Dr. Who - Series 11 (2018)

[RedgateModels]

Mind you they also completely wasted Matt Lucas, another formidable talent.

 

The only gay Who in the Village maybe next regen?

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by RedgateModels

[Edge]

I actually like Jodie Whitaker as the Doctor, she’s got the right sort of mania going on and once she’s had more than a couple of episodes to work with she will develop that edge that we all like about the Doctor.

 

That being said, I really hope they get off the preachy stuff soon. So far we’ve had guns, racism and evil capitalism. I utterly refused to watch the Rosa Parkes episode as an event that important shouldn’t be made the subject of an adventure-based programme, and the Trump substitution from the latest episode made everything absolutely awful.

 

Frankly, I don’t want to be preached at all of the time when I’m watching Dr Who. Tying in a wider point to storylines is absolutely superb on occasion (and has produced some of the best episodes ever) but the current repetitiveness is robbing the show of both quality and impact. Perhaps just a sci-if Adventure next week?

[chris p bacon]

 But I don't agree with the talk of having a black James Bond, how would you explain that one it's not like Bond can regenerate.

 

 

And yet he has.

Several times.

 

 

Well no they have just changed the actor without referring to it in the film. Unlike the Doctor where the regeneration is part of the storyline.

 

 

Off topic but one of the first lines from George Lazenby in his opening scenes was "the other guy didn't have this trouble" refering to Connery.

[MJI]

Getting an actor of the calibre of Capaldi to play the Doctor and then blowing it by giving him such mediocre stories and scripts must be one of the greatest wasted opportunities in TV. Mind you they also completely wasted Matt Lucas, another formidable talent. In the first season of the re-booted show they also took on a great actor to play the lead (Christopher Eccleston) and the combination of a great lead with a strong assistant and supporting parts and generally very good stories re-established the show and gave it momentum. The last few seasons have just felt like the show was running on empty and being carried along by momentum established earlier on.

 

More older something is the more you forget the dross.

 

All modern series of Doctor Who are full of dross with the occasional good episode.

 

Capaldi had some fantastic episodes as well as some dross.

 

The late Rose stories were particularly terrible along with the shriveled up Doctor in a cage. Terrible.

 

Last SM/PC series looked like it had suffered with very low budgets, but there was still good writing.

 

Clara got on my nerves.

[MJI]

I actually like Jodie Whitaker as the Doctor, she’s got the right sort of mania going on and once she’s had more than a couple of episodes to work with she will develop that edge that we all like about the Doctor.

 

That being said, I really hope they get off the preachy stuff soon. So far we’ve had guns, racism and evil capitalism. I utterly refused to watch the Rosa Parkes episode as an event that important shouldn’t be made the subject of an adventure-based programme, and the Trump substitution from the latest episode made everything absolutely awful.

 

Frankly, I don’t want to be preached at all of the time when I’m watching Dr Who. Tying in a wider point to storylines is absolutely superb on occasion (and has produced some of the best episodes ever) but the current repetitiveness is robbing the show of both quality and impact. Perhaps just a sci-if Adventure next week?

 

She is fine, but I am finding some of the new episodes embarrasing to watch.

 

So far embarrasing bits are knife comment, gun comment, the pathetic racist, the overtrumpification of the hotel owner.

 

Most embarrasing to watch RTD episode was the Doctor in a cage as a shriveled thing out of LOTR

[Pacific231G]

Agree regarding the female Doctor, although I think much more could have been made of the confusion caused by being male for several thousand years and all of a sudden becoming female !

We've only seen male Doctors before, that doesn't mean there haven't been others  taking on a human female form.

 

Meanwhile,most of the non-evil intelligent life in the Whovian universe is human and what isn't looks slightly different from us but fundamentally the same. I suppose though it must be really difficult for real alens to get Equity cards. I wonder what Time Lords really look like, if indeed "look like" is even a meaningful concept in that context.

 

FWIW I think Jodie Whitaker is an excellent Doctor but I'm not sure about the scripts so far. Rosa Parks wasn't the first time they've put the Doctor into a real historical situation and, sadly, the depiction of Alabama in the 1950s rang very true. If you've ever read Lucius Beebe's Mixed Train Daily you pick up on  a lot of the attitudes and real suspicion of strangers of the deep south and he was only there hunting down the steam hauled short lines that the region was still fairly rich in. 

Edited October 31, 2018 by Pacific231G

[bimble]

We've only seen male Doctors before, that doesn't mean there haven't been others  taking on a human female form.

