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Doctor Who Series Seven |OT| The Question You've Been Running From All Your Life
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
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peanutbutterlatte
Member
Oh come on, be a surprise in the 50th
APZonerunner
Member
Bring back Joe Aherne, bring back Graeme Harper. I wonder if they could actually shoot the more cinematic style the show goes for now, but in terms of energy/vision, I LOVE those two directors.
News stuff:
McGann seems to spike any chance of an appearance at all, even in a mini episode:
Also, years after RTD invited her to write an episode and she was too busy supervising the Potter films to do so.... sounds like something may be going on with JK Rowling. There was a rumour she was writing a short Doctor Who novel for the 50th, for release in November. Last week, somebody asked Moffat, and he said "I can't confirm that... right now." Dun dun dun. She's a slight fan, used to watch the show as a kid. We still don't know who is writing the short stories for 9/10/11, and all the other short stories came from acclaimed children's authors. If JK's doing one, it's probably 10 or 11.
Moffat spoke a bit about writing Matt's regeneration. This is stuff Moffat has chosen to reveal in a very public venue (Doctor Who Magazine), but I'm going to spoiler it anyway for those sensitive. It sounds not dissimilar in ways to The End of Time, in that
News stuff:
McGann seems to spike any chance of an appearance at all, even in a mini episode:
Also, years after RTD invited her to write an episode and she was too busy supervising the Potter films to do so.... sounds like something may be going on with JK Rowling. There was a rumour she was writing a short Doctor Who novel for the 50th, for release in November. Last week, somebody asked Moffat, and he said "I can't confirm that... right now." Dun dun dun. She's a slight fan, used to watch the show as a kid. We still don't know who is writing the short stories for 9/10/11, and all the other short stories came from acclaimed children's authors. If JK's doing one, it's probably 10 or 11.
Moffat spoke a bit about writing Matt's regeneration. This is stuff Moffat has chosen to reveal in a very public venue (Doctor Who Magazine), but I'm going to spoiler it anyway for those sensitive. It sounds not dissimilar in ways to The End of Time, in that
it seems like the Eleventh Doctor will spend a good chunk of the episode knowing his time is up and terrified at the fact. Moffat says: "One of the horrors of regeneration is that a certain amount of his persona alters entirely. His appetites and his enthusiasms will change. And that’s sort of what I’m writing about now in Matt’s last episode, the fact that he’s terribly aware that he’s about to be rewritten. And it’s frightening."
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
APZonerunner
Member
infiniteloop
Member
No idea how anyone could've thought otherwise.
heh, that's quite a turnaround from Ten's,
where Moffat kept going on about "what the big's deal about regeneration? it's not supposed to be sad, it's the same man no matter what, etc."
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I think it's interesting to have different takes on the shifting of personas, though... same man? totally different man?... there are few pieces of fiction that have such a changing of the guard, so I'm cool with them totally changing the narrative meaning of it from era to era.
APZonerunner
Member
Well, I actually thought all the timings were very suspect, really, right up until the moment Capaldi was cast, because then I knew he'd be too busy to have been cast and film so shortly. It's now pretty likely that the over-a-year gap between Series 7b and Series 8 will likely be as much for in-demand Capaldi to clear his schedule as it was for Moffat to handle Sherlock and things.
A number of the things about the lead up to filming of Christmas made it look suspect that Smith might have a surprise exit at the end of the 50th, though.
Did he ever actually say this in this sort of tone?
I feel like he just sort of said 'life goes on', and I think that was reactionary because of course that ending for Tennant made his job a lot harder in writing Eleven, as rather than the triumphant hand-over from Nine to Ten we had it being a bloody trauma, and in Britain, a national trauma that left kids all over in tears. Quite different when you're in the hot seat and making the decision, I imagine!
EleventhDoctor
Banned
I can't tell you how much this makes me happy. I've always been bothered that he seemed to want to disassociate himself with the show-and this seems so sweet and genuine.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
That message made me happy. The 50th just wouldn't be the same without at least a small appearance from him.
infiniteloop
Member
But that interview was published before the Eight Doctor's movie. Is there anything recent of him slamming the old Doctors? Also it didn't sound like he hated all of the Doctors. It sounds like he was just making fun of the show because most of the episodes (in his opinion) didn't hold up for adults and were intended for 11 year olds, with some exceptions. He even mentions that he thought one of the books had a brilliant revision of the Seventh Doctor. If he wasn't a fan of anything besides the Peter Davison era then I doubt he would have been involved with the series as much as he has been over the years, even prior to New Who. Nor would he have still read the Doctor Who books as an adult. A lot of his complaints are valid too.
