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

'squeezing out' seems accurate

The main problem is that Sherlock is keeping Moffat from giving all his time and energy to Dr. Who. I mean it's probably not to blame for the shorter seasons and the big breaks in episode blocks but I can't help but think it doesn't help.

He doesn't owe you all his time or energy, so it's not a problem. (And if he wants to see his children sometimes, or make three episodes of another show every two or three years, this is not a major imposition.)

Especially when you're trying to do the 50th anniversary season and only squeezing out the occasional episode

You mean eight regular-length episodes and one 75-minute episode and another one that'll almost certainly be over an hour? What an outrageous shortage, especially when you're having to work around ongoing budget cuts, the loss of facilities, and the non-availability of your lead actor in the title role.

Yes, i know he doesn't OWE ME ANYTHING, it's just a shame that from the start of 2012, through the 50th anniversary year and well into the 51st we get a total of one season, plus one special, and much of that season has been below par.

Three specials!

And he's said he tried to talk Smith into staying, but he wouldn't - they managed to get him to come back for the 50th and the Christmas special, obv, but that's all. It's going to make a far more cohesive 50th year to have the second half of S7 being so full of nods to the past, and then the big event specials, than to regenerate in March, then have the 50th special come shortly into the run of a brand new - and at that point uncast! - Doctor.

So, I guess, blame Smith if you want to hold someone responsible for there being a whopping 60-90 minutes less of new Who on telly in the 50th year than there were in the 20th anniversary year?


[my back-of-an-envelope: S20 = 22x23mins + 90mins, 2013 = 8x45 + 75 +[70?]. Add An Adventure In Space And Time though and we're totally on par.]

plus sherlock

the only affect that I perceive of sherlock having on Dr. Who is that there were a lot of episodes set in some vaguely Victorian era -- even though Moffatt's Sherlock is contemporary, I imagine he is spending time translating the Victorian era stories and characters into the present day

When is Murray Gold going to regenerate?

into Paul Hartnoll please

only two Victorian eps! and one of them was given to Gatiss to autopilot, it's totally Hammer vs Lucifer Box, not Conan Doyle

Moffatt should hire you to do his PR!

I can rant for hours in the pub about stuff that shits me from S7, but seeing less-founded grumping than my own immaculate thought processes helps me KIP

A Doctor who was as rude and abrasive and thoughtless as Sherlock would be pretty cool actually. Not sure which old-school Doctor that would best map onto - maybe Hartnell or Colin Baker?

There's an argument that some of the Tom Baker era (specifically the Hinchcliffe era) is supposed to be directly Holmesian. The common argument is that this is made explicit in Talons of Weng-Chiang.

set of 11 Doctor Who coins, A$699 anyone?

http://www.perthmint.com.au/catalogue/doctor-who-50th-anniversary-2013-half-oz-silver-proof-eleven-coin-set.aspx

my morning:

In Lisbon, planning to buy tickets when they went on sale at 9am and head out to the first day of Amadora BD. Will be in Leeds on the 23rd, and a Vue cinema is the closest in walking distance - I need to leave a party and get back to it after the screening.

The cinema's page has a countdown for days beforehand, saying eg ON SALE IN 17 HOURS. Once it hits the morning, instead it changes to say that tickets are not available at this cinema - please try another one from a list of six or seven across the UK, none of which are in Leeds.

Eventually I discover on a message board that Vue are very gradually rolling out the cinemas available, but you can only tell by refreshing the page and seeing a new cinema added to the drop-down menu. Nowhere is the chain actually announcing this policy.

(It makes sense as a tactic, especially in light of Big Finish's site crashing when they surprise-released the Tom Baker / Davison / Colin B / McCoy / McGann 50th Anniversary story early the other day. It makes no sense to announce that there are never going to be tickets available, though.)

I spend 2 hours and 45 minutes periodically refreshing, and dicking around on the internets in between times. Another chain in Bradford has them on sale, frustratingly, but I want to be walking distance, not another town away. Especially somewhere I've never been, in another country.

I then refreshed and saw the site change, quickly clicked through.
WTF are VIP tickets? Better view? More comfy chairs? Well, I'd better get them in case they're actually better somehow.
Oh, the next screen pre-loads and then freezes. Refresh.
It won't refresh. Reload the session URL.
It takes me back to the previous page, now saying at the top that I want to buy two VIP tickets. Great! Click "continue."
It tells me I have to select at least one ticket.
I select another two, and continue. It pre-loads, then freezes.

I've been doing this in Firefox; click the Chrome icon and wait six minutes while it opens.
C+P my session URL from Firefox into Chrome.
It loads up, and shows me the seats its selected for me. They're in the front row of what's displayed, but it says Row E. I don't want to sit in the front row of a cinema at all, and especially not in 3D, but the only other option is the row behind. Hopefully there are really four rows in front of these. Click continue.

Enter my name and address and credit card details. It doesn't give me an option to enter my country. Continue.
It takes me to a secure code bank authentication thingy. I enter my code.
It takes me back to the previous page and says my bank refused authentication.
I enter all my name and address and credit card details again, then go through and carefully make extra sure I've entered the code correctly.
It takes me back to the previous screen with the same message.

