Doctor Who Thread

[Prix with a Silent X]

The only season of Torchwood I liked was Season 2. However, I can't speak fairly about what came after it because the way Season 2 ended bothered me too much. Season 1 was torture, and Season 2 only got a bit more bearable because it took into account the fact that Jack had gone and guest-starred at the end of S3 of Doctor Who. Before that, Jack was so miserable and insistent that his misery was justifiable and the only way to approach life that it made me feel sick to watch it. That, and the edginess for edginess's sake was stupid and boring. The rest of Torchwood (from my external knowledge and experience of S1) seem like they cannot possibly take place in the same universe as Doctor Who. It's really demoralizing for Doctor Who to present this message about the power of ordinary people and then to turn around and insist that when the Doctor shows up everything is shit. I don't honestly think we should be required to have that much faith in the Doctor against the otherwise overwhelming darkness.

I'm hoping that Chibnall will have a lot of help from fellow writers and that as a show-runner he can be more flexible and benefit from a team effort.

[LegalLoliLover]

Outside of being killed, what is the average natural lifespan of a single regeneration of a Time Lord?

[Skull]

Outside of being killed, what is the average natural lifespan of a single regeneration of a Time Lord?

Well, Eleventh was dying of natural causes before gaining the regeneration energy.

So just count up how many years he was alive.

[Mattias]

First Doctor was what, 700, at the start of the show right?

I know Ten said he was 900, although he later said that was him lying and playing himself up as younger.

[LegalLoliLover]

You know, in Evil of the Daleks, the Doctor was quite eager to show the Daleks "the truth" knowing that there would be a good chance that the Daleks would destroy each other with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdLcRkcZvjY (Poser reconstruction). However, when humans are involved, such as in the Zygon Inversion, the Doctor wants peace to be maintained at all costs, even if "the truth" is lost. Is this a result of the Doctor's obvious partiality to humans (despite not being human himself), or is this a result of his changed opinion of war after Gallifrey's "destruction" (note the quotations) in the Time War? Or a little bit of both?

[RacingeR]

I think by this point it was made more than clear that the Doctor has a special hatred for Daleks.

[LegalLoliLover]

Was the Heaven Sent and Hell Bent episodes supposed to state that because the Doctor and Clara are so similar in personality, Clara is becoming a more and more negative influence? But wasn't Clara the one who convinced the Doctor not to actually blow up Gallifrey? If Clara is supposed to be die, is it not correct to undo that action, as well? Also, when series consciously break the 4th wall, it's hilarious. When they do it unintentionally, it destroys many themes of the story. For example, Doctor Who talks a lot of fixed points in time and time in flux, but I've found that fixed points in time usually (not always) take place before the RL filming of that relevant episode, while time in flux is what happens after the RL filming of that relevant episode.

[Skull]

Clara's characterisation just became so messy. It was supposed to demonstrate that after losing Danny she became so reckless that she was secretly wishing for death. But the writers tell us that but don't show us. As a result, Clara acts like she always does until "Face the Raven" when suddenly she becomes an idiot for ten seconds and gets herself killed.

Not to mention the overarching plot of the "Face the Raven/Heaven Sent/Hell Bent" was so stupid. *Sigh* This is why I'm glad Moffat is leaving. Season 9 was such a disappointment.

[Skull]

So the new companion has been revealed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...rom-the-future

The clip is only two minutes long and I already don't like her.

[Prix with a Silent X]

Being an American, I had to look it up on Youtube. Eh, I can see... the reservation for once. This is actually literally the first time I have been on the fence about being interested in a new companion. However, I think that this might not be entirely indicative of what she's going to be like in the show? They try different advertising schemes every time this happens, and different ones work for different audiences. This seems like an appeal back to childish humor, which I'm not really sure about. This new writer who's coming up I'm iffy about, because while none of his episodes were especially bad that I remember, they were kind of low energy and not very serious as compared to some of the ones that have made a big impression.

Doctor Who, for better or for worse, has been on a really dark slide for a couple of years. I think every time a new writer takes the reins, they have a particular idea about what Doctor Who "should be" because of how significant and long its history is. Moffat started out wanting to get back to it being a "children's show" while incorporating more mature elements, which was a sort of strange angle to take. The longer it went on, the more he wanted to deal with really dark psychological themes even though there were often things that were meant to appeal to younger audiences. I mean, the last series and a half were basically almost unrelentingly about death.

I think what this reveal trailer fails to do is to establish anything about this character except that she has a tendency to ask sort of silly questions (and these are trying too hard to be funny, but they would be hilarious to a seven year old Doctor Who fan who isn't quite used to moving on from a companion). All of the companions are quirky in some way. They have to be. However, Moffat and RTD both at least had particular aims for each companion.

Rose was a ported character type from a soap opera on purpose. She was supposed to match the Doctor in sort of equal-opposite ways by being very common, and she was street-wise by merit of being working class, in debt, living on a council estate.

Martha had the hardest haul as far as selling a new companion ever has had in the new series because anyone who was a new fan had never had to adjust before. She was going to stay longer, as far as I know, but she became a recurring character on Doctor Who and Torchwood and in the extra materials because she had such a mixed reception. You could point to a lot of random things ranging from a simple aversion to change to racism, but in any case, her character aim was again to distance herself from Rose. However, their constant comparison to Rose made some people resent her because she came from the upper middle class, was educated, becoming a doctor, and so on. However, Martha was supposed to reflect the Doctor in a different way. If you think about it, she mirrored where the Doctor was at that point in the series in a lot of ways in her character development. Where Rose was supposed to be an opposite, balancing, extremely human force, Martha was there to be at this transitional point in her life in spite of her successes. She was right on the cusp of this career and this life she'd signed up for, and then she ran away. And I could go on, but Martha was there to be a parallel to the Doctor, a doctor-turned-soldier herself, which was around the time we got more information about Gallifrey and the Time War.

