All New Who

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Good news all round for BF- they deserve it, they have more than proved their ability. Got to hope Eccy will do it eventually, but I wont hold my breath for it either, as that makes it too tricky to drink! And if they get Matt Smith who will be his companions? Getting Karen Gillan back especially might be tricky and hard to imagine 11 with no Amy and Rory and hard to do it with Clara- it would be like when they did the Lost Stories for 6, they'd have to make her like she was when she was with 11, which was not her best, and they couldn't really develop her more over time like they did 6 because thats the story-arc of her time on the tv show}}}}}

I hope Eccleston comes back at some point, the 9th Doctor is great because of him, so I wouldn't want BF to go down the recasting route...

Nick Briggs has confirmed BF talked to Smith's agent, he's happy to do it, it's just a matter of when (it took them a year to get Tennant and Tate together at the same time to record just 3 stories, Smith is a much younger actor and probably more keen to break into Hollywood...).

I wonder if there are any New Who 'Lost Stories' they could adapt?

{{Capaldi, the lass from the Fan Show, Terence Dicks, Moffat and the original artist at the exhibition for the covers of the TARGET Who adaptation books- man, those covers sure bring back happy memories! I partly learnt to draw copying those covers}}}}}

I wonder if they'll ever consider novelising New Who stories?

{{More quality work from Garostudios, this one is on the Time War}}

http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/doctor-who/40549/john-barrowman-might-captain-jack-be-returning

malickfan wrote:http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/doctor-who/40549/john-barrowman-might-captain-jack-be-returning

Awyeah! make it so.

{{Would certainly be interesting to see how 12 puts up with Jacks shenanigans. And also just interesting because whilst Jack is an RTD character, Moffat was the first writer to write him in an episode, I wonder what he would do with him now.}}

Big finish has put every 8th Doctor audio story on sale:

https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/doctor-who-the-eighth-doctor---20th-anniversary-special-offers


I already own all of them, was kinda hoping they would do a special 20th Anniversary release...

{{{Nice- I have a few gaps I might try to fill



I've been taking a retrospective look at Clara as a character over her time on the show and picked out what I think are her best episodes in series 7 and 8 (I think you need more time to be retrospective about series 9 yet). My criteria are they must have primary character development for Clara in the story, and I have to enjoy watching them- they don't have to be on my favourites list, but they all have to also be watchable, entertaining episodes at the least, but mainly they are chosen for development of character}

The Rings of Akhaten- this is the first time we really get to see some of groundwork for her later traits which are more deeply explored. Although not yet a teacher we see that sort of relationship between her and Merry. Its also the first time, when left on her own, she takes the initiative and goes into danger to back up the Doctor, its the first time she acts a bit like him
We also get the continuation of her tendency to compartmentalise her life by not 'going off' with the Doctor, but insisting he take her home every time just after she left and come back on  prearranged day to meet again.
And all happens in an episode folk tend to either love or hate.

Cold War- the very next episode and its another good Clara episode- we get to see something in this one rarely addressed with any seriousness in Who- a companion reacting to the cold bloodied murder, by an alien of a human, and as this alien was wanting to see how humans worked, this particular victim is spread out all over the room.
Its also an episode where we see the game changed, from her having fun and seeing marvels, to dealing with real danger in a hostile enclosed space. She volunteers to speak to the Ice Warrior but we see her have to overcome her fear to do it, this actually foreshadows her demise in that her bravado and determination to live up to the mark have her volunteer for something when she isn't really ready.

The Name of the Doctor- Another foreshadowing episode in terms of character- as Clara sacrifices herself to save the life of the Doctor, he in turn rescues her of course, but nevertheless it shows how far she would go for him, just as Hell Bent shows how far he will go eventually for her. There is also an acceptance of fate from Clara here that we see again when her time comes to face the Raven. Here it's the line “Well, what do you know, I am soufflé girl after all.” and in Raven  its “We all have to face the Raven in the end.” But its the same thing, when faced with the seeming inevitable Clara does accept it every time. Its not so much she has a death wish so much as she comes to realise she would rather live this way and die doing it than not do it at all and live.

