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

[tombow]

Yeah, I’m thinking If I go in steeled with the knowledge that the series is a love story between Ten and Rose, I might enjoy it more. I remember even being put off by that first episode where he cured zombies with water guns shooting happiness. I think I’ve seen most of series 1 and 4 – Checking Wiki now – definitely seen all of 1 but of 4, only seen Adipose, Pompeii, Ood, Agatha Christie, and the Library/River episodes – don’t remember any of the others on the list.

[si]

Just seen the S9 opening Davros 2 parter, loved it

That was when Capaldi really became the Doctor for me. Thought he was absolutely brilliant.

[Pete Part Three]

Wasn’t keen on that 2 parter. It suffered from one of Moffat’s occasional problems: NOTHING IS HAPPENING TO PROGRESS THE PLOT BUT IF WE TALK FAST, CRACK WISE AND BLOW THINGS UP IT WILL MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT IS.

(C.f The entire “Doctor is missing” subplot in the opener, the whole of A Good Man Goes to War, Let’s Kill Hitler etc,etc)

[tombow]

Well, as I’ve just started the series, I’m slightly worried the whole of it is going to be padded like that, with the 2 parters structure. I’m sure I’ll love it though.

[Ben Saunders]

AGMGTW is worth it for the poem and the ending and the conversation with that girl. The doctor is missing stuff felt really weird and unnecessary especially since we’ve already been through this kind of shit before. I guess it sets up the confession dial though? And gives us the Pretty Woman scene which is pretty funny, especially how both Clara and Missy think it’s about them and it’s ambiguous as to who it’s for, their reactions are great

[steven87gill]

Yeah, I remember at the time that being the first real misfire by Moffat for me. His stuff started to become a lot more hit & miss from that point onward, as if he’d peaked too soon with series 5 & quickly hit writers block.

If you take all of series 5, & bits n’ bobs from 6-10 , you’ve got the makings of an amazing 4 series + specials.

[steven87gill]

Yeah I didn’t mean to block quote my own post, but i was trying to reply to this.

the whole of A Good Man Goes to War, Let’s Kill Hitler etc,etc

[Dave]

I quite enjoyed Kerblam.

SPOILERS

Killer Amazon parcels and weaponised bubble-wrap feels like something from Moffat’s era.

END SPOILERS

Plus, the design of the Good Robot Us-es was nicely spooky without being too scary.

[Pete Part Three]

Lost interest fairly early on. I think it reminded me most of The Beast Below, and I didn’t have a good time with that episode back in the day.

It was better than most of the episodes in this series, and it’s relief that the show can still do this kind of campy throwaway stuff that RTD used to stockpile, but it’s not exactly my idea of though-provoking sci-fi.

[Nick R]

Coincidentally, today my iPlayer rewatch of RTD’s Doctor Who episodes reached The Unicorn and the Wasp, which I finished watching only about 15 minutes before Kerblam! aired. So I appreciated the explicit reference to it in the new episode!

The first two thirds genuinely fooled me into thinking that it was going to be inspired by the numerous newspaper articles over the last few years about working undercover at AMAZing South American Rainforest’s warehouses, and take the obvious route of having the automated system and/or its human managers rotten to the core and willing to sacrifice people in the name of efficiency. My guess for much of the episode was that the abducted workers were going to be imprisoned in a hivemind or something on the lower Dispatch levels – literalising the repeated phrase a “people-powered company”. And I’d assumed that the HELP ME message would turn out to be a plea from those people’s collective imprisoned subconscious. So I didn’t predict the twist about where the threat really came from.

I laughed out loud at the bubblewrap reveal. If you’re going to make an everyday substance scary, I think bubblewrap works a lot better than, say, the rheum monsters from Sleep No More!

I was less keen on the conveyor action sequence and the Kira character.

Also a couple of Doctor Dwarf comparisons for you: it’s Twirly Toaster and the Tension Sheet!

[Dave]

I thought of the tension sheet too, but none of the Dwarf links were as great as the Partridge moment.

“Dan! Dan! Dan! … Dan!”

[Pete Part Three]

The conveyor belt bit reminded me of the Star Wars prequels and I tapped out.

[Dave]

It was a bit like the droid factory scene wasn’t it? I thought of Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc.

[Warbodog]

Good stuff, felt very familiar DW but still subverting expectations. Also reminded me of The Beast Below aesthetically, but I like that one too. Bad bubblewrap was the best, always happy when they make everyday things terrifying.