 

 

apart from the fact that we have seen all the incarnations of the Doctor... Time Lords only have 12 reincarnations, and the Matt Smith was supposed to be the last, until he was given more the in Christmas special 'The Time of the Doctor' which introduced us to Peter Capaldi's Doctor...

[kevinlms]

apart from the fact that we have seen all the incarnations of the Doctor... Time Lords only have 12 reincarnations, and the Matt Smith was supposed to be the last, until he was given more the in Christmas special 'The Time of the Doctor' which introduced us to Peter Capaldi's Doctor...

IIRC an earlier version of Dr Who (perhaps Jon Pertwee?) mentioned that he was 6th incarnation of the doctor.

 

Also the TARDIS was once totally indestructible and could only be accessed with his permission. Clearly that is no longer the case.

 

Edit to add.

 

OK, here is what I remembered. Except it was Tom Baker & not Jon Pertwee.

 

In The Brain of Morbius (produced shortly before The Deadly Assassin), a sequence of faces displayed during a mental battle between the Fourth Doctor and Morbius imply that the Doctor had at least eight incarnations prior to the First Doctor. This is contradicted by multiple dialogue references throughout the programme (particularly in The Three Doctors, Mawdryn Undead and The Five Doctors) as well as the fact that the Doctor has regenerated nine times since then (as confirmed in "The Time of the Doctor"). Producer Philip Hinchcliffe has said, "We tried to get famous actors for the faces of the Doctor. But because no one would volunteer, we had to use backroom boys. And it is true to say that I attempted to imply that William Hartnell was not the first Doctor."^[53] The Doctor's previous incarnations are represented by images of production unit manager George Gallaccio, script editor Robert Holmes, production assistant Graeme Harper, director Douglas Camfield, producer Philip Hinchcliffe, production assistant Christopher Baker, writer Robert Banks Stewart and director Christopher Barry.^[54][55]

 

^And

 

 

In the BBC Series 4 FAQ, writer Russell T Davies made a joke that now the Time Lord social order has been destroyed, the Doctor may be able to regenerate indefinitely: "Now that his people are gone, who knows? Time Lords used to have 13 lives."^[20][52]

 

From

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor_(Doctor_Who)#Inconsistencies

 

So there you have it, the number of Doctor Who reincarnations, greatly exceeds the 13th Doctor as Jodie Whittaker.

Edited November 1, 2018 by kevinlms

[Hroth]

apart from the fact that we have seen all the incarnations of the Doctor... Time Lords only have 12 reincarnations, and the Matt Smith was supposed to be the last, until he was given more the in Christmas special 'The Time of the Doctor' which introduced us to Peter Capaldi's Doctor...

So the reincarnation as a female is a duplication error?  Its certain that the Doctors were getting younger and younger until Peter Capaldi took on the role, apparently he is around the same age as William Hartnell was when he was the First Doctor, though you wouldn't think it!  Going on that, it looks like Time Lord reincarnation is getting a bit ragged...

[Karhedron]

Colin Baker was older than Peter Davison so the Doctor does not always get younger. Paul McGann also regenerates into a young John Hurt (if the reflection in the cup is anything to go by).

 

[Pacific231G]

apart from the fact that we have seen all the incarnations of the Doctor... Time Lords only have 12 reincarnations, and the Matt Smith was supposed to be the last, until he was given more the in Christmas special 'The Time of the Doctor' which introduced us to Peter Capaldi's Doctor...

What was true about the Doctor in the past may very well have changed, S/he is after all a Time Lord, so you shouldn't expect internal consistency. In a universe where things can exist and not exist at the same time it's entirely possible for the Doctor to have twelve and a hundred regenerations at the same time and to have never been female before and often female before (though "before" and after may be equally meaningless) 

 

In our world, I suspect the limit of twelve regenerations was a desperate attempt by earlier producers to escape from the character. They succeeded about as well as Conan Doyle did with the Reichenbach Falls!  

[NorthBrit]

Am I the only person never to have seen any episode of Dr Who.?

[Torper]

Am I the only person never to have seen any episode of Dr Who.?

 

A bit like I've never seen Starwars?  If you've never seen Dr Who, now is not the time to try it.

 

DT

[Coryton]

Am I the only person never to have seen any episode of Dr Who.?

 

Posting on a thread about the latest Doctor Who series?. Probably...

[57xx]

It's become a bit more Dr WTF than Dr Who.

