All New Who

{{ The trailer has landed.



Just me or does Jodie seem seem to be spending less time pulling gormless faces- we can but hope. It looks more like Wh at least with familar faces, but it will still come down to the content again and if its just shoehorned excuses to preach or if they really want to try to tell stories this time. }}}}

Yes, yes, time will show how mediocre this series is as well.

One thing I noticed from the trailer. When they're running through the old-timey streets being chased by that mech-scorpion or whatever, the monster does the thing where it runs around a corner and crashes into something rather than, you know, turning the corner like a creature with mobility can. They use that in scif-fi and fantasy chase scenes aaaaall the time, because it does a couple things for the creator of the show:

1. It allows them to show that the monster is faster than the heroes without the monster actually catching up to them.

2. It shows the intimidating bulk of the monster. See how easily it crushed that car?!

It's so over-used; I notice it immediately. Why on earth would a monster just smash into things like a drunken fool entered into a hurdles race. The worst is when a movie has a real-life animal (CGI'd of course) do that sort of thing. So much for an instinct for self-preservation.

{{ Far as I can tell its mainly content from the first few eps with just a few glimpses from elsewhere, so its hard to judge, trailers always are.

In rumours and news, this one seems to have fair bit of traction but is horrific if true-

Spoiler:

}}

  It looks totally fake, she sounds fake, she sounds like an actor saying fake words in a fake quirky manner to fake characters in a fake world. She is just saying words. Its a fakefest.

{{ Well yes, but from what we see in the trailer she seems slightly more serious and slightly less gormless I'd say and thats got to be a good thing if it holds true. Other plus points are there seems to be a story for the Doctor this time and there seems to be some conflict and drama at least.
My hopes are pretty damn rock bottom, but it's Who and I've got to hope they've listened and turn it round. I don't want my Who to be a pile of shite like last series was, so I will try to be hopeful until I see it and either can hope they've learned or have my hopes dashed again.

Oh and in further news Chibbers and Jodie are confirmed for a series 13! So if it is awful again there's no sign its going to stop anytime soon. }}

Forest Shepherd wrote:
One thing I noticed from the trailer. When they're running through the old-timey streets being chased by that mech-scorpion or whatever, the monster does the thing where it runs around a corner and crashes into something rather than, you know, turning the corner like a creature with mobility can. They use that in scif-fi and fantasy chase scenes aaaaall the time, because it does a couple things for the creator of the show:

1. It allows them to show that the monster is faster than the heroes without the monster actually catching up to them.

2. It shows the intimidating bulk of the monster. See how easily it crushed that car?!

It's so over-used; I notice it immediately. Why on earth would a monster just smash into things like a drunken fool entered into a hurdles race. The worst is when a movie has a real-life animal (CGI'd of course) do that sort of thing. So much for an instinct for self-preservation.

I do that all the time.  

Or at least dogs do on the kitchen floor when they hear the door open or something.  Thick as a brick, dogs.   Though how kitchen floors pop up in films just when needed is a question for the ages.

{{ Full release trailer and air date of New Years Day.
Warning this trailer contains more Jodie and more babbling! }}




{Guessing the tagline - 'Space for all' is them doubling down on their wokeness. But alternatively, and more hopefully,its a small admission they got last series wrong and this series is going to include stuff for fans of Doctor Who! }}

I am guessing Lippmannette and He Who Moans wont be doing their reviews.  Nobody cares any more.

{{ Ok Who news. All offical press stuff and from Chibnall himself, but if you don't want any hints at all this will count as having spoilers. Sort of. Well it definitely news but there's something I am finding odd about it.
Now there is nothing odd in getting news, interviews and cryptic comments from the show-runner in the run up to a new series beginning, that's normal.
But it seems to me that what all the news is saying is, 'sorry we know we got it all wrong last series, And here is all the stuff we know we broke that we promise we have fixed.' But, without anyone every saying that straight out.

