The Doctor Who Thread

[gag]

Originally Posted by Mojo

I seriously haven't enjoyed any of this series so far, but Saturday's effort was the absolute nadir of Doctor Who. Crap story, pathetic CGI 'monster' ( and to think once upon a time we had magnificent creations such as the Voc Robots and Zygons ). If the best thing The Guardian can come up with is that 'it had an awesome spaceship' then we really are in trouble. And, in actual fact, the Eagles soaring through space in Space 1999 40 years ago looked a hundred times better.
I'm sick of the box - ticking moralising that goes on in every f*cking episode and five episodes in, JW may be a good actress, but Dr Who she ain't.
Actually, I'm beginning to think the reason there have been no spoilers this series, is because there is nothing worth spoil(er) ing.

Totally agree on she is a good actress but no Dr who , its also in the papers its losing millions of viewers due to crap stories and PC nonsense .

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by gag

Totally agree on she is a good actress but no Dr who , its also in the papers its losing millions of viewers due to crap stories and PC nonsense .

It's The Scum and they are a Murdoch paper therefore promote everything Sky.

Final figures for this series so far.

The Woman Who Fell to Earth - 10.90m
The Ghost Monument - 9.00m
Rosa - 8.37m
Arachnids in the UK - 8.22M

Yes the numbers have dropped a bit but that was expected because nobody thought it's first episode would achieve nearly 11m viewers.

Compare those figures above with the first four episodes last year.

The Pilot - 6.68m
Smile - 5.98m
Thin Ice - 5.61m
Knock Knock - 5.73m

Or if you prefer the first four regular season David Tennant episodes.

New Earth - 8.62m
Tooth and Claw - 9.24m
School Reunion - 8.31m
The Girl in the Fireplace - 7.90m

So i hope you'll realise that as far as viewing figures go the series is doing very nicely even if i think it's not been a very good season so far.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Romana (Lalla Ward) infected by Alzarian spider venom in the 1980 classic Full Circle.

[iank]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

It's The Scum and they are a Murdoch paper therefore promote everything Sky.

Final figures for this series so far.

The Woman Who Fell to Earth - 10.90m
The Ghost Monument - 9.00m
Rosa - 8.37m
Arachnids in the UK - 8.22M

Yes the numbers have dropped a bit but that was expected because nobody thought it's first episode would achieve nearly 11m viewers.

Compare those figures above with the first four episodes last year.

The Pilot - 6.68m
Smile - 5.98m
Thin Ice - 5.61m
Knock Knock - 5.73m

Or if you prefer the first four regular season David Tennant episodes.

New Earth - 8.62m
Tooth and Claw - 9.24m
School Reunion - 8.31m
The Girl in the Fireplace - 7.90m

So i hope you'll realise that as far as viewing figures go the series is doing very nicely even if i think it's not been a very good season so far.

That's nothing to celebrate, though. They'll just keep making it garbage. Let's encourage the perception of the serie as a tired embarrassment that no one watches... and reality may catch up.

[Gothmogxx]

Whenever there's a bad episode of Doctor Who: Web Planet, Underworld or even a weaker Story like The Time Monster, at least we can always say "well at least Hartnell/Pertwee/Baker/Tennant etc was brilliant". Now though, not so much. I don't blame Jodie for that: she can be good. But can is the key word there because right now she can't on account of the writing, which is really terrible, giving her weak material to work with. She just needs a story to get her teeth into.

If you watch, for instance, Tom, even in Robot which was clearly written without him in mind, he owns it right from the start. Look at Chris in Rose with "Run!" Or Jon in all of Spearhead From Space.

Some arguably take longer than others: Patrick for me really comes into form roughly around Moonbase/Macra/Faceless Ones: by Evil he is settled in quite well. David always kind of has it but he expands upon it as time goes on "I am talking" "AND I'M NOT LISTENING!" and by his second Season he is at the height of his powers.


But, and specifically talking about Troughton here, they were still good Stories. Power and Menace in particular are great: sure he isn't quite there yet (I was missing Hartnell still at this point actually) but everything else makes up for it. We haven't had that for this new Season. What we have had is Predator, Keys of Marinus 2, A True Story, The Green Death 2 and a children's version of Alien. Nothing original: not an immediate issue if the new material is equal to or better than the original (see Season 13's Gothic Stories) but none of them have been outstanding. I did like the Predator one but it wasn't a masterpiece by any means. The rest? Not really.

Its very sad to see this stuff portrayed not only as Doctor Who but as outstanding Doctor Who. Moffat's faults aside for a second: seven episodes ago we had The World Enough And Time, one of the greatest two-parters ever made. Its a real shame to see whats happening to it.

[Susan Foreman]

November 7th: Today in WHO-story

Births
1925 - John Stratton (Shockeye in The Two Doctors)

1931 - Rio Fanning (Harker in Horror of Fang Rock)

1932 - Wendy Williams (Vira in The Ark in Space)

1936 - Malcolm Rogers (Count Dracula in The Chase and a Police in The Daleks' Master Plan)

1943 - Peter Straker (Commander Sharrel in Destiny of the Daleks)

1948 - Graeme Farmer (writer of the K-9 stories Fear Itself, Alien Avatar and Taphony and the Time Loop)
1950 - Lindsay Duncan (Captain Adelaide Brook in The Waters of Mars)

1979 - Barney Harwood (extra in Love & Monsters and the Computer in the animated special The Infinite Quest; presenter of Totally Doctor Who)

1982 - Jeany Spark (Big Finish Productions actress - Florence Nightingale in The Angel of Scutari and Jelena in Prisoner of the Sun)

Deaths
1982 - John Bay (Earl of Leicester in The Crusade) aged 53

Episodes
1964 - Planet of Giants, Episode Two ('Dangerous Journey'): 8.4 million viewers
2013 - Strax Field Report: The Zygons (webcast)

2015 - The Zygon Inversion: 6.03 million viewers

Releases
1988 - Terror of the Zygons and The Talons of Weng-Chiang (VHS - omnibus editions)

1994 - More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS (VHS)

2005 - City of Death (DVD - region 2); Travels in Time and Space (BBC Audio); Dragon's Claw (Panini Comics UK)

2017 - The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius (Big Finish)

Behind-the-Scenes
2005 - Recording of Big Finish's audio adaptation of the unmade TV story Night Thoughts took place

2008 - Recording of the Big Finish audio The Magic Mousetrap took place
2012 - Recording of the Big Finish audio The Dying Light took place
2015 - Recording of the Big Finish audio Gardens of the Dead took place

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Doctor (Matt Smith) at the mercy of The Crimson Horror (2013)

[Gothmogxx]

I'm still not, quite sure if I understand Warriors Gate... But its beautiful to watch and the main ship commander was a believable villain. Adric doesn't really get a chance to do much yet and Romana has left

The Keeper of Traken. It was okay. Not perfect, could've been a solid three Parter.

I hated Logopolis the first time round three years back. I wonder if that will still be the case.

[iank]

Catherine Schell (the Countess in City of Death) has revealed that she has been interviewed for a feature by the Blu ray team, strongly indicating season 17 will be coming sooner rather than later. So 10, 26 and 17 next year?

I haven't bought 12 (and given it's OOP and riddled with errors probably won't unless it gets a re-release) and am still on the fence with 19, but 10 is very solid and 26 and 17 are two of my favourite seasons ever. I'm almost tempted.

[gag]

To me some of the best from the new Dr who series are , the empty child and don't blink they are dark , atmospheric, scary (kind of but you get my drift) new creatures, everything about them are exactly how Dr who should be,