Deep Breath- so much work done in this episode on fleshing out these preceding character traits in Clara, cementing her tendency to teach, take the initiative, her need to be in control of her life, and her ability to act like the Doctor, she uses the conversation with the half-face guy to get information same as he would, different technique same result, as the Doctor says to Half-Face guy, “you never stood a chance”

Listen- Clara at her most teachery. Also here we see the problem of them being too alike beginning to arise, Clara is furious to be sent back into the TARDIS with the words “Do as you are told!” ringing in her ears. Those words reoccur throughout this series, sometimes the Doctor to Clara and as often Clara to the Doctor- its a contest of wills that comes to a head in the volcano scene in the finale and is echoed in series 9 when the Doctor tells Clara, “There's' a whole dimension in here. But there is only room for one me.” But it comes out into the open for the first time here.

The Caretaker- A Who romantic comedy, Clara at her most delightful. This is basically a romantic comedy with an alien story plot backdrop to keep everything moving along. But when I want to watch a 12th Doctor episode that just makes me smile its this one- as the interaction between the Doctor and his attempts to get to grips with who Clara's boyfriend is is fantastic fun. Especially when he finally realises its Danny, “You've made a boyfriend error!”

Kill The Moon- a divisive episode, but a good Clara one as she gets left in the hot-seat and the Doctor makes a rather big mistake with hindsight- he basically tells her its time to act like him and make a big decision “Sorry. Well, actually, no, I'm not sorry. It's time to take the stabilisers off your bike.” And we get Clara's 'wobble' as a result of this and her brilliant rant at the Doctor. Calling him out perfectly on the fact that ever since he regenerated and the start of Deep Breath he has been putting her on the spot as if testing her, or training her.


Mummy on the Orient Express- This is where we begin to see the really dark consequences of Clara acting more like the Doctor, this is where she starts to lie openly, first to her co-prisoner in the cabin to get her to go to her apparent death, and then about Danny being the one who wanted her to quit the TARDIS.

Flatline- The Doctor Clara episode. Here Clara moves into the role of the Doctor for an episode, which as with him, involves both saving people, losing some people, and lying to people for their own good or to give them false hope. As the Doctor tells her at the end when she insist he admit she had made a 'good Doctor', “Clara, you were an exceptional Doctor, goodness had nothing to do with it.”



Last Christmas- This one is a bit of an anomaly on the list as its here for what its not about rather what it is (and its not one I rewatch). What I mean by that was originally Jenna was leaving in this episode- this was her exit episode- and the whole thing hinges on the fact they lost all the years of her life they could have spent travelling together because they were both lying to each other about important things.
This is where all the lying stuff was going to culminate. But Jenna changed her mind, Moffat had to add an extra scene at the end to keep her in and the moral of the lesson had to change, and take another series to get too.
This is why the Doctor calls it a 'second chance'- they shouldn't have got one, their lying should have led to their loss of each other until her final days.
Moffat however had two lanes going here so when this one, by necessity, had to be closed down he switched to the other lane- which was Clara acting more and more like the Doctor and them being just too alike (which itself is echoed way back in 11's words in the He said, she said minisode- “And we're running together and she's perfect. Perfect in every way for me...Clara. My Clara. Always brave. Always funny. Always exactly what I need. Perfect. Too perfect.” Ah Missy, you so fine!


So any thoughts? Any episodes on there you think shouldn't be. Or any episodes you think should be but are not? Or musings on Clara overall in her time on the show?  }}}

In hindsight I like Clara less and less. I just don't like her as a person very much, I never felt she was real or had real flaws, her flaws seem to be tell not shown. We are told she is this or that but you don't really get to understand where this stuff suddenly pops up from. In one moment she is a wild and jaunty Victorian and the next a supposedly uptight and controlling modern person. these are supposed to be the same person. I suppose I just never warmed to her much so I didn't care what happened to her.

