First five scripts of series eight leaked online

[OmahaStar]

Spoiler: My Into the Dalek review

Again it's not a perfect Dalek story. The doctor makes an offhand comment about how shrinking you down to be inserted inside someone is a bad movie plot - which I whole heatedly agree with - and two minutes later they do it! At least this time there are Daleks killing people. The Battered Dalek reminds me of the Dalek in season one, which arguably was better than the one here. I really don't like this new aspect introduced in Smiths tenure of dropping the companions home between stories. It slows down the narrative and limits the momentum the season might have. The Missy arc is intriguing. I did appreciate Capaldi jumping straight into the Dalek story without brooding over them like the previous three time lords have done.

Spoiler: additional

Worst line of dialogue EVER in a Dalek episode:

"We must find out comrade Dalek"

Seriously, what the actual fuck??? Terry Nation will be rolling in his grave come August 30. Daleks do not give a crap about other Daleks. In Master Plan the Surpreme blew up a ship of his own troops for failing to catch the Doctor. The High Councillor killed the Dalek leader on Spiridon in Planet. Davros sent suicide bombers in Destiny. Unpure Daleks in Victory. The entire Dalek civil war from Remembrance. Why do they care about finding their old shipmate? Are they worried the experiment might be used against them? Cos if so it's not indicated so in the script.

I'm sorry, I cannot help but to disagree. I have been doing a Classic rewatch, including a lot of the Dalek stories, and Terry Nation is a hack. He had one really amazing premise - the Daleks - and coasted on it for the rest of his life. He had one decent story - Genesis of the Daleks - but even that went on for two episodes too long. Day of the Daleks, Planet of the Daleks, and Android Invasion were horrifically bad. As for Destiny, it's a Douglas Adams script more than Terry Nation.

Considering his history, I think he would be thrilled that the old pepperpots are still around. The idea that he is "rolling in his grave" because of a bad script wouldn't even cross his mind. Remember, this is the same writer who sent the First Doctor and company exploring through a cave for half of the seven-episode introduction to the Daleks.

 

[Mr Awe]

^ I generally agree. He's a writer who got lucky. And, really the design of the Daleks, which he wasn't responsible for, was at least as important if not more so than his written words!!

One quibble, he didn't write Day of the Daleks; Louis Marks wrote that story. Another quibble, I enjoyed both The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Mr Awe

 

[Candlelight]

Spoiler: additional

Worst line of dialogue EVER in a Dalek episode:

"We must find our comrade Dalek"

Seriously, what the actual fuck??? Terry Nation will be rolling in his grave come August 30. Daleks do not give a crap about other Daleks. In Master Plan the Surpreme blew up a ship of his own troops for failing to catch the Doctor. The High Councillor killed the Dalek leader on Spiridon in Planet. Davros sent suicide bombers in Destiny. Unpure Daleks in Victory. The entire Dalek civil war from Remembrance. Why do they care about finding their old shipmate? Are they worried the experiment might be used against them? Cos if so it's not indicated so in the script.

Spoiler: Response

Wow that sounds fucking dreadful, I almost want to watch/read the episode as a comedy now! Will Davros be compared to Stalin if he ever returns now?

Still, I guess the Communist Daleks are still an improvement over Moffat's rainbow daleks.

Damn, made a spelling mistake in there. Have corrected the quote in the episode.

 

[DWF]

Terry Nation was a fine writer, he did create two other science fiction series in Blake's 7 and Survivors he even wrote the entire first season of Blake's 7. Destiny might've been a bit of misstep but I do think that was his story, Douglas Adams had to a massive rewrite of City Of Death.

But really the Dalek stories in the Moffat era have been rather bad IMO. Maffat has made them very inefectual as villains, but then he's pretty done the same with the Sontarans, Cybermen and the Silurians as well.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

I think part of the reason Genesis was such a success could've been Robert Holmes script edit along with the great casting. Also he did extensive rewrites on Brain Of Morbius and Pyramid Of Mars (The latter of which was originally going to be a UNIT story, although the story does take place on the site of UNIT HQ in the past).


On the flip side though, Revenge Of The Cybermen was going to be a Cybermen "genesis" story, but Robert Holmes turned it into the so-so story we ended up with.


Cybermen haven't really had the benefit of as many classic stories as the Daleks. For every Tomb of The Cybermen, Invasion or Earthshock, there was 'revenge of' which could've involved any villain and introduced the gold weakness (Which was recently brought back) Tenth Planet, Moonbase and Wheel In Space were really just base under siege stories, Attack of relied too much on nostalgia, continuity and an overly complicated plot (The tombs & Cybercontroller, Cybermen in the sewers, Mondas etc.)....and then there's Silver Nemesis which was just terrible.

