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What do you think of the new international distribution deal? This poll is closed. |
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| Hate it |
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12 | 16.90% |
| REALLY hate it |
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16 | 22.54% |
| Hello, my name is Bob Chapek |
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43 | 60.56% |
| Total: | 71 votes | ||
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Sydney Bottocks posted:The Doctor: And when I say there is "no cannibalism" in the TARDIS, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we Time Lords are prepared to admit. But, all new companions are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find any toothmarks at all anywhere on their bodies, they're to tell me immediately so that I can immediately take every measure to blame it on the Androgums. I abhor the implication that the TARDIS is a haven for cannibalism. We now have the problem relatively under control, and it is Torchwood who suffer the most casualties in these areas.
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Sep 23, 2023 03:54
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Maxwell Lord posted:I abhor the implication that the TARDIS is a haven for cannibalism. We now have the problem relatively under control, and it is Torchwood who suffer the most casualties in these areas. And what do you think the Mandrels ate in Eden. Sontarans? Yours etc. Commander Maxil in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
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Sep 23, 2023 04:48
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Open Source Idiom posted:No cannibalism*, no black magic(!?), no new Doctors other than ones already previously created before the show came back (so Arrabella Weir would be fine). I'm trying to think if Nekromantea falls foul of any of these and yes, of course it does because the witches rip the doctors head off and eat his body. I'm not spoilering that because Nekromantea is hot garbage that no one should listen to.
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Sep 23, 2023 11:55
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Davros1 posted:The new Fifth Doctor story, "Pursuit of the Nightjar" was really beautiful. It might be one of Davison's best performances. Oh yes! I had forgotten about this one, but listened a bit ago and can't agree more. It's a beautiful little story with a nice timey wimey ending and everyone who loves the fifth doctor should give it a go. Also, presented without comment 
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Sep 23, 2023 12:30
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We are so loving back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEkC6InjWQ8
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Sep 23, 2023 18:22
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Ncutiiiiii! Also lol
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Sep 23, 2023 18:27
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I don't know if Ive ever seen a trailer for a season while waiting for it before and that one has me really excited for these specials.
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Sep 23, 2023 18:33
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Let's hope that wasn't all of Series 14's budget
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Sep 23, 2023 18:35
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Beep the Meep b*tches!!!
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Sep 23, 2023 18:36
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Also, it’s not in the trailer but the BBC Press Office have confirmed that NPH is playing the Toymaker.
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Sep 23, 2023 18:39
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Did anyone else struggle with the sound mixing on the trailer? Never had that problem before, wondering if there's something dodge with my set up.
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Sep 23, 2023 18:51
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It’s Doctor Who, it’s never had good sound mixing.
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Sep 23, 2023 18:52
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I remember the first time I noticed the terrible sound mixing, it was that episode with the goo clones, I was legitimately worried I was going deaf until I realised what was going on lol.
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Sep 23, 2023 18:55
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Beep the Meep b*tches!!! Beep The God Damned Meep!
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Sep 23, 2023 19:00
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https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1705636953389978072
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Sep 23, 2023 20:08
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that kicks rear end. All of it.
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Sep 23, 2023 20:51
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Two of my favourite things. "Something so bad the tardis ran away?" "Yes" "well then we go and kick it's arse" and seeing Kate Stewart and David tennants doctor together.
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Sep 23, 2023 23:15
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The_Doctor posted:Ncutiiiiii! I like to imagine this is them stealing back from the heli carrier thing.
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Sep 24, 2023 00:07
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Open Source Idiom posted:No cannibalism*, no black magic(!?), no new Doctors other than ones already previously created before the show came back (so Arrabella Weir would be fine).
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Sep 24, 2023 00:18
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God that trailer was so loving good. New Doctor Who! NEW DOCTOR WHO! 
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Sep 24, 2023 00:41
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Open Source Idiom posted:Did anyone else struggle with the sound mixing on the trailer? Never had that problem before, wondering if there's something dodge with my set up. Yes, same! Sounded like my ears were closed and I was trying to swallow/yawn to get them to pop.
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Sep 24, 2023 00:43
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Confusedslight posted:Two of my favourite things. "Something so bad the tardis ran away?" "Yes" "well then we go and kick it's arse" and seeing Kate Stewart and David tennants doctor together. Yeah Donna being Maximum Donna is exactly what I wanted to see.
