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

[Technopeasant]

These episodes look SO good, but I’d rather the budget be spent on more episodes than adding more robots and special effects. Thirteen episodes per season, is that really too much to ask for? 

–

[Rudolph]

Seventeen minutes in to episode one. He’s bloody crying again!

The crying didn’t really bother me last season, as I barely noticed it, but I did let out an involuntary “for fucks sake…” when he did it this time.

Don’t worry, Doctor. Sasha 55 will be back for about a dozen Big Finish boxsets in 2029.

[Dave]

I thought The Well was the best episode of this series so far, which isn’t saying much, but it was a decent enough slice of space horror that felt more like an old RTD episode than anything else in the Gatwa era so far.

Having said that, it felt a little bit thin – outside of the central ‘clock’ setpiece, nothing much else happened – and the big masterstroke moment of defeat wasn’t set up thoroughly enough for it to feel as clever as it thought it was.

But for me, the main weakness of this episode is the link to [SPOILER]. I feel like it used that as a crutch and would have been better as a completely standalone adventure. Both episodes end up feeling a little bit weaker now as a result.

[Dave]

Also, every death in this episode felt like this:

[Stabbim the Skutter]

CONTENTS: 2

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I really enjoyed it. Suitably creepy and mysterious and really well put together. The performance from the actor playing Aliss was superb. 

I don’t mind at all it’s linked to Midnight. It both expand and gives us nothing new all at once. It’s just these creepy unknown.

Something I’ve not seen mentioned elsewhere, although I’ve not been looking too hard. The thing being directly behind someone, is positioning you as if that person had their back to you, which is something deaf people have to contend with daily and Aliss even had to chastise the Doctor for. 

The ending with the shooting of Bel seemed a bit … we need a higher stakes ending. And I’ve seen a lot of comments to the effect that if the thing was in the pod with the other 3, it could be their own paranoia manifesting a “second” thing, which didn’t really exist. 

[Flap Jack]

I can’t believe they Epideme-d the Midnight entity.

[Renegade Rob]

I like this season a lot so far and The Well definitely continues that streak. (SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 3)

I’ve seen Midnight enough times that the casual reference to the dead star formerly being Xtonic immediately made me go “oh shittttttttttttt.” I guess people heard rumblings beforehand that there would be a Midnight sequel but I’m really glad I went into that blind. That whole scene with the carbon and diamonds and the Doctor slowly realizing it’s the same planet, it felt that scene was designed specifically for me. It was like those beautifully rare moments in Ace Attorney where the characters and the players figure out the twist at the exact same time. 

[sleepey]

If the planet & monster are completely different now then what’s the actual point of it being Midnight? I did like the episode overall but that + the Toxic callback just felt a bit desperate

[Renegade Rob]

I saw RTD explain in a behind-the-scenes clip that originally he and the co-writer were planning on the encounter being a particular spirit from African religion, with the original concept slightly more mystical, but ultimately it fell through when they realized they weren’t going to be able to translate an actual current religious entity into a Doctor Who monster and still be respectful. But the concept they had of the spirit had enough synergy with the Midnight entity that RTD realized they could substitute it. 

[Dave]

But the concept they had of the spirit had enough synergy with the Midnight entity that RTD realized they could substitute it. 

That explains why it isn’t really anything like the creature we experience in Midnight, I suppose.

[Flap Jack]

The Doctor realising that they’re on Midnight works well as an “oh SHIT” moment that caused him and others to suddenly treat the situation even more seriously and urgently, but it didn’t feel like it added much for it to literally be the same entity in both episodes. I wasn’t even convinced that it was the same entity, given that the only similarities were that it was invisible and it attacked people psychologically. On that basis, maybe the under the bed monster from Listen was actually the Midnight entity on holiday?

[Renegade Rob]

Yeah, it’s not a perfect one-to-one substitution but for my money it’s still a good episode and decent sequel. I still have a lot of questions. Like if they were in a flat open field full of people, like an outdoor music festival, and the entity was “behind” the host, how many people behind the host would get ejected and die? Like if the host is the center of the clock, how long and how wide is the entity’s “minute-hand” influence, and if multiple people were behind the host in a line, would they all get thrown at once or would it be one at a time as it went further and further back?

