Doctor Who – Series 11

[Dave]

Worth a discussion thread?

We’re just watching Capaldi’s regeneration into Whittaker as part of our build-up to tonight’s episode. Such a great scene.

Topic

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That was definitely the better written episode of the series so far. Lots of good and heavy drama. Though, like with Rosa, I felt the aliens were superfluous. It just felt like an historical drama with Doctor Who dropped in for the excuse of telling the story. I was bored half way through and, for the first time since I started watching Doctor Who at the end of series 4, I started looking at my phone whilst the episode was airring.

I’m sure there’s an audience out there loving this series, I’m just not a part of it.

[Ben Saunders]

>The twist with the aliens reminded me a bit of the most recent Christmas special
Not much reminds me of TUAT because it was one of the least memorable things I have ever bared witness to

>I felt the aliens were superfluous
Somebody else said this, but the revelation of what the aliens were actually doing, all the floating heads, and that shot of The Doctor and co. walking away from and reacting to the man being killed were some of my favourite moments in the episode, so losing those would knock the episode down quite a bit for me. It could be heavily re-written to remove them, perhaps.

Did anybody else feel like the younger brother character wasn’t fleshed out enough? I didn’t really understand why he was so pro-partition, what made him turn against and potentially kill his own family etc. Were they a large group? How did they convince him, what did they say to him, who were his sources, etc. Either I missed something (I know he was in the war and a bit young for it), it’s something I’m supposed to know from history (we didn’t do partition in school however), or he really was just not fleshed out.

[Pete Part Three]

I didn’t mind that one although I can’t imagine a time when I’d be bothered to rewatch it. It’s another very straight-forward tale, and the Doctor and her mates played no active role in the story. That said, I think I preferred that to the heavy-lifting they did to get them involved within the events in Rosa. All the bollocks about bus drivers and holiday tickets to Las Vegas tried my patience. Frankly, Tikka to Ride was a far better episode about “correcting timelines” and if you can’t even match that, maybe just stick with something a little less ambitious in terms of sci-fi. So, we get aliens who pose no thread and timelines running more or less how they’re supposed to… but still a reliance on real world drama to give it any kind of weight.

I’m really not sold on the idea of three companions. Mainly because, most episodes, two of them have bugger all to do. And what’s the arrangement anyway? Is The Doctor just hanging around now?

[Warbodog]

I liked it. Seen the story before (Father’s Day / time travel stories generally + Twice Upon a Time aliens), but the exotic scenery was nice.

Three companions works well when they’re introduced gradually rather than competing for development from the off. I liked how they did it in series 5 with Amy > Amy & Rory > Amy, Rory & River.

[Ben Saunders]

Chibnall going for the Davison approach – bland, blonde Doctor with three poorly acted and uninteresting companions who are horribly underwritten.*

*Except I quite like the Davison era

[si]

Fanwank theory of the week – The reason Yaz is Umbreen’s ‘favourite granddaughter’ and given the watch is that Umbreen remembers Yaz being there in the first place.

[Dave]

I didn’t think that was a fanwank theory, I thought that was the whole point of that moment.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah – Chibnall isn’t really all that great at showing connections too well, if I was being generous I’d say it’s too subtle. But I think that’s the point … she gives her the watch, refuses to talk about it, which encourages Yaz to travel back to that moment and be a part of it.

They then have that bit at the end about how “she ended up in Sheffield” but they both know full well she is there because she wanted to be

[si]

I didn’t think that was a fanwank theory, I thought that was the whole point of that moment.

Really? Oh, I thought I was being clever.

she is there because she wanted to be

Who wouldn’t?

[Dave]

Maybe the favourite granddaughter thing wasn’t intended, they never specifically link the two I guess. But given how much they emphasised that moment at the start (along with the mystery of the watch, details of the grandmother’s personal history etc.) it felt like it was patting the audience on the head and saying “the story you are about to watch is going to provide an explanation for all these things you have just been told”.

[Lily]

I enjoyed the episode in general but the alien twist felt rather unsatisfactory. Once you’ve found out they’re just hanging out for dead people it makes their former actions more questionable like why all the mental attacks on the Doctor when they first get there?

>And Tosin Cole still can’t act.
While I agree, I’d also argue that he’s making the best of the lines he gets. Sometimes it’s a case of *screen turns on* “Hey look, the screen’s turned on”. It doesn’t help that everything seems to be delivered in a monotone.

>I’ll never get used to them ending with different music that plays over the credits, I don’t like that.
Ditto. Hate that.

