new-nu-Who: RTD2 (Doctor Who on telly 2023-?)

For discussion of the second era of Russell T Davies writing & producing and Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter producing Dr. Who.

So far 01: four wraparound "Tales Of The TARDIS" intros for streaming repeats of Earthshock, first one here

(wraparounds for Mind Robber and Fenric were written by Pete McTighe, wraparounds for Varos, 3Docs and Time Meddler by Phil Ford.)

So far 02: A comedy sketch for Children In Need

Today: The Star Beast (adapting elements of the Mills & Gibbons strip from 1980, based on a rejected Mills & Wagner TV pitch, collected in The Iron Legion paperback), the first of three weekly 60th anniversary Tennant/Tate specials, now on BBC iPlayer and now or soon on Disney Plus anywhere else that has Disney Plus.

(A Christmas special with Ncuti Gatwa in the lead is likely to air one month from today, but not confirmed yet.)


Previous chitchat here.

we kinda thought this was trash

I really loved it, not just for nostalgia, and even the bits that I rolled my eyes at (binary/non-binary) I was at least aware that it would be winding up the worst people in the world.

it all felt like setup

maybe we should have just waited to watch until next week

There were six Tales of the TARDIS episodes.

Fun! Liked it.

Eyeroll/winding up OTM

Thought this was run of the mill RTD as a story without any particular lols but otherwise doing its job and the TARDIS interior was pretty cool.

Agree it was run of the mill in some ways but what a relief after the last lot. And it still leaped over the low bar set by Chibnall.

I am looking forward to (allegedly) however RTD lampshades Flux destroying the universe.

There were six Tales of the TARDIS episodes.

I believe if you tally the six that I listed, they will add up to six

four wraparound "Tales Of The TARDIS" intros

If only I had thought to include any other words in that sentence, or post.

this was fine, perhaps even good - my 11 year old watched happily (although I think he slumped over a bit during that last TARDIS chat)

was surprised by how continuity-heavy it was, i thought they might try and make a tidier jumping-on point for a new Disney audience

This was great

Somehow I completely missed that Rose was trans in the promo run-up; I thought they handled that very Whoishly

Somehow I completely missed that Rose was trans in the promo run-up; I thought they handled that very Whoishly

as someone who likes, essentially, two of RTD's first-round episodes (and hugely enjoyed or admired every piece of his output since), I went into this expecting to at best quietly respect his ability to craft broad, populist entertainment that isn't to my taste in same.

that said, twelve seconds in: omg the recap, the exposition, the emotion, what a piece of craft for that returning anniversary audience

thirteen seconds in: AN OLD DOCTOR WHO MATERIALIZED DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM CYBERDOG rusty you pop whore ilu

murray can fuck off tho

12.5 seconds in: mills AND gibbons story credit IN THE OPENING TITLES heart eyes emoji

one hour later: what a delight. playing the nostalgia mystery both as a completely new riff on old-doctor-for-anniversary trope and drawing back the casual general audience. madeley/tennant chemistry not only immediately on the level of pertwee/unit (in a way the TV version of KLS never approached) but also reminiscent of the only good thing abt Partners In Crime. the meep/wrarth twist handled fantastically by both the script and Margolyes. every time I eyerolled at something being handled way too obvi, I was won over to the big emotion play within seconds. Talalay getting to play comedy in a way that suits her but she's not been given on the show before (could have been much more of this but it was still nice to see). Tate absolutely COOKING. Shaun new MVP of the family-used-as-exposition-through-character. (and after Bill looked SO like Sharon that I wondered if it even occurred to Moffatt, there are enough connex in the Sharon -> Bill -> nu-Rose sequence that it adds extra anniversary fan-candy nuance)

lol @ me: during the crawl through the terrace attics, I was like "now THIS is how you use this setting for stakes, unlike in my possible favourite ep of all time" then it being overturned TWICE in a way that would have made me go triple-aldo in the OG RTD era.

and oh yeah the new TARDIS interior! I rarely care much about the revisions, but as an '80s Who baby, huge white walls that are mostly roundels FEELS "right" in a way that also pushed happy buttons for the anniversary.

otoh “just let go”.

TARDIS interior was cool tho.

was surprised by how continuity-heavy it was, i thought they might try and make a tidier jumping-on point for a new Disney audience

I didn't see anything of the Chibnall run but have seen all of the first RTD and the Moffat series. Is anything Chibnall necessary or advantageous to jump back in with the new specials?

