WHOCHURCH: The Chris Chibnall era

We've tried to steer him to some older ones, but he really can't get past the older special effects to be willing to try more. Figure we'll give it a go in another year or so.

Terrible first episode of DALEKS!, paced so glacially it makes a Troughton 19-parter look zippy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-HJqrE0fbk

chibz has full sign-off on this stuff iirc

holy lol @ DALEKS!

"Chief Archivia, the visitor center is destroyed! The damage is... incalculable!"
"CALCULATE IT!"

worst boss ever

Terrible first episode of DALEKS!, paced so glacially it makes a Troughton 19-parter look zippy.
📹

DALEKS! was like a fever dream, how can it exist? how can enough people have found the energy to make it happen? was anyone in charge?

I thought it was on the endearing end of crap

A friend has pointed out that this is the first sight of Ireland in Doctor Who - obviously if we're a race that can turn the last Timelord into the last Cyberman, some buildup was required!

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, February 27, 2020 8:57 PM (eight months ago)

we regret to inform you that you were mistaken

Subtitling fail on the Doctor Who series 12 blu ray pic.twitter.com/VQBNSLj0OM

— Eddie Robson (@EddieRobson) November 24, 2020

out of morbid curiosity i read the wikipedia synopsis of tHe TiMeLeSs cHiLd (which I have not seen) and instantly threw my phone across the room in disgust and also crashed my car and kicked my television in with Ian Levene's hammer

irl giggle

thing is that the wikipedia synopsis about plot facts, whatever one thinks about the facts, surely does not convey what a poorly constructed and tediously produced piece of television it is. (basically the Master locks the Doctor in some Xmas lights and reads the wikipedia summary to her for 40 minutes, then someone we've never met touchingly sacrifices themself for, er, something.)

Thank you sic, that is the suppurating cherry on top.

I remember those Island/Ireland subs being wrong in iplayer when it first went out, impressive that it still didn't get fixed between then and the BR.

lol wow

on the other hand, they should have included the American subtitles as an alternate track on the Danny Pink finale, where him sitting on a bench and telling Clara "I got our bench" was captioned as "What up, bitch?"

hahaha, really?!?!

I misremembered, it was Flatline

No full season in 2019; there’s definitely one episode on NYD, and the PR language leaves room for other specials.

― sans lep (sic), Monday, December 10, 2018 11:25 AM (two years ago)

This means that in the first five (5) years of his contract, Chibnall will have produced two (2) series of the show.

(Without any further specials, he’ll have done 22 episodes during his 5-year tenure, and Moffatt will have done 14.)

― sans lep (sic), Monday, December 10, 2018 11:30 AM (two years ago)

That 22nd episode, Revolution (Of The Daleks) will now be inaugurating Chibnall's sixth calendar year as showrunner on January 1st, fourteen months after it was filmed.

The typical finger-on-the-pulse political instincts of the era will likely be magnified, as reports of the trailer suggest that it concerns Chris Noth's Trump analogue from the 2018 series, whom the Doctor and police officer Yaz let stroll off after committing a bunch of near-murders and crimes, now having sold Daleks as security drones to an analogue of 2019's UK PM Theresa May.

To be fair, the fewer he does the better, given the general state of things.

Counterpoint: he should release more quickly so that we can get a new showrunner in sooner than later.

Some minor spoilers for the next episode have been released by the BBC. Stuff that's been predicted in this thread.

That it will be terrible?

It will also apparently be Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh's last episode.

having just spent a heatwave weekend binging junk tv on Netflix,
I am in the very strange and unnatural situation
of feeling absolutely indifferent about contemporary Doctor Who
but surprisingly engaged by the new Star Trek series

Counterpoint: he should release more quickly so that we can get a new showrunner in sooner than later.

Even at the pace he's going, we could get an eight-episode Mathieson-run audition-to-take-over season, an eight-episode Gatiss-run cozy+horror season, and a full 13-episode run written by Grant Morrison in between each Chibnall season.

