Hopes and Fears for the Next Series

[TommyR01D]

As you know, Doctor Who has effectively been prorogued for an entire year (the longest gap since 2005). Though there has been a trickle of information from the BBC, from Moffat and even from Peter Capaldi himself, it has been so contradictory, confused and ultimately unenlightening that he might as well have reverted to playing Malcolm Tucker again.

In the face of so much spin and misdirection (a plague on so much of the post-RTD era) we really have no idea what is happening when the next series finally arrives. The post of companion is still vacant, there seems to be no narrative plan as of yet and we don't even know if Capaldi is staying on past the end of it.

For as long as this purdah exists, all we can do is speculate. I notice that, in interserial periods such as this, activity on this board tends to drop dramatically (oddly, the boards for each of the Star Trek series are always busy despite their respective programs having ended completely ten, twenty or even thirty years ago).

Earlier this year I attempted to start a discussion on the whole of Series 9 (http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/series-9-overall-review.278562/) but it failed to generate the interest shown in Grade & Discussion threads for individual episodes.

With this thread, I want to look to the potential future:

For the "Hopes", what do you want to see in the next series?

For the "Fears" what do you really want not to happen?

 

[kirk55555]

Some things off the top of my head

I hope:

-The New Companion is from a different time period (not just another modern day person)

-The Companion has no mysteries/prophecies surrounding them

-The Companion does not have a job or family life that involves children we'll have to see take over an episode

-The Companion lives on the TARDIS, and doesn't treat traveling with The Doctor as a hobby

- The Doctor doesn't spend so much time on Earth, regardless of whether its past, present or future

-The writing quality matches Series 5,6,7A more than Series 7B or 8, although I'll settle for something like series 9

-A return of a classic Who villain/species we haven't seen in NuWho (Sea Devils would be cool)

-Very unlikely, but if I can make a crazy wish more than a hope, I'd like to see an old friend/ally return, like Susan, Romana (new regeneration ?), Captain Jack, Jenny, etc

-We see The Master/Mistress

-We get at least one Galifrey/Time Lord based episode

-That this isn't Capaldi's last Series as The Doctor


I fear that:

-The Companion will be another "impossible girl" or otherwise be super duper special and important to the plot

-We'll get another Danny Pink type character

-The writing will be more like 7B when it comes to setting the tone of the new companion

 

[Saga]

i also hope for an episode where an old companion returns. Capaldi has mentioned Susan a few times, i would really like to see her or Ian.

 

[Mr Soak]

I hope we have a looser season arc, as per RTD era.
I hope the companion doesn't stay on Earth and just travel in the TARDIS occasionally (It just takes too much time away from telling stories).
I hope there's no romance.
I hope we don't get the sequel to that Mark Gatis episode he was "promissing."
I hope Moffat doesn't try to be clever or play the emotion card with his stories.
I hope there are some two-parters and some single episode stories, and they are utilised effectively.

 

[matthunter]

Hope: It'll be good

Fear: It'll be crap

I can take or leave anything else.

 

[Starkers]

Hope: That Moffat will be relaxed and want to have fun with his last year which will breath new life into the show (ditto if it is Capaldi's last year as well). I hope they concentrate on going out with a bang.

Fear: That Moffat will have his hands tied by the BBC into setting things up for Chibnall so we'll get a very restrained season. OR Moffat will go too far in the opposite direction and try to out-convolute himself and contrive to make his final year a bit of a mess, albeit probably an enjoyable one in places.

 

[TommyR01D]

...Moffat will go too far in the opposite direction and try to out-convolute himself and contrive to make his final year a bit of a mess, albeit probably an enjoyable one in places.

I think he's already done that several times now.

 

[The Wormhole]

I hope the companion doesn't stay on Earth and just travel in the TARDIS occasionally (It just takes too much time away from telling stories).

Regardless the merits of having a companion permanently living in the TARDIS VS one who just takes day trips with the Doctor, how does the day trip scenario "take time away from telling stories?" Not every story has to start with the Doctor picking up the companion and end with him dropping her off. Granted, they did do that almost constantly with Clara, 20 out of her 28 stories involve her being either picked up, dropped off, or both. And before her it was done in 4 out of the five final episodes featuring the Ponds. But it doesn't have to be done that way.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Like many, I also hope that this is not Capaldi's final season. (Although I may feel differently by the end of Season 10. I'd gotten kinda tired of Tennant & Smith by the ends of their 3rd years, much to my surprise.)

-A return of a classic Who villain/species we haven't seen in NuWho (Sea Devils would be cool)

-Very unlikely, but if I can make a crazy wish more than a hope, I'd like to see an old friend/ally return, like Susan, Romana (new regeneration ?), Captain Jack, Jenny, etc

For classic series aliens to come back, I vote for the Ogrons & the Draconians. I'm especially surprised that they never brought the Draconians back even on the classic series. They had a great look that still holds up today.