What I found a little odd was the lack of accents. The Nan had a very mild accent in Sheffield, which was less than I’d expect really. It was the stuff in the Punjab that really seemed odd though. You get a little line about their punjabi not being bad for foreigners, but then all of the locals have a faint northern accent. It’s not like I’m saying we need Apu but it just felt a little off.

Also why are they all “oooh what killed the holy man?” – doesn’t the sonic read a bullet wound?

[Dave]

Andrew Ellard made the bullet-wound point in his notes for this episode too. It does feel like a bit of a plot hole.

[Lily]

>I’ll never get used to them ending with different music that plays over the credits, I don’t like that.
Ditto. Hate that.

Oh, just catching up on reddit they point out it’s the normal theme slowed down indian style.
Still hate it.

[Ben Saunders]

To be fair, if the TARDIS is translating language from “wherever” to “prefect English”, it is most likely also capable of rendering it in an accent which is easy for you to understand. All the alien monsters seem to have British accents and so do most of the other secondary characters. Exceptions off the top of my head would be the Chinese woman in Mind of Evil and Chiang in Talons Of.

What I found stranger was the Yaz’s gran in the 40s seemed to be using modern British slang/colloquialisms, which is hard to get used to but I guess it makes sense on the same level as the concepts previously discussed.

Yeah it was the normal theme in an Indian style, but I didn’t notice until just before the next time trailer. I love Gunmen of the Apocalypse’s alternate credits theme, for some reason it feels more acceptable in Dwarf. Perhaps because the music is just better, and to be fair Gunmen’s music is very clearly presented as “here is a new piece of music just for the credits”, whereas in Doctor Who they play a piece of music which doesn’t stop and just carries over into the credits awkwardly.

[steven87gill]

Step up from the last two weeks, & the only episode of this series where Chibbers doesn’t have a writing credit. Funny that.

Rosa was stellar but you could tell where Chibbers had shoehorned his bits in. We’ve got guest writers for the next three episodes so it will be interesting to see how things go.

[steven87gill]

I’d have preferred one, six-part serial per year with a guest writer coming in for each story, like Toby Whithouse, Neil Cross, or Jamie Mathieson. Sort of like ‘Trial of a Timelord’ but done right. It’s what the show was built on & where TV is at the moment & I feel like the monster of the week format is played out at this point. You could still have a feature length festive episode written by Chibbers but let someone else do the more involved storytelling that a serial requires.

Chibnall i think is the Julie Gardener figure that Moffat badly needed behind the scenes during his tenure, someone who can deal with the actual show-running behind the scenes whilst someone else deals with the actual storytelling aspect. It’s what the show was built on & where TV is at the moment. I feel like the monster of the week format is played out at this point.

[steven87gill]

Gash, I can’t get into edit my comment so yes I am aware that I’ve repeated myself.

[Ben Saunders]

I liked the idea of series 9 being all two parters but I didn’t really like the execution. I do agree that monster of the week is a bit old hat, it worked better when it was monster-of-six weeks

[si]

I found the closing theme a bit cringeworthy, to be honest.
As far as Rosin Cole and Ryan goes, Ryan was definitely ill-served this week. It seemed pointless his even being there.

[si]

*Tosin

Let us edit these fucking posts, for God’s sake.

[Warbodog]

New viewers keep being born who haven’t seen Doctor Who yet, so it’s not “played out” to them. I think serialisation’s overrated anyway, so many streaming-model shows are padded and boring. Individual episodes and two-parters suit Doctor Who and kids’ attention spans. I’d rather there were a few bad/mediocre episodes per year that can be forgotten about than a 10-parter with deep troughs you have to struggle through any time you want to watch that story.

It’s good to see that most of the complaints about the last episode are just really petty things like people’s accents, convenient oversights and changing the theme tune you’ve heard enough times already. Things are looking up.

[steven87gill]

I find this notion that kids are somehow unable to follow a more serialized format mildly patronizing. If they can happily sit through a 2+ hour Harry Potter film then I don’t see the issue. All about the execution.

[Ben Saunders]

>a 10-parter with deep troughs you have to struggle through any time you want to watch that story
Miracle Day was a bit shit, wasn’t it?

[steven87gill]

>a 10-parter with deep troughs you have to struggle through any time you want to watch
that story

Who said anything about it having to be ten parts? A five or six part serial is more than enough.

>Miracle Day was a bit shit, wasn’t it?