[Flap Jack]

It seems like dying is related to being able to clearly see the entity? So I assume people would get thrown one by one, and only up to a certain distance. 73 yards, perhaps.

I have other questions though, like could the entity be made “safe” if someone just stood back to back with Aliss? And what happens when Aliss lies down?

[Renegade Rob]

If she’s lying prone, facing down, then they’ll have to designate a no-fly zone in the 6-foot radius directly above her, and if she ever rolls over in her sleep, then god help anyone nearby. There’s zero chance the military won’t try to weaponize a host, they just unleash this random person and tell it to turn their back on their enemy, like weaponizing the joke in that Monty Python sketch. My other issue is, I guess the monster “had” to attack itself when it got reflected on itself, like it wasn’t just playing a creepy game and didn’t have the option to not hit itself, if that’s even what was happening? It’s still vague and mysterious so they get away with it, but when the mercury was released to make the mirror it would’ve been funny if it was like, “Yeah, very clever, but I can still actively choose to not hit things if I don’t feel like it, so nice try.” 

[sleepey]

I thought the idea was that you need someone in front and behind to set it off? To pin it between perspectives so it can’t be behind her both ways. She spins around at one point & it’s fine, so I assume lying down wouldn’t be an issue unless she was on top of someone.

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, makes sense I guess. The entity just moves so it’s “behind” Aliss from the perspective of whomever’s looking at her, even if it means technically being in front of her sometimes, and only kills when it can’t hide from everyone at once.

So it was actually crucial that they added the “taunting whispers that drive you mad” aspect to the entity, because if they didn’t, you could have easily interpreted it as innocent. That it couldn’t live without a host, and was cursed to kill anyone who fully observed it, but was desperately trying to hurt as few people as possible by always hiding.

But now I wonder, if Aliss was already being observed from the front, and she was wearing a big hiking backpack, would the entity be behind the backpack, or would it be between the backpack and back?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I honestly thought the doctor was going to back her against a wall at one point to trap it. And honestly I don’t know why he did that least out less space behind her so people couldn’t accidentally step into the creatures grasp

[Ben Saunders]

Well, that was decent. A bit Satan Pit, I liked the link to Midnight. Didn’t really care about the lady sacrificing herself and thought that the plan to shoot Bel all happened a bit fast and it was odd how they both just agreed to do it without any discussion.

Were they implying that the Midnight entity is one of the gods of the pantheon? The Doctor said some shit about it “playing games” and I thought he was going to challenge it to a game after he said that.

[Ben Saunders]

I said this about Robot Revolution as well but you can really feel the mechanics of RTD’s writing these days, you can tell what he’s doing and how he’s doing it, why he’s doing it etc. There were a couple moments in The Well where I thought “oh, he’s doing RTD trope #714 to make us feel emotion 17.” I don’t know how much of this is because I know the show like the back of my hand or how much of it is actually him being somewhat paint-by-numbers these days.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Rushy]

I said this about Robot Revolution as well but you can really feel the mechanics of RTD’s writing these days, you can tell what he’s doing and how he’s doing it, why he’s doing it etc. There were a couple moments in The Well where I thought “oh, he’s doing RTD trope #714 to make us feel emotion 17.” I don’t know how much of this is because I know the show like the back of my hand or how much of it is actually him being somewhat paint-by-numbers these days.

[Dave]

After a slightly dull start, Lucky Day turned out to be quite an interesting episode. Not quite a Doctor Who adventure, maybe – it reminded me more of the kind of thing they might do in a spinoff like Torchwood – but an interesting way to incorporate these ideas into that world.

[Ridley]

Maybe Kate should have given Ruby Yaz’ number?

Not sure it’s wise of the BBC to suggest its programming amplifies alt-right conspirators though.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

After a slightly dull start, Lucky Day turned out to be quite an interesting episode. Not quite a Doctor Who adventure, maybe – it reminded me more of the kind of thing they might do in a spinoff like Torchwood – but an interesting way to incorporate these ideas into that world.

It did feel a bit like a back door pilot to a UNIt series. 