All you need to know is that the Doctor was a woman at one point, really

(two points?)

ha nope not required, you are well-advised to stay away from the chibnall era! new ep really only refers back to the end of the Donna run - and there are plenty of (slightly awkward) refreshers - i guess the basic setup is basic enough and simply explained - donna can’t remember the doctor - but all the extra detail and lingo was quite confusing for the very casual viewers in my house

i, as usual, lost interest about 30 minutes in. and having watched a dozen or so of the old 25 minute episodes i think a large part of what's missing, for me, is the cliffhangers (along with the more digestible length)

nice to see DT back though. thought new tardis was too big if anything, not that it matters given the nature of the thing.

murray can fuck off tho

Honestly think this guy has ruined Who far more than Chibnall. The new theme is terrible and within minutes was sick of the usual overblown score.

Although it was trailer-spoiled I did like the ET bit. Don't suppose there was a bit like that in the comic story so it turns out Spielberg ripped it off?

And I am looking forward to the NPH/Celestial Toymaker one honest.

So RTD technobabble is back in a big way huh?

This was mostly decent, Tate and Tennant are such a fun team.

i may have to watch that ending again but i don’t know how I feel about the implication that the metacrisis made Rose trans, and that was also maybe why she chose her name. (Also I don’t buy that she wouldn’t get into the Tardis with Donna and the Doctor at the end.)

I harp about this a lot, but in his New Adventures novel, RTD had a character from the future bone a bone a gay character in the middle of a stakeout at the height of the AIDS epidemic so that the 80s character could develop HIV-immunity from an injection of 30th-century sperm so that whole denouement read to me like someone was reining RTD’s worse storytelling impulses in a bit

I guess it was a blowjob rather than full-on anal but still wildly out of character

holy shit

I must have some kind of Stockholm Syndrome with Murray Gold, because although he's still very annoying, it feels much more like "real Who is back" when he's clodding over everything.

The new theme tune is multiple squares of OTT, but sort of exciting too? The original Ecclestone theme is still his best one.

My personal cringezone with New Adventures is Ace storming off at the end of "Love and War", a very terrible bit of writing (by Paul Cornell)

This was merely boring instead of an immediate hate watch which is a clear improvement over the last couple seasons. 50-something minutes felt long, and some of the scenes (rescue from Chez Noble) could have been edited way down.

I really enjoyed this

I loved the pacing, like backstory/new alium invasion/old characters/new characters; it’s all moving along on rails simultaneously in an adept way

Donna/Doctor moments were all gold, such good emotional moments throughout from all of them honestly

A timely reminder that once upon a time even generic Doctor Who episodes were very entertaining!

murray can fuck off tho

His action cues are no worse than standard Hollywood scores really, but when he goes for emotional or god forbid comical it's unbearable.

Yeah was watching unicorn and the wasp last week. Very generic but lots of fun. It has a certain ease with just existing on simple terms, which Moffat’s period struggled with

when he goes for emotional or god forbid comical it's unbearable

I counted at least three scenes where I essentially thought "There's some really good acting here with stakes. Sure wish I could pay attention to it because of all the fucking sonic glop over it."

(Fun episode, I'll add.)

Also, a massive bravo for choosing his first episode back to send an unequivocal message to young trans fans.

And enjoyed how Rose's identity was actually used in the plot resolution rather than just being a thing her character was (Admittedly in a slightly hokey way, but hey it's Dr Who)

a LOT of oof in the resolution, but the Doctor's "oh, I do that!" re pronouns earlier was such a beast line that it outweighs anything else.

agree w those last three posts

I had a disparaging comment about RTD’s usual mode of subtlety that read as mean to unintended targets when I started typing it but suffice to say it could have been about a billion times more awful, so I’m relieved that I only ended up rolling my eyes a bit

xxpost yeah i liked that line !

Tennant is extremely comfortable in this role, it’s a joy to watch him just dominate the screen even when taking the sonic screwdriver to new levels of wtf

on dr who confidential there's a great bit where the writers of the original comic are visiting and DT basically interrupts to tell them how much of a fan he is

(Dave Gibbons was the artist - equally important as an author, just noting ftr.)

(and wagner wasn't there. yeah, was using shorthand)

I am seeing some absolutely DERANGED ranting about this harmless, charming episode, mostly centered around the “men can’t let things go” line which honestly I didn’t even register when I watched it, possibly because I was also wrangling my kids

jfc I thought the new series would be a good chance for my son to start watching, as he's been watching some of the Tom Bakers ones. anyway we're watching the Devil's Chord and it's so boring and plot-free, it's making me really dislike Who. I stopped watching around the Capaldi ones and I don't think I can slog through more. Kid likes it enough though.

the long arms in space one was good I guess.

Yeah Wild Blue Yonder and Boom are my favourites so far. 2/7 ain't bad - still a better ratio than most of Chibnall's run.

