Guitar Hero: Nu-Who Season 9

There's this weird story going round, that apparently Moffat definitely ruled out ever having a female doctor, but I read his quote, and I can't see where he says it. He alludes to having put his opinion on the subject in the show, and I don't get where? Didn't he just have a timelord switch gender last season? That seems pro-female-doctor to me. The discourse surrounding this show is so weird to me, sometimes.

Counter arg is that Master switching genders inoculates the Doctor himself from switching.

ok... is that in the show?

No, I mean from a showrunning POV.

Moffat has repeatedly pointed out in response to hysterical accusations that he's blocking us from our rightful female Doctor that he was the first person to put in the regular show that Time Lords *could* change gender (in 2010) and the first and only to then put the actuality on screen, still just months ago. (Obv JNT used to say it was possible every three years in the '80s, to tabloids.) This is without even bringing up that he previously had the Doctor change gender on-screen in 1997. He's not required to debunk new accusations every two months, just because tumblr exists.

Shot of Wookey Hole at 00:40

Was trying to think yesterday has any non-timelord character that has changed appearance because the actor changed had a story retrofit to explain why. I assume that there must be recurring characters throughout the history that this would apply to but can't think.

This happened with Jamie for one episode of The Mind Robber

I think he went back to Fraser Hines straight after though. Was thinking more fo character changes from having face A to face B because actor changes permanently . Then the difference gets explained. Assume that with a history as long as Dr Who's there must be at least one instance of this but can't think of one.
& assumed that there must be recurring characters like that.

Only one i could think of was the last human being who is shown both as stretched out skin and an embodied actress but that isn't quite the same thing.

Was set off by the apparent recognition of Maisie by the Doctor in the trailer, but that might get longer explanation anyway.
I've watched the series through and can't think of instances but thought that might be down to me having a head full of flu/cold whatever.
& been told taht a timelord is going to recognise another timelord was something that had come up during the 10 era. So assume that means timelordd recognises the personality outside of the change. Except where it crosses gender divides apparently though that is 2 doctors later.

In the same vein, I don't think they actually got John Barrowman in to play the Face of Bo.

Same face different characters is more of a problem with Doctor Who.

Oh and of course there's the recasting of the First Doctor post-Hartnell, though that's obviously not explained.

Just watched the trailer, who's the kid in the end of it supposed to be? River? The Doctor's daughter from that one episode? I can't think of anyone else to whom he'd react in that way...

Also, when the heck are they going to go back to the Doctor trying to find Gallifrey, which was teased at the end of the 50th anniversary episode? I thought they would've done something with that subplot during the last season, but it was only addressed a bit in the finale, when the Master gave the Doctor the wrong cordinates. Since the Doctor knows Gallifrey is out there, you'd think he'd put a bit more effort into trying to locate it?

I don't think the Face of Bo is necessarily Harkness anyway, could just have been an ironic joke where people were expected to read that into it and it not actually be true. Sounded like it was a competition that might have had more than one winner over time so young Harkness was a Face of Bo not necessarily the same one that's infinitely old. Could never work out how a fixed point in time could lose its limbs in that way anyway.

& Tuomas the girl at the end of the trailer is the Maisie Williams who I was talking about earlier. Suggestions for who she is have been Susan (Doctor''s grandaughter) Jenny (Doctor's daughter), a younger Missy, another incarnation of the Master (unlikely since Missy is back in this season), another humanoid manifestation of the Tardis and possibly a couple of others.

I don't think the Face of Bo revelation was supposed to be taken as a joke, it certainly wasn't framed as one... And since it fit some of the earlier clues (Captain Jack's immortality, Bo calling the Doctor "old friend"), and Bo's identity hasn't been brought up ever since, I think it's canon that Bo = Jack.

Sorry about not reading the earlier posts properly, I had no idea who Maisie Williams is, so I didn't know who you're talking about. I doubt she's yet another manifestation of the Tardis (do they really want to do that plot again?) or a younger Missy (would it make sense that she reincarnated as a teen, then waited for 30+ years before putting her masterplan in the S8 finale motion?). I'm really hoping it's Jenny, because that was a subplot that was left totally open, and she seemed like a cool character... I guess it'd be weird for them not to get the original actress though, unless she's unavailable?

Not sure Jenny actually had the power of regeneration. When she apparently died she came back as the same actress. That that actress is Mrs David Tennant may be the reason behind that though.

She's also Peter Davison, Jr

That Face of Bo thing does seem to be open to interpretation I would have thought. It's certainly not been the older face of Bo saying that he is the later part of the younger Harkness's life . & the younger Harkness does say that he had this role in incidental fashion. Not sure what is said that leads to him saying it but what the doctor says after it makes it look like it may or may not be.

