Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

All the Doctors are great in these, but the Big Finishes really show you what Colin Baker could have done if they hadn't axed him so fast, and also Paul McGann if the TV Movie hadn't flopped... fantastic second acts for both of them. And basically this is true for McCoy as well. It would seem there are now like three dozen Tom Baker Big Finishes... wow I am behind.

and there will be another new something-or-other uploaded to complement the episode.

Rory in 1946, introducing the story for his & Amy's baby

(plus a message from Suranne Jones on the same channel)

Pip Baker in intensive care, not expected to last the night apparently. (Not sure if COVID but seems a reasonable assumption since "breathing difficulty" is the reason.

There's nothing he can do to prevent the restriction of endotracheal intubation

next watchalong is Heaven Sent, TOMORROW for Peter Capaldi's birthday:

COMING NEXT... It's time for some Twelfth Doctor!

Join @StevenWMoffat, @rtalalay and @JReidQ for a live tweetalong of 'Heaven Sent' on Peter Capaldi's birthday!

Tuesday 14 April, 8pm BST.

Hashtag: #HellofaBird

Watch @makemeaoffer_'s amazing trailer: https://t.co/dsmDCHc2Mr pic.twitter.com/ROjIQ8t341

— Emily Cook (@Emily_Rosina) April 11, 2020

Noon on the US west coast, 4am on the Australian east coast.

Steven Moffat, director Rachel Talalay, storyboard artist Mike Collins and The Shape The Veil & regular monster actor Jami Reid-Quarrell tweeting along: all of them are in this list here.

warmups:

Started my #HellofABird homework. #HeavenSent #DoctorWho So here is a teaser. Praise @stevenwmoffat pic.twitter.com/PNUHZy246n

— Rachel Talalay (@rtalalay) April 12, 2020

Moffat filling up the page count there ….

— Steven Moffat (@StevenWMoffat) April 12, 2020

the homework continues. #HellOfABird tweetathon #doctorwho #Heavensent pic.twitter.com/v0yDdXy2jz

— Rachel Talalay (@rtalalay) April 13, 2020

In honour of the coming Tweetalong, here are thrilling photos of Heaven Sent being written (was in NY for a screening of Listen.) pic.twitter.com/I4qcahv14G

— Steven Moffat (@StevenWMoffat) April 12, 2020

The birthday boy has written a remembrance of the episode:

As promised, ahead of today's #HellofaBird watchalong with @StevenWMoffat, @rtalalay and @JReidQ...

Here's A NOTE FROM PETER CAPALDI! ⭐️#DoctorWhoLockdown pic.twitter.com/52AmBUVKhw

— Emily Cook (@Emily_Rosina) April 14, 2020

Here's that pic of Jamie visiting the TARDIS, apparently taken from horseback:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KNxyaOEu5bQ/VZaQAxJ8DPI/AAAAAAAAYUQ/Bd6Mbwd6LgI/s1600/10983377_10207400270423741_1621091922684516278_n.jpg

<3

Pip Baker has passed btw: here's a brief tweet thread assessing him & Jane positively, and here's an earlier micro-anecdote from a former DWM editor.

I know this lockdown is hard for everyone. So here's a clip from 'Into The Dalek' re-scored with music from the 80s #DoctorWho story 'Mawdryn Undead'. Isn't it amazing just how much music can change the tone of a scene... 🎶😂🎶 pic.twitter.com/HI5bY3c3vj

— Blair Mowat (@BlairMowat) April 2, 2020

omg I was not ready for that

ok, now do it with malcolm clarke's score to "the sea devils"

I've never rewatched Mawdryn Undead (and might not have seen every episode), so was exceptionally unprepared.

Speaking of things I've never rewatched, the next twitter viewing party is on Sunday: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End two-parter with Davies and Graeme Harper commenting, and another new thing or two written by RTD.

Lol I knew exactly which Mawdryn Undead clip that was going to be. Unforgettable. I think it’s from the very first or second scene in the first episode.

