Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

haha i was like that when i worked in a commercial laundry - every night i’d dream
about folding towels endlessly & wake up exhausted having do it all again for real

Swipey tile game has inadvertently trained me to have an automatic “fuck not again” reaction to Hartnell’s face

Game is quite addictive innit.
Do know that feeling of having an activity's imagery fixed on your senses but thankfully not with this so far. Had a job power washing brick walls in Sloane Square in the late 80s and every time i closed my eyes for the week I was doing it I saw bricks, think it lasted a bit afterwards too.

I do love the Doctor's clothing, as I have for the last few decades. Think I might think twice about the colouring of Colin Baker's frockcoat etc. Do love that Late Victorian/Edwardian/ whatever look that is a theme through the classic era and has echoes in the newer one. Seen images of suitjackets that look a lot like Tennant's in adverts from the early 20th century too. The frockcoat look from the earlier era has been an influence in my own designs.

I've been slowly building a disc library of the old serials which were compelling mysteries to me as a child - known only from novelisations or lists of titles. Being able to buy a DVD of The Tenth Planet or The Time Meddler is like finding out there's footage of rituals at Stonehenge or similar (kind of a fun twist on the show's early intention). Going forward I thought at first Peter Davidson would be my cutoff point, but more and more I find myself uninterested in anything after 1980, as soon as the titles change from the "polarised tunnel" it doesn't feel like the real thing any more. Sorry Romana.
https://www.artofthetitle.com/assets/sm/upload/ms/jh/iy/ke/dw_1980_c.jpg

(even Tom looks done with it, there)

the 80s title sequences are much worse than what came before, but I quite like the Colin Baker ones where they embrace the gaudiness and go full-on end of the pier

https://cultbox.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Doctor-Who-Colin-Baker-titles-600x337.jpg

with the exception of Warrior's Gate (one of the all-time best imo) and State of Decay (which I think was an older script that disinterred) season 18 feels drab and lifeless compared to the previous few years, like they wanted to rein in the silliness and clowning about but didn't have any compelling ideas about what to replace it with.

i was the perfect age to be uncritically excited about season 18, am critical now but still see good in it and genuinely love Logopolis

that's a good point, I didn't really see any of this stuff until I was a teenager and old enough to see it in a more detached way - when I think about sci-fi/fantasy stuff I saw when I was a kid, I always hated it if I got the impression that the people making the show were not taking things seriously enough - I could never whole-heartedly enjoys the Adam West Batman for this reason (I love it now, though). I think if I'd seen them when I was 8 or 9 years old I would have preferred season 18 to season 17, and probably would have seen it as more 'grown up', whereas now the earnestness of season 18 makes it come across as more like a kid's show than the anything since the 60s.

S18's biggest problems are nobody on the production side having any idea how to complement Bidmead's approach*, and Tom being burnt out and unwell.

*if Letts hadn't been hands-off this might have gone differently!

actually, The Keeper of Traken is good as well, I'd forgotten about that one

ok officially renouncing swipy tile game, can’t get past Tennant and I can’t imagine how it is even possible and i need my productivity back

idle thought, and maybe obvious - but game only works if you are a credentialled fan who understands the order of regenerations as a kind of alternate basic numeracy? feels weirdly unique / uniquely weird

anyway never again!!!!!

Aw yeah

When The Doctor summons me, I am compelled to answer ⛈️🎹 #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/mRS7xifGLR

— Jinkx Monsoon (@JinkxMonsoon) April 19, 2023

I'm actually in love with Ncuti's Doctor's outfit, spectacular work.

I thought a YInka Shonibara take on the late Victorian/Edwardian style would be very interesting. But a 60s take on the style works for me.
Maybe Shonibara too gimmicky anyway. Would love to see it though.
Wonder to what extent Ncuti will be changing costume anyway. After the continual costume change in Sex Education is it going to continue here.
Do love teh reinvention of the style. The early Doctors have influenced my tastes and designs too.
Just watched the first episode of Tom Baker in Robot last night. Had me wondering where i started with Pertwee in terms of watching things at the time they were initially broadcast. Wondered also if my elder brother had been watching Troughton era when I was too young to really take in and remember , do remember a lot of Pertwee though.

I assume previous mention of Ncuti costume is the blue with white stripes 60s version of an Edwardian suit that is pictured in Radio Times.

Yinka Shonibara is a Nigerian artist. His work comments on the process of colonisation by recreating period clothing etc in waxed cotton.
Thinking frock coats made in that stuff would look good. Planned to make a couple myself and haven't got that far so far.

Did make a couple of frockcoats out of a pattern people have used for versions of Colin Baker's jacket. Customised the pattern a bit for my own tastes.
Colin Baker was a bit of a coincidence. That era clothing I. E.late 19th/early 20th has been an influence on me since I became interested in clothing decades back. Though do think the coat of many colours may be a bit OTT.