[Lily]

Not a fan of that one personally. From the start the over excited reaction of when the Kerblam bot turned up was uncomfortable to me. There’s sometimes the feeling that this Doctor is a 12 year old who’s had too much sugar.

The whole ‘automated company has put all the people out of work’ thing was a pretty low hanging fruit swipe at Amazon complete with objectionable manager. You knew Dan was dead as soon as he got soppy about his little girl (love Lee Mack though), you knew Kira was dead as soon as the Doctor started to protect her.

Ryan’s dyspraxia bit felt totally shoe-horned in. It was like they recognised that the iminent action sequence was a dumb idea that shouldn’t be possible, so they put a disclaimer beforehand of ‘I have this condition, but I’m going to do this anyway’, like that makes it any better.

Did anyone else have trouble telling the types of robot apart? It didn’t really occur to me that there were two types, as they all looked the same to me. I will admit I loved the design though, creepy right from the start.

As much as I loved the twist, it almost feels like it raised more questions than it answered. How was the ‘evil’ manager keep track of disappearances when the HR lady kept saying it’d be impossible to know? Why did Charlie try to kill off Yaz the moment she got there (presuming it was him giving people 999 orders to get picked off by his bots). Finally, since the system could control what the good bots said and did, why didn’t it just -tell- the Doctor what was going on?

I really wanted to like this one, but it just irritated and annoyed me all the way through.

[Dave]

Yeah, if it could send a cryptic message to the Doctor there’s no reason why it couldn’t send a clearer message to the human managers, but where would the show be then? An episode short, that’s where.

[Dave]

I hope this was intentional.

[Ben Kirkham]

Think I’ve seen enough of this series to begin forming an opinion and it’s… mixed.

Once you get past the hype of the female Doctor thing (which has worked and not been that big a deal), I can’t find much more to talk about. This series is… fine. It’s just so achingly unambitious. I can’t fault Whittaker’s performance nor can I praise it that much. I can’t say much on the episodes because there isn’t much to say. I don’t love it, I don’t hate it. A strange feeling. Particularly after so many years of Moffat, where I *always* at least had something to say about the episodes. For example, I love Heaven Sent and I despise Hell Bent, but at least there’s something to say about it. But I feel guilty because I feel I’m being unfair. It’s definitely going down the populist route which I completely approve of. Moffat’s era had become too inaccessible.

But surely some real jeopardy would help with things. But it’s a new team getting started. I’m hopeful that things will get better and better.

[Ben Kirkham]

Oh, love the theme tune, love the title sequence. The TARDIS interior will grow on me.

[Ian Symes]

Kerblam! would have been a decent run-of-the-mill mid-series episode in any other series, and is therefore one of the better episodes of this one.

[NoFro]

I like the new opening sequence/theme in isolation but I don’t feel that they suit the tone of this season at all.

[Ben Saunders]

Kerblam! was alright, I agree with Symes. Tinges of The Greatest Show In The Galaxy (post-bot delivers to the TARDIS), The Sun Makers (capitalism planet), The Robots of Death (take a guess) and even The Armageddon Factor (characters on a conveyor belt about to be incinerated).

I really liked the Kerblam 1.0 robot, it was cute, Lee Mack was much better in this than he is in Not Going Out but wasn’t really given much to do. Tosin still cannot act and Jodie still comes off a bit CBBC.

I liked how the Doctor was wrong to suspect the evil boss man trope, that was a nice subversion. The little romance was yeugh. Killing the dude was brutal and Yaz wanting to give the necklace to Lee’s daughter was touching.

I liked the Doctor’s “it’s not the system, it’s the people abusing the system” speech a lot because I agree with it (mostly), but I’ve seen some people criticise it as pro-capitalism (no comment on whether being pro-capitalism is a bad thing)

[Ben Saunders]

Oh, is it just me or is Ryan’s dyspraxia dealt with in a sort of… condescending way? “I can’t do it/yes you can” (he does it) doesn’t seem very realistic and a bit like telling somebody with depression to just cheer up

[Ian Symes]

I was reminded of The Sun Makers too, but without the villain that looks like Iain Duncan Smith or people gleefully throwing someone off a tall building.

[Dave]

Apparently Amazon Prime in the US have leaked next week’s episode ahead of time, running it in place of *Kerblam!* by mistake.

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/11/amazon-accidentally-leaked-next-weeks-doctor-who-episode/

At least it’s not only Red Dwarf that has these problems.

