Russell Two Davies

[Nick R]

Apparently, today there was some news about a change to Doctor Who’s production staff, in some obscure behind-the-scenes role. I don’t know if anyone else heard about it?

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

OK, let’s do a Season 2 episode ranking!

1 – Lux

2 – I don’t care

3 – Eating my own shit

4 – The Reality War

[Dave]

1 – The Interstellar Song Contest

2 – The Well

3 – Er, Lux, I guess?

4 – Krytie TV

5 – Timewave

6 – Pete Part Two

7 – Wish World

8 – The Reality War

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> I don’t think Doctor Who’s financing issues fully crystalised until seeing this episode. Disney’s money wasn’t a boon, it was clearly just keeping them above water. Why else would we spent most of the time in this exact same UNIT command centre set, for the third finale in a row?! Along with similar supporting casts, it makes these stories feel way too samey.

I’ve had this feeling about sets I’ve not been quite able to put into words but I’ll try here. They’ve clearly spent a lot of money on UNIT HQ, hence why they’re using it so much. But then you could say the same about the TARDIS and that’s basically never used at all.  If anything that’s been a complete waste of a sound stage.

Every other episode have this huge single room sets built that everyone sort of just stands in. They look flash but they really pull away from the show by being too big.  Not that this hasn’t happened, but I’m sort of used to multi room sets with running around between them, maybe with a sprinkling of some cool location shooting etc.  Take something like The Well, and it start in a quarry and then is 40mins in the same room standing starring at a deaf girl.

Whatever Disney money they’ve had has either been pumped into months spending building huge sets or if you’re Reality War, turning the UNIT HQ building into some sort of giant tank to fight off monsters.  Even Boom, which ostensibly should have been the cheapest episode, used that massive screen thing and spent a movie budget filming that opening few seconds in that village/market place thing.

I wonder if RTDs brief from the BBC was to make DW more like Marvel in a bid to match modern sensibilities.

[Dave]

I wonder if RTDs brief from the BBC was to make DW more like Marvel in a bid to match modern sensibilities.

Wherever it came from, it feels very much as though Marvel is the model that is being emulated for Doctor Who. Both in terms of direct visual and story influences (Unit HQ is Avengers Tower, zooming around the giant skeleton creatures on a hover scooter is the finale of Avengers 1 etc.) and the strategy for spinoffs and extended-universe stuff.

[Nick R]

I couldn’t watch the episode on Saturday because iPlayer (and Disney+) suddenly decided to falsely believe that I’m not in the UK. (My ISP said I’m not the only one who’s reported it and they’re looking into it; I reported the issue on the iPlayer contact form but haven’t had a response; Disney+ were able to immediately resolve the issue within a five minutes phone call by whitelisting my IP address.)

So, I wasn’t able to watch it until last night. Luckily, I almost completely avoided spoilers. While flicking channels on Saturday I happened to overhear three seconds of the news saying something like “… eighteen episodes later, he was leaving…” before I quickly turned it off, but his departure was something that had been strongly rumoured anyway. But the episode’s two big surprise cameos remained unspoiled.

So I ended up watching the episode last night at my mum’s. The only Doctor Who episodes she’s seen since The Giggle are Boom and the two Christmas specials, and so I watched the episode with one eye on how how little sense it was making to her. And surprisingly, I think not having seen the preceding episodes was not as big an impediment to following what was going on as you’d imagine! The episode lets you pick up the main things you need to know: there’s a villain with an evil plan, there’s a baby who’s not real but her mother believes she’s real and then everyone forgets her but the Doctor brings her back… what more do you need? :)

The finale really was an episode that changed completely halfway through. The first section was pretty much what I’ve come to accept I’m getting from an RTD finale: a mess of stuff going on at a breakneck pace that I know I just have to let wash over me. UNIT implants microchips into everyone and can build their own Pandorica now? Why not! The Vindicator can be used as a weapon now? Why not! (I did like the return of the time hotel, though.)

Then, as soon as the two Ranis are out of the way and Omega is forced back behind the seal… there’s still about half the episode left to go. And the episode takes a big turn into something that I’m not sure is really much better than the first half, but it is much more interesting.

I dunno. Maybe the pleasant surprise of seeing the 13th Doctor again has a lot to do with it, but for all the completely valid criticisms of the episode, I quite liked it.

