Doctor Who Series 12 starts 1st Janurary 2020

[Metr0Land]

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

The danger with box ticking is that you end up with over emphasis which is out of proportion.

 

The BBC though is stuck probably by it's charter to tick boxes now - the other channels don't have to

 

Pedant mode on:  C4 started with quotas and BBC followed - pedant mode off.

 

AIUI although there are various quotas, there are none for old people?

 

Fully agree that the emphasis is wrong.  With recent stuff that looks PC from the outset I find myself going through a checklist:

Strong female lead - check

Person of colour in a strong role - check

Person of LGBTQI+* community in strong role - check

 

Oh dear, half the programme's now gone whilst we wre checking the quotas rather then watching the story.  Was it any good?  I guess if it wasn't holding my interest through the quota checking then it's not so good.  What's on the other channels right now?

 

*other letters of the alphabet and other alphabets available

[woodenhead]

4 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

 

Pedant mode on:  C4 started with quotas and BBC followed - pedant mode off.

C4 is partially owned (or was by the BBC).

 

With C4 I noticed programmes aimed at particular communities which doesn't feel quite so forced as it does where you begin with any programme and then force it into cultural perspectives regardless of the heritage of the programme.

[Paul.Uni]

 

[DavidB-AU]

11 hours ago, woodenhead said:

As companions go I thought Donna was going to be awful but she turned out one of the best as the character developed with a bit of Bernard Cribbins as well.

 

At first I wasn't convinced that a comedian would be a good companion, but then I had to remind myself that Jon Pertwee came from a comedy background too.  Catherine Tate turned out to be brilliant. Didn't have any doubts about Bernard Cribbins because I knew he could act, and as a comic actor essentially playing it straight he excelled.

 

Cheers

David

[Steamport Southport]

I gave up on it last series. I can't stand that actress even before I consider the gender issue. Awful.

 

Just look at that still above. She looks terrified. Would William Hartnell or Tom Baker be afraid? Doubt it.

 

 

I tolerated the others since the reboot rather than liked then. Too many feelings. Too much staying on earth and in the present day. Everything evolving around London or occasionally Cardiff. You have a machine that travels in time and space. Use it you numbskulls. At least in the Pertwee era they acknowledged they had a strict budget and often overspent. Use the CGI wisely. Can't they find some corridors to run down and make some costumes out of foam, fur and old plungers?

 

 

 

 

Jason

[DavidB-AU]

Too much London? Did they learn nothing from history? A gravel quarry can be anywhere in the universe!

[ejstubbs]

18 hours ago, woodenhead said:

C4 is partially owned (or was by the BBC).

 

Do you have a reference for that?  I can't find anything that supports that assertion.

 

When it first began broadcasting in 1982 the Channel Four Television Company was a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority - the "Independent" bit meaning independent from the BBC.  When the Independent Television Commission replaced the IBA in the early 1990s the company transformed in to the Channel Four Television Corporation which is a public corporation of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.  AFAIK the corporation has no shareholders.  A quick look at its annual report indicates no executive or board representation by anyone with current involvement in the BBC.

 

Around the time of digital switch over Channel Four raised concerns about funding its public service broadcasting obligations post-switch over.  The BBC offered to pay Channel Four's switch over costs, but that was eventually nixed by the DCMS in favour of a broader review of the future* of public service broadcasting.

 

[The BBC does provide the majority of funding to S4C, as well as programming worth ~£19M annually provided free of charge (enabling the BBC to fulfil its public service remit in Wales).  But S4C isn't Channel Four, despite having a "4" in its name (it actually went on air one day before Channel 4!)  It's controlled by the S4C Authority, a separate DCMS  body unrelated to the Channel Four Television Corporation.]

 

* For "future" it would probably be safe to read "funding".

Edited December 7, 2019 by ejstubbs

[woodenhead]

7 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Do you have a reference for that?  I can't find anything that supports that assertion.

Unfortunately I can't, but it's a belief I've got from somewhere back in the 80s.

[didcot]

I loved Bernard Cribbins character and lets not forget he appeared with I think Peter Cushing and Roy Castle in an early film, as well as voicing the Hornby 7" record that used to come with train sets.