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Sep 24, 2023 09:30
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Digging the waistcoat look on Tennant, and also the general “silly sci-fi bollocks” vibe of it all.
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Sep 24, 2023 15:34
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I also appreciate the confirmation that the whole farce of 'hide the Doctor from Donna' is probably only like the first act of the first episode.
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Sep 24, 2023 23:32
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Season 11, Episode 10: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos Written by Chris Chibnall, Directed by Jamie Childs The Doctor posted:There's always a way. In many ways, this episode is a perfect microcosm of season 11 of the revival of Doctor Who. What it does right is a lot of what the season as a whole did right. What it does wrong is a lot of what the season as a whole did wrong. All the flaws of the season are present in this episode, but so too are all the strengths. As a bookend to the season, it's not as strong as The Woman Who Fell to Earth and it suffers from following the truly excellent It Takes You Away, but it does in some way "finish" off what was started in that first episode, even if we didn't necessarily need a "finish" to that episode. It's an episode of odd contrasts, much like Season 11 as a whole was. The production quality is good but also somehow simultaneously kind of cheap (they're in a quarry!). The episode has very good intentions that it doesn't quite seem to have the chops to realize. There's some great casting (Mark Addy is always a delight) that unfortunately don't really get the characters to live up to their quality. It ends strongly, it tries to tie up some character moments and give the companions (sans the still underdeveloped Yaz) a completed arc, to instill some sense of wonder into the universe. It tries these things but doesn't necessarily achieve them. And part of the problem, unfortunately, is in the predictable but underwhelming choice of final villain for the season. The return of a character who nobody really cared about or took seriously, that the show was trying its best to insist was a major antagonistic force both to the Doctor and the universe at large while simultaneously reminding us constantly what an absolute loser they were. That inability to ever really figure out if they were a serious threat or a joke hurt the first episode of this season, and it hurts the last as well.   The dichotomy in quality is all too clear here. There's a fantastic germ of an episode here in the immediate problem the Doctor and companions encounter, almost immediately overshadowed by a much less interesting driving force behind the plot. Mark Addy (who should be in more things, he's great!) is the sole occupant of one of multiple crashed ships who sent out distress signals picked up by the TARDIS. Only when the Doctor arrives, he has no idea he did this, no idea who they are, no idea of who HE is. The planet generates "psychotropic" (read: technobabble) signals that affect the mind in negative ways, causing a gradual collapse of Paltraki's mind to the point he can't even remember his name is Paltraki. The Doctor of course figured this out before they landed and brought along "neural balancers" they slap to their foreheads to protect them from the signal. Yes, this is Chekov's neural balancer, and yes it will be taken off the wall and the trigger played with at some point, but never really actually fired. An episode about the loss of mind and identity is rife with potential for an episode, the growth of paranoia and suspicion, the horror of knowing enough to know you are losing your mind, of forgetting why you are here or even who you are. An episode that explored this, perhaps by having the balancers fail or be damaged and to see it slowly affecting the Doctor and companions as they race against their own failing minds to solve the issue etc would have been fascinating. Instead, we get Tzim-Sha. The episode's opening showed an older woman and a younger man walking the planet and using mysterious telekinetic powers before being interrupted by the sudden appearance of a figure they treated with religious awe. A transition to 3400 years later (in A Space Odyssey, they did the greatest match cut of all time, here they just put up some text) brings the Doctor to Ranskoor Av Kolos - translated as "Disintegrator of the Soul" which is a very cool if theatrical name hidden behind an "alien" name that feels unimaginatively B-Grade sci-fi (yes yes, I know this is Doctor Who!). Just as we've barely been introduced to Paltraki and his intriguing conundrum, the Doctor basically solves it by slapping a spare neural balancer on him and then Tzim-Sha appears on the screen to menace him to return what he stole. Now the episode becomes about locating Tzim-Sha, for now unaware of the Doctor's presence, to rescue Paltraki's stolen crew-mates and keep Tzim-Sha getting his hands on the stolen object (which they... bring along with them....?). Along the way, Paltraki's mind slowly recovers while Graham insists his intentions to kill Tzim-Sha to