new-nu-Who: RTD2 (Doctor Who on telly 2023-?)

Just make the Doctor permanently Scottish and be done with it.

...and why is the new Sonic screwdriver not remotely screwdriver-shaped?

I think I saw something about how RTD had seen kids in playgrounds pointing toy sonics at each other as if they were weapons and he didn't like it?

Another odd thing was the reappearance of the schoolboy from the opening scene during the musical number at the end.

I thought harbinger pretty much meant Herald. So the kid was totally subordinate to the maestro. So is there a different meaning to that I'm missing. Or did they just want to be inclusive.

anyone else find it distracting how gatwa does the american R sound in his british accent? taRRRRdis

his sometimes-scottish/sometimes-not accent is v charming

anyone else find it distracting how gatwa does the american R sound in his british accent? taRRRRdis

yes! v confusing

the rs don't sound scottish to me really though i realise i am maybe not best placed to be the judge of this

That's not American, it's Scottish.

Also what is a "British accent"?

yeah, it's scottish - definitely an east coast sound

He definitely sounds Scottish. There are more Scottish accents than just Glaswegian and Gatwa absolutely sounds east of Scotland (is it Dunfermline he's from?)

Thankfully he doesn't sound too much like a Fifer.

There was a bit where he rolled his Rs that sounded to me like a McCoy homage...

Edinburgh most of his childhood, didn't move to Dunfermline until he was 15 so too late to do any real damage to his accent

xpost

Just as well as we'd have Americans saying, "Why is doing that Canadian "eh" at the end of every sentence?"

A lot of "who's Ken and why is the Doctor asking him questions all the time?" too, I'd imagine.

As an actual Fifer I can say he definitely does have a touch of Dunfermline about his accent.
I also don't get why you're making stereotypical Fife accent jokes. There was none of that type of thing about Capaldi's accent

Just joshing, treefell. I think Capaldi has what non-Scottish people think a Scottish accent sounds like, and Scottish accents are a broad church - Karen Gillan's went unremarked on as well but generally there are so many Glasgow-ish accents on telly that actual Scottish accents don't sound "Scottish" to outsiders

(I do have a mate who ends every single sentence with ken? so I base all east coast accent things on him despite knowing many east coasters who do nothing of the sort)

gatwa literally was ken in the barbie movie, doesn’t get much more fife than that

Yeah Devil's Chord was too shrill, wacky and glib for me I'm afraid. Seems so far that RTD used up all his creative juices in the specials.

I see there's only two he's not writing this season; I feel exhausted already.

Jinkx Monsoon's performance was something though.

The trouble with screen depictions of that era of the Beatles is you have to be as good looking as the Beatles to pull off that haircut without looking completely dopey.

Ncuti looked amazing with the afro, on the other hand.

Ok well that was good

Agreed, I enjoyed that a lot

like even a sliiiightly subpar Moffat effort is still a glittering masterpiece compared to most of the last 5-6 years - just so relieved to watch doctor who being good again AND being ABOUT something again

Whenever they mentioned the secret chord needed to banish Maestro, I kept thinking it had to be 'the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift' - doubt I was the only one.

la boîte diabolique...

“everywhere’s a beach, eventually” was so very Moffat/Capaldi

Of course Larkin didn't actually say "what will survivie of us is love", but thinking he did is very Moffat.

Bits I loved and bits I hated in there, Ncuti was consistently great though.

ep3 was a notable step up from the first two, big rogue trooper energy

was so much easier when Tom Baker stood on that land mine in Genesis

Does seem to be getting better. Hope it continues.

"I'm Anglican."

think this would have worked better if they shot it in a real quarry instead of a cgi quarry. The whole thing seemed predicated on building up tension but also failed to build up any tension, not sure why exactly, but I don't think Murray Gold's music was helping. I wish they'd done more with the idea of the unseen enemy that is possibly hiding in the smoke or the mud, this is an intriguingly spooky concept and would have made the eventual payoff that there is no enemy have more of an impact.

