Doctor Who 60th Anniversary specials. 25 November 2023 18:30 GMT. BBC 1 (UK)/Disney+ (RoW)

[papagolfjuliet]

On 01/11/2023 at 15:29, KeithMacdonald said:

The Hornby version....

https://uk.Hornby.com/products/police-box-r8696

 

 

 

Curiously enough the Hornby model is closer to the TARDIS prop used during most of the Tom Baker era than it is to the Met original.

 

http://www.themindrobber.co.uk/tardis-police-box.html

[Paul.Uni]

Previews from 'The Star Beast':

 

The repeat of 'An Adventure in Space and Time' had a scene updated.

 

A couple of 60 Anniversary trailers. Spoiler Warning: includes clips from Season 1 of the new era.

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Paul.Uni

[didcot]

OH YES, WELCOME BACK DOCTOR WHO. BACK WITH A BANG!

[30801]

Spent most of it wondering why the Meep seemed familiar.

From the 1980's Dr Who comic.

 

[Nick G]

My Son in law worked on Doctor Who and was mentioned in the credits. Here is my grandson pointing out the claws on the Wrarth warriors on Doctor who from tonights episode. His dad moulded them

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Nick G said:

My Son in law worked on Doctor Who and was mentioned in the credits. Here is my grandson pointing out the claws on the Wrarth warriors on Doctor who from tonights episode. His dad moulded them

 

Nice to see real monsters with glowing red eyes!!!

 

(episode recorded, I'll watch it tomorrow morning!)

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Hroth

[John M Upton]

I have noticed from Social Media feeds that "everyone" thought the first special on Saturday night was brilliant.  Either I am in a minority of one or was watching a completely different episode as, the welcome return of David Tennant aside and a couple of good moments, I thought it was mediocre at best and poor at worst, especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense. 

[Hroth]

29 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

I have noticed from Social Media feeds that "everyone" thought the first special on Saturday night was brilliant.  Either I am in a minority of one or was watching a completely different episode as, the welcome return of David Tennant aside and a couple of good moments, I thought it was mediocre at best and poor at worst, especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense. 

 

Its probably "brilliant" when compared with the previous Doctor.

When I get around to watching it, I'll try to tune out the preaching.

 

[30801]

40 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense. 

 

Sad that you find people's lived existence tedious and unnecessary.

[jjb1970]

I watched it on Disney+, I am one of their 'subscribers' who got it bundled as a freebie by my Internet provider (I don't think it is worth paying for). I found it disappointing. 

 

On the upside, it didn't have that feeling of lots of ideas just thrown in the air to create a story of the Chibnall era. Production values were very good and it was nice to see the two leads back. Especially after the train wreck left by Chibnall. 

 

Unfortunately it went downhill from there. I struggled to keep watching as it all felt a bit directionless and more like a message looking for a story than a story with a message. In his first stint as show runner RTD did an excellent job of writing social issues into compelling stories and developing really strong characters to represent different strands of society. The messaging was organic to the characters and story and I often left episodes thinking about the issues raised. This felt very different,  heavy handed and preachy. I suspect the specials will be carried along by goodwill for Tenant and Tate, I am not optimistic beyond that.

[iL Dottore]

On 27/11/2023 at 23:21, John M Upton said:

I have noticed from Social Media feeds that "everyone" thought the first special on Saturday night was brilliant.  Either I am in a minority of one or was watching a completely different episode as, the welcome return of David Tennant aside and a couple of good moments, I thought it was mediocre at best and poor at worst, especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense. 

I finally watched the special (I was away at the weekend so had it recorded) and it was……. alright.

 

The production values were very high and it was fast paced enough to leap over the plot holes (but plot holes seem to be as much part of the Dr Who universe as the Daleks and have been since the very start of the show in 1963). It was a bit shaky (and a bit mawkish towards the end), but compared with anything from the ghastly Chibnall/Whittaker era, it was a good show.
 

