Doctor Who Series 11 Thread.

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Doctor Who Series 11 Thread.

Post by inflatable dalek »

After what feels a very lengthy wait, it's almost time!



Looks solid enough, but I must admit the main thing I've taken from SDCC is just how gleefully Whitaker is throwing herself into it, gatecrashing fashion shows in costume, hugging Alex Kingston and just generally looking like she's having the time of her life in every photo. If the Chibnall ran era dies on its arse, it won't be down to lack of enthusiasm from the lead.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Aye watched this the other day, looks like quite a fresh take and Jodie's full of such enthusiasm and delight and I'm interested to see how this goes. I'd still like us to go a full series (or two) without Daleks or Cybermen putting in an appearance, but I'm guessing that's unlikely.
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Post by Cyberstrike nTo »

OK I finally got around to watching Broadchurch while seasons 1 and 2 were really great season 3 felt more like an unnecessary coda to a great two season shows and yeah I watched it because I wanted to Whittaker in something before she takes over as the 13th Doctor and also I wanted to see if Broadchurch lived up to the hype since it debuted I've read a lot of raves about of a great show it is and how good Whittaker was in it in seasons 1 and 2 she pretty much stole the show and ran away with it, but in season 3 her character and her family felt like an after thought. Like Chibnall didn't quite know what to her with character and her arc felt more contrived than anything. She's still good in it though, but IMHO Broadchurch season 3 was the weakest one.

Chibnall does know how build up a cliffhanger, I'll say that much for him.
I think there is a very warm charm and grace and not to mention a real beauty to Whittaker and so far from what little I've of her, she also seems like a very talented actress.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Cyberstrike nTo wrote:Chibnall does know how build up a cliffhanger, I'll say that much for him.
But does he know how to give them a satisfying conclusion?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Apparently it's all one-offs, no mutiparters this year.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Not that I had much hope for the future of the series at this point anyway, but I'm not even sure I'm gonna bother giving it the benefit of a doubt.

[youtube]youtu.be/_9TzD5mQdOY[/youtube]
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Post by inflatable dalek »

The video isn't playing for me?
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Post by Tetsuro »

I'd fix it but I've already forgotten which video it was.

It was about how only one member of the new writing staff had any experience writing science fiction and the rest had barely any writing experience at all and at least some of them were pretty obviously just diversity hires.
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Post by Denyer »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9TzD5mQdOY / https://www.youtube.com/user/bowlestrek/videos

Wants science fiction to be "devoid of agendas and ideologies, written by people with proper qualifications" who presumably come from Mondas.

Channel seems to have previously been reviews but mostly incel clickbait for the last year. Amazed he hasn't been ranting about Patrick Stewart's SJW credentials, or more likely hasn't found out about them yet.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Well, sounds like that video didn't do its research at all. The new writers include BAFTA nominees, the Children's laureate, creator of the long running Prisoner Cell Block H remake and a writer for skins (exactly the kind of show parents of small kids sitting down to watch will have done memories of).

Lack of genre credits is simply down to there being so little other SF stuff in the UK right now, that if you're actively going for all new writers you are going to think outside that box because all the obvious Merlin/Life on Mars ect guys have already done Who.

But of course, in 2005 out of the guest writers, only Mark Gatiss had genre TV credits. Otherwise you had a playwright, a Casualty writer and a guy who does sitcoms. And even going outside of television, Moffat's entire SF work before going on to win all the Hugos for the show was one Doctor Who short story and a comedy sketch.

And Chibnall himself has gotten the top job entirely off the back of Broadchurch, which was the biggest thing on British TV when it was on. His SF writing has counted for nothing there.

And if they were picking writers out of some insane diversity scheme, you think they'd have more than two women, the same number as the previous presumably non-forced diversity all time record holder season.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Denyer wrote: Wants science fiction to be "devoid of agendas and ideologies, written by people with proper qualifications" who presumably come from Mondas.
I fail to see why this is a bad thing. There seems to be a general agenda-driven push in mainstream fiction lately where it takes the front stage in favour of things that are actually important in a story, like engaging characters who aren't just two-dimensional stereotypes.

Which conveniently also provides an excuse to dismiss critics as "incel twats" when they don't like it.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Wanting Doctor Who to be agenda free is a strange thing to ask when the monsters that made it a big break out success were unashamedly Nazis who debuted in a story with the message "Don't appease Nazis, punch them".

I mean, the original Zygon story commented on the contemporary energy crisis and ended with the Loch Ness Monster trying to eat Maggie Thatcher. The 2015 variant wasn't really that much more agenda driven. And that's a story from one of the more detached eras of Who, when you get into the Pertwee or McCoy stuff, the TV is screaming its politics at you.

And of course, Doctor Who is a series about the worst monsters you can imagine trying to kill you. What you make those monsters will always say something.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Same goes for Star Trek. Which is why I've found the complaints about Discovery a bit silly, since Trek has always been pretty progressive.

So maybe that's not the problem and that's not what people are actually complaining about. Same thing goes for Rogue One, that one was diverse as hell but people seemed to love it anyway, outside a handful of actual bigots (and even then I can't really deny the fact that the only white guys in the movie are the villains), so maybe that's not the reason so many people hated TLJ as well. Maybe the problem is the complete lack of subtlety and the hamfisted delivery of it, like the Timelord general regenerating into a black woman only to immediately deliver some disparaging comment about men. In a society where gender is as fluid as that, that doesn't even make any sense.

