thechase
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Post by thechase on Jul 30, 2021 5:30:39 GMT -5
Man, I was wondering when you where gonna show up to grift here. Rosa, It takes you away, Demons of Punjab, Revolution of the Daleks and I personally loved Nicola Tesla's Night of Terror. Those were decent eps because of other characters driving the story rather than Jodie's Doctor. A lot of the times, her Doctor is just 'reacting' to things. I didn't mean there were necessary 'awful' episodes with Jodie, I just haven't thought of many of the best ones as really needing her to be in it at all. Even the greatest episode of her era, Fugitive of the Judoon is carried entirely by the Barrowman and Jo Martin shockers. Martin really ought to have been The Doctor for this whole run, she acted Jodie right off the screen and her Doctor was far more captivating, fresh, and new. Proof a female Doctor works and can be interesting. It Takes You Away was OK-ish, but it really did point out how much better the show would have been if it'd just been The Doctor and Graham. Bradley needed more to do, and he didn't deserve nonsense like Can You Hear Me?
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Post by Alice Syndrome on Jul 30, 2021 15:38:46 GMT -5
Right:
I don't think I've seen a series of this that had more good than bad since Eleven and Amy's first season, and I don't think any of that has been down to the actors.
I think Chibnall has had a few good episodes and a lot of meh, being majorly let down whenever he tries any addition to the lore or any story arc plot, which makes me REALLY look forward to this damn season.
Oh, and actually screw him for just killing off all of Gallifrey offscreen after Eleven and Twelve's general story arc was about 6 years of getting them back.
Highlight: Demons of the Punjab
Lowlight: Giant spiders that get beat by Stormzy
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BorneAgain
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Post by BorneAgain on Jul 30, 2021 16:06:37 GMT -5
The thing with Who these days is that I know that producing TVis a real pain, there's likely pressures from BBC, and its remarkably difficult to pull off a novel science fiction/fantasy series in an era of prestige television. No showrunner for Nu-Who whether it was RTD, Moffat, or Chibnall has ever had it easy in terms of writing or production.
But the show these days just feels like its getting the worst of both worlds, with its big ideas falling flat and while still being so standard in its plots that regular episodes end up generic. The big lore additions like the Timeless Child feel like cheap novelties and the characters just come off as underdeveloped. It seems like we're still getting to know Jodie's Doctor even though she's had two series worth of episodes to make an impression.
I don't like to do the comparisons to Big Finish that often because its an apple to oranges situation a lot of the time, but given the weird places those series are willing to go, its hard not to look at the live action series in finding it a bit wanting in terms of its scope or goals. We're getting an upcoming box set with Missy interacting with two different incarnations of the Meddling Monk, and yet the TV series still can't be bothered to have a single prominent Time Lord show up that isn't the Doctor, the Master, or Rassilon? We get all sorts of alien or out of time companions for the Doctor in the audio dramas, yet the main face of the franchise is still insisting on a contemporary human accompanying the Doctor 90% of the time?
At this point I'd take bad episodes of the show if they were at least weird or creatively out there, as opposed to the unmemorable 6/10 outings that seem so frequent these days.
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Bo Rida
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Post by Bo Rida on Jul 30, 2021 16:43:01 GMT -5
^The current day UK earth companion obsession is baffling. Even if you don't want to go too far someone from the recent past can still act as the audience surrogate but with an extra element to them.
During lockdown BBC put decades old Michael Palin travel shows on and hearing the hopes of people from Hong Kong or the Ukraine a few decades ago was so sad. Use that energy. A 80s protestor happy to hear CFCs are banned before realising things are somehow in a worse state anyway. Same point as Orphan 55 but character driven rather than an awful speech from The Doctor while the others stand around like lemons.
Poor Jodie, glad Chibnall is going but wish she had a little run without him.
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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Jul 30, 2021 16:51:04 GMT -5
Right: I don't think I've seen a series of this that had more good than bad since Eleven and Amy's first season, and I don't think any of that has been down to the actors. I think Chibnall has had a few good episodes and a lot of meh, being majorly let down whenever he tries any addition to the lore or any story arc plot, which makes me REALLY look forward to this damn season. Oh, and actually screw him for just killing off all of Gallifrey offscreen after Eleven and Twelve's general story arc was about 6 years of getting them back. Highlight: Demons of the Punjab Lowlight: Giant spiders that get beat by Stormzy Yeah, that's my big problem with the destruction of Gallifrey... It's not NOVEL to destroy it again... doubly so off screen after they spent big arcs across multiple Doctors to getting it back... We've had the Doctor as the sad sole survivor of the planet (or mostly sole...) we really didn't need another rehash of that so quickly.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jul 30, 2021 17:49:01 GMT -5
I like Jodie as the doctor but the writing was a mess, I watched and I'm still not exactly sure what went on with the timelords and I don't care enough to go back and try and go through it again, which is a problem as I tend to be a lore nerd.
At this point we all know another showrunner will just overwrite it so what;s the point?
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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Jul 30, 2021 19:20:38 GMT -5
I like Jodie as the doctor but the writing was a mess, I watched and I'm still not exactly sure what went on with the timelords and I don't care enough to go back and try and go through it again, which is a problem as I tend to be a lore nerd. At this point we all know another showrunner will just overwrite it so what;s the point? I remember the Cyberlords thing having so many plotholes just in the episode itself... that made no sense... and
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Post by Gerard Gerard on Jul 30, 2021 22:59:10 GMT -5
The Timeless Child nonsense generally tends to overshadow how much of an abject misfire the finale to the last season was - the explosive climax to months of storytelling is roughly an hour expository dialogue that, at no juncture, even takes a stab at being engaging.
