Ncuti Gatwa is the 15th Doctor

[jaime]

Not long ago the popular complaint around here was that Chibnall took far too long to film seasons, and now we have a complaint RTD is filming them too quickly? Amazing how the times change.


Yeah, as far as Andor is concerned, it's possible she's already finished filming her material for S2. Granted, depending on how much of Andor S2 she's in, it's possible she jumped nearly directly from Andor into Doctor Who, but that's show biz, I guess.

There is a middle ground between ‘glacial’ and ‘bad Friday night takeaway’. XD
In some ways it’s more the time before transmission that bothers me. No time to adjust to things from a real world/audience perspective.
Imagine if the Noel Clarke accusations came out after series one, but series two was already in the can. That would be monumental to sort out. (Barrowman of course was allegedly supposed to return in the Chibnall era.)
It would be like the problem Disney is having right now to a certain extent.
Imagine having a series long arc about a virus affecting the world (not impossible in modern who) and then covid hits. (Bond almost had this problem with NTTD. Almost.)
It does happen, big and small (remember the episode of Bottom set on Wimbledon Common?) and too much done can mean it takes too long to turn the ship, too little, and people may not notice the ship even exists. (Jodie is something like the third or fourth longest running Doctor, but in terms of hours of story, she’s probably only got Ecclestone and McGann beat. Mind you, Sylv and McGann are pretty close for longest running…)

 

[The Wormhole]

Imagine if the Noel Clarke accusations came out after series one, but series two was already in the can. That would be monumental to sort out. (Barrowman of course was allegedly supposed to return in the Chibnall era.)
It would be like the problem Disney is having right now to a certain extent.

Well, exactly, Disney is already dealing with something similar. Were a situation like the Noel Clark accusations to happen with modern Who, it would undoubtedly be similar to the Jonathan Majors situation in the MCU. Loki S2 was left as is and aired, while it's been any future plans for Majors which are being abandoned. I can imagine Who doing something similar, any filmed material still being aired, with the actor being removed from any future plans. The Expanse also did the same thing with Cas Anvar, though they went the extra step of sloppily killing his character off in post-production. None of this is unprecedented, there are options available.

And ultimately it comes down to the simple reality that this is how the need to film the show if they want to get back to having a regular annual broadcast schedule, which fandom has been whining about wanting for over a decade, since Moffat was running the show. So it's either film the seasons over a year in advance, and risk it being dated by the time it airs, or having more relevant and topical seasons airing with year and a half or two year gaps in between.

 

[jaime]

Well, exactly, Disney is already dealing with something similar. Were a situation like the Noel Clark accusations to happen with modern Who, it would undoubtedly be similar to the Jonathan Majors situation in the MCU. Loki S2 was left as is and aired, while it's been any future plans for Majors which are being abandoned. I can imagine Who doing something similar, any filmed material still being aired, with the actor being removed from any future plans. The Expanse also did the same thing with Cas Anvar, though they went the extra step of sloppily killing his character off in post-production. None of this is unprecedented, there are options available.

And ultimately it comes down to the simple reality that this is how the need to film the show if they want to get back to having a regular annual broadcast schedule, which fandom has been whining about wanting for over a decade, since Moffat was running the show. So it's either film the seasons over a year in advance, and risk it being dated by the time it airs, or having more relevant and topical seasons airing with year and a half or two year gaps in between.

I do feel it’s possible to do a series a year, but I imagine a fair amount of time these days is more about post, than simply sticking people in front of cameras, or keys in front of writers, alas. It’s possible to get a decent percentage of that stuff done ahead of time, with planning and a decent team, but at the same time certain aspects might change. It’s interesting as a thought though. (Bunch of designers doing planets, creatures, what-have-you — much like in the old days to an extent — so when the show needs a new one, it’s half way done. Scripts on stand-by to go, with tweaking options available should something need doing. We know it’s sometimes how things ran as far back as the eighties, and as recently as the Moffat era. Writing really can be a year round affair after all.)

 

[The Wormhole]

I do feel it’s possible to do a series a year,

Doesn't seem to be. With Modern Who, only RTD pulled it off during his first term, and he noted in The Writer's Tale that working like that took a toll on his health, which was a contributing factor in why he refused the dump truck full of cash BBC parked outside his house to convince him to stay.

 

[jaime]

Doesn't seem to be. With Modern Who, only RTD pulled it off during his first term, and he noted in The Writer's Tale that working like that took a toll on his health, which was a contributing factor in why he refused the dump truck full of cash BBC parked outside his house to convince him to stay.

I do wonder if moving back to something like the production model of ages back wouldn’t make it more possible. Eight or so writers, and splitting the show runner role back into producer & script editor. I suppose there’s no longer things like the BBCs in-house FX, Radiophonic, and costume depts. Makes it all much more expensive. Two steps forwards, one step back.

 

[Rich Watson]

If anyone's been looking forward to watching Ncuti in "Masters of the Air", it looks like they've been slightly over exaggerating his role in the series while promoting it. In fact, he's in one episode and gets half-a-dozen lines of dialogue. (It's the old "stick Bruce Willis on the cover of the straight-to-DVD movie he only shot one day on" trick.)

 

[The Nth Doctor]

If anyone's been looking forward to watching Ncuti in "Masters of the Air", it looks like they've been slightly over exaggerating his role in the series while promoting it. In fact, he's in one episode and gets half-a-dozen lines of dialogue. (It's the old "stick Bruce Willis on the cover of the straight-to-DVD movie he only shot one day on" trick.)

