OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLY: nu-Who season 8

am still loving the sets this season, for some reason noticing them way more this time

I love the concentric rings of cryptic, sketched-out diagrams on the ceiling of the Tardis! (And how they're echoed in the opening credits.)

like: even the 1965-66 season feels different from the first two years. Holmes lasted less than a year after Hinchcliffe was moved on, and you can feel the difference in approach, style and budget from Williams' second story. Letts/Dicks stayed five years, but the first Pertwee season has a different feel from the next three (due to being commissioned by Sherwin/Bryant, budget cuts, cast, and the budgetary need to have three reeeeaallly long stories), and the last one loses the vibe as everyone gives notice and marks time. Even Saward's unfortunate reign of mediocrity had the 18-month mini-cancellation in the middle, and there's at least an intention to change tone when C. Baker comes in halfway through, and starts strangling companions instead of having a soapsworth of them roaming the TARDIS bedrooms.

xpost: RTD is Russell T Davies, showrunner from 2005-2009. so is it this year you think doesn't feel like the last eight, or the last five that don't feel like the previous four?

(nb not trying to sound belligerent here: for real curious)

xp i appreciate you taking the time to do that sic but i can't place any of those (didn't watch the most recent episode) so you may be banging your head against a wall here.

to your immediate question, i'd say the last four or five don't feel like the previous four.

my affinity for nu-who is in the first three or so years and then i felt like the show completely cocked up.

so is it this year you think doesn't feel like the last eight, or the last five that don't feel like the previous four?

I grew up watching the Pertwee/Baker/Davison era and idk the pacing and tone just felt different. I (half-jokingly) remarked to my wife that if you weren't bored during at least part of the episode than it wasn't really Dr. Who. You are unsurprisingly much more versed in the minutiae of this show than I am but yeah the reboot does feel like it has a more frantic and more nudge-nudge-wink-wink attitude running through it. Of the new seasons/Doctors I've probably enjoyed Tenant the most.

you guys are both just saying "a TV show written and run by Steven Moffatt doesn't feel quite the same as a TV show written and run by Russell T Davies," then*. Shakes I promise if you went back and watched representative episodes from the three different producer/script editor eras of Tom Baker, you could tell the difference between them.

frantic - TV just moves faster now. amusingly franticness annoyed me during Tennant and I see it as a storytelling style in the Moffatt/Smith era [they have notable slowed down hugely this year]

*though it's still lol/sad to me that forks got fed up with RTD's style after four years and quit because it was obviously going to stay the same when he left!

I wish I get this much attention and hand-holding when I vociferously complained about tv shows I didn't like.

i don't think i'm being vociferous; at this point i'm just answering when spoken to!

you guys are both just saying "a TV show written and run by Steven Moffatt doesn't feel quite the same as a TV show written and run by Russell T Davies," then

*though it's still lol/sad to me that forks got fed up with RTD's style after four years and quit because it was obviously going to stay the same when he left!

again, if you're getting some enjoyment out of the current series, more power to you and i don't mean to spoil your enjoyment!

I skipped the Matt Smith seasons because I had a visceral dislike of him as an actor. The Capaldi ones are allright but yeah they don't hypnotize me the way Baker-era did when I was a kid (which I'm sure has lots to do with being a nerdy kid alone at home on Sunday afternoons with nothing better to do than watch 1 1/2 of PBS)

am still loving the sets this season, for some reason noticing them way more this time

The sets are consistently very good on Nu-Who. Also I feel the make up and prosthetics don't get enough praise from fandom, there's been some phenomenal work in that department.

CGI on the other hand...

CGI's been mostly good or understated in the Moffatt era iirc? The enormous reduction in budgets (enough that their outside contractor went bust) has been met by using it more carefully & sparingly I think

walking into the Dalek's eyestalk in ep 2 this year prob the best-looking computer manipulated imagery in series history

Does anyone anywhere like Gold's music?

It's praised in this episode guide:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Is-Doctor-Unofficial-Who-The/dp/1550229842

"At some point in the Baker era you see Leela swimming in the tardis pool"

in your dreams

Baker later moves into the 'second control room' which I think also showed up in one of the new series...maybe the Idris one.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K7yhTnZHbKA/UjzkrXuiWGI/AAAAAAAAOwc/r_5uOuNA_ow/s1600/Invasion+Leela+pool.gif

http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1vtntmfcM1qcwhkeo1_r1_400.gif

http://33.media.tumblr.com/9de99b0ea43544162e79a67e5d44d6ce/tumblr_mlmkut1rRM1qcwhkeo4_r2_250.gif

The secondary control room set was improperly stored and didn't even survive to the next year (1977), far less still be around THIRTY-FIVE years later for The Doctor's Wife.

yeah it wasn't the set but I think he talked about it

I totally forgot that the swimming pool was something they'd actually shown before. what an obscure callback

That leaping Sontaran gif is oddly mesmerising

I thought tonights (Orient Express) was good but could really have done with just a bit more mystery, a bit more atmosphere, maybe like ten minutes longer episode time

i really dug this ep! the mummy resolve was a bit of a letdown for the buildup but it was a v atmospheric (?) ep

liked the doc/clara interplay again, really doing good stuff together

this one was fun! except for the tegan redux "doctor, I'm leaving, I'm really leaving this time, I mean it, I'm going, I am done, oh OK one more time"

lol otm

scariest bit was when I thought frank skinner might be staying.

Yeah, had exactly that reaction so glad he didn't. Felt quite paniced at the time.

I've advanced through the Baker era noticing the advent of expanded Tardis. Sarah Jane appears with items next to an archway a couple of times in Planet of Evil; in Victoria's old dress referring to the extensive wardrobe in Pyramids of Mars; but its Masque of Mandragora before they're actually in corridors. Then the only thing on show for a while is the wooden console room and clothing on Sarah Jane and then Leela. Oh & the items Sarah Jane is carrying when she leaves which include a pot plant which might indicate she hjad her own room but is probably just what every moving out person ever carries.

