Spoilers Joy to the World grade and discussion thread

[Steve Roby]

And I think the reason, this time, is that the episode didn't spend the entire time trying to convince the viewer just how clever it thinks itself, it just told the story and the story was lovely.

That's because overcomplicated and clever are different things. This story was not clever. It was a lot of arbitrary things happening quickly.

I mean Villengard could've just rented the dinosaur room and left the briefcase there, they didn't need to mind-control anyone!

Yep. I cannot imagine someone at Villengard saying, okay, here's the plan, nice and simple, nothing can go wrong. We need a power source, right? So we're going to put a star in a briefcase that controls the mind of the person carrying it and makes them creepily say something weird and ominous so that people around them know something weird is going on, and if they give the briefcase to someone else they die and the next person goes through the same experience, and since we're in a time-active era the most easy and straightforward way to send it to the past is to go to a time hotel and get it to the ancient past of a planet whose history is extremely significant to the development of this whole galaxy. We'll have our star --- of which there are literally billions already around here -- at the cost of changing all of recorded history. Anyone have any concerns or questions?

Meanwhile, the Doctor needs a password and a future Doctor shows up, tells him the password and that he has to take the long path -- not, it turns out, to get the password, but to give himself a lesson he's already learned repeatedly over his various incarnations.

But he was going to get a new companion anyway, he wasn't that broken up and he didn't need to wait on Earth. The Doctor always comes back from leaving a companion behind, he just broods about it for a bit sometimes. Ruby isn't Rose (well she kind of is in that she's a bland young blonde woman, but you know what I mean) or Amy or Clara, The Doctor didn't need to learn some lesson to "get over" her.

And if he does need a companion, Anita is right there. If she's sufficiently unimportant to her time and place that she can be recruited by the Time Hotel at the Doctor's suggestion, she's also free to travel with the Doctor without changing history.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

[/QUOTE]

In my opinion, most should stay that way.

River Song as the woman in the library in one two part story who knew the Doctor well from another part of his timeline was a fascinating, mysterious idea. By the time she had parents, a back story, several main story lines and generally been flogged to death. she was ruined.

Weeping angels, who turn to stone when looked at were a terrifying antagonist in one episode, quite ruined by a range of unrelated elements (whatever contains the image...)

Some of Moffat's best work should be left untouched.

I was thinking of "Moffat's throwaway ideas are more interesting than the foreground ideas" in a different way. That said, demystifying River Song in Series 6 was, imho, an absolute disaster of storytelling.

What I was thinking of... Two examples.

"Asylum of the Daleks." Moffat used the Daleks as a Macguffin so Amy and Rory could work out their relationship drama and the Doctor could discover a puzzle box (Oswin/Clara) he'd spend the back half of the series exploring. The interesting throwaway detail in the episode was the Dalek assimilation nanoprobes. Moffat completely reworked the Daleks in that episode and turned them into, quite literally, the Borg. The Daleks could drop nanoprobes on Earth and turn every human being into Daleks. The implications of this throwaway idea are incredible.

Danny Pink. I'm not certain what Moffat's intentions for Danny were -- mainly, I think he was intended to serve as an emotional wedge between the Doctor and Clara -- but Samuel Anderson played Danny like he starred in a serious BBC drama about an Afghan War veteran with serious PTSD who became a school teacher... who wandered over onto the Doctor Who set and never broke character while all that nonsense was going on around him. Moffat was interested in exploring whether the Doctor was "a good man" and just how awful he could make Clara (to the point where I wondered what Danny saw in her beyond looking like Jenna Coleman), but the interesting, throwaway idea in the series was Danny Pink, and I'd like to see series 8 from his perspective.