I go back to Firefox and log into my bank account.
I definitely still have enough room on my card to buy over 100 tickets to the screening.

I go back to Chrome.
I enter all my address and name and credit card details again.
I use the little "find address" button beside the post code field, to see what it does.
It tells me to enter a valid post code.

So, all of this has been going wrong because Vue's website doesn't recognise an Australian postcode as being legit, and is telling my bank's security provider that I'm in the UK, apparently?

I use the help number that the message at the top of the page has been showing me, and the very chirpy girl on the technical assistance desk books me tickets on her system over the phone.

It's now past noon and I've been waiting to have a shower, get breakfast, and no longer be sitting in a hostel dorm room glaring at a netbook, plus it's now pissing down outside so I can't get to the Amadora BD, and there could still turn out to be something wrong with the booking once I get to Leeds in a month, but

HOORAH I HAVE TICKETS TO SEE THE DOCTOR WHO 50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL IN 3D ON A BIG SCREEN WITH A CINEMA PACKED FULL OF EXCITED HAPPY PEOPLE HAVING FUN!!!

I once told my boss at a relatively new job that I was going to miss a meeting because it was vitally important for me to repeatedly call Ticketmaster so I could get tickets to see Prince in a nightclub so I say kudos to you, sir

I am so freaking excited for this. Gonna buy tix tomorrow.

my screening in New Orleans sold out in an hour :/

Wow, playing in 13 theaters in the metro Atlanta area. Hell yes.

did you get to see Prince in a nightclub?

Of course I did!

also just bought tix for Boston

I'll inform my wife later, lol

he did one aftershow in Sydney last year, where they sold about 100 tix for a 2000 capacity club bcz the owner is a multimillionaire cock who likes showing off

he did about five in Melbourne :(

considered cinema screening, but not sure whether i want to be angry in 3d

you liked Name right?

Yeah our crew had a bit of an adventure out here -- everything locked down in the site, nothing coming up for a preferred location. Happily someone noticed a fallback location that was accepting orders that was about the same distance away so we're good. (We didn't even bother with the Saturday simulcast -- only one theater in all of OC showing that and I figured trying would be a disaster, which by all accounts it was.)

you liked Name right?

― ͼѾͽ (sic), Saturday, 26 October 2013 08:55 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, so 1/8

managed to get simulcast tickets in SF after they added a second screening. see no point in going to this on Monday when I'll undoubtedly have already watched the thing twice. excited.

Oh neat! Did they open up another venue or was it the same one?

yeah, so 1/8

well part 1 of this story was my point

(but of course you'll be furious at it no matter the content or quality, <3 )

i don't want to be!

same one, just a second screen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01l9ntt

Space battles look a bit Star Wars prequel, but would be lying if I said I wasn't excited for this

parts of this will be delightful

PSYCHED imo

Saw a trailer for this before a movie. I have never seen anything to do with in public (living in America) and it got me SUPER excited.

anything to do with Dr. Who in public

am very looking forward. can't go to 3d screening in cinema as have little baby, but will be watching it at 3am or whatever time it's shown in Australia

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-11-11/doctor-who-writers-son-challenges-bbc-tardis-rights

There seem to be "minisodes" all over Youtube, etc, that I had no idea existed. Search 'Clara and the TARDIS', 'The Infomarium', 'The Rain Gods', 'Strax and Zygons'. Some seem to be filmed from a movie screen, so not sure where they were shown, but still...

The Stef Coburn stuff's pretty odd, partly because there's plenty of freely available evidence that the Tardis idea was already in place before his father was even contracted to write any episodes (eg this memo, which predates Coburn's involvement by two months), and partly because of this crazy stuff.

blimey.

Viewers with interests which could be described as WIGGY may want to seek out the Night Of The Doctor minisode straight away.

I know of at least one person who won't be happy now that's canon...

Ah Christ, that minisode and the new trailer have just ratcheted up my excitement another few notches.

There's been an interesting debate online about just how much the idea that it's the 50th anniversary has made it outside of fandom. 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?

I dunno, I think it's been promoted pretty well for the most part, it's been covered heavily all year so far as I can make out. Hadn't considered that the Capaldi reveal might have obscured the anniversary, if anything it seemed to draw more attention to it. I expect the Beeb'll go beserk for it in the final week

Still can't read Capaldi's name without thinking "OH MAH GAWD HE'S OOGLY" and giggling

That mini episode was UTTERLY UTTERLY UTTERLY GREAT.

Was it a list of big finish companions who also just got brought into canon?

It's been promoted as *something*, but has ot really been promoted as an anniversary to the general public? Rather than #savetheday, wouldn't #dw50 or something have made more sense?

There's been the tv special too I suppose, that ought to add clarity. Idk though, is Joe Public really that bothered that this is a particularly significant year for Doctor Who? I mean by the look of it this episode isn't exactly going to be accessible to people just looking in for the occasion.

The anniversary episode is never super accessible to non-fans