Honestly, I suspected that between the overall narrative of the season, the repeated use of just one clip of him in promos and the intro, and the fact the Tuskegee airmen looked like they were only going to have one episode anyways.

 

[Rich Watson]

While we know there's going to be a big gap between shooting Series 15 & 16, it's still weird to read that Ncuti has signed up to star in a new (mini-) series based on 'Strangers On A Train' to be shot in Spain.

 

[Samurai8472]

More filming from series two. There's a spoiler in the following link

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/dr-who-star-ncuti-gatwa-32146921

Spoiler

Mrs. Flood shows up in the 1950's episode

 

[Rich Watson]

That's a first.

 

[Captaindemotion]

That's a first.

Cool, though of course P-Cap has an Oscar for director of a short movie

 

[Starkers]

^And he probably would have sung if they'd just asked him...

 

[Samurai8472]

Carey Mulligan was also nominated for a leading actress Oscar for “Maestro”

 

[Starkers]

Carey Mulligan was also nominated for a leading actress Oscar for “Maestro”

Third time she's been nominated.

 

[Qonundrum]

I do feel it’s possible to do a series a year, but I imagine a fair amount of time these days is more about post, than simply sticking people in front of cameras, or keys in front of writers, alas. It’s possible to get a decent percentage of that stuff done ahead of time, with planning and a decent team, but at the same time certain aspects might change. It’s interesting as a thought though. (Bunch of designers doing planets, creatures, what-have-you — much like in the old days to an extent — so when the show needs a new one, it’s half way done. Scripts on stand-by to go, with tweaking options available should something need doing. We know it’s sometimes how things ran as far back as the eighties, and as recently as the Moffat era. Writing really can be a year round affair after all.)

^^this

One reason for seasons one and two being of few episodes, as well as previous series, is the increasing reliance on server farms to render photorealistic CGI. It takes more wattage than what most fans are thinking about to do 25fps for n-seconds' worth of overlaid effects. Much less minutes. It's also dependent on number of objects in a to-scale 3D environment, with lighting and other factors matching. It's another and good reason that makes color grading to the ubiquitous teal/orange easier. Less varied surrounding material to have to blend in with. It's almost an art within an art.

Writing -- even in the days of TNG, and other shows, some script edits were handed out on the day of filming. 26 episodes per year and the actors having to memorized pages' worth of dialogue, only to get a big change hours or minutes before the official shoot? Even then, having to come up with ideas and minimize plot holes isn't easy. (So even if fewer episodes exist, for even a small rewrite or even reshoot, the potential for having to redo entire swaths of fx is a possibility...)

 

[jaime]

^^this

One reason for seasons one and two being of few episodes, as well as previous series, is the increasing reliance on server farms to render photorealistic CGI. It takes more wattage than what most fans are thinking about to do 25fps for n-seconds' worth of overlaid effects. Much less minutes. It's also dependent on number of objects in a to-scale 3D environment, with lighting and other factors matching. It's another and good reason that makes color grading to the ubiquitous teal/orange easier. Less varied surrounding material to have to blend in with. It's almost an art within an art.

Writing -- even in the days of TNG, and other shows, some script edits were handed out on the day of filming. 26 episodes per year and the actors having to memorized pages' worth of dialogue, only to get a big change hours or minutes before the official shoot? Even then, having to come up with ideas and minimize plot holes isn't easy. (So even if fewer episodes exist, for even a small rewrite or even reshoot, the potential for having to redo entire swaths of fx is a possibility...)

Its bad art xD (I hate the teal orange thing xD)
I think we will see a move in the industry ‘back to basics’ because some of the weaknesses in the current system are becoming more apparent. Not to mention the more we codify things into hard structures for the sake of effiemcy, the more we make it easier to lose jobs and creativity to AI, and the environmental concerns of stuff like server farms.

 

[Jedman67]

Writing -- even in the days of TNG, and other shows, some script edits were handed out on the day of filming. 26 episodes per year and the actors having to memorized pages' worth of dialogue, only to get a big change hours or minutes before the official shoot? Even then, having to come up with ideas and minimize plot holes isn't easy. (So even if fewer episodes exist, for even a small rewrite or even reshoot, the potential for having to redo entire swaths of fx is a possibility...)

I've been watching TNG on youtube, and it's astonishing that as much as the great episodes are great, the ones that have a number of speaking extras are incredibly awkward.
Wooden acting, wooden dialog even on extras kinda throws you out. 26 episodes a year with a lot of burnout.

 

[Starkers]

I've been watching TNG on youtube, and it's astonishing that as much as the great episodes are great, the ones that have a number of speaking extras are incredibly awkward.
Wooden acting, wooden dialog even on extras kinda throws you out. 26 episodes a year with a lot of burnout.

My completely unscientific opinion is that a third of Next Gen episodes are terrible, a third are perfectly average and a third are magnificent.

 

[The Wormhole]

My completely unscientific opinion is that a third of Next Gen episodes are terrible, a third are perfectly average and a third are magnificent.

It's like that joke they made on Futurama about TOS "79 episodes, about 30 good ones." TNG probably has a similar percentage of episodes that are actually good.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, I'd say that's roughly the average for all of the shows. Except ENT. Just too many stinkers in those first two seasons.