And Children Of Earth was incredible. Next

[steven87gill]

>Doctor Who peaked in Series 8 for me

That’s pretty much where I think Steven Moffat should’ve bowed out, actually (even though I quite enjoyed series 9) He likely would’ve too, if Smith had agreed to stay for another year. Should’ve followed RTD’s lead of 4 series. It would’ve been nice not to have Moffat dominate all of Capaldi’s run.

[steven87gill]

That or the 50th TBF. The end of Day of the Doctor would’ve been a perfect jumping on point for a new show-runner.

[Ben Saunders]

I know Moffat intended to bow out with The Doctor Falls but decided to also do TUAT because Chibnall wasn’t going to, and I think he might have also done the entirity of series 10 for the same reason although my memory is a bit fuzzy.
No Moff-led S9 means no Heaven Sent/Hell Bent so that idea can fuck off, lol.

Children of Earth was good, but it lags in the middle and gets little repetitive and shitty. Miracle Day has that random episode where Jack starts fucking some Italian guy in the 40s which is actually one of the best episodes out of the whole show, but then it also has 7 episodes of filler

[si]

How did a discussion about the current season of Doctor Who manage to become a chat about a seven year old series of Torchwood? That’s clever even by G&T regulars’ standards.

[Dave]

I’m amazed it hasn’t become a conversation about Red Dwarf VIII yet.

[Pete Part Three]

Don’t be silly. There’s nothing more to say about Red Dwarf VIII. It was a fantastic series and we’re all very happy with it.

Much like Doctor Who Series 11.

[steven87gill]

>I know Moffat intended to bow out with The Doctor Falls but decided to also do TUAT because Chibnall wasn’t going to, and I think he might have also done the entirity of series 10 for the same reason although my memory is a bit fuzzy.

My first thought when the rumors swirled about the festive episode being moved to New Years Day was all the effort Moffatt had put into not losing the Christmas slot, lol.

Series 10 is really the only time i felt the format was truly tired & Moffat really had run out of ideas, although World Enough & Time/The Doctor Falls *almost* makes the entire series worth it. Twice Upon A Time was just kind of… there. Basically just a glorified epilogue & a bit inconsequential. Kinda like the last 15/20 minutes of The End Of Time but extended to fill an entire episode.

Also, that’s now 3 times we’ve had moments where a much better regeneration was sacrificed for the sake of something more drawn out, overly sentimental & soapy. 10 in the radiation chamber, 11 on the clock tower & 12 at the end of series 10. I still maintain that Capaldi regenerating on the floor like Hartnell & waking up as Whittaker was a fuckin’ open goal & they missed it.

[genericnerdyusername]

Where is it said he intended to bow out with The Doctor Falls? I know he was saying he thought The Husbands of River Song was going to be his last while he wrote it, but I’ve never read that he wasn’t intending to do a Christmas special after Series 10.

I really like the last two-parter of Series 10, personally. The Lie of the Land is utter dross though and the episodes following follow suit until Word Enough and Time. I don’t see anything wrong with 11’s clock tower scene, though.

I’ve almost caught up with series 11, but haven’t seen the latest. I’ve heard it’s better than the previous episodes though, so hurrah!

[Dave]

Moffat has said he intended to end his run with a regeneration at the end of The Doctor Falls, but then agreed to stay on for one more episode when it became clear that Chibnall wouldn’t be ready to take on the show by the Christmas special. In particular, Moffat said he didn’t want the show to lose the coveted Christmas Day slot by skipping a year. So he extended the regeneration to run over that entire episode (you can see pretty easily how the regeneration would cap off The Doctor Falls).

It’s ironic that it’s now been confirmed that the show will miss the Christmas Day slot this year anyway, with an episode on New Year’s Day instead.

[Lily]

>Where is it said he intended to bow out with The Doctor Falls?

Here – http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/doctor-who/news/a834617/doctor-who-christmas-special-almost-scrapped/

[Warbodog]

I was pleased to see that a prolific comedy actor who finally appeared in Red Dwarf not too long ago will finally be appearing in (televised) Doctor Who in an upcoming episode.

[Ben Saunders]

There was a lot of behind the scenes stuff with Moffat’s run (and honestly everybody else’s) that completely changed his original plans, I read that there were preliminary discussions between him and David Tennant about Ten staying on for one last series in which the first episode or something would deal with him dying then there would by timey-wimey shenanagins and a mystery plot leading to an explanation in the finale, similar to what we ended up getting with Series 6.

