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

i liked this one!

I’m not at all Bridgerton-pilled but am fully Jonathan Groff-pilled and Regency-pilled so it was v enjoyable for me

loved the Kylie Minogue bit

also those bird masks were ~incredible~!

does anyone know if the writers were influenced by Bridgerton at all?

the really fun thing about REG being canonised as a former doctor is that we have no hint as to whether he's the Shalka Ninth Doctor, a Curse Of Fatal Death 8th or 9th Doctor, or a splinter of the Great Intelligence in the Doctor's timeline. #trigeneration

There was another face in that scene I didn’t recognise, in between Davison and Troughton. Looking at it again now I guess it must just be McGann, but it looks nothing like him. Perhaps they just chucked another Morbius doctor in there instead.

Ooohh it's yer man from Mindhunter

Little too daft for me that one.

Mystery baddies in perhaps the first half of a finale next week WHOEVER COULD IT BE

Is it BOK

vlinx

B-52s

luckily my kid had watched the relevant old episode so could explain to me what that was

yeah i had wondered how that reveal would hit if you were not familiar with the 49-year-old story in question

i mean i guess it probably effectively conveys something bad is going down?

i wasn't familiar but it was the first one i looked up

also Susan Triad is supposedly Susan from series A, 1963

Only just up to Rogue, will catch up properly tomorrow. It did seem tonally odd to go from "remember, all-white societies are probably pretty racist!" To "nah, regency high society, you'll be grand!"

Also I'm pretty sure that if they'd mentioned Dungeons & Dragons in the pitch, they could have got Actual Henry Cavill.

it did sort of look like it would come down for a bowl of its favourite treats. in fact a few of the effects were charmingly old school. the acolyte masks for instance wouldn’t have looked out of place from the earlier era. and the time window control panel! looked like something out of 1975 itself! not a control touch surface to be seen.

the time window glitching ringu cctv fx as always put a chill up my spine.

lot of introductions at the beginning. it was like one of those meetings where you realise you’ve used up a third of your time just getting people to introduce themselves.

that’s an xpost obv

on rogue - it’s explicitly bridgerton cosplay not a self-designed racial purity dome so it makes sense i think.

enjoyed the new one, good old -fashioned whovian stuff! and some very RTD technobabble for good measure lol

Sutekh! nice blast from the past! figured i’d give Pyramids of Mars a rewatch this afternoon to refresh my memory, it’s been a long time since i saw it. It really is good fun!

This whole season has had pacing issues where things just dragged, and it was particularly acute in the latest episode. Maybe Rusty has lost his touch or maybe the internet has broken my brain and I just don't have the attention

commented the same last night but think it is a RTD thing. Will spend ages on one thing (anagram! it's an anagram, look!) or introducing people, oh you'll LOVE this person, then gallop past anything that might actually be pertinent (what even is "the tech" that's being released at 15.00 - are we meant to assume it's the Terminator Genisys operating system? why was she doing a big speech to an empty room?)

Time Window was a nice touch.

pretty crude means of distraction? normally practised a lot more subtly,look over here not over there, then reveal.
bad illusionist.

I very much liked that they completed the circle from showing Maestro’s devastation of the future a la Pyramids of Mars by bringing back the malevolent force from Pyramids of Mars

YANA was one thing (and it kinda works as Master mischief vmic) all those years ago but this was the Bombalurina of anagram hijinx. Excruciating. 7/10.

Maybe I'm looking at his initial run through Rose-colored glasses but Rusty kept things moving at a better pace back then than he has since the Doogie Howser special.

It's very classic-RTD to set up an anagram, explain it's an anagram, then change it to something that's NOT an anagram and say "ha ha fooled you, my anagram was too complex for you!"

If the Doc could at least say something like the TARDIS translation service can also manipulate on screen text to explain why and how it's all moving around like that.

Similarly 'sure Ruby we COULD just matarislise inside UNIT HQ but nah watch THIS'

As soon as Ruby started bonding with that one dude I was like “don’t get too attached”

Loved the giant sergeant dude's "I get busy!"

But where was Shirley Anne Bingham?

Replaced by a younger model, it’s a tale as old as time

I reckon my vague fanxiety re the reveal would have been assuaged by having 13-yo genius ask “who the hell is that?” and have the Doctor reply “the most dangerous thing in the universe… and we are now 100% fucked!!!” [cue theme]

https://i.imgur.com/zkxZSlL.jpeg

he does also say in that article that there are very obvious ones he can't say or it'll give it away...

bbc4 tonight seems to be a Pyramids of Mars revision aid ahead of the weekend

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020crw

which… if you are going for a global Disney audience here, wouldn’t you find a way to put it on YouTube?

they didn't even put it on bbc2! it went out against the football and the leader debate.

(it's on iPlayer and i guess anybody (in the uk) who cared could watch it for free that way)

Disney do not have a license for C20th Who, and dozens of other companies do, so “find a way” would likely take far more effort and expense than would justify it

especially as Disney probably don’t want their partner in a global license to actively train audiences to seek content elsewhere, nor the Beeb want to devalue it by giving it away before they have the chance to license it to Disney

heh how did I know I was about to be Who-splained in this thread

<3

you asked a question tbf

(which I took as genuine!)

hmmmm

hmmmmmmmmmmm

yeah

i liked parts of the finale but i also felt like it did ~too~ much? which i mean yes thats RTD. but it felt like it was maybe too much even for him idk

also sutekh thought ruby’s mum was special because …ruby thought she was special?? FOH
no the SHOW told US she was special and then you couldnt think of a good reason why so we got that naff answer instead

Another plus for Chibnall here lol, didn't bother so much with these big season-long mysteries that tend to disappoint or just be too nonsensical. Actually did find the reunion pretty touching though.

halfway through the final episode and a) crt ipads should be a (slightly impractical) thing and b) I'm guessing Mel is the mother

Hiding this quote for the very spoiler averse:
Showrunner Russell T Davies also later confirmed: "We’re heading into season 2, and my God, Ruby Sunday is important to that. There’s good stuff to come."

I didn't get much out of this season tbh, though I'm still immensely thankful that it was never a hate watch.

When UNIT were first trying to shoot Sutekh, I had a mild chuckle because Rose looked like she was scrolling Instagram or tiktok.
The whole death thing was a pretty heavy-handed metaphor for HIV, right?

i have enjoyed new woke doctor who more than i thought i would tbh.

yeah i love him. he has a very infectious enthusiasm but can also bring the gravitas, he’s great!

thing that annoys me most about new doctor / new tardis interior is HE NEVER PLAYS THE FUCKING JUKEBOX. don’t have it, or license some bloody music ffs.

I have loved both the new Doctor and the companion. Tremendous performances by both actors.
The individual episodes varied so much in quality but it was never less than fun to watch in the moment.
Which was not something I could have said for Chibnall's run
Cautiously looking forward to the next season

otm

yeah i have gone thru an accelerated version of RTD1 feelings over the specials and the Ncuti eps - from Rose-style “gosh wow YEAH Dr Who is back!” to Stolen Earth-level “I am pretty sick of this kind of shit” - like, Empire of Death was pretty preposterous, albeit often in interesting (but unsuccessful!) ways

but it does feel like Doctor Who again, is still trying new things, has a good heart and isn’t squandering the premise - i felt like it would have been a mercy to cancel it during Chibnall but I am glad this season happened

would be interested to see what it looked like with someone younger at the helm tho (and someone who wasn’t steeped in classic who)