Chibnall managed to dehackify his rep with Broadchurch (whose entire USP was being a Scandinoir transplanted to England) but the last two seasons of Who demonstrate this is the same visionary that delivered the absolute license-fee heist that was the first two seasons of Torchwood.
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thechase
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Post by thechase on Jul 31, 2021 1:30:09 GMT -5
The most irritable lack of detail from Chibnall regarding Gallifrey is while it was clear he'd watched Day of the Doctor (he knew Gallifrey was in a pocket universe), he obviously hadn't seen Hell Bent where The Doctor told Clara he figured the Time Lords had worked out how to get out of it themselves. So did The Master's actions retcon Hell Bent?
I mean, that in itself would be no big loss since most fans hated Hell Bent anyway, but it could mean Clara's more optimistic end was undone. If I were in charge, I'd probably have to spin the events of "Face the Raven" as being the doing of the Division and not anything at the command of Rassilon, to make it work with the Timeless origin.
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Post by "Trickster Dogg" James Jesse on Jul 31, 2021 2:39:58 GMT -5
the explosive climax to months of storytelling is roughly an hour expository dialogue that, at no juncture, even takes a stab at being engaging I agree, I also thought the Season 1 finale of Loki was rather disappointing.
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thechase
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Post by thechase on Jul 31, 2021 12:16:04 GMT -5
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Jul 31, 2021 12:28:51 GMT -5
I know UK fans will hate this idea, but perhaps a more American-style swashbuckling feel is what the show needs to help revive it.
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thechase
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Post by thechase on Jul 31, 2021 12:31:08 GMT -5
I know UK fans will hate this idea, but perhaps a more American-style swashbuckling feel is what the show needs to help revive it. I thought we were kind of getting that a bit in early Moffat, particularly series five and bits of series six.
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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Jul 31, 2021 14:05:11 GMT -5
I'm pretty much for JMS writing most things >_>
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Post by Ryushinku on Jul 31, 2021 15:43:45 GMT -5
Like, it's not like Jodie's era is a wasteland of quality.
I personally feel there are a couple of very good stories (Vila Diodati, Fugitive), a bunch of pretty good (Rosa, Demons, Kerblam, Resolution) and even flawed-but-interesting-and-decent ones (Tesla, Revolution, Spyfall).
But, even putting aside the bad stories in that time, it's no killer's row. There's nothing here that's made me feel the same way watching as The Empty Child, The Impossible Planet, The Doctor's Wife or Heaven Sent. Nor nothing at the level of Father's Day, Human Nature, Blink, Fires of Pompeii, Silence in the Library, Midnight, The Waters of Mars. The God Complex, The Girl Who Waited, The Day of the Doctor, Mummy on the Orient Express, Flatline, Last Christmas, Face the Raven, Thin Ice, Oxygen, World Enough and Time. All that. I honestly hand on heart couldn't put any of Jodie's run, so far, above any of those. And that's even before including any Classic Who stories into the mix,
It's not been the bad stories that have been the problem, every era has those. It's been the general feeling of "that's good enough", or worse, just maybe not actually being able to improve things higher. Make those middling stories good, make those good stories really good. Instead it's felt like the other way round, a reduction not an elevation. And Chibnall is the bloke in charge.
There have been some odd parallels to the Fifth Doctor's era. A crowded TARDIS, with everyone fighting for narrative oxygen. A rather cheerful but often ineffectual Doctor that sometimes succeeds due to other people doing what they didn't. Good ideas fighting against variable planning and execution.
Yet that era ends on a triumph with The Caves of Androzani. It drags this nice cricket chap through the mud and "kills" him, the good guy in a horrible universe that is a lot of Season 21, and yet in doing so he still makes a difference to someone because he is that good guy and morally goes out an absolute hero. There have been opportunities to do something interesting with the Thirteenth Doctor's character - the happy-on-the-outside fragility, the need for people around her, the often dubious morality (even downright careless at times), that really haven't been taken.
But the opportunities do exist. There is still a set of stories yet to go for Jodie and, by God, I hope that she can have something in there that truly hits the heights. Her era needs it, and she deserves it.
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thechase
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Post by thechase on Aug 2, 2021 10:32:52 GMT -5
I've noticed on Gallifrey Base there's fresh gossip starting about yet another 'Chaos In Cardiff' situation, with claims that the BBC want a clean break from Chibs' production team and won't consider anyone from his staff for showrunner. There's also rumblings that Piers Wenger has recommended Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack) to helm the programme.
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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Aug 2, 2021 11:34:08 GMT -5
There's no rule that says a timelord can't be a dog.
Just saying.
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Post by Zombie Mod on Aug 2, 2021 12:09:52 GMT -5
There's no rule that says a timelord can't be a dog. Just saying. what culture's doctor who spin off videos?
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Post by Andy Martin on Aug 2, 2021 20:14:53 GMT -5
There's no rule that says a timelord can't be a dog. Just saying. what culture's doctor who spin off videos? Air Bud reboot?
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BorneAgain
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Post by BorneAgain on Aug 4, 2021 16:01:35 GMT -5
So this news dropped today:
If nothing else, Big Finish will certainly take advantage of every opportunity they have.
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