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Which season of Doctor Who should get a Blu-ray set next? This poll is closed. |
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| One of the black-and-white seasons |
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16 | 29.63% |
| Season 7 |
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7 | 12.96% |
| Season 11 |
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1 | 1.85% |
| Season 13 |
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0 | 0% |
| Season 15 |
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2 | 3.70% |
| The Key to Time |
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21 | 38.89% |
| Season 21 |
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0 | 0% |
| Season 25 |
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7 | 12.96% |
| Total: | 54 votes | ||
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Updog Scully posted:https://twitter.com/fleshykrynoid/status/1744289184276214246?t=hOPrPu_p-SA-FOwnybP4tA&s=19 Do I ever have a suggestion for these two
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Jan 9, 2024 01:55
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OldMemes posted:Peter Calapdi was so good as The Doctor. Twelve is one of the best. I liked this decently enough, it's well paced, conceptually very funny, and some of the villain voices are the best the company's put together. Particularly the evil valet and his dommy car mommy. But I thought the politics were neoliberal garbage and Ace's role -- if companions have hats, like "programmer" or "doctor", hers is "terrorist" -- to be completely unbelievable. She'd never be caught dead saying that "violence isn't the answer".
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Jan 9, 2024 01:59
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Just got through the Monks trilogy in series 10. Loved Extremis but it's an episode that can foreshadow literally any threat and I thought The Lie of the Land was fantastic, but TPATEOTW seems pointless. I kind of wonder whether Whithouse delivered Lie of the Land first, then Moffat decided to bulk out the running order by writing prequels.
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Jan 9, 2024 04:28
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Warthur posted:I kind of wonder whether Whithouse delivered Lie of the Land first, then Moffat decided to bulk out the running order by writing prequels. I dunno the exact story behind the four stories being woven together, but I gather that it wasn't intended from the start, no e.g. the Doctor's blindness being a late (and fairly random if I'm honest) addition to the mix. I remember there being a few strange artefacts in Lie, like the way the Monks can suddenly extrude flesh lightning and the "pyramids" randomly getting renamed as "temples" or whatever. Since I gather that the Monks originally came from Harness's initial Pyramid At The End Of The World treatment (the one that included Donald Trump) part of me wonders if -- and this is pure speculation on my part -- whether Lie Of The Land originally featured the Silents.
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Jan 9, 2024 05:47
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I’ve been carrying on with my attempt to watch all surviving classic Doctor Who stories. With the exception of Shada, I’ve managed to 100% the Pertwee – McCoy era and am now filling in what gaps I can in the earlier stories. Figured I’d post my hot takes on the episodes I’ve watched in the order I watched them to see if anyone agrees with me or thinks I’m full of poo poo. Ghost Light – Pretty decent overall but I just couldn’t take Light as a villain seriously. I guess my brain just couldn’t accept the concept that a being capable of interstellar travel wouldn’t be well aware of the concept of evolution and change over time, much less resort to genocide over it. Josiah Smith was the better villain of the piece. The Curse of Fenric – I can see what this story is so highly rated, and I dug the design of the haemovores but they move so slowly toward their intended victims that unless trapped you could literally just powerwalk in the opposite direction and you’d be ok. The concept of Fenric and continuity with prior stories is great and it’s a shame the series was axed before we could see more of stuff like this. I don’t think Survival is amazing but there’s a definite sense of the series starting to get a heck of lot better before being cut down. The Reign of Terror – A classic six parter that’s been padded to hell and back. Luckily when I ran through the Hartnell era earlier this story wasn’t available for streaming, as I don’t think my brain could have taken all the padding in this story and The Sensorites in one hit. Just about everyone bar the Doctor spends the vast majority of the story in captivity and this would have worked a lot better as a four parter focusing on the Doctor’s escapades in that fabulous outfit of his. Galaxy 4 – Two spaceships trapped on a planet about to explode with the TARDIS crew caught up in the middle – what a great concept! Of course I saw the plot twist regarding the beautiful humanoid Drahvins being evil and the distinctly alien and scary looking Rills being friendly coming a mile off but it would have been a relatively new concept at the time so can’t hold it against the story. The Drahvin soldiers are endearingly dim and the story suffers from minimal padding. I wonder what happened to that one Drahvin that was stunned and left on the Rill ship who presumably survived the events of the story? The Gunfighters So fill up your glasses, And join in the song. The law's right behind you, And it won't take long. So come, you coyotes And howl at the moon, Till there's blood upon the sawdust, In The Last Chance Saloon. Good lord those accents. If I could strike a bargain with some cosmic entity I’d trade this for four extra parts of the Dalek’s Master Plan. On your way then you cowboys, The time will be soon, When there's blood upon the sawdust In the Last Chance Saloon. I get what they were going for but honestly the song that plays every time there’s a break to another part of the story starts to wear out its welcome very, very quickly. It's your last chance of cussing At a gunfighter's doom, It's your last chance of nothin' At the Last Chance Saloon! It does give this fantastic out of context image though.  With rings on their fingers And bells on their toes The girls come to Tombstone In their high silk hose. They'll dance on the tables Or sing you a tune, For whatever's in your wallet At the Last Chance Saloon. So yeah not terrible I guess, but there’s a lot of unintentional comedy watching sets wobble as cowboys get tossed about, and Johnny Ringo among others having their received pronunciation (aka BBC English) accents constantly slipping through. There is potential for a drinking game here I think. Thankfully, this is the last surviving historical I am yet to view. On your way then, you lawmen, The time will be soon, When there's blood upon the sawdust In the Last Chance Saloon.
