All New Who

{{ Will be 3 specials of Chibnal Who next year to slog through starting on New years Day (which seems to be a sort of groundhog day with daleks episode!) then theres an Easter special which is the only one not solely written by Chibnal- new writer who has a smattering of plays to her name, its seems to be about Chinese pirates (historic ones) and has a Chinese director (I'm sure has nothing to do with China buying the show!) and then the final special is Jodies last episode roughly pencilled in for Autumn 2022. So looks like xmas/New Year 2022 will be first year since Who came back with no festive special. Then we get RTD starting in November following year. }}

2023?

{{ Its xmas and theres no Who. And no good Who to be found for that matter.

So heres two of my favourite Who xmas specials to pick from to fill the void.

The most Xmassy of them all, A Christmas Carol.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xggq33?playlist=x2zj34


And Last Christmas, and Nick frost as Father Christmas }}

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7u1to0

{{ Seems Mandip Gill, Yaz, is leaving the show with Jodie. Cant say as I'm surprised, RTD writes layered character stuff and she emotes about as well as a dead cat in the gutter. Well its taken the entire Chibbers era but we have finally got rid of the two planks of wood that have made this the dullest era for companions ever in Ryan and Yaz.
Keep Scouse- as RTD could make something of a working class character, bring back Grahame, RTD writes old characters well, and a new Doctor to work with them and we might have something interesting again. }}

yep agreed about Scouse, I would love Rigsy to make a comeback as well. But I think its better if he has a clean sweep and start afresh. I don't want anything tainted by Chibbers.

oooh its on tonight, I hope its a good 'un.

{{{ Well that was not the worst from Chibnal but some big issues,

Spoiler:

If it was a mid-series filler episode it'd muster about 'all right' but as a special pretty flat.}}

{{ Here's the actual dialogue they gave to Jodie to make her big rousing get everyone on board speech, Chibnall actually wrote this and presumably thought, 'nailed it!'-

"Because something seems impossible. We try, it doesn't work, we try again, we learn, we improve, we fail again, but, better, we make friends, we learn to trust, we help each other. We get it wrong again, we improve together, then ultimately succeed. Because this is what being alive is. And it's better than the alternative. So, come on, you brilliant humans! We go again. And we win. Deal?"

I dont think there has ever been an actor could make that dialogue sound good, let alone rousing and affirming in a terrible situation. The Doctor is known for grand speeches, especially in NuWho and there have been some crackers. I mean would you rather travel with a Doctor who gives a speechlike 13's above?  or say 10 rousing the troops in the xmas Titanic ep-

"I'm the Doctor. I'm a Timelord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborus. I'm nine hundred and three years old and I'm the man whose going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?'

or 11 talking down a God-

"Can you hear them? All these people who've lived in terror of you and your judgement? All these people whose ancestors devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves, to you. Can you hear them singing? Oh, you like to thing you're a god. But you're not a god. You're just a parasite eaten out with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them. On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow. So, come on, then. Take mine. Take my memories. But I hope you've got a big appetite, because I have lived a long life and I have seen a few things. I walked away from the last Great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time. No space. Just me. I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man. I've watched universes freeze and creations burn. I've seen things you wouldn't believe. I have lost things you will never understand. And I know things. Secrets that must never be told. Knowledge that must never be spoken. Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze. So come on, then. Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all!"

or 12 confronting the boneless-

"I tried to talk. I want you to remember that. I tried to reach out, I tried to understand you, but I think that you understand us perfectly. And I think you just don't care. And I don't know whether you are here to invade, infiltrate or just replace us. I don't suppose it really matters now. You are monsters. That is the role you seem determined to play. So it seems I must play mine. The man that stops the monsters. I'm sending you back to your own dimension. Who knows? Some of you may even survive the trip. And, if you do, remember this. You are not welcome here. This plane is protected. I am the Doctor."

And just as reminder as its so badly written, Jodie gets this to deliver-

"Because something seems impossible. We try, it doesn't work, we try again, we learn, we improve, we fail again, but, better, we make friends, we learn to trust, we help each other. We get it wrong again, we improve together, then ultimately succeed. Because this is what being alive is. And it's better than the alternative. So, come on, you brilliant humans! We go again. And we win. Deal?"

Its just so awful. How did it get past script editing? }}

I don't tend to focus on the dialogue as much as the acting skills, and it must be hard for Jodie to have been cast into the shade by a guest actress. Compared to Irish chick, Jodie Doctor faded into beige. She totally out-classed her. I must admit though that Yaz did some good acting this time, although the lesbian romance thing was completely pointless.

{{ I dont think acting comes into it when youre handed dialogue like that to say. No amount of acting is going to save it. Part of the problem with Jodie this era is its hard to tell when shes not delivering the goods or when the scripts are just so poor there is not much to be done with them.
Yaz was just sort of there again, at least they gave Dan something to do. I dont think Yaz actually does anything at all this episode apart from ask questions and follow the Doctor around.
Mind you since Dan joined the show I dont think he has had a single scene with the Doctor, they barely know each other, in fact they've barely even met.