From that old interview, here is what sums up his opinions best:
Edit: @APZonerunner here is something more recent and also just as soul-crushing.
Yeah I never really saw the issue with that interview given the context and the fact he's having a bit of fun and just shooting the shit. It's not like anything he's saying makes him not a fan, it just makes him a fan who can recognise that something he enjoys isn't high art.
I get that, I like professional wrestling and that has more of a social stigma than Doctor Who ever had, even during the dark times, and when it comes to successfully telling stories you couldn't even see the hits among the ocean of misses.
So you just kind of have to understand why you like it, but also not blindly and how forgiving you are to it not living up to its potential really depends on your personality. Blind hate and blind praise are both equally useless.
I'd also have to agree that while Doctor Who as a concept and as a series is utterly brilliant and my favourite TV show of all time - it did not have the success rate you'd expect for something that was on the air for so long.
He's utterly right that other British TV series of the time hold up way better, they just lack that magic the format of Doctor Who allows for and thrives in doing a mediocre job of utilising.
Just put it this way, the show was on for almost 30 years straight and there's only a few episodes you can show people today that you don't need a to frame in a whole lot of 'cultural context' beforehand. You don't need to recognise 'it was a different era' for Casablanca to be a good movie, it just is.
Caves of Androzani is a great episode, but what the fuck do you do if they suddenly get curious about Colin Baker? You'd have to skip to like Vengeance on Varos, and that's still no Caves.
Someone watching Remembrance who is curious about McCoy would be ill advised to watch his initial run.
Just imagine if The Twin Dilemma and Time and the Rani were your introduction to Tennant and Smith? The show would be dead, even if every other episode was the same.
If you're going to recommend the classic series to someone, just by virtue of the nature of how its told and the (lack of) care that was put into most of the production, you're going to be skipping through vast swaths of it until they're a fan enough that the charisma of the Doctor or current companion dynamic is enough for them to put up with the incredible amount of mediocrity and squandered potential.
Hell it doesn't have to be the classic series, Rose has aged terribly due to that fucking awful director and every success about of it is in spite of him and speaks to how fucking perfect Eccleston, Piper and Davies were to revive the series.
It needed both, because as the TV movie showed - you can have a fantastic Doctor and it won't mean shit if everything else is out of whack.
I think there was another interview that Moffat did back in the day that was far more direct about his opinions though, one that he has apologised for.
I get that, I like professional wrestling and that has more of a social stigma than Doctor Who ever had, even during the dark times, and when it comes to successfully telling stories you couldn't even see the hits among the ocean of misses.
So you just kind of have to understand why you like it, but also not blindly and how forgiving you are to it not living up to its potential really depends on your personality. Blind hate and blind praise are both equally useless.
I'd also have to agree that while Doctor Who as a concept and as a series is utterly brilliant and my favourite TV show of all time - it did not have the success rate you'd expect for something that was on the air for so long.
He's utterly right that other British TV series of the time hold up way better, they just lack that magic the format of Doctor Who allows for and thrives in doing a mediocre job of utilising.
Just put it this way, the show was on for almost 30 years straight and there's only a few episodes you can show people today that you don't need a to frame in a whole lot of 'cultural context' beforehand. You don't need to recognise 'it was a different era' for Casablanca to be a good movie, it just is.
Caves of Androzani is a great episode, but what the fuck do you do if they suddenly get curious about Colin Baker? You'd have to skip to like Vengeance on Varos, and that's still no Caves.
Someone watching Remembrance who is curious about McCoy would be ill advised to watch his initial run.
Just imagine if The Twin Dilemma and Time and the Rani were your introduction to Tennant and Smith? The show would be dead, even if every other episode was the same.
If you're going to recommend the classic series to someone, just by virtue of the nature of how its told and the (lack of) care that was put into most of the production, you're going to be skipping through vast swaths of it until they're a fan enough that the charisma of the Doctor or current companion dynamic is enough for them to put up with the incredible amount of mediocrity and squandered potential.
Hell it doesn't have to be the classic series, Rose has aged terribly due to that fucking awful director and every success about of it is in spite of him and speaks to how fucking perfect Eccleston, Piper and Davies were to revive the series.
