The Doctor Who thread

darthed1981

JEM said:

darthed1981 said:

The show is deliberately pivoting to make the supernatural more of a part of what it does,

Yeah and I think that's what I struggled with. I've never really been that big a fan of the show. I was a Tom Baker kid and didn't really watch much of the later incarnations. I started watching again with my kids with the Chris Ecclestone reboot. 

I always saw it as science fiction albeit often taking liberties with the science bits (reverse the polarity, sonic screwdriver etc.). Supernatural stories have always been part of it but there was always a science-y explanation behind it, like a time travelling Scooby Doo.

I guess it's Russel T Davies' show and he can go where he wants with it. I probably won't bother watching any more episodes but I'm sure many fans are glad to see the back of the sci-fi aspect of the show.

I don't think they want to totally remove the sci-fi aspects, I think they just want to have some fun with the supernatural and the extra story possibilities it opens up. 

Headphones

Well, I've been enjoying them in a way I haven't for a long while.

It's light scifi, aimed at youngsters and their families, on a Saturday Evening (who mentioned the wheel?).

Pretty much hits that nail squarely.

It's a bit different to the older stuff, but so what?

It might upset some of the deep geeks - but is that a problem?  They'll stil watch it to moan that Tom Baker would have had more gravitas...  But the rest will treat it as fun - and the grumpies just add to the numbers!

dazzajl

Has The Doctor ever been a Sci Fi show? Seems to me that it’s used a sci fi concept to be an adventure show, a drama, a thriller, a horror, a comedy, a sitcom, a history show and a showcase for the widest number of ideas. 

I think the more places it goes to, the stronger it gets and why there’s never been anything else quite like it. 

Offset

dazzajl said:

Has The Doctor ever been a Sci Fi show? Seems to me that it’s used a sci fi concept to be an adventure show, a drama, a thriller, a horror, a comedy, a sitcom, a history show and a showcase for the widest number of ideas. 

I think the more places it goes to, the stronger it gets and why there’s never been anything else quite like it. 

There's most certainly nothing like it now.

digitalscream

dazzajl said:

I think the more places it goes to, the stronger it gets and why there’s never been anything else quite like it. 

Define "stronger"...? The viewing figures have cratered, and if it was any other show it would've been cancelled already.

For whatever reason, it's now a show that most of its fans don't want to watch any more. That's a shame.

EDIT: Just like Star Wars, Marvel, Indiana Jones...hang on a minute, there's a common thread here...

darthed1981

digitalscream said:

Define "stronger"...? The viewing figures have cratered, and if it was any other show it would've been cancelled already.

For whatever reason, it's now a show that most of its fans don't want to watch any more. That's a shame.

EDIT: Just like Star Wars, Marvel, Indiana Jones...hang on a minute, there's a common thread here...

According to the figures available, "Space Babies" had 4.01 million and "Devil's Chord" 3.91 million - for the modern streaming age that's pretty decent numbers.  The Christmas special managed an extremely impressive 7.49, but that's with a big inherited audience - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_episodes_(2005–present)#Series_14_(2024)

Now those figures are nowhere near the David Tennant peak the show had, but simply not being at it's peak doesn't mean something is on it's last legs.

I've found the episodes increasingly good this season, literally each one better than the last, to the point I genuinely found "73 Yards" the best episode in years.

Blaming Disney?  Well so far all they have done is brought back the show's most successful writer, given them a lot more money (in the later Whittaker episodes the budget was obviously painfully low) and whether it comes from Disney or not, said that this time the Doctor is a good-looking guy travelling with the first stunning blonde he meets. 

Before we had a female doctor in a will-they-wont-they Lesbian relationship, and Peter Capaldi travelling with an out Lesbian, with a female master.  If anything Who has gone "less woke" (God I hate that term though, it's horrible).