Okay, a bonus third one. The Doctor as a college professor in "The Pilot." I would rather have had a whole series about the Doctor being a wacky college professor who's been there forever (picking up on Douglas Adams' Professor Chronotis from "Shada") rather than introducing the concept and ditching it for usual Who shenanigans. (Titan's The Lost Dimension returned to the milieu, which was nice.) The Doctor dealing with students and classes and academic conferences and professional rivals and department meetings would have been wild. As I said, Moffat likes to have the Doctor living on the slow path, but then he does nothing with it, it has no long-lasting effects, if any lessons are learned they're forgotten.

 

[Steve Roby]

Oh, yeah, Danny Pink... what the hell was Moffat thinking there? Making both the Doctor and his companion unlikable assholes for a long run of episodes was an unexpected choice.

And the Bill Potts season started off like Moffat had finally figured out how to use Capaldi, put him in an interesting context, then before long went back to his default Moffatery.

 

[bdub76]

Oh, yeah, Danny Pink... what the hell was Moffat thinking there? Making both the Doctor and his companion unlikable assholes for a long run of episodes was an unexpected choice.

And the Bill Potts season started off like Moffat had finally figured out how to use Capaldi, put him in an interesting context, then before long went back to his default Moffatery.

I don't know how he cast Capaldi as the Doctor. I've watched a lot of non-Doctor Who stuff with him, and I struggle with the casting choice. What the actor is good at doing, being a villain, really doesn't fit the Doctor. He would have made a great Master.

 

[matthunter]

I don't know how he cast Capaldi as the Doctor. I've watched a lot of non-Doctor Who stuff with him, and I struggle with the casting choice. What the actor is good at doing, being a villain, really doesn't fit the Doctor. He would have made a great Master.

Colin Baker, this is bdub76. bdub76, allow me to introduce you to Colin Baker.

 

[matthunter]

In other news, TARDISwiki has Anita listed as Anita Benn, which may imply she either marries the owner of the clothing shop at the Time Hotel or IS the owner, but that doesn't track as the hotel seems to follow its own causal matrix. But that doesn't mean the Doctor couldn't have popped back to earlier in the hotel's timeline once he got the TARDIS back, as long as he kept clear of Trev and the other staff he interacted with (was the woman who offered Anita the job seen "earlier"?).

 

[jaime]

I don't know how he cast Capaldi as the Doctor. I've watched a lot of non-Doctor Who stuff with him, and I struggle with the casting choice. What the actor is good at doing, being a villain, really doesn't fit the Doctor. He would have made a great Master.

He was a hero in Lair of the White Wyrm…

Capaldi was a top tier TV actor who knew Doctor Who. He would be easier to work with on that note than almost anyone else. He wouldn’t need to research, spend time watching old tapes etc — and would (and did) bring his own elements to things.
The opportunity arose, and Moff would have been a fool not to take it.
Remember, Hartnell was more of a ‘hard man’ actor way back in ‘63.
Pertwee was a comedy actor, who played it straight and action based for the most part.
Davison was known for naive ‘soft’ characters, with relatively charmed existences, and he was utterly grumpy and got battered on the regular as the Doctor. (And is notable for having a pretty full career post-Who as well. Quite a rarity for the classic series. It’s basically him and Pertwee, and Troughton at a push.)
McCoy was playing against type in his last two seasons as well.

Tennant was an up and coming actor, and massive Who fan when he was cast. And as a quick replacement, that fandom was like Capaldi, in that he could hit the ground running without a crash course. (Davison and Baker were on the record as having fandom or decent familiarity with the show before getting the lead too… now and then you need that, so whoever is running the show can deal with other aspects) That and RTD tends towards the young and the pretty, and sometimes seems to give the vibes of being the secret offspring of JNT and Gary Downie.

 

[Starkers]

I don't know how he cast Capaldi as the Doctor. I've watched a lot of non-Doctor Who stuff with him, and I struggle with the casting choice. What the actor is good at doing, being a villain, really doesn't fit the Doctor. He would have made a great Master.

