HerbieTheRadDorklift

I actually thought Space Babies was much better than the cringey Devils Chord. 

thumpingrug

I watched Space Babies, the Devil's Chord and Eurovision.    Eurovision was the best.

I agree that if this is what we get with added Disney - its not promising 

suspiciousminds

Just watched both episodes.
i thought it was bad with Whittaker but jesus these first two episodes were real stinkers.
Did he have Alien movie in mind with the monster in “Space babies”.
Made of bogies??Jesus christ!
As for the “Maestro” episode it was awful.
i dont get the appeal with Russel T Davies at all.

RocknRollDave

Watched Space Babies last night.
Ncuti Gatwa is absolutely spot on as The Doctor. Great chemistry with Ruby, too. 

OK, so the story was very silly, but isn’t that the case more often than not with Doctor Who?

I genuinely cannot see what all the naysayers are seeing.

WYNIR0

Thought Space Babies was 'fine', though poor for an opening episode.

'Devils Chord' was much better and felt like proper Who, the Maestro being a brilliant villain, right up until the musical number which had me chanting 'remember it's a kids show' over and over. 

Jury's out. 

digitalscream

To be honest, I treated The Giggle as the end - it was the end of the story for Tennant's Doctor, with a decent callback to the old times in the form of the Toymaker.

With Disney's influence (let's face it, their track record of completely destroying every franchise they acquire with awful writing doesn't inspire confidence), and the stupidity around the whole "Season 1" thing, that seems entirely appropriate.

I figure the best thing is just not to watch any more. If it turns out that they manage to put out some gems and good over-arching storylines, I can always binge it later.

Jalfrezi

I was rather hoping for better, there is very little of the character of Doctor Who left in these recent shows.  Just seems like a pathetic effort, with added woke and musical interludes.  Just all wrong IMHO, very disappointed, but sadly not surprised.

There had been a lot made of RTD returning, and expectations of the better shows of the past, how wrong we were.

DannyP

I’m a Who fan.

I’m in a Beatles tribute

I’m woke AF and proud

I consider Jinkx Monsoon's appearances on Drag Race S5 and All Stars S7 to be the pinnacles of human achievement.

BUT I couldn’t make it through 10 minutes of The Devil’s Chord

(Seriously, if you only know Jinkx from Doctor Who, don’t judge her by this. Rupaul’s Drag Race All Stars S7: E2 “Snatch Game” is a good starting point for the uninitiated)

Heartfeltdawn

RocknRollDave said:

Watched Space Babies last night.
Ncuti Gatwa is absolutely spot on as The Doctor. Great chemistry with Ruby, too. 

OK, so the story was very silly, but isn’t that the case more often than not with Doctor Who?

darthed1981

Doctor Who has always been silly, it's never tried the "serious" trappings like it was Deep Space Nine or anything like that, except potentially for very late in the Moffat era - Clara's death and all the subsequent events around it were pretty "dark" - as was the nasty end of Bill Potts - but then you lot all hated those as well right?

I'd say of the new episodes...

Space Babies was a deliberately light-hearted palate-warmer just like the Adipose episode, or one of the fluffier Xmas specials.

Devils Chord had a great villain, a great setup, and a cool song-and-dance number, just a shame they likely didn't want to fork out for actual Beatles songs.

We have a lot of very un-subtle references to the season's big bad, just like we did back in Season One - obviously some cool secrets to be revealed around Ruby as well.

Millie is gorgeous, and looks almost as good in a sixties outfit as Jenna Coleman making a souffle, or Karen Gillan in a police outfit... or the one with the rack from the 80s for all you oldiewonks (Perri? right?).

RocknRollDave

Watched the second episode last night. Didn’t love it. The whole ‘re-writing the Beatles story if X had never happened’ is such a tired old trope now. 

Trailer for the next episode suggests it’s more of a serious, tense thriller. It needs to be.
A bit of silliness is ok, but it’s outstaying its welcome.

Jalapeno

Unimpressed so far, characters and actors good, but some lame-assed writing ... hmmmm

(does it HAVE to be so woke heavy ? )

Jfingers

I shall be watching both tonight assuming they're on Iplayer. I thought the new Dr was excellent in Sex Education.

I go back as far as John Pertwee, stuck with it until halfway through Peter Davidson then young mad life took over.

I've seen the Paul McGann film.

Watched all of the Tennant and Smith episodes both because I liked the actors and that my Daughter was the right age for me to share it with her.

Never saw a single Capaldi or Whittaker although I like Capaldi, that's because I had better things to do.

Watched the xmas ones, vastly preferred the trippy AI one to the angry soft toy one.

I'm reserving judgement, RTD has made other shows I've enjoyed.

Offset

I gave up on The Devil's Chord.  Everything about it is utterly cringeworthy.  The heavy-handed gender politics, the plot, the representation of The Fab Four... 

Doctor, Doctor... where did it all go so wrong?  How did it come to this in just two regenerations?!  I can now look back on the Capaldi era (great Doctor, less-than-great writing) with misty eyed nostalgia.

I like Gatwa but he's been incredibly poorly served by RTD.  If the next episode is no better, I'll bail - just like I did after watching a small but painful amount of the Whittaker era.

* EDIT - bad though this was, it was better than Space Babies which was tosh.

monquixote

I watch it with my two boys who absolutely love everything Dr Who and it's just a magical experience. 

It's great that there are shows that adults and kids can watch together and get a kick out of it.
They like Matt Smith best followed by DT, they like Capaldi and Chris E a little less and they haven't actually watch the Jodie ones (I gave up on them) 

With the new ones they have some heavy handed moralising, but in the context of needing to work for an audience of 6-60 I think it hits the spot pretty well and it's nice to see it get the budget it deserves. 

I think the new Doctor is shaping up to be great. He's certainly very charismatic and a good actor.

Offset

^^ I used to watch religiously with my daughter - Matt was her fave as well.  I haven't asked her if she's been watching the new series but I'll be interested to know what she thinks...

digitalscream

Offset said:

I gave up on The Devil's Chord.  Everything about it is utterly cringeworthy.  The heavy-handed gender politics, the plot, the representation of The Fab Four... 

Doctor, Doctor... where did it all go so wrong?  How did it come to this in just two regenerations?!  I can now look back on the Capaldi era (great Doctor, less-than-great writing) with misty eyed nostalgia.

I like Gatwa but he's been incredibly poorly served by RTD.  If the next episode is no better, I'll bail - just like I did after watching a small but painful amount of the Whittaker era.

I wonder...is the problem that they're producing the show backwards? With 13 and 15, they seem to be choosing the actor and then writing the show around their (aged) impression of what the actor has done before. The result is that their Doctor becomes a caricature of their most exaggerated previous moments in acting, combined with what a bunch of out-of-touch writers and showrunners in their 50s and 60s think are "modern sensibilities". That's only ever going to result in poor scripts.

I mean, FFS..."Oooo, we've got a gay Doctor, let's put a musical in every episode!". That's lazy thinking, not just lazy writing.

Near as I can tell, the writers from the last five series who weren't in their 50s and 60s have a total of around 11 episodes of TV scripts between them prior to their stints on Doctor Who. Also not a recipe for quality.

I have absolutely no problem with gender/identity politics in this context - it's when it's so blatantly SHOUTEDINYOURFACE. It's like smacking the audience round the head until they give in, rather than putting in the hard yards with subtle writing that makes them think and then change their minds (if needed).

Viewing figures would seem to indicate that this approach just isn't working. Preliminary US figures suggest that the first episode of this new relaunch has done worse than the last episode of Whittaker's time (which was, at the time, pretty much the low point for the entire franchise).