Not sure what does constitute canon or whether something like taht would be further explored if characters aren't going to be used in depth through later stories. Did Face of bo reappear during Smith's doctor, not sure if Harkness was fighting to save Amy Pond's stolen baby or not.

I would tend to find something said in passing not to be absolutely concrete in terms of canon. & would personally want something more definite to think of it as an absolute.
But not sure what is down in writing anywhere and still think it might be something that was a writer's in-joke or knowing wink something.

I had no idea who Maisie Williams is

Huh, you don't watch Game of Thrones, Tuomas?

Since the Doctor knows Gallifrey is out there, you'd think he'd put a bit more effort into trying to locate it?

a) because he was always so desperate to get to Gallifrey during the parts of the 38 years pre-nu-Who that didn't have I4n L3vine suggesting content

b) because every time he got involved with Gallifrey during Saward / L3vine it made for fascinating stories that really enriched the show and the character, not impossibly stupid and tedious nonsense, + collars

(obv Invasion Of Time was the damaging trendsetter there, but I grew up on the novelisation of it, so I can't hate it)

Pertinent to the thread title:

https://twitter.com/pigeonspotting/status/644658270448295936

NO SPOILERS

I'm inclined to think the Doctor recognising Maisie in the trailer is misdirection. She's in two episodes, the first being called 'The Girl Who Died', so we're obviously being set up to think she comes back from the dead. That's why the Doctor recognises her and looks dumbfounded. It could well mean she's a Timelord, but who knows. The usual Missy/Clara/Susan/Rani speculation is always good fun, but I'd be inclined to think they introduce a new character, albeit one who ties into Who-lore in a significant way.

Blimey, this starts tonight.

That was bobbins. (I'm aware that no Who show discussion can start until someone has proffered this opinion, so I'm willing to take the hit (but no, it was bobbins))

Tho I did wonder how many other people tuned in a few minutes earlier, stared confusedly at the upper middle aged portly gay couple on Celebrity Pointless, and then shouted "Fucking Hell, it's Hale and Pace!". I'd be a happier man if any part of Doctor Who was as surprising.

You're correct, it was bobbins.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/7ade0d67ac8ac4a3bdbb7716cbfffb91/tumblr_myv7siJVXv1rmwez8o5_r2_400.gif

RTD tribute ep, like The Power Of Three.

Power of Three was much better. Don't remember many RTD episodes this incoherent, which is saying something. Some good moments, sure, but a lot that was hectic, forced and embarrassing, and definitely too much old continuity bollocks for a first episode (speaking as someone who enjoys old continuity bollocks). Unusually for Doctor Who (even for bad episodes) I felt relieved when it was over.

Hey ho though - glad it's back. Looking back, Eleventh Hour and Impossible Astronaut have been the only good season openers, so dodgy starts don't necessarily herald a bad season. But can we skip to episode three next week?

Also, Brig's daughter reliably dull.

And guitar scene probably most cringeworthy thing since Tennant's marathon run.

Cluttered as fuck, but totally coherent.

I love Michelle Gomez.

sic otm.

it was like a yard sale for the first 2/3 but i dug the last part on (spoiler) with (spoiler)

i was ~almost~ ok with guitar cheese but the pretty woman riff made me want to kick in the tv

also i thought the whole medieval part was supposed to be a Vegas Excalibur/Medieval Times theme restaurant, i didnt realize it was *actually* meant to be medieval times, lol

i dont care how crap it gets though, i fuckin love capaldi-who

I thought this wildly out of character nonsense that worked well plotwise

Anything too scrazy for young tykes in this one?

I meant to type "scary" but actually "scrazy" is maybe more what I meant

Yeah the first five minutes are if you have access to a muddy field - that was good (but unconnected to the rest of the episode (oh lord Sarff's tour de space was tedious - did they blow the entire budget on the first episode?))

presumably buying him a swegway.

that was good (but unconnected to the rest of the episode

Except for setting up the cliffhanger, the hunt you disparage, the central conflict, and the Doctor's eventual onscreen behaviour and previous absenteeism

Also plenty of shows get by okay with pre-title sequences that ARE completely disconnected from the latter elements of the show. And this was great and creepy enough to have been worthwhile even it was disconnected.

Plus while you don't at all need to know it is in several ways a callback to the opening of Genesis Of The Daleks to appreciate it or follow this ep -- would you criticise that opening for being unconnected to the rest of ep 1, or the story as a whole?

anyway HEY TRACER HAND yeah that bit will spook the shit out of tinies, and there are some scary bits later too. But watch it with 'em and they'll be fine. Nightmares are healthy.

I don't think the previous absenteeism was explained? But I may have shoved skewers in my ears after Pretty Woman, the subtitles may have glossed over that bit.

