Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

whoops wrong list on that top link, sorry

Moffat, popping in:

Since Death In Heaven is about to start .... the idea of putting Jenna first in the credits only happened late in the edit. And when Peter came round to my house to watch the ep go out, I realised I hadn't told him. Of course he pretended to be mortally offended!!

Talalay:

Flying cybers, not the best VFX, worse was the pollinating cybers meaning clouds over everything when in fact the days were sunny. These technical difficulties made lighting challenging. Much is adequate at best. You need a lot of time and equipment to control the sun.

Here's a picture I absolutely love of @rtalalay and Director of Photography Rory Taylor discussing how to make the balcony CGI work. #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/tQAXfuExUD

— Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison) January 3, 2021

Addison:

That "she wasn't even the worst" line. Steven's dig at Margaret Thatcher. I remember laughing at that at the readthrough and him looking up and nodding at me, grinning.

This is my version of the picture took all those years ago of Peter. #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/YoVJ3kXYuz

— Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison) January 3, 2021

This, by the way, is what happens when you leave your phone next to the sound team's stuff while you're filming a take. #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/FH1HxP5pDS

— Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison) January 3, 2021

Addison:

I think that was in the Russell T Davies Passage. It's a big corridor running along the side of the soundstage. The runner told me that when RTD left they wanted to name the stage after him. He wouldn't hear of it, but liked the idea of having a passage named after him.

Which is one more of the many reasons that RTD is an absolute hero. Once, very drunk at the RTS Awards, I met him and told him that I was glad to be alive at a time he was telling stories. I'd have said the same sober, too.

Talalay:

i am pretty sure Gomez singing 'Hey Missy' wasn't in the script. #HeyMissy. And of course we were worried about clearances -- but c'mon... we had to.

We cut out a nice scene of Clara locked in the glass cases and confronting a cyberman. I was fond of the double image of Clara’s face superimposed on the cyber. But somethings have to go just because of time. #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/skKD0sAZTa

— Rachel Talalay (@rtalalay) January 3, 2021

When we were careening about backstage like a pair of giddy fanboys, @rtalalay took this picture. It looks horrifying, but of course she was looking at the angel, so I was perfectly safe. It didn't move once. #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/HPmgUHyfTq

— Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison) January 3, 2021

This is the sequence where @rtalalay insisted I went mega detailed on the boards 'so they'll let us do this to Peter'#HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/RO9vmFxBeC

— Mike Collins (@MIKECOLLINS99) January 3, 2021

Addison:

That "Squeeeee!" Oh, man. I had to do it for SO LONG because we need the time to register it, then for Missy to register it, then get the zapper out and zap Seb. So there are about nineteen 'e's in that "squee".

That plane CGI. That's the kind of thing you have to have meetings about to figure out what you're going to have to cut to pay for it.

Talalay:

When Sanjeev gets yanked out of the plane, Steven scripted maybe just his feet if we couldn’t afford the whole body. I used a trick from Nightmare on Elm Street to do this effect practically. The falling sequence — I had experience from Freddy’s Dead to do falling, planes and explosions. We did wire work on Peter on greenscreen. In Heaven Sent I used a better rig much more effective for the posture of skydiving.

There was a scene that was cut of the Doctor back in the tardis, flying it. I did a crash zoom to him saying “Doctor in the tardis”. Steven cut it — he felt it crushed the energy of the falling sequence. No doubt he was right.

Addison:

I love how Steven has bookended the two episodes with the admission of love AND makes it a central problem in the middle. He is very good at writing and should perhaps do some more of it.

By the way, I owe Pete a huge amount. The Thick of It, the BBC sitcom, was my first acting experience. He saw that and immediately took me under his wing. It was also my first directing experience and he helped me with that, too (being an Oscar winning director himself)

a rando to Moffat: Do you have a favorite episode since you left the show ?
Moffat: ALL OF THEM!!!!

Harness posted several pitches he'd made for episodes before Moffat pitched him the Zygon story. Including a Meddling Monk story where he's listening to disco in his TARDIS, goes to 1917 to play "Ra-Ra-Rasputin" for the lols, accidentally buggers up human history, and has to regenerate into Rasputin to set things back on course.

The Meddler to be played by Matt Berry. When the pitch was rejected, Harness started a novelisation of it instead, which he also tweeted the first page of.

― Bleeqwot (sic), Thursday, May 14, 2020 5:35 AM (seven months ago)

Listening to a more recent interview with Harness where he says the 2014 script editor told him he'd never heard of Ra-Ra-Rasputin, so there was definitely no point in doing an episode built on a joke about it. The pitch never even made it to Moffatt.

Long interview with Moffat about his comedy writing career; he veers from noting that he became more successful when he stopped writing comedy, so he shouldn't return, to counter-arguing with himself that Sherlock is actually joke-a-minute at the script level, and from there to

Russell and I were interviewing each other for Doctor Who Magazine recently and in the process of doing that we suddenly noticed that we made Doctor Who a lot funnier than it used to be. You think of old Doctor Who, it's not very funny. Even Tom Baker takes it mostly seriously. Why did we go so funny?

