Fair point. Just me projecting to make the larger point.
Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
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I only hope he's just committed himself to it for a finite time period, I won't be surprised if he steps back somewhat after S15
I can't see how it won't be a creative solution, people might not like it but it'll be a creative solution.
Maybe the Doctor and Millie will have just been hit by a sonic grenade, so while they can see the Beatles, they can't hear them and we're in their POV so we can't hear anything either
It's a hard day's night when RTD works eight days a week.
I only hope he's just committed himself to it for a finite time period, I won't be surprised if he steps back somewhat after S15
I can't see how it won't be a creative solution, people might not like it but it'll be a creative solution.
Maybe the Doctor and Millie will have just been hit by a sonic grenade, so while they can see the Beatles, they can't hear them and we're in their POV so we can't hear anything either
It’s the “Doctor Who and Hitler” problem to an extent. Whenever writing Who, and you put in real historical events, or people, it’s something you have to be careful of because of suspension of disbelief. The difficulty increases the “bigger” the figure/event but *also* particularly how recent the character/event is.
Moffat lampshades the heck out of it in Let’s Kill Hitler, Classic Who basically avoids World War 2 for its entire run, and it’s fairly rare it even touched real figures once it stops doing straight historicals.
Modern Who actually leans on it a bit more, but the stumbling blocks it can present is exemplified in Rosa (which I still haven’t seen) whereby you have this moment that *were it on any other made up planet, the Doctor would have stopped* but because it’s “real” to us (and in living memory for some) it puts the Doctor in “have to let it happen, because history cannot be changed, not one line” (codified with things like *fixed point* and a sort of misappropriation of Genesis’ “Do I have the right” speech) and can undermine either the status of the Doctor as good/moral or can make the fictional nature of the show so obvious as to break suspension of disbelief.
Or in some cases, cause offence.
Chibnall ran smack into that surprisingly often, and RTD sort of danced on the edges in his first go round. (Edit: Not to mention the questionable use of a divisive-in-the-modern-era Winston Churchill in the Moffatt era.)
The Beatles are *probably* fairly safe, but at the same time have such a large cultural impact and are *so* well known (with their own fandom…) that they become a risk again. The Doctor can’t become top mates with John Lennon, without us possibly wondering why they didn’t stop him getting shot (or hooked on heroin…) and there’s probably good reason it’s fairly early to mid Beatles to be encountered — later it’s not going to be so easy to be family friendly. And you can’t just drop the Doctor into Abbey Road and have him fill the shoes of one of the known mates/session musicians, because again, that might be pretty offensive.
There’s also the stepping on own shoes problem — a short bus ride away there might be a Dalek Taskforce trying to get its plungers on the Hand of Omega.
So will it be “creative”… well, in its purest use, it has to be. The choice of setting and historical figures is already putting enough pressures on, so if making that choice, you’re gonna have to do some dancing. Will it be good? Because let’s be honest, Timelash is creative, Time Flight had to get creative… and they and many others are hardly topping the polls.
But… it’s always the result of other creative choices, that aren’t always good, and can hamstring a story pretty quickly.
Might work. Might not.
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The Curse of Fenric would like a word.
Also WW2 is a lot closer to classic Who than modern Who. When Classic Who ends in 1989 you're only 44 years away from the end of WW2, and the further back you go the closer you are. When Who started it was only 18 years since the end of the war (not forgetting the obvious impact WW2 cast over Who, the Daleks are Nazis). Take WW2 now and it's almost 80 years since it ended, hell it's over 50 years since the Beatles broke up and depending when the Beatles' ep is set you're probably talking closer to 60 years.
I think the majority of people have no problem understanding that Doctor Who is a TV show and will suspend their disbelief accordingly. And "Why doesn't the Doctor stop John Lennon getting shot?" is just ridiculous. Why doesn't the Doctor stop The Black Death/Hitler/911/Sharon Tate's murder etc etc etc...
And I love the way you know what the problem with Rosa is despite not having watched it, in the same way I'm guessing you won't watch the Beatles' episode but will still give us 50 reasons it's terrible
Slight update from those who always seem to be in the know regarding shooting plans.
S2 is set to wrap around the 20th of May and will not include the subsequent Christmas Special as part of its plans.
No news on any more public shooting before they finish. On the one hand I miss getting those little peaks at what's coming, on the other it hopefully means fewer Present-day Earth stories.
As for Ncuti's future, we know he's signed up to shoot a new version of 'Strangers on a Train' later this year but that's only a mini-series and not a long term commitment. Plus they're so far ahead they don't need to start up again until well into next year.
My own belief is that he'll be back for S3 before moving on. And Russell has talked out having already sketched out his plans for S4, so he'll be there to cast one more Doctor.
So will 2027 finally be Kris Marshall's time?
No. No it won't.
S2 is set to wrap around the 20th of May and will not include the subsequent Christmas Special as part of its plans.
No news on any more public shooting before they finish. On the one hand I miss getting those little peaks at what's coming, on the other it hopefully means fewer Present-day Earth stories.
