WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

Speaking of sic, wondering what he thinks...

Probably avoiding in case we spoil the identity of a forthcoming episode key grip or something...

this is my kids' first Who

- on seeing the pod in the forest: "that looks like cardboard" ✅ VG

- 7-year-old LITERALLY hid behind the couch during the train zapping and then intermittently throughout ✅

- at about the 30-minute mark: "daddy this is good"

- when we see crane operator fella: "oh he's gonna die"

"Not a Who fan, but found it quite enjoyable. Though there were things about it which didn't ring true such as the policewoman not calling in after they find a dead body or that there'd be guys working on a crane in the middle of the night. Though given that an alien is wandering around Sheffield with teeth embedded in his face maybe those are minor quibbles.

― Dan Worsley"

honestly, watching as an american the thing that really didn't ring true to me was a black guy calling the police. maybe things are different in sheffield, i don't know.

"I related massively as I was 38 when I finally learnt to ride a bike!

― chap"

congrats! i've concluded it's just not something i'm going to ever do. i did eventually learn to tie my shoelaces though!

"I don't mind violence in Who! I still have thrilling emotional scars from the kitchen waste disposal monster in Paradise Towers.

But last night just felt too morose and real. The brother avenging his sister and then being killed himself - and not just killed but mutilated - edged into misery porn for me. I was looking forward to a little light joie de vivre returning to the show - if anything, this felt grimmer than Moffat.

― Chuck_Tatum"

after six years of moffat's "nobody dies" aesthetic "oliver twist" would feel overly violent. honestly at this point i'm mostly refreshed by the acknowledgment that sometimes bad things happen, sometimes people die and don't come back. i'm not a fan of the violence, but i didn't think it was gratuitous - we didn't see any of the predator's victims after he killed them, for instance, which _would_ have been gratuitous. "csi" this isn't.

that said i'll grant that there definitely is an american influence to chibnall's work which i don't find entirely welcome. that's how he's always been - his first "who" episode was a riff on "24" - but as long as he can keep it in check i can live with it.

- on seeing the pod in the forest: "that looks like cardboard" ✅ VG

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand)

https://dragon-quest.org/images/thumb/9/93/DQ_Slime.png/250px-DQ_Slime.png

The crane operator got a brief ticking off from the Doctor for pushing an already dying Tim Shaw off the crane but that seemed oddly perfunctory and without more consequences for him to the point where I hope he shows up again.

I liked it. Fine with the dour tone - isn't that what stuff set in Sheffield is supposed to be like? - though I did think one particular death was bordering on fridgeing.

Didn't particularly MIND the baddie being a Predator rip-off, but if the chat about them leaving the classic villains alone for a while is true they need to get a bit more original from now on.

the long list of who-gives-a-shit guest stars at the end.

Yep, this was quite funny - I recognised maybe 4/5.

Pretty sure the intent behind this was "look at the amount of non-white and non-male actors, suck it!" rather than "there's not a star in the sky tonight because they're all on Doctor Who".

If so, might have worked better if they hadn't given Chris Noth the top billing there

The crane operator got a brief ticking off from the Doctor for pushing an already dying Tim Shaw off the crane but that seemed oddly perfunctory and without more consequences for him to the point where I hope he shows up again.

Yes, this was an odd beat. Perfectly reasonable reaction to an alien super-hunter who's got it in for you.

The crane operator would have made a much better companion than Bradley Walsh fwiw. I like the idea of a Tardis entourage but I'm not sure there's ever been a successful older companion?

I was skeptical of Walsh, but he was very likable in this.

I'm not sure there's ever been a successful older companion?

Unless you count Romana?

Ian and Barbara.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/08/doctor-who-jodie-whittakers-debut-is-most-watched-launch-for-10-years

Didn't particularly MIND the baddie being a Predator rip-off, but if the chat about them leaving the classic villains alone for a while is true they need to get a bit more original from now on.

― Daniel_Rf

i get what you're saying - i like originality too - but you know, i gotta be realistic here. the show's been on the air, off and on, since 1963, with innumerable (well technically numerable, but i can't do it) spinoff comics, audio plays, novels, sky ray lollys. even considering the exceptionally wide scope of the premise - the doctor can travel anywhere in space and time and even change her appearance periodically - there's a limited number of genuinely new ideas likely to come up at this point.

more to the point, doctor who is a show that _thrives_ on being unoriginal. many of the best doctor who episodes are pretty much flat ripoffs of better-known stories with space aliens hastily swapped in. since 1963, what are the best-known adversaries the show's come up with to face the doctor? well, there's space nazis, killer cyborgs, and an evil doppelganger of the doctor with a goatee (sometimes).

i don't need "doctor who" to be original. i need doctor who to be entertaining and to be true to the character and values of the show. yesterday's episode accomplished that. i'm happy.