So quotes from Chibnall himself about the upcoming series-

'then go deeper into the things we enjoy doing and doing some new things and different things because I think that first series - Jodie's first series - was very much a jumping on point, an introduction for people who might not have known the show before, but obviously for people who had as well. But it was making it very stand-alone.10 episodes, pilot episodes, you would have heard us say all that when we were talking about it then.'

(For the record, no you did not say in the build up to last series it would be 10 'pilot episodes' what does that even mean, is that the excuse for why no one was consistent throughout and why there was no arc or character development?! )

'The previous season, there were a lot of stand-alone episodes...This season, we’ll be delving deeper into the Doctor Who universe. There will be some returning monsters. You will be going to places and investigating things we didn’t have the space to explore last year. So, it’s deeper into the Doctor, deeper into the Doctor Who world, deeper into the lives of the companions.
I would say that the Doctor, over time, each incarnation has an evolution. There are areas of the Doctor’s character that you want to go into and you want to explore. There are lots of facets of the thirteenth Doctor that we explore this year that we didn’t have space or time to explore last year. There are some very big and profound challenges coming for the Doctor in this year’s series.
This year, they’re (the companions- side note in official BBC press they are now back to being referred this way not as fam or friends) much more accustomed to travelling in the TARDIS, you’ll see them on their own a bit more, going to smaller units. But the big thing this year is, you know, she saved them last year, this year she’s really going to need them.'

From Radio Times article -

'Among many other changes to Doctor Who in 2018, many fans were saddened to see the loss of the 'cold opens', the pre-credits scenes that would set up the story before concluding on an exciting mini-cliffhanger.
the cold opens are back – and according to series head writer and show-runner Chris Chibnall, it was an easy decision to make.
“It’s back – episode one,” Chibnall told us. “There were just some episodes this year where I thought ‘Oh, that’ll be a great cold open.’
“It wasn’t an absolute, hard and fast rule [last year] – I just think what you always want to do is, particularly now it’s series 12 of the revived series, you just want to be doing different things all the time, really. You could argue that the whole of episode one last year is a cold open!” - RT

“There is a difference between the first year of a Doctor and the second. There are different types of stories you want to tell, different rhythms and structures. It’s probably a step up from last year. It’s got scale, it’s got fun. It’s got some old monsters, it’s got some new monsters. It’s an incredible variety of stories and locations. We’ve got the historical episodes, we’ve got the big space stories, we’ve got some Earth stories and some big guest stars as well.”

“There is a new challenge that the Doctor has to face this year which is pretty profound. “I think this Doctor goes into different territories this year. But also she’s faced with very different challenges, and they’re some very very big challenges this year. You’ll see the Doctor have to face down some big… things, and that, by necessity, takes Jodie’s Doctor into territory we haven’t seen her in before.”
And lastly, on the interior of the TARDIS getting something of a redesign-

“The thing is with Doctor Who, you could keep building a TARDIS forever. So you can never do everything you want to do in the first year anyway. There’s quite a few little finesses in terms of the TARDIS. “

(side note- RTD's Tardis design for 9 barely changed and lasted throught 10's era, it lasted 4 series, he seemed to get it right. Moffat's Tardis design for 11 did not change notably for two and a half series, the redesign with minor altertations to dressing for 12 also lasted also two and half series. They seemed to get it right too.)

Now I don't know about anyone else but I'm seeing a correlation here, here's most folks gripes about last series-

The Doctor having nothing to do, nothing and no-one challenging her.

The stories being worthy and social message heavy without being fun or entertaining or inventive enough as a result.

No character progression of real note across the series, especially not for the Doctor, but also Yaz.

No series arc or story to keep viewers coming back and no development or serious threat to the Doctor as a result.

A lack of acknowledgement of previous Who with few nods backwards and no classic foes or villains.

The lack of two part stories.

The new TARDIS interior looked small and cramped and like it was made of cheap plastic.

Companions often having nothing to do, or at least one of them at any time simply disappearing into the background.

The loss of the cold openings setting up the premise and the mystery to lure you in.

