The (Regenerated) Doctor Who Thread: Reverse the Polarity!

[Kannap]

Nabbed some books today and I'm excited because it'll be the first Doctor Who media I'll have experienced besides the show.

What'd you get?

The Slitheen Excursion by Simon Guerrier
Plague of the Cybermen by Justin Richards
Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale

[Philjia]

What'd you get?

The Slitheen Excursion by Simon Guerrier
Plague of the Cybermen by Justin Richards
Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale

I've read The Slitheen Excursion, it's pretty good. The Clockwise Man, Winner Takes All, The Deviant Strain, The Feast of the Drowned, Sting of the Zygons, and Beautiful Chaos are some of my favourite New Series Adventures. The Doctor Who Storybook annuals published by Panini between 2007 and 2010 are also worth picking up, especially the 2007 one, which contains some truly excellent short stories from Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Nicholas Briggs, and Robert Shearman, among others.

[Philjia]

Elvis was a hero to most but he
Elvis was a hero to most
Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother fuck him and John Wayne

That aside, best episode of the series so far. Builds tension well, and for once an intricate plot that fits nicely into the fifty minute run time. Malorie Blackman's talents as a writer are clearly evident, aside from a couple of bits of very on the nose dialogue. The cinematography is still excellent, the editing is still occasionally dodgy. The villain was very weak and the episode didn't need him. Still not a huge fan of Jodie as The Doctor, and Ryan and Yas are still a bit bland (although they did get to do more here), but Graham makes up for that. The pop song at the end was stupid and overbearing and can fuck off and die in a fire, and is an insult to the quality of the rest of the music. 7/10

[Earthbound Immortal Squad]

Best episode so far definitely.

[Earthbound Immortal Squad]

"cheap and nasty time travel" now who said that before??

[The Huskar Social Union]

It was okay, performances were good and i liked the actress they got to play Rosa

But i thought the villain was very weak honestly, thought they could have done a lot more with him. I also thought people were just going along with things a bit too conveniently. The Bus driver for example, kept running into the same people again and again who were acting weird and kept upending his schedule and stuff he was doing and are basically shadowing him, and he is like "oh okay guess ill just hop on this new bus brought to me by these weird brits who keep appearing to me all day" Other than those two main things i liked it.

Production quality was pretty good once again, as i said i liked the performances, Graham is still the best companion out of the three, Yaz was a bit better but i still think she is the weakest of the three.

Interested in what will happen next week with the spiders. Though the promo was a bit amusing, "something is happening with the spiders in this city" cuts to man screaming for a second

[Philjia]

It was okay, performances were good and i liked the actress they got to play Rosa

But i thought the villain was very weak honestly, thought they could have done a lot more with him. I also thought people were just going along with things a bit too conveniently. The Bus driver for example, kept running into the same people again and again who were acting weird and kept upending his schedule and stuff he was doing and are basically shadowing him, and he is like "oh okay guess ill just hop on this new bus brought to me by these weird brits who keep appearing to me all day" Other than those two main things i liked it.

Production quality was pretty good once again, as i said i liked the performances, Graham is still the best companion out of the three, Yaz was a bit better but i still think she is the weakest of the three.

Interested in what will happen next week with the spiders. Though the promo was a bit amusing, "something is happening with the spiders in this city" cuts to man screaming for a second

Next week's Chibnall again so it'll probably be very aggressively fine.

[Earthbound Immortal Squad]

It was okay, performances were good and i liked the actress they got to play Rosa

But i thought the villain was very weak honestly, thought they could have done a lot more with him. I also thought people were just going along with things a bit too conveniently. The Bus driver for example, kept running into the same people again and again who were acting weird and kept upending his schedule and stuff he was doing and are basically shadowing him, and he is like "oh okay guess ill just hop on this new bus brought to me by these weird brits who keep appearing to me all day" Other than those two main things i liked it.

Production quality was pretty good once again, as i said i liked the performances, Graham is still the best companion out of the three, Yaz was a bit better but i still think she is the weakest of the three.

Interested in what will happen next week with the spiders. Though the promo was a bit amusing, "something is happening with the spiders in this city" cuts to man screaming for a second

Next week's Chibnall again so it'll probably be very aggressively fine.

Do you have a list of who's writing each episode this series?

[Philjia]

Next week's Chibnall again so it'll probably be very aggressively fine.

Do you have a list of who's writing each episode this series?

Five Chibnall stories, plus Malorie Blackman, Ed Hime, Peter McTighe, Vinay Patel, and Joy Wilkinson, some of whom may be co-writing with Chibnall. We've got Chibnall again next week and the week after, then Vinay Patel, then presumably the other new writers before a Chibnall finale.

