"Some age, others... mature!" Or, his secret desire to appear on the show for a multi-Doctor episode. Which, you know, criminal that it hasn't.
Over the weekend, James Goss' short story, "What the TARDIS Thought of Time Lord Victorious," was published online. It is, as you can guess from the title, the TARDIS's perspective on certain matters -- how she takes him where he needs to go, what she thinks of certain Doctors and what the Doctor needs, and what she saw happening at the end of "The Waters of Mars" that the Doctor did not. It doesn't push the meta-plot forward in any way that I can tell, but it does give an internal reason for why these three Doctors and why the Dark Times -- the TARDIS chose them and that time because one's carefree, one's broken and needs to heal, and one needs to break and in the Dark Times they can work that out separately and together. I've always thought it would have been cool if the filming of the end scene of "Day of the Doctor" had coincided at the same time as the filming of "Night of the Doctor" so we could have had a real McGann, in his Time War era outfit, standing with the Doctors instead of a stand-in CGI recreation of the Byronic McGann from the television movie.
I was really hoping after he showed up in Night of the Doctor, that now that he had a relationship with the new production he'd show up in a regular episode at some point.
There were rumors that the BBC were surprised in a pleasant way by the reaction to "Night of the Doctor" and had meetings about doing more with the eighth Doctor. But, remember that Moffat was launching a new Doctor in the shape of Peter Capaldi in a few months and about the same time he was quoted as saying, "There's only one Doctor at a time," and it's not difficult to see how, if there were meetings with Moffat about doing even webisodes with McGann that the idea was pretty much DOA.
I think also that the fact that, had they done a two-Doctors story then, both Doctors would’ve been middle-aged men may have mitigated against it. I have no idea what Chibnall’s view on multi-Doctor stories is, much less opinion of or relationship with McGann (if they even know each other) but I wonder if the fact that there’d be such an obvious contrast between Paul and Jodie might make a guest appearance more likely now?
I think it was reported at the time that the BBC had talked to steven moffat about doing something with the 8th Doctor but he put the kibosh on it like he did with the David Yates movie. I understand he doesn't want to have competing Doctors but damn did we lose two sweet opportunities there.
Chibnall would go a long, long way for me if he did something. Like, instead of the recent mania of recalling the glorious Tennant years, how about we had 13 and 8 meet and create some actual fangasm?
There is some speculation about that before when Ruth, the other Doctor showed up and they mentioned when she moved away from home was mid December 1999 before 7th showed up and became 8th. Hoping it's not a throwaway line and we do see something.
Would it? Would it, though? McGann appeared in one movie twenty-four years ago and one web short seven years ago. What he's best known for within fandom depends on who you ask -- a series of novels twenty years ago? a niche audio drama series? He's not a mainstream Doctor. Yes, his fandom within the Who bubble is intense. It is also small. He's the answer to a trivia question. This is the thing that arguments for McGann in "Day" instead of Hurt don't get -- while Hurt never played the Doctor before 2013, his appearance as the Doctor drew more interest from people outside hardcore fandom because he's Sir John Hurt than McGann ever would have. Hurt was automatically a more valuable commodity than McGann. As as aside, I have often wondered if the War Doctor was the role David Bowie was approached about and turned down. I feel like it was either that or Rassilon in "The End of Time." Yes, Moffat has said that Hurt was the only actor sent the script for the War Doctor, but Moffat also lies. Don't think for a moment I wouldn't like to see McGann again, because I would. I absolutely would. I've spent more time thinking about what Philip Segal's Doctor Who series would have been like than is probably good for me. (Essentially, I think it would have been like Chris Carter's Millennium.) I read the EDAs avidly, and I think it's clear Davies and Moffat were more influenced by Lawrence Miles than they would ever let on. I think Izzy (from DWM) is one of the all-time great companions. (My dream casting for Izzy remains Kelly MacDonald, who's about the right age for Izzy in 2021.) I'm fond of Sam Jones and Fitz. When I read Neil Gaiman's Corsair story "One Virtue, and a Thousand Crimes" last week I immediately thought of Sabbath and his timeship, the Jonah. (Gaiman's Doctor Who work is also rooted in Miles, even if there's only like 10,000 people who'd recognize that.) I'm never going to say no to an appearance by Paul McGann in Doctor Who. But I don't see why it makes sense to have one, because what can you do with McGann that another, more popular Doctor couldn't do just as well and be more relevant to the audience in doing it? No, let McGann be the trivia question Doctor, the Doctor whose existence isn't defined by the television series but by the fans who have spent twenty-four years engaging with his Doctor in the spin-off media created by other fans. He's the Doctor defined by the media you choose to consume. He's the Doctor that exists beyond the television series.
Yes. For lots of people Paul Mcgann was their first contact with 'Doctor Who', he was the only Doctor in the minds of some before Christopher Eccleston came along. I'm talking about non fans here. He was the star of 'Withnail & I', a big cult film in the UK. His star profile is not that far removed from where Tennant and Ecclecton were when they became the Doctor and certainly far above where Matt Smith was when he became the Doctor. I remember when 'The Night of the Doctor' came out and watching the reactions of people half my age going gaga when McGann showed up. Yes, "Sir" John hurt was a great get but taking the younger viewing audience into account would it really register in their heads that this was the actor in those black and white films their parents loved? Wouldn't the 8th Doctor returning be a big headline grab for newer fans who know little beyond the 2005 series but were hungry and excited to see past aspects pulled into it? Let's also take into account that this was Hurt's first time to play the Doctor yet with Mcgann he had been refining the role for 15 years with the audios and arrived on screen with the kind of gravitas and naturalness that Hurt has as an actor but as a Doctor not fully obtained.