I liked the Tardis interior re-design - more than a nod to the original Tardis design, but the symphonic arrangement of the original (and best Dr Who theme tune is still carp.
 

In regards the last point of John’s post, in a way I thought it was a bit of a dig at this aspect of modern obsessions by the way the Meep answered the question. But John’s point is a valid one: the Beeb seems to obsessed with shoe-horning things into programmes that have absolutely no relevance to story, character or era. Most of the time, it comes across as patronising, condescending and a tick-box exercise (and often seems to only represent the “concerns” of the “media types” within the M25 ring)

 

In the past Dr Who has very powerfully highlighted the issues of the day - but with a finesse and subtlety that has been absent from the programme for quite a while.

[iL Dottore]

On 28/11/2023 at 08:47, jjb1970 said:

In his first stint as show runner RTD did an excellent job of writing social issues into compelling stories and developing really strong characters to represent different strands of society. The messaging was organic to the characters and story and I often left episodes thinking about the issues raised. This felt very different,  heavy handed and preachy. I suspect the specials will be carried along by goodwill for Tenant and Tate, I am not optimistic beyond that.

I don’t think that is necessarily RTD’s fault, the Beeb has been going this way for quite a while. Subtlety, finesse, nuance seem to have been jettisoned in favour of being bludgeoned over the head with a “message” about X or Y.

[DK123GWR]

I thought it was reasonably good. I think being aware of The Meep beforehand (so anticipating the reveal as the villain) didn't really detract from the episode, and probably made the earlier scenes more amusing. I would have perhaps preferred the good Wrarth Warriors vs evil Meep situation to be slightly more complicated, forcing the Doctor into a dilemma where saving the innocent civilians on Earth from The Meep would require working with the Wrarth, who (for example) were indeed treating The Meep as livestock as alleged in Donna's kitchen. I also appreciate that that would be too slow and heavy for a lot of people, and that the context (three specials) required Donna to be revived pretty quickly so she could play a full role in the next two, so a more complicated story would probably have led to too much being crammed in.

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

(and often seems to only represent the “concerns” of the “media types” within the M25 ring)

Except, of course, for all of us who haven't often seen important aspects of our lives replicated on screen, especially when that's something we're marginalised for. Being able to watch films and TV that told stories about queer people and dealt with issues affecting us was hugely important when I was a teenager questioning my sexuality. It allowed me to explore and confront feelings that I just wouldn't have been able to otherwise. The fact that such stories have increasingly entered the mainstream, and been well-received, is one of the things that helped me build the confidence to stop hiding part of myself away. Seeing people like you on screen matters. But so does having other people see them. It can erode prejudices and people's reactions can tell you a lot about how safe it is to be yourself in that environment. Inclusive storytelling makes a real, positive difference to the lives of ordinary people across the country.

 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's something you can fully appreciate except by first-hand experience. I would be sceptical of many of the assertions I've just made if they weren't grounded in my own experience as there isn't much else that I have felt that I could use as the base for trying to empathise with someone in my own situation. But it's still true that seeing authetic, explicitly gay characters in prominent roles on television has helped me, just as seeing authentic trans or disabled characters is immensely valuable to many other people. The idea that inclusivity in media is solely, or even primarily, about allowing media executives to congratulate themselves on how progressive they think they are trivialises the important impact it has on the lives of a huge number of viewers (the majority of whom live outside the M25).

[Phil Parker]

On 27/11/2023 at 22:21, John M Upton said:

I thought it was mediocre at best and poor at worst, especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense. 

 

According to the behind-the-scenes programme that followed, all that "tedious nonsense" is a vital plot point by the end.

[woodenhead]

On 27/11/2023 at 22:21, John M Upton said:

I have noticed from Social Media feeds that "everyone" thought the first special on Saturday night was brilliant.  Either I am in a minority of one or was watching a completely different episode as, the welcome return of David Tennant aside and a couple of good moments, I thought it was mediocre at best and poor at worst, especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense. 