[Bill Radford]

I, for one, am looking forward to the new series. I thought the last series was a great improvement on the Peter Capaldi Doctor - Steven Moffett seemed to lose the plot as evidenced by the final seies of Sherlock. Although the companions are another matter - too many - one would be enough.

[jjb1970]

Doctor Who has always promoted messages. From the outset it has advocated that non-violence and tolerance are good and taken shots at those who promote conquest, xenophobia,nationalism etc. However in the past these aspects were written into some very good stories in a way which avoided it all feeling like nothing more than a vehicle to push ideas of the moment and patronize viewers. I didn't watch all of the last season as my two kids lost interest but what I did watch seemed to be patronising and preachy, with the effect magnified by the mediocrity of the stories and writing. I actually thought that Jodie Whittaker was one of the few positives of the show,however the production team showed with Peter Capaldi how to bring in genuinely great acting talent and blow it with rubbish writing so I wouldn't be surprised if they let Jodie Whittaker down in the same way. 

[woodenhead]

8 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Doctor Who has always promoted messages. From the outset it has advocated that non-violence and tolerance are good and taken shots at those who promote conquest, xenophobia,nationalism etc. 

Unless it is Daleks or Cybermen - then the Dr is an advocate of war - Kill them Kill them all, Kill them all now, Kill them with ultimate malice and then kill them again.

 

I still hold that one of the best scenes involving Daleks and Cybermen was their initial encounter where both had broken out of their respective dimensions and had come face to face not knowing each other - Daleks throwing down insults before blasting the Cybermen.

 

I guess it was the war the fans wanted.

[jjb1970]

1 minute ago, woodenhead said:

Unless it is Daleks or Cybermen - then the Dr is an advocate of war - Kill them Kill them all, Kill them all now, Kill them with ultimate malice and then kill them again.

 

I still hold that one of the best scenes involving Daleks and Cybermen was their initial encounter where both had broken out of their respective dimensions and had come face to face not knowing each other - Daleks throwing down insults before blasting the Cybermen.

 

I guess it was the war the fans wanted.

 

Even with the Daleks the doctor tended to be a reluctant soldier and turned their own violence against them. The bit at the end of Genesis of the Daleks showed the character of the pre-time war doctor and one of the most effective plot devices of the Ecclestone and Tennant doctors was the development of the character coming to terms with his anger towards the Daleks and what he did in the time war. The writers did that very well. The message of the Daleks seemed to be that war is wrong but there are evils for which fighting is the only choice.

[didcot]

My 12 year old son called me in from the kitchen to watch A Stolen Earth. Forgotten how good it was. He commented that even the theme tune was better!

[didcot]

Oh dear! The episode was a cross between Casino Royale and Spectre. Some unfortunate stereotyping in the plane! At least the Master appears to be male again with a through back to the Tom Baker era with the Master taking the body of another! Hoping it gets better.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, didcot said:

At least the Master appears to be male again 

 

An unconvincing one.

[MJI]

Started off quite good, then went very silly. New Master a bit naff compared to the most recent Missie.

 

Was very Torchwoody at first in a good way.

 

But killing the voice of Sackboy, that is unforgivable.

 

And where were Bradleys 5 mates?

 

Perhaps I should not have watched an episode of The Chase before hand.

[AndyB]

On 07/12/2019 at 18:05, woodenhead said:

Unfortunately I can't, but it's a belief I've got from somewhere back in the 80s.

C4 is publicly owned, originally owned and operated as a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and more recently by the "Channel 4 Television Corporation", a public corporation of the Dept of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. 

[Nearholmer]

Having just watched it with 12yo son, I flicked through this thread and concluded that the main problem is almost certainly age, possibly compounded by not living in a large city.

 

All the gnashing of teeth about 'box ticking' is because equal treatment of diverse people looks abnormal to people who aren't used to seeing it on a regular basis. 