I'm still not sure what people think the show has lost - we have a fun over-arching mystery with Ruby's origin, a talented, charismatic actor as the Doctor, a gorgeous assistant who gives even Jenna and Karen a run for their money, and she can act as well, and some fun stories.  We even have a showrunner now who likes the job, and wasn't bullied into taking it by the BBC like Chibnall was (he clearly didn't want it) - and even his era wasn't as bad as people made out.

digitalscream

darthed1981 said:

digitalscream said:

Define "stronger"...? The viewing figures have cratered, and if it was any other show it would've been cancelled already.

For whatever reason, it's now a show that most of its fans don't want to watch any more. That's a shame.

EDIT: Just like Star Wars, Marvel, Indiana Jones...hang on a minute, there's a common thread here...

According to the figures available, "Space Babies" had 4.01 million and "Devil's Chord" 3.91 million - for the modern streaming age that's pretty decent numbers.  The Christmas special managed an extremely impressive 7.49, but that's with a big inherited audience - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_episodes_(2005–present)#Series_14_(2024)

Now those figures are nowhere near the David Tennant peak the show had, but simply not being at it's peak doesn't mean something is on it's last legs.

I'm not even comparing them to the Tennant era heyday. Look:



Versus 2022-2023:

darthed1981 said:

I've found the episodes increasingly good this season, literally each one better than the last, to the point I genuinely found "73 Yards" the best episode in years.

Blaming Disney?  Well so far all they have done is brought back the show's most successful writer, given them a lot more money (in the later Whittaker episodes the budget was obviously painfully low) and whether it comes from Disney or not, said that this time the Doctor is a good-looking guy travelling with the first stunning blonde he meets. 

Before we had a female doctor in a will-they-wont-they Lesbian relationship, and Peter Capaldi travelling with an out Lesbian, with a female master.  If anything Who has gone "less woke" (God I hate that term though, it's horrible).

I'm still not sure what people think the show has lost - we have a fun over-arching mystery with Ruby's origin, a talented, charismatic actor as the Doctor, a gorgeous assistant who gives even Jenna and Karen a run for their money, and she can act as well, and some fun stories.  We even have a showrunner now who likes the job, and wasn't bullied into taking it by the BBC like Chibnall was (he clearly didn't want it) - and even his era wasn't as bad as people made out.

I didn't mention wokeness, just that the primary thing the show has lost is a huge portion of its fanbase, even relative to the Whittaker era - that's undeniable at this point.

The fact that there's a Disney influence is simply an observation. They've managed to run every major franchise they've bought into the ground, and it's foolish to think there's no chance of the same thing happening here - especially when we're watching it happen.

My current bet is that Disney will wash their hands of it once S15's finished, and the show will go on hiatus for a few years. Lest we forget, the +7+4 numbers there are 20% lower than the overnights in 1989, and the show didn't come back for another 16 years after that. 

darthed1981

digitalscream said:

I didn't mention wokeness, just that the primary thing the show has lost is a huge portion of its fanbase, even relative to the Whittaker era - that's undeniable at this point.

The fact that there's a Disney influence is simply an observation. They've managed to run every major franchise they've bought into the ground, and it's foolish to think there's no chance of the same thing happening here - especially when we're watching it happen.

My current bet is that Disney will wash their hands of it once S15's finished, and the show will go on hiatus for a few years. Lest we forget, the +7+4 numbers there are 20% lower than the overnights in 1989, and the show didn't come back for another 16 years after that. 

Or... using the same data, it hasn't won back it's fan base SINCE the weak Whittaker era?  The show has been on a downward slope of viewership since it's peak as more and more people move on to other things.  There are always a hardcore that don't, but there is also a loud minority on the internet who claim they want something different and the fact THEY want something different is the reason for the decline... 4 million is very solid viewership in the modern streaming age.  

If you really want to blame someone for the decline... blame Peter Capaldi's era... that's where Moffat was getting tired but still had some fantastic episodes.  Still, try explaining to kids how Clara was killed by her own hubris...

You might not have mentioned wokeness this time - but it was your primary point up-thread - and my response to anyone would remain... what's woke exactly?  Yes Ncuti is black, but a black lead is fairly unremarkable, and he's gay, but that doesn't really mean it's reflected on-screen (he calls people "babes" a couple of times, but that's not uncommon).  His assistant is, as I said, a gorgeous blonde, one for the Dads, well I like her anyhow, you might have guessed.

