Doctor Who due a major shake-up as bosses aim for 'brand new show' in 2018

[The Wormhole]

It cheapens Doctor Who with another virtually immortal person

The fact that Moffat can't keep dead characters dead cheapens Doctor Who a lot more.

I'm glad they've brought Gallifrey back completely, thus abandoning the "Last of the Time Lords" story which was beginning to get stale, and opening up future possibilities.

The Time Lords have secluded themselves at the very edge of time and space to avoid everyone who wants them dead, and the Doctor is presumably doing his damnedest to avoid Gallifrey after Hell Bent. So there aren't very much possibilities anyway. Besides, Moffat has admitted it was a mistake restoring Gallifrey in Day of the Doctor, I don't think he wants to write about the Time Lords. The only reason he revisited them in Hell Bent was to resolve the story he set up in Day of the Doctor before he stepped down as showrunner, which he was planning on doing after writing The Husbands of River Song, the very next episode.

 

[Christopher]

The fact that Moffat can't keep dead characters dead cheapens Doctor Who a lot more.

Riiight, because no other science fiction franchise has ever done that...

The Time Lords have secluded themselves at the very edge of time and space to avoid everyone who wants them dead, and the Doctor is presumably doing his damnedest to avoid Gallifrey after Hell Bent. So there aren't very much possibilities anyway.

Of course there are possibilities. Storytellers aren't restricted by the circumstances within fiction, because they can change those circumstances at will. As soon as it was established that Gallifrey and the Time Lords still existed, it was inevitable that there would be more stories about them eventually. It recaps the pattern from the original series -- for the first six years, we knew nothing about the Doctor's people, but once they were introduced, we gradually started to see more stories about them.

Besides, Moffat has admitted it was a mistake restoring Gallifrey in Day of the Doctor, I don't think he wants to write about the Time Lords.

That doesn't mean Chibnall will share his reluctance.

Personally, I want to see more stories about the Time Lords. We've had over a decade of the Doctor operating without them around. Their renewed presence is a change that could bring fresh possibilities to the series. The secret to Doctor Who's longevity has always been its willingness to change and become a different show every so often.

 

[The Wormhole]

Riiight, because no other science fiction franchise has ever done that...

Granted, it's not unique to Moffat or Doctor Who, but it is getting ridiculous that everyone who does in a Moffat script is brought back. Especially in cases where they're brought back only to not be revisited anyway, like the Paternoster Gang in Name of the Doctor getting killed, resurrected, brought back for Deep Breath only for Moffat to then declare he's done with the characters. Or Osgood being killed in Death in Heaven, brought back in the Zygon story, and then, her story arc's done don't expect her to return. Clara gets killed in Face the Raven, come back in Hell Bent, but that's it she's gone from the show. Moffat seems very reluctant to leave dead characters dead, despite the fact he has no plans on revisiting them anyway.

 

[Christopher]

Especially in cases where they're brought back only to not be revisited anyway, like the Paternoster Gang in Name of the Doctor getting killed, resurrected, brought back for Deep Breath only for Moffat to then declare he's done with the characters.

I don't think being temporarily killed and brought back within a single story really counts. That's different from a situation where the creators kill a character in one story and then later change their minds and contrive a way to bring them back in a subsequent story. I mean, nobody really counts McCoy's brief demise and revival in "Shore Leave" or Scotty's in "The Changeling" as being a resurrection on a par with Spock's in The Search for Spock.

Or Osgood being killed in Death in Heaven, brought back in the Zygon story, and then, her story arc's done don't expect her to return.

I think Osgood's progression from "The Day of the Doctor" to "Death in Heaven" to "The Zygon Invasion/Inversion" is an inspired bit of storytelling that's complete in its own right. It doesn't need to be continued any further to be effective. A good story should be about itself, not just about being a preview for something else. If every story were just a setup for the next story, then no story would have any actual substance to call its own.

Clara gets killed in Face the Raven, come back in Hell Bent, but that's it she's gone from the show.

I don't think that counts any more than the McCoy and Scotty examples above, because it was all a single story arc in conception. He didn't "bring her back," because he never intended her to stay dead to begin with. Her death was the problem that motivated the Doctor's actions in the next two episodes. It was the culmination of the arc that had been developing for most of the season with Ashildr/Me. He got tired of failing to save people. He decided not to let it happen anymore. He got a bit of a god complex, and when Clara was the one to die, he refused to accept it (echoing what had been established in "Before the Flood" about how the threat to Clara was what motivated him to try to change things). And so he moved heaven and earth, spent five billion years chipping through a wall, and staged a one-man coup of Gallifrey, all to bring Clara back. It's not a writer killing a character and then changing his mind later; it's a single unified arc in which a character's death and resurrection is a central element. Again, whether the character comes back later is beside the point. The point of a story arc is the story itself.