Quinn posted above about RTD making it feel more like Marvel. The stuff about Poppy being a child of a magical false reality, but her parents treating her as real and trying to recover her after the destruction of that reality, has a lot in common with Wandavision/Multiverse of Madness/Agatha All Along.

Ranking, including the Christmas special:

1. Cuphead Starring Alan Cumming

2. Christmas Time Hotel

3. Anansi Gets a Haircut

4. My Broken Mug Bin is Getting Very Full

5. Midnight 2: Extra Rules But Diminishing Returns

6. Finale Second Half: Remember Poppy?

7. Star Registry Certificates are a Waste of Money

8. “I’m Not Saying I Always Agree With Joe Rogan, But He Makes Some Interesting Points”

9. Space Eurovision

10. Finale First Half: UNIT Tower Goes Pew Pew

[Ridley]

 6. Finale Second Half: Remember Poppy?

Poppy Fascism

[sleepey]

S-tier: the bit in Song Contest where everyone floats up into space, the bit in Reality War with the coat

A-tier: The Story & The Engine, Wish World

B-tier: Robot Revolution, The Well, Joy to the World

C-tier: Lux, Lucky Day, Song Contest, Reality War

[Asclepius]

8/10 – A good story with something special to it.

Dot and Bubble

Lucky Day

7/10  – Solid, good stories, no issues with these

Devil’s Chord

Boom

73 Yards (would have been 8, but for the confusing ending)

Legend of Ruby Sunday

Joy to the World

Robot Revolution

The Well

Story and the Engine

Song Contest

Wish World

Reality War

6/10  – Weaker stories, but fairly solid

Ruby Road

Space Babies

Rogue

Lux

4/10

Empire of Death

[Renegade Rob]

Gonna borrow the A.V. Club’s Doctor Who ranking metric for these personal 15th Doctor episode rankings:

Stone-Cold Classic: “Rogue,” “The Story & the Engine,” “The Interstellar Song Contest”

Not Perfect But Still Pretty Great: “Boom,” “73 Yards,” “Dot and Bubble,” “The Robot Revolution,” “Lux,” “The Well”

Solid Enough If Generally Unremarkable: “Space Babies,” “Joy to the World”

Some Interesting Ideas But Seriously Flawed: “The Church on Ruby Road,” “Lucky Day,” “Wish World/The Reality War”

What Was That I Don’t Even…: “The Devil’s Chord,” “The Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death”

So some clunkers to be sure but a full third of his episodes fell into the “Not Perfect But Still Pretty” great category. On average, decisively still more than a wash, I think. 

[Ben Saunders]

I probably enjoyed Joy to the World most, it’s definitely when I most vibed with Ncuti’s performance. It kind of falls apart a little towards the soppy ending, but it’s Christmas innit. I did not care for the Time Hotel returning in the finale, it was a Deus Ex Machina and they managed to make one of my favourite side characters really annoying.

[Renegade Rob]

If this really is the end of this contiguous “modern” run of the show, it’s kind of neat that it made it to seven modern doctors, with the seventh of these hanging out with Mel and the Rani, so Ncuti really is the Sylvester McCoy of modern Who. 

(Which would make Billie Piper the Paul McGann of modern Who, which is still hard to wrap my head around.)

[Ridley]

To be fair, the show may benefit from an Xtended resting period.

[Renegade Rob]

Yeah, I don’t hate that idea. I actually really love the MCU and appreciated the (admittedly pandemic-assisted) break we got after Endgame, but I think creatively it would’ve benefitted the MCU more to literally just pump the brakes until the real world caught up with the five-year time jump. They even admitted recently they’d prioritized quantity over quality and were course-correcting. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a creative project you love is to just let it lie for a bit and relax and breathe. 

[Dave]

They even admitted recently they’d prioritized quantity over quality and were course-correcting.

Unfortunately Doctor Who has managed to reduce the quantity at the same time as the quality has gone downhill. So it’s the worst of all worlds: terrible food, and such small portions.

[Flap Jack]

If this really is the end of this contiguous “modern” run of the show,
it’s kind of neat that it made it to seven modern doctors, with the
seventh of these hanging out with Mel and the Rani, so Ncuti really is
the Sylvester McCoy of modern Who.

And he’s Scottish and everything.