The modern version of Doctor Who, I think one of its big successes is actually that it's a funny show. If you don't understand the plot - nobody does! If you don't really care about the monsters, nobody over the age of twelve does. If you don't care about any of that, you're there for some first-class gags delivered by some first-class people. There's a lot of comedy in Doctor Who and, from me, that's paying a huge compliment and is not meant to be insulting, though some people even now will be contemplating an inflammatory blog. It is not knocking it, Doctor Who is a funny show and The Doctor is a funny character. Any character played consecutively by Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker is a funny character.

pic.twitter.com/gBHxxKIGCl

— Max Curtis (@MaxCCurtis) January 12, 2021

RTD's new series, It's A Sin (set in young gay 1980s Manchester), will include an episode in which one of the leads gets a part in a McCoy-era Who serial.

https://i.imgur.com/CAbSAPK.jpg

(Davies' Regression Of The Daleks is an imaginary sequel to Resurrection.)

Show starts Friday 22nd on Channel 4 (and maybe HBO Max), with all five eps on All4 immediately afterward.

OK, I'm sold.

Including a Meddling Monk story where he's listening to disco in his TARDIS, goes to 1917 to play "Ra-Ra-Rasputin" for the lols, accidentally buggers up human history, and has to regenerate into Rasputin to set things back on course.
The Meddler to be played by Matt Berry.

Holy shit

ikr

instead we get john bishop

https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/1457800d-0814-44e8-b2b9-d0d92f21cbc9/d3iitcf-62315ba1-5860-4695-83e9-3ccb3447d6fe.png/v1/fill/w_900,h_718,q_80,strp/cubee___doctor_who_arcade_game_by_cyberdrone_d3iitcf-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD03MTgiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC8xNDU3ODAwZC0wODE0LTQ0ZTgtYjJiOS1kMGQ5MmYyMWNiYzlcL2QzaWl0Y2YtNjIzMTViYTEtNTg2MC00Njk1LTgzZTktM2NjYjM0NDdkNmZlLnBuZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD05MDAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.-746ykDuMUZlbyK-vlMT5hNgjpH6uGPRJgHQrxnWmOU

Make your own model of the Doctor Who pinball table: you have to make your own fun in isolation!

{Actually adapted from the BBC Micro game, before sic leaps in with a correction)

bring back the pink TARDIS you cowards

how it started: carrot juice

how it's going:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLb-rlZQA9k

Cringe but also <333 which I suppose is very Sylvester McCoy

I loved every second of that

I don’t remember that terrifying melting head but I definitely saw Dragonfire first time round, aged 9, and was thrilled that Bonnie Langford was finally leaving. I guess it was the 80s and there were melting heads in everything back then.

Impressive grue fx for bbc of that era

I love these blu-ray sets so much, and the folks they've rounded up for the commentaries and behind the sofa stuff look great on this one

Yeah, that head's one of the best FX of the classic series ever. Or maybe it just stands out because the rest of that serial is absolutely atrocious visually!

Love the idea of Colin Baker watching and making fun of Season 24 as a bonus feature on the Season 24 box set. (Also the "let's not bother watching Time & The Rani" gag in the Sylv & Bonnie coda.)

Effects from that era that I remember as being good from when they first aired were basically the melting head and The Destroyer from The Battlefield, who was wisely mostly kept in the dark. And that creepy hand thing the Chief Clown does, though that wouldn't have cost them anything extra.

That promo video is great. Have they done that for previous DVDs?

Yes, I'll try and chase up some others.

They landed a whole-ass Dalek space shuttle in a real school playground in Remembrance. That still looks like "how tf did they manage this?"

This box will make Mel the second companion to have all her stories out on Blu-Ray, after the almost equally beloved Adric.
Every story in the set has alternate extended editions and optional new 5.1 surround sound mixes AND isolated scores. Also not mentioned in the video: twenty-five hours of studio footage (edited highlights of a hundred hrs!).

Other blu-ray promo videos:

Ace Returns! - Season 26 promo, the first of these

Jo and Cliff Jones return to Llanfairfach - Season 10 promo

The Home Assistants Of Death?! - Season 14 promo (also see the last 30 seconds of this trailer)

Jo Grant vs the Autons... Again?! - Season 8 promo

I liked the Jovanka Airways one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQEvPJC8AEI

from one of the folks who works on the blu-ray bonus features:

My favourite thing about Season 24 is that they wanted to have Sylvester McCoy playing the spoons but his first story was set in space so they had to design SPACE SPOONS. God bless @LeeBinding for including them on the cover, but we should be issuing them as free gifts too! pic.twitter.com/6HrVNRjAE2

— Chris Chapman (@ChrisChapman81) January 22, 2021

and the perils of presenting these programmes in high-as-possible definition, when the makers knew that all the TVs at home would be rounded at the corners so you'd never see anything at the edge of frame:

What makes it worse is that it's such a wonderful, witty shot - and all it needed was a tiny crop to hide the fault!

