Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

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.

hard to believe Listen is an episode of the same show as The Ghost Monument (I had to look up the title of the latter)

Great ep, good tweets so far - in this list if people want to catch up later.

(BTW Amaz0n is usually making the single episodes free to purchase and "keep" on the day of the twootalongs - that's a $7.99 saving today, for some reason.)

The new Moffat piece was a Listen-themed poem.

Some highlights from the commentary:

Moffat:

Okay, the answer to the most regular question I get about Listen is ... "No, of course not. He was sitting IN FRONT of the lamp!" Honestly, you people!

https://i.imgur.com/T8D8JCx.jpg

Now I've probably said this before (I've said most things before) but I was missing the Russell days when I got to write a quirky one in the middle. So employed myself back into my old job!

And of course it was the cheap one (any minute now we'd be firing Cybers out of St Paul's) and I fancied doing one of those again. But here's the thing - I HAD TO CUT A WHOLE SCENE FOR THE BUDGET. Which I'm about to post.

one page, another page

Mackinnon, who is from Skye:

Peter would introduce me to new people on set as, “This is Douglas, who has won a competition in the West Highland Free Press to direct Doctor Who for a day.”

Moffat:

I know it's not the sort of thing you're supposed to admit, but I really love this episode.

Please note a fundamental Doctor Who rule - it is catastrophic for anyone to meet themselves unless we totally feel like it. This has been bothering me since the climax to Mawdryn Undead.

Somewhere or other I wrote a very good explanation for why Orson has that space suit. It was very convincing. I wish I could remember it.

Mackinnon:

During much of prep this was as far as the delivered script went. Steven assured me that we’d been to all the locations required already, and that there would be no surprises…

He said we might need a barn, that’s all. We went out looking at various barns in Wales.

I think I got the rest the day before the readthru. You’ll never guess how I felt when the script said we were on another planet… the last planet.

Moffat:

This was one of the few scripts - possibly the only one - which I started without knowing how it would finish. It felt like the kind of story where you need to FIND the ending. At a certain point, I KNEW we had to get under the Dr's bed.

You see, Clara gets it right. It's not catastrophic meeting yourself, it's embarrassing. Time Lords are such drama queens.

"Fear makes companions of all of us!" The very first time the Dr is nice to anyone in Dr Who, those are his words (we had to wait till ep 3.) Always loved the line, and the kindness that first emerged with it. This was my love letter to it.

And in fact, I misquoted the line. Hartnell says "of all of us" and Jenna says "of us all." Knew it was wrong, but couldn't let go of the way I'd misremembered it for so long. Like, was the (Director General of the BBC) gonna fine me cos I misquoted Hartnell? Drunk with power, I was.

Three years later, Capaldi gave Moffat a script page from Listen on their last day working together:

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

I think Listen is my favourite ep of post-2005 Who? Never really thought about it (what a poor fan) but I can't think of one I like more

‘hell bent’ for me

ballot poll

most underwhelming rewatch yet on Tuesday: The Rings Of Akhaten, with the director, a special effects blokess, and Murray Gold tweeting commentary. 8pm UK, noon US leftard coast.

guessing that the young lady organising the rewatches has acquired a bunch of paying production work, as there will only be two more: next up is a double feature of NEW EARTH (S02e01) and GRIDLOCK (S03e03), with tweets and a new sequel by Russell T Davies. 7pm and 8pm UK time, Saturday 30th.

The Baby Doctor Who Monthly Announcements for Luke Picard has been completed!!! I made/put together the outfits!

Each Month of his life corresponds with a Doctor. #DoctorWho @bbcdoctorwho pic.twitter.com/LLQFMfpOnc

— Laura (@lsirikul) June 1, 2020

Holy crap that is cute

The final watchalong was planned for today, with Moffat, Rachel Talalay, Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas tweeting to the Season 10 two-parter finale. It's been cancelled due to featuring a black lesbian being shot, then turned into an armoured stormtrooper, but the new mini-episode by Moffat featuring Bill and Nardole will be released in the next few days.

The hashtag DoctorWhoBlackout is a less-coordinated collective replacement for the weekend.

Catching up on the last tweetalong, RTD on Gridlock:

OBVIOUSLY this is inspired by 2000AD... but also by that episode of One Foot In The Grave where the Meldrews and Mrs Warboys are stuck in a traffic jam. Truly, not kidding, it's a genius piece of writing #NewNewYork

— Russell T Davies (@russelldavies63) May 30, 2020

The Novice Hame actress had little to say beyond "oh, I love this bit!" or "Four hours in make-up!", but did read this new sequel short story for her character, written by Davies.

I always liked Gridlock a lot!

Seasons 3 & 4 are really magical, the best of Tennant IMO

I had never seen this until today:

pic.twitter.com/L5sJC3aSwX

— Caustic Cover Critic (@Unwise_Trousers) June 11, 2020

I just opened our front room window for my nine month old daughter to look at strangers on the street, and Peter Capaldi walked past wearing white Kanye shades

that's strange enough, yeah

Haha, excellent!

in 1985, the year before he went on TV to complain that Dr Who sucked now bcz the writing was too simple, Chibnall won a competition to write yr own Doctor Who theme song

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


(The prize was a 7" of Doctor In Distress, a Live Aid-style single protesting the cancellation of the show fact that there was going to be a gap between seasons now that other protests had already gotten it uncancelled)

(TS: "HE'S THE BEST - SECOND TO NONE!" vs "So iconic.")

Just saw this in my daughter's school newsletter:
https://i.ibb.co/dm6xdpb/Untitled.png

:)

Eccleston returning to voice the 9th Doctor for Big Finish

i hope he's doing ok. working on doctor who was obviously a really painful and traumatic experience for him :(

they talked him into it at a fan convention where he was apparently really taken with how much fans liked him so it sounds like his feelings have done a 180. would be great if he'd come back for the show at some point

Okay an Eccles/Whittaker episode written by anyone but Chibnall would be delightful

There was footage of his first convention panels, early last year, where he's explicitly surprised at how welcomed and beloved he is; given the strained nature of his departure, he says he had assumed that Doctor Who fans hated or resented him. It seems that going through therapy to recover from anorexia in recent years was a big factor in him making himself available to receive that affection.

<3 Eccles

I loved his Doctor a lot

that first episode where they introduce Eccles Doctor is still really thrilling to watch. he’s so intense & gleeful & WEIRD in the goofiest ways and then you see him unleash a little of the anger & the melancholy goodbye before Rose changes her mind, it was like WOW, he really can shift up or down into ~any~ emotional gear

and imo he has something very Bakeresque in his acting style. Like when he’s delighted, so much of it is in his eyes, they’re like headlamps
i love it

gah he’s so great

http://eyeofhorus.org.uk/images/photo/06baker/colinbaker-496.jpg