In Paddy Kingsland’s defence, this is gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkiqohSLCDY

paddy kingsland wrote the soundtrack to "the changes"! he needs no defence. (i'm also quite fond of 'the panel beaters'.)

mawdryn undead gets points for completely breaking doctor who continuity and pissing off ian levine. pretty indifferent to it otherwise.

Have sort of tuned out to the DW soundtrack reissues but would be stoked to buy Paddy Kingsland's Logopolis score sometime - I have a feeling there was a digital version floating around made up from the DVD isolated music tracks? That and Hitch-Hiker's are the ones I remember most fondly

Mawdryn Undead was pretty huge when I was 10! A story that was actually about Time Travel, hinting at weird possibilities of regeneration - The Brigadier! The weird introduction of Turlough! Christ knows if it would bear a rewatch but it was pretty fun when you had no idea what was going on.

Hey, if anyone needs a decent lockdown comfort read, I just read RTD’s Rose novelisation, and it’s pretty great! Miles better than the episode, really. Something about those two Target books really brought the best sides out of him and Moffat.

Reminder that the next watchalong is tomorrow, and jumbo-sized: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End S4 finale two-parter.

Online at 5pm UK time, 9am western America: "Farewell Sarah Jane", a new final Sarah Jane Adventures mini-episode written by RTD - he reckons it's one of his favourite things he's ever had produced.

For home-watching, fire up The Stolen Earth at 7pm BST / 11am PDT, then have a wee and get a cuppa before starting Journey's End at 8pm / noon.

Tweeting along and all compiled in this list will be Russell T Davies, director Graeme Harper, David Tennant and Catherine Tate on the dedicated Lockdown Who account, plus John Barrowman and Freema Agyeman.

Farewell, Sarah Jane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8sU45ax2Hs

^ spoiler: contains Who companions

Next tweetalongs:

Human Nature / Family Of Blood on Friday 24th

??? on ???

The Girl In The Fireplace on Wednesday May 6th

I've only just got around to watching that. It was properly beautiful, rtd at his best.

He didn't write it

Jim means Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?, I believe

Yep, that.

it's "fanservice" of the non-sexual variety, but good fanservice

Ah, right, sorry!

Lots of love for his 80s IPC comics styling too

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_UXAS_nP2y/

Halfway through, here's the list for the Human Nature tweeting, with Paul Cornell, plus director Charles Palmer and spooky little ballon girl actor Lor mostly going "ooh look at that": https://twitter.com/i/lists/1253615527408402432

from the last rewatch: a new prequel story/reading by Cornell, and a likewise new sequel short

NEXT TWEETALONG is "Dalek" at 7pm UK time / 11am West coast US time today, on the 15th anniversary of broadcast.

Writer Rob Shearman, Dalek voice Nick Briggs, and Dalek driver Barnaby Edwards will be tweeting on hashtag #TheMetaltron

Combo list for all three: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1255867279788605440?s=20

Ah, science fiction: predicting in 2005 that the next US President after 2012 would be a Democrat because "they're just so funny."

It's been known for a long time that the sixth draft of the Dalek script was internally called Absence Of The Daleks, and invented the Toclafane as a stand-in for the Daleks, at the point when Steven Moffat's mother-in-law was playing hardball with the BBC over the rights (a 2003-2005 from-the-beginning classic Who repeat on Australian TV had all the stories that even contained Dalek cameos pulled from the schedule after it started).

To commemorate the anniversary watchalong, Rob Shearman has now released some other excerpts of draft scripts getting around the rights issues.



Not in the above list, just playing along for fun, DWM writer Jonny Morris posted a thread of fun facts and notes based on the real multiple drafts that Shearman went through:

The creature inside is rather different from the Dalek mutants seen in The Five Doctors (1983), Resurrection Of The Daleks (1984) and Revelation Of The Daleks (1985) but it is fairly similar to the blob glimpsed in The Power Of The Daleks. pic.twitter.com/6dCHjoCOgd

— Jonny Morris (@jonnymorris1973) April 30, 2020

And Mr Shearman is doing another tweetalong tomorrow: the MR-James-y audio story mentioned above, The Chimes Of Midnight, will be free on Soundcloud to stream from 7pm UK / 11am PDT. Shearman and actress India Fisher will tweet commentary hashtagged #PlumPudding.

