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TV Doctor Who ST | This Thread Is Bigger On The Inside

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Yeah, definitely had a lot of cool little moments but a bit "hectic", imho.

Also they released the episode titles and writers for the season on Twitter. Of the 8 episodes, RTD is writing 6. One episode is written by Moffat and only a single episode has a new writing team in Kate Herron and Briony Redman:



By the looks of it, this is probably the "Bridgerton" episode :D
 
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Nice to see some new novels. I bought the first three Thirteenth Doctor novels and then it was followed by... nothing. Only checking now do I see there were a handful more in 2020 and 2021. That the most recent 4 books were novelizations of the late-2023 specials seemed like a waste.

At this point I am getting kind of tired of waiting for the new series. When it starts it will be more than 2 years since Ncuti's casting was announced. I feel like I'll have spent more time seeing promo images than I'll spend watching 8 episodes.
 
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oomoepoo said:
We're less than 12 hours away from the first two new episodes!

Are you going to watch them the minute they unlock online or are you waiting for the TV premiere? :D

(Or, like me, watch them with some friends at a completely different time)
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I watched the first one with my breakfast, had a shower, then watched the second one and it might be the ideal way to watch TV???

We used to get up early on mornings where Ted Lasso dropped to watch it before work and it had a magical sense of occasion and this had the same thing, except nobody had to go to work after so it's even better.
 
Something in the Devil's Chord that begged a question to me, though it's for sure one the show wouldn't want to have to deal with.
The Doctor mentioned how at this time his old self was living across town. But I wonder: if we HAD taken a look over there during this episode, would we have seen a First Doctor to whom the current state of screwed-up musical affairs on Earth seemed normal? Or maybe he'd sense it as being abnormal, and put it in the form of "My dear child, something is very wrong with this place. I think it best we not stay long, and certainly not return hundreds of times."
 
As for me, I did end up watching the first time basically the moment the episodes dropped on Disney+... only to find out they fucked up and didn't include the german dub (and it's still not there as of writing this) and then watched it again with some friends on Sunday.

So far, I really hope Moffat delivers coming saturday because so far I've been a bit unimpressed with what we got from RTD 2.0.

Space Babies was quite possibly among the worst season openers I've watched in a while. I did enjoy the dynamic between Ruby and the Doctor but that's about it. They basically speedran the Doctor Who introduction within 15 minutes and then filled the rest of it with a story featuring talking babies with ugly CGI mouths and an equally ugly Xenomorph rip-off. At least Gold's score wasn't as "in your face" as I feared (I love his score but towards the end of his tenure it got a bit tiring). Don't get me wrong, it probably works good enough as an introduction to the franchise but it's not a very good episode, imho.

The Devil's Chord had the potential to be an all-time classic... if it was written by someone else than Davies. I loved the idea of it but under him it turned into essentially a reprise of The Giggle, with a far less charismatic villain. The Beatles are unfortunately only an afterthought and don't even look like the real deal (and then it's only about Paul and George). Which is probably a new low for those pseudo-historical episodes in the new show. At least the soundtrack was on point, really liked the piano version of the opening theme. It's still better than Space Babies (and possibly Church on Ruby Road) but that's not a very high bar :D
 
Something I was thinking about today. By frequently shuffling in new side characters who don't understand what's going on, the show keeps itself fairly friendly to people dropping in at a lot of points and being able to piece things together along with the characters. Especially when new Doctors and/or showrunners show up, those have been the points that are the easiest for someone to come in fresh. But I feel like that doesn't work this time. It seems like this season would be incomplete without an understanding of things set up in the 60th anniversary specials, and asking someone to start there without any prior information about Ten and Donna would also be weird.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
Something I was thinking about today. By frequently shuffling in new side characters who don't understand what's going on, the show keeps itself fairly friendly to people dropping in at a lot of points and being able to piece things together along with the characters. Especially when new Doctors and/or showrunners show up, those have been the points that are the easiest for someone to come in fresh. But I feel like that doesn't work this time. It seems like this season would be incomplete without an understanding of things set up in the 60th anniversary specials, and asking someone to start there without any prior information about Ten and Donna would also be weird.
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You do have a point, especially with the villains of this season seemingly being direct consequence of the 60th. But on the other hand, I feel like it works well enough with Ruby being fairly clueless about everything too.
 
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It's not as clear cut as Rose or The Eleventh Hour (or, for what is worth, The Woman Who Fell on Earth), but I feel the rules have changed a bit in the age of streaming and fandom wiki. "Get hooked with Gatwa, then go back to the '60s specials" is not a tough ask for the modern audience who has marathoned the entire MCU.

They should have had the older Series/Seasons on Disney+, though.
 
Gingerbread Man said:
It's not as clear cut as Rose or The Eleventh Hour (or, for what is worth, The Woman Who Fell on Earth), but I feel the rules have changed a bit in the age of streaming and fandom wiki. "Get hooked with Gatwa, then go back to the '60s specials" is not a tough ask for the modern audience who has marathoned the entire MCU.