Also interesting that this wasn’t an RTD episode and it felt like the sort of thing he’d write in and out of Who

[Flap Jack]

Solid Doctor-and-Companion-lite episode, but as they go I definitely preferred Dot and Bubble. It’s just a shame that they still have to do episodes like this when we’re only getting 8 episodes per series. It especially stings when you know that if you’re an RTD companion whose name isn’t “Rose Tyler”, you’re guaranteed gone after 1 series whatever happens.

– I’m glad UNIT have decided to bring back Ruth Madeley over Lenny Rush and Yasmin Finney. Stop employing kids in your paramilitary organisation you freaks.

– Conrad and his “Think Tank” friends may be some of the stupidest Doctor Who characters of all time. Conrad is a true believer in the “no aliens” conspiracy up until the very end, but his big plan involved coaxing UNIT to respond to a fake alien threat, which would only work if aliens were real and UNIT were genuinely fighting them. Alex Jones and David Icke are shaking their heads about how much of a dumbass this guy is.

– Speaking of UNIT, when is Kate getting the sack for her extreme incompetence and frankly unhinged behaviour? If she had just been professional and said “OK, it’s a hoax, let’s leave” and sent the police round later (or just let it lie) then the whole mess could have been avoided. Think Tank had no evidence of a conspiracy, the sticking point was that they kept threatening Conrad with a gun, which was not necessary.

– Minor detail, but The Doctor’s continued insistence on always introducing Belinda with her full name is starting to weird me out.

[sleepey]

I wrote a long reply & then the forums logged me out so I’ll just say I agree with Flap Jack on all points & also shut up about the dead Brigadier

[Dave]

Conrad and his “Think Tank” friends may be some of the stupidest Doctor Who characters of all time. Conrad is a true believer in the “no aliens” conspiracy up until the very end, but his big plan involved coaxing UNIT to respond to a fake alien threat, which would only work if aliens were real and UNIT were genuinely fighting them. Alex Jones and David Icke are shaking their heads about how much of a dumbass this guy is.

Also, in the world of Doctor Who, surely aliens and monsters are well-known and well-documented enough that there couldn’t really be any doubt that at least some of them are real?

[Technopeasant]

Not quite a Doctor Who adventure, maybe

Little anecdote, when we first watched Twentica my remark was “wow, that’s the best episode of Doctor Who I’ve ever seen.” Specifically it reminded me of The Happiness Patrol. It felt a bit busy for a Red Dwarf episode.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Conrad and his “Think Tank” friends may be some of the stupidest Doctor Who characters of all time. Conrad is a true believer in the “no aliens” conspiracy up until the very end, but his big plan involved coaxing UNIT to respond to a fake alien threat, which would only work if aliens were real and UNIT were genuinely fighting them. Alex Jones and David Icke are shaking their heads about how much of a dumbass this guy is.
Also, in the world of Doctor Who, surely aliens and monsters are well-known and well-documented enough that there couldn’t really be any doubt that at least some of them are real?

That’s surely the point though right? He even calls out the names of some like Cybermen and says they’re all costumes. They believe it’s all a big conspiracy despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

[Dave]

Yes, I get that they were claiming that, but it just seems to completely stretch plausibility that regular people could follow that thinking in large numbers, given everything that has happened to the world in the Doctor Who universe.

The point is obviously about how extreme ideas are gaining more mainstream traction in the real world, but in the universe of Doctor Who the idea that aliens aren’t real seems more analogous to wacky fringe ideas like flat-earthers or moon-landing-deniers rather than the kind of more widely-believed Tommy Robinson or Alex Jones type stuff that the episode seemed to be targeting.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s an issue with the Doctor Who Universe in general really isn’t it. Over the decades aliens and alien attacks have become more and more frequent and in plain sight, yet for story telling you kind of need a world / populace that doesn’t know about them otherwise society as a whole would probably completely change 

RTD1 built up a world in which they knew about aliens because it happened so often 

Moffat re-started the ensure universe so that they’d all forget 

he then had it claim that humans regularly just fort about invasions because we can’t handle the idea of it or something. So we ignore them once it’s happened. 

