WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

*Tom Baker

*retro vibe

lol

“Took Baker Coast”, the new contribution from Mark Gatiss

Also a cape is in fairness a costume.

How much Gatiss are we expecting this time round?

zero

suspenders??

lol yeah was going to say, made me double take, but i think that US use is fairly interchangeable with braces these days.

'these days' jesus.

Lol @ hypothetical british person when the first they read about female doctor who's outfit is a 'Murican saying she's in suspenders

O tempora, o mores

"The striped shirt also goes with the retro vibe" the colors are from Baker's scarf

"suspenders??" = braces

My reservations about the new iteration of Who are pretty much all due to Broadchurch, which I did not like. I don't know how you create a show starring Olivia Colman and David Tennant that I do not enjoy watching, but bravo, Chibnall.

Braces are a bit Matt Smith era but w/e. Her outfit should evolve or switch a few times as it did with all recent Docs. I guess shades are out for a while but I am hoping for more hats.

BTW I would be pleased as punch to have a season full of "Dinosaurs in Space."

Are they also planning to switch up the score a bit? the sound design has been stale for years imo

would love to hear the Ólafur Arnalds take on the theme & etc.

oh that would be super

i thought I saw that Murray Gold was leaving but dunno

i thought I saw that Murray Gold was leaving but dunno

― akm,

Great new if true. I'd love the score to be fully performed on vintage synths but what are the chances.

The new score will be the soundtrack to Final Fantasy VII

Gold leaving been a very strong rumour for 6 months now. I think he might announce after Christmas he won't be back, although you probably won't be able to hear his announcement over the background music.

if Gold leaves it's seven years too late

if only I4n L3vine wanted to bother commissioning Paul Hartnoll to rescore the entire Moffatt era

Pix from location shooting are in the wild. Considered spoilers in this thread? Erring caution-side

Apparently a new trailer is out, which I haven't watched and will not link for possible spoiler reasons.

It's not spoilery, just shows the three new companions individually getting inklings that something weird's happening.

i can’t remember what’s been mentioned itt

Surprised there's not been more jubilation over Murray Gold's departure.

I'm jubilant!

teaser is a bit pizza heavy for some reason i can't fathom

My fear is that Chibnall will fumble the ball but that Whittaker will take the brunt of the blame. I hope I'm wrong. I'd like to be wrong.

My fear is that Chibnall will fumble the ball but that Whittaker will take the brunt of the blame. I hope I'm wrong. I'd like to be wrong.

― Gregory Horsemelt (Old Lunch)

i'm definitely ready for fan war. apparently there are some people complaining about the new composer because they're worried he'll sound too "black". out. out of my fucking fandom, anybody who thinks that can find another fucking show to be a fan of.

I would've thought the liberal excesses of the Davies era would've chased away most of the Neanderthalic fanbase that would've objected to a female Doctor. But then I woke up and remembered what world I was living in.

at this point i'm ready for fandoms of all kinds to just be shot straight into the sun, myself included

it's for the best really

this is the only doctor who fan site I ever read so I don't care what a bunch of trolls do on reddit or whatever. I predict that whochurch will render the previous two doctors all but forgettable.

I also don't think "fans" who pretend to like things just so they can moan and complain about how there's not enough cishet white dudes doing stuff are actually "fans" of anything at all, and we would never know they even existed if it wasn't for the Internet letting them hang out together in discord chats and feel empowered to express their profoundly stupid and unacceptable opinions out loud.

i'm cautiously optimistic about chibnall. i have no real reason to be, but then again i have no real reason to be optimistic about anything, so i have to contrive excuses for it. here are some of mine:

1. if moffat was a better writer than he was a showrunner, it stands to reason that there's a possibility chibnall will be a better showrunner than he was a writer.

2. looking back on the history of the show, even the most loathed showrunner (take a bow, john nathan-turner) managed to put together four solid seasons of the show. as long as the show henceforth manages to keep showrunners from sticking around longer than four years, only a tosh/wiles debacle would be cause for concern.

3. the leaked clip is pretty swell. not much to go on, admittedly, but show me any random 42 seconds of "the twin dilemma" and i don't think i'd be able to say the same.

4. bob holmes' first two scripts for doctor who were absolute garbage. he got better.

5. at least he's not mark gatiss.

I also don't think "fans" who pretend to like things just so they can moan and complain about how there's not enough cishet white dudes doing stuff are actually "fans" of anything at all, and we would never know they even existed if it wasn't for the Internet letting them hang out together in discord chats and feel empowered to express their profoundly stupid and unacceptable opinions out loud.

― El Tomboto

oh they're fans of _something_ all right.

bob holmes' first two scripts for doctor who were absolute garbage. he got better.

his sax work on 'baker street' still the best thing he ever did tho

I think my primary feeling about this nu-Who era, sight unseen, is that Jodie Whittaker is very brave to take on a role that will likely be, to some extent, a thankless pain in the ass.