[Warbodog]

I’d love to read an uncompromising Writer’s Tale tell-all from Moffat. But he’s still working for the BBC with Draclia, so not yet.

[si]

I was pleased to see that a prolific comedy actor who finally appeared in Red Dwarf not too long ago will finally be appearing in (televised) Doctor Who in an upcoming episode.

And me. I wasn’t sure whether we, as a community, were already aware of his casting, but it was certainly a very pleasant surprise to see his face in the new DWM. But then, seeing former Hyperdrive stars always is. (And only the second to have credits in the Holy Trinity of Dwarf, Hyperdrive and Who.)

[tombow]

Well, I hope you will be fascinated to know that I am currently watching my way through the Capaldi era for the first time, after having seen none of it before. And – having just picked up the series 8 and 9 dvd sets – this is the first time I’ve ever really watched Who properly. I’ve seen most episodes from Nu-Who up to Smith’s first series (and loved some episodes), but this is the first time I’ve ever really engaged with the show and put effort into following it, as opposed to just sitting there while family watch it. And – I’m loving it. Some reactions so far …

Deep Breath – Loved the steampunk look and how spooky it was – it made me think the series was going to be more elaborate and canon-heavy than it turned out to be, with the characters from Smith’s era (in fact, I didn’t even know Silurians and Sontarans were in the old series).

Into the Dalek – thought this was going to be a throwaway, but the weird little scary touches (like the immune system) made it better than I thought.

Sherwood – I really liked this one, I liked the humor around Hood being as cheesy and heroic as he should be.

Listen – I really like Danny’s character, I’ve always admired a good schoolteacher, and I was really upset what happened to him at the end of the series, even if it set him up to defeat the Cybermen in a powerful way.

Time Heist – like Sherwood, one I thought would be skippable but had enough flair and style to make it worth it.

Caretaker – I laughed all the way through – love the Doctor being mean to Danny, and Danny seeing him as an Officer. It’s a bit unfortunate IMO that the show’s good diversity, combined with the Doctor being derisive to companion boyfriends, means he ends up being rude to black men so often though. (ie Mickey and Pink.)

Kill the Moon – I liked it – seemed a bit of an easy solution though. What would they do if the dragon didn’t lay a new moon?

Mummy – just good gripping fun.

Flatline – loved Clara proving herself as an effective Doctor! Hopefully she can go on to be some sort of Time Lord ish person some day?

Forest – Again I’ve always admired good school teachers so I liked Clara and Danny in this one.

final 2 parter – Probably one of the most disturbing episodes I’ve seen. Missy is better at playing the DC comics Joker than any actual Joker actor IMO. I’d love to know if Moffat flicked through some Batman issues as there was some stuff there that seemed specific from 70s/80s Joker (I forget what now).

[Ben Saunders]

Wonderful review of my favourite series, reminding me of just how strong it is, and how bizarre the fact that everybody seems to hate it also is. Kill the Moon I thought was dreadful, but I think “what if it didn’t lay a new moon” is part of the point of the episode – the characters didn’t know it was going to do that beforehand, did they? So it was all about the impossible choice they had to make. I guess it laying another egg (ignoring the fact that no organism could possibly lay an egg BIGGER THAN ITSELF) does make the ending a little too neat, but then again we couldn’t go on for all of the rest of Doctor Who with the Earth being moonless. Unless they did a little sidequest to find a replacement.

I didn’t like Forest either but I think it was just medicore compared to Moon which I found genuinely annoying.

Death In Heaven has some absolutely terrific Doctor/Master dialogue and making The Master a woman was an inspired twist and planted the seeds for the audience a female Doctor, and Capaldi/Gomez come the closest to recreating the magic of Pertwee/Delgado that anyone has ever come before, while still completely owning the characters and putting their own fresh new spin on the relationship. Despite one of Moffat’s biggest criticisms being his writing of female characters, Missy went on to become one of the absolute highlights of his era, I would say.

What did you think of CyberBrig? https://youtu.be/Bmsafe5d4oM

[Pete Part Three]

That was the last series I liked, really. Aside from Heaven Sent and the Zygon two-parter, I wasn’t keen on season 9, and 10 pretty much drifted away without making any kind of impression.

Listen and Mummy on the Orient Express are very different, but both great examples of how versatile the show can be in terms of story and execution. I thought Deep Breath was a terrible opening story for Capaldi, mind.