[Jonsmad]

Doesnt really matter what episode they leak when a series mostly feels like youve seen it all before. Glad some casual viewers, female veiwers, new viewers and more are enjoying the lightness of what the shows become. I see ratings are up, it’s all nicely shot and i still love jodie Whitaker who i liked in Good vibrations and a few other shows/films before Dr who. She’s a bit tenant bit davison, I believe she is the dr, no issue. But then i didnt mind romana in dr who, or the sarah jane adventures which this show is now mostly like.

setting the show in a space warehouse, i got echoes of paradise towers, and as i work in warehousing
found it the dullest dr who ever committed to screen. Not least because it has things that fucking teleport it in, yet you still need convayer belts moving stuff around, what a stupid load of wank.

Si who else was in hyper drive, who and dwarf? which certainly isnt a holy trinity. its an akward threesome.

[si]

Maggie Service was in Doctor Who: Deep Breath, played Rachel in Samsara, and was assorted voices in Hyperdrive. Now we’ve got Kevin Eldon joining the club.

[tombow]

It’s just occured to me that it really is like ..a stereotypical Yorkshire/northen DW series. Like, slow paced, gentle, Sunday evening..like it’s Heart Beat gone sci fi. And the Dr is a cross between Victoria Wood and Mork.

[Ian Symes]

Maggie Service was in Doctor Who: Deep Breath, played Rachel in Samsara, and was assorted voices in Hyperdrive. Now we’ve got Kevin Eldon joining the club.

And with this I realise it’s a scandal that Morwenna Banks has never been in Doctor Who.

[Ben Kirkham]

I really hope that these rumours about Chibnall and Whittaker aren’t true. There’s a huge amount of potential in the new team and it would seem such a shame if they don’t get at least three series for the 13th Doctor.

[Ben Kirkham]

A bit like the Red Dwarf 1-VI ‘bubble,’ I like to think of the first seven Doctors (and, at a pinch, number eight) as existing in their own little bubble. I love 21st Century Doctor Who, but I grew up watching the classic series, and it’s untouchable (even the bad bits!).

[bloodteller]

I checked out the first episode of this out of boredom, and honestly I thought it was a bit rubbish. I’m not really into Doctor Who that much (except the movie with Paul McGann, that’s great) so I don’t really know what I was expecting, but it was all a bit off. The villain being called Tim Shaw for some reason was weird and then they sort of try to make a joke of it but don’t, the weird emphasis on the Doctor saying “You had no right do do that” when the construction worker with self-esteem issues kicks Tim off the edge of the crane,and the dialogue throughout just felt really unnatural. That said, I did like the twist of Ryan’s v-log at the beginning of the episode actually being about his grandma, rather than the Doctor as you’re led to expect. All in all though, didn’t really settle with me, although I didn’t really expect it to going in so that might have soured my opinion of it

I’d totally watch it if they bring back Chang Lee though

[Warbodog]

‘Tim Shaw’ was a deflating anglicisation of his similar-sounding, generically alien name. I liked the gag, but just realised it’s the same as someone “hilariously” mispronouncing an Asian person’s name. And the equally generic name and design of his species were played straight.

[Ben Saunders]

His name wasn’t actually Tim Shaw?! I thought it was. Also thought making fun of his name at that moment completely deflated all tension in the way many people on here complain about making fun of the villains in Dwarf

[Warbodog]

Apparently Tzim-Sha. If those aliens return, as their namedrop in episode 2 suggests, I expect they’d reprise it. “I am Kree’grott.” “Craig Rudd?”

[Ben Saunders]

Is it too late to ask them not to?

[Dave]

I enjoyed it tonight. A decent plot, some good historical stuff and some genuinely quite scary baddies – there was a fair bit of eye-covering and “tell me when this bit has finished” in our house.

(And that was just me etc.)

[si]

Tonight’s was an absolute cracker. Loved it.

[Dave]

Alan Cumming gave *exactly* the kind of performance you want from a guest-star. Loads of fun.

[NoFro]

It’s actually getting to be quite funny that every episode since Chibnall stopped penning has been really quite good.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I said last week that Kerblam was exactly what you want from a Doctor Who episode, and this week was exactly the same.

I even think for the first time the pacing was right, I was bored, the mystery unfolded hitting beats at all the right time. There wasn’t really anything superfluous going on. Team Tardis all got involved and had stuff to do.

The aliens were intriguing, though I wish we had a little more from them as to their history, why they were in that prison etc rather than just guess work from the Doctor.

And it would have been nice if the Doctor had tried to do a little more than lock them back in their prison. Like, remove them from the planet entirely and get them out of that hill so they don’t potentially pose a danger to anyone else in the future.