As for Ncuti's future, we know he's signed up to shoot a new version of 'Strangers on a Train' later this year but that's only a mini-series and not a long term commitment. Plus they're so far ahead they don't need to start up again until well into next year.
My own belief is that he'll be back for S3 before moving on. And Russell has talked out having already sketched out his plans for S4, so he'll be there to cast one more Doctor.
So will 2027 finally be Kris Marshall's time?
No. No it won't.
Eventually Marshall will show up for one episode as a pre-Hartnell Doctor. You heard it here first (and probably last)
Three seasons is the default and I think we all know Ncuti is gonna be big news very soon so I'd be amazed if they kept him beyond 3 (unless they do what they've done with 1&2 and make 3&4 really close together) and while I hope it isn't the case, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if he only did two seasons if his career really takes off.
Do we think RTD will stay beyond a 4th season this time? Would be interesting if he does and does cast 16, if only because we might finally get a modern Doctor who straddles showrunners, which hasn't happened since JNT/Tom has it? (unless we count McCoy's cameo at the start of the TVM)
Not while he's in the role, I'd have thought.
Thinking back we only found out Hugh Grant had been asked to play 9 years later. And I don't think we have heard of anyone else, officially at least.
I think Patterson Joseph has said he got close at one point and was it Ben Daniels who said he was second choice if Capaldi had said no?
I think it was. Also wasn't Chiwetel Ejiofor supposed to have come close when they hired Matt?
Yes, it was.
The Curse of Fenric would like a word.
Also WW2 is a lot closer to classic Who than modern Who. When Classic Who ends in 1989 you're only 44 years away from the end of WW2, and the further back you go the closer you are. When Who started it was only 18 years since the end of the war (not forgetting the obvious impact WW2 cast over Who, the Daleks are Nazis). Take WW2 now and it's almost 80 years since it ended, hell it's over 50 years since the Beatles broke up and depending when the Beatles' ep is set you're probably talking closer to 60 years.
I think the majority of people have no problem understanding that Doctor Who is a TV show and will suspend their disbelief accordingly. And "Why doesn't the Doctor stop John Lennon getting shot?" is just ridiculous. Why doesn't the Doctor stop The Black Death/Hitler/911/Sharon Tate's murder etc etc etc...
And I love the way you know what the problem with Rosa is despite not having watched it, in the same way I'm guessing you won't watch the Beatles' episode but will still give us 50 reasons it's terrible
I know the curse of Fenric is WW2, and the very fact they always tried to avoid using the setting was a consideration *when they were making it* hence ‘basically avoids’ and not ‘totally avoids’.
I also did not criticise anything about Rosa, other than the problems such a set up causes — which are there whether I watch it or not. I also didn’t offer any suggestion as to whether it was successful or not in overcoming them, because I don’t hold an opinion on it, having only read about it at best.
The considerations I mention are ones regularly considered by the people behind the show from day one. They have been present in criticism of stories as well — even Uncle Terrance gets some stick for his handling of the Nazis in his NA Exodus.
The problem is with levels of suspension of disbelief, and that’s why you put the Doctor up against Daleks and alien-dictator-of-the-week, rather than actual current or recent human ones, because it makes the artifice obvious. You don’t want someone saying ‘well, why didn’t he stop Hitler then?’ even on a low level, because that affects the ability of the show to tell its stories.
On the other hand I could see where it could be easier since you don't have to wrangle a whole staff of writers, and don't have to spend as much time going over the stories and scripts.
Does anybody know if Michael Hurst really wrote all 89 episodes of Vikings all by himself? He's credited as the sole writer for every episode, but I know credits don't always match the reality of who did what.
Well... it's not a secret any more.
Edit: Actually it still is. Looks like there was an accidental early uploading of a swiftly removed (but not swiftly enough) press release.
Edit: Actually it still is. Looks like there was an accidental early uploading of a swiftly removed (but not swiftly enough) press release.
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What the hell, here's another one.
So, its not a secret that...Ncuti took a picture with people?
Are we supposed to know what makes these pictures special? Is that second woman the replacement companion (since I think I read that Ruby is leaving after the first series)? Is this some secret thing that only British people understand? I've gone back over the last few pages of this thread and I still can't find any context to this.Press release is back up now.
https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-f...ifteenth-doctor-and-ruby-sunday-in-season-two
Oh, and no mention of Millie going anywhere or just guest-starring in a couple of episodes. (Photos were taken at the table read for the season finale.)
https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-f...ifteenth-doctor-and-ruby-sunday-in-season-two
Oh, and no mention of Millie going anywhere or just guest-starring in a couple of episodes. (Photos were taken at the table read for the season finale.)
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So, its not a secret that...Ncuti took a picture with people?
It’s actually a secret remake of Coupling. The whole thing has been an elaborate cover up to get Moffats finest work back on screen. New cast isn’t bad, really have similarities to the original.
This may be the prettiest TARDIS crew to date. 
Sorry, they can’t hold a candle to Wendy Padbury or Liz Sladen.This may be the prettiest TARDIS crew to date.