Now all of these seem to me to be addressed, we are promised challenges and ordeals for the Doctor to overcome, hints of an arc, stuff for the companions to do other than be yes men, we are getting at least three returning classic enemies, a revamped TARDIS set and even cold openings back.
And another big difference from last series pre-marketing stuff, a notable lack of anything to do with gender or social issues. I don't doubt that stuff is going to be there, but it seems in the press push at least it might be tempered by Chibnall, willing or unwillingly.

Which brings me onto rumours. Remember al those rumours that there had been a bust up, Chibnall and Jodie were either being sacked, or going to walk, then it seems not to have happened, but something did by all accounts, and then there were delays and trouble in production?
Well latest rumour is the real reason behind all this was that alarmed execs at the BBC had sent some of their own to be on set and micromanage the series, stalling Chibnall's more in your face social version of Who and making him put in more traditional Who things and to have a story arc.

This might explain why some things, like the return of the cold openings, which according to Chibnall are only in some sorties according to story need. Which sounds like a compromise position. It might also explain how he went from last series, no returning monster, we will have all new ones, to lets have at least 3 returning monsters. And strife on set between the two sides might explain the other rumours as well as why it took an overlong time to film.

So thoughts? Does it all sound to you like a veiled way of saying 'we fucked up Doctor Who last series we promise to fix it this time' to you? Or is it just me? }}

There could be something to that, yes. But mostly it sounds like empty nonsense meant to build up anticipation.

"I think this Doctor goes into different territories this year. But also she’s faced with very different challenges, and they’re some very very big challenges this year. You’ll see the Doctor have to face down some big… things, and that, by necessity, takes Jodie’s Doctor into territory we haven’t seen her in before.”

This could mean that she has to change an especially large dirty diaper. It promises nothing.

It can't get any worse that this, said the Pessimist.
But the Optmist said; Yes it can! Just wait and see!

For   "But it was making it very stand-alone" 

read   "it was making it very boring, but we are using TV speak so you don't notice"

{{ Figg that's exactly how most of it read to me. It all sounded like double talk, a way of saying yeah we screwed this up last time so this time we'll be doing this to fix it, whislt trying not to say its because we screwed up last time! }}

One of the things that annoyed me last season was the 'fam' just standing around waiting for their boring dialogue. I hope they get rid of two of them and concentrate on developing a good relationship with one. Chibers seems to be unable to deal with a group.

{{ Great cover of one of Gold's finest. }}

{{Festive Who! }}

All I hear is the violin. The guitar seems to be nothing but eye candy.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ Great cover of one of Gold's finest. }}

{{ Well if you want more guitar the main Who theme and I am the Doctor seem to be favourites. And dont get much more guitar led than this version-



And for completionist sake heres the official version of the Shepherd's Boy- }}

{{{ What a better way to spend xmas than discussing everyone's favourite and least divisive companion Clara.   And why everyone, the Doctor included got her wrong.  

So pull up a comfy chair, get away from the noise of the family and pour yourself a mulled wine, a buckie or an eggnog if your American (why the hell would you put an egg in your buckie?!    ) and partake of the Forumshire xmas tradition of reading something over lengthy from me   crabbitly telling you why your wrong about everything.   Merry Xmas Forumshire!  

So, I'm mainly talking here about Clara's 'difficult' period, between the appearance of modern Clara in Bells and Name of the Doctor when she steps into his timeline and the loop is formed and closed. Its generally accepted that Clara from series 8 and Capaldi era got fleshed out more and given a more in-depth character, a position I have promoted myself, and that prior to that she was, well the mystery girl, a puzzle to be solved, the 'woman twice dead' 11's 'Impossible Girl' leading us into the shenanigans of the 50th.
And here I think is where Moffat actually got ahead of his audience and it wasn't ready yet for what it was getting.

When the 12th Doctor came along we got introduced to a much more morally ambiguous incarnation, but clearly and deliberately so from the very start. But prior to series 7 of NuWho all we had was a Doctor who was morally always in the right and always his hunches and instincts proved to be right, with a few notable individual exceptions like Waters of Mars, but even there the realisation of being wrong is seen, accepted and wrapped up by episodes end. A permanently morally ambiguous Doctor, one who could be wrong entirely and make bad on-going choices as a result, was not something NuWho had touched upon. And 11 would be very wrong, in his assumptions about Clara, his treatment of her, or her life as something for him to watch and explore her privacy, to his eventual open flirting around her. All mistakes 12 would put right from the off when he tells her that he is not her boyfriend, and that the mistake was not hers in the first place. But it demonstrates both how wrong he was about her initially and his eventual acknowledgement of how badly he acted as a result of it towards her.