He's an "actor"

Most of the stuff Matt Smith has done has since Who has seen him play villains and I think Tennant's played more villains than heroes since he left

 

[The Wormhole]

but Samuel Anderson played Danny like he starred in a serious BBC drama about an Afghan War veteran with serious PTSD who became a school teacher... who wandered over onto the Doctor Who set

That approach could have worked, in the way that genre-bending is something Doctor Who excels at when it's firing on all cylinders. But yeah, the writing in that season made the whole thing with Danny a massive WTF.

 

[Captaindemotion]

When Capaldi initially auditioned for The Thick Of It, the makers were reluctant to even see him, because they were used to seeing him play nice characters and they didn’t think he could do nasty,

 

[The Wormhole]

When Capaldi initially auditioned for The Thick Of It, the makers were reluctant to even see him, because they were used to seeing him play nice characters and they didn’t think he could do nasty,

The story I heard was Capaldi's casting in The Thick of It came about after one time when he was beginning to have doubts about his future in acting and went into an anger filled rant to a friend. That friend later convinced Thick of It's producers to cast Capaldi, remembering that rant feeling that made him perfect for the role of Malcolm Tucker.

 

[Captaindemotion]

The story I heard was Capaldi's casting in The Thick of It came about after one time when he was beginning to have doubts about his future in acting and went into an anger filled rant to a friend. That friend later convinced Thick of It's producers to cast Capaldi, remembering that rant feeling that made him perfect for the role of Malcolm Tucker.

Yup, checks out

The Thick of It cast and creators look back on the scathing sitcom as it turns 15

The comedy that gave us Malcolm Tucker was funny because it was true, but for politicians it was harrowing, says Ed Cumming. He speaks to Armando Iannucci, Peter Capaldi, Rebecca Front, Chris Addison and others about marzipan dildos, loudmouth spads, and ministers with no status or power

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Steve Roby]

I don't know how he cast Capaldi as the Doctor. I've watched a lot of non-Doctor Who stuff with him, and I struggle with the casting choice. What the actor is good at doing, being a villain, really doesn't fit the Doctor. He would have made a great Master.

I don't have a problem with the casting. I have a problem with the writing. Capaldi could have been one of the greats.

 

[kirk55555]

In my opinion Capaldi is one of the great Doctors. He had some bad stories and Clara was not a good companion, but he also had a lot of good stories and great moments. I love The Doctor having a bit of an edge, not being just being a lovable weirdo or whatever. He's thousands of years old and many humans are huge idiots, I like having a Doctor who doesn't sugar coat what he thinks all the time. He can be a grouch but he's still The Doctor.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I don't think that Clara was necessarily a bad companion, she just stuck around way longer than she should have.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I don't think that Clara was necessarily a bad companion, she just stuck around way longer than she should have.

Yup. She definitely should've left with "Last Christmas" and both Coleman and Moffat should've resisted their urge to go on.

I still squint and pretend that's how Clara left the show because that was a far better ending than what we got.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I don't have a problem with the casting. I have a problem with the writing. Capaldi could have been one of the greats.

Each to their own, but in terms of performance, I would certainly rate him as one of the greats. I think in his final season, when Moffat wasn’t stretched so thin, he finally got some great episodes to go along with the quality of his acting.

 

[jaime]

I don't think that Clara was necessarily a bad companion, she just stuck around way longer than she should have.

Yup. She definitely should've left with "Last Christmas" and both Coleman and Moffat should've resisted their urge to go on.

I still squint and pretend that's how Clara left the show because that was a far better ending than what we got.

And that’s how you know the Moff is a good writer, because he turned that into part of her story. Clara stayed too long, and that was literally her character arc in her last season.

 

[Starkers]

Each to their own, but in terms of performance, I would certainly rate him as one of the greats. I think in his final season, when Moffat wasn’t stretched so thin, he finally got some great episodes to go along with the quality of his acting.

Agreed. Took me a while to warm to him but when I did he became my second favourite modern Doctor after Matt

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Its a weird journey, but Peter Capaldi's become my favorite Doctor live-action-wise, second only to Paul McGann, overall.