I'm not sure what you're asking me about in the third panel? If it's the opening sequence of Genesis of the Daleks, I don't really remember it or have any views on it?

I do appreciate the sampled voiceovers exculpatory reminder that anything involving Davros (Genesis aside) has always been dull overwrought shite, though.

Always great to see how many of the Doctor's pivotal moments have been recorded by CCTV.

Thing I disliked most was the temporary 'killing' of Missy (again) and Clara. What's the point?

I feel like a lot of a Moff episodes start roaringly well and then you can literally point to the second where they fall apart. With this one it was the hashtag joke. With "Listen" he at least saved the awfulness until the very last minute. Which is why he's so frustrating, because when he fucks it up, you at least know he's *capable* of doing better, unlike the other writers.

Anyway - Capaldi and Coleman still great. Missy is reaching the "too much of a good thing" point for me.

Re: coherence - why was the planet invisible, and why did the Doctor walk into an obvious traps again - guilt alone? Presumably there were micro moments of dialogue to explain that (or maybe it'll be lampshaded into next week's episode) but I missed them. (I am slightly deaf mind.)

this was alright. very slightly disappointing. didn't mind the guitar bit. kind of sick of davros.

Viewers in their millions deserted Doctor Who as it returned to BBC One for a new series, according to overnight figures.

An average 4.6m watched Peter Capaldi back for his second series playing the Time Lord, compared with 6.8m for his full debut last year.

It was roundly beaten by ITV's X Factor, which had 7.3 million viewers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34307519

Aw, dammit. NO MORE SEXY DOCTORS

bound to be if ratings dont pick up

DW audience is increasingly likely to watch the show on demand, especially since it's been in a later timeslot. As-broadcast ratings don't mean much.

headlines like that can put people off though

They can?

IS THIS THE END FOR THE DOCTOR?

I don't mind Gatiss writing the occasional episode, but he is a sort of ironic comedic caretaker/curator to the m.r. james/hammer horror/dr who tradition, obvs worked well with league of gentleman (local shop for local people ho ho ho) but that was a comedy ... did not at all like what he did with the m r james xmas special

At the same time there's that he gives a fuck about dr who

I don't mind Gatiss writing the occasional episode, but he is a sort of ironic comedic caretaker/curator to the m.r. james/hammer horror/dr who tradition, obvs worked well with league of gentleman (local shop for local people ho ho ho) but that was a comedy ... did not at all like what he did with the m r james xmas special

this is otm. i see him more as someone who has genuine affection so might dial down the "comedic" bit but yes, his execution in no way matches his appreciation, and that in itself suggests his appreciation is deficient in some way. that poor adaptation of the tractate middoth lacked fear and shade. he can play very well with the method but struggles to allow the darkness into his framework.

I'm sure chibnall is competent, but nothing he's done inspires confidence - i though both series of broadchurch were laughable. however he isn't victim to gattis's fatal frivolity.

gatiss' biggest flaw, as far as i'm concerned, is his tendency to lapse into "talons of weng-chiang" levels of offensiveness. which is a very serious problem, but i'd still pick him over someone whose greatest strength is his ability to put together a theoretically watchable episode of television wherein nothing of note actually happens. i'm worried that he's going to start adapting old "law & order" scripts as doctor who episodes mid-season and nobody will actually notice.

I gave Gatiss a pass for a long while because his first season episode, the Dickens one, was a so great (at least in my memory), and I remember getting really excited thinking, "ah, this new series might not suck after all".

And then everything's he's done since then has been the total pits - that larky Victorian episode with Diana Rigg being the absolute bottom, and then the Baskerville episode of Sherlock somewhere below that.

On the plus side - I thought the ending of the (otherwise horrible) Sleep No More, with the narrator's face disintegrating into sand - that was as memorable an image as nu-Who has delivered since it began.

(I presume it was nicked from something else.)

his first season episode, the Dickens one, was a so great (at least in my memory),

I think that's the sort of thing that rusho's referring to as "weng-chiang levels of offensiveness" - the way white middle-class writer man doesn't think there's anything wrong with a story where immigrants seeking refuge turn out to ACTUALLY be bloodthirsty marauders bent on stealing our jobs and destroying our way of life.

His last five scripts have been at least decent meat & potatoes Who imo*, and generally getting better or more interesting. Sleep No More was the worst ep of last year, but it was trying to do things that neither the programme nor Gatiss have attempted before, which - over two decades into his career as an occasional Who writer - is pretty admirable.

Working so closely on Sherlock seems to have made Moffat better at commissioning Gatiss to a brief, too - giving him an outline that caters to one of his strengths/obsessions, rather than letting all his weaknesses blurt out.