 

[Solid Snack]

Even when the time lords were around they didn't show up that much, apart from the Master and Romana-we didn't really have the Doctor visit the planet that often (only about four or five times if I'm counting correctly) and only ocassionally he did jobs for them during the Pertwee and Tom Baker eras.

There seemed to be a disconnect with the Clara thing a bit, since this incarnation of the Doctor initially wasn't that nice to her at first. (Then again the same could be said about Peri, and the Doctor was upset when he thought she had died, although part of it was due to his own-if slightly brainwashed-actions). Funny thing is, that was also partially the fault of the Time lords too.

 

[Christopher]

Even when the time lords were around they didn't show up that much, apart from the Master and Romana-we didn't really have the Doctor visit the planet that often (only about four or five times if I'm counting correctly) and only ocassionally he did jobs for them during the Pertwee and Tom Baker eras.

Yes, but they did show up. That's the point. Now that they're back in play, it makes no sense to assume that no future showrunner will ever use them. Unless the show get cancelled after the next season or so, it's likely that, at some point in the future, we'll see more of the Time Lords. We might not see them again immediately or routinely, but we're talking about a franchise that's 53 years old and counting, so I default to taking the long view.

There seemed to be a disconnect with the Clara thing a bit, since this incarnation of the Doctor initially wasn't that nice to her at first.

He wasn't nice to anyone at first. He was an abrasive persona who didn't know how to relate socially to people, but he clearly still cared about Clara, since she was the only other person he wanted to have around him at all. He just no longer had the ability to express that feeling in as conventional a manner as his two predecessors could.

 

[The Wormhole]

I don't think being temporarily killed and brought back within a single story really counts.

Usually not, but Moffat has done it at least three times in what turned out to be penultimate stories for those particular characters. This combined with Moffat's trope of "everybody lives!" endings not to mention the fact that his scripts have a surprisingly low number of people who die and stay dead who aren't old people or characters based on real people and therefore they're deaths are actual historical events, it really makes it seem he has trouble dealing with death. The weirdest is probably the Brigadier, who was killed off on account of Nicholas Courtney's death, only to get resurrected as a Cyberman.

 

[Christopher]

This combined with Moffat's trope of "everybody lives!" endings not to mention the fact that his scripts have a surprisingly low number of people who die and stay dead who aren't old people or characters based on real people and therefore they're deaths are actual historical events, it really makes it seem he has trouble dealing with death.

I dunno, I think that's kind of a refreshing change from the usual overabundance of death in Doctor Who. Although I grant that it's the sort of thing that would've been better from an occasional contributor, as Moffat was under RTD, than from the showrunner responsible for the entire course of the series. I think Moffat had very fresh and worthwhile ideas, initially, but he only had a finite reserve thereof, so as showrunner he's tended to reuse most of them multiple times.

 

[USS Triumphant]

He hasn't seemed to have a problem keeping Danny Pink dead - which is bad, IMO, because I thought he had the potential to be a much more interesting Companion than Clara at that point.

If asked (HA), I think the main suggestion I would make for revitalizing Doctor Who (now that frikkin' Clara is gone, and Capaldi - all due respect, but I can't understand a bloody thing he says - will be) would be to get away from contemporary Earth as a base of operations for a bit. Perhaps the next Companion could be from sometime between the 50s and the 90s, so that "home" could be Earth from then, instead? My next suggestion would be to do a crossover episode or two with Dirk Gently, and check in with Professor Chronotis. (But that's less a suggestion for series success, and more of just something *I* really want to see. )

 

[Relayer1]

He hasn't seemed to have a problem keeping Danny Pink dead - which is bad, IMO, because I thought he had the potential to be a much more interesting Companion than Clara at that point.

Didn't kill him anywhere soon enough for me. One of the worst major(ish) NuWho characters ever...

 

[USS Triumphant]

Didn't kill him anywhere soon enough for me. One of the worst major(ish) NuWho characters ever...