[Ben Saunders]

I appreciated Deep Breath much more on rewatch earlier this year, it does a really good job of setting up what’s to come which obviously you can only really tell retroactively

[Warbodog]

‘Mummy’ was my favourite from that year and my second favourite Capaldi episode, just a really solid story. I’ve never got the ‘Kill the Moon’ hate, I thought it was a bit boring but I’d never considered that Doctor Who had to be scientifically accurate, the daftness is part of the charm.

I’m not fond of them bringing back the same baddies over and over to face every Doctor – Daleks belong to Hartnell, Cybermen to Troughton, Master to Pertwee – so all of Capaldi’s Dalek/Cyberman/Master episodes don’t do much for me. Maybe that’s part of why I like Smith’s more self-contained run and Tom Baker’s diverse bestiary the best. I thought “no returning monsters” was going to be a real strength of series 11 too… well, it’s not a rule.

[genericnerdyusername]

I really liked Mummy on the Orient Express too, but it did cause one of the two non-family members I know who watch the show to stop. He thought Capaldi’s Doctor was too heartless in it. Not sure if he made it to the end of the episode though. Series 9 I like a lot of, but do find stretches of it intensely boring. The Viking one is one of these boring ones, and it’s a pretty essential watch to get the full impact of the finale, which I love but can understand people being put off.

Thanks for clarifying the Moffat statement and providing a link, I hadn’t heard his original plans got changed.

[genericnerdyusername]

Also, I entirely agree about the daftness of Kill the Moon being part of the charm. The fact that the show attempts to pull it off is great, even if the attempt fails (note: it didn’t fail for me). I hope the show edges closer to these crazier ideas than it is at the moment. It still seems to me that it’s lacking confidence in itself to do anything too interesting.

[Ben Saunders]

“The daftness is part of the charm” is only really true to a degree, and I believe that modern writers (Gatiss) believing that to be completely true leads to a lot of the general shiteness of parts of the RTD era and some other episodes, and that writing something deliberately silly is a grave error. Classic Who was very rarely deliberately silly. The effects weren’t shit on purpose.

It is mentioned dozens of times on the Pertwee DVDs that the mark of a great Who story is that no matter how silly everything seemed and how flimsy the sets and effects were, everybody (for the most part) played it straight and took the material seriously. Once you get into Season 16-17 Tom Baker stuff, where Baker is no longer taking the roll all that seriously (with some exceptional moments) and people (Douglas Adams) start writing the show to be intentionally silly, I really start to switch off, and actively hate the show at points.

[Ben Saunders]

Holmes was good at “deliberately silly”, and The Pirate Planet y Adams tows the line, almost veering into “oh, fuck off” territory several times, but Baker is still putting in a good performance on that one, and the pantomimey villain is (spoilers!) given a story reason to be acting like that, which is a pretty interesting payoff

[tombow]

I’m still not sure about the logic of Missy’s afterlife business – I’m not sure if she downloaded the mind of every single person who ever lived or died (even from the past and future), just people from when her “3 words” thing was in business, or people who had fought alongside the Doctor. And why did it look so pleasant for the first few people in the series (a garden centre) and then a dark city at the end.

Just seen the S9 opening Davros 2 parter, loved it (I’m sure it would have more impact if I’d seen more past Davros, but I know who he is). Loved the shock of Clara not being able to say what she wanted in the Dalek, really dark moment. Capaldi seems to be giving a bit of an OTT performance, so I’m curious as to if he will calm down as the series goes on.

[tombow]

(oh yeah, I loved Cyber Brigadier, even though I’m only slightly familiar with him, it was a great moment).

I’m thinking of getting the series 2 dvd (the one with Tennant and Piper) and giving it a chance. I found it too sappy at the time, and only got back into Who when Martha came in. It was mostly the Rose/Doctor relationship I found too sentimental too. I do remember some of the individual episodes being awesome though (like Madame de Pompideu, the Coronation TVs one, and the werewolf/ Victoria one). Maybe I’ll enjoy the emotion more now I’m not missing Eccleston, years older and have a more open mind.

[Ben Saunders]

Perhaps Missy’s afterlife thing was all nice and friendly for the first few people she welcome in, but as more and more people started coming in it got worse and worse.

S9 opener references Genesis of the Daleks and is better if you’re familiar with he and the Doctor’s relationship, but I don’t know if it’s all that important really – I have a friend who thought the episode was great having seen none of the classic series.

Series 1 or 4 are ones I’d recommend more, but Series 2 is good for the most part. Ten/Rose is a bit much, but many many other people would disagree.

[Author]

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