Funny that this comparison means the equivalent to the Fifteenth Doctor’s climactic final story is the Seventh Doctor’s overtly silly and heavily panned debut story. Though I still haven’t seen Time and the Rani myself, so I’ll just have to take it on trust that the 2 stories are roughly the same quality.

But the snag is there have really only been 6 modern Doctors in the proper “permanent lead of the show” sense. Despite being ordained with a number, I group Fourteen with War, Fugitive, the Valeyard, the Morbiuses, the Dream Lord etc.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

To try and be positive for a moment.  For all its flaws, I’ve enjoyed it much more under RTD2 than Chibnal, and I’ve enjoyed talking about it as well as slagging it off. 

I’ve enjoyed watching Ncuti and Millie. Varada is love to say I’ve enjoyed watching but I don’t really feel I’ve actually seen her doing anything. 

I’ve really enjoyed like, 50% of the episodes. Let’s see

The Giggle

Church of Ruby Road

Boom

73 Yards

Dot and Bubble

Joy to the World

Lux

The Well

Interstellar Song Contest

9/21 are all episodes I’ll really look forward to revisiting 

and I enjoyed and will rewatched 

The Star Beast

Rogue

The Robot Revolution

Wish World / Reality War – they suck but were fun if you stop thinking about them too hard. As opposed to the S01 final 2 part which just sucked. I might not rewatch them much but definitely more so than some.

I’ll never rewatch Chibnal’s run. I did that on the run up to the 2023 specials and hated it

I’m also quite likely to skip over most of the first series of Tennant’s run. 

And I mostly always struggle with the Classic era

I really love NPH as Toy Maker. 

I don’t like Devil’s Chord much but Jinkx was absolutely brilliant 

Archie Punjabi was entertaining to watch

Antia (when paired with Archie) was a joy

I’m glad we have two more Moffat penned episodes 

I’m glad we got the 13 and 15 interaction  

I’m glad we’ve had a very different type of Doctor, and a very different actor playing the Doctor. It will have pissed a lot of people off having a black, camp, emotional Doctor and it would have been worth doing it for that.

It might have swung and missed a lot, but it tried a lot of new things.

it also just been a lot of fun watching it and discussing it hear and in Discord

I stopped watching because of Chibnal’s writing, I came back because of RTD. It’s been a hot mess, but it’s been fun too.

[Ridley]

I’m glad we got the 13 and 15 interaction

It’s thematically Interesting that we got the unambiguously gay Doctors talking to each other about a bi-generation.

As much as this run has bounced around quality-wise, with Davies there’s always a feeling of “Oh well, there’s always the next one” where with Chibnall it was “Ugh, it’s still going.”

[Dave]

It will have pissed a lot of people off having a black, camp, emotional Doctor and it would have been worth doing it for that.

I used to feel a bit like this, and was excited about Gatwa’s casting – and on balance I think he did a reasonable job with what he was given, which was mostly too little to do anything really interesting with.

But ultimately I’ve ended up feeling like all of this culture-war stuff around the show, no matter how well-intentioned, has become a distraction – and one that RTD has leant into heavily in his new era, presumably as part of a strategy to get more interest in the series.

But I think it’s ended up feeling tiresome for most people: only the people at the extremes of the political spectrum are really going to care about the point-scoring, the vast majority of audiences just want the show to provide good, well-written, engaging, imaginative storytelling. Ideally with the kind of natural, organic inclusivity and progressiveness that was such a hallmark of his first era.

But unfortunately, while chasing the big flashy opportunities offered by the Disney money, I think it’s those basic nuts-and-bolts areas where RTD has taken his eye off the ball in the past couple of seasons, after starting off pretty well with the 60th anniversary specials. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my standout favourite episodes of this run, which I think would hold up in any era, have been Boom and Interstellar Song Contest – both of which were notably led by other writers.

[Ben Saunders]

I for one would like for things to be woke AND good.

[Dave]

I for one would like for things to be woke AND good.

Yeah, exactly. No fan of the show is going to argue against it being progressive and inclusive, it’s the quality of the stories that they haven’t given enough attention to – and that’s what’s going to make audiences turn away whether they care about sticking it to the anti-woke crowd or not.

[Flap Jack]

I for one would like for things to be woke AND good.

[Ridley]

and one that RTD has leant into heavily in his new era, presumably as part of a strategy to get more interest in the series.

I think he’s just angry and vocal and getting to do it on Disney’s dime.

