Doctor Who TV Show • Page 46

Can confirm that Hooklight parts 1 and 2 are incredible, it's easily an instant classic. I've been the same in wanting actual good DW lol so I'm diving back into Big Finish a ton and the books again

I've been going through 11th Doctor chronicles again. which are easily as good as anything Matt Smith had in the show, and his companion, Valarie Lockwood, has become one of my favorites. I've also been listening to the 8th Doctor Adventures again and forgot how good those were. They'd be a good way to jump into Big Finish and (I think?) they're all available for free on Spotify.

 

yeah the 8DAs are fantastic for newcomers and how I got into Big Finish back in the day. Lucie Miller/To the Death is still the best Dalek story in the show's history imo if not just one of the best in general

 

also @JoshShulkin would you say Hooklight has prerequisite stuff in the stories before or is it kinda standalone?

 

There's no prerequisite stuff! Hooklight is maybe the fourth 5th doctor story I've ever listened to lol I went in just being familiar with the companions from the show

It's a minor thing, but I'd recommend finishing Hooklight 1 before looking at the cover for Hooklight 2, if you can. The cover has a spoiler for the end of part 1

 

just threw on The Chimes of Midnight, still the best DW story in any medium. Shearman was on another level

 

Based on the source, I’m going to say huge grain of salt, but also doesn’t seem too out there.

BBC and Russell T Davies Reportedly Clash with Potential New 'Doctor Who' Partner Over Show’s Future & Creative Control

 

honestly not sure the show "taking itself more seriously" would be such a bad thing at this point. obviously there's a line and camp and silliness and whimsy are all integral to the show but...if it prevents another Space Babies from ever happening again...

I'll take farting fat suit aliens and Moaning Myrtle in a slab of concrete over that any day

 

No that's completely fake. I get the horrible feeling that this wish for a new production team to come in and burn the house down with a 'fresh vision' will be a real monkey paw situation.

 

In the RTD2 era we have had:

11 episodes (and 3 specials) written by Russell T Davies
2 episodes written by Steven Moffat
1 episode written by Pete McTighe (wrote for the show under Chibnall)
and 1 episode co-written by RTD (which was basically all the rewrites to make The Well into a Midnight sequel)

That leaves 3 episodes out of 19 written exclusively by new voices (one of whom was apparently the personal choice of Ncuti Gatwa).

Even if you like RTD as a writer - and a lot of the stuff he's written for this era has been great! - there's clearly issues with the way the show is set up right now. We need to bring in the next Moffat.

 

Funnily enough I had the same idea recently, so snap.

 

I'm finally starting my read of the EDAs tomorrow, very excited to finally kick these off. took me a year and a bit to polish off the VNAs with some additions, a lot quicker than I expected

 

I was slow to get started with this most recent season and have binged through it all over the last week or two.

I don't feel as badly about it as the Jodie period, but with someone who is clearly a talent and massive rising star, they've really missed their opportunity to deliver something special with Ncuti.

Thought Lux and The Well were decent and then really enjoyed Lucky Day. That slightly crueller tone really set that one off for me.

Story and The Engine felt a bit of a mess to me. Felt like they wanted to work some of Ncuti's heritage into the show (which Sex Education managed pretty well with one episode), but the main plot-line with the vengeful god just didn't engage with me at all. The barbershop and stories part feel like they could have been used in a far more interesting/impactful way.

Interstellar was OK, but it was another one where the strength of feeling the plot relies on isn't backed up by anything. The Doctor basically tortures a guy because he doesn't know where his most recent companion has gone. It's not liked we'd seen much development between him and Belinda at that point, so it just felt weird and out of character. I think he'd already realised by that point that everyone had frozen outside the bubble too, so even if she was out there, she could be saved?

The final two episodes were pretty much entirely garbage. Far too many things being shoehorned in, nothing has any time to develop or have impact. The Poppy storyline was dreadful in particular. I watched the final two back to back last night and I had to double check that I hadn't mistakenly filled a pint glass with gin rather than water, because the whole thing just felt like a chaotic mess.

I did like the bone beasts though...

Overall feeling is that someone needs to properly take charge of the show, figure out what it's meant to be and then get some focus back on actual storytelling (whether that's per episode or over the whole arc). As with the previous season, a lot of these episodes felt rushed to me. Like they'd been filmed after the first draft of the script. The production and quality of acting/direction is absolutely all over the place too.

When it's good, it's still a lot of fun, but they have a lot to work on.

 

so the first EDA was absolutely terrible but I'm loving Vampire Science so far, these are definitely a different beast than the VNAs

also I'm running through the Big Finish Main Range and I may actually try and finish it now there's an actual endpoint. last time I listened to these early ones was probably nearly a decade ago, I forgot how quickly it can go from classics to absolute dogshit

 

still skipping around in the Main Range of BF and just hit The Kingmaker. gotta be one of the funniest, most insane Doctor Who series ever made, absolutely fantastic. it's a shame Davison didn't get stories like this on TV

 

the first Thirteenth Doctor audio came out this week, and it's good! hearing Jodie with some stronger writing is so validating