It's difficult, I get it, the world around us is changing and we want to cling on to what we know and trust.  But the thing is, the world moves on and as we age we begin to be left behind.  It's all part of our existence, once we were the future and now we are moving towards being the past.

 

I speak as the father of someone transgender, it's hard to imagine yourself in their shoes and try and make sense of it all, eventually you have to accept you cannot understand their lived experience and feelings that have led them to this realignment.  All you can be is there for them and supportive to their needs.

 

Young people today have a very different outlook than we did, for them gender and sexual fluidity is normal, all Dr Who is doing is reflecting modern societal norms amongst young people who are the target audience.

 

Me, I thought it was a brilliant episode, I really liked David Tennant's time as Dr Who and Catherine Tate was excellent as Donna Noble so it was great to see them back together.  The speed at which the episode went is pretty much as expected for a modern day Dr Who and whilst it will be sad to see them both go again in a couple of episodes I think Ncuti Gatwa is going to bring a new edge to the role which I am looking forward to, he was excellent in Sex Education.

[iL Dottore]

I think that a lot of the objections to the modern iterations of Dr Who is that the programme is now “message first, plot second” and for the individual characters it’s nearly always “identity first, character second”.

 

I do think that this approach alienates many. Dr Who has never shied away from addressing serious issues, even in the 60s (the Daleks were Terry Nation’s vision of racial superiority at the extremes), but it was done with subtlety and never got in the way of a good story, in many cases it was the good story.

 

Nowadays it’s more a case of “HE’S A THREE LEGGED GREEN VENUSIAN and a top UNIT commander” as opposed to “He’s a top UNIT commander, who happens to be a three legged green Venusian”.  
 

This sort of identity politics and messaging is the complete antithesis of the great Martin Luther King’s dream that “…my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Nowadays it seems, at least at the Beeb, skin colour/identity is more important than a person’s character.

[woodenhead]

@iL Dottore Fully agree that this seems to go against what MLK professed,  but perhaps the road to such normalisation, that today still feels a long way away for some, is to project prominent positive representations of those people who are disciminated against - be it a person a colour, a disabled person, their sexuality or gender.

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

@iL Dottore Fully agree that this seems to go against what MLK professed,  but perhaps the road to such normalisation, that today still feels a long way away for some, is to project prominent positive representations of those people who are disciminated against - be it a person a colour, a disabled person, their sexuality or gender.

The way to do it IMO is to normalise from the off, rather than draw attention. The latter is preaching to the converted and likely to draw a backlash (mind you of course some people will backlash against the mere presence).  One thing to definitely avoid is trying to make those you disagree with look bad, if you hope to change their minds.

 

I do worry that a lot of it feels like "this group" or "that group", which I believe is counterproductive, emphasising differences, separating people, all feeling rather like "us and them," rather than the fact that we're all humans albeit with our own variations and quirks.

[DK123GWR]

What do you think character before identity would look like here? You can't understand Rose without appreciating her experience of gender, and the consequences of that. From the shed scene we know that her compassion for The Meep, before the reveal as a villain, is clearly linked to her own feelings of isolation. This is the scene in which Rose is most vulnerable, and we get to see a part of her that she would normally hide from other people. But her partial exclusion from society has come about because of her gender identity, and the way that others have responded to it. We know that she experiences discrimination and hostility from at least some of her peers, and that this is pervasive. We've seen it take place outside her front door. From that we can be almost certain that it happens at school. So there probably aren't many places where Rose feels safe and secure. That's a very important insight, and its something that might be crucial to understanding her actions if we see more of her. And those are just the indirect effects that are easiest to observe. Somebody who spends more time than me thinking about what gender is and their relationship with it could probably give you a far more detailed and nuanced account of the ways gender identity can influence seemingly unrelated aspects of someone's personality.