So with hindsight what can we say about Clara when we first meet her and the Doctor's and therefore our, the audiences assumptions about her?

That she is a mystery. Before we even see Clara on screen we have been introduced to the Doctor's painting of her and the mystery around her previous incarnations. She has appeared twice at two different points in time and died both times saving the Doctor's life.
She has a third version living in present day.
She looks after her friends children after their mother died.
Her own mother died young.
She has always wanted to travel but has never actually done it and keeps a book form her childhood on exotic places in the world that has connections to her memories of her mother, ad she keeps a leaf in the book.
She is not tech savvy and doesn't seem to have much time or pay much heed to computers, the internet or mobile phones, indicating she prefers real people and real company over technology.

And what can we say about the Doctor's actions?
He becomes obsessed with the mystery of her even painting her picture obsessively.
He stalks her time line  from the moment her parents meet till her mothers death in Clara's early 20's.
He deliberately takes her places to test her and see if he can find out what she truly is, such as in Hide where his real reason for being there is solely to get a psychic to tell him what it is about Clara that is wrong.
He openly accuses her in a hostile manner of trying to trap or trick him.

And we are explicitly told by the psychic that Clara is an ordinary girl, but she warns Clara that the Doctor is not all he seems and that there is a 'sliver of ice in his heart'- the Doctor is in the wrong here, Clara is just Clara. We are openly being told here of the lie we are believing. But like the Doctor we don't heed the psychics words of truth, favouring that there be a mystery to uncover about the Impossible Girl.

Because what we know is actually true about Clara is that she is not a mystery and there is nothing particularly special about her at all. She really just is a perfectly normal young woman who just happens to be the one travelling with the Doctor when the only way to save him was to enter his timeline. Had that been any other NuWho companion they would have done exactly the same thing in those same circumstances with the same result. But from the moment the Doctor meets Clara in Bells of St John he is wrong about her, and how he treats her from then on is also wrong.

Clara is a perfectly ordinary, intelligent, compassionate, brash, brave and often foolhardy young woman with a quick mouth that masks insecurities and some control issues but no mystery, no great reveal. And that is the point.
The Doctor is wrong, so we the audience are wrong, we are encouraged to view Clara the way the Doctor is, obsessing over the mystery of her and how it can be possible she seems to have lived at least three times.
And like the Doctor we are therefore guilty of missing the real young woman right in front of us, we only want to see and have solved her mystery, her illusionary mystery.

However if you rewatch those episodes without being led by the Doctors errors and instead ignore entirely the fake mystery that surrounds her there emerges a very capable, fully developed and traditional Who companion.

This extends to how her character story is developed episodically, following the NuWho template to the letter.
The template goes - new companion meets the Doctor on earth, episode 2 they get to be introduced to their first scifi concepts, alien planets/spaceships/aliens/time-travel and often they save the day and prove their companion worth. Episode three is used to explore the companion further, either in reactions to situations or by delving more into their personal lives or family.
With Rose we got , Rose, the End of the World, then Unquiet Dead, with Martha it was Smith and Jones, the Shakespeare Code and Gridlock, with Donna we got Partners in Crime, Fires of Pompeii and Planet of the Ood.
With Amy we got Eleventh Hour, the Beast Below and Victory of the Daleks.

And with Clara we got Bells of St John- meets Doctor on earth. Rings of Akenaten, alien world Clara proves her worth by showing compassion for the girl and helping save the Doctor. And Cold  War in which we see how Clara reacts to a physical threat and witnesses her first deaths and carnage that often accompany the Doctors adventures.
Its meticulous in following the format and so develops her character in exactly the same way as all other previous companions have been.
The only thing that marks her out is the mystery surrounding her, which like the Doctor fogs our ability to see her clearly for the person she really is.
11 treats Clara harshly in comparison to others working off his erroneous belief there is more to her than just an ordinary girl. And likewise the viewer treats her harsher too than other companions, and likewise fail to see her as we share the Doctors erroneous belief that there is more to her than meets the eye. We cant see the wood for the trees.