Started watching Tom Baker era show again from the start. Watched it through a couple of times over last couple of decades. & had seen it when it was first on. Which had me wondering when I had first watched Dr Who. If it was something my brother had been watching before I was really aware of things. Like if I was born in 67 and my brother in 63 if it was something I sat in front of as a baby. I definitely remember several Jon Pertwee stories from the time. So assume we watched it regularly throughout his era.

Watched all of the show that still had footage through a couple of times. Over last decade and a half. I'm not as into the later classic era. Think things decline for me from when Tom Baker stops wearing late 19th/early 20th century clothing and gets a costume redesign. It's still watchable I think but a bit lesser. Sylvester McCoy gets some really naff stories. Peter Davison gets a pantomime monster that is clearly 2 guys in a costume and I find him less interesting overall than the earlier stuff.

I am 100% lost to the matching game

Also I just got to 11 for the first time

I got 10 TWICE yesterday, #goals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMgKaTU9-bQ

yoooooooo Janet Fielding is so great, it’s unreal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEkC6InjWQ8

Still can't really get used to the show having a big SFX budget.

great way to showcase the new doctor, flash him up wordlessly for 2-3 seconds at the end

that said NPH is a good Celestial Toymaker

This looks like it's mostly an advert for one special - I could well believe it's a victory lap for Tate and Tennant (which I am 100% here for) and maybe the same amount of Gatwa in this one as Tennant in the previous (or none!).

I don’t expect Gatwa to be in the first two specials at all, and likely not more than a regeneration scene at the end of the third.

(Multi-doctor anniversary shenanigans teaming up the Fourteenth and Fifteenth together would be fun, but likely bemusing to the genpop audience that Tennant / Tate are expected to win back, compared to a handover at the end)

Isn't it a 3-part one-story special?

Yep

I love everything about this trailer other than 'kaaaate lethbridge stewart'

She was in the last episode and not once has she been given anything to do (hey maybe this is where it changes but please don't mention her dad. again. and again. and again. who has nothing to do with her in the stories)

It's three episodes, to be TXed on different nights. All I know about the content is that as in each of RTD's first three seasons, one episode is a telly adaptation of an existing Who story, which suggests that each ep will have a resolved plot as well as a continuing arc for the lead characters.

(The fact that the adaptation has the same title as the original suggests that it will be more like the S3 degree of closeness than the other two; the duration of the special demands that it will have at least as much variance from the source as that story still enjoyed.)

All three of the specials having separate Target novelisations by different authors suggests even more strongly that they will have discrete elements.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2023/doctor-who-archive-on-bbc-iplayer

"Over 800 episodes of Doctor Who programming on BBC iPlayer and every episode will now be available with subtitles, audio description, and sign language for the first time"

Oh good! I can cancel my Britbox sub now

The wording of the release suggests one or fewer stories per classic Doctor, so if your subscription is specifically to have all extant C20th telly Who at your fingertips, better wait and see

“Over 800” covers the lot hopefully

871 just mainline Who, not counting any spinoffs

does that include the missing episodes?

it does, but the number of spinoff episodes (102) roughly equals the number of missing episodes (97) so their figure of "800" is interesting

The wording strongly suggests that Confidential and other / new retrospective material is being counted too

how long before AI is good enough to make all the missing episodes again using the recons?

maybe they can use frog DNA

That's how we got Chibnall.

so anthony coburn's kid is an absolute piece of shit (sadly that's not particularly noteworthy these days) BUT i'm just going to start calling it "the tribe of gums" from now on

mel was right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qUmy7XFeUY

my god did moffat actually say "the queen should be played by a man"? because _that's_ never happened before. has he really not seen 1992's _orlando_? tilda swinton looks like an elizabethan dominatrix on the cover! it's like the movie was made to appeal to his personal sexual fetishes.

not entirely sure that your conclusion that Moffat wants to fuck the author of The Old Man Of Lochnagar is supported by his endorsement of the principles of regeneration but I do think selling drawings of it would be a niche concern

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2023/55905

https://cms.doctorwho.tv/sites/default/files/2023-10/451412-e5f029a281.jpg

fuck, wrong link: https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-features/welcome-to-the-whoniverse-and-tales-of-the-tardis

Steven and Vicki?????

RTD has still got it!

This is by far the funniest thing I've seen in relation to all the Davros stuff pic.twitter.com/vwVuvECUMX

— Flight Red 50 (@FlightRed50) November 19, 2023

Suella Braverman attacks for Rishi Sunak for his failure to bring back the old Davros

i’m perhaps unreasonably stoked for next saturday

Rightly or wrongly the first thing I thought when I saw Julian Bleach in the CiN thing was 'damn he'd make a good Giuliani'.