Huh. Really? I didn't think he was the greatest character in the world or anything, but I liked him o-kay (certainly better than Clara), and I thought they could have had a nice dynamic with The Doctor's attitude toward soldiers, and him learning by coming to respect and care about Danny that maybe his position needed reevaluation: that a soldier than be a good and honorable person even when the things they are called upon to do are less than such. And maybe he could have come a little more to terms with the War Doctor in the process. Certainly seems like it would have been something more fulfilling than whatever the heck that last season was.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Didn't kill him anywhere soon enough for me. One of the worst major(ish) NuWho characters ever...

The problem with Danny Pink is that he was a character that seemed to wander in from an entirely different series, say, a serious drama about a teacher who was an Iraq War veteran in a previous career, and Samuel Anderson continued to play him as though he was in that show, not Doctor Who.

It also doesn't help Danny that, when Series 8 was over, I went, "Oh, I get it now. Danny was just a pawn in one of the Doctor's long games." If you assume that the Doctor set up Danny and Clara's relationship from the start and kept Clara involved with Danny long enough that he fell in love with her (via manipulation when they meet Orson), then the coincidences at the end of the season that are necessary for Cyber-Danny to defeat the Cybermen make sense. It's a very dark reading of Series 8, though. Very New Adventures-ish.

 

[Jedman67]

Missy was for me a terrible character. Granted, Time Lords don't have to stay dead, but her bringing back the cyberman was just another pointless plot. Danny Pink was ok, but SM didn't do him justice by killing him off.

 

[The Wormhole]

He hasn't seemed to have a problem keeping Danny Pink dead

Debateable. Danny was killed at the beginning of Dark Water, but continued to have a presence in that episode in the Nethersphere, came back as a Cyberman in Death in Heaven, was killed again, had an opportunity to come back, though he gave it to the Iraqi boy instead. In the end, it's not really made clear if Danny really is dead permanently, or is his consciousness still existing within the Nethersphere?

The problem with Danny Pink is that he was a character that seemed to wander in from an entirely different series, say, a serious drama about a teacher who was an Iraq War veteran in a previous career, and Samuel Anderson continued to play him as though he was in that show, not Doctor Who.

Actually, there is kind of an interesting idea there, a character that's from a drama about an Iraq vet dealing with PTSD in his life as a teacher deposited into the world of Doctor Who. It's the kind of genre-bending stuff that Doctor Who is uniquely capable of handling that most shows simply can't, and Doctor Who is at its best when it's bending genres, IMO. But somehow the idea, which has promise, failed in the execution. Maybe the idea was approached the wrong way, maybe Danny was just written as too bland a person, but it didn't really work out that well in the end.

 

[Hey Missy]

That's exactly it. Danny Pink as a character, and the way Samuel Anderson played him, was so horrifically bland that he nearly ruined episodes such as "Listen" for me.

 

[Mr Awe]

The problem with Danny Pink is that he was a character that seemed to wander in from an entirely different series, say, a serious drama about a teacher who was an Iraq War veteran in a previous career, and Samuel Anderson continued to play him as though he was in that show, not Doctor Who.

That was exactly my reaction. He might've been a fantastic character with interesting issues to explore . . . but for some other show than Doctor Who!

 

[Mr Awe]

But somehow the idea, which has promise, failed in the execution. Maybe the idea was approached the wrong way, maybe Danny was just written as too bland a person, but it didn't really work out that well in the end.

For me, it seemed to be that he was against the whole idea of exploration. That's the heart of DW for me. And, he was ragging on the Doctor and Clara about that. Then, the series strayed for a bit into soap opera territory. That's not for me. The way he tried to force Clara to not travel made him look like a jackass to my eyes. Danny's negative influence in those regards were too strong on the series. If the were toned down or not as long lasting, it might've worked better.

Mr Awe

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I really don't agree with the lot of you about Danny Pink. I just think Samuel Anderson was pretty bad as Danny Pink. He never found the character, who was ridden with cliches to begin with (as most Moffat characters are, anyway). I also don't buy into the New Adventures analogy, since this Doctor is a long way from being a schemer the way Seven was, at least in series 8. Sorry, but I don't see it.

 

[Mr Awe]

I actually thought Samuel Anderson was a pretty good actor. He found the character, it's just that the character was as annoying as shit!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I agree with part of that, Mr. Awe -- I, too, though Anderson did a great job with Danny, and I didn't find the character annoying. Rather, I felt that Danny brought out the worst in Clara. Or maybe he revealed who Clara always was.