And the problem with the "punch nazis" mentality is that your run of the mill conservative is not a nazi. And every time I've seen somebody actually get punched, it wasn't somebody flaunting a swastika.
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Post by Denyer »

Tetsuro wrote:engaging characters who aren't just two-dimensional stereotypes
Who is among the daftest swords to try to fall on when neither the new series nor the old (as it soldiered on towards and through the 80s) has done much of anything that isn't larded with stereotypes or representation, from Paradise Towers to lesbian lizard-human romance. It's always had a teatime TV level of political agenda and very little subtlety. If he's only now getting on a soapbox in a big way he's spent a heck of a lot on box sets that contain things he claims to hate and it's difficult to view the meltdown as anything other than clickbait -- not necessarily ideological, it's just as likely a response to YouTube widely demonetising content and scrambling for audiences that will get up in arms about an immortal alien who's reset the universe on multiple occasions not having a penis for a while.

Ditto Star Trek, which has taken pains to beat audiences over the head with inclusiveness since the beginnings with IDIC -- except most of the audience doesn't need much persuading, because science fiction that isn't dystopian Mad Max fare skews to the left, or what the right in most cultures views as the left. The dystopian alternatives being stuff like Blade Runner, Judge Dredd and Warhammer 40K that are basically about fascism not being great. (And if anything 40K is one of the more sympathetic takes, because it also presents that as an absolute necessity for the continued survival of the species).

Both series are extended sales pitches for the opposite of chan boards.
And the problem with the "punch nazis" mentality is that your run of the mill conservative is not a nazi.
It's certainly a bad idea to reduce Nazis to goose stepping comic relief, as most of the support for the ideology was enough of the general populace being unified against wartime reparations and outsider scapegoats.

The run of the mill conservative in that era wasn't opposing the party, and the same was true in the UK where Hitler got a lot of admiration in the press and from power.

When the remaining members of the generation that lived it start noting that they recognise the same jingoism, Nazi is getting uncomfortably close to accurate shorthand.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Denyer wrote:It's certainly a bad idea to reduce Nazis to goose stepping comic relief, as most of the support for the ideology was enough of the general populace being unified against wartime reparations and outsider scapegoats.

The run of the mill conservative in that era wasn't opposing the party, and the same was true in the UK where Hitler got a lot of admiration in the press and from power.

When the remaining members of the generation that lived it start noting that they recognise the same jingoism, Nazi is getting uncomfortably close to accurate shorthand.
Yeah well I'm not talking about the conservatives of the 1930's, I know Daily Mail was a big admirer of Hitler's, I'm talking about the ones we have today in the US. Being a Trump supporter does not equate to being a nazi. I've also said many times that reducing Trump to a joke is similarly dangerous because it fails to actually tackle his policies in any sort of a meaningful manner.

For what it's worth, I think he's closer to Stalin than Hitler in terms of personality. He can't make people disappear but he can fire them, while rewarding unqualified brownnosers with positions they have absolutely no business being in.
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Post by Denyer »

Tetsuro wrote:For what it's worth, I think he's closer to Stalin than Hitler in terms of personality.
Mmm, once you get to 'dictator' the already flimsy left/right political model breaks down.

The analogy isn't Nazi exactly, it's Nazi sympathiser -- as is the 30s there's a huge number of people prepared to go along with a demagogue who promises things and delivers enough (whether reassurance/scapegoats or actions) to carry that swell. eg The religious extremists stay onobard with a guy who in quite strong likelihood paid for abortions because political opponents can be made out to be a bigger boogieman.

Totally agree that portraying Donald (or Boris, or Jacob) as simply jokes is dangerous. The public personas carefully push to see how much push back there'll be on any given day.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Denyer wrote:Who is among the daftest swords to try to fall on when neither the new series nor the old (as it soldiered on towards and through the 80s) has done much of anything that isn't larded with stereotypes or representation, from Paradise Towers to lesbian lizard-human romance.
You missed the keyword "two-dimensional".

I mean look at Jack Harkness, everybody loved him. Bill Potts has her haters too, a lot of people seem to think her character is basically the "hey have I mentioned I'm gay today" archetype, but I found her falling victim to a lot of nu-Who companion cliches to a bigger problem with her character.

Meanwhile, the lesbian lizard in Victorian England I can't call anything except cringy.
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Post by Denyer »

Less bloody annoying than Clara and one of the more believable ones. It's a struggle to think of rounded characters in Who, generally, more of the development has been in tie-in media than TV (although that's no more consistent). I think the best are probably going back to the beginning, Ian and Barbara. Romana, where not being human forgives some of the quirks and duff writing, and more recently it's possible to forgive Bernard Cribbins any amount of hamming it up.

In fact with new Who the recurring peripheral characters tend to get better writing than the companions, Capt Jack and River Song also both being played as chewing the scenery and it paying off due to the presence of the actors.

Quite like the Paternoster Gang but a few appearances are enough to mine out the characterisation that writers bothered with and it's very difficult to suspend disbelief with Sontarans in general, let alone comedy relief ones.
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Post by Cyberstrike nTo »

I come here to get away from these stupid edge lords, incels, gators, or whatever they call themselves today, who think "SJWs" are a real thing and imagine stupid conspiracy theories, and listen to bunch of Alt-Right racists and useless trolls and here they are.

Christ I might has well stay on Twitter and Facebook.
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Post by Denyer »

So far (minimal screen time for 13 with trailer) they seem to be going for a bit of an Eccleston-style happy-chappy mugging-for-the-camera style.

Mixing 9 and 5 (costume nods) is an interesting enough choice.

Most exciting thing so far is the apparent playing with depth of field in the camera work.
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