 

To a 12yo who has grown-up in an environment where equal treatment of diverse people is normal, it looks normal, and is therefore invisible, in the same way that what was portrayed fifty  years ago looked normal to me then (it reflected the social mores of the time, and The Daleks were blindingly obviously Nazis, who our Dads had fought). The target audience now is seeing the new normal as normal; the un-target audience possibly isn't.

 

Anyway, leaving that aside, I thought The Doc herself was pretty good (I didn't properly watch any of the previous series), but that having a 'posse' didn't work all that well because it diluted the dynamic. The Master seemed suitably evil, and the form of alien incursion quite creepy enough. I rthought Lenny Henry was very good, and Stephen Fry just played the character he's standardised for himself, so that went OK.

 

Son is suspending judgement in that professionally-hard-to-impress way that boys of his age usually do.

 

I will watch Part 2 with him, but am afraid that all the basic plot-options were exercised years ago, and have been re-exercised multiple times, so I'm not expecting to be totally wowed. Its a bit like Scooby-do.

 

(The episodes that I enjoyed most were a few years back, the one where Maureen Lipman was stealing everyone's brains through the TV, and the one where children acquired gas-mask faces, the latter being seriously creepy, which simply tells you that I have a taste for retro-noir. The 1960s ones didn't really stick in my mind, and the 1970s ones seemed deeply cheesy, even at the time)

[MJI]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Having just watched it with 12yo son, I flicked through this thread and concluded that the main problem is almost certainly age, possibly compounded by not living in a large city.

 

All the gnashing of teeth about 'box ticking' is because equal treatment of diverse people looks abnormal to people who aren't used to seeing it on a regular basis. 

 

To a 12yo who has grown-up in an environment where equal treatment of diverse people is normal, it looks normal, and is therefore invisible, in the same way that what was portrayed fifty  years ago looked normal to me then (it reflected the social mores of the time, and The Daleks were blindingly obviously Nazis, who our Dads had fought). The target audience now is seeing the new normal as normal; the un-target audience possibly isn't.

 

Anyway, leaving that aside, I thought The Doc herself was pretty good (I didn't properly watch any of the previous series), but that having a 'posse' didn't work all that well because it diluted the dynamic. The Master seemed suitably evil, and the form of alien incursion quite creepy enough. I rthought Lenny Henry was very good, and Stephen Fry just played the character he's standardised for himself, so that went OK.

 

Son is suspending judgement in that professionally-hard-to-impress way that boys of his age usually do.

 

I will watch Part 2 with him, but am afraid that all the basic plot-options were exercised years ago, and have been re-exercised multiple times, so I'm not expecting to be totally wowed. Its a bit like Scooby-do.

 

(The episodes that I enjoyed most were a few years back, the one where Maureen Lipman was stealing everyone's brains through the TV, and the one where children acquired gas-mask faces, the latter being seriously creepy, which simply tells you that I have a taste for retro-noir. The 1960s ones didn't really stick in my mind, and the 1970s ones seemed deeply cheesy, even at the time)

 

 

Gas masks - Empty Child/Doctor Dances, excellent episodes.

 

My favourite is still Blink.

 

Tom Baker or Jon Pertwee favourite doctors.

 

Last outstanding episode was Heaven Sent..

[Steamport Southport]

I still can't understand the constant "startled rabbit" expression of the woman pretending to be The Doctor.

 

This is supposed to be a character who has seen virtually everything including whole universes being destroyed and civilisations wiped out. Yet is terrified of aliens who may be a bit hostile. Tom Baker used to just laugh at them.

 

Only watched a bit to see if it had improved. Went back to the football....

 

 

 

 

Jason

[didcot]

45 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

I still can't understand the constant "startled rabbit" expression of the woman pretending to be The Doctor.

That made me laugh. She would have been horrified by Dracula, which was a romping good yarn.

[Mark Dickerson]

Yes, I particularly liked the rewriting of one of the main characters as a woman...

[pete_mcfarlane]

I thought it was OK. Not amazing, but a lot better than most of the last series. The ghost like baddies were quite effective, and the reveal of the Mater was pretty good.

 

But not Lenny Henry's best appearance in Doctor Who. ....

 

 

[Sol]

On tonight here in Australia