[Tokuopolis]

Interesting Episode and another Historical celebrity ep

Very serious in tone for obvious reasons

Could have dived deeper into the villain's backstory about why he's racist, especially if he comes from an alien integrating/alien inclusive future.

Bus Driver plot point felt like it dragged a bit, could have just used the other guy and made everything else the same and the timeline would be similar enough (although time travel rules change often in the series)

Good acting from Rosa's actress

[Ameriganastan]

Typical heavy-handed political Doctor Who. Delivered with all the subtlety of a cow mallet to the skull. And subsequently boring as shit.

Oh, I could feel my eyes roll when they cued "Rise Up".

Crap.

[Nation of Quebec]

The villain was one-dimensional, but aside from that I thought it was a decent enough historical episode that served it's purpose. Not the best, not the worst.

[Astrolinium]

Poll's up, fun quotes coming tomorrow when I have a chance to rewatch and mine for them.

I thought it was pretty good. They definitely did the history justice very well, I think Blackman is a much better writer than Chris Chibnall, and I love that they didn't go the route so many history books go of just portraying Parks as a woman who was tired when she was an activist with the NAACP who was tired of this shit. The racism was also handled very well, and I loved the dark fury that boiled up when the Doctor was alone with the villain that was clearly the sort of thing she wasn't willing to let her companions see from her. The villain was... boring. He needed to be there in a loose sense to cause the issues that drove the episode but he was vastly under-utilized, dismissed too quickly, and not fleshed out nearly enough. Could have been easily replaced with something more like the Krafayis — a monster causing problems without necessarily having ill-intent could have just as easily caused the same plot.

Otherwise, I agree that this was maybe the strongest episode of the series so far, even if I thought having that pop song over the end was a highly questionable decision.

[Astrolinium]

Typical heavy-handed political Doctor Who. Delivered with all the subtlety of a cow mallet to the skull. And subsequently boring as shit.

Oh, I could feel my eyes roll when they cued "Rise Up".

Crap.

Ameri, opinions are one thing, but it would have been a total disgrace not only to the show but to all the people who fought and died for the civil rights movement to have glossed over racism in 1950s Alabama just to please you.

[Ameriganastan]

Typical heavy-handed political Doctor Who. Delivered with all the subtlety of a cow mallet to the skull. And subsequently boring as shit.

Oh, I could feel my eyes roll when they cued "Rise Up".

Crap.

Ameri, opinions are one thing, but it would have been a total disgrace not only to the show but to all the people who fought and died for the civil rights movement to have glossed over racism in 1950s Alabama just to please you.

I'm here to have fun. Not be preached to on how racist 1950's America was. This was almost as bad as "Far Beyond The Stars".

[Old Tyrannia]

Typical heavy-handed political Doctor Who. Delivered with all the subtlety of a cow mallet to the skull. And subsequently boring as shit.

Oh, I could feel my eyes roll when they cued "Rise Up".

Crap.

Ameri, opinions are one thing, but it would have been a total disgrace not only to the show but to all the people who fought and died for the civil rights movement to have glossed over racism in 1950s Alabama just to please you.

No, Ameriganastan has a point. It felt like the writers were focused on producing a tribute to Rosa Parks and an Aesop about racism rather than an entertaining story with a good plot. They succeeded to a degree, but it didn't make for a good episode of Doctor Who. The infuriatingly cheesy pop song at the end was particularly jarring, as was the discussion between Ryan and Yaz about the racism they'd experienced in the 21st century. It felt incredibly unnatural and shoehorned in. Parks' actress herself did a great job and the episode certainly had its poignant moments, but for the most part, it was unentertaining. I don't think Rosa Parks was really the best sort of historical character to use for this kind of Doctor Who. The episode was always going to be either dull or viewed as disrespectful.

As for the series as a whole so far, the previous episodes were alright but not brilliant. Having multiple companions is fine in and of itself, but it's too early in the season for three companions in my opinion- it would have been better to start out with one and introduce others later, once the first companion had been properly introduced. As it is, none of the main cast has had the time for proper character-building, including the new Doctor. Whittaker's Doctor herself is pretty disappointing; she's like an inferior version of Tennant, with the same hyperactivity and quirkiness but none of the passion and authority.

A good example would be the last episode, where Ryan picked up the alien robot's gun. Whittaker's response was to tell him to stop, and then watch as he ignored her and ran off to make a cool of himself before telling him "I told you so." This really brought home the Doctor's lack of authority-
Whittaker's acting was sanguