Be Excellent To Each Other

All the copies of the JNT book that were ordered have been dispatched today!

Like every other episode this series, I thought it was alright.

I couldn't decide what was the biggest half-finished amateurish bodge job in that episode, the script or the special effects.

I'm getting to the point now where I've got a nagging thought "why are you watching this laughable shit?" every time I watch DW, and my girlfriend refuses to even watch the series now. I think I'll just watch the 50th anniversary episode for the novelty and move on. They've got a decent Doctor, particularly when he's giving a subdued performance, but the show runner just isn't up to the job of doing the series justice.

I haven't seen the last episode and only the first ten minutes of the cyberman one, but damn, this series is disappointing so far. And Clara is a huge let down. The woman literally has no personality.

And "Let's us come time travelling with you or we'll tell our Dad that you're a time traveler". Erm, how about, no. Fuck off. Tell your Dad and he'll give you a lecture about recreational drug use.

*hopes that the episode ends with the kids being lobotomised*

This might be heresy, but it's still leaps and bounds better than classic Who in terms of quality IMO.

I mean, I'm watching Planet of the Spiders at the moment, a serial that features a character that is mentally retarded seemingly for no other reason than to provide an excuse for him to steal a shiny crystal to add to his collection of shiny things.

And it's not a very sympathetic portrayal of mental retardation either. OK, it was the 70s, but still...

It is a plot point firstly because the crystal "enhances" his mind later in the story. He is also one of the only characters who is not corrupted by the crystal. Even the Doctor is consumed by his greed to obtain the crystal in the first place. Tommy wanting to collect shiny things is mirrored in the Doctors own timeline where he obtains the crystal in the first place the previous season.

The portrayal itself is a product of the time. It was only a year later that another "simple" handyman appeared on the TV which the nation took to their hearts.

I think the phrase is "doesn't he look like his Dad".

Is that Sean Pertwee?

They probably could get away with sticking a wig on him and casting him as the 3rd Doctor in something - he does bear more than a passing resemblance to his old man.

He didn't used to so much . He's developed his Dad's craggy facial features as he's got older. I saw a photo of him on the set of the Partridge film and though "bloody hell, he looks like his Dad". Whereas you used to watch him in stuff and not give it a second thought.

I remember seeing stuff with Michael Troughton in the past and being reminded of his father

http://michaeltroughton.co.uk

Hey folks, big rant time now I've seen the finale!

Well I’ve been thinking on the Doctor Who season finale, and this season as a whole, and my overall feeling is a sort of meh rounded out by a deep sigh. There were good bits, true. I liked the one in the innards of the TARDIS with the scavengers. And Gaiman’s episode had stuff going for it, if hampered by bad direction and an appalling kid, and the odd clunky line from him. And heavens the Gattis one in Yorkshire was rather splendid, with some great turns! (If ultimately disposable)

But the problem with the show of late is just the complete lack of decent – no, any sort - characterisation. It’s a constant case of telling and not showing. I just don’t care about Clara. What has she achieved, eh? I mean accept for the bit right at the end of the finale with that sequence of her running about a bit and falling and running about a bit and falling and then telling crusty old/young Doctor “you should steal this one, lot’s more fun!” and thus invalidating the wonderful conceit behind that lots-better Neil Gaiman episode. Sure, she’s repeatedly saved his life from the Great Intelligence but since we’ve been given no real reason to grow to love the character it comes off as just another overly-complicated and rather yawn-inducing parlour trick by Moffatt.

Rose was a real character. Everyone could identify with her. Martha kicked off helping to save a hospital full of people through her own gumption. Donna was a woman who at heart held herself worthless, and was revealed to be special because we all have that potential buried within us.

Amy… well, Amy was fun. But she was hard to warm to and the baby story arc was horrendous. It was telling that more people were warming to Rory than her, and herein is the terrible problem.

Moffatt can’t write women, at all.

They’re sassy and they’re sexy and they talk-back and they have oh such big secrets behind them. But they’re not their own secrets. They’re the Doctors. They do not have their own dreams or ambitions – they just follow the Doctor around until enough square pegs are hammered into round holes in Moffatts convoluted mystery-hour and are discarded for the next sassy back-talking woman with another circuitous timey-wimey mystery. Argh. This wouldn't be so terrible if the Doctor didn't seem to keep on thinking they were the best thing since sliced bread. Compare any of the Moffatt women to Rose or Ace. They earned it.

It’s a problem handily personified by River Song, a ‘character’ who splits her screen time evenly between razzle-dazzle amoral escape acts, delivering exposition, flirting with the Doctor and saying good-bye. A lot. Every time we think that that’s it, the Doctor-Song thing is wrapped up, she comes back again. To tell us things through Moffatts voice, instead of showing them. It’s really bad writing.
And these women he writes, they just don’t have anything they can call their own. Think of a something about Clara other than that she likes to bake soufflés and that she’s a nanny. Did I mention she likes soufflés? She’s the soufflé girl. Y’know, they’re hard to cook and they don’t always come out right but it’s all in the scrip- I mean recipe and those mysteries sure do taste ni-I mean soufflé!
It would be so goddamn frustrating if Moffatt wasn’t skilled in other areas. He’s great with the cold-blooded chill. Jenny announcing her own murder, though a trick reprised from one of his previous stories, still worked. And the Bells of St. John wireless disembodied suspended existence was good, if sort of done by him before in the library episode. And what about the big notion of the stars going out and terrible things happening in the wake of the Doctor’s none existence?

Oh wait. Russell T. Davies’ excellent and moving sci-fi dystopia episode Turn Right did that. INFINITELY BETTER.

When all the stories have to be fucked about with to make a clunky mystery that says nothing about characters and fails to reveal anything significant about the Doctor, you ought to stop trying to do meta-arcs. Especially in the all too short space of six or seven episodes. So the big revelation coming is that the Doctor did bad things in a secret incarnation? Well, we all assumed that anyway, just in the form of Paul McGann. Hell, Eccleston’s entire performance was modelled on that concept. Davies wrote it as a key backbone of series one.

Please Moffatt, give up being show-runner. I know I really wanted you to be one originally on the back of a series of excellent stand-alone episodes, but on the basis of this alternating meh-and-d’oh filled season, and half the season before it, I’m beginning to suspect that not only do you not know how to write Doctor Who, but you don’t actually know how to write a good story anymore. It’s a shame too, as all the actors and production team are really giving it their all – I really have no complaint in that department. It’s just you. Ouch.

I cared far more about the five minutes screen time Ada in The Crimson Horror than I do about Clara. That’s a problem, right there.

True, characterisation wasn't up to much back then - but the fun plots and ideas made up for that with the Doc at service to the story. Nu-Who is trying to compete with Buffy, and unfortunately for the Doc, Buffy is just streets ahead in that department right now.

Just watched it. It wasn't great. Thought the stuff with the older Doctors was badly handled and bodged together. Body doubles and poorly composited footage.

As for Hurt, Richard E Grant drops a big hint in the script as to who he is.

I missed that!

It depends. Moffat does like to throw in erroneous hints.

I still loved it. Pete, I think you need to see where this goes. Ecclestone's doctor pretty much owned the guilt for the Time Wars, and he remained The Doctor. So what must this guy have done to be so badly thought of that The Doctor more or less erased all existence of him from his own memory? I'm pretty certain that it will involve more than just the history we already know.

Also, Clara didn't change Neil Gaiman's TARDIS choosing thing. She was just the vessel that it used to tell The Doctor which way to go. That's certainly how I saw it.

I also liked how she fitted in. She could have been given more of a life, but in a way I like that we were only just getting to know her. It showed the contrast between River and Clara and the difference in their relationships with The Doctor. River knew him for years, fell in love, married him, and sacrificed herself for him. Clara has only known him briefly, but he was already important enough for her that she would die for him.

Plus, John Freaking Hurt! As a doctor who isn't held to the same moral code! This, surely, is the culmination of several series of companions reining in The Doctor, and preserving his 'humanity'. I bet Doctor Hurt didn't have someone there to remind him who he was. But we shall see.

So much potential for the next series, or next special. So excited!

The name drop of this chap:



Which is either misdirection or actually means that the "Hurt Doctor" is either the Valeyard or something similar. Remember the Valeyard is a Robert Holmes creation and Moffat rates him as his favourite Doctor Who writer.

All true, but did they really have to make Tommy such a gibbering simpleton to begin with? Couldn't he have just been "normal" but perhaps just a bit slow or clumsy? So that it would be obvious that he wasn't all there, without being downright insulting and demeaning? I know back then attitudes towards retardation were very different, but it's presented almost as comic relief in the first couple of episodes.

Nah, you see... its foreshadowing.
Bear in mind the rumours that Matt Smith will go his own way soon, and...
if HurtDoctor is a previous incarnation, that means we're on...

...Doctor Number 12. The Valeyard is going to be a big issue sooner that we thought.

It's 39 years ago. As you say, attitudes were very different. You can't watch anything of that era and throw 2013 values at it. It's a product of it's time.

Who is generally better than most series with regards to race, gender etc.

Agreed, that's why this particular character stuck out so much to me.

Still, as you say, 39 years ago I suppose.

Survivors has a similar character the following year who is framed for the rape and murder of a woman. He is then executed before the community discover that he didn't actually do it. Again it's a plot device that he is "simple" so he can't defend himself.

It's the episode "Law and Order" and is brilliant TV. Grim, dark, just builds up slowly.

Turn Left.

But regardless, you prompted me to watch that episode again and it really brings Steven Moffat's flaws to the fore.

I watched a few RTD-era Who episodes at the weekend: Empty Child/Doctor Dances and Stolen Earth/Journey's End. It made me realise that I've always looked at that era as being shonkily written, but on reflection the biggest problems I tended to have with it were Murray Gold's distractingly abominable score, the slight tendency for the Doctor to save everything right at the last minute by plucking some hitherto unmentioned solution from his arse (which doesn't happen in the Moffat written Empty Child/Doctor Dances of course) and all the comedy bits, like Paul O' Grady's appearance in Stolen Earth and all that Big Brother/Weakest Link nonsense from the Season 1 finale. But actually, a lot of the writing was excellent. The sense of danger was often palpable and thrilling and the characterisation was often terrific.

Generally I prefer the Moffat-era I have to say. The show seems more mature now, much scarier in places, the background music doesn't make me want to tear my own ears off now and actually seems to compliment things, but I think this criticism of Moffat's ability to write women is bang on. I couldn't have given a shit about Amy by the time she fucked off and I'm struggling to be bothered about Clara when there have actually been vastly more interesting female characters in her time, such as Dougray Scott's assistant in Hide. The season arcs are starting to piss me off too, because there's never a satisfactory resolution. I have no problem with having arcs - little mysteries in the background like the cracks, the pilotless TARDIS in The Lodger and the Silence's identical TARDIS in the Season 6 opener, but nothing much ever seems to come of it. Nothing satisfactory anyhow.

All the same, aside from the onscreen text, I really enjoyed Saturday's finale and I'm really looking forward to the 50th anniversary. I do think they should've brought McGann back though rather than inventing a new Doctor (if he is indeed a Time War incarnation between the 8th and 9th, which seems to be where the smart money lies and was apparently leaked from the set of the anniversary special anyhow). But it should be good. And I liked all that stuff with the previous Doctors in the finale. I suppose it was a little bodged, but I can't see how they could've made it any better. The TARDIS stealing scene was terrific, I don't care what anyone says, and I don't feel it ruins The Doctor's Wife at all - if anything, it backs it up. Like Curio said, it simply suggests that Clara was the TARDIS's vessel in getting the Doctor to pick it in the first place.

There are rumors of some episodes between now and the anniversary featuring McGann and possibly ending with his regeneration - would be good to see him back on the screen in some way.

Myself and the missus, who was by no means a Doctor Who fan until the show came back in 2005, watched the TV movie at the weekend too. Even she was asking why they never brought McGann back at the end, as even she thought he was excellent as the Doctor.

I recall the McGann thing as being rubbish, but everyone seems to really rate it. I hall have to rewatch it.

In other insane fan rumours, apparently the BBC have discovered 90 or so missing episodes and are holding out announcing the news until November.

It is rubbish but it has good points as well. One of them is McGann. He's a great actor and I'm still bitter they didn't use him for the comeback rather than Ecclescake.

Surely they wanted to start a new era for the show. Can't really do that without a regeneration. Anyway, Eccelstone was alright wasn't he?

I can't stand him. Don't believe he is the Doctor for one second. I'm not someone who lists his favourite Doctors, but I know the one who is my least favourite.

I don't know why he ever did it. He hated doing it (have that first hand), spent the entire time moaning (again have that first hand) and now won't have anything to do with it.

Bet he changes his mind when the work has dried up and he needs to start milking fandom for all it's worth. As Pertwee said "Doctor Who is my pension".

Totally different attitude to someone like Davison who loves being involved. When they did the 40th Radio Times covers he found the photoshoot clashed with some series he was shooting so he couldn't do it. But on the day he found that the schedule meant he could finish the shoot early so got a taxi across London and turned up at the shoot! Hence why on the Radio Times cover he's not in his costume. He's just wearing his regular clothes as no costume had been ordered up.

For McGann stuff check out any of the Big Finish Audio adventures.

I think Chinny also posted this on twitter :

Agreed - it's a terrible film really, but McGann makes the whole thing reasonably watchable. It's telling that McGann is considered the canon, de facto 8th Doctor, but absolutely everything else from that film has been completely ignored and disregarded.

Edit: I didn't mind Ecclestone, for what it was worth, but I've heard before that he hated the whole thing and couldn't wait to be rid of it, so it's staggering that he took the role on in the first place. What was he expecting it would be like exactly? But he plays the role fairly well, seamlessly blending jovial with deadly serious and quite believeable as a Time Lord hero forced to do some terrible things in the Time War, now on the other side and trying to become the hero he used to be again.

I'll say this for it. It's very well directed.

It's also a huge shame that apparently the X-Files were shooting in the disused hospital they used a month before and painted all the walls a horrible shade of green. When they found this out it was too late to do anything about it. So some of the hospital scenes look a bit ugly.

This makes Peter Davison even more my favouritest doctor.

And not just because his daughter is the Doctors daughter , and the Doctors wife , and that he has the Doctor as a son in law ?

The Doctor married his own daughter?

Davison's daugher, Georgia Moffet, played the Doctor's "daughter" in episode of the same name (Jenny the Dalek Slayer). She's now married to Tennant.

And then they had a daughter !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_tennant

I saw that on Netflix last week, haven't seen it since it was first aired in 1996. Paul McGann was magnificent. Real shame he never got another chance to play his Doctor on screen. I don't suppose it was ever unearthed to whether he was in the running to play the Doctor in the 2005 series?

From what I recall at the time, I don't think he was ever asked. I'm sure I read an interview where he stated he'd be interested in taking on the role again, but RTD and co wanted a fresh start with a new Doctor. I think Christopher Ecclestone was seen as a bit of a coup at the time, considering he's usually considered a 'serious' actor.

Good news: My JNT book has arrived.

Bad news: Mrs Chinny has confiscated it until the weekend as she thinks I won't do anything but read it.

Gah! Still I did managed to flick through it and saw the entertaining tale of JNT being sucked off by a fan while on the phone to Biddie Baxter the Blue Peter producer.

That's quite interesting in a way. I assumed at the time that the lack of the traditional cricketing costume was because someone haf decided to retcon the 5th Doctor as having a 'man from Del Monte' image.

There's an exhibition at Spaceport currently FEATURING a TARDIS, some cybermen, sontarans and the like and other miscellaneous things. Strangely, it's called Time Travellers and doesn't seem to mention Dr Who at all in the advertising. Licensing problems?

Copped a sneaky peek at the book. Said to a 17 year old fan as a unsuccessful chat up line "Have you ever had two up you".

http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/ ... -time.html




Given the location I think Chinny dumped it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... erbyshire/

Yes I know - Children's BBC and Dick n Dom but its about Delia Derbyshire

If it turns out the Dalek is white, I can have a pretty good guess as to where it is.

Reading the JNT book. It's an astonishing read.

Is it standard practice that gay men invite people around for dinner, pretend to drop their forks under the table, tie their guests shoelaces to the table leg and then try to have sex with them?

Craster did that to me at new year, so it seems to check out.

While I'm not familiar with their work, Dick and Dom are HUGE TV anoraks which endears them to me enormously. So I expect they did a good job within the confines of their brief.