 

[Blamo]

Spoiler: My Into the Dalek review

Again it's not a perfect Dalek story. The doctor makes an offhand comment about how shrinking you down to be inserted inside someone is a bad movie plot - which I whole heatedly agree with - and two minutes later they do it! At least this time there are Daleks killing people. The Battered Dalek reminds me of the Dalek in season one, which arguably was better than the one here. I really don't like this new aspect introduced in Smiths tenure of dropping the companions home between stories. It slows down the narrative and limits the momentum the season might have. The Missy arc is intriguing. I did appreciate Capaldi jumping straight into the Dalek story without brooding over them like the previous three time lords have done.

Spoiler: additional

Worst line of dialogue EVER in a Dalek episode:

"We must find out comrade Dalek"

Spoiler: spoilers

I actually like that line of dialogue. Stops them from sounding like robotic death monkeys, which is where a lot of writers get trapped in writing them as.

The line of dialogue actually sounds like something the B&W Daleks would have said, which was when they were written the best in the classic series. Gives them a sense of being a living thing rather than a mindless machine.

In fact it sounds exactly like something they'd say in the TV century comic strips, written by David Whitaker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeyyNqJXF6k

 

[diankra]

Terry Nation was a hack, and if allowed to do so would take money for old rope. But sometimes he did put in the work and it was genius: Daleks, Genesis, Survivors, Robert Baldick, at least two eps of B7 (Way Back and Terminal)... He was lazy, but talented when he cared/was forced to care.

BTW: Doctorwhovian - I think you're merging two separate Gerry Davis scripts/concepts. In the mid 80s he wrote an outline for a Genesis of the Cybermen story which was turned down, but is printed in David Banks's 1989 Cybermen book (it's not very good, though it does feature Krang, the Cyberleader from the Tenth Planet, when he was still fully human).
Davis's original script for Revenge of the Cybermen has also been printed, in DWB in 1991, and it's... a bit like an attempt to do Wheel in Space again and see if it works this time. Not very good (and the gold weakness was in Davis's script), though I'll never understand why Robert Holmes didn't realise in his massive rewrite that the Cybermen (near dead people trapped in metal suits) are the ultimate version of the body horror he keeps on using in his other scripts/rewrites of the time...

 

[Candlelight]

Terry Nation was a fine writer, he did create two other science fiction series in Blake's 7 and Survivors he even wrote the entire first season of Blake's 7. Destiny might've been a bit of misstep but I do think that was his story, Douglas Adams had to a massive rewrite of City Of Death.

But really the Dalek stories in the Moffat era have been rather bad IMO. Maffat has made them very inefectual as villains, but then he's pretty done the same with the Sontarans, Cybermen and the Silurians as well.

Moffat can write the good characters very well but bad characters not so much. He also came out early on and stated he didn't know how to handle Dalek stories so I'm not surprised fans have issues with them. Victory created a Dalek breed which had a negative reaction with fans. Asylum had the weak plot point of Daleks not being able to solve their own problem, and then created the issue of the Daleks supposedly being forced to forget the Doctor existed, which was later ignored by subsequent Dalek stories. Time of the Doctor had the age old adage of Daleks not being able to shoot straight while the Doctor was at his most vulnerable (the Doctor's dialogue suggesting the Daleks were scared in case he had something up his sleeve is the poorest excuse ever, as Daleks don't experience fear).

Into the Dalek may continue this trend but hopefully the episode will surprise me.

 

[Timby]

I actually really, really liked Asylum up until the maaaaagic amnesia thing. It scratched me in all the right spots.

 

[Cutter John]

I don't think Terry Nation was a hack, I suspect he just didn't really have much passion for DW, or the Daleks. The BBC would buy just about anything he wrote about the Daleks, so he got lazy and would just crank out any old thing for a paycheck.

It wasn't until (if true), the script editors called him on it during the 4th Doctors era ("It's a terrific story Terry, but you've already sold it to us six times.") that he buckled down and put some effort into producing Genesis.

 

[sidious618]

It was even worse when Nation didn't do Daleks. Remember The Android Invasion? Another Nation "classic."

 

[kirk55555]

It was even worse when Nation didn't do Daleks. Remember The Android Invasion? Another Nation "classic."

The Android Invasion is one of the most boring Doctor Who Serials I've seen. You'd think the idea of android duplicates would be interesting, but somehow they screwed it up pretty badly.

As for Terry Nation's Dalek stories, I haven't seen all of them, but I liked Genesis of the Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of the Earth.