[bimble]

What was true about the Doctor in the past may very well have changed, S/he is after all a Time Lord, so you shouldn't expect internal consistency. In a universe where things can exist and not exist at the same time it's entirely possible for the Doctor to have twelve and a hundred regenerations at the same time and to have never been female before and often female before (though "before" and after may be equally meaningless) 

 

In our world, I suspect the limit of twelve regenerations was a desperate attempt by earlier producers to escape from the character. They succeeded about as well as Conan Doyle did with the Reichenbach Falls!  

 

Or probably more a case of giving a bit more peril... so there's not "infinite" lives. Time Lords can die/be killed.

 

And whilst it's hardly surprising that in the early years some of the basic rules were flexible... I doubt any of them considered that 55 years after the first episode the show would still be going strong, but the 13 regenerations became lore enough that they came up with a method to get around it when they ran out of regenerations.

[jjb1970]

There is quite a good review in the current edition of Private Eye, funnily enough their reviewer agrees with a lot of the criticism on here in that it has become almost the ultimate BBC box ticking exercise but see's this as a positive in re-booting the show for a new young audience that now expects that sort of approach. Sadly I think their reviewer may very well be spot on. One of the things RTD did very well when he re-booted Doctor Who was to keep enough of the old show to engage old fans whilst finding a whole new audience, I think the current season has probably decided only the new audience for the Jodie Whittaker iteration is what matters and what they're pitching at. 

[caradoc]

Gave it a chance again tonight but found the story totally unengaging. I turned over to ITV where Bradley Walsh was more entertaining in The Chase than in Doctor Who.

[gwrrob]

Utter bilge, bring back David Tennant and better storylines.

[MJI]

There is quite a good review in the current edition of Private Eye, funnily enough their reviewer agrees with a lot of the criticism on here in that it has become almost the ultimate BBC box ticking exercise but see's this as a positive in re-booting the show for a new young audience that now expects that sort of approach. Sadly I think their reviewer may very well be spot on. One of the things RTD did very well when he re-booted Doctor Who was to keep enough of the old show to engage old fans whilst finding a whole new audience, I think the current season has probably decided only the new audience for the Jodie Whittaker iteration is what matters and what they're pitching at. 

 

RTD was very good at this and also very good for his use and choosing of other writers (Most of Moffatts best work was during the RTD era).

 

This series all 4 same writer. Very generic.

[MJI]

Gave it a chance again tonight but found the story totally unengaging. I turned over to ITV where Bradley Walsh was more entertaining in The Chase than in Doctor Who.

 

Ah "So I failed the Egghead challenge".

 

Yes all 5 of the Chasers have failed to get selected for Eggheads.

[Coryton]

RTD was very good at this and also very good for his use and choosing of other writers (Most of Moffatts best work was during the RTD era).

 

I'd agree with that. I think though that he did more than just choosing writers - I think his part extended to providing outlines and rewriting the scripts fairly heavily once he got them.

 

I do think it's a little odd that Chris Chibnal has written so many episodes in the series so far (one I think was co-written) because it's generally considered an awful lot of work. Then again maybe he works more efficiently than RTD, who by his own admission seems to have taken a rather Douglas Adams approach to deadlines and spent an awful lot of time Not Writing when he could/should have been.

 

Having said all that, I enjoyed today's episode.

[MJI]

Utter bilge, bring back David Tennant and better storylines.

 

Won't happen, it burns out the show runners, burnt out RTD and SM

 

As to writing there are 11 better writers than Chibnall. 2 were show runners. I suspect that a few others would have show ran better as well.

 

8 writers are of similar story quality as Chibnall

 

2 not as good

 

Hmmmm

[antrobuscp]

Utter bilge, bring back David Tennant and better storylines.

I wouldn't disagree with this, but the main problem is the writing - I think Jodie Whitaker is capable of becoming a really good Doctor. The writing is poor, as it has been in the recent past. I had hoped that the change of writers would improve matters, it hasn't. 

[MJI]

I'd agree with that. I think though that he did more than just choosing writers - I think his part extended to providing outlines and rewriting the scripts fairly heavily once he got them.

 

I do think it's a little odd that Chris Chibnal has written so many episodes in the series so far (one I think was co-written) because it's generally considered an awful lot of work. Then again maybe he works more efficiently than RTD, who by his own admission seems to have taken a rather Douglas Adams approach to deadlines and spent an awful lot of time Not Writing when he could/should have been.

 

Having said all that, I enjoyed today's episode.

 

RTD did a really good job though and he did say he never touched a Moffatt script.

 

I do get the feeling that some of these scripts are rushed.

 

This is best so far but still pretty average compared to an early new Who.