One thing I've disliked so far about this series is that it repeats one of the most tired RTD/Moffat tropes: the companion with the mysterious backstory. After Rose became the Bad Wolf, suddenly it wasn't enough for the companion to just be a regular person anymore - Donna became the Doctor-Donna, Amy was followed by the cracks in the universe, River Song was River Song, Clara had all her reincarnations through time. They're doing it again with Ruby, but worse because they're repeating it every episode now instead of just sprinkling it in every now and then.

also, not really a spoiler since it was announced earlier but Varada Sethu, who played Mundy, is going to be the new companion next season and so far no explanation has been given about her early appearance in this episode.

Could be just a Martha/Amy/12 situation where they liked the person so much during shooting they decided to bring them back for a larger role, but could also be intentional like Clara, where their initial appearance is tied to some future plotline.

the heavy handed anti-capitalist stuff and the heavy-handed pathos with the innocent little girl all reminded me of a Pat Mills scripted strip from 2000ad, the killer ambulance robots that repeat customer-service bromides as they execute you were straight out of Ro-Busters or ABC Warriors. I think the heavy-handedness usually works better in those comics though, Mills leans into the lurid and grotesque stuff, but this just came out feeling tepid.

https://i0.wp.com/thetryingscotsman.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screenshot_20240417-1619172050267769768839738.png?w=1200&ssl=1

new-nu-who and starlord

The pro-choice line was followed about 2 minutes later by the line about refugees literally having to show up on people's shores before they have to let you in - I agree the very RTD lack of subtext is enjoyable

Another odd thing was the reappearance of the schoolboy from the opening scene during the musical number at the end.

Sadly, another very RTD thing is that he always needs to seed "maybe this villain will return!" - he had the Dalek burbling about "Emergency Temporal Shift" in Doomsday, as if without it there'd be a riot the next time they reappeared.

That was unnerving in spots

Pretty good! No idea if it actually made sense but it felt satisfying enough - nice mix of (lite) Ghost Story For Christmas vibe and DW timeline shenanigans

my favorite so far - unnerving, like you say. obviously paradoxical in that the best thing about doctor who at the moment - ncuti gatwa - wasn’t in it. i got a sense in the first three episodes of a splendid doctor trying to find a centre of gravity and consistency in some mediocre stories. and his absence in that means gatwa still feels slightly out of place, through outshining and being more vivid than the material.

still don’t like the way it looks but it would take a tv professional to tell me why i think. the faces are too clean and the eyes too vivid, and the landscapes all feel either synthetic or a million miles away as if they’ve had some sort of rendering or or bokeh effect applied to them.

of course in the best episode with the 10th doctor, he was also barely in it.

That was good creepy fun although bit of a pointless appearance for 'Mrs Flood' and lmao putting big glasses on to look 40

ending gave me logopolis vibes. it almost makes sense, like if you squint from a distance....

this was the first visually well-told one, I thought ten minutes in, and looking forward to the same director next week

by thirty minutes in I was “third-best RTD ep ever?”

That episode was very good on ~vibes but I’m not sure it really held together plot-wise. 

If the old lady was Ruby all along, then why did (she make) everyone who approached her run away? I've seen some theories saying that it was Ruby's fear of abandonment personified... but if that was the case, then why did the Doctor disappear without the old lady nearby? 

It also implies that Mad Jack will continue to launch the nukes, since she doesn’t stop him in this timeline and the Doctor still mentions it happening. Who knows what will happen to Marti the campaign volunteer either? :(
 
I hated the bit near the end which seemed to imply that Ruby put Marti in Roger’s path so she could prove he was a monster (which she already knew because the Doctor said so!), and then later had the gall to be like “sorry you were abused, I’m gonna go save the day now”. Weirdly out of character and gross. 

idk most of this was great especially the first half - I really loved the rural horror creepiness, the hilariously mean Welsh pub, the bit with UNIT etc. And I'm fine with leaving stuff unexplained but this just didn't really make much sense in the end.

And again, we get it, Ruby is special/magic and has abandonment issues, can we please give her some new character traits already?

SIÂN fucking PHILLIPS!

yep! had my usual 'is that Sheila Hancock?!' moment tho

That episode was very good on ~vibes but I’m not sure it really held together plot-wise.

https://i.ibb.co/f0T5KWQ/rtdbb.jpg

"I'm so back, baby!"