Just remembering she's also got a racquet of some kind which she pats a dog's head with right at the end. So what's that, tennis or squash courts too?

I liked the details of the mummy dragging its horrible feet, and the basic conceit where only you can see it tapped into the bad old well of playground ghost stories

right. the mummy itself was fantastic - and yes, the dragging feet thing was very effective.

couple of things bugged me mildly about this episode - the other 'experts' in the train, just standing round in white coats looking at computer screens and retorts or test tubes like lemons. not one of them said anything once. I know the doctor made that point, but, well, it felt a bit silly.

there were a couple of odd script moments as well - I had difficulty untangling the 'no point hating something you don't like' bit. Couldn't work out whether she hated him because she liked him, whether she didn't hate him because she didn't like him, hated him because she didn't like him, didn't hate him and did like him or had once or something or other.

there were another couple of lines later that didn't seem right but i can't remember what they were now.

I assume the stopwatch going down/backwards was intended as mundane unfamiliarity, but i did and have spent a very small amount of effort trying to work out whether it was intended.

nice that his psychic paper ended up getting him in a bit of a pickle (again, i like the way in this series they've examined his 'get out of jail' tools a bit).

but this was still very good, effective, well-constructed television (tho having bits of Clara and Maisie stuck in a room was a bit laborious). The pacing of this series has been outstanding as well - i think it's the space they give Capaldi and Clara has forced the action bits to be handled substantially differently, compressing them or formalising them in a way different to the constant running of previous series. Here the pulses of 60-second action were v effective.

Yeah the pacing has definitely improved this season. My gripe with new series (notwithstanding that they can't possibly go back to old Who pacing due to changes in technology and competition from video games etc) was always that they rushed everything and missed chances to make things really scary or really wondrous, but recently, they seem to have been getting it right without actually slowing it down.

This ruled. Clara as nu-Tegan is a-ok with me since Tegan ruled.

Glad I wasn't the only one reminded of Tegan - I was getting to the point of proposing "Towards a Taxonomy of Companion Exits" and starting a catalog

Excelsior!

why so little reaction from the astronauts when they discover the doctor et al on their ship??

That's pretty standard in general, and particularly so in this case I thought - We have a really shit decision to make, you look like someone who might make it for us!

Really fun and quite scary. Only two real duds this season for me so far (Robin Hood and the abort-o-moon), which may be the best hit rate on a series of Nu-Who yet, come to think of it.

On the other hand, there's yet to be straight-up classic.

This was tremendously fun

For those keeping count, the Bechdel test was passed easily - and they even referred to it, though not by name: "Come on, we're going to spend all night in this carriage together, don't tell me all we can talk about is some man"

Thought the monster was very Eddie-like

P.S. "Are you my mummy?"

i think it's the space they give Capaldi and Clara has forced the action bits to be handled substantially differently, compressing them or formalising them in a way different to the constant running of previous series

this is OTM

Yeah, the pacing and editing has been much calmer and more sober, a real change for the better.

but this was still very good, effective, well-constructed television (tho having bits of Clara and Maisie stuck in a room was a bit laborious).

I kind of expected that this episode was going to have two narrative strands: the Doctorb doing one thing with all the scientists and experts, and then Maisie and Clara dodging in and out of tight spots. I was convinced that when Maisie was revealed as the next target and they were still trapped in that baggage compartment, that they'd be able to lure the mummy into the techno-sarcophagus and save the day, ta.

P.S. "Are you my mummy?"

The Doctor did mention wearing a gas mask!

Also the continued theme about soldiers and the Doctor pretending (or not pretending!) to be one.

This was a good episode, but I was a bit disappointed when, at the end, they showed the Doctor had saved the train's chief engineer (and presumably everyone else). It would've been better if they'd left it truly ambiguous whether he actually saved the folks on the train, or whether it was just a story he made up to make Clara feel better, as he himself suggested.

Also, if the whole "Clara being disappointed with the Doctor" plot was really resolved this easily, then it felt like they were trying to milk some extra drama out of nothing, so I'm hoping this theme will come back at some point. If/when Clara leaves, it'd be cool if she just decides she can't be arsed to travel with the Doctor anymore, that'd be a welcome change to all the sobby companion departures we've had previously.

Perkins was FANTASTIC, damn you for suggesting he should have died

is there any who community suggestion that skinner was in the running for the doctor at some point? turning the role down and saying, "it can change a man" was delivered in quite a knowing way, more than just a reference to the earlier accusations of arrogance and lack of mourning.

no

I assumed Perkins' "it can change a man" line was just a on what can happen to companions, since he refused to become one. Possibly also foreshadowing some future development with Clara?

"was just a comment on"

Though it was a bit weird, since Perkins didn't really interact with Clara, and therefore couldn't have made any deep analysis on the role of the companion... I guess he was just perceptive.

Perkins was FANTASTIC, damn you for suggesting he should have died

I didn't suggest that, the episode itself did... I just felt it could've maintained the ambiguity instead of showing he was definitely alive.

yep, I was overreading xpost. I just briefly envisaged an alternate universe where F Skinner was chosen instead of Capaldi, which didn't seem totally implausible as I watched the last episode. it seemed like he might have been *considered*.

not the worst of men, I suppose, but I find him quite tiring.

capaldi still superb tho, now my favourite doctor easily, overcoming the prejudice of childhood sentiment towards Tom Baker.

I don't mind Frank Skinner as a presenter/comedian, but I thought he was quite pants in this. No way would they let him be the Doctor.

Feel someone should mention how amazing Clara looked this episode.