Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

Dragonfire reunion:

Sylvester and some friends have a message for you x@sophie_aldred @bonnie_langford pic.twitter.com/Tsgw2Uy8DM

— Sylvester McCoy (@4SylvesterMcCoy) December 23, 2020

Catching up on the Russell T Davies / Catherine Tate tweetalong on Runaway Bride. Highlights:

FIRST, a Christmas message from the Mighty One. Calling to Twitter… David Tennant! #SantasARobot pic.twitter.com/1Pm2hS79oj

— Russell T Davies (@russelldavies63) December 18, 2020

RTD:

Best music, best titles, fight me

I wrote this FOR Catherine. I did that very rarely on Doctor Who. (I wrote for Penelope Wilton too.) But I decided Catherine was PERFECT, and we hunted her down!

“That’s not even a proper word, you’re just saying things.” My husband’s favourite line I ever wrote

To cast Catherine, we had lunch with her in Century in London. I thought she’d be so busy, we didn’t stand a chance. Turned out she LOVES David Tennant, properly, and would do anything to appear with him. Deal done, on the spot! Phew

ROSE! A lot of journalists, especially sci-fi writers, sniffily said the programme might not survive without Rose. I love proving people wrong. No kidding, it makes me roll my sleeves up and go “Right!”

Is Donna the first companion to see INSIDE the Tardis first?

POCKETS!! In her very last scene, in The End of Time, Donna gets a lottery ticket on her wedding day… but with no pockets, she has to tuck it in her cleavage. Nice call back

I probably rolleyed at the action-TARDIS and bad CGI at the time, but the police box flying down a highway, chasing a stolen taxi drive by an evil robot Santa, knocking into random cars, is such a great scene. And RTD makes it extra-Xmas-family-powered by having two wee kids cheering on Donna's jump from taxi to TARDIS from the back window of another car.

Tate:

I remember doing this stunt, I thought my boobs were going to spill out of my dress 😂😂😂
#SantasARobot

RTD replying:

That might have increased the ratings xx

SCREWBALL: Here’s a cut scene, which show the Doctor and Donna using EVERY form of transport. It’s the gag of them being constantly chasing, in action, which we lost a bit. This is on the DVD extras, starring Bella Emberg! #SantasARobot pic.twitter.com/lPDdvISbJ0

— Russell T Davies (@russelldavies63) December 18, 2020

SCREWBALL: again, more cut scenes of comedy transport. So we accidentally diminished the screwball comedy aspect of the script. The genre stumbles slightly. You only realise this years later! #SantasARobot pic.twitter.com/j7Py2tUgOJ

— Russell T Davies (@russelldavies63) December 18, 2020

SCREWBALL: this is where the comedy plot of Different Forms of Transport reaches the punchline, the Segways. It’d be funnier if the other transport scenes hadn’t been cut! It’s a punchline without the build up! #SantasARobot

— Russell T Davies (@russelldavies63) December 18, 2020

I didn’t know what Segways were called, I had to draw one!! NOW I KNOW, OBVS #SantasARobot #alliwantforchristmasisasegway pic.twitter.com/Qv8xERFfbD

— Russell T Davies (@russelldavies63) December 18, 2020

Tate:

Has The Doctor still got that flip phone? Or did he upgrade to Apple?

RTD:

CGI CUTS, here’s where the CGI spiders would’ve been great. Without them… not much happens! Missing spiders...

Again, CG Spiders missing, they would’ve been so good! They're the whole POINT of the scene

https://i.imgur.com/d4QrAyw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/81iZOtA.jpg

more cut spiders: https://i.imgur.com/y07DQJl.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/7UwDUV8.jpg

This episode taped in July 2006 - followup:

January 2008. Claridge's! The Radio Times Cover Party. Jane Tranter sits down with me, Julie, Phil. I run the 2008 companion past her, "Penny". She says, hmm. She said, I saw Catherine yesterday to talk about future projects. But she went on and on about Doctor Who, she loved it so much. I think if you asked, you could get her back. For a whole series. I was like, never! She's so busy! She writes her own stuff! Impossible. And look what happened...

aaaand...

As a bonus, Davies posted excerpts from his first submission to Dr Who, aged 22 or so:

HERE IT IS. In preparation for today’s tweetalong, I went through some old papers to find the script and found… the VERY FIRST DOCTOR WHO SCRIPT I ever wrote!! On a manual typewriter! In 1985! 1986? Sixth Doctor and Mel!

This script has no title, but it’s undoubtedly called MIND OF THE HODIAC. I’ll post a few pages here, but it’s 62 pages long. I think, in 1985, I imagined that was a 25 minute episode!! Hah. And there’s a synopsis for Ep.2.

I’ve always said in interviews that I sent in a rough version of The Long Game… but think I misremembered, I think it was this. Must have been. It’s not bad, I like it!

When the show closed down in 1989, I had a letter from Andrew Cartmel saying ‘Thank you for your idea, I liked it and put it to one side for consideration but now we’ve closed down…’ (Contrary to what he says in next month’s DWM, fact fans)

I won’t post the whole thing - this story could still work! But it’s very much my Doctor Who, even in 1985, great big cosmic events all focusing down on an ordinary Earth family. Come and bid, Big Finish!

https://i.imgur.com/vR7rzhz.jpg

and

https://i.imgur.com/JUyaIq4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/iwdVZ5G.jpg

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

https://i.imgur.com/A3vX95x.jpg

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

That’s it, I’ve loved it, don’t forget Doctor Who on New Year’s Day and my new show, It’s A Sin, on Jan 22 on Channel 4. But good old Doctor Who. Isn’t it always, always, always the best?! MERRY CHRISTMAS! #SantasARobot xxx

Speaking of old scripts, Moffat dug up and posted his first draft of A Christmas Carol as a festive gift.

