Berlin

[Berlin]

Wonder if he told birds down the disco he was the big boss of Doctor Who, which at the time was seen as the Beeb’s embarrassing little diversion.

[Berlin]

Michelle Fisher. The ninth hole of the Bootle Municipal golf course. Par four, slzhnjhmwudy to the right, in the bunker behind the green.

[Berlin]

I mean now as in the post-Brexit era.

[Berlin]

You’ve done a shit with your trousers on.

[Berlin]

But Doc ain’t Broadchurch, what works for one brand of drama doesn’t work for another. Doctor Who was serialised in the classic run but when you look at the amount of ground they covered per serial, it’s clear that you could take two or even three episodes from the ’63 to ’89 era and condense them into one equivalent revived era episode without it feeling rushed which is why the two-parters in the modern era have big consequences and changes for the show and characters, they’re more like films and a plot broom to sweep away the loose threads.

I would hate to see an over-arching plot for a new series of Who, does nobody remember the last two Torchwood specials? You’re gonna annoy the long-term fans who want to see the Doctor come up against new dilemmas and characters and you’re annoy new fans who just want to sit down and put on an episode without having to recall the MacGuffin from episode four and how it plays into the C-plot. Plus over-arching series sag like mad in the middle and once you start building up to the finale, you’ve lost half your audience.

[Berlin]

It doesn’t feel right seeing emojis on this site, like microwaving a cup of tea or using a contactless debit card to pay for paracetamol.

[Berlin]

Very interesting trends there. Most series bar Capaldi’s kick off with approx. 8.5 – 9 million viewers and decrease as the episodes roll on, Whittaker’s run has started with the sea change and viewership pull of a female Doctor and is diving after an 11 million premiere. The 2019 series will likely settle into the 8.5 – 9 trend but decrease after that at a greater rate as seen in the 2018 series with a 2020 series maybe even venturing into Capaldi’s 6.5 million nadir.

What to take from this (and my own reflection) –

People like younger Doctor’s with a bit of zeal about them, they like light-hearted adventures and don’t like to wade through episode after episode of social commentary when you can intertwine that with some real good storytelling at the same time. People give the Smith era a lot of stick but boy was it fun and it didn’t mind wearing its heart on its sleeve. You can go anywhere in the Smith era and not have to worry too much about episodes that have came before. The Whittaker – Chibnall stories feel like commentary first with alien of the week tagged on to help pull together the three acts and it really shows.

So the BBC have a decision to make.

Allow Chibnall to venture on as he pleases in the 2019 series, lose two million viewers and international recognition before replacing him and essentially rebooting the show in 2020 and hoping Whittaker stays for a third series to build a transition to the fourteenth Doctor in 2021.

Or do you ‘Solo’ it, get the clunkiest 2019 episodes whittled out and re-written with stronger and more ‘Who-esque’ stories and build up that transition earlier and cross your fingers that the first Whittaker series will be seen a blip.

[Berlin]

The revived era was a fluke, a well deserved fluke but one nonetheless. I suspect the BBC saw it lasting five years and then either being quietly leased off to an American production company or going back into the vaults after they figure out another Who-esque show to scare the children with. The worldwide popularity and new generation of fans that appeared through it was beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and the culmination of it all with the 50th anniversary special really was an indicator who how far it had come from being just another dreary old serial your dad watched to a touchstone in modern television culture.

The Whittaker era should’ve took it back into the stratosphere but it hasn’t and why? The writing, the club around the head social commentary and the distinct lack of adventure and eccentric daftness that we do very well.

Either Chibnall goes and they re-tool or they spend the 2019 season making nod and wink promises to everyone that it’s gonna be back to what we know and like best for 2020 and they can’t afford to lose viewers or long-term appeal through that.

[Berlin]

Tucker’s Muck.

[Berlin]

‘The fact that fat, poorly educated burbury wearing chav types are obviously allowed access to the internet terrifies me.’

Do we still call them chavs now? I seem to have moved onto knife wielding, spice-addled megapricks who need a good shoeing.

[Berlin]

Just chuck a bin at him.

[Berlin]

Sir, they’ve taken Mr. Rimmer!

Quick, let’s slzhnjhmwudy before they bring him back.

[Berlin]

They say there’s a third re-shoot of The End in the BBC Manchester archives with Chris in blackface because Danny John-Jules was unavailable that day but I don’t believe the rumours.

[Berlin]

Maybe it was sheer coincidence.

[Berlin]

Bloody Colin Baker era all over again.

I do smell assassination around Chibnall though. It’s almost tradition to whinge about the Who show-runner within the fan community but he is particularly ham-fisted with Whittaker’s crop of stories.

[Berlin]

What changed in the last year?

[Berlin]

Doctor Who would be better served by Netflix nowadays.

[Berlin]

Are toilets or toilet related bodily functions mentioned once in Marooned?

No cheating by looking at the script.

[Berlin]

I’d also like to mention that Meredith MacNeill is the most disarmingly beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

Well, maybe Cleo Rocos.

[Berlin]

The unknown three digit phone number from Peep Show’s ‘Sectioning’.

[Berlin]

Sonic animation community.

[Berlin]

The Bell End

A slobby, lazy but kind-hearted low-level crew-member inadvertently becomes the last human in the universe by being put into stasis hibernation just before an engine radiation leak wipes out the crew and plunges the mining ship Red Dwarf into a three million year voyage amongst the stars.

As he walks out into a crewless ship, a skutter accidentally hits him in the groin.

[Berlin]

I remember crying when his motor got crushed by the tank but consoled myself with the fact he was happy to have saved the lock.

I was a sensitive child.

[Berlin]

Let’s talk about Series VIII again!

I’ll start.

Series VIII is collectively shite but there are episodes in there that are arguably not shite, just very poorly executed.

[Berlin]

I suspect Doctor Who will go under quite a significant re-tooling next year.

Bin everyone bar Jodie and Bradley and get back to some fucking adventuring, instead of this season’s worth of smack you around the head social commentary.

[Berlin]

So essentially, Red Dwarf is a nod and wink to Rob and Doug’s sexual perversions?

Oh we knew that for years.

[Berlin]

Perhaps a scaled panning shot. The party scene is shot from a wider angle so you pan faster to compensate for the closer panning shot onboard Red Dwarf where the pan is slower but when composited together, run at the same panning speed if that makes sense.

[Berlin]

Discovery is doubleplusungood, brother comrade

[Berlin]

If I could find the synthesizer patch for the opening notes of that song, I’d be very happy.

[Berlin]

If the Picard series is better than Discovery, even at a surface level, it’ll be worth a look.

Discovery is complete piffle, utterly hopeless. Look how quick they were to throw away the Klingon arc and cater to fanwankery with the Enterprise.

Bollocky ol’ nonsense, it makes me nostalgic for early season Voyager.

[Berlin]

I only wanted the BBC to stop showing programmes containing men being smeared with chocolate under the guise that it was dog shite.

This… this is going a touch too far.

[Author]

Replies