Chibnall just ignore the problem entirely 

RTD has introduced a modern, public facing UNIT to deal with the continued threat but I think you have to take it as that it’s very recent and to humanity the idea of aliens is somehow still very new (the last 20-60 years haven’t really happened) and so there’s still some doubt 

[Flap Jack]

That’s surely the point though right? He even calls out the names of
some like Cybermen and says they’re all costumes. They believe it’s all a
big conspiracy despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

Yes, I mean it’s not a plot hole that he’s so conspiracy brained that he would continue believing regardless of how little sense UNIT’s reaction to him makes. It’s just unusual for a conspiracy theorist character to be a 100% believer while also seemingly understanding that it would be impossible to find actual evidence of the conspiracy, to the point of making the evidence himself to frame his target.

You’d usually have Conspiracy Theorist Type A, who fully believes and gets themselves into danger trying to pull the masks off of real aliens, or you’d have Conspiracy Theorist Type B, who knows the conspiracy isn’t real but spreads the theory for some other personal benefit, and they’d be the one planting fake evidence. Get you a nutjob who can do both, I guess.

[Flap Jack]

Also wanted to mention, I watched this video by Mr TARDIS recently (whose work I do recommend, if you don’t know of him), which is about how all over the place the answer to the question “do the people of the modern day in Doctor Who know about aliens?” has become over the course of the revived series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVF3fk7XxL8

The prompt for it was The Robot Revolution alone, but it turns out it would have been far more prescient to make the video after Lucky Day, which throws another huge wrench into things. Steven Moffat made it a thing that everyone forgot about the RTD1 era alien invasions because of the cracks in time, but now everyone remembers them again apparently, no explanation needed.

[Ben Saunders]

What the hell is Kate Stewart’s problem?

I don’t believe any of this. The show is slick and expensive and has the odd moment of brilliance, but Lux aside it fails to really draw me into it the way a truly great show does. I’m not engrossed in it and as a result I find myself critiquing it and thinking about what I might say about it afterwards rather than really absorbing it.

Conrad must live.

[Ben Saunders]

It did feel a bit like a back door pilot to a UNIt series

This episode was written by the guy who’s writing the upcoming UNIT spinoff

[Ridley]

(Mr GuiTARDIS)

[Nick R]

(Mr GuiTARDIS)

[Ben Saunders]

Mr. Git

[Ian Symes]

Also, in the world of Doctor Who, surely aliens and monsters are well-known and well-documented enough that there couldn’t really be any doubt that at least some of them are real?

In the real world, surely pandemics, school shootings and aeroplanes being crashed into buildings are well-known and well-documented enough, etc

[Dave]

Yeah, I thought of that before I typed it but the distinction here is that he seems to be saying that ALL aliens are invented and fabricated, not just certain examples.

The kind of thing that you’re referring to tends to revolve around people saying that a specific school shooting is fabricated, not that ALL school shootings have been.

In the cases of pandemic-deniers or 9-11 conspiracy theorists, those would fall under the fringe stuff I was talking about like flat-earthers or moon-landing-deniers. Whereas in the episode, Conrad’s views are shown as getting the kind of mainstream social and political support that those ideas would be unlikely to enjoy.

[Renegade Rob]

So the cracks in time that undid everyone’s knowledge of the RTD modern alien invasions was resolved and undone, but even without that I’ve always felt like the franchise as a whole had sort of an implication that because of the infinite temporal flux rewriting everything all the time, the public may or may not know of past invasions due to the very valid reason that for them, they may or may not have actually happened. 

Every spaceship crew the Doctor saves in the future might no longer have ever existed if he ever wants to check in on them later, due to perfectly natural time fluctuations that meant they were never born.  Of course, being a temporal being and veteran time traveler, the Doctor will remember people and events that no one else does. So what’s canon for him and for us the audience isn’t necessarily canon for the typical citizen of modern day Earth. 

So I really like what Lucky Day was going for with the alt-right conspiracy theory and anti-expert stuff, but in my headcanon it both resonated with and against the infinite temporal flux stuff and I wonder if the constant changing of timelines affects different people on Earth differently, like a Mandela effect thing. “Hey, that Yeti invasion in the underground when I was a kid, that was crazy.” “What the hell are you talking about?”

