Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

anyone in America going to see Genesis Of The Daleks in the cinema on Monday night?

nah but i've really been enjoying twitch's doctor who marathon. i didn't really connect with the who fan scene in indiana - nice enough folks but really merch-focused. i also found that a lot of the fans i ran into didn't seem to really, uh, watch the show? which i thought was weird, but whatever, i didn't see last season either.

LONDON 1965

I can’t justify dumping my kids on my wife so I can go see it

take the kids, plus a sofa, teach them how to watch from behind it

whatever, i didn't see last season either.

catch up imo, Asbill + Pcap is an A++ companion / doctor combo

I ordered the Tom Baker blu-ray set that's coming out soon, it has Genesis in it... I'll watch it then!

This is a fun bit of pedantry: https://www.herocollector.com/en-us/Article/doctor-who-the-logos

all the post-reboot Doctor Who logos have been complete crap except the newest one

Is the new Doctor debuting in September

they haven't announced the air date of the debut episode yet... September or October likely

all the post-reboot Doctor Who logos have been complete crap except the newest one

― com rad erry red flag (f. hazel)

Aw I'm kind of fond of the cheesy Tardis in the letters Matt Smith one. It's pulpy.

title sequence for all seasons of doctor who after pertwee has always been cheesy rubbish, it just depends on what your appetite is for cheese

obviously as a doctor who fan it is enormous

This is a fun bit of pedantry

bemusing that it doesn't include the 1970-73 logo, esp when it's discussed so much!

ordered the Tom Baker blu-ray set that's coming out soon, it has Genesis in it... I'll watch it then!

yeah but not in restored picture quality on a big screen with lots of ppl laughing

new logo is the worst since McCoy's, I also like the cheesy DW TARDIS from the Smith era

but that's like the worst one! it's not a show about Doctor D.W. Who

They're all pleasant enough or cheesy enough but the Pertwee and Baker-Davison-Baker ones are the best by miles. They feel like actual logos, as opposed to random fonts laid out randomly.

I like the changes in the new logo but the font itself is a bit characterless.

it's not a show about Doctor D.W. Who

How do you know that's not his secret real name?

because I read that wretched Marc Platt novel that had his "real name"

real heads know the deal

http://i67.tinypic.com/25gx6s4.jpg

And let's not forget The War Machines - "Doctor, who is required."

The Ecclestone/Tennant logo is the worst, it looks like the sign for a grim Tiger Tiger-esque theme bar in 2001.

70s/early 80s ones obviously the best, although the Capaldi era one is great as well. New one looks pretty shoddy in a BBC3 vampire drama sort of way.

The Ecclestone/Tennant logo is the worst, it looks like the sign for a grim Tiger Tiger-esque theme bar in 2001.

The lens flares are particlarly egregious.

I hate all the ones where the Who part isn't under the Doctor part.

Somehow find the McGann one (also used on a lot of merchandise for years) most pleasing all round.

bemusing that it doesn't include the 1970-73 logo, esp when it's discussed so much!

70-73 logo is also by the far the best one imo! The 1996 version is particularly annoying for looking almost exactly the same but not quite as good

http://www.popretrorama.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/PR_Pertwee-Credits.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/2968aa52e6af77cbb2ea0715259ab0b0e72c3fa1.jpg

i can relate to sutton so much today

sir keith is such an anti-trump republican

catch up imo, Asbill + Pcap is an A++ companion / doctor combo

― we used to get our kicks reading surfing MAGAzines (sic)

honestly i just kind of got burned out on moffat. he's great but he's so heavy on the subtext that he can be very draining to watch, and also i feel like he kind of ran out of ideas. i'm sure a season or so of chibnall and i'll get over it and catch up then, but in the meantime i'm really enjoying rewatching the "action by havoc" era of who.