 

[DWF]

I don't think Terry Nation was a hack, I suspect he just didn't really have much passion for DW, or the Daleks. The BBC would buy just about anything he wrote about the Daleks, so he got lazy and would just crank out any old thing for a paycheck.

Huh? After The Dalek Masterplan which he co-wrote the next one he wrote was Planet Of The Daleks years later.

It wasn't until (if true), the script editors called him on it during the 4th Doctors era ("It's a terrific story Terry, but you've already sold it to us six times.") that he buckled down and put some effort into producing Genesis.

Well Nation hasn't pitched it to Hinchcliffe til then and Holmes did some rewriting but I think it made it a better story.

 

[The Wormhole]

It is rather shocking how similar Terry Nation scripts are. Most of them start off with someone being killed and falling off a cliff or into a river or lake or whatever. There's usually a friendly alien or mutant who befriends the Doctor's companion (or one of his companion.) I used to have a whole list done up of the similarities, but these are the only two I remember at the moment.

 

[Cutter John]

I did some digging online and found the quote. It was either Barry Letts or Terrance Dicks who used the line "It's a good story, Terry, but you've sold it to us three times already".

It is rather shocking how similar Terry Nation scripts are. Most of them start off with someone being killed and falling off a cliff or into a river or lake or whatever. There's usually a friendly alien or mutant who befriends the Doctor's companion (or one of his companion.) I used to have a whole list done up of the similarities, but these are the only two I remember at the moment.

Don't forget alien jungles.

 

[Candlelight]

I did some digging online and found the quote. It was either Barry Letts or Terrance Dicks who used the line "It's a good story, Terry, but you've sold it to us three times already".

It is rather shocking how similar Terry Nation scripts are. Most of them start off with someone being killed and falling off a cliff or into a river or lake or whatever. There's usually a friendly alien or mutant who befriends the Doctor's companion (or one of his companion.) I used to have a whole list done up of the similarities, but these are the only two I remember at the moment.

Don't forget alien jungles.

Or invisible creatures. Or the ascent/descent of some high obstacle (this is my favourite cos it's so obvious: the caves in The Daleks, the mine shaft in The Daleks Invasion of Earth, the Mechanoid city in The Chase, the shaft in Planet of the Daleks, the city beacon in Death to the Daleks, the gantry climb in Genesis of the Daleks).

 

[DWF]

It is rather shocking how similar Terry Nation scripts are. Most of them start off with someone being killed and falling off a cliff or into a river or lake or whatever. There's usually a friendly alien or mutant who befriends the Doctor's companion (or one of his companion.) I used to have a whole list done up of the similarities, but these are the only two I remember at the moment.

The falling off the cliff only happned in The Android Invasion. And most of what you describe doesn't happen everytime out. The Keys Of Marinus has a totally different story structure though and it's the early story that Peter Davison remembers seeing when he was growing up.

 

[Candlelight]

It is rather shocking how similar Terry Nation scripts are. Most of them start off with someone being killed and falling off a cliff or into a river or lake or whatever. There's usually a friendly alien or mutant who befriends the Doctor's companion (or one of his companion.) I used to have a whole list done up of the similarities, but these are the only two I remember at the moment.

The falling off the cliff only happned in The Android Invasion. And most of what you describe doesn't happen everytime out. The Keys Of Marinus has a totally different story structure though and it's the early story that Peter Davison remembers seeing when he was growing up.

Yeah but he repeated the Marinus storyline of multiple locations in The Chase and The Dalek Master Plan too, so...

 

[The Wormhole]

It is rather shocking how similar Terry Nation scripts are. Most of them start off with someone being killed and falling off a cliff or into a river or lake or whatever. There's usually a friendly alien or mutant who befriends the Doctor's companion (or one of his companion.) I used to have a whole list done up of the similarities, but these are the only two I remember at the moment.

The falling off the cliff only happned in The Android Invasion. And most of what you describe doesn't happen everytime out. The Keys Of Marinus has a totally different story structure though and it's the early story that Peter Davison remembers seeing when he was growing up.

I said cliff, river or lake. Off a ledge, anyway. Just off the top of my head, this also happens in Dalek Invasion of Earth and Death to the Daleks. Genesis of the Daleks does start off with that soldier being killed, though he doesn't fall off a ledge.

I'll admit, Keys of Marinus is a bit different from typical Terry Nation fare, although there are still a few of his notable tropes present throughout.

 

[Blamo]

I actually really, really liked Asylum up until the maaaaagic amnesia thing.

I liked and disliked the magic amnesia bit. I hated how it reset the Daleks (only for them to get rereset later), but I'll admit I got a bit of a shiver when all the Daleks were asking "Doctor who?".