They should have had the older Series/Seasons on Disney+, though.
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While it may not be a tough ask, I feel like if you literally advertise it as "Season 1" again and then it turns out people new to it still need to do homework to understand everthing, that's really not a good look for the show and kind of needlessly limits your audience.

People didn't need to watch the last seasons of Davison again to fully enjoy Rose or really anything from Eccleston's tenure.
 
Lord, I'd kill to have an opening episode that's on the same bar as The Pilot of series 10. You can go in completely blind and it works as every component gets introduced and stuff like the picture of River and Susan can be understood as people close to the Doctor without having to explicitly. Yes, there's enough for people that know the show, it's shameless in having that, but for people going in brand new, it does a terrific job at introducing all the elements.



Also, The Doctor being all hyped up to jump into his old role again. Capaldi was clearly in love with the role and the way he says that Bill is safe in the TARDIS is just... Chefs kiss!
 
Shadow said:
Lord, I'd kill to have an opening episode that's on the same bar as The Pilot of series 10. You can go in completely blind and it works as every component gets introduced and stuff like the picture of River and Susan can be understood as people close to the Doctor without having to explicitly. Yes, there's enough for people that know the show, it's shameless in having that, but for people going in brand new, it does a terrific job at introducing all the elements.



Also, The Doctor being all hyped up to jump into his old role again. Capaldi was clearly in love with the role and the way he says that Bill is safe in the TARDIS is just... Chefs kiss!
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Fans were so mad at the time with Moffat, while personally I was a huge fan of Series 10.
 
oomoepoo said:
Space Babies was quite possibly among the worst season openers I've watched in a while. I did enjoy the dynamic between Ruby and the Doctor but that's about it. They basically speedran the Doctor Who introduction within 15 minutes
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While I agree with a lot of your criticisms, I do think it's worth remembering that both iPlayer and Disney Plus list it as the second episode after the Christmas Special. The opener is Ruby gradually getting to know the doctor over a goblin adventure, ending with her figuring out that he is a time traveler. Then we get Space Babies, which opens with Ruby's suspicion being confirmed via the speedrun of the basics.

I rewatched Church on Ruby Road before watching the new episodes and I got the impression that was the intended experience.
 
VegiHam said:
While I agree with a lot of your criticisms, I do think it's worth remembering that both iPlayer and Disney Plus list it as the second episode after the Christmas Special. The opener is Ruby gradually getting to know the doctor over a goblin adventure, ending with her figuring out that he is a time traveler. Then we get Space Babies, which opens with Ruby's suspicion being confirmed via the speedrun of the basics.

I rewatched Church on Ruby Road before watching the new episodes and I got the impression that was the intended experience.
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That is actually a fair point. Church on Ruby Road is supposed to be watched before. Although that still leaves the episode weirdly unrounded, imho.
 
Gingerbread Man said:
They should have had the older Series/Seasons on Disney+, though.
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Just another 14 months lmao
Shadow said:
Lord, I'd kill to have an opening episode that's on the same bar as The Pilot of series 10. You can go in completely blind and it works as every component gets introduced and stuff like the picture of River and Susan can be understood as people close to the Doctor without having to explicitly. Yes, there's enough for people that know the show, it's shameless in having that, but for people going in brand new, it does a terrific job at introducing all the elements.



Also, The Doctor being all hyped up to jump into his old role again. Capaldi was clearly in love with the role and the way he says that Bill is safe in the TARDIS is just... Chefs kiss!
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Series 10 in general is designed to work fine for newcomers, somewhat oddly. Bill is written to be even more inquisitive than the typical companion for this reason, and the first several episodes spend quite a bit of time answering questions along the way that long time fans already know.

And then Series 11 takes things in a very different direction and also works fine for newcomers, making it all pointless lol.
lexony said:
Fans were so mad at the time with Moffat, while personally I was a huge fan of Series 10.
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Series 9-10 is probably my favorite two series stretch of the show, rivalled maybe only by 4-5. There's barely any episodes I don't like, and quite a few I just adore.
 
Series 10 was wild. A new approach by a showrunner who's already tried different approaches and who was going to leave in a year with his Doctor. A new approach with a built-in inspiration date. Fascinating.

In an ideal world, Series 10 should have been the handover between Moffat and one of his top writers (Dollard/Matthieson/Harness?), with Series 11 continuing Bill's story with a new Doctor.

Btw for my money: 9 > 8 > 5&1 > 10&6 > 4 > 3 > 7 > Chibnall
 
Ooh, we doing rankings? I'd have to go:

9 > 4 > 5 > 3 > 10 > 8 > 1 > 6 > 7 > 2

I could switch 5 and 3 on a given day. Both I'd say have very high highs but also low lows, so it depends on my mood.

As for the new episodes, I thought they were... fine. Space Babies wasn't amazing but it was fine. If it weren't a season opener, it would likely get forgotten somewhere in the middle. Not great, but not the absolute worst.