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Jan 9, 2024 19:07
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Classic Who, particularly when serials were more in the 6 episode range than 4 episode range, definitely have a lot of padding. It helps if you, watch, like one episode a day so that you get that 25 minute dose of formula serial, but we're all insane completionists and binge-watchers these days, so nobody does, lol. Having gone through two watchthroughs myself, I find the earlier black and white stuff easier to watch, on the whole, than the period of time from about when Tom Baker gets the dog bite on his lip all the way up to when Seven gets a little less goofy.
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Jan 9, 2024 21:01
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Hartnell ending up on a chain gang and beating the guard down with a shovel is a beautiful, beautiful thing 
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Jan 10, 2024 01:03
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Bicyclops posted:Classic Who, particularly when serials were more in the 6 episode range than 4 episode range, definitely have a lot of padding. It helps if you, watch, like one episode a day so that you get that 25 minute dose of formula serial, but we're all insane completionists and binge-watchers these days, so nobody does, lol. Having gone through two watchthroughs myself, I find the earlier black and white stuff easier to watch, on the whole, than the period of time from about when Tom Baker gets the dog bite on his lip all the way up to when Seven gets a little less goofy. On the PBS station out of Chicago (and on many other PBS stations across the US), DW episodes were edited into a 90+ minute "omnibus" format, so like most other Yanks I never had any affinity for the "watch one 22-25 minute episode a week " experience. Agreed about the later Tom thru to early Sylvester stuff, though. I rewatched Davison's run last year as part of an original plan to rewatch all of 1980s DW, and it was mostly ok (with some actual greatness in spots), but by the time I got to Colin's run I had to give up. The one-two punch of The Twin Dilemma and Attack of the Cybermen had me out for the count.
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Jan 10, 2024 01:57
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Yeah those first few with Colin are rough, lol
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Jan 10, 2024 02:26
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My main issue with 12 (and 11 at the end) is that I never gelled with Clara as a companion. Something about her character rubbed me the wrong way—Amy was introduced as an average joe at the start of her arc, and only gradually had more twists and turns as the character developed, which made her a good introduction, but Clara had twists and catchphrases from the start. With 11 and Amy, I felt like I was with Amy watching the Doctor, but with 11 & 12 and Clara, I felt I was with the Doctor watching Clara.
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Jan 10, 2024 09:26
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I felt that with 11 and Clara, but 12 and Clara were very different and in my mind much better together.
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Jan 10, 2024 09:34
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Just watched the specials and they were fun. I had severe Who burnout and stopped watching after the like first half dozen episodes of Whitakers run, but I think I will give the next season try. Good thing it seems to be a soft reboot too! 
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Jan 10, 2024 09:56
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IMO Clara’s a little too interesting to be a companion. A good companion should be an affable everyperson with a personality distinct from The Doctor’s that can function as an audience surrogate without overshadowing The Doctor or the rest of the craziness going on in each episode. That’s not to say they should be boring or blend into the background entirely, but they should be firmly a supporting character to The Doctor. I liked Clara but she always felt like she was written to be the lead character of the show in a way that most other companions aren’t, especially when she was with 11. I’m sure that’s part of why people are so divided on her.