a Doctor who is equally insistent he is better than that (he is) and that killing Tzim-Sha would make him just as bad as that mass murdering supremacist (it wouldn't). I talked about this a bit in the first couple of episodes of this season, and it's brought into even sharper relief in this episode: Tzim-Sha and the Stenza just simply don't work as a galaxy/universe threatening civilization, but it's clear Chibnall really, really wants them to. Tzim-Sha kind of worked in The Woman Who Fell to Earth as a loser "gamer" insisting he was superior to everybody while playing with cheat codes activated, with his fantasies of leading his race clearly just that: fantasies. The bit gets repeated in this episode, as we learn that his survival and all the achievements he has managed since arriving on the planet are the result of harnessing the powers of the rather naive duo whose ceremony he interrupted 3400 years earlier. He's STILL using cheat codes, STILL proclaiming his superiority to all while being a loser, and this is never made more apparent in the climax of Graham and Ryan's plot-line as they easily defeat him in spite of all his bluff and bluster, slap him into a stasis pod and leave him with the name of their dead wife/grandmother as the last thing he hears before an eternity of being "sentenced to life".   Except... the show wants to have its cake and eat it too. Tzim-Sha is a loser fuckface nerd idiot... but he's also achieved his dream and apparently spent at least 3000 years as the immortal God-King of his own people (who are nowhere to be seen), literally stolen planets, and is supposed to be a big deal and a galactic level threat. The Stenza are supposed to be a terrifying empire akin to the Daleks or the Cybermen, with technology apparently so advanced that it was capable of creating scarves that could read a Time Lord's mind at an even deeper and more thorough level than that of the Daleks (a race shown to be on the same level of technology as the Time Lords), who have wiped out other planets and left deep scars on the souls of their surviving victims. So... what are they? A bunch of losers who jam teeth into their heads? A genuine galactic threat? They smack of the pet character you see crop up in television shows and audio dramas, somebody the writer is convinced is super cool or a big deal - the likes of Nimrod/The Forge, Sil, or even Lytton - we're told how important/dangerous etc they are without ever really accomplishing anything. Making Tzim-Sha the major returning antagonist of the season makes sense in that he was the first threat this new incarnation of the Doctor faced, but the show needed to figure out which one thing he was and stick with it. Was he a joke or serious? Was he legitimately dangerous or just fell rear end backwards into the luck of meeting an isolated species of incredible power matched only by their incredible naivete? His ultimate fate is arguably little different from dying, and in some ways is perhaps crueler as his stasis pod is locked up inside an impenetrable floating rock fortress meaning he is trapped in thoughtless limbo forever... but in some ways that feels appropriate: death would be an end to him, but being "sentenced to life" (a great line) means that he knows in that final moment before stasis freezes him that he has been utterly defeated FOREVER by two simple apes from a backwater planet he thought he could use to cheat his way to ultimate power. There are parts that work, Graham's struggle with his desire for revenge against the knowledge that the Doctor and Ryan are right to beg him not to give in to vengeance, and that they're right that Grace wouldn't want him to get revenge of that sort. The Doctor's utter disdain for him as she forces herself to hold a conversation with him, before largely just forgetting about him to deal with the ACTUAL problem of saving the stolen planets. Mark Addy's slow mental recovery, the Doctor's push for the elder Ux to move past their religious beliefs and accept the doubt they feel as genuine. The Doctor engineering (remember when that was supposed to be her thing!) a solution using all the component parts of the episode to restore the planets (are the civilizations alive/restored from stasis or were they wiped out?) is handled very well. There's the Ux, a part of Chibnall's somewhat laudable effort to return a sense of wildly powerful reality-altering beings to a Universe that had very deliberately been pulled back a bit from the start of the revival era. Over the course of his run, Chibnall would give us the Solitract, the Ux, return the Eternals into the mix, the Quranx, what I think was supposed to be literally "Time", and arguably even the Sugar Skull Gang. Presumably the idea was to make the universe feel even weirder and up the stakes somewhat for the Doctor as a character who has literally reset the universe herself before. But there's a lot that doesn't work either, including what I just got done lauding! The Ux get very little actual explanation and just kind of get treated as a known thing by the Doctor, which you can only lampshade so often like was done with the Solitract in the previous episode. Earth gets put under threat at some point in there, which despite making sense in