I suspect the 'no classic villains' is a bit of a fake-out. Aren't they legally obliged to feature the Daleks in each season for some reason?

i mean, they already lied about no two-parters, so i'm assuming something will turn up?

also, yesterday felt pretty fan-servicey even with no new baddies

This isn't a two(+)-parter necessarily but a single season-long story of sorts, with or without a grand unifying mystery. Or at least I really hope so.

Liked Whittaker as the Doctor, and the new companions are solid, also the music was great! But yeah... the story in this was hot garbage. Like, the Doctor finds out the guy's sister is still alive in the Predator trophy room and is like "well, fuck it... no point in trying to save her, send Predator guy home and we'll call it a day". Maybe it's just the way shows are edited now, but they always seem to make an episode feel both frantic and tedious. No moments ever get to breathe... I remember really liking Boom Town back in Ninth Doctor times, because while it had some other issues, there was that great scene with the Doctor and the baddie in a cafe just having a conversation, not aiming for nonstop pithiness or serial memeability.

I'd assumed they're going to catch up with the Predator trophy room later on in the season. If not then that was a stupid thing to throw in, yeah.

I was also happy the episode was so Yorkshiriffic!

Speaking of sic, wondering what he thinks...

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, October 8, 2018 11:17 PM (yesterday)

Probably avoiding in case we spoil the identity of a forthcoming episode key grip or something...

― chap, Monday, October 8, 2018 11:19 PM (yesterday)

Avoiding cos he doesn't want to spoil anyone's fun 😊

I suspect the 'no classic villains' is a bit of a fake-out. Aren't they legally obliged to feature the Daleks in each season for some reason?

― chap, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 1:16 AM (two hours ago)

no, this (like most generally-known facts about Dr Who) is a fan myth

Like, the Doctor finds out the guy's sister is still alive in the Predator trophy room and is like "well, fuck it... no point in trying to save her, send Predator guy home and we'll call it a day".

Not sure how she’s supposed to go save the trophy room victims without a TARDIS. It seemed obvious to me this’ll pop up again.

I hate being the lone grumblebum about this

You are not, sadly. Story was a dud, mostly, though I'll admit that the scene where Ryan was trying (and FAILING!) to ride the bike by himself was really affecting.

I think I prefer my Doctors to do a lot more scenery-chewing than what we got for episode 1.

Yeah the story itself was mostly boring. It should really have done a 'Rose' and just left the aliens as anonymous as possible in order to make space for character-building.

Whittaker was excellent though and it was a smart scriptwriting move not to make too much of a big deal out of the female Doctor thing, especially given that none of the other characters knew any different. Perhaps another good reason to avoid classic villains for a while.

Not sure how she’s supposed to go save the trophy room victims without a TARDIS.

Well, she had Predator's transporter thing because she handed it back to him at the end of the story and he used it to blip home instantly so... use that? Once he detonated the DNA bombs in his own body he was turning into a puddle of goop anyway, so he doesn't need it. Or even just be like "hey guys, we need to get my ship back so we can go save that poor kid's sister". That will make more sense to folks who have just met her than "I have a powerful emotional and possibly biological attachment to this police box, so you need to risk your life to help me get it back."

Honestly though, the vibe I got from the episode was a very good. Forging a new sonic screwdriver from spare auto parts in like thirty minutes also made zero sense but I thought the montage worked really well (especially the music, which again... was awesome).

a very good one, that is

i've always thought it was a bit sad when the classic series DVDs did CGI "improvements" to the wonky old effects shots

BUT i would gladly pay money to have every post-2005 episode rescored by Segun Akinola

I agree with people who said Whittaker was great and the new companions (for the little we saw of them) seemed interesting, but the plot was way too basic and derivative. I mean, besides the obvious Predator imitation, even the twist where the opening narration by the companion desribes an incredible person implied to be the Doctor, only for him/her to continue it later and reveal he was talking about a regular human, was lifted straight from "A Good Man Goes to War".