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Jan 10, 2024 10:24
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I'm with Ofaloaf, in that Clara never felt particularly accessible as a character from the off. Add in the shifting background elements (the recast dad, whatever was going on with her grandma, the jobs) and the lack of insight into that background, and she never felt believable to me. I don't buy her as being the lead character of the show, definitely not with Matt Smith. I think she was just an amorphous blob that eventually settled into something during the 12th Doctor's era... but I was put off by him and all so it was just very distant. Better than the characterization that immediately followed Moffat, though.
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Jan 10, 2024 11:09
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Open Source Idiom posted:I'm with Ofaloaf, in that Clara never felt particularly accessible as a character from the off. Add in the shifting background elements (the recast dad, whatever was going on with her grandma, the jobs) and the lack of insight into that background, and she never felt believable to me. I don't buy her as being the lead character of the show, definitely not with Matt Smith. I think she was just an amorphous blob that eventually settled into something during the 12th Doctor's era... but I was put off by him and all so it was just very distant. Moffat is just awful at writing believable human beings with a consistent life. That works for The Doctor, and somewhat for River, who are meant to be larger than life, but it utterly falls apart when Clara is running around making Christmas dinner or working on her 3rd job or dating Danny Pink.
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Jan 10, 2024 11:20
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Clara's much better with 12 than she is with 11. With 11 she's effectively cast as Amy 2.0 across from him, which is why 12's "I'm not your boyfriend" moment made for good character development; as she stops being Flirty McFlirtface She probably beats out Bill for best 12 companion, but there's a strong argument to be made for the reverse. Nardole always gets the #2 spot.
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Jan 10, 2024 11:33
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It shouldn't bother me, but it annoys me that one of Bill's primary character notes in The Pilot is that she's a scifi nerd, and then this never comes up again. Her very next episode has the Doctor explaining cryosleep to her.
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Jan 10, 2024 11:38
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Open Source Idiom posted:It shouldn't bother me, but it annoys me that one of Bill's primary character notes in The Pilot is that she's a scifi nerd, and then this never comes up again. Her very next episode has the Doctor explaining cryosleep to her. In fairness, 'sci-fi nerd' might be one of the hardest things to write in a sci-fi show, especially one like Doctor Who with a legacy. It'd only be a matter of time until you accidentally hit an 'Einstein exists in the Starfox universe' problem, where she references something that in part exists because of Doctor Who. In fact, I can guarantee it: The Cybermen are pretty much the very first example of a modern-day cyborg. So if Bill recognized their general thing through sci-fi experience, then you accidentally create a situation where Doctor Who exists within itself. ...also, there's just a high chance that it becomes really annoying and tension-deflating.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:15
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Cleretic posted:In fairness, 'sci-fi nerd' might be one of the hardest things to write in a sci-fi show, especially one like Doctor Who with a legacy. It'd only be a matter of time until you accidentally hit an 'Einstein exists in the Starfox universe' problem, where she references something that in part exists because of Doctor Who. You can handwave that away by just saying that Cybermen interacted with 19th century England and while that wasn't well documented, rumors of the event seeped into popular culture, resulting in the sci-fi trope of cyborgs and humanity draining cybernetics. Also, in the modern day, everyone on the planet should know about Daleks and Cybermen. At that point sci-fi is just basic education.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:24
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"Cybermen? Sounds swedish."
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Jan 10, 2024 12:30
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Cleretic posted:In fairness, 'sci-fi nerd' might be one of the hardest things to write in a sci-fi show, especially one like Doctor Who with a legacy. It'd only be a matter of time until you accidentally hit an 'Einstein exists in the Starfox universe' problem, where she references something that in part exists because of Doctor Who. I dunno if this matters so much tbh, since it's such an academic edge case that its ability to deflate the believability of the setting doesn't strike me as overly concerning. But beyond that: * Doctor Who already exists within itself (in the form of "Professor X") so there's an explanation for where the cyborg idea comes from if it must come from Doctor Who -- though, tbh, I think the idea of cold metal replacing warm flesh, in a horror context, is older than Doctor Who. The term "cyborg" certainly is. * Doctor Who has this kind of paradox all the time -- and not just because Alien was probably influenced by The Ark In Space. e.g. Mary Shelly running into Cybermen, or putting Agatha Christie in an ITV Agatha Christie pastiche. * My read on Moffat's take on Cybermen is that their creation is inevitable i.e. that any human society left alone long enough with technology will eventually cyberise themselves anyway, hence the situation in World Enough And Time. Which I guess is his explanation for all the different variations in design over the years. All human or humanish cultures inevitably develop the idea regardless of the form it takes, even in cultures where Professor X doesn't exist.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:46
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Watched World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls and I mostly love it, but I think there were two big missed opportunities: - No Cyberman designs from the intervening versions between The Tenth Planet and Rise of the Cybermen in the waves sent up. - It kind of felt like the end of the story should have included the Doctor enacting a cunning plan to invert the ship (whilst redirecting the thrusters so the ship didn't fall immediately into the black hole) - so that the Cybermen would no longer have the advantage of faster-paced development and it would take longer between waves for them to regain their strength.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:47