terms of Tzim-Sha's desire for revenge feels somewhat tacked on and apparently goes unnoticed by the entire population. The time scale doesn't work at all, are we to believe that Tzim-Sha spent 3400 years just kind of hanging out on this planet? Even with the Ux keeping him alive and his body from falling apart (which gets forgotten/set aside when he decides to go stop Graham and Ryan stealing his trophies) it suggests a spectacular lack of imagination (which, to be fair, is possible) on his part that all he apparently managed to do with his status as God-King of the Stenza was get sent a shipment of sniper robots and tossed a few planets into crystals. A feat on that scale should have caught the Doctor's attention, especially since later in the episode she specifically refers to her solution to ANOTHER case of multiple planets disappearing! Then of course there is Chekov's Neural Balancer, as the Doctor realizes she can reverse the effect and use them on the Ux to bypass their natural immunity to the psychotropic waves (which I assumed they were the source of?) but that it will leave her vulnerable to that debilitating effect.... except, it doesn't. Apart from a minor headache, she's apparently able to retain full use of her faculties and solve the problem without issue. The whole episode lacks cohesion, trying to do two different things which caused neither one to get the proper attention it needs. And this isn't simply me being unfair to it, let's see what Chris Chibnall had to say about this episode! Chris Chibnall posted:Particularly in that first series, I spent a lot of time helping other writers. We had some problems towards the end and I had to go back and do some big rewrites, which meant that the version of episode 10, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos that we filmed was a first draft. But I just didn’t have time to do a second draft. It didn’t feel enough like a season finale, and that was entirely down to time.   But it's not a BAD episode, it just lacks a certain something, not helped by an antagonist that I simply couldn't take seriously as a threat. It has some beautiful visuals such as in the above gifs, it holds an intriguing initial concept that is sadly squandered, it further deepens the relationship between Graham and Ryan as family which has been building nicely across the season, and with the benefit of hindsight for the entire Chibnall run it also features something that would become distressingly uncommon: the Doctor actually being the one to ultimately save the day/fix things. But Tzim-Sha simply didn't work, Yaz is again left with the short end of the stick, and you can't simply treat this as "another" episode because it WAS the season finale. Wrapping up season 11 here feels underwhelming, and unfortunately that - pocketed by brief moments of quality reminding us what COULD have been - was a theme that would continue through much of Chibnall's run. Luckily, Blu-Ray releases be damned, there was ONE more episode this season, a Christmas Special that clearly wraps up the season in a much, much, much stronger way and works far better as a season finale. That is still to come, but this "official" season finale was an underwhelming one, and the start of what would be a common refrain all the way through the seasons to follow. Jodie Whittaker deserved better.  Index of Doctor Who Write-ups for Television Episodes/Big Finish Audio Stories.
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Sep 25, 2023 06:36
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Narvin! https://twitter.com/SeanCarlsen1/status/1705973026414543005?t=ay5jjpZFBEvoOruk16s0Eg&s=19
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Sep 25, 2023 10:47
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Visually it’s a stunning episode, the sets and cinematography are really good. Even in the gifs above, the abandoned nature of this dead end backwater world feels really apparent. This is the end state of a years ago battle, and all that remains is now just a graveyard of ship.
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Sep 25, 2023 11:20
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I really do wish we could see a different version of that episode which was about a bunch of shipwreck survivors who have no idea which ship is actually theirs, who they came to the planet with, whether they're fighting original allies or working alongside old enemies etc, with no idea what they're actually doing there or what they're hoping to achieve through victory. Aesthetically there are some lovely interior shots, and even the quarry is fine given the story/setting! I just wish they hadn't wasted it on Tzim-Sha 
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Sep 25, 2023 11:28
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The_Doctor posted:Visually it’s a stunning episode, the sets and cinematography are really good. Even in the gifs above, the abandoned nature of this dead end backwater world feels really apparent. This is the end state of a years ago battle, and all that remains is now just a graveyard of ship. That's the Chibnall era in general. It looks really nice. Just don't think about any of the plotting, even in a surface level way.
