Doctor Who

[GhostMachine]

Well, I like the Doctor's shirt....

 

[TheWho87]

He looks like a 70's living room.

[Vamp]

2 hours ago, GhostMachine said:

Well, I like the Doctor's shirt....

 

Oddly that's the bit of it I really don't like. The rest is fine. 

RTD doesn't really go "Doctor" for costumes though. Eccleston was deliberately un-Doctory and Tennant's was fairly geek chic. 

Also, if we're honest, all of the new Doctor costumes have been pretty safe aside from Jodie's. And Jodie's was mainly weird because they seemed to go out of their way to make it gender neutral and gave her something that felt rather confused. Really I'm just gutted that they didn't go through with the vibe the reveal gave off. 

I love Ruby's name and look though. 

 

[9 to 5]

Tbh I liked Jodie best in Peter's destroyed clothes as a look.

[Benji]

I feel like the outfit should have a turtleneck. Other than that, I like it. They both look a bit retro so wondering if the companion is maybe from late 70s/early 80s?

[TheWho87]

Considering out of the 15 regular companions of the new series 3 have not been from present day Earth (Jack, River and Nardole), I've got a funny feeling we're going to have another present day Earth companion, although I would love to be proven wrong, the more interesting companions in the history of the show are those not from the present (to the shows) Earth period.

[Colly]

It'd be interesting to try something different, but if there isn't a companion to ground it on present day Earth why would the Doctor come back to it? Obviously every series has some lovely time travel and distant space stuff, but the high stakes episodes are always "the daleks are attacking present day Earth" or similar. Much as it would be amusing to set 50% of episodes in 1986 it'd feel very strange.

Of course the easier option is for 1 of multiple companions to be that, River style.

[Naitch]

It's not an uncommon feature of the 60s era. The First Doctor always had at least one futuristic companion (Susan, Vicki, Steven), and almost always a present era companion or two. In those stories a big part of the companions' character development for that whole era is wanting to get back to the present (Barbara/Ian and Polly/Ben) or leaving because they're traumatised by something "too sci-fi" for them to handle (Dodo and Victoria).

I'm currently on the Fourth Doctor/Leela in my classics watchthrough and very much enjoying the positioning of Leela as the independent yet curious savage. Romana is also one of my favourite companions as she's probably the closest equal to the Doctor until River Song, though I'm almost certainly biased from having grown up watching the Tom Baker era on UK Gold repeats.

[Skummy]

15 hours ago, Colly said:

It'd be interesting to try something different, but if there isn't a companion to ground it on present day Earth why would the Doctor come back to it?

On a simpler narrative level, the companion is the audience surrogate. They exist for the Doctor to have someone to explain sci-fi nonsense to, and that role makes more sense for a present-day character from Earth. There are more interesting dynamics they could play with by having multiple companions and not all of them being from the same place and time, though.

[TheWho87]

On 19/12/2022 at 19:11, Naitch said:

I'm currently on the Fourth Doctor/Leela in my classics watchthrough and very much enjoying the positioning of Leela as the independent yet curious savage. Romana is also one of my favourite companions as she's probably the closest equal to the Doctor until River Song, though I'm almost certainly biased from having grown up watching the Tom Baker era on UK Gold repeats.

I feel Liz Shaw gets ignored a lot, I feel she was the first who'd be considered an equal to the Doctor, there were a few others who could be considered equal on a knowledge level like Vicki, Zoe and Adric.

My two favorite companions are Jamie and Leela as they have an evolution of a character who is out of their time who learns and becomes more while travelling with the Doctor, I kinda feel they killed her leaving as an emotional send off with the reveal of K9 Mark II.

[Vamp]

I feel like they might want to avoid multiple companions for this series. One of th more prevelant complaints for Jodie's era is that there were too many companions, and while I don't necessarily agree with that, they might be keen to avoid that. 

I wonder how much sci-fi explaining you have to do nowadays. Ideally every episode is someone's first episode (possibly more so this time) but I think so much of it is socially ingrained into people now that it's probably not as much of an issue.

A companion from the past brings up more issues though. Even putting aside explaining things that the audience takes for granted, you're relying on a consistent tone and characterisation that's beyond "modern woman." 

[Benji]

I mean, let's be honest, the only things you might need to cover are mobile phones and miniaturisation of tech, but given you are travelling in a ship that not only is bigger on the inside but travels in space and time, I'm honestly not convinced being anything other than having one late 20th/early 21st century companion is needed, if that.

[Skummy]

16 hours ago, Vamp said:

 

I wonder how much sci-fi explaining you have to do nowadays. Ideally every episode is someone's first episode (possibly more so this time) but I think so much of it is socially ingrained into people now that it's probably not as much of an issue.

Sci-Fi explaining is always necessary when the solution to almost every episode's problem tends to be made up techno-babble nonsense that makes "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" sound sensible - you need someone for the Doctor to bounce off of when they explain something like, "of course, I just need to funnel some of the TARDIS' time vortex energy into the wormhole to overpower the baddy's blorblex thrusters and create a quantum continuity blast firing backwards through time", or explaining how of course he should have realised that the race of aliens we've just encountered for the first time are dangerously allergic to the colour blue.

[Benji]

15 hours ago, Skummy said:

of course he should have realised that the race of aliens we've just encountered for the first time are dangerously allergic to the colour blue.

How would they react to the pop group Blue? Cause I find it hard to believe anyone could be allergic to Duncan.

[GhostMachine]

I have an allergy to Barry Manilow.

[TheWho87]

BEEP'S ALIVE!!!

 

[Benji]

Production values are great. Haven't been a fan of how it's been shot since around mid-Capaldi era but this looks beautiful.

[TheWho87]

Looks like it's not the end of the animation of missing stories, The Smugglers and The Underwater Menace look to be the next to get animated.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/lost-doctor-who-episodes-brought-28859152

 

[TheWho87]

Didn't notice this dropped, an announcement trailer for the next blu-ray box set, it would be worth it just for Sea Devils.

 

[Colly]

Still doing my rewatch with the kids, up to series 4 and keep getting surprised by the guest stars. The Unicorn and the Wasp clearly has Felicity Kendal as the big name at the time, but they've double Felicity'd and stuck Jones in there too. Then you get to Silence in the Library, where you've got Colin Salmon, Steve Pemberton, of course Alex Kingston and Ray Bloody Purchase. The casting is superb, it makes you wonder what RTD will do with his new budget.