Thus the Wish World storybook being a faux Harry Potter sleeve.

And there definitely will be a fan or two somewhere being against it being progressive and inclusive. *waves arm in general direction of the sci-fi genre*

[Technopeasant]

It might have swung and missed a lot, but it tried a lot of new things.

Genuine question, but what exactly? As a non-viewer all I’ve heard is Davies recycling his old ideas and when not doing that cribbing other eras for good measure. Possibly just those are what gets the headlines but that is very much my impression.

If he insists on these stunt regenerations then do the decent thing and bring McGann back…

[Ben Saunders]

Barry Letts my beloved.

Genuine question, but what exactly?

Lux was pretty novel, which is why it’s my favourite of the Gatwa era. The Time Hotel one felt pretty novel too, but that wasn’t RTD. Story and the Engine was also pretty novel, again not RTD and it did feel a bit… off, but it was at least something fresh. The leaning into Gods and fantasy and goblins and shit felt pretty fresh and exciting to begin with, but got old pretty fast. The Devil’s Chord was pretty fresh and novel but I fucking hated it.

Things don’t have to be novel to be good, you can make a “trad” episode and have it be excellent. The Visitation is possibly the most paint-by-numbers episode you could possibly imagine but I still love it because it’s just executed very well.

[Renegade Rob]

Genuine question, but what exactly? As a non-viewer all I’ve heard is Davies recycling his old ideas and when not doing that cribbing other eras for good measure. 

It was legitimately refreshing to see him bring in new energy/writers (The Story & the Engine especially, also The Interstellar Song Contest), and wouldn’t you know, those were two of the era’s best episodes. And look, I don’t need the show to be big-budget, and the best Who stories have probably all been shot on a shoe-string budget in a gravel quarry and/or the basement of a Cardiff stadium. But, props where they’re due, you could see the dollarpounds on the screen in the sets and effects, and having the level of actual production value approaching the level of story ambition in an episode of Doctor Who is a novelty that I’ve genuinely enjoyed seeing at least once. Do I need it all the time? No. Is it still dope watching him fly a scooter through a Bone Beast. Yes. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Not just ideas in the episodes themselves, there’s also things like just the general tone of the show. Using a lot of music (which sure he used popular music in his first run, but I’m talking full on song and dance numbers), being generally more whimsical, fantastical, not getting bogged down in “hard” sci-fi.  It got silly at times, but having a Doctor not afraid to cry. 

Redesigned (and not often used) sonic screwdriver. No one costume for Ncuti, but most certainly a look and a vibe.

I wouldn’t say he did anything as bold as Chibnal rewriting the Doctor’s entire history, but I think he generally succeeded in refreshing the show to be more entertaining compared to what I see as a dark, gritty, serious, run under Chibnal. 

[si]

I’d just like to share the theory I put forward as a joke yesterday that Billie is, in fact, playing herself.
I thought of it as a ridiculous joke, the very idea of RTD doing such a thing would piss fandom off beyond belief, but the more I think about the utter batshit-ness of it, combined with the fact that Billie has no given character name, the more I actually think that it’s exactly the sort of thing Rusty would do.

[Renegade Rob]

Billie looks great, but my hand to God, I didn’t recognize her right away and I was like wait, is that Rachel McAdams or Kylie Minogue? And then I saw Billie’s name and I’m like… yep okay that makes way more sense. All good options in their own way, really. 

[Nick R]

I’d just like to share the theory I put forward as a joke yesterday that Billie is, in fact, playing herself.
I thought of it as a ridiculous joke, the very idea of RTD doing such a thing would piss fandom off beyond belief, but the more I think about the utter batshit-ness of it, combined with the fact that Billie has no given character name, the more I actually think that it’s exactly the sort of thing Rusty would do.

Someone on Reddit suggested the same thing… with the additional detail that she’s playing herself as a way of leading into the Unleashed special that will interview various previous companions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/1l1t9nd/horrible_theory_about_the_cliffhanger/

[si]

Ah, Reddit user posted it 18hrs ago, I posted mine 21 hours ago THUS I WIN.

Their idea that a work of fiction will lead into a documentary is stupid, though.

[Ridley]

Sort of works with the bending of reality, mind.

[Renegade Rob]

Hey, if the Anita Dobson Rani can break the fourth wall for an as-of-now unexplained reason, Billie “Bad Wolf aka The Moment” Piper certainly can.  