I'm a middle-class, liberal, white, straight guy - probably boringly so in truth.  I honestly think that women, LGBTQ+ people and so on have been treated miserably.  I also think JK Rowling had a point about the bathroom thing, and I can never get pronouns right.  However, I think the gay married couple in Star Trek Discovery are rather sweet, I didn't mind Adira and Grey's relationship, because Trek, and Who, for me, should be about challenging pre-conceptions, as the exploration of science- fiction is as much inside ourselves as it is out in space, YMMV of course!

The Disney point you kind of weakened by mentioning Marvel who they built up into the biggest franchise in the world, or more accurately, gave Kevin Feige the money to do it... and then they saturated the market when Disney Plus launched by trying to get all their new content from a small handful of franchises (bearing in mind in the US all the Fox stuff is on Hulu, so it's a much harder sell). 

Marvel is going to have one of the biggest films this year with Deadpool 3... a small blip is all they have had.  It's just the people online who hate Brie Larson (whose only real sin is thinking because people shove microphones in her face all day people care what she says) made it out to be more than it was - Marvel is still, well, well up on the balance sheet.  For every Secret Invasion, there has been a Wandavision...

A lot of nerd rage at Disney just goes back to Star Wars, and again their mistake was to get greedy, people liked TFA, Rogue One, Mandalorian, Andor and didn't like other things as much - but they still make a shit tonne of money in the long run.  At least as many people like Last Jedi as hated it... but the people who hated it are sooo... much... noisier...

Also as well, Disney's financial woes really have one root cause... Covid.  A huge proportion of their revenue comes from the theme parks and the theme parks lost money for two years... go to Disney now and you will run right into Rey and Kylo Ren, loads of people LOVE the sequels.

digitalscream

darthed1981 said:

digitalscream said:

I didn't mention wokeness, just that the primary thing the show has lost is a huge portion of its fanbase, even relative to the Whittaker era - that's undeniable at this point.

The fact that there's a Disney influence is simply an observation. They've managed to run every major franchise they've bought into the ground, and it's foolish to think there's no chance of the same thing happening here - especially when we're watching it happen.

My current bet is that Disney will wash their hands of it once S15's finished, and the show will go on hiatus for a few years. Lest we forget, the +7+4 numbers there are 20% lower than the overnights in 1989, and the show didn't come back for another 16 years after that. 

Or... using the same data, it hasn't won back it's fan base SINCE the weak Whittaker era?  The show has been on a downward slope of viewership since it's peak as more and more people move on to other things.  There are always a hardcore that don't, but there is also a loud minority on the internet who claim they want something different and the fact THEY want something different is the reason for the decline... 4 million is very solid viewership in the modern streaming age.  

If you really want to blame someone for the decline... blame Peter Capaldi's era... that's where Moffat was getting tired but still had some fantastic episodes.  Still, try explaining to kids how Clara was killed by her own hubris...

I'm not sure how you're getting that from those numbers. If it hadn't won back its fanbase since Whittaker, then the numbers would be roughly the same - not 32.3% lower (based on average viewing from those numbers). Those are the people who stuck around, and were OK with it, up to this point. That's way more than the 17% drop between Capaldi and Whittaker, so I'm not sure how you can blame Capaldi's era for the drop in viewership - his worst series had an average overnight viewership of over 6 million...nearly three times the current series!

darthed1981 said:

You might not have mentioned wokeness this time - but it was your primary point up-thread - and my response to anyone would remain... what's woke exactly?  Yes Ncuti is black, but a black lead is fairly unremarkable, and he's gay, but that doesn't really mean it's reflected on-screen (he calls people "babes" a couple of times, but that's not uncommon).  His assistant is, as I said, a gorgeous blonde, one for the Dads, well I like her anyhow, you might have guessed.

