Ah. Fair enough xD
Spoilers Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
- Start date
Ah. Fair enough xD
I'm sorry, but it's absolutely ridiculous to compare a show being made today to a show made back in the '60s - '80s, TV is a completely different thing than it was back them. You might as well compare a big, modern broadway musical like Wicked, with an ancient Greek play like Lysistrata.
I think I must be the only person who has actually enjoyed most of the finales.
It's also what the audience expect these days.
So many times I've seen modern Who stories described as filler episodes as they don't add to the ongoing plot and are therefore skippable. On that basis nearly all of Classic Who is filler.
The broadcasting environment has changed in so many ways. It's amusing listening to the Image of the Fendhal commentary when Baker, Jameson and the others are shocked at the scene where the Doctor hands someone a gun knowing he's going to use it to kill himself.
So many times I've seen modern Who stories described as filler episodes as they don't add to the ongoing plot and are therefore skippable. On that basis nearly all of Classic Who is filler.
The broadcasting environment has changed in so many ways. It's amusing listening to the Image of the Fendhal commentary when Baker, Jameson and the others are shocked at the scene where the Doctor hands someone a gun knowing he's going to use it to kill himself.
I agree with Jaime regarding finales. People have unreasonable expectations due to the build up and the clues dropped throughout the episodes and are frequently disappointed when they get to the finale. A large chunk of the episode is taken up as one big epilogue with a cliffhanger sometimes inserted at the very end to set up the (then) annual special such as when Catherine Tate showed up in a wedding gown - 'What? WHAT?'. Good writing is what keeps people invested irrespective of whether its a grand finale or just the end to another season, the TV landscape is irrelevant. This view on there needing to be a big season finale is one of the things I've been thinking is part of the problem with Nu Who. I've been ruminating on what I'd like to see, fuelled in part by the fact I'm currently watching season fifteen on Blu-Ray. I've just finished 'Horror of Fang Rock' and will be going through 'The Invisible Enemy' and its extras over the weekend. And for those who were thinking I was talking about the recent season fifteen, I'm referring to the season fifteen, the original, the definitive article you could say 
.
I like Nu Who, at least I did during Davies' first go around with Tennant, and to an extent subsequent incarnations. But I prefer the classic show. I was, perhaps not exactly counting the days until its release, but I was certainly looking forward to the release this week of season 15 on Blu-Ray in standard packaging than I was about any Nu Who release of late. I think the show as others have said has become too big and bombastic. As I said above I'm not that keen on these big season finales/cliffhangers which rarely deliver. I'd love to see the show be 5 or 6 four part serials approximately 30 minutes long and maybe every couple of years the season finale ends with the departure of a companion/introduction of a new one or the Doctor regenerating, but otherwise merely be 'last in the present series'. I want it to be a show about someone travelling with one or two companions through time and space (occasionally landing on contemporary Earth) having adventures. That's what I want. and jettison this whole Timeless Child/Fugitive Doctor nonsense. William Hartnell is the first Doctor. And that last sentence I think exposes that is wrong.
If John Nathan Turner for instance had introduced the concept of gender-swapping regenerations for Timelords and he apparently did consider it, I would have been fine with it. If Bob Holmes and Phillip Hinchcliffe had continued with the idea they teased in Brain of Morbius about there being additional Doctors, I would have been ok with it (though admittedly I didn't start watching the show until the Graham Williams era so it would have been an established thing by then anyway). But they didn't and also they introduced the idea in such as way as you could dismiss it. The images of the additional Doctors in the mind contest being Morbius' past selves. In the classic show they introduced the concept of good Timelords turning bad after they regenerate - Borusa and the Valeyard. Again I'm not sure if they could have pulled that off. And speaking of Borusa, if Rassilon was released from eternal torment from the tower in the Death Zone, were any of the others, and what does that mean about the moral of the tail of 'The Five Doctors'?
And this brings us to my point about Nu Who. I think the classic show alone had the right to do these kinds of things, I just don't believe Nu Who has earned that right, at least not yet. Furthermore I think had either of these things been done in the classic era the execution would have been better. It would have been the Doctor simply regenerating from a man into a woman, there would have been some comments and raised eyebrows doubtless, but not much. Ditto pre-Hartnell incarnations. There probably wouldn't have been some over the top reveal like Flux (which failed for me. I assume that couple we saw were the Doctor's birth-parents?), it would have probably been something more constrained and refined.