It needed both, because as the TV movie showed - you can have a fantastic Doctor and it won't mean shit if everything else is out of whack.
I think there was another interview that Moffat did back in the day that was far more direct about his opinions though, one that he has apologised for.
That's both sad and a little awesome at the same time. It got him some money and a date, fair play.
APZonerunner
Member
Yeah. He was also very candid about calling a lot of old Who shit around the time of the reboot, and then post-Blink when he realized he might be in for the top job he quickly started back-pedalling on and apologizing for most of it. It'd be mental to think he still doesn't hold those opinions, but that doesn't mean he fails to hold a great deal of respect for those eras. I think it does have an effect, though, obviously. The fact he saw Davison as the last great era before the reboot and that he thought Tom Baker childish for not taking part in The Five Doctors surely played its part in Time Crash being what and who it was, for instance.
Quick Mustard
Member
Doctor Who Proms on BBC One right now.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
I remember someone telling me "The Fall of the Eleventh" wasn't referring to his regeneration... like... whuh? Of course it was. That said, it is disappointing as we had that whole schtick with David Tennant for multiple episodes.
APZonerunner
Member
Said this before, but I would like if the fall was a literal one from a great height, ultimately the thing that kills him. I like when expectations of such a prediction are turned on their head - like the knocks.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
That would be a very Moffatt thing to do... that said, he's already "killed off" one of his big characters through a fall
StalkerUKCG
Banned
11 and the tardis literally fell to trenzalor many people assumed this was the fall of the 11th since it was linkd so heavily.
On the fields of trenzalor at the fall of the eleventh a question will be asked. If he regenerates somewhere other than trenzalor then fall of the eleventh is meaningless
EleventhDoctor
Banned
GERONIMO!
Exterminieren
Banned
The TARDIS fell to Trenzalore from orbit with the Eleventh in it. I thought it was a VERY Moffat subversion of the prophecy, personally, in a similar manner from the "secret he'll take to his grave, which is discovered" from earlier in the episode. The Name of the Doctor is positively dripping with purposely broken and inverted prophesies.
On a lighter note, I went to the Doctor Who Experience today, and BEHOLD MASH SMITH.
APZonerunner
Member
Bit shit that the TV broadcast prom didn't include several songs that were played live at the event, substituting in interviewy/confidentialy bits instead.
Specifically missing:
The Companions Suite (Rose's Theme, Martha's Theme, Donna's Theme, Amy's Theme condensed into one lovely medley)
The Final Chapter of Amelia Pond (Basically an Angels Take Manhattan Suite)
Vale Decem
Song for Fifty (Murray Gold's special one-off tribute song to the show)
They also dubbed the theme tune finale, presumably because the live recording (as aired on BBC Radio 3) has the synth part massively out of time. It's definitely still a live version, though, so maybe the audio is from rehearsal.
Specifically missing:
The Companions Suite (Rose's Theme, Martha's Theme, Donna's Theme, Amy's Theme condensed into one lovely medley)
The Final Chapter of Amelia Pond (Basically an Angels Take Manhattan Suite)
Vale Decem
Song for Fifty (Murray Gold's special one-off tribute song to the show)
They also dubbed the theme tune finale, presumably because the live recording (as aired on BBC Radio 3) has the synth part massively out of time. It's definitely still a live version, though, so maybe the audio is from rehearsal.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Ahh fucking bullshit. Loved Angels Take Manhattan's score.
So... anybody else think we need a trailer for the 50th already?
EDIT: A clip was shown at the Edinburgh TV Festival oh COME ON.
Ahh fucking bullshit. Loved Angels Take Manhattan's score.
So... anybody else think we need a trailer for the 50th already?
EDIT: A clip was shown at the Edinburgh TV Festival oh COME ON.
It is past time.
APZonerunner
Member
I thought Song for Fifty was overindulgent, but I'm gutted about the other three. The Companions Suite was a really nice medley of those really iconic themes and in a sense serves to highlight through the personality of the themes how different our companions have been since 05, Angels Take Manhattan deserved to be broadcast as it's not been performed before at all.
Vale Decem really should've been part of it considering it's a 50th celebration and they positioned that piece at the actual performance as the piece to celebrate each of the actors to play the role, with an all-new video montage of the show through the years accompanying it. So for that to be wiped is bizarre, really.