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A.o.D. posted:Also, in the modern day, everyone on the planet should know about Daleks and Cybermen. At that point sci-fi is just basic education. I think there's a good episode to be written, where you'd have an entity that keeps eating memories/resetting things back to Regular Earth Standard to explain how people never seem to recall any of the alien events that occur. Cause yeah, giant alien spaceship in the sky has happened enough times that aliens existing should be general knowledge & alien tech should be semi-common
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Jan 10, 2024 12:48
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Bicyclops posted:Classic Who, particularly when serials were more in the 6 episode range than 4 episode range, definitely have a lot of padding. It helps if you, watch, like one episode a day so that you get that 25 minute dose of formula serial, but we're all insane completionists and binge-watchers these days, so nobody does, lol. Having gone through two watchthroughs myself, I find the earlier black and white stuff easier to watch, on the whole, than the period of time from about when Tom Baker gets the dog bite on his lip all the way up to when Seven gets a little less goofy. I often feel that, and I have no idea how accurate this actually is, they often had situations where stories weren't ready to go or there wasn't enough budget for them, so to plug the gap they pad out other stories in the season. Admittedly this probably doesn't apply to the very first season because aside from The Edge of Destruction they're all quite long stories. By Hartnell's third season the four parter is quickly gaining dominance so its odd when later longer stories come along that just don't warrant it (I'm looking at you season 7). Admittedly I've only ever really binged watched stories. Back in the 90s the only way for me to watch any Doctor Who was to borrow tapes from a friend, or for my parents to rent VHS copies from Blockbuster and the local library as we didn't have cable TV. Once we got cable UKGold would show stories as one big omnibus on Saturday mornings with commercial breaks between the episodes, and then of course DVDs were coming out so they'd all be watched in one sitting as well, and now the same applies for streaming. Sydney Bottocks posted:by the time I got to Colin's run I had to give up. The one-two punch of The Twin Dilemma and Attack of the Cybermen had me out for the count. The Twin Dilemma was so bad it put a stop to my run for a couple of months. Attack of the Cybermen was considerably more enjoyable because Terry Molloy, Brian Glover and Maurice Colbourne are far better than the usual supporting casts, especially the latter and elevated the material considerably as a result.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:49
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Infinitum posted:I think there's a good episode to be written, where you'd have an entity that keeps eating memories/resetting things back to Regular Earth Standard to explain how people never seem to recall any of the alien events that occur. Some kind of crack in time that keeps eating events?
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Jan 10, 2024 12:49
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Infinitum posted:I think there's a good episode to be written, where you'd have an entity that keeps eating memories/resetting things back to Regular Earth Standard to explain how people never seem to recall any of the alien events that occur. I find it kind of funny and charming that Moffat went to the effort to explain away some of Davies' bigger choices (CyberKINGGGG) and now Davies is back it's just like, nah, everyone knows. Back to RTD status quo.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:52
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Open Source Idiom posted:I find it kind of funny and charming that Moffat went to the effort to explain away some of Davies' bigger choices (CyberKINGGGG) and now Davies is back it's just like, nah, everyone knows. Back to RTD status quo. I did see an interview where they cited the success of the MCU in being happy with permanently shifting show to a reality a bit to the left of ours where everyone is aware of aliens and UNIT has a giant tower in London.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:54
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Warthur posted:Watched World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls and I mostly love it, but I think there were two big missed opportunities: I wished someone had slipped Moffat a copy of the Terry Pratchett novel Carpe Jugulum, because the whole thing with Bill's identity being at war with the Cyberman identity was just begging for a resolution where she asserts her identity so strongly that it gets beamed out through the Cybermen hivemind and instead of her turning into a Cyberman, all the Cybermen turn into her. I had visions of an army of Bills going back down to fight the more advanced Cybermen (probably only the more primitive Mondasian models would be able to be overridden that way)
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Jan 10, 2024 14:00
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More scorching hot takes. The Underwater Menace (reconstructed) – This isn’t the animated version as that’s not been added to BBC iPlayer yet, so its 2 surviving episodes plus two episodes reconstructed via telesnaps. The plot is pretty basic all things considered – madman wants to raise Atlantis but will blow up the Earth in the process, but doesn’t care because lol. It is however enjoyable to watch and Zaroff is a delightfully hammy villain, and the rest of the cast are clearly having a lot of fun. The only downside the last episode falls a bit flat as it’s a lot of action and very little telesnaps to go with it, so you don’t get a great idea of whats going on. I’m sure the animated version will fix all these issues and I look forward to watching it again. The Macra Terror – I actually did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did, and I wonder how much heavy lifting the animation has done in this regard, transforming Macra from awkward and not entirely convincing props to enormous monsters that are a very credible threat. The colony is a wonderfully creepy and unsettling dystopia, with all the colonists happily going about their business and constantly singing little jingles about how happy they are to work, all under the watchful eye of “the Controller”. Honestly a really good story and its another entry in a very strong lineup in season 4.