Oddly one of the most common accusations thrown against early Clara is that Moffat was repeating himself, that like Amy here was another companion who was a mystery box.

But in fact with Amy we were originally encouraged to think of her as an ordinary person who just happened to have an encounter with the Doctor, when in fact the life we are presented with her having is all wrong as the Doctor points out to her at series five's end, 'Doesn't it bother you Amy that your life doesn't make any sense?....the girl who didn't make sense, how could I resist.' We weren't encouraged to see Amy as a mystery initially, the reveal of the mysteries surrounding her and how they were intertwined with the Doctors timeline came with time, first this one then the River one.

Clara we are encouraged to see primarily as a mystery from the get go, when in fact there is no mystery around her she really is just an ordinary girl.
Rather than a repetition its a reversal, only this time the audience is being duped along with the Doctor as we take our cue from him and what he thinks is going on, as that is how NuWho has worked up to now. As an audience we have no reason not go along with Doctor, we aren't ready yet for our morally ambiguous Doctor who can be wrong.

The evidence that Clara is a normally written companion is of course in the episodes themselves.

What do we learn from the first few episodes? Well in Bells when we first met Clara we learn she has put her own life on hold to help out her friends, the mother of that family has died young, as Clara's own mother had, leaving the father with two kids to bring up,Clara has offered to temporarily move into the household to act as a sort of modern nanny to the kids so the father can continue to work. Upon first encountering the Doctor, dressed as a monk banging on the door screaming her name, she acts as a rational person would and sends him packing.
After she awakens in her room she has a conversation that is very telling with the Doctor from her window, it makes clear Clara will not be the damsel in distress sort as she leaves the room to come down to stand where he is as otherwise he will stay there all night 'protecting' her. We also get the first hints here of Clara's need to have control of every situation.
All this affirmed by episodes end, when the Doctor notes that she never turns her back on the people she cares for and her insistence that she will go off  for another trip again, but only when she says so and arranges a day and time. These are all traits the following episodes will build on.

In Rings of Akenaten it is again Clara's compassion and her natural ability with children which comes to the fore, and again the notion that she doesn't walk away places a larger role in her narrative. As is traditional for the first alien adventure the companion proves their worth, with Clara taking control of the situation and going to the Doctors rescue. We also get a little more of Clara's backstory, including her telling Merry of becoming lost from her mother in a crowd at Blackpool as a child and how scared she was, in part perhaps explaining her need to control a situation, or at least feeling in control of it, and we also get the backstory to the leaf she keeps in her book and how it relates to her parents and its significance to her. Giving a glimpse into the depth of pain she feels at that loss, and yet how she is willing to sacrifice the symbol of it, the leaf itself, in order to save everyone else.

In Cold War Clara is thrown into her first potentially deadly encounter with the Ice Warrior. And we also see just how scared she is, how thrown at first and horrified and numbed she is at the sight of the body the Warrior has 'dissected' to see how humans work. This is Clara now being tested and it is the most fearful and scared she has been till now. And again its her characteristics that pull her through, we see her bravery when she volunteers to speak to the imprisoned Ice warrior despite her obvious fear,  it's her human compassion and the bond she forms with the Russian scientist which pulls her through the worst part, and her refusal to sing with him initially as a means to relieve her fear is as sign she lacks confidence in her ability to do so, and therefore lacks feeling in control of it due to fear, at the end however as they await the Warrior's decision on the nukes she does start to sing, both to show she is as afraid now as then but has conquered it and that this time she is taking as much control of the situation back as she can.