Speaking of which, how many aliens or other species have been living underground in the earth for as long as it has existed now?

The Racnoss

Silurian

This weeks lot (forget their name now, Mortocks?)

Oh, and Alan Cumming was great – the most memorably of the guest characters this series I think.

[si]

Pretty much what I thought.
My Tweet just after it ended:

They got that bang on tonight, for me. Good story, nice plot, well paced. Plenty of wit without being stupid, well-realised alien menace, with something decent for everyone to do. Great stuff. #DoctorWho

[Ben Saunders]

I’ve just started it and I can’t get this feeling of “I fucking hate Doctor Who” out of my mind, I’m having trouble paying attention because my expectations are so low I feel like if I give it the time of day it will only disappoint me. Here’s hoping I’ve changed my tune 50 minutes from now.

[Warbodog]

Perfect historical setting for the Doctor’s gender to make a difference – which you don’t want to overdo, but needed to happen this year – but I don’t think they made the most of that. She’s been tied to stakes and accused of that stuff before when she looked like Tom Baker anyway. It was fine, but I was quite bored.

[Ben Saunders]

That was shite. What have they done to Doctor Who?

They must have spent a fortune constantly replacing the scenery for this episode with Alan Cumming chewing it all to fucking bits. Bit OTT, for me. He’s Scottish, isn’t he, but so am I and I’ve never heard that accent before. What is that supposed to be?
Why is the Doctor of all people surprised the 1700s is a bit shit for women? You could say she’s never been a woman before so never had to deal with it, but then she wasn’t black either and was still aware of racism in Alabama in the 50s. She would know, and really stuff like this should have come up all the time with companions in the past.
The villain’s voice was lame.
The granddaughter smiling as she delivered her “it’s not me I swear” line was super odd, another take maybe.

What is WITH The Doctor being so strange with getting angry at the person who kicked the monster she just BLEW UP off a crane and the King torching the “witch”, and with her highly questionable method of dealing with those spiders? Is this going to pay off in the finale with her getting her shit flung back at her or is it just consistently bad writing?

This is the first episode ever where I’ve genuinely considered just not coming back next week.

Graham is still the only good thing about this series, along with some, but not all, of the music. Tosin better take some acting lessons if he’s coming back for the next series.

People in the past were thick, weren’t they? The drowning test for witches is just bonkers, but I guess that actually happened so it’s not exactly a criticism of the show.

“Would you prefer a hanging?”
… Yeah, isn’t drowning worse than hanging?

>She’s been tied to stakes and accused of that stuff before when she looked like Tom Baker anyway
Yeah that line about “if I was a bloke everybody would believe me” just had me thinking pffff, are you sure? Do you not remember, for example, Black Orchid?

[tombow]

I think Alan Cumming’s accent was possibly meant to be an authentic 1700s accent – there’s been some stuff on TV recently on how linguists are figuring out how people sounded then, based on the word patterns and rhymes in stuff like Shakespeare’s poems and plays. Kind of precise English crossed with Yorkshire crossed with modern day rural american.

incidentally – I’ve never understood why people complained about stuff like, Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. I believe it’s a lot more possible that a middle ages outlaw would have sounded like Kevin Costner than, Patrick Stewart say. (not that we would have understood them anyway)

[tombow]

oh, I just saw the Girl Who Died/ Woman Who Lived for the first time. Wow, I think that competes with Silence in the Library for my favourite nu Who episodes. Not looking forward to the Zygons ones next though. The trailer looks like Sontaran Stratagem which were my least favorite episodes. I least, I think they were, I can’t really remember them. At least the Osgoods are going to be in this one.

[Ben Saunders]

I really disliked Girl Who Died but thought Woman Who Lived made up for it, it was a nice slow one with some haunting ruminations on the curse of immortality, after a noncey jape of an episode I didn’t care for. I also remember the Zygon two-parter actually being quite good, basically making up for the unnecessary inclusion of the Zygons in Day of the Doctor which just felt tacked on, at the time.

[Dave]

“Noncey jape”?

[Warbodog]

The Zygon episodes were kind of the inversion of the ‘Human Nature’ two-parter for me – when I first realised I actually cared about this show and wasn’t just watching for the hell of it (followed immediately by ‘Blink’ that sealed the deal).

I felt out of touch with the consistently rave reviews series 9 was getting, calling it the best ever. There’s only one episode I thought was that good. But we all have our disproportionately beloved eras and styles.

[Author]

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