Moffat did not "put the kibosh" on the David Yates movie. While it's true Moffat was in no way supportive of the Yates movie and openly expressed disdain over it, the ultimate decision to abandon it had nothing to do with Moffat. Simply put, he had no authority over the matter and it wasn't his decision to make. And yes, I am aware of a leaked e-mail in which Yates considers reaching out to Moffat to get his input, only for the studio executive he was corresponding with to tell him "that's really not a good idea" but that is not the same thing as Moffat putting the kibosh on the matter. The only thing Moffat did regarding the Yates movie was write a snarky tweet mocking it.
The BBC sent newsletter subscribers an advance look at the second episode of Daleks! today. There's a certain ludicrousness to the Daleks. They're this major universal threat, with an empire than spans galaxies, yet Skaro is, even in their intergalactic era, the center of Dalek civilization. It's why the civil war on Skaro in "Evil of the Daleks" is so silly -- so what? It's no "final end." There are Daleks carrying on elsewhere. The second episode leans into that ludicrousiosity -- an enemy from another universe lays siege to Skaro and the Emperor orders an evacuation of the planet, then goes to the Fifth Galaxy (using transwarp drive!) to get himself another army of mothballed Daleks like losing Skaro didn't matter. The Dalek Strategist is really an interesting character. You see why the Doctor will like him in "Defender of the Daleks" -- sure, he's a Dalek, but he's a clever Dalek that's mastered his instinct to exterminate, and when he gets out-thought he takes it calmly as he tries to work out how to turn a bad situation to his favor. There are some cool visuals of a kind we don't normally see in Doctor Who, because there's never the budget (or need) for them.
I listened to the Enemy of my Enemy. As I said before I'm just listening to the audios and watching Daleks! but I don't see any of this having anything to do with Timelord Victorious. It just feels like a name they slapped onto it to sell it. That's just from my perspective.
Watched 'Daleks!' episode 2. Slightly confusing with Dalek on Dalek action. Still wondering how it will tie into the bigger story.
The whole point is to "Buy everything!" The two novels are the core TLV story; everything else either leads into or out of it. The Daleks! series leads into the Tenth Doctor comic, which then leads into the novels. The Ninth Doctor DWM comic strip leads into the novels from another direction, the Eighth Doctor BF audios from still another. The common denominator between the three strands is effect-before-cause: Something is Seriously Wrong with Time.
Yesterday afternoon, there was a worldwide tweetalong rewatch of "The Timeless Child," which I hadn't seen since broadcast, and later in the evening our forum compatriot Kirk55555 railed against that episode's revelations -- namely, that the Doctor is a true immortal and her (for her first life appears to have been a little girl) DNA became the basis of Time Lord civilization. Reading K5^5 pop a vein last night and then eating dinner, I had a sudden epiphany. If the reveal of "The Timeless Child" is true, then there's an incarnation of the Doctor active on Gallifrey during the Dark Times of Time Lord Victorious. It would -- theoretically -- be possible for this Doctor to be introduced at some point in the unfolding story, having to deal with her/his far future incarnations Now, I don't expect to meet this Doctor, for multiple reasons. If the licensees wanted to introduce a Dark Times Doctor, the BBC would approach that carefully. Chris Chibnall would have to weigh in and, if asked, he would be likely to say, "Yeah, don't touch that." (As I said to K5^5 yesterday, I can see a half-dozen easy ways for Chibnall to retcon that reveal on his way out the door.) Still, it's an interesting idea to ponder, and some clever fanfic writers could write some interesting stuff about the Dark Times Doctor during TLV.
I can't say I'm a fan of that idea myself. I felt the Moffat era went way too far in making the Doctor the center of all things -- in taking a show that had once been about the Doctor exploring the universe and turning it into a show about the universe revolving around the Doctor. It was way too narcissistic. This revelation takes it even further. Really, I've come to realize this is a problem with modern serialized TV plotting in general. It used to be that episodic TV was about the main characters helping other people with their problems. It was the guest stars who got to grow and change and have resolution while the heroes stayed pretty much the same, so the heroes were more outer-directed and focused on the needs of others. Now, with everything being built around ongoing story arcs, the emphasis has shifted so that the main characters are focused primarily on their own personal problems, and any external cases-of-the-week are just analogies for what the main characters are dealing with. Like, recently I was watching an episode from Lucifer's latest season, and in the climax, when Decker was trying to talk a gunman down, what started as an attempt to relate to his problems just turned into a self-centered rant about her own problems and feelings and she barely even noticed the gunman or the hostage she was trying to save. It just felt so incredibly narcissistic and pathologically self-absorbed. TV writing has become too much about the heroes being obsessed with themselves and their own problems, rather than helping other people. So I was really hoping the Chibnall era would get away from Moffat's obsession with making the Doctor the Most Important Person in the Universe and let them go back to just being a wandering adventurer helping people along the way.
I think Moffat didn't need to do this, too, but he still left wiggle room for mystery. But yeah, any good will from series 11, including its most successful element of going back to basics, was shattered with The Timeless Children.