It's not like there are any ongoing plotlines or character development in his own "main" seasons that would be disrupted!

and god, the amount of visual & audio storytelling in this two minute (excerpt of Day Of The Doctor) outdoes the average Chibnall episode in total. It's bonkers that so many Moffat eps got injuriously filleted down to 43 minutes when Chibnall gets 49 every week, and just fills it with three members of the cast describing what's happening to each other, instead of using moving pictures and editing to communicate to the audience

― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Thursday, February 27, 2020 5:21 AM (nine months ago)

BBC1 NYD schedule is out, and Revolution (Of The Daleks) has a 75-minute slot. Day Of The Doctor is, at 77 minutes, the longest nu-Who episode to date, followed by Capaldi debut Deep Breath at 76. Chibnall could be gunning for bronze here!



(The Five Doctors special in 1983 was 90min, and the Paul McGann Canadian pilot in 1996 was 89min. Moffat's Xmas specials were all 60 minutes, as were RTD's except Voyage Of The Damned at 72, and the NYD Tennant finale part 2 at 75. Moff also went long on Smith's debut The Eleventh Hour, at 65.)

((Chibnall hit 59 and 60 with this year's two-part season openers, and 65 with the Timeless Children finale, in which - lest we forget - the Doctor stood still inside some hula hoops while the Master read a wikipedia entry at her in lieu of anything actually happening.)

I caught up with Orphan 55 and Praxeus (sp?) in a moment of weakness yesterday, and it's weird how they manage to be overlong and underdeveloped at the same time

It says a lot about my connection to the most recent Who season that I keep seeing all of these episode titles and I have to think really, really hard about which stories those actually were

Meanwhile, someone just needs to say some random shit like "Terleptil" and I'm immediately like "Oh yeah, The Visitation was my jam" as if that wasn't 38 years ago

Yeah, I can remember specific camera angles from Trial of a Time Lord, which I haven't seen in... 34 years?

You know how the Morbius costume is horrifying because it's so cheap? Like, if it had been a proper expensively-tailored costume it wouldn't have been half so creepy? That's sort of how the writing works now. The scene where Benny (of "BENNY!" fame) dies, offscreen in a really offhanded and confusing way, is so poorly written, it's like a scriptwriting-uncanny valley. It made me feely genuinely uneasy to watch.

The various ways in which the current TARDIS crew is like "oh well that person died, come on we've got a corridor to run down" are legitimately funny to me; it's like every time they get a script, Cole, Gill, and Walshhave a competition to see who can get the most callous take possible on camera

It's so weird and nihilistic even when it's unintentional. I hate it! Having said, that, I just watched The Brain of Morbius for the first time, and lol'd at the end, when Baker and Sladen were like, "ah fuck it, let's just murder solon and get out of here"

I think Davison is the only one who really had a consistent throughline of being really upset about the carnage surrounding him

Now I have Britbox I'm going to catch up on some Davison. I remember watching the Five Doctors, but I must have been... 5 at the time? What are his good ones?

I love Davison to bits so I'd say "All of them"

If forced to choose a smaller selection:

Castrovalva
The Visitation
Kinda/Snakedance
Black Orchid
Earthshock
Mawdryn Undead/Terminus/Enlightenment
The Awakening
Frontios
The Caves of Androzani

Back on Orpahn 55 though, I think it's super hilarious that the Earth has died like 700 times on this show and NOW the Doctor is all "hey, maybe the future can change" because she had a bad spa day

Why would you put a virtual reality holiday complex on a zombie planet - isn't the point of virtual reality that it can be... anywhere? What was the point of the doglady and the Inbetweeners guy? How did Benny get so far out when he wasn't in the tank? Why was Laura Fraser the security guard *and* the hotelier?

Obviously these questions aren't worth asking seriously, but, on the other hand, WHY?????!!!????

Tosin Cole's thumbsucking goodbye with his romantic interest, moments before she kills herself, gets my nod for most memorable/awful image

(Also thanks for the list!)