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Jan 10, 2024 19:04
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A.o.D. posted:You can handwave that away by just saying that Cybermen interacted with 19th century England and while that wasn't well documented, rumors of the event seeped into popular culture, resulting in the sci-fi trope of cyborgs and humanity draining cybernetics. Also, in the modern day, everyone on the planet should know about Daleks and Cybermen. At that point sci-fi is just basic education.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:19
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Paul.Power posted:We do at least have Rory being unfazed that the Tardis is bigger on the inside because after the Prisoner Zero incident he read up on a bunch of popular science. Rory rules because he's way smarter than anyone in the show ever gives him credit for. I actively dislike Amy in their first season after she starts to treat him like poo poo (thankfully they minimized that in future seasons, because it felt like they were trying to go for Mickey 2.0 and I am glad that didn't happen)
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Jan 11, 2024 05:43
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Rory owns because he doesn't let Amy push him around because he's weak, he's actually smart and strong. He lets her push him around because he's a bottom. edit He also looks extremely good in armour. Shame that the show refused to ever use the fact that he is trained with a sword ever again. SirSamVimes fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jan 11, 2024 |
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Jan 11, 2024 07:29
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Having flashbacks to watching The Underwater Menace for the first time as a reconstruction and seeing that shot of the fish people swimming in the tank over and over and over again 
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Jan 11, 2024 07:59
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I don't think anyone said anything about the private collector with two missing Doctor Who episodes reluctant to reveal their identity for fear of prosecution, but I guess it's something to discuss.
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Jan 11, 2024 09:14
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Edward Mass posted:I don't think anyone said anything about the private collector with two missing Doctor Who episodes reluctant to reveal their identity for fear of prosecution, but I guess it's something to discuss. It's just an excuse to horde them. There's probably around a dozen or so episodes out there still, in known collectors hands, but they like having them and no one else. The BBC waved the right to prosecute years and years ago. It's just not a realistic fear.
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Jan 11, 2024 09:48
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I wouldn't pay too much attention to that guardian article, the primary interviewee is not an expert in Dr Who and feels he was totally misrepresented. https://x.com/drwhopodcasters/status/1723388160866943358?s=20
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Jan 11, 2024 10:43
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Maybe they've got The Smugglers and The Space Pirates and nobody gives a poo poo.
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Jan 11, 2024 13:30
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Yeah reckon it's them potentially overestimating how much they're valued at. They're obviously worth a fair bit of money to lend them out for digitisation, but probably not the multi-million dollar payday they'd be hoping for.
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Jan 11, 2024 13:34
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The discussion of Jacob Dudman's 11 got me into the 11th series he is doing, and goddamn it was accurate saying he's "uncanny". They also get the tone down amazingly with the companion banter, especially when the stories are set after some travel time. Amazing work and even more amazing considering Dudman came from (I believe) youtube impressions - I recall watching his doctor impressions years back, and promptly forgetting him until BF swept him up. Probably find out he was already best buds with Nick Briggs or something but I love the YouTube narrative.
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Jan 11, 2024 15:22
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He's quit the role to focus on acting acting, which is probably for the best. The Netflix algorithm seems to like him and he's getting cast in a lot of live action stuff now (e.g. Seven Kings Must Die). The arc for that series has actually been fairly tight and has a lot of energy to it (despite a dud story or two), and the actor they got to play Valarie (Saifyya Ingar) is also really really good. They have insanely good chemistry with Dudman, and the season's tendency to put the character through the ringer means that they get a lot of chances to give really, really great performances. They're a really good team.
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Jan 11, 2024 15:30
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