Maybe I'm alone here, but I did enjoy Moffat's overarching puzzle plots when he didn't overdo them, so I'm not that happy if they're completely missing from this season altogether. And it's true Twelve's introductory episode wasn't so great either, but if you compare this to Eleven's introduction (which seems most apt, since that was the last time they changed the head writer), in "Eleventh Hour" Moffat managed to:

1) Establish the new Doctor and how they're different from the previous ones.
2) Flesh out the new companions.
3) Give us a cool stand-alone plot with a creepy, original villain.
4) Hint at some intriguing mysteries which would lead into longer story arcs along the way.

Compared to that, I think this episode only succeeded with #1. Yeah, Whittaker was a joy to watch, but I don't think that was enough. The new companions did show some promise though, and IMO Chibnall seems to be better at writing interesting characters than cool sci-fi plots, so hopefully we'll at least get more out of that aspect. But mostly the quality of this season will depend on how good the other writers are, I fear.

Oh yeah, besides Whittaker, obviously the biggest joys of this episode was to finally be rid of Murray Gold's maudlin compositions and get some proper good sci-fi music for change. I especially liked the repetitive, creepy synth bit that was playing when the "egg" began to crack open, it set the mood perfectly.

I would love a moody, landscape-drenched Broadchurchification of Doctor Who where they hang out in one place for 3-4 episodes. Make the Doctor mysterious, make us wonder if she murdered somebody and have her not make much of an effort to dissuade her companions of that while she draws out some baddie, playing chess with them and sacrificing a bunch of townspeople a la the NA Seventh Doctor

Director of this episode has done 4/10 of the series, is the only white man directing this year.

"Maybe I'm alone here, but I did enjoy Moffat's overarching puzzle plots when he didn't overdo them, so I'm not that happy if they're completely missing from this season altogether. And it's true Twelve's introductory episode wasn't so great either, but if you compare this to Eleven's introduction (which seems most apt, since that was the last time they changed the head writer), in "Eleventh Hour" Moffat managed to:"

make one of the greatest doctor who episodes of all time, yes. maybe "the eleventh hour" is setting the bar a little high?

off the top of my head, new doctor debut episodes ranked:

the eleventh hour
spearhead from space
power of the daleks
the woman who fell to earth
rose
castrovalva
the christmas invasion
an unearthly child
deep breath
robot
the enemy within
time and the rani
the twin dilemma

i'd call that a successful first episode

So glad we're back to spooky Delia Derbyshire influence for the theme

xp that would make an awesome ambient album tracklisting

actually pretty excited for the debut of the new theme/intro sequence... is it next week?

ooh!

An Unearthly Child
The Eleventh Hour
Spearhead From Space (ep 1 or whole story)
Power Of The Daleks (ep 1
Rose
Deep Breath
Robot ep 1
The Woman Who Fell To Earth
The Christmas Invasion
Castrovalva ep 1
Grace: 1999
Time And The Rani
The Twin Dilemma

meant to close those brackets with ", probably whole story but I died of old age watching the animated version in the cinema)"

actually pretty excited for the debut of the new theme/intro sequence... is it next week?

When the theme rose and then died away after the Doctor's first appearance in this ep, I first thought the Australian broadcaster had butchered things and cut out the opening titles for time reasons.

Anyway, Whittaker felt just right as the Doctor. And Sheffieldian gloom seemed right to me, as someone who first saw it on TV in 'Threads'.

Also, re not immediately rushing off to rescue the sister: the girl has already been in stasis for 7 years, and once the Doctor gets the TARDIS back then time really is no object.

Sic, i came dangerously close to ordering some BF audios today. Talk me down.

stick to the ones I recommended in that other thread!

erm, five years or so ago

Or say what you’re looking to get out of them & I’ll give some tips.

Unrelatedly, in spin-off news, the Moffat book of Day of the Doctor is really good fun. If it sounds like your thing, definitely read it (and if it isn't, definitely don't).

Forgot to mention:

- I say to kids "You know, the new Doctor - she's great - she really seems like the same person as the previous doctors". 9-y-o rolls eyes - "Of course she does! Dad, she's a PROFESSIONAL ACTRESS"

- When it's over they go "Is this on every Sunday?!?!"

Oh and:

- "Dad can you pause it, I need to go pee!"

- "No I can't, this is live TV"

Look of confusion and horror

Well technically you could have...

I couldn't though! We were watching on Freeview