(direct pdf link)

We watched it again on Christmas Day (having seen the canonical, muppet, version the day before) and it's still marvellous - I'd forgotten it was Smith/Moffat's first, the next episodes after The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang, which we watched afterwards. Jesus, 10 years ago.

Advance notice of a tweetalong!

Director Rachel Talalay and actor Chris Addison tweeting the double feature of Dark Water / Death In Heaven on January 3rd, just in time to find out if the government will be transforming millions of small living creatures into an infection-carrying army, ready to spread a horrific form of survival to the populace, the next day.

(I assume the IRL news on the latter won't be arriving any sooner.)

This will be one day after the 50th anniversary of Missy / The Master.

UK kids definitely won't be going back to school on the 4th, if that's what you mean - apart from the children of key workers.

Given the changes in advice during yesterday alone, they have four days to reverse, alter, withdraw, cancel and reinstate plans for closure, and I reckon they could do it. Believe in Boris!

highlight tweets on Dark Water

Addison:

First of all, this is the only job I ever got where my agent called me and started the conversation: "Are you sitting down?" #HeyMissy

I've been watching DW since Tom Baker was charging about the place in a scarf and a hat so to get to come and play along was a dream I'd had for almost forty years.

I was put in a three-way (which sounds saucy but is in fact the name for a trailer divided into three dressing rooms) and @rtalalay and I were talking. I heard this "WHERE IS HEEEE?" and Peter came bounding in, dressed as The Doctor.

He'd skipped off set to come and find me. It was quite something because the first time a Doctor's outfit is revealed is a big moment. And for me that big moment happened in the split second before a hug in a car park in Cardiff.

Many years before, Pete and I had been shooting an episode of The Thick of It in the BBC's weird Media Village building in Shepherd's Bush (that's London, for those of you not from round here). Like a lot of BBC buildings it was full of props and pictures. Keepsakes from big shows and so on. Where we were was a dalek. There are quite a few around the BBC. I think they put them there after the IRA tried to blow up Television Centre. Seems a short-sighted security solution, if you ask me.

Anyway, Peter and I both being huge fans of DW, we got very excited by the dalek being there. (This also happened with a TARDIS, by the way.) Peter wanted me to take his picture with the Dalek, in the classic DW pose - look of horror, outstretched hand.

That is still the picture I have in my phone for his contact. Peter as the Doctor about five years before it happened for real.

Talalay:

6:05 We used a rock face from another tv show already built in the studio to rebuild for the volcano scenes.(Wizards and aliens)
My worst memory on the volcano was we shot it over 2 days and the actors had to replicate the intensity of their performances and bring it at 8am after acting their hearts out the day before. Jenna never felt she hit it quite as strongly on the 2nd day. But she did.

Peter played with a lot of textures — how much conceit, confidence, anger to play? The genius of Capaldi. I wish I had every take to show off his range, his genius.
for instance: “Go to hell” — angry or calm?

Can I sing the tardis’ praises? what a set. Although I lit it better and did more with it on later episodes, I still tried to use it for all its details — David Tennant’s tardis was not a 360º set so they couldn’t do continuous shots. I want energy and flow here.

16:03
And the Afterlife — this was a challenge, because Seven wanted everything simple. like the 3W logo. And the artists always want to make art. They couldn’t believe he literally wanted this: #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/BXFmZRcq0D

— Rachel Talalay (@rtalalay) January 3, 2021

Addison:

I'll tell you where you are, Danny Pink. You are about ten yards from the Holby City ward. I wanted to use the toilet in the middle of this scene and got taken into Holby City to do it. Quite the culture shock.

the snog: steven scripted eyes closed:
both worked #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/uD5aCGcmHA

— Rachel Talalay (@rtalalay) January 3, 2021

Addison:

Back to that story... Peter dragged me along into this enormous sound stage. At the other end was a sort of wooden, spherical object. Enormous, it was. You could absolutely never get it in a police box.
"The TARDIS!" He said, "You never get bored of this." And we went up the scaffolding steps that take you to the entrance. And there are the doors. And in you go. And blow me down if it isn't the goddam TARDIS!

So, yeah, so we were in the TARDIS and Peter had basically been playing hooky - there was a scene to film and stuff to do. "Do you want to watch?" he asked, entirely redundantly.
I'd imagined that Pete meant that I could sit at one of the monitors and watch the scene. No, no. He meant, would I like to sit in the TARDIS and watch. He had a canvas chair on one side of the lower level, where he'd sit between takes and read.

Basically: I got to sit in the TARDIS and watch the Doctor and the Clara LIVE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. Best, as the kids say, day ever.

Talalay:

I still have a modicum of trauma looking at the tanks and thinking about the work that went into making no water look like water.

The Millenial Bridge construction made it impossible to reproduce the 1968 cybermen shots but I can as close as I could. I went there a couple of times trying to work out angles and how to get close without vfx.

The doctor and missy exit the middle doors: those are known as the Royal doors because only royalty are allowed through them When I went to give notes, I had to go tuse the side doors. Only they and the cybermen had special dispensation to use the doors

I snooped around on my own, conscious that I might be out of bounds. I found these. After a lifetime of conditioning, being on your own with daleks is pretty damn intimidating. Even if they are caged. And who knew that was all we had to do to stop them? #HeyMissy pic.twitter.com/lN6SEaN0mn

— Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison) January 3, 2021

Addison:

"We've got a thing for that." I bet you anything Steven put "app" in the script before Clearance told him he couldn't. I don't know for a fact, but I'd lay good money on it.

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.