I loved that the mother/daughter reconciled just so they could immediately throw their lives away

(so powerful)
(so iconic)

Also let me know when you start on Davison, I could talk about those stories all day (and in fact, I'm strongly considering signing up for Britbox myself just to watch them)

I recommend it. Outside of Doctor Who, there's not a ton of good stuff on there, but there's a few amazing shlocky things that are otherwise difficult to find (The Prisoner in HD, Hammer House of Horror, that sort of thing)

I'm going to watch Kinda I think

I do sort of think Davison is best enjoyed chronologically but that's largely because it's how I watched them originally; there is a good amount of inter-story arc that is a little confusing if you don't watch them in order (although I think you're safe starting with Kinda, it does kind of jump directly into the 5 + 3 template established in Castrovalva of "let's deal with everyone's vacation schedules by hiding a companion for a story and hope no one notices")

Yeah, Kinda's a good standalone pick.



(Also Davison's first season was made wildly out of order, with his first story not even being written, or devised as being a sequel to Baker's final, until six months after The Visitation, his fourth story, was commissioned. Production also shut down for two months between The Visitation and Kinda (in that order) because Davison had to go to his day job as the lead of a sitcom.)

((It's not a vacation schedule that sidelines Nyssa in Kinda - the scripts had been written so far back that she didn't exist yet.))

(((Castrovalva - Davison story 01 - was taped five months after Davison 02, Four To Doomsday. By the time it was commissioned, the show had lost its interim script editor, so producer JNT was acting in the role as well*. With his characteristic understanding of story values, plotting, and arc themes, on engaging the previous season's script editor to sequelise that guy's own script for Baker's Logopolis, he gave the following structural notes:

Nathan-Turner instructed Bidmead to incorporate changes to Nyssa's costume which had been implemented for Four To Doomsday, including the replacement of her skirt with corduroy trousers, and the elimination of her tiara and fur stole. He also asked that Bidmead include the Doctor's addition of a celery stick to the lapel of his cricketing jacket.

* the 1980s Who production team consisted in full of producer JNT, a script editor, and JNT's secretary.)))

his day job as the lead of a sitcom

I'd always previously assumed this break was for All Creatures Great and Small, I'd never even heard of Holding The Fort or Sink or Swim, one of which I guess you're actually referring to? Just been checking youtube clips and oh wow, he plays northern (very badly) in Sink or Swim, amazing!

It was Sink Or Swim. If Who hadn't moved to a Monday/Tuesday schedule that year, he would have been on TV weekly from the beginning of January to the end of October.

The Davison blu-ray set is my favorite so far because their commentaries are by far the most entertaining... they're constantly making fun of the show but also clearly love it.

DOCTOR WHO BOSS EXPLAINS THE MEANING BEHIND FESTIVE SPECIAL TITLE

“I think it has more than one meaning,” Chibnall told Radio Times. “I think you’ll understand when you’ve seen the episode! There are loads of different ways you can interpret that title, whether it’s a Dalek revolution, or whether there’s a revolution involving Daleks…”

Also, Chibnall added, the “revolution” in the title refers to the non-Dalek characters too. With Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole set to depart the series in the special, the TARDIS team will be in for a major shake-up, and generally speaking the series cast looks set to be “revolutionised” ahead of the now-filming season 13.

“I think there are things happening within the episode emotionally that will change the dynamics on board the TARDIS too,” he said. “We’re doing everything in there.”

There are loads of different ways you can interpret that title

I choose to believe that it refers to 50 minutes of a lone Dalek revolving on the spot, wobbling a bit

while Nick Briggs squawks ~ SLOW-ROTATE ~ into his ring modulator app

Beatles tribute musical ep

trufax: the Beatles were going to appear in old-age makeup in "the future" in 1965 Dalek story The Chase, but Brian Epstein nixed it.

Instead, the TARDIS crew tuned into a Top Of The Pops episode from that year on their Time Telly and grooved to a performance by the band (space orphan Vicki had been to the Beatles museum in Liverpool*, but for some reason until now "didn't realise they played classical music"). This is now the only surviving TOTP footage of the band, due to this Who ep being recovered after both programmes' archives were wiped.