Big-screen Genesis totally ruled, the audio seemed to have been lovingly remastered (or just sounded incredible that loud), and I didn't miss anything from the story but the giant clams

i don't actually follow the who fan scene these days but i am vaguely aware of the coming front in the culture war. the other day i was driving behind a car that had one of those "my other car is a tardis" licence plate things (though i read it as "taurus", obviously not a TRUE FAN) and a bumper sticker about how much they love guns and i argued with my spouse about to what extent this is like a trump supporter going to a social distortion concert. in the meantime for lack of anything else to argue about people are arguing about talons of weng-chiang again?

and this time out i find myself taking a more radical position than anybody i've seen in the fan debate. much as i hate to undermine the argument that "nobody is saying you shouldn't watch talons of weng-chiang", i think there's a good case to be made for the stance that maybe we should just let the past have that story and move on, like the world has with, say, certain looney tunes cartoons.

I think the approach that Warner and Disney have taken to some of their racist old stuff is best - release it, but contextualize it, go from a "yeah, this is racist" pov from the start.

Which is the opposite of what Hearn did.

warner hasn't released the censored eleven and disney hasn't released "song of the south" in the us, have they?

My favourite writer about Doctor Who nails it:

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2018/08/actually-its-about-ethics-in-doctor-who.html?spref=tw&m=1

yeah, i've never heard of him before but it got viral enough to pop up in my feed. (like i said i'm not a big follower of the fan scene). the orman essay he linked to was also good. definitely some good points about "mind of evil" vs. "talons", which helped me a lot in coming to my current conclusion. what with all the old trashed episodes i think maybe it can be a little more difficult for fans to let the past go, embrace the impermanence of all things, after having spent 40 years fervently hoping for the recovery of those stories.

This actual Chinese Whovian who has seen "Talons" hated the experience of watching it, just in case anyone was curious.

Hmm should probably have changed my DN there.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Leee. In matters like this it's pretty crucial.

Hmm should probably have changed my DN there.

irl giggle

This is sorta an extension of the Louis CK discussion

Sometimes bad things happen to art you like, and it's okay to let it go

You can take my Tintin books out of my cold dead hands though

(Let it go, as in, stop reading/watching/caring about it)

I should add that I don't have much patience for a lot of classic Who serials, but that's because of how much slack their stories have. "Talons" falls into this category for me, but this issue also happens to be subsumed by that other thing.

Bung a dung bung a dung bung a dung
Bong a dong
Bung a dung bung a dung bung a dung
Bong a dong
Ooo-weeee-oooooh
Ooooooh-wee-oooh-ooh
Doctor who-we-ooo-weooo
Ooh-wee-ooh

Vrrrm vrrssm
Vrrm vrrsm

BBC load German iTunes with start date for new series.
British websites report those facts from the public domain.
BBC send legal letters to said websites telling them to take down the information.
It's still on German iTunes.

more of a Whochurch thread post imo

Fair point.

I should add that I don't have much patience for a lot of classic Who serials, but that's because of how much slack their stories have. "Talons" falls into this category for me, but this issue also happens to be subsumed by that other thing.

never seen talons, but this is very much my feeling when i watch old Who from my youth - too much "assistant wanders off, gets kidnapped, lots of runaround, etc". would be up for skilful edits that pared serials down to the stuff that's actually compelling and not padding.

you could edit out entire seasons

I watched a bunch of Hinchcliffe era Who last year and felt the same. Pyramids of Mars is wonderful but it's bloody draggy and repetitive, even at four parts.

Outside of that period, Inferno and Androzani felt like the most "modern" episodes - Inferno surprisingly so, as it's a seven-parter (!) and the story is all over the shop. But it's never boring. And Androzani's relentles grimness creates its own energy.

Curse of Fenric and Ghost Light have *issues* but they're also pretty fast-paced, if only because they both demand a lot of concentration to figure out what the hell's happening.

the re-edited Fenric on DVD barely adds any scenes, it just doesn't have to cut frenetically from scene to scene to remove reactions, and is vastly superior

desperate for* a Ghost Light that does edit back in the excised footage, timecode and all

would be up for skilful edits that pared serials down to the stuff that's actually compelling and not padding.

I watched Genesis sometime in 2016 or early 2017, and then the 90-minute version in the cinema in June, and the only thing I missed was Harry getting his foot chomped by a giant clam.**

** and it was absolutely the right decision to cut it

* I mean I'm unlikely to ever own a blu-ray player and in all probability will live my life without ever rewatching S26 again, but if I were to...