— Chris Chapman (@ChrisChapman81) January 22, 2021

And some earlier blu-ray trailers I hadn't seen before (lower yr expectations tbh) (also xpost):

Season 18 Announcement Trailer (Galactic Glitter Package Tours advert voiced by Tom)

The Season 19 Safety Video with Tegan Jovanka

The Sixth Doctor is on trial AGAIN!

how come I didn't know about these Blu-Ray trailers until now, this is seriously fantastic

The 24 Carat one has really raised the bar for future seasons.

(accidentally posted the followup on that second Chapman tweet - click through for a Delta & The Bannermen snippet)

Thanks for finding them. I think the newest one is still the best. I have 3 of the blu-ray sets now, but I've only watched half of "Battlefield" on them so far.

RTD's new series, It's A Sin (set in young gay 1980s Manchester), will include an episode in which one of the leads gets a part in a McCoy-era Who serial.

(Davies' Regression Of The Daleks is an imaginary sequel to Resurrection.)

Show starts Friday 22nd on Channel 4 (and maybe HBO Max), with all five eps on All4 immediately afterward.

Bit off-topic, but have just watched the first episode of this and it was really quite good, best thing he's done in ages.

I haven't gotten around to Midsummer Night's Dream yet, but the other three of his last four things were great-to-fantastic.

It’s incredible, I’m full of anticipation and dread for the next episodes in equal measure.

I missed it, the HEAVILY rotated trailers made it look like every gay drama ever, but I'll give it a shot if people say it's good.

Just bumped across the end of ep 2 of Remembrance on TV (streaming free on Pluto): the special FX of the Dalek starting to teleport into Shoreditch, all transparent and pink-brain-mutant showing first, then the scene of another Dalek chasing and shooting at Ace in the science lab, are also pretty great.

For those that might appreciate some classic-era nerdery, the original Myth Makers interviews have gone up on Amazon Prime, hours and hours of the stuff, and a lot of supplemental episodes too.

It's A Sin has an US premiere date: all five eps on HBO Max on Feb 18th.

(Am up to #4; cried through most of 3.)

Apologies if this constitutes unwelcome self-promotion (and please delete/ignore if it does), but I'm doing a live Doctor Who podcast at 8pm GMT tonight on Twitch (audio podcast to follow afterwards) looking at The Ark, Caves of Androzani and Heaven Sent + asking if they can tell us anything about the Very Strange Times we're living in right now.

Streaming here: https://twitch.tv/illexplainlaterdw

An article about the Daleky bit in It's A Sin, with some poignant details, director interview, and several irritating errors: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a35347177/its-a-sin-doctor-who-crossover-scene/

Peter Davison's home audio booth for lockdown recordings.

There was a Love & Monsters tweetalong today, with the special commentary coming from the nine-year-old kid who created the Absorbaloff for a Blue Peter competition.

While Abzorbaloff wasn't originally inspired by the Slitheen, I like the world building and the similarities are obvious. He was actually inspired by boogers, nightmares and the Simpsons. #LINDAunited

— Channel Pup - Objectively Good YouTuber (@channel_pup) February 14, 2021

Ha. That's quite a slab in the face. Poor Ursula. Getting literally stoned in Elton's apartment. #LINDAunited

— Channel Pup - Objectively Good YouTuber (@channel_pup) February 14, 2021

In the spirit of valentine's Day, fun fact: Abzorbaloff gets auto-erotic pleasure from absorbing people. #LINDAunited

— Channel Pup - Objectively Good YouTuber (@channel_pup) February 14, 2021

well i just learned a lot from the "blue peter" wiki

Perhaps the most important revelation from this weekend's newspapers. #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/NqqAqlWF59

— Nathaniel Tapley (@Natt) February 18, 2021

Haha good god. Course he pretty much got his way with Yrcanos, eventually. That eyeliner was...dubious.

Incidentally, I've been ploughing through tons of 60s and 70s tokusatsu stuff recently, and was very happy to find that the bad guy in King Kong Escapes is an Asian Doctor Who

As pointed out in the comments, Troughton's first thought was to play The Doctor in blackface too:

"My original idea was to black up and wear a big turban and brass earrings and a big grey beard and do it like the Arabian Knights. I thought that would be a wonderful idea, but when I'd finished, I could shave off, take the black off, take the turban off and nobody would know who I was and I wouldn't be typecast."

And of course he did brownface as Salamander in Enemy of the World.

Brian Blessed hated Hartnell and almost decked him once:

I couldn't find this clip of Brian Blessed talking about how he once almost beat the crap out of William Hartnell anywhere on the internet, so here it is. pic.twitter.com/4vqgLOqu1G

— Paul Cornish (@PaulGCornish) August 13, 2020

The makeup aspect / white actors aside, it's notable that both Troughton and Blessed supposedly thought in 1966 "It is FINALLY time for a Doctor Who of colour!"

uh

I suppose that is one way to interpret that

Any day now.