73 Yards has restored my faith! esp "your magic phone" lol.

Couldn't quite shake the thought throughout that RTD had been upcycling past top episodes: "how about creepy unmoving figures who get closer further away when you're not looking..."

are there gonna be tons of memes of what the Herald was saying to cause people to run away shrieking now

because if so, send them my way

also, this happens in our house now:

me: I'm enjoying this so far!
me kinder: I should warn you that this is a RTD one

*mr kinder, that is
he jane

Wonder why it skipped the opening credits - and hope it won't become a regular thing.

because the Doctor disappeared from the story before the opening credits would have appeared

(and Gatwa joined the production after this ep — having still been on Sex Education previously — so I wouldn’t expect any other Doctor-lite episodes in the remaining four, no)

like when Clara’s eyes replaced Capaldi’s after she bluffed the cybermen that she was the Doctor

It could have, like, opened with the opening credits?

Not that I am miffed by their absence or anything - but I did find it a curious choice

I thought it was an effective way of throwing off the tone of the whole show to make one more unsettled as a viewer, leading into the creepiness of the apparition

I'll buy that!

As a one off in that context it's fine - I just hope it's not part of an attempt to rebrand the show as more 'prestige' or whatever.

I didn't even notice the lack of titles lol but yeah, going straight to them can have its own 'this one's intense, strap in' power.

Two fun sort-of-fake-outs for me were briefly thinking (hoping) the Herald was going to be whizzing along in parallel with the train somehow and, less amusingly, also that she might appear in the same position as Gwilliam causing them both to explode.

I just hope it's not part of an attempt to rebrand the show as more 'prestige' or whatever.

it's TWO WEEKS since an episode called "Space Babies" had talking babies with CGI mouths and a farting monster made out of snot :)

yeah i liked that one
no thoughts just vibes

Just noticed this new season is numbered as..... Season 1?

That’s a Disney+ thing

It m shows up that way on iPlayer too, which is.. weird

As I understand it, part of the Disney deal was rebranding this season as Season 1

and yet there's a lot of background-filling-in, him referencing previous adventures.

I am not defending the Season 1 nonsense, mind you

There'll now be three ways to number each future season, that's fun.

It also implies that Mad Jack will continue to launch the nukes, since she doesn’t stop him in this timeline and the Doctor still mentions it happening.

The Doctor can be quite timeline-flexible (and he's still in the old one when he says it) - in the new timeline they don't loose Mad Jack. (Also the Doctor just says that he led the world to the brink)

I hated the bit near the end which seemed to imply that Ruby put Marti in Roger’s path so she could prove he was a monster (which she already knew because the Doctor said so!), and then later had the gall to be like “sorry you were abused, I’m gonna go save the day now”. Weirdly out of character and gross.

That feels like a bit of a stretch - "I had to make sure I was right" makes more sense referring to being sure ap Gwilliam has the means motive and opportunity to launch nuclear weapons.

(Does anyone still call the last season season 40 or whatever?)

Personally don’t think they use someone good like Aneurin Barnard for roughly 10 minutes/one episode so there must be another timeline where someone else lets Mad Jack out, but not them.

finally saw this and even my jaded 15-y-o was instantly on his phone looking for theories afterwards, gotta tip your cap rtd you done did it again

There was a lot odd (tho v RTD at his polar opposite to 'lolol imagine a literal bogeyman' writing and some of the darkest tho true to life waters the show's ever ventured into) about the introduction of Marti. Why didn't Gwilliam just approach her directly? Why no interest in Ruby? I took it as him seeing the latter as 'stronger' of the two and maybe also wanting to charm Marti with knowledge of her name (tho what was up with the 'boy's name' comment?). But yeah...surely Ruby did not set that up so much as just realise after what was going on but decide she could not jeopardise herself (or Gwilliam's intended fate) by intervening.

he asked ruby about her so that we could see things through ruby's eyes imo. no interest in ruby, who knows, men are strange. I don't think ruby put her in roger's path, all she did was tell him her name. the rest was just pure sleaze. It was good to see this, so he was a proper monster privately as well as publicly, so we could really hate him. Otherwise you might get some people like 'damn right we need a strong nuclear deterrent, fuck ruby'.

still no idea what the herald eg Old Ruby, was saying to people to make them run away in horror. but i really like that i don't know! The uncanny doesn't work if it's all explained

She was saying “she thinks Drake won the beef”

ha ha

One episode not so far mentioned as comparison is Turn Left - a similar "without the Doctor" show, but with a grimmer ending (and middle).

A friend, who is more on the "Ruby threw Marti under the bus" vibe, frames it as all of the non-Doctor actors that try to fill the void (Ruby, Torchwood, UNIT) have to make decisions about how and when to hurt people - "While the Doctor might be able to find a way to solve the problem that doesn't involve hurting people, or allowing people to be hurt, the people who are trying to stand in for him are more limited, and cannot."

I’m not sure what Ruby was supposed to do there - not tell Roger Marti’s name? What would that have accomplished?