Sea Devils And Die: GeroniMoffat's Doctor Who In The 2010s

There's a certain level of "this has been an institution for 50 years" that mitigates some of that IMO. Also, in the US Doctor Who has never been more popular or embraced than it is now; Matt Smith was voted onto the cover of TV Guide this year as part of reader's choice poll, which would have been unthinkable during the show's initial run.

Haha McGann is still so shit at this.

Have things like the savetheday hashtag, and even the Capaldi reveal, obscured the anniversary so that your average mug punter just thinks this is the Smith/Capaldi regeneration and the start of a new series?

Importantly, who gives a shit?

mini-lol at wigmeister's audio companions getting brought in but his BF costume being denied (AMAZING job of making the old one look non-rubbish though!)

especially odd since I figured from end of Name Of The Doctor that Hurt was either an aged Eight or next regen specifically because his costume looked like the current one!

and even the Capaldi reveal, obscured the anniversary so that your average mug punter just thinks this is the Smith/Capaldi regeneration and the start of a new series?

Yeah my housemate asked where Capaldi was when the trailer came on TV, and was quite surprised to learn the regeneration isn't due for a while.

Wish McGann was the Doctor, he is effortlessly superior to Eccleston, Tennant, and Smith put together after just three minutes. Well maybe not Eccleston.

I agree with "different", disagree with "superior"

He does look more like my platonic ideal of The Doctor template than Tennant or Smith though, and I like that they managed to import some of the extreme pathos from the book line into a three minute appearance.

Meantime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEwikIhEZrE

It maybe that six minutes is about as long as a Doctor Who episode needs to be.

But seriously, McGann kicks so much ass in the Big Finish audios. As does Colin Baker.

Colin is the best BF Doctor by miles and miles

omg I just watched Night of the Doctor weee that was v exciting

<3 <3 Paul McGann <3 <3

I like to imagine legions of merchandisers clutching their heads as they realize everything they make now has the wrong Dr number associated with it

whoops, forgot: Moff sez “The Doctor numbering stays exactly the same”

Much love for McGann over here, love the TV pilot and the audio stuff

tho I gotta say, if I drank a magic potion with ‘be a warrior’ on it John Hurt is not exactly who I would be expecting to become

did they actually use hurt at the end? it looked like they threw some makeup on someone else. it's clearly a much younger version of Hurt.

Given the reflection/distortion I figure some sort of basic CGI job.

That was fun but I couldn't really follow it. What makes him decide to become The Bad Doctor all of a sudden? Regen a bit cop-outty.

that his gentle Doctory ways aren't what's needed in the War

re face: he's obv meant to spend hundreds of years fighting as Hurt getting older and more grizzled

imagine if they had a Thunderdome-looking Mel Gibson as Warrior Doctor

loool

it did seem like a bit of an abrupt about face, "oh ok I guess I'll choose to be bad", but they only had five minutes so whatever. this is better than nothing. Holding out hopes that we at least get some glimpse of hurt-into-eccleston in the special, closing the whole loop.

tbh I think 8's choice makes more sense if you've read the BBC books, where he blows up Gallifrey in order to save the universe

tho I gotta say, if I drank a magic potion with ‘be a warrior’ on it John Hurt is not exactly who I would be expecting to become

― Brakhage

Personally I'd be rooting for STATHAM.

tbh I think 8's choice makes more sense if you've read the BBC books, where he blows up Gallifrey in order to save the universe

― smoking, drinking, cracking and showing the MIDDLE FINGER (DJP)

So there have been (canonical?) novels about the Time War?

There are two separate Time Wars if the BBC books are canonical:

Time Lords vs Daleks, which is the current one being promoted in continuity
Time Lords vs Faction Paradox, who were an opposing faction in the books essentially created because they were a good counterpoint to the Time Lords' insistence on the rigidity of timelines and because they wanted a conflict with someone besides the Daleks; this is the one where 8 blows up his home planet and kills almost all of the Time Lords, essentially giving himself amnesia for a century as a side-effect of the trauma and having him come out the other side a darker, more bitter Doctor

The two could be reconciled into the same thing by a crafty writer; the important part is the evolution of 8 into someone who you could plausibly see as someone who would transform himself into whatever was needed to shut down the Time War because he'd already done it once before without regenerating.

Faction Paradox are rebel Timlords? If so the Doctor should be their poster boy.

Actually no. Faction Paradox are a group of non-Time Lords who have used/subverted Gallifreyan technology to generate paradoxes throughout the time stream; there may be some Gallifreyans tied up with them and it's actually hinted that their leader is a parasox-generated version of the Doctor IIRC, but strictly speaking they aren't Time Lords.

which books are those in?

the first half of the 8th doctor bbc books (up until 'the burning' iirc).

The two could be reconciled into the same thing by a crafty writer

i wholly support this, just to see how lawrence miles will react.

It starts with Alien Bodies, flares up with Interference and then continues on through The Ancestor Cell with the fallout and the Doctor's recuperation being chronicled through Escape Velocity

did they actually use hurt at the end? it looked like they threw some makeup on someone else. it's clearly a much younger version of Hurt.

Yeah I thought that was a great move, they borrowed some footage of a younger Hurt (Bleeding Cool thinking it was from Crime and Punishment), implying that this war doctoring stuff goes on for quite some time

Of course, Rusty already made elements of the books/audio pseudo-canon when he declared in an interview that President Romana was the one that started/controlled the Time War.

I don't think the show ever mentioned that the Doctor destroyed Gallifrey, has it - what's their explanation?

TBH, even though McGann was a bit wooden, I like the idea of this Doctor who basically buggers everything up then (sort of) kills himself as a short TV spin-off idea.