What I would like is for the next showrunner to do a partial reboot. Everything post-'Survival' (including the 1996 TV-movie) never happened, or happened in a parallel universe. Inspired by the regeneration scene in 'Time & the Rani' and the scenes were Pertwee falls out of the TARDIS unconscious post-regeneration and is taken to hospital, is how I'd start the show. Its 1966, a few days after the events of 'The War Machines' & 'The Faceless Ones', a person or people are walking through some spot of countryside and witness what looks like a police telephone call box materialise out of thin air. A glowing man (dressed in Sylvester McCoy's season 26 costume) stumbles out of the box moments later. Thinking he's on fire they race towards the police box to help only to be hurled back by the force of the regeneration as it reaches its climax. When the air clears they warily come closer to the figure on the ground to find a man wearing clothes too small for him, but otherwise both he and his clothes appear unharmed despite all the 'flames'.
The episode would continue with setting up the villain of the first story and introducing the companion, a girl in her late-teens who is desperate to embrace the 'swinging London' vibe despite growing up in a working class household in London with 'small-c' conservative parents who are somewhat over-protective of her. I imagine her father being displeased with her wardrobe choices, referring to the hem line of her skirt/dress she plans to wear to work (she's a secretary at a place called the Space Research Establishment, mentioned in a couple of UNIT era stories) -
"You don't need Superman's X-Ray vision to see you're wearing tights not stockings." Before referring to the events of the two classic episodes I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and how she needs to be careful. The aftermath of both are still rumbling around. The mother joins in saying something like:
"(INSERT NAME)'s daughter in number 17 used to be exactly like you. Dressing like that, thinking like you do. Remember what she got for her 18th birthday? It was seven pounds six ounces and they named him John after who they think his father was."
The episode then continues with the Doctor in hospital recovering. From his standpoint its been a year since 'Survival' and this new 8th incarnation is mumbling in his sleep, referring to people from his past like Ace and the companion who was planned to replace Ace. I don't know if they ever named her, just that she was supposed to be some kind of thief. The Doctor does his customary post-regeneration shenanigans and after discovering his clothes no longer fit, finds something suitable in his eyes which may or may not be his new outfit. He discharges himself from hospital, bumps into his new companion, possibly saving her life in the process and upon learning where she works decides to tag along and over the course of the next four episodes they have their first adventure together leading to her joining him in the TARDIS.
.I like Nu Who, at least I did during Davies' first go around with Tennant, and to an extent subsequent incarnations. But I prefer the classic show. I was, perhaps not exactly counting the days until its release, but I was certainly looking forward to the release this week of season 15 on Blu-Ray in standard packaging than I was about any Nu Who release of late. I think the show as others have said has become too big and bombastic. As I said above I'm not that keen on these big season finales/cliffhangers which rarely deliver. I'd love to see the show be 5 or 6 four part serials approximately 30 minutes long and maybe every couple of years the season finale ends with the departure of a companion/introduction of a new one or the Doctor regenerating, but otherwise merely be 'last in the present series'. I want it to be a show about someone travelling with one or two companions through time and space (occasionally landing on contemporary Earth) having adventures. That's what I want. and jettison this whole Timeless Child/Fugitive Doctor nonsense. William Hartnell is the first Doctor. And that last sentence I think exposes that is wrong.
If John Nathan Turner for instance had introduced the concept of gender-swapping regenerations for Timelords and he apparently did consider it, I would have been fine with it. If Bob Holmes and Phillip Hinchcliffe had continued with the idea they teased in Brain of Morbius about there being additional Doctors, I would have been ok with it (though admittedly I didn't start watching the show until the Graham Williams era so it would have been an established thing by then anyway). But they didn't and also they introduced the idea in such as way as you could dismiss it. The images of the additional Doctors in the mind contest being Morbius' past selves. In the classic show they introduced the concept of good Timelords turning bad after they regenerate - Borusa and the Valeyard. Again I'm not sure if they could have pulled that off. And speaking of Borusa, if Rassilon was released from eternal torment from the tower in the Death Zone, were any of the others, and what does that mean about the moral of the tail of 'The Five Doctors'?