Shame. Hopefully the version that'll inevitably be on the 50th special blu ray will be the full thing.
Vale Decem really should've been part of it considering it's a 50th celebration and they positioned that piece at the actual performance as the piece to celebrate each of the actors to play the role, with an all-new video montage of the show through the years accompanying it. So for that to be wiped is bizarre, really.
Shame. Hopefully the version that'll inevitably be on the 50th special blu ray will be the full thing.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
It's crazy that they're releasing it in cinemas and think they can get away with zero advertising. Three months isn't that long for something as big as thos
Vale Decem and Angels Take Manhattan are two of the best uses of music in the show, so it's baffling really. I'd love to be a fly on the wall.
Worthintendo
Member
They really messed up on the chance to have a Mister Potato Head with costumes for all the Doctors, it just makes too much sense to be able to change him from one to another.On a lighter note, I went to the Doctor Who Experience today, and BEHOLD MASH SMITH.
Explains why he slammed Tom Baker so hard in the book interview linked earlier. Well a lot of the old actors for the Doctor, but Tom Baker specifically.
The TARDIS fell to Trenzalore from orbit with the Eleventh in it. I thought it was a VERY Moffat subversion of the prophecy, personally, in a similar manner from the "secret he'll take to his grave, which is discovered" from earlier in the episode. The Name of the Doctor is positively dripping with purposely broken and inverted prophesies.
On a lighter note, I went to the Doctor Who Experience today, and BEHOLD MASH SMITH.
I saw this on sale a couple of days ago, and it wasn't terribly expensive, but I couldn't justify the money for it.
Exterminieren
Banned
They left The Final Chapter of Amelia Pond off the Proms broadcast. What shit.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
After hearing it many times, In really like it. But only the instrumental part and chorus when you dont hear actual lyrics (the Happy Bithday Doctor You at the end is particulary cringe worthy). But I think the rest is magnificent for an actual score of the 50th aniversary episode. The part I most love is the starting part, with the doctor who main theme desguised in the chorus, would love the intro of the episode being that.
APZonerunner
Member
RTD on Capaldi - I miss his enthusiasm! I can hear his gay old voice bellowing these words as I read them.
Exterminieren
Banned
I don't know if it's because I'm in a relationship on this viewing, but holy fuck is The Girl Who Waited ever emotionally potent. Stone-cold, nailed on classic, that one.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
I liked that episode, but Amy's hypocrisy in that episode got to me a little. Rory waited 1000 years. I mean, he didn't age, but 1000 years is a long fucking time.
Not entirely disagreeing with the notion but there's a difference between choosing to wait (Rory) and being stranded due to an accident with no certainty of rescue because the Doctor was careless (Amy). Plus he was an Auton (when he waited) and she was human, so one could argue her situation got more taxing with getting old alone and dealing with bodily needs.
As time passed she just lost hope and got pissed by knowing that if they eventually saved her it would be the younger version, meaning she would cease to exist.
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
She was trapped in a pocket dimension all by herself though, chased constantly by deadly robots and shit.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Its amazing how popular this episode was when I ran a "make your own Doctor Who accessories" class a few weeks ago. I had two kids making 'Sonic Probes" and another who made the Red Waterfall and Green Anchor buttons
Exterminieren
Banned
Any was totally by herself, pursued by relentless enemies at all times, aging all the time, and hoping for the man she loved to rescue her at any given moment. Then, when Rory did arrive, he and the Doctor focused on retrieving her younger self at the expense of her entire existence. I think she can be forgiven for being a little pissed off.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Yeah as I said, I loved the episode, I just expected some sort of reference to the 1000 year wait. The lack of that was pretty frustrating really, we got one "I can switch it on and off" reference. I just thought it an insanely cool aspect of Rory's character.
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
People keep talking about Moffat leaving but is there any hard indication that his time is almost up? Are there any rumors about who might be replacing him?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Girl Who Waited is, unfortunately, one of the few episodes where the acting kills it for me. I just couldn't buy Karen's delivery on lines like "I hate him". Everything else about that episode is great (including my favorite Rory line of all time) but such a core element was flawed for me. Visual direction was great, it was a situation where the slightly "creepy" angle didn't feel too forced, overall concept was fantastic, but...
I'm a fan of his work but I'm kind of hoping his time is up soon. Time for a fresher take.
That said, the cnadidates at the moment don't impress me very much.
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