I know the whole point of this episode is them intentionally doing something more static and restricted than usual, but it felt like a drag to me after the freewheeling inventiveness of the last few episodes. The creepiness of the AI recreation of the dead soldier is weirdly undermined by the ending's suggestion that there is some spark of the 'real' solider remaining that allows him to defy his programming, at first it seemed like the reason we were supposed to find it ghastly is because it's a convincing looking/sounding imitation of someone who no longer exists, the same as how the Doctor seems to agree with the kid's belief that "he's not gone ... he's just dead"

what are the best film anticapitalist doctor who episodes? this one, oxygen, what else?

think this would have worked better if they shot it in a real quarry instead of a cgi quarry. The whole thing seemed predicated on building up tension but also failed to build up any tension, not sure why exactly, but I don't think Murray Gold's music was helping. I wish they'd done more with the idea of the unseen enemy that is possibly hiding in the smoke or the mud, this is an intriguingly spooky concept and would have made the eventual payoff that there is no enemy have more of an impact.

jfc I thought the new series would be a good chance for my son to start watching, as he's been watching some of the Tom Bakers ones. anyway we're watching the Devil's Chord and it's so boring and plot-free, it's making me really dislike Who. I stopped watching around the Capaldi ones and I don't think I can slog through more. Kid likes it enough though.

the long arms in space one was good I guess.

Yeah Wild Blue Yonder and Boom are my favourites so far. 2/7 ain't bad - still a better ratio than most of Chibnall's run.

One thing I've disliked so far about this series is that it repeats one of the most tired RTD/Moffat tropes: the companion with the mysterious backstory. After Rose became the Bad Wolf, suddenly it wasn't enough for the companion to just be a regular person anymore - Donna became the Doctor-Donna, Amy was followed by the cracks in the universe, River Song was River Song, Clara had all her reincarnations through time. They're doing it again with Ruby, but worse because they're repeating it every episode now instead of just sprinkling it in every now and then.

also, not really a spoiler since it was announced earlier but Varada Sethu, who played Mundy, is going to be the new companion next season and so far no explanation has been given about her early appearance in this episode.

Could be just a Martha/Amy/12 situation where they liked the person so much during shooting they decided to bring them back for a larger role, but could also be intentional like Clara, where their initial appearance is tied to some future plotline.

the heavy handed anti-capitalist stuff and the heavy-handed pathos with the innocent little girl all reminded me of a Pat Mills scripted strip from 2000ad, the killer ambulance robots that repeat customer-service bromides as they execute you were straight out of Ro-Busters or ABC Warriors. I think the heavy-handedness usually works better in those comics though, Mills leans into the lurid and grotesque stuff, but this just came out feeling tepid.

https://i0.wp.com/thetryingscotsman.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/screenshot_20240417-1619172050267769768839738.png?w=1200&ssl=1

new-nu-who and starlord

The pro-choice line was followed about 2 minutes later by the line about refugees literally having to show up on people's shores before they have to let you in - I agree the very RTD lack of subtext is enjoyable

Another odd thing was the reappearance of the schoolboy from the opening scene during the musical number at the end.

Sadly, another very RTD thing is that he always needs to seed "maybe this villain will return!" - he had the Dalek burbling about "Emergency Temporal Shift" in Doomsday, as if without it there'd be a riot the next time they reappeared.

That was unnerving in spots

Pretty good! No idea if it actually made sense but it felt satisfying enough - nice mix of (lite) Ghost Story For Christmas vibe and DW timeline shenanigans

my favorite so far - unnerving, like you say. obviously paradoxical in that the best thing about doctor who at the moment - ncuti gatwa - wasn’t in it. i got a sense in the first three episodes of a splendid doctor trying to find a centre of gravity and consistency in some mediocre stories. and his absence in that means gatwa still feels slightly out of place, through outshining and being more vivid than the material.

still don’t like the way it looks but it would take a tv professional to tell me why i think. the faces are too clean and the eyes too vivid, and the landscapes all feel either synthetic or a million miles away as if they’ve had some sort of rendering or or bokeh effect applied to them.

of course in the best episode with the 10th doctor, he was also barely in it.

That was good creepy fun although bit of a pointless appearance for 'Mrs Flood' and lmao putting big glasses on to look 40

ending gave me logopolis vibes. it almost makes sense, like if you squint from a distance....