And this brings us to my point about Nu Who. I think the classic show alone had the right to do these kinds of things, I just don't believe Nu Who has earned that right, at least not yet. Furthermore I think had either of these things been done in the classic era the execution would have been better. It would have been the Doctor simply regenerating from a man into a woman, there would have been some comments and raised eyebrows doubtless, but not much. Ditto pre-Hartnell incarnations. There probably wouldn't have been some over the top reveal like Flux (which failed for me. I assume that couple we saw were the Doctor's birth-parents?), it would have probably been something more constrained and refined.
What I would like is for the next showrunner to do a partial reboot. Everything post-'Survival' (including the 1996 TV-movie) never happened, or happened in a parallel universe. Inspired by the regeneration scene in 'Time & the Rani' and the scenes were Pertwee falls out of the TARDIS unconscious post-regeneration and is taken to hospital, is how I'd start the show. Its 1966, a few days after the events of 'The War Machines' & 'The Faceless Ones', a person or people are walking through some spot of countryside and witness what looks like a police telephone call box materialise out of thin air. A glowing man (dressed in Sylvester McCoy's season 26 costume) stumbles out of the box moments later. Thinking he's on fire they race towards the police box to help only to be hurled back by the force of the regeneration as it reaches its climax. When the air clears they warily come closer to the figure on the ground to find a man wearing clothes too small for him, but otherwise both he and his clothes appear unharmed despite all the 'flames'.
The episode would continue with setting up the villain of the first story and introducing the companion, a girl in her late-teens who is desperate to embrace the 'swinging London' vibe despite growing up in a working class household in London with 'small-c' conservative parents who are somewhat over-protective of her. I imagine her father being displeased with her wardrobe choices, referring to the hem line of her skirt/dress she plans to wear to work (she's a secretary at a place called the Space Research Establishment, mentioned in a couple of UNIT era stories) -
"You don't need Superman's X-Ray vision to see you're wearing tights not stockings." Before referring to the events of the two classic episodes I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and how she needs to be careful. The aftermath of both are still rumbling around. The mother joins in saying something like:
"(INSERT NAME)'s daughter in number 17 used to be exactly like you. Dressing like that, thinking like you do. Remember what she got for her 18th birthday? It was seven pounds six ounces and they named him John after who they think his father was."
The episode then continues with the Doctor in hospital recovering. From his standpoint its been a year since 'Survival' and this new 8th incarnation is mumbling in his sleep, referring to people from his past like Ace and the companion who was planned to replace Ace. I don't know if they ever named her, just that she was supposed to be some kind of thief. The Doctor does his customary post-regeneration shenanigans and after discovering his clothes no longer fit, finds something suitable in his eyes which may or may not be his new outfit. He discharges himself from hospital, bumps into his new companion, possibly saving her life in the process and upon learning where she works decides to tag along and over the course of the next four episodes they have their first adventure together leading to her joining him in the TARDIS.
We do compare modern plays and ancient plays all the time though. And we still put on the ancient plays as well.
And we are comparing a show to *itself*.
I think it’s possible that audience tastes are moving back away from the finale and even sometimes overt serialisation, and certainly the ‘big’ finale is a fifty fifty shot sometimes it seems.
It’s not even about whether I like or dislike them, or the model over all, it’s whether it’s working in this instance. And it looks like it possibly isn’t anymore.
How often are ancient plays produced in the style of how they were made back then. Particularly not in commercial productions.
Every era, changes its approach to older material and what we understand and appreciate of that material is not always going to be the same as the previous or next generation.
There was a time when Shakespeare plays were given happy endings when the original didn't have one.
Doctor Who is being approached through a modern lens in the same way those plays are.
Every era, changes its approach to older material and what we understand and appreciate of that material is not always going to be the same as the previous or next generation.
There was a time when Shakespeare plays were given happy endings when the original didn't have one.
Doctor Who is being approached through a modern lens in the same way those plays are.
Modern Who has been running 20 years, classic ran for 26. When does modern who 'earn' the right!!
And like modem who it was mostly made up as it went along. There was no grand plan so treating it as some kind of sacred text is nonsense.
Plenty of times classic Who did things that the audience of the time disliked which we now treat as normal and to be celebrated.
See also: Star Trek!
Perhaps it’s time for another lens change.
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