(The story is also on Spotify, for those with accounts.)

As predicted, these Big Finish cheapos are getting on my tits. Though Slavishly sticking to the 4-part format when you only have the plot for 2 is, to be fair, not unknown in TV Who.

All 3 of their personalities and writing styles in a nutshell pic.twitter.com/w9xzKojbQC

— Max Curtis (@MaxCCurtis) April 30, 2020

Sic, thanks for that Morris thread, that was very interesting. Now wondering if any Chibnall-era script has ever got past draft #2.

Next watchalong:

https://i.imgur.com/sebVkl5.jpg

The Girl In The Fireplace on Wednesday, with Steven Moffat and Sophia Myles tweeting. 7pm UK, 11am US west coast.

No word on any new material this time around - the rewatches seem to have been inspiring Moffatt generally, but adding anything to this story (on the 14th anniversary of TX! that's the distance between The Web Planet and The Invasion Of Time) would probably be diminishing to the original.

I like The Girl In The Fireplace less every time I watch it, partially because Madame de Pompadour is so much more interesting than The Doctor, Rose, or Mickey in it that the missed opportunity of her not joining the TARDIS crew crosses over from being the romantic underpinning of the story to becoming the primary dissatisfying emotion the story gives you; it's the polar opposite of Blink, where Sally's story comes to a satisfying conclusion and you walk away thinking her life has been improved by interacting with the Doctor rather than just disrupted. (It also helps that the monsters in Blink are better.)

clockwork robots are pretty dope but. and robots wearing masks is always a great budget saver in Who.

becoming the primary dissatisfying emotion the story gives you

Disappointment that Mme and the Doctor can't be together is intended though - you're meant to feel sadness or loss, not a neat admiration (iirc - have only rewatched it once).

Yeah, but the loss I feel is "I would rather watch a show about Madame de Pompadour"

There will be a new something posted after the rewatch, apparently. This list will have both tweeters in it, but after a quick squiz at Myles’ feed, there might be way more chaff than content if you use it.

RTD tweeting too, chock-full of facts.

Mini-sequel by Moffat and Myles, recorded in and for isolation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seNAqQ4gzn0

that's a good one

Next watchalong on Sunday: The Zygon Invasion at 7pm UK / 11 am leftern USA, The Zygon Inversion at 8pm BST / noon PDT.

Writer Peter Harness and Osgood / other Osgood actress Ingrid Oliver are both tweeting, & putting together a new mini-ep called The Zygon Isolation.

I didn't like that one at all, but curious to hear Harness talk about it.

I'm rewatching the RTD seasons after enjoying his Rose novelisation. I'd forgotten just how good the first Ecclestone season is - never bettered, really. It's just such a fun, diverse set of stories. Even the farting aliens one is better than I remembered.

I seem to recall Season 2 being a massive dropoff but maybe being age (mine and its) will improve it.

hey i don't do twitter or podcasts so i have no idea about anything about who fandom

i randomly ran across a video by this guy who seems to have a lot of views and whose content seems pretty interesting to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0q45-Puayk

is this josh snares guy a decent human being as far as anybody knows? thanks

I have seen him tweet a very little and watched half a video once and he did not appear to be a garbage human

btw tomorrow's watchalong is now going to be at 7.15 and 8.15, to show respect to the Prime Minister, who will be addressing the nation at 7pm.

I have seen him tweet a very little and watched half a video once and he did not appear to be a garbage human

― Elon's musk (sic)

good enough, thanks!

stay away from the harry's haunted house guy, he is an anti-sjw nut

thanks for the heads up. doesn't seem like the style of criticism i find very interesting, but if i do tend to run across it in future i will know to avoid!