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Sep 25, 2023 12:45
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Davros1 posted:Narvin! Man, remembering how much I enooy Narvin as a character really saddens me that the Gallifrey series got kinda.. Depressing as they moved into the time war. Enough that I bounced and haven't been back since Rassilon was resurrected. No, not spoilering that since it's obviously something that would happen. Anyone want to reassure me it remains somewhat fun like the old universe hopping Gallifrey series? Or more grim (Ala the Doctor of War AU stuff, which admittedly confused the hell out of me and I may not have understood.. But felt grim)? Hows the Rose Tyler series btw? It seems to be up to series three now. Jenny was surprisingly good, as was the Charley series, so I'm now curious. One series I haven't see mentioned much is their new UNIT series with brigadier Bamberra - it's a blast, really reminds me of the OG Unit stories back before Tennant was more than a higher ranking UNIT officer (symphony for the devil, the UNIT series, etc). I can even overlook some of the silly stereotypical French writing they give the French character, it just feels fun rather than dumb.
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Sep 25, 2023 13:18
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McGann posted:Man, remembering how much I enooy Narvin as a character really saddens me that the Gallifrey series got kinda.. Depressing as they moved into the time war. Enough that I bounced and haven't been back since Rassilon was resurrected. No. It stays grim, though since Scott Handcock left it's also turned weirdly fashy in the way a lot of BF Time War stuff has turned. e.g. Leela working for genocidal vivisectionist slavers.
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Sep 25, 2023 13:25
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Biggest hit against Chibnall is that, when titling The Battle of Can’t Be Bothered to Find the Name even a Few Posts Earlier, he has the title "Disintegrator of the Soul" sitting right there in his own script! He also repeatedly goes to the well of “waste two good ideas in a muddle of incoherent elements” to the extent I have to wonder if he has some sort of inferiority complex. Give more time for characters and give more time for Yaz in particular to do the things we know she can do on screen. If you have to reuse a new villain, either make him a credible threat or lampshade his ineffectiveness, but make up your drat mind instead of faffing about. Deciding to anchor interesting and mad ideas to this lead balloon of a villain just sinks the entire episode, which would work much better if there were no villain and dealing with the “disintegrator of the soul” were the main story-line. And maybe don’t follow the episode about grief which directly calls up Grace with a Graham and Ryan subplot about getting through grief via revenge.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:03
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The Rose sets are depressing as hell, since every world she visits is being wiped out
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Sep 25, 2023 18:08
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You know, one of these days Big Finish could just put out a story where everyone has an alright time. Just once wouldn't kill them.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:38
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TinTower posted:We are so loving back. I'm stoked but the video thumbnail makes Tennant look kinda exhausted being the Doctor. Tate looks great though, she's practically an ageless immortal.
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Sep 25, 2023 20:17
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Time comes for us all, even Timelords. Plus he's been through a lot, a few deaths, stranding gf in other universe, complicated relationship with being genocidal warlord and not, meeting backwards wife, saving this destroying that, accidentally creating then watching daughter die, sort of creating a hybrid of a friend semi dooming then in the process, turned into an baby Yoda etc.
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Sep 25, 2023 20:32
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I had a listen to The Davros Mission. It's a short story, set straight after the ending of Relevation of the Daleks, where Davros is being taken for trial by the Daleks. A thal spy (played by a pre-Constance Clarke Miranda Raison) sneaks onboard with a sealth suit that renders her undetectable to daleks to confront him. Davros is a character who excells in these small, character driven stories, with one character challenging or confronting him. Terry Molloy again plays the character perfectly, as he tries to turn the situation to his advantage, while dealing with the character's intense self loathing and doubt. Also had a go at a Fourth Doctor story, Destination: Nerva. Aside from some convincingly unpleasant sound effects, not too memorable, but it served to get Tom Baker and Louise Jameson warmed up and back into working together as The Doctor and Leela.
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Sep 25, 2023 20:40
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Senor Tron posted:I like to imagine this is them stealing back from the heli carrier thing. The SHIELD Helicarrier first appeared in 1965. I know UNIT has been around for a long time but I don't think they should have the Doctor working with the military anymore. It doesn't feel right for the character. And really it's just a plot convenience for the Doctor to have a powerful group able to provide anything needed for the story.
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Sep 25, 2023 21:53
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Modern UNIT never seems to know what the hell is going on anyway and they mostly just wait around for the Doctor to show up and fix everything.
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Sep 25, 2023 22:38
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The joke about UNIT being disbanded due to Brexit is maybe the one inspired idea Chibnall had.
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Sep 26, 2023 01:46
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