*the arrow resolution to Sherwood aside.

one of the things i like about moffat is, even though he overthinks things, he does go back and try and fix his mistakes. the zygon two-parter was fascinating to me because it's addressing serious flaws in the anniversary zygon plot i hadn't even seen mentioned on the net. of course other people would take "kill the moon" as equivalently offensive to "the unquiet dead", but my take on "kill the moon" is that all sufficiently complex texts generate problematic readings. gatiss doesn't get that deep into things, but he can take a one-line concept like "ice warriors on red october during able archer" and execute it well, and that's really all you need. compare to something like "mummy on the orient express", which in gatiss' hands would be about a mummy on the orient express.

Hey guys, I just finished watching all nu-Who this week. What Who should I watch next? I've tried starting at the beginning with Hartnell but I find it too slow paced, and not well-written or well-filmed either. Is Torchwood worth watching?

I only watched the first two seasons of Torchwood which were patchy at best, but a lot of people say it gets better.

Some Hartnells are very well written fwiw, but the pace remains old-fashioned, shall we say.

Torchwood is pretty good.

I like Tom Baker era Who which is a bit closer to current than Hartnell was. it's 10 years later and I think the difference in culture shows.
I think several of the recent Whos have cited Patrick Troughton as n influence. Unfortunately there's less of them than one would really like thanks to the BBC wiping old episodes. A couple of complete stories appeared in Africa a couple of years ago, though one episode of Web Of Fear the Yetis on the London Underground system story was nicked before it made it to the West.

Pertwee is also really good.

I don't really like the Davison era overmuch. I never really connected with the doctor and weird things happen with aliens costumes tahnks to lack of budget etc though i guess that might be a constant to the series, 2 people in a horse costume playing an alien seems to be an absolute nadir. having Linda Bellingham karate chopping the main alien in the same story seems about as bad.
Colin Baker was a decent actor who had some pretty naff scripts.
I like Sylvester Mccoy as an actor but again he had some decidedly naff stories though he did have a couple of semi decent ones.

I think Hartnell did have some pretty interesting stories, may have loosened up as he went along too.

There are a number of other British Science fiction series from the era too. Sapphire and Steel, Doomwatch, UFO to name a couple.

Torchwood: Children of Earth is the best Who-related program of the nu-Who era.

It's Ingrid Pitt that karate chops the Myrka.

Back end of Children of Earth is a bit of a mess imo, I think S2 is about as good as it got. Just never go near Torchwood: Giant Space Vagina.

oh man THAT one is the one where IMO the end just spectacularly falls apart

I might re-read that thread just to see us all say Giant Space Vagina repeatedly.

Torchwood is almost all terrible.

If you'd like a list of recommended stories from each Doctor for a newbie, that's been done a few times on the Who threads. Or I can just give you a correct list.

lol sic

Which Hartnell serials are interesting? I'm at The Sensorites (#7), and so far the only one I'd say was decent all the way through would be The Aztecs (although I have problems with its theme).

Sensorites is mostly pretty boring. Try The Time Meddler, or The Ark.

I have just read the Torchwood thread, which about 20% people going Giant Earth Vagina (mainly me), and have just lost my shit when Tuomas claims a paving slab can engage in consensual sex.

Wait, that's your problem with the scene? I thought that it was 'jokey'?

Great Hartnells:

The Daleks
The Time Meddler
The Aztecs
DIoE
The Romans

YMMV but I love:

Reign of Terror
Planet Of Giants
The Ark

My Love is inexplicable:

The Web Planet

I love Planet Of Giants so much

The Daleks isn't not meandering in fairness - there's an episode which is just hiking through caves, and another which is Ian trying to convince the Thals to punch him in the face (and Ian is very punchable).

It also suffers in modern viewing from the fact that it's called The Daleks and the cliffhanger at the end of the first episode is OMG it's a Dalek - a defect passed on in its DNA to every other Dalek story.

Dalek Invasion of Earth >>>> The Daleks

Glad you liked The Aztecs already. Sensorites would make a good four-parter.

Dalek Invasion is good (but the movie is paced better), first ep of Space Museum is great but bail out if you get bored during later eps, Time Meddler is fantastic, I love The Gunfighters and you might too if you don't break down crying with frustration if your children's TV show has the temerity to do a comedy story occasionally, instead of spacemen shooting laser guns. Never read or seen The Rescue and The Romans but they're probably good given the writers. The Tenth Planet is worth watching when you get there.

(if you can handle a recon or a narrated soundtrack, carry on into Troughton's Power Of The Daleks. There are no complete stories at all from his first season, though.)

You might want to move to the C or D thread.

Yeah, that's a better thread for this.

https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/838803941458608128

Stoked for Automated Bessie.

I hope they ignore "Attack of the Cybermen" and come up with an understandable explanation.

everybody should ignore "attack of the cybermen"