Meh, I wasn't a fan of this one, it was ok but I thought there were better Ncuti episodes
Spoilers Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner
Meh, I wasn't a fan of this one, it was ok but I thought there were better Ncuti episodes
Capaldi with a bit more to say on the show, coming to the defence of Jodie and Ncuti's castings and the good it did for the times the world was in, also thinks the show is getting too big for the BBC and that nobody should ever take it this seriously
deadline.com
I don't know, fans were taking the state of the show increasingly seriously as far back as the 80s, where future showrunners like Chibnall could get on panel shows and attack senior citizens and producers for how they went about handling the show
'Doctor Who's Peter Capaldi Defends Ncuti Gatwa, Jodie Whittaker
Nearly a decade after his run as the Twelfth Doctor ended, Peter Capaldi is defending his fellow Time Lords in the 'Doctor Who' franchise.
deadline.com
I don't know, fans were taking the state of the show increasingly seriously as far back as the 80s, where future showrunners like Chibnall could get on panel shows and attack senior citizens and producers for how they went about handling the show
Taking it too seriously was the most major problem of the Saward/Levine era.Capaldi with a bit more to say on the show, coming to the defence of Jodie and Ncuti's castings and the good it did for the times the world was in, also thinks the show is getting too big for the BBC and that nobody should ever take it this seriously
'Doctor Who's Peter Capaldi Defends Ncuti Gatwa, Jodie Whittaker
Nearly a decade after his run as the Twelfth Doctor ended, Peter Capaldi is defending his fellow Time Lords in the 'Doctor Who' franchise.
I don't know, fans were taking the state of the show increasingly seriously as far back as the 80s, where future showrunners like Chibnall could get on panel shows and attack senior citizens and producers for how they went about handling the show
Capaldi with a bit more to say on the show, coming to the defence of Jodie and Ncuti's castings and the good it did for the times the world was in, also thinks the show is getting too big for the BBC and that nobody should ever take it this seriously
'Doctor Who's Peter Capaldi Defends Ncuti Gatwa, Jodie Whittaker
Nearly a decade after his run as the Twelfth Doctor ended, Peter Capaldi is defending his fellow Time Lords in the 'Doctor Who' franchise.
I don't know, fans were taking the state of the show increasingly seriously as far back as the 80s, where future showrunners like Chibnall could get on panel shows and attack senior citizens and producers for how they went about handling the show
Capaldi himself was writing letters to the RT and what have you. So he thinks it’s gone even a level above that in recent years, and it’s hard to say he’s wrong.
When the Cartmel team say they were trying to bring down the Thatcher government, their tongue is in their cheek.
If the current lot said it, it would be *serious*.
Difference is, Cartmel had writers and storytellers who really tried to write stories.
There were a lot of great stories in that era despite the low budget and the cut down to three episode stories.
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As soon as he found his feet and got rid of the mid eighties hangovers, he was running. Even what is generally thought of as the worst story in seasons twenties five and six, is still Battlefield and really quite good. Though maybe I am underestimating how much Silver Nemesis wasn’t liked.
I admit, I have only experienced most of season 24 as Target books. I can’t stand the way half of it looks, and have very low Bonnie Langford tolerances.
For me the worse were the first season of the 7th Doctor. Once we get Ace, I pretty enjoy them all. And Dragonfire really shows its poor budget, but it's an interesting story.
And I do like the novelizations for these seasons as they're mostly written by the same person that wrote the screenplay.
If you're curious, polls (and IMDb) typically put Silver Nemesis way way down at the bottom, with Happiness Patrol being second worst, and then Battlefield in third.
Honestly I would've expected to find Ghost Light and Survival at the bottom. I like Silver Nemesis!
I think Survival only gets a bad rap cos of the slightly cuddly cheetah people, and like Ghist Light, even if you aren’t getting the themes in the story, it does creepy very well.
Happiness Patrol was one that was a bit rubbish as a kid, but once I was a bit older I didn’t mind the theatre of it.
Battlefield, tbh, tends to actually get better every time I watch it. Needed better production design though. Whoever put the disco lights on those stairs should never have worked again, and the knights needed a bit more SF Cyber stuff on there.