That’s a crazy enough concept before you add bad faith conspiracy theorists to the mix. 

[sleepey]

I’m generally happy to accept a bit of loose canon & handwavey motivations if that gets us to the story they want to tell but it just really bothered me a whole lot that the big radicalising event to get everyone on Conrad’s side was the alien catchers showing up to catch an alien

[Renegade Rob]

I’m generally happy to accept a bit of loose canon & handwavey motivations if that gets us to the story they want to tell but it just really bothered me a whole lot that the big radicalising event to get everyone on Conrad’s side was the alien catchers showing up to catch an alien

Maybe the idea was that if UNIT was always fake, they were showing up to militarily shut down someone else trying to move in on their fake alien scam turf. 

[Flap Jack]

Maybe the idea was that if UNIT was always fake, they were showing up to
militarily shut down someone else trying to move in on their fake alien
scam turf.

I already mentioned this, but if that was the idea, UNIT surely would have behaved very differently. They would have sent a much smaller crew – or even just local police – that had been briefed specifically to investigate and expose scammers (which to the general public would read as them verifying before sending in the big guns, rather than them already knowing it’s fake), they wouldn’t have had everyone waving their guns around, they wouldn’t have sent the head of the organisation and half her admin team along, and they obviously wouldn’t have been so flummoxed when it was revealed to be a scam.

I think the trap could make sense, but it depends on 2 things:

1 – Conrad and his cohorts aren’t genuine believers in the conspiracy, they’re intentionally spreading lies and misinformation (which for Conrad at least doesn’t seem to be the case).

2 – Conrad’s livestream makes it look like the fake Shreeks were planted by UNIT and not by Conrad, so the video actually registers as “proof” that UNIT are faking alien attacks to the public, rather than UNIT just doing their jobs and investigating suspected alien attacks. This definitely can’t be the case, because the fake Shreeks willingly reveal themselves (while laughing evilly), immediately tell everyone that Conrad is their boss, and then take part in his group phone recording session while Conrad repeatedly says “we” beside them. I don’t think it’s actually possible for Conrad to have livestreamed anything that revealed the Shreeks weren’t real while also not revealing that he was the one who faked them.

For the second point, it would have made so much more sense if Conrad’s mates had continued staying in character as Shreeks, but then before UNIT could attack them, Conrad shouted “Hang on! Those aren’t aliens, those are costumes, I can see the joins!”, ran up to them to pull off their masks Scooby-Doo style, and then went on his long rant against UNIT and Ruby accusing them of the fake alien conspiracy, revealing he’d been livestreaming the whole time. Then once the livestream was over, Ruby would discover they were in cahoots and realise for sure that Conrad wasn’t just deluded but had actively betrayed and manipulated her.

For the first point, I don’t think there’s a way to fit this plan with Conrad’s true believer characterisation, and also no way to make him a knowing liar instead without that not fitting with what he does later. The only way I can think of to explain it is to say that Conrad has severe untreated psychosis problems that make his ability to distinguish reality from fantasy so poor that he legitimately goes back and forth between uncovering the conspiracy and creating it without realising the contradiction.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[sleepey]

My (unserious) pet theory is that it was originally going to be an alien rights movement, & the point of the livestream was to show UNIT storming in with guns & cages & fascism & such. You can’t tell me that never crossed the mind of the man who wrote Kerblam.

[Ben Saunders]

I’m torn between “nobody is really that stupid” and “people really are that stupid” on a daily basis. So I don’t know where I stand on the whole people-not-believing-UNIT thing, because I don’t know where I stand on quite a few things in this fucked up hellscape we’ve carved out for ourselves. There were pieces on BBC News about 5G causing Covid I remember, all it did was make me really sad because it seemed like these people were just mentally ill and desperate rather than evil grifters. But there are a LOT of evil grifters.

[Ian Symes]

Away from the happy, positive world of comic cons, the incompetent (by design) Kate Stewart is as usual hellbent on carrying out the instructions laid down by the globalist psychopaths to continue the relentless downward spiral towards technocratic tyranny and human enslavement. All rather worrying really.

[Ben Saunders]

I waited for an image to load in that post for like, ten seconds before realising you somehow wrote it in invisible ink

[Author]

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