No, my main argument is that when you make a big fuss in the press about the casting being because of attributes like skin colour and sexual orientation, the conversation becomes exclusively about that - especially when the press push involves articles like "this show isn't for straight white men", the showrunner and cast are saying "don't watch it" and even the wardrobe department get in on the act with "our main goal this year was to have men in skirts". When the writing's as weak as it is, that essentially becomes the overall perception of the series. You'll not that I don't use the word "woke", because it's a moving goalpost - it changes depending on the arguments du jour and whoever you're talking to, which doesn't help the conversation.

Think about it this way - the focus used to be on "this is what The Doctor will do", but now it's more on "this is who and what The Doctor is".

My main issue with Whittaker's and Gatwa's Doctors is that there is nothing of the previous incarnations of the character in them - there's no continuity between them and their past selves. It's essentially a new character entirely, spawned to suit the cause the showrunner wants to push. That's enough of a departure from the established canon of the show that I just switched off entirely; there are simply no characters in common with the previous series.

Perhaps the solution - apart from writing stories the fans actually want to watch - is to simply ban the cast and crew from talking to the press. It's not beyond the realms of imagination to think that a good portion of the lost viewers are down to the people involved with the show saying "Don't watch!" and the fans saying "OK, then.".

darthed1981 said:

Marvel is going to have one of the biggest films this year with Deadpool 3... a small blip is all they have had.  It's just the people online who hate Brie Larson (whose only real sin is thinking because people shove microphones in her face all day people care what she says) made it out to be more than it was - Marvel is still, well, well up on the balance sheet.  For every Secret Invasion, there has been a Wandavision...

Oh, c'mon...Marvel hasn't just had a blip. They've released 10 films since 2019, of which only two performed in line with their budget. Deadpool is a 20th Century Fox property that they bought in; its likely success is absolutely nothing to do with the MCU and everything to do with the first two films and bringing Hugh Jackman in for one last go round.

They had She Hulk, one of the best and most-loved fan-favourite characters in the comics, and they even managed to scuff that by turning it into a series about how much the writers dislike men. None of the other series were particularly memorable either, except maybe the last couple of episodes of Loki which finally gave him a good send-off.

At best, unless they actually do a real reset and get back to what made the MCU great in the first place, Deadpool 3 represents a dead cat bounce.

Philly_Q

digitalscream said:

dazzajl said:

I think the more places it goes to, the stronger it gets and why there’s never been anything else quite like it. 

Define "stronger"...? The viewing figures have cratered, and if it was any other show it would've been cancelled already.

For whatever reason, it's now a show that most of its fans don't want to watch any more. That's a shame.

EDIT: Just like Star Wars, Marvel, Indiana Jones...hang on a minute, there's a common thread here...

Very interesting analysis in the last few posts, but looking at it more simplistically, could it not be the case that the older fans are finally just outgrowing those franchises and Disney/Marvel/whoever are struggling to find new audiences, as younger people just don't feel any sentimental connection with those "legacy" characters?

That might be happening even if the shows and films themselves remained completely unchanged, but Disney are compounding the problem by messing with the formula, often getting bogged down in message over storytelling, and insisting on bringing in "new" characters who nobody is interested in.  They end up losing the entire audience.

darthed1981

digitalscream said:

I'm not sure how you're getting that from those numbers. If it hadn't won back its fanbase since Whittaker, then the numbers would be roughly the same - not 32.3% lower (based on average viewing from those numbers). Those are the people who stuck around, and were OK with it, up to this point. That's way more than the 17% drop between Capaldi and Whittaker, so I'm not sure how you can blame Capaldi's era for the drop in viewership - his worst series had an average overnight viewership of over 6 million...nearly three times the current series!

Not just those numbers, but the average viewers per series on Wikipedia... Capaldi dropped from 7.26 to 5.46 over three seasons - Whittaker from 7.96 for series 11 (waaaay up on Capaldi, so really credit must be the best series in years if we are using the "more viewers = better argument, and we all know it wasn't) down to 4.95 for the Flux series. Ncuti isn't the one who lost all the viewers, they have been going away for years.