I think that 80s Who gets a bad reputation. Its certainly got some all time bad episodes, but I'll take Colin's two seasons or the back half of McCoy's three over NuWho Series 11+. I'm currently rewatching Season 26, where Battlefield and even Ghost Light have entertained me way more then most of Modern Who has done in years (The Curse of Fenric not so much, but even it is just a bit boring which makes it look like a masterpiece compared to episodes like Kerblam or Space babies). Even at its goofiest it feels a lot less farcical then, say, RTD2, and even bad stories tend to feel like they have more of a point.
For all of its problems 80s Who does a good job in having a variety of stories, and they tend to feel more unique. In comparison Whittaker and Ncuti got stuck with mostly bland, forgettable stuff. I may complain about stories like Time & The Rani, but I certainly don't find stuff like that forgettable.
For all of its problems 80s Who does a good job in having a variety of stories, and they tend to feel more unique. In comparison Whittaker and Ncuti got stuck with mostly bland, forgettable stuff. I may complain about stories like Time & The Rani, but I certainly don't find stuff like that forgettable.
There is a different cut of Happiness Patrol on the blu-ray that's worth checking out. I liked it because the music was such a departure from what was going on in 80s era Who.
Eighties Who still felt like science fiction to me. I've been reading a lot of new wave science fiction lately, and it still feels very much in that realm.
The latest Doctor Who feels like its special effects over story. And some of the stories (from Jodi's era in particular) come off as bad after school specials that I remember watching as a kid. It feels less science fiction to me and more urban fantasy. And the latest two seasons definitely leaned heavily into the fantasy elements. I'd rather watch other shows for fantasy.
Yeah, I’m looking forward to the standard release. Though saying that, I haven’t bothered watching my season 26 one because I watched that season to death taped off the telly and had the previous DVDs. So am not sure 25 won’t suffer a similar fate.
Part of the problem with Silver Nemesis (apart from the cyber cricket gloves) was the wimp the down and made too easy to defeat.
Didn't think Happiness Patrol was that bad but was product of the times and probably wouldn't have helped keep the show of the conservative shit list.
My friend and I used to joke about how they were defeated with money (in light of the show's low budget)
That one was really good.
Funny that — there was Tory MP whose only reason he was mentioned in the press was as a Who fan. And within a few years, Ken Livingston would be on TV talking about Who.
And the Thatcher thing in HP was barely noticeable at the time tbh. Could even rogue it was balance, as Ark In Space had predicted her as PM years earlier xD
Edit after further thought:
And Survival is the *real* swipe at the government of the day. In fact, every story in Season 26 has more to say in terms of politics and social commentary than *anything* written for RTDs era. Either of them.
Only Moffat and (in a shocking moment given my opinion of his writing and era) Chibnall actually made stories with anything to actually say tbh.
RTD stories sometimes looked like they were saying something, but beneath it, said basically nothing in the stories themselves. Dot&Bubble got close, but more with its ‘people trapped by the screens and thats dangerous’ than the racial element that was so buried to look clever, that it backfires and is only apparent because RTD did some promo saying it was there.
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The Moffat era was where the fantasy element really came in. I can't find a quote at the moment, but I'm sure I remember him saying his run would have more of a fairy tale feel than the first Davies era. A little googling certainly finds other people saying that.
I think that’s something easily said but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Moffat era looks at the structure and nature of things like fairy tales and legends, but it doesn’t couch it’s stories in magic any more than any prior version of Who.
Partially that reputation is also because the RTD2 era isn’t really doing anything with fantasy either — it just uses that framing to justify a lack of internal consistency or internal logic.
In both eras, and it’s something Who is occasionally guilty of anyway, ‘fantasy’ is the cover for when things get too silly and don’t land with the viewers or fans. (The Moon is an egg is extremely silly, but at least the story was trying to do something…)
BBC is making agreements with media organizations in some European countries regarding broadcast licensing and budget issues for some new shows like A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. I am thinking whether they could also make agreements with some European countries for Doctor Who, and make a broadcast deal with a bigger digital platform like Netflix for the other countries? Because they are doing this with A Good Girl's Guide to Murder too. Of course, unlike the Disney agreement, by making a 10-15 year agreement, not a 26 vs. episode one.