This ep also didnt help much with the Flux conclusion- they set the TARDIS up as being sick and weird as a result of it, never mentioned it again for the rest of the Flux and now its something can just be fixed with a quick TARDIS reset, which for some reason also causes a time loop. And the Daleks claim they are out to revenge themselves on the Doctor for wiping most of them out with the Flux event, so it wasnt reset then? So half teh universe is gone still? So why is earth still fine it shouldn't have a sun or moon, or any other planets in the solar system. It still doesn't make any sense at all. }}

{{ oh Lord, the BBC are proud of the speech and have given it its own vid! The actual speech starts at 0.54 seconds. I honestly cant tell still if its the delivery or just how poorly its written or both. }}

Actually there was a good line around 0.30. I think the major failure was the way "the fam" is written to react. The "brilliant humans" are all stone faced, and their major response is "deal" all said consecutively like it's a major moment. Would be better if one said "deal" after the big speech and the rest had just nodded and went about their business.

Except for the "brilliant humans" I don't think the speech itself as written or delivered was that bad, it's just that nothing was done with it.

{{ She sounds like a Team Leader in a crappy corporation trying to give a team pep talk about working together. Thats not the Doctor. Apart from anything else the Doctor isnt a team player. Never has been. }}

{{ According to Chibnal this episode is a romantic comedy, which make the 2nd rom-com Who has done. I preferred the caretaker, its a lot more fun and integrates the humour and the drama better. }}

{{ Eve of the Daleks got an Ai of 77. Continuing the abysmal run of AI scores for this era. Thats 8 in a row now below 80. }}

For a Chibnal area piece, Eve of the Daleks was actually quite viewable and enjoyable. But you can't for a minute think that you are watching actual Doctor Who. It's far more Scooby Doo that Doctor Who.

Was glad that Dan got something to do and a personality. Why do I like him? It's probably cause he is comfortable being on stage. He's just calmly hanging around, thinking about his act and politely waiting for his turn, after the comedy act of Yaz and 13 as cardboard characters where 13 morphs from humanlike to a talking Jumping Jack. Yaz did get to act a bit this time, that's nice. Some friendly banter even. My oh my... how far we've come.

{{ One thing that hasnt been talked about yet with the change of regime to RTD and the new production studio is will we get a new composer for the score? I really hope so. The guy Chibbers has did a good version of the main theme, the 13th Doctors theme is nice enough but a bit forgettable, I cant recall if there even were or are themes for any of the companions, or the Daleks or Cybermen or Sontaran. They are all forgettable. He does tone setting and ambient fine, but thats it really. Who needs something more over the top, more campy at times even and more versatile.
If you think of Rose's theme then compare it to say Donna's they are in utterly different styles, tailored to that character's personality and purpose in the show. The music used to be part of the story telling, River's theme has a section of instrumentation that is played backwards mirroring how she and the Doctor meet in Time. Amy's theme reflects the damage done to her by the Doctor's interference in her life and so on.

But more importantly than that Who used to inspire creativeness in others, as it did me and countless others growing up. Theres a reason all NuWho showrunners grew up as uber fans and wanted it back so badly they made it happen, it inspired them too.
And the music has always been a part of that. Since the beginning. When Delia Derbyshire made that theme tune, the first entirely electronic theme tune in history, it inspired a whole generation of musicians into electronic music.
Part of the magic of Who is how it can unite people with its humanitarian themes, its inspiring messages of hope even in darkness, and it unites across ages and cultures when its at its best.
And not so long ago the music of NuWho carried on this tradition through Murray Gold's music.
It inspired that creativity and unity of age and culture in others -



and notably in Lockdown it wasn't the current shows music that inspired over 200 fans to do a Lockdown cover of Abigail's Song and The Long Song,it was Gold's music that was still inspiring people-





And it even got three special proms at the Royal Albert Hall dedicated to it and a world tour in venues like the Sydney Opera House -



but most importantly, and something the current music has not done for Jodie at all, is support the performance, make it epic when it needs to be and memorable-





and sometimes of course Who music turns up in unexpected places, such as Tim Minchin at the comedy proms breaking into the main theme on keytar, whilst wearing a Ronald Reagan mask and being watched by a balcony of people with puppets, you couldn't make it up - }}

I still remember the Badwolf theme. Nothing since.

{{here you go then Figg, another inspired cover



or if you prefer theres the full orchestra version from the Proms-



and just to make you sad, 10's goodbye song as performed by the fan Lockdown choir-}}

thems were the days

{{ With RTD coming back I stumbled on a scene from his era that I realised perfectly encapsulated my love/hate relationship with his Who.
Its the scene with 10 and Wilf in the cafe before 10 regenerates. The whole idea that when the Doctor regenerates it feels like dying and he considers the regenerated version to be a new different man, I hated then and do still. No other Doctor has ever shown that unwillingness, or conveyed the idea its not he same person regenerated. And its all a bit whiny and emo and self pitying for the Doctor I know and prefer.
But at the same time its a beautifully crafted, written and performed scene, conveying all RTD's skill at character moments and emotional beats.

Its a wonderful scene, built on a terrible idea. If Chibnal did the same idea it would be obviously terrible because he cant compare to RTd in writing, RTD makes it good on its own right, but within the broader scope of the concept of the Doctor its still a bad idea underneath.}}

He is right though, it is some new man.

{{ I disagree. Its always the Doctor who walks away.
I take the view of regeneration Time Lords themselves seem to, as Missy puts it- }}

Missy - Okay, I'm going to tell you a story of the Doctor. It's classic. On the run, no Tardis. No friends, no help. In other words, the Doctor, happy. It was a long time ago.
(As she tells her tale, we get a brief black and white glimpse of the first Doctor darting between pillars, than as a figure in a long scarf ducking behind a second stone column.)
MISSY: Doesn't matter which face he was wearing, they're all the Doctor to me. So let's give it to the eyebrows.
(The hero of her story is now the current Doctor.)}}