I never felt she was real or had real flaws, her flaws seem to be tell not shown- Figg

{{{Well one of her flaws for example is her need to control her life and keep different aspects of it separate- we see this, we are not told about it- we see it in her refusal to travel, and her instance of being returned to her normal life. We see it in how she speaks to the Doctor often ordering him to 'sit down' or 'shut up' or 'do as you are told' even. We see it in how she lies to Danny in an attempt to keep her life with him apart from her life with the Doctor. We see it in the post-it notes she leaves with each part of her life given its own note, and we hear it in stuff she says to herself, "I've got it all under control' "I can handle this." ect. }}}

'In one moment she is a wild and jaunty Victorian and the next a supposedly uptight and controlling modern person. these are supposed to be the same person.'

{{They arent the same person. "The soufflé is not the soufflé its the recipe."
The Clara that jumps into the time-line is the template, the ingredients for all the other Clara's- but each one is their own person, born in their own time and place, who grew up there until a point when they meet and instinctively save the Doctor from the Great Intelligence.
Modern day Clara is the original, the rest are individuals based of her character and personality and genetic traits. But different by circumstances of time, birth, nurturing, environment ect. }}}

if she is not the same person and is a stranger you meet everytime we see her then it makes her inconsistent and hard to get a grip on.

{{{But we only ever see two other versions of her- her first appearance in Asylum of the Daleks- as the version that was on the crashed ship (And that was when Amy and Rory still had half a series to go), and Victorian version in the xmas episode- and narratively we have to have seen her at least twice to set up te mystery of how we can have seen her twice already, in two different places in space and time, the viewer needs that information or there is no mystery when we meet her properly in Bells, and after that and until the end- half of series 7, all of series 8 and 9 its the same Clara, the original Clara, every episode. She is completely consistently one person from then on till the end.}}

I didnt like Clara in any form. I hope this new kid isn't as annoying as she seemed in that trailer.

Clara has never seemed like a real person to me. Better than Amy, but never real. Even this recap screams "I am Rose Rewritten! I am a Donna Fix-it story with a dash of Whatsherface-daugherclone. Look how I do thing they did, just slightly different."

{{{I don't see the similarities with Rose at all. They seem quite different personalities to me.
They share only the generic traits all companions have too- bravery, resourcefulness, an ability to put themselves in danger and/or get captured by aliens.
But Rose is possessive of her Doctor and jealous of those who get close to him. Clara is not, particularly not with 12 who she actively encourages to engage more with other people. Rose's relationship (if it can be called that) with Mickey, or her relationship with (    ) the Doctor bears no similarity to Clara's with Danny, not in outline, purpose, or effect on character.
And her relationship with the Doctor is completely different. And where on earth does Donna come into it? The only connection with Donna is the memory thing, and its reversal regards Clara. And I don't really see what that has to do with Clara's personality, beyond her defending her own personal rights, it has more narratively to do with the Doctor at that point.}}}

{{{ Nice technical piece from Rachel Talalay's blog about the editing of the montage in Heaven Sent, with the editor Will Oswald}}

'The montage sequence went in stages.

Stage 1. It has to establish that the story is being repeated as before and the new Doctor doesn’t remember the previous enactment. This was the most important thing in the whole construction. There was also the idea that in the repeat versions clues that you don’t get on the first viewing, like the spade with soil, are now open interpretation and can be projected in to what is going to happen. A rule, which we only broke once, was that they have to be in the correct linear story sequence and that the “Storm Room Tardis” would be out of bounds. The exception was the “Bird” drawing motif alluded to in question.

Stage 2: The speed increase. The more memorable the image or line of dialogue the better. The dropping of the magnifying glass for instance, the “won’t see this coming” now has any irony to it as we have seen it before. The drying of cloths has to be clear where they came from - as someone pointed out the Doctor would have to have done this nude at some stage in the repeat cycle.

Stage 3: As the speed and repeats build up, the trick was to try and show it was a story loop but not to continually repeat exactly the same shots, i.e. tell a different parts of the story. The danger was at repeat number 5 the audience would be getting tired of it so I tried to vary and surprise. The double opening of the doors, once the first dead end with brick wall, then the second door was the 12 door, would be an example of that.

Always story clarity no matter how fast it went.