No, my main argument is that when you make a big fuss in the press about the casting being because of attributes like skin colour and sexual orientation, the conversation becomes exclusively about that - especially when the press push involves articles like "this show isn't for straight white men", the showrunner and cast are saying "don't watch it" and even the wardrobe department get in on the act with "our main goal this year was to have men in skirts".

I didn't see any of that but I always try and avoid the early press anyhow - I'm the same with bands - they always talk a load of nonsense about their new records with some tit from the label grinning from the sidelines, when all we want are good songs.

When the writing's as weak as it is,

I honestly disagree fundamentally with you here, the new series has been well written. Ultimately if you aren't enjoying it, then OK fair enough, it's not for me to tell you what to enjoy. I've gone back to looking forward to it every week, where with JW it felt more like a duty, YMMV, and clearly does!

My main issue with Whittaker's and Gatwa's Doctors is that there is nothing of the previous incarnations of the character in them - there's no continuity between them and their past selves.

Well in Gatwa's case I'd disagree - I honestly think he's gone back to RTD's perception of the Doctor, very like the characterisation of Eccleston or Tennant. This only gave hints of the Moffat doctor. I sort of agree with JW - but the combination of a showrunner who didn't want to be there, a push from the BBC to make it more kid-friendly, and some ropey scripts meant she only really found her feet towards the end. The Flux episodes and the last few specials (except the Sea Devils one) were all fine to good episodes - the time loop one with the Daleks was almost a classic, and her last episode was pretty good.

Oh, c'mon...Marvel hasn't just had a blip. They've released 10 films since 2019, of which only two performed in line with their budget. Deadpool is a 20th Century Fox property that they bought in; its likely success is absolutely nothing to do with the MCU and everything to do with the first two films and bringing Hugh Jackman in for one last go round.

They had She Hulk, one of the best and most-loved fan-favourite characters in the comics, and they even managed to scuff that by turning it into a series about how much the writers dislike men. None of the other series were particularly memorable either, except maybe the last couple of episodes of Loki which finally gave him a good send-off.

At best, unless they actually do a real reset and get back to what made the MCU great in the first place, Deadpool 3 represents a dead cat bounce.

2 out of 10 is still a waaay better hit rate than DC or Sony's series of Superhero flops - and the rest of the movies were better as well (no Marvel film is anywhere near as bad as Morbius, that was just... shit) We have hit superhero overload, yes, when Marvel make a belter like GOG3 it breaks the mould, but to go back to the original point, you can't ignore Disney being in charge while they succeeded and blame them for the recent problems.

 I think really mate we are arguing around the fact that I'm really enjoying the new series and you aren't, so we may have to agree to disagree

stickyfiddle

I just caught up.  3 and (particularly) 4 were excellent and the best eps I can think of since the Smith era.

As for 4 specifically, often the best thing about storytelling (and especially creepy storytelling) is that not everything has to be explained:

Where did the Weeping Angels come from?
How does that whole Weeping Angels thing work?
What was the deal with the "monster" in Midnight? 
How does the time loop work in the movie Triangle? 
How does the Force work in Star Wars? 
Why does Marty's family fade away before he does in BTTF?
Where does the Joker come from? 

NOONE KNOWS IT'S NOT IMPORTANT. In fact very often explaining this sort of thing often makes things worse. 

Great example - the Alien universe. Every single time they try and explain everything with more movies it not only results in shitty new films but actually manages to make the original Alien and Aliens worse by trying to explain all the ins and outs. 

TimmyO

JEM said:

darthed1981 said:

Millie was stuck in a pre determined time loop, a bit like the one in Donnie Darko?

Well yes, I get that but why? Because the Doctor stood on a bit of string and she opened an envelope!? What caused that? Why did the Doctor disappear? Why did everyone run away screaming in horror when they tried to speak to spooky future Ruby?