I think listening to the Big Finish audios is a geek line I can't cross, but that's probably daft. Are any of them actually good good?

Most of them are competent-to-terrible, several of them are way better than 98% of televised Who ever.

McGann is wooden as fuck but to be fair he's the least wooden thing about that clip. You don't really get the sense that they spent too much time on it.

Yeah, I've had trouble with the audios--I've only listened to maybe 10, and have mostly been pretty disappointed, but I keep going back because it's new (to me) Who! With the real Doctor actors!

Cass is a very 90s companion name.

Kess iirs.

several of them are way better than 98% of televised Who ever.

And which are these?

The I, Davros one was really great. I haven't listened to very many.

I've only listened to a couple of dozen, so someone else may have more thorough opinions. But!

If you just want to try one, Jubilee should be it. The story that got Rob Shearman commissioned to write Dalek in the Eccleston series, but approximately 92x better than that. Features Colin with a middle-aged history professor named Evelyn, an excellent pairing.

She also appears in (lots but I'll recommend) the Gilbert-&-Sullivan-as-Who romp Doctor Who And The Pirates!, by Jac Rayner. This is heaps of fun.

Rob Shearman also wrote an earlier Colin story, The Holy Terror, which features his companion from the DWM comic strip, Frobisher the shape-shifting penguin. It's clever and twisty and uses sci-fi to talk about human nature, and is really really well-written for the radio-play medium. (These all apply to Jubilee too, except more so.)

Another lighter one with Colin is The One Doctor, as fun and funny as you'd expect from Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman. Warning: does feature Mel as the companion.


If you can handle her though, and want more comedy, Roberts and Hickman also wrote the Sylvester audio Bang-Bang-A-Boom, which is a parody of 90s Star Trek and Eurovision, at the same damn time.

A classic-series-style Sylvester & Ace was one of the first audios, but written by a Virgin New Adventures-era author, Jon Blum: The Fearmonger.

I dunno if there are any really great Sylv audios. Robophobia, by Nicholas Briggs, is fun for all the opportunities it gives him to rrrroll his Rs, and interesting to hear him without a companion.


Really great Davison though: The Kingmaker, by Nev Fountain. A historical with time travel twistiness, and lots of great jokes. And in-jokes. (Features Peri and an audio-only companion I don't know anything about and is clearly in the middle of an overarching character arc.)

Spare Parts is Davison in the secret origin of the Timelords, by Marc Platt, and is great and terrifying. Not least because of Nick Briggs doing a version of the Tenth Planet cyber-voice. Features Nyssa.

A meat and potatoes Davison with Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough being written in character really well: Heroes Of Sontar, by Alan Barnes.


WIGGY McGANN has so taken to Big Finish that he moved to having his own line of "seasons", also broadcast on radio, and now is doing annual box sets of linked stories.

Rob Shearman wrote another really good early one for him and companion Charley: The Chimes Of Midnight. A Christmas story and a horror story.

Gatiss' best Who ever (or least crappy) might be an Eighth & Charley: Invaders From Mars, mixing Doctor Who and Welles' War Of The Worlds.

In the first "season" of Eighth stories, once those spin off, Horror Of Glam Rock is what the title promises, written by Paul Magrs. This is with companion Lucie Miller, played by Sheridan Smith, who is great with Eight.

The second season has another Magrs story, The Zygon Who Fell To Earth, which could be fun to visit before we get certain aliens on telly again in the 50th.

All of Season Three is meant to be good, but I haven't heard it. I did listen to almost all of Season 4 on the iPlayer when they were repeated on radio early this year though, and that was a great experience - one of the most consistent and coherent series of Who ever, with characters and subplots and themes recurring across the multiple stories.


WILL THIS DO?

I still like Gatiss's Nightshade book a ton

I've only listened to the Big Finish up to about #70, and some of the newer McGanns, but that's a pretty solid list of the good ones. I'd add some that are good in the sense of classic TV Doctor Who, like Spectre of Lanyon Moor, Winter for the Adept, Loups-Garoux, Dust Breeding, and my personal favorite "Ish...". Oh, and in the interest of equal time, The Rapture, Minuet in Hell, and Time of the Daleks are horrifically bad.

secret origin of the Timelords Cybermen

I watched the "Night of the Doctor" mini-episode and made my roommate watch it and he asked me halfway through if I understood what they were talking about, and I admitted I had no idea. Still, enjoyable to watch!

Ahhh hah yeah very fans-only, this mini-ep

Loved Chimes of Midnight and Dark Eyes. When the Big Finish stuff is good it's great. I tend to read reviews and ratings first, because otherwise it can get dire

That's the thing, I've watched all of the new series and have seen probably a half dozen serials from the first four Doctors.

tried to show the mini episode to my wife last night and although she kind of remembers #8 her interest waned after one minute and then when I looked over during the regeneration she was engrossed in her phone.

That's the thing, I've watched all of the new series and have seen probably a half dozen serials from the first four Doctors.

Apart from McGann being the Eighth (this comes after 4), everything else in the episode either refers to nu-Who or is explicitly explained onscreen. You're fine.

i was able to follow it fine and loved it. i came on w/ 11, know very little of what came before (i know which is which and what they look like and general opinions and cw of each era but until i watched a youtube clip of all the regenerations i had no idea what colin baker for example sounded like), keep meaning to watch earlier (in particular classic ie thru davison) stuff but never have the time. the strictly fanboy stuff i esp love though, it reminds me of being a kid and watching movies and shows like (but not) doctor who that were filled w/ mystery for me either cuz of backstory from before i came in or cuz of some aspect or plot point that was going to be incomprehensible to a six year old. it synced well w/ how i experienced the world at that time.