Donna was a reversion to that very-human, working class, bored person who wants to go out there and do something important. This seemed to be a formula that worked that a lot of people related to, and she was an opportunity to have the Doctor have a very expressly platonic relationship for various in-character reasons. Donna, more than Rose, was a way to show that a very normal person can be very important in spite of their normalcy. Rose began to conform to the Doctor and his ways in a way that they inverted with Donna, never allowing her to do this.

Amy was, in Moffat's terms, a "bad girl," who was psychologically damaged (by the Doctor). She had abandonment issues, was the closest thing a show like Doctor Who would ever allow to a protagonist prostitute (a kiss-o-gram is not a big deal but the way it's presented is a lot like that). She has commitment issues, doesn't know what she wants, and almost every one of her character arcs is about healing from that a bit while also having her play out this kind of psychological baggage issue. Which was interesting, if fumbled constantly.

Rory was Amy's anchor. Rory was the man who supported and "fixed" her commitment issues. Rory was a person who also became more and more like the Doctor and hated the Doctor for it. He was also kind of a victim of being involved, even though eventually he was involved willingly.

Clara's character arc is much more recent, but as with Martha, she was there to be a parallel to the Doctor. Her first story arc, the Impossible Girl thing, was also a bit of a call-back to Rose and the Bad Wolf thing, I thought. A lot of Clara's early presence felt like she was bookending everything that had happened in the early new series, leading up to the 50th Anniversary and the sort of recap of "where we are now." I thought most of it worked, as many complaints as Tumblr Discourse might have about a lot of this. When Clara was allowed to move on into a stable character, the more they leaned on the notion that she was there to be someone who was a little too similar to the Doctor in terms of her moral leaning, even when at the end of the day she always has that fiber that refuses to let him go too far. She lies for people's own good, she lies for her own good, she tries to have her cake and eat it too, she is prone to acceptable violence even though she has a good heart, and so on. Her parallel to the Doctor's, unlike Martha's, is not so much in her specific character development but in her attitudes toward things. In the end, the important thing about her was that she had such a controlling personality that it led to her doom. Moffat mentioned that the reason they cast Coleman for the role was that she could talk faster than Matt Smith, and that was really the whole point. She could out-talk even the Doctor.

Of course, this is all preaching to a choir even if you don't agree with me on some points. I guess my point here is that we don't know anything about this Bill character from that trailer. We don't even have a feeble little shell (like: shop girl, med student, temp, bad girl, dorky guy in love with the local bad girl, control freak/teacher) for her to fill. This is made even worse by the fact that the scenario used in that little trailer is the Daleks, which any Doctor Who fan knows to death whether they like it or not. It is nothing new and the way it is presented is exactly the same as everything we have seen for years. Anyone who is a brand new fan isn't going to be sold by it, because Bill herself points out how silly they are, and Daleks only become even mildly intimidating when a well-written episode makes you think about their symbolic meaning. Otherwise, they're just ugly-cute trashcans at best. This is why I think this reveal clip fails as a revelation of anything except that, hey, Doctor Who still exists. It does not inform us about anything we don't already know that we'd care to.

So, I guess, I'm reserving judgment about the new companion until we actually get something substantive about her.

[RacingeR]

Could you link it, Prix? I tried searching for it and I couldn't find it.

[Strife ❤️]

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

[Prix with a Silent X]

Thanks, Strife.

- - - Updated - - -

There's a line in one Doctor Who episode (maybe Eleven's last?) where the Doctor is like "Learn to use iPlayer!" very angrily and every time I just felt like he was talking to me and I wanted to be like "I'm sorry, I can't, I'm an American."

[LegalLoliLover]

Does anyone else notice the Dalek and Cyberman overlap? Daleks are supposed to be about "exterminate, exterminate", but they have been known to convert non-Dalek life into Daleks and Robomen/Dalek Puppets, while Cybermen are supposed to be about conversion/upgrading, but they have been known to execute Cyber-Slaves, who are deemed no longer useful.

[Skull]

Totally forget to upload this but a quick look at the upcoming Christmas special...featuring Superman Doctor Mysterio!

[LegalLoliLover]

IIRC, Doctor Who translated into Chinese and then translated back means Mysterious Doctor. Basically, 神秘博士 with 神秘 meaning mysterious and 博士 meaning doctor.

[Draconic]

I'm okay with Tennant having left years ago.

But everything that Moffat touches turns to shit.

[Skull]

Well blow me down, a decent Christmas special from Doctor Who - It's a Christmas miracle!

I actually thought Justin Chatwin did an okay job as Grant/The Ghost. Peter Capaldi was fantastic as always. Matt Lucas was leagues above his prior appearance in The Husbands of River Song to the point where I wouldn't mind him returning.

My only real criticism is that the monsters in this episode didn't have as much screentime as I would've liked. But with the big bad still on the loose, hopefully it'll lead to something bigger.

[black1blade]

Most striking part of the episode was when I saw the main female character in that red dress.

[Mattias]

Matt Lucas was leagues above his prior appearance in The Husbands of River Song to the point where I wouldn't mind him returning.

Well from the previews at the end, it looks like he'll be sticking around for a while in the next season.