I (Rachel) would add a few specifics: we broke the mold for the “Bird” moment because we wanted to make sure that that part of the story was absolutely clear. I assumed the audience might not pick up the details of the Brothers Grimm tale the first time they heard it, since it is interrupted with wall punching, etc, so we hit that point harder. It was more important than keeping the pattern consistent.

At first, we worried a bit about going too fast, for fear of not passing epilepsy/quality control, but no one seemed overly concerned, so Will continued speeding it up, testing to see how short the edits could be while still keeping the audience. At that point, Will came up with some wonderful variations, like the double doors (which I never would have thought of). Most of the shot selections were his, and very few changed. (”If it ain’t broke….”)

Even in his first edit, he did a tremendous job adding transitions and sound to make the edits all clearer. It’s all a subtle combination of elements that work together and without the right sound, the circular nature and the impact of each edit is lost.

One stress in the editing process is figuring out how to watch things as if it is your first time. You know the story inside out, you have seen the cut so many times, you’d rather stick an iron on your cheek than watch again. One of the dangers of watching Heaven Sent too many times in editorial was that the beginning of the montage started to seem slow. We had this note a few times, because the editing appears to strengthen as the escalation energizes. I had to keep reminding all of us that the first time viewers watched, they would need to catch up with what’s going on, so it had to be slower. they had to have time to wonder why the story was repeating and then ‘get’ it.

I showed an early edit to one of my kids, who had not read the script. She kept a running commentary throughout, so she was basically telling me what I needed to know, exactly what she understood at what point, ending with “No, Peter, no!!! Stop hurting yourself”. As she started with confusion, then asked if it was a mistake, then began to make the discovery, then jumped ahead of the story, I knew we had something that basically worked. It reminded me NOT to go for style/flash over substance at the beginning of the montage.

I guess that asks the question, why didn’t I just shoot it from one angle, as the script might be interpreted (emphasize ‘might’), and not spend the time providing the variety of shots that we ended up using? The simple answer is that I wasn’t sure what was going to work, but I knew it was better to have choices. Given the beauty of Stuart Biddlecombe’s cinematography and the wonder of Peter Capaldi’s performance, there was always another beautiful shot to be had or moment to be caught. Time, as always, being the enemy.

So, for the final montage we decided: To go too fast would have been a mistake, to repeat all the same shots would have been less engaging and probably boring. The variety also invited the idea that things change over the course of the 4.5 bn iterations.

It’s all in Will’s mantra: story first.'

I know you can't see the similarities, and that is really baffling to me.

{{Then please explain them to me- if you could lay out what the features of their characters that are the same are I would at least see where you are coming from. As right now I can't, they seem like two quite distinct characters to me with different personalities, motivations, relationships, and character arc. }}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

Waiting for my CD's to come through the post

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{{ Nice technical piece from Rachel Talalay's blog about the editing of the montage in Heaven Sent, with the editor Will Oswald}}

'The montage sequence went in stages...

Very interesting, although I wasn't quite as keen on Heaven Sent as many, it was stunningly directed throughout, one of Capaldi's strongest performances so far, tightly paced and beautifully shot, compare the cinematography to 'Rose' and it's amazing to see how far the production values have leaped in the last decade, considering the budget has actually shrunk, Talalay is certainly one of the most talented directors to ever work on the show, I hope Moffat has her booked for Series 10.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Then please explain them to me- if you could lay out what the features of their characters that are the same are I would at least see where you are coming from. As right now I can't, they seem like two quite distinct characters to me with different personalities, motivations, relationships, and character arc. }}

I think you should consider doing that yourself. Take a step back and try to change your perspective. When you find something similar, just make a note of it. If you need to quickly add why that similarity you just recognized as being similar is not similar at all - as you did above- simply make two lists.

{{{What? Just explain in what ways you believe Clara is a just another version of Roses' personality and story. Its simple, as you seem to be consistently implying its blatantly obvious it should not be difficult or take you long to do.
You are the one making the claim, its not for me to go on some long hunt through all the series to try to find clues to make your case for you, apart from the fact I don't think such a case exists in the first place, its your place to explain your bold statement and claims, not mine. }}}