[Ben Saunders]

Some of you are on the “bargaining” phase, I see.

[Asclepius]

Paul Margs is a Doctor Who author who’s well respected in the world, and was also the guy who managed to coax Tom Baker back into doing the audios. He’s made a video about how he think the ending was meant to go before Millie Gibson didn’t remain for Series 2. It makes a *lot* of sense. And would have been amazing. The explanation only takes 3 minutes of your life…

[Renegade Rob]

Thank you for sharing that! I too subscribe to his theory now that it was the original intention at some point, and also wonder/hope if there’s a way it might still be in play in-universe in some partial capacity. It would explain why Ruby could make it snow and why the Maestro reacted to Ruby in that specific way. Adding that to my headcanon now. (The pointing stuff with the birth mom was so dumb, and Ruby’s dad is apparently literally named Garnet, so I always figured there was more to that flimsy-ass story.)

[Dave]

That’s a really solid theory actually. It could have all tied up very nicely.

[Asclepius]

That’s a really solid theory actually. It could have all tied up very nicely.

It was probably meant to.

The snow thing as Rob pointed out above is a really good point too.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think that’s occurred to a lot of people. Something needed to tie it all together and that kid would have made the most sense. 

The 7th son of a 7th son of a 7th son is actually a girl named ~~Bob~~ Ruby

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, interesting idea. Ruby being part of the pantheon would explain why Sutekh is self-sabotagingly curious about Ruby’s bio-mum too. I don’t think it would have made the story arcs of Seasons 1 and 2 great – I automatically take against any story arc that takes multiple series to tell – but it would have elevated it to base level coherence for sure.

[Renegade Rob]

I automatically take against any story arc that takes multiple series to tell

But the Silence arc was so seamlessly executed tho

[Flap Jack]

You know, I just realised how many different directions Ncuti’s pre-regeneration lines could have potentially gone in.

[Renegade Rob]

For the splittiest of split seconds where I thought Billie was Kylie, part of me thought ohh… they’re gonna explain that by showing that the teleported Astrid particles from Voyage of the Damned found their way to 15 and joined into him for the regeneration like the Watcher in Logopolis. 

[Flap Jack]

What would have been more controversial – the 16th Doctor being played by a former multi-series companion, or the 16th Doctor being played by an Australian?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Struth, a Dalek!

[Renegade Rob]

[Dave]

Superb.

[Ben Saunders]

But the Silence arc was so seamlessly executed tho

Silence arc was also cut a season short by the lead actor suddenly deciding to leave a series early.

[Renegade Rob]

But the Silence arc was so seamlessly executed tho

Silence arc was also cut a season short by the lead actor suddenly deciding to leave a series early.

I was so furious when that happened and was like “You traitor, what the fuck even is Guardians of the Galaxy,” and then I saw Guardians of the Galaxy and it’s like okay okay, fine, good career move. And then Nebula became a legit Avenger in Endgame. So it’s like, okay, maybe you know what you’re doing. Objection retracted.

It is a legitimate downer though that the Ponds (and also River wtf) aren’t around in Time of the Doctor to see through the war they’re all casualties of, and only a S7 pre-actual-personality Clara is around to react to a war in which she has no dog in that fight. 

[Flap Jack]

OK, I hope this won’t harm my feminist credentials, but I don’t think Karen Gillan was ever “the lead actor” of Doctor Who.

If Steven Moffat was depending on there being at least 4 Matt Smith series to finish the Silence arc satisfactorily, that’s definitely his fault and not Smith’s. That goes well beyond optimism and lands in hubris.

It’s so frustrating that Davies would end up relying on these drawn out mystery boxes, because in his first era RTD was the only one who pretty much nailed series arcs. Eccleston left earlier than planned, and it still worked because Nine had a complete character arc in that one series, and there weren’t any major plot threads left open to resolve later. But instead of sticking to what he knew worked from experience when he returned, Davies copied the bad habits of his successors.

Admittedly Series 1 wasn’t 100% self-contained, because of the “Captain Jack left behind” loose end, but that was never positioned as a central mystery. 

[Ben Saunders]

I meant Matt Smith lol. Time of the Doctor has to wrap up a whole lot of shit because he decided to go make Terminator Genisys.

[Author]

Replies