 

If we are judging people by the content of their character, we shouldn't be getting upset about the fact that their race, gender, or sexuality are so visible. They would still be fundamental (though not politicised) parts of people long after equality is acheived.

 

Martin Luther King was very clear, even in that speech, that his dream was something that could only be realised following a long and often confrontational campaign for equality: "With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day." A point King made time and again, which he is making here, is that progree cannot be acheived without making people uncomfortable. Most people find changing their views challenging, and they can lash out. I have enourmous admiration and gratitude for those who, like King (and, to some extent, Russel T Davies) who understand that what they are doing will make some people uncomfortable, that they will fight back against it, and yet do it anyway because they understand how important it is. As I write this paragraph @woodenhead has posted and I would agree with everything from the first comma onwards. Returning to King's famous speech: "We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only." If main character roles are dominated by straight, white, able-bodied men, it acts as a more subtle but no less powerful version of the signs King was opposing. It's a similar point to my last post so I won't keep rehearsing it, but seeing yourself in prominent positions matters, and if you don't you will notice it and it will limit your ambitions and opportunities.

 

I think I've made most of the contributions I can to this debate. There might be further elaborations or clarifications but I would imagine they will just be building on the same basic points. For those who are following this thread solely in their capacity as Doctor Who fans, I can imagine it's already becoming a little tedious. I hope therefore that I will be forgiven for stepping back for now, and limiting any further contributions to very specific points which I find interesting.

[Steamport Southport]

But it's mainly a kids and family programme. Can't they leave all the gender and sexuality stuff to Channel Four after the watershed? 

 

I just want to see aliens zapping things*. Not get a lecture every episode. 

 

 

*And there is hardly any of that anymore. Nearly everything has been on Earth in the modern day since it was rebooted. Why do they even need a machine that travels in time and space as they never use it!?

 

 

Jason

[cctransuk]

On 27/11/2023 at 22:21, John M Upton said:

...... especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense. 

 

It would seem that the BBC has been appointed the LGBTQ****** promotion authority. I am just hoping that I pass on before it becomes compulsory!

 

I have never before felt so brow-beaten by propaganda in what should be a light-hearted adventure drama.

 

....... and the 'Behind the scenes' follow-up was absolutely blatent about what the scriptwriter and director set out to promote!

 

Total bilge!

 

CJI.

[cctransuk]

On 27/11/2023 at 23:03, 30801 said:

 

Sad that you find people's lived existence tedious and unnecessary.

 

What is tedious and unnecessary is the apparent need amongst the LGBTQ*** community to constantly draw attention to what is - we are told- a perfectly normal state of being.

 

If that be the case, get on with life, without the histrionics!

 

CJI.

Edited November 30, 2023 by cctransuk

[30801]

13 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

If that be the case, get on with life, without the hisrionics!

 

You're the one having histrionics love.

[DK123GWR]

38 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Can't they leave all the gender and sexuality stuff to Channel Four after the watershed?

I completely agree! We should remove all identifiable traces of sexuality and gender before the watershed! Children will never be safe from such destructive ideas until all characters are uniform, nondescript, alien blobs!

Or is it only some people's sexuality and gender that you think children need protecting from?

Edited November 30, 2023 by DK123GWR

[Anadin Dogwalker]

While I enjoyed the Star Beast, I was more annoyed about the Children In Need sketch and an ambulatory Davros. It could have been pitched way before Genesis, and pre-injury but the whole point of Davros was that his life-support chair was the catalyst for designing the Daleks. It's not as though his chair vaguely resembled any sort of wheelchair in daily use. FWIW I can only think of three other characters in chairs: the resistance leader in Dalek Invasion of Earth, Henry Woolf in the Sunmakers, and Trigger as John Lumic in Age of Steel. As much as it was nice too see Julian Bleach maintain his ownership of the role, ditching the chair was a bad call. It would be like ditching the police box as a protest against the failings of numerous forces and the criminal activities of officers. Must'nt give 'em ideas...