As for old friends & allies, I've got a long list of ones that I'd like to see: Susan, Ian, Steven, Jamie, Zoe, Romana, Tegan, Ace, Sgt. Benton, Mike Yates, Leela (although I suspect she was probably an early casualty in the Time War if she even lived that long), Martha, & Captain Jack Harkness. I'd love for Captain Jack to take over as the new Brigadier as far as being a companion that meets up with every Doctor at some point.

Kind of on that front, we may have to wait until Chibnall takes over in Season 11 for this to happen, but I would like to see Doctor Who bring back Captain John Hart from Torchwood Season 2.

I'd also like to see the gang from "Time Heist" come back.

Fear: That Moffat will have his hands tied by the BBC into setting things up for Chibnall so we'll get a very restrained season. OR Moffat will go too far in the opposite direction and try to out-convolute himself and contrive to make his final year a bit of a mess, albeit probably an enjoyable one in places.

I doubt that the BBC will restrict Moffat very much but I think your 2nd concern is a very valid one. "When in doubt, make things more convoluted" seems to be Moffat's rallying cry, both on Doctor Who and Sherlock.

 

[Ithekro]

Well in a show about time travel, Moffat likes to actually use it as a story and plot element rather than just the means the characters get into and out of the story.

 

[Starkers]

^Yeah I'm not saying Moffat's timey-wimeyness always works, but for a show about a time traveller Dr Who rarely explored the mechanics of temporal travel prior to the new series (with a few notable exceptions like Mawdryn Undead).

I'm hoping Chibnall can find a balance between the RTD/Moffat way of doing things-although for all we know he'll go off at an unexpected tangent ala the Third Doctor's exile.

 

[The Wormhole]

I'm hoping Chibnall can find a balance between the RTD/Moffat way of doing things-although for all we know he'll go off at an unexpected tangent ala the Third Doctor's exile.

I'd be okay with that. The Third Doctor's time with UNIT is one of my favourite eras of classic Who.

 

[Starkers]

I can see something like that going down like a lead balloon these days I'm afraid. I think there's definite potential for a mini arc where the Doctor has different adventures in the same place, meaning crossover of characters and budget saving shared sets/costumes but a notionally different story each week (even if there's some vague link, kind of a mini Key to Time/Trial of a Timelord.

 

[TommyR01D]

Personally my hopes are thus:

• A return to some kind of stability with regards to broadcasting schedules and production runs.
• The new companion to be from somewhere outside of London, and to not overshadow the Doctor.
• More standalone stories, with less entanglement to the overriding plot arc.
• The absence of child actors.

My fears, correspondingly, are:

• Schedules will continue to fluctuate erratically, and we will never know when the next episode is airing.
• The new companion will basically be another Clara.
• Moffat will aim for a grande finale (he's already had several) where he enslaves the entire series to a long, convoluted arc which tears even bigger holes in Doctor Who canon and continuity than all his previous arcs combined.
• There will be brats galore as they try to plug some kind of Class crossover.

 

[The Wormhole]

The absence of child actors.

There have been child actors in every season, even in the RTD years, even in Tennant's "gap year." There will almost certainly be child actors at some point in the new season.

Schedules will continue to fluctuate erratically, and we will never know when the next episode is airing.

Exaggerating a bit, aren't we? While the fluctuating schedules of when the season airs is getting out of hand, once the season itself does air the episodes almost always air week after week. So we usually do know when the next episode will air, it's just the next season has always had us wondering.

Moffat will aim for a grande finale (he's already had several) where he enslaves the entire series to a long, convoluted arc which tears even bigger holes in Doctor Who canon and continuity than all his previous arcs combined.

Again, an exaggeration. While Moffat's writing is at times trope-ridden, predictable and leaves much to be desired, it never really tears any holes in Doctor Who continuity and canon. Indeed, the existence of a Doctor Who continuity or canon is questionable at best.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Well in a show about time travel, Moffat likes to actually use it as a story and plot element rather than just the means the characters get into and out of the story.

I agree and I approve, up to a point. IMO, Season 5 with the cracks worked beautifully. Season 6 had some great stuff in there with the Doctor's death at the beginning of the season but the stuff with Amy's pregnancy & River's origins just took it too far. Then the 2nd half of Season 6 set up a bunch of stuff about "the question" & Trenzalore, which seemed to have a very rushed resolution in "The Time of the Doctor." Season 7 wasn't quite as messy, but it sometimes felt like the mystery of Clara tended to derail her character development. And with Season 9, I'm still confused about all of that stuff about "the hybrid" & the Doctor's confession dial.

although for all we know he'll go off at an unexpected tangent ala the Third Doctor's exile.

While I doubt audiences would put up with it for a whole season, I'd like to see them take a half-season to experiment with something like the 3rd Doctor's exile on Earth or the 8th Doctor getting trapped in the Divergent Universe. Maybe try something with the Doctor getting stranded in medieval times, leading to him becoming Merlin, as was established in "Battlefield." (Oddly enough, that might dovetail quite nicely with Capaldi's "magician" persona.)