Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

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!

I like Josh's documentary-style YT posts, he's big on the lost/as yet unrecovered classic episodes and has done quite a lot on that subject.

i devoured molesworth's book on the topic. these days i'm less interested in the actual episodes than its implications for history and empire. i am not sure i would have known about the turkish invasion of cyprus if not for "the reign of terror"!

took me a few days to catch up with Sunday's tweetalong: the new Zygon Isolation mini-ep was released as an intro, with Osgood and Osgood in a Zoom meeting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XhhdxTJbeY

and Harness' tweets included a variety of deleted script excerpts. Here's one which used exposition about The Day of The Doctor to bring the previous 3-D multi-Doctor anniversary special into proper canon:

Here's that bit: #TruthOrConsequences pic.twitter.com/Z5gJJBO7KN

— Peter Harness (@mrpeterharness) May 10, 2020

(The only telly Dr Who made by the BBC between 1989 and 2005 was a two-parter 30th anniversary story where Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Tom Baker and thirteen companions spanning 1963-89 were time-trapped into the setting of BBC soap opera Eastenders. It has never been repeated, and will never be released for sale.)

A good deletion.

^^ oops, Pertwee was in that too

More fun bits:

A UNIT gag that never made it in:

THE DOCTOR: Do you have a partner? Boyfriend, or -?

OSGOOD: (shakes head) You kind of give up on dating if you have anything to do with UNIT.#continuityobsession #TruthOrConsequences

— Peter Harness (@mrpeterharness) May 10, 2020

Here's Bonnie being rude about Scandinavia. #TruthOrConsequences pic.twitter.com/fohL0xw94L

— Peter Harness (@mrpeterharness) May 10, 2020

(Harness wrote Wallander.)

Rebecca Front's soldier was originally the Brigadier! From back in the days before the BBC was ruined by SJW agendas forcing them to recast traditionally male roles with black women.

Harness dressed as the Fourth Doctor. Harness dressed as the Seventh Doctor.

The "Doctor Funkenstein" reference has an extra joke hidden inside.

I was so busy looking for a dirty joke in the UNIT gag that I missed the actual joke

And after the episode commentaries, Harness posted several pitches he'd made for episodes before Moffat pitched him the Zygon story. Including a Meddling Monk story where he's listening to disco in his TARDIS, goes to 1917 to play "Ra-Ra-Rasputin" for the lols, accidentally buggers up human history, and has to regenerate into Rasputin to set things back on course.

The Meddler to be played by Matt Berry. When the pitch was rejected, Harness started a novelisation of it instead, which he also tweeted the first page of.

Haha! Thank you so much. Yes, maybe it'll happen one day. Every time he gets shot, poisoned or thrown in a river, he just has to sigh irritatedly and regenerate into himself again!

— Peter Harness (@mrpeterharness) May 11, 2020

i enjoy the idea of the meddling monk as the doctor who equivalent of the hamburglar

robble robble

:D

meddle meddle

next two tweetalongs are

Sunday 17th May: The Fires Of Pompeii, with writer James Moran and two Roman ladies tweeting. 7pm BST / 11am PDT, hashtag #VolcanoDay

Saturday 23rd May (the "half-anniversary" of Dr Who): An Adventure In Space And Time, with Gatiss and Sacha Dhawan tweeting. Same time, hashtag #London1963

I don't recall "pompeii" being very good. Mostly notable for the guest stars.

It’s mostly good for establishing Donna as the Doctor’s conscience

Not much to the content today, just the writer and actors having a nice time rmemebering, but here's an interesting tweet from Moran, and the new sequel mini-ep

You can thank Russell for the Welsh gags and the water pistol too - even though when he rewrites, he copies your style, it's BIZARRE but brilliant, feels like you've written it yourself in your sleep... #VolcanoDay

— James Moran (@jamesmoran) May 17, 2020

Added this week: Listen watchalong on Wednesday, usual times, with Moffat back at it again, plus director Douglas Mackinnon (who also did half of Jekyll, a bunch of other Who from 2008 to 2015, all of Good Omens, and won an Emmy for the Victorian Sherlock special).

https://i.imgur.com/5eMKA9R.jpg

A new thingy by Moffat online at 6pm UK time, another thingy (probably a comic) online after the ep, by James Peaty (dunno) and former DWM comic drawing bloke turned storyboard artist Mike Collins.