I would argue you can take that classic first three episode companion template of NuWho and compare Clara's to any of the other companions and find an equal amount of character set up and development.
It is simply obscured by the false mystery around her, each of these episodes, framed with the Doctor stalking her youth, setting her up, demanding of himself 'who is she?' or 'How is she possible?'  or simply declaring 'She's impossible!' further diverting our gaze from truly seeing her, lead us up the garden path of mystery in pursuit of  a non-existent answer , until we lose sight of the person Clara really is, and so with the Doctor we judge and treat her harshly and fail to see her.

“So just tell me...I look at you every single day and I don't understand a thing about you. Why do I keep running into you? ...What are you, eh? Are you a trick, a trap? “

Note just how wrong the Doctor is here, is first thing is to make demands of her, to tell him who she really is, when who she really is is standing right in front of him, his next statement asserts that he doesn't understand anything about her, yet he has more than he needs to know to understand everything about her as there is no secret mystery, she is as she appears, and he finishes up on outright accusations. When of course she is none of these things. They are all wrongful accusations. But they are also exactly the same questions the audience are demanding to know the answer to,we are just as wrong about her.

As a side-note, and as Moffat loves symmetry, this whole thing is played in reverse when Clara rejects the newly regenerated 12th Doctor and he gives his “You can't see me, can you?' speech to Clara including the line, “I'm standing right here. Right in front of you but you can't see me.' Mirroring exactly how the Doctor saw Clara when they first met. He couldn't see the real her.

Its not until we reach near the end of Clara's time with 11 that we can as the Doctor finally does in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS admit it and realises how wrong he has been-

"You're just Clara, aren't you?"

And its only when you rewatch her early episodes knowing this truth that you can see that all the character development of Clara so often attributed almost solely to series 8 and Capaldi era was in fact there all along and equal to that of any other companion, it was not Clara's fault we could not see it, it was ours, for getting her wrong, for expecting and looking for the answer to a mystery that never was, just as the Doctor did.

It is not Clara I think the audience is really angry at, as a Who companion in those introductory episodes there is nothing particularly unique or particularly divisive about her, she is just the focus for something harder to admit, the audience that dislike her and say she has no character development early on are angry at themselves and at the Doctor for being wrong, for him being wrong and misleading us into being wrong about Clara. Into being guilty of not seeing her. This is taking 11 era's mantra of 'Rule 1: The Doctor's Lies' to the level of the audience.

So if you get a chance, rewatch those first few Clara episodes (there are only eight episodes out of her 35 episode appearances you might be surprised to learn that cover her 'mystery' period)  in the full knowledge the Doctor is completely wrong so ignore what he says, and that Clara is just an ordinary new companion. Maybe then you'll see her too.

Her first proper episode to get you started- The Bells of St John -



But in case your missing xmas day Who you could start 1 episode earlier with the xmas special The Snowmen}}

{{ New series starts tomorrow! And we'll find out if Chibbers has saved the show or killed it off.
Few spoiler free reviews of the first epiosde out already seem to be giving it positive reviews - not glowing, but words like 'confident' and 'assured' tend to pop up.

Meantime theres this excellent new music cover, Murray Gold's Doomsday theme this time from Rose's tragic parting with 10 on Bad Wolf Bay. }}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ New series starts tomorrow! And we'll find out if Chibbers has saved the show or killed it off.
Few spoiler free reviews of the first epiosde out already seem to be giving it positive reviews - not glowing, but words like 'confident' and 'assured' tend to pop up.

Meantime theres this excellent new music cover, Murray Gold's Doomsday theme this time from Rose's tragic parting with 10 on Bad Wolf Bay. }}

that was fab Petty

{{ Tenant and Smith chat Who }}

{{ So Chibbers is back for another go at Who. Does he succeed?
Well overall I'd have to say yes surprisingly. I should warn this will be a fully spoilery review.

Spoiler:

But overall whilst Id probably not rank it much more than a 7 or 8 out of 10 its entertaining, and best of all its recognizable an episode of Doctor Who- which is something it was hard, if not impossible, to say even once last series. }

Watching now. With a mojito buzz. It has Stephen Fry and I love him.

{{ everyone loves Stephen Fry, they should probably lock people who don't up for having an unstable character }}