I think that's making some really rong assumptions. She has worked with Chibnall before, at length, so it's not as if she doesn't know what it is to have him as a showrunner / director / boss for multiple seasons. And being the first female Doctor is hardly going to be thankless. The worthless gremlins we've been discussing are not the only fans out there.

Oh, I know. But that's pretty much entirely who I was referring to. That they make up a tiny portion of the fanbase doesn't, unfortunately, put a damper on their volume or vehemence. Just thinking about the array of women who've had to deal with ridiculous amounts of 'fan' abuse in recent years because they had the temerity to challenge a bunch of thumbsuckers' deadlocked notions of nerd culture.

Hot take - the kids won't care at all and she'll be well-recieved, and whatever a load of miserable gits in their fifties and above think doesn't actually matter to the BBC.

Obviously it all depends on the scripts, by the last Capaldi season in particular it felt like the fun had just drained out of it and the whole show was treading water. If Chibnall can bring the magic and energy back then he'll be fine.

My one real disappointment about the end of Moffat's tenure is our all-too-brief acquaintance with Bill.

whatever a load of miserable gits in their fifties

I have a feeling that teen and 20-something alt-right idiots are going to be a persistent thorn (based on looking at reddit I guess).

I predict that whochurch will render the previous two doctors all but forgettable.

!! Tom what have you loved in Chibnall's scripts and series so much as to inspire this boldness?

1. if moffat was a better writer than he was a showrunner, it stands to reason that there's a possibility chibnall will be a better showrunner than he was a writer.

he's been showrunning for over a decade and the best he's managed was "well I liked the first year until the ending was dumb and bad"

2. looking back on the history of the show, even the most loathed showrunner (take a bow, john nathan-turner) managed to put together four solid seasons of the show.

hard disagree (not least because the "showrunner" position doesn't really show up in Dr Who until Cartmel: a guy who collaborates with writers, builds themes and character arcs, has a vision for the direction of the show etc - JNT actively seems to step back into using his budgetary/organising skills in service of Cartmel's work at that point [presumably in great relief after his experience with Saward and the Bakers]. Letts/Dicks and Hinchcliffe/Holmes totally count as double-headed teams doing a showrunner-type job tho.)

3. the leaked clip is pretty swell. not much to go on, admittedly, but show me any random 42 seconds of "the twin dilemma" and i don't think i'd be able to say the same.

I watched Twin Dilemma yesterday (on Twitch) for the first time since transmission, and it remarkably managed to be exactly as bad as I remembered. (I haven't watched the leaked clip.)

4. bob holmes' first two scripts for doctor who were absolute garbage. he got better.

Krotons was okay. It >>>>>>>>>> Cyberwoman.

5. at least he's not mark gatiss.

now THERE's someone whose TV Who has gotten better on a fairly straight line. and fair play to him for saying he didn't think he was suited for the role.



by the last Capaldi season in particular it felt like the fun had just drained out of it and the whole show was treading water.

this is crazytalk, Bill + Capaldi were fun squared. (The middle chunk of scripts went desperately off the rails tho)

Two Doctors is starting on Twitch in a few minutes if anyone wants to see The Youth react to Grey Trout and Jamie

yeah I really liked Bill and Capaldi. It's too bad she didn't stay on to form a bit of bridge continuity but obv that doesn't always happen. I do wonder how much of the pre-chibnall world we'll see once he takes over. Will he resist the temptation to revisit Rose? Will we ever see the cool Silurian and Jenny again?

1. if moffat was a better writer than he was a showrunner, it stands to reason that there's a possibility chibnall will be a better showrunner than he was a writer.

he's been showrunning for over a decade and the best he's managed was "well I liked the first year until the ending was dumb and bad"

― kelp, clam and carrion (sic)

i haven't seen any of his other shows. i've never seen "press gang" either.

i'm keeping the bill/capaldi season in reserve for the point where i get sick to death of chibnall

I haven't either obv, except for a handful of the Torchwoods. Law & Order UK didn't exactly set the world on fire though

(seen most of Moffat's work except Chalk and the final season of Coupling, seen nearly everything RTD's done since 2003 and like all of it better than all but two eps of his Dr Who)

If you guys have forgotten how to get excited about things without third-guessing yourselves into planning for how to deal with the “inevitable” dissatisfaction, maybe you don’t actually love the thing you’re trying to feel excited about.

Jesus.

this may not embed from Sunday morning but

Hey everyone! Want to feel very old? Millie Gibson wasn't even born when they announced Billie Piper was playing Rose Tyler. Happy travels, Millie! #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/WKEc1zbKcw

— Pip (@pipmadeley) November 18, 2022

really going for the facebook mom crowd there

Then I spent a long time thinking about body-swapping - so the Master becomes the Doctor and vice versa, which would give us Evil David Tennant. That would be fantastic, especially in his swansong. But again, it's predictable. And they'd only end up swapping back. Also, in David's swansong (why's it called a swansong?), I want to see the Doctor, not an evil version. I want him in all his wonderfulness, centre-stage.

RTD, 2009.

I just stumbled across this parody and I cannot stop wheezing

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