Ruby had to live an entire lifetime alone, shunned by her own family and haunted by a ghostly spectre so she could prevent an unrelated mad Welshman from causing Armageddon because the previously mentioned magic envelope was the only thing that had been preventing this from happening before. Then on her deathbed she could go back and stop the whole lot from happening in the first place.

Sorry, I just don't get it.

I reckon there will be some connection to this in something later. So that there was a point to an otherwise not self explaining story 

Grangousier

There had better be - there are so many completely different tells - the snow, Susan Twist, non-sequitur stories like this one - that I wonder whether the whole season might not be a fantasy (which would be a mean trick to play on Disney quite apart from pissing off people here who are already pissed off). Hasn't RTD placed The Toymaker and Maestro as part of the same family as The Trickster from Sarah Jane Adventures? Very much connected to alternative timelines and so forth. 

(The Pantheon of Discord, I believe.)

darthed1981

stickyfiddle said:

I just caught up.  3 and (particularly) 4 were excellent and the best eps I can think of since the Smith era.

As for 4 specifically, often the best thing about storytelling (and especially creepy storytelling) is that not everything has to be explained:

Where did the Weeping Angels come from?
How does that whole Weeping Angels thing work?
What was the deal with the "monster" in Midnight? 
How does the time loop work in the movie Triangle? 
How does the Force work in Star Wars? 
Why does Marty's family fade away before he does in BTTF?
Where does the Joker come from? 

NOONE KNOWS IT'S NOT IMPORTANT. In fact very often explaining this sort of thing often makes things worse. 

Great example - the Alien universe. Every single time they try and explain everything with more movies it not only results in shitty new films but actually manages to make the original Alien and Aliens worse by trying to explain all the ins and outs. 

Spot on.

Offset

digitalscream said:

For whatever reason, it's now a show that most of its fans don't want to watch any more. That's a shame.

Absolutely this.  I was a massive DW fan right up until Whittaker's tenure.  I stopped watching early into the run because the writing was crap and the storylines were rubbish, something which has continued into the present series.  Only now under RTD, you get the added bonus of being hit around the face with the wet kipper of heavy-handed and condescending gender politics and various other of RTD's favourite topics.

Hurling_Fruitmig

I didn't mention wokeness, just that the primary thing the show has lost is a huge portion of its fanbase, even relative to the Whittaker era...

In pre-social media times that used to happen naturally as people 'grew up', rather than hanging on to their childhood into middle age and telling anyone who'll listen that things aren't what they used to be

darthed1981

Hurling_Fruitmig said:

I didn't mention wokeness, just that the primary thing the show has lost is a huge portion of its fanbase, even relative to the Whittaker era...

In pre-social media times that used to happen naturally as people 'grew up', rather than hanging on to their childhood into middle age and telling anyone who'll listen that things aren't what they used to be

That's a really interesting point.

Arguably that killed off 90s Star Trek, all the people who were kids when TNG first aired were fully fledged adults when you got around to Enterprise - so most people just "grew out of it" - in service of getting ahead, getting laid, getting on etc etc.

Now, in a more accepting, and probably as a result better world (though people know I like sci-fi stuff and definitely it still puts me on the outside of the circle) where people can be more themselves, there are negatives as well.

Most bluntly... look at us... we are a bunch of middle-aged males arguing about a kids TV show, we are only a few steps above going off Paw Patrol when they brought in Everest (smug cow, who does she think she is).

It was a bit like all the arguing online over the Last Jedi, you'd think someone had gone through Shakespeare with a black marker writing "NO" over all the famous bits, instead of making a three-hour long toy catalogue some didn't care for.

Litterick

Maybe viewers are just tired of story arcs, where a story is never finished, and everything is portentous. Maybe they are weary of female characters who are isolated and pitiable, and half-baked men. Maybe viewers prefer entertainment to sermons.

darthed1981

Litterick said:

Maybe viewers are just tired of story arcs, where a story is never finished, and everything is portentous. Maybe they are weary of female characters who are isolated and pitiable, and half-baked men. Maybe viewers prefer entertainment to sermons.

"...you and I are gonna Live Forever..."