The Devil's Chord was super promising but ultimately fell flat. I don't think it's dramatically all that interesting to introduce a foe who is completely unstoppable in the second/third episode of the season. Obviously the Maestro was meant to hint at an even more unstoppable enemy who will presumably be in the finale, but I think the stakes with these reality-bending "gods" are just not very exciting, not least because there are even less rules and logic than usual on this show lol

Still, Gatwa continues to be a treat and Gibson is doing a good job, although I wish she was less of a mystery box
 
Something else I was thinking about The Devil's Chord. Usually if there's some weird interference with Earth's past, the Doctor shows up to fix things at a point where things haven't veered far from known history, so we're safe to assume things go on as normal. But for this episode, apparently things had been going weird for nearly 40 years? So which of two possibilities do we accept: A) Solving the problem in 1963 timey-wimey retroactively fixed things back to 1925. B) Nope, the decline is part of history as we know it, and RTD is just throwing massive shade at popular music of those decades.

Separately, a pretty big milestone on my own watching of ancient Doctor Who. I just finished the Space Pirates serial which means... no more missing episodes! The downside is this also means only one more serial left for Troughton, who I've come to quite enjoy.
 
Did anyone else get goosebumps when they referenced
the moon and the President's wife from Series 9?
"I went down to the beach and there she stood,
Dark and tall at the edge of the wood"
The sky's too big! I'm scared!" I cried.
She replied, "Young man, don't you know there's more to life
Than the moon and the President's wife?"
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That was a tense moment for the Doctor, and he had to remember his childhood to stay zen. Who knows who "she" was? Ohila, maybe?
 
oomoepoo said:
I did not catch that reference! Very interesting!
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It was also referenced in the Day of the Doctor novelization

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And of course, in Series 9 by Missy
CLARA: Since when do you care about the Doctor?
MISSY: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President's wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie. Can you guess which one?
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and by the Doctor himself
DOCTOR: A long time ago, there was a student at the Academy. He got in here, disappeared for four days. Showed up in a completely different part of the city. Said the Sliders talked to him, they showed him the secret passage out. And we just need the code.
CLARA: What, and the kid told you the secret?
DOCTOR: Ah, no, he didn't tell anyone anything. He went completely mad. Never right in the head again, so they say.
CLARA: Okay, that's encouraging.
DOCTOR: The last I heard, he stole the moon and the President's wife.
CLARA: Was she er... was she nice, the President's wife?
DOCTOR: Ah, well, that was a lie put about by the Shabogans. It was the President's daughter. I didn't steal the moon, I lost it.
CLARA: I'd know you anywhere.
DOCTOR: I was a completely different person in those days. Eccentric, a bit mad, rude to people.
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This mini-lore is incredibly fascinating to me because it avoids revealing anything substantial about the Doctor's past ("the President's Wife", or daughter, could be anyone... but she's Susan), but it adds a layer to their character. The Doctor reciting that very personal poem near the moment of death was a sort of pay-off.
 
hologram said:
That's an interesting tidbit, since it wasn't revealed in the show that the barn from Day of the Doctor was where the Doctor lived (or at least slept) until Listen
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The novelization didn't come out until a few months after Capaldi's last episode aired, so occasionally things get to take advantage of lore that didn't quite exist yet when the 50th special first aired.
 
lexony said:
While I like it way better than anything in the last 5 years or so, I'm still not getting really warm with this season. But this episode was so far the best one.
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I'm kinda thinking it's going to be a similar case as with Eccleston where the season didn't really got good until the half point either, though at least Gatwa will stay for a second season.

Though I also feel like he hasn't been dealt the best scripts thus far.
 
Finally starting to watch these first three episodes, only finished Space Babies (and want to echo the thoughts that it was a pretty meh season opener and the talking babies didn't look great), but I went through and tagged the first post discussing each episode (or episodes, as the case was with the first two) with threadmarks and will continue to do so the rest of the way.
 
I've rewatched Boom yesterday and it's the first episode of the new era that I actually didn't really like less than on my first watch :D

There's some problems that become more apparent, but most of them stem from this being very early in the season. Stuff like the dynamic between Ruby and Doctor being oddly familiar or the emotional finale feeling a bit too much mostly stem from the fact we know very little about this TARDIS team so far, so these things come of a bit unearned to me. I think some of the "capitalism bad, war bad" was a bit superficial but better than nothing. Overall, still a marked improvement. Gatwa probably had his best performance thus far.
 
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I quite liked 73 yards, but it's way too early to do a Doctor lite story with just Ruby. We've had four episodes with her prior, we still barely know her, yet were expected to accept that they've been traveling for months on end now and that she knows enough about the Doctor to know who to contact and how to handle such a situation. It would be similar if Episode 5 of Eccleston was a Rose only episode, which is just insanely early.
Overall, so far, enjoying the new era. It started really rough with the 60th Specials, but the current season is pretty fun and decently produced.

Unrelated to the current showrun, recently bought the Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure boxset which includes the regeneration story of the sixth Doctor.
Really fun boxset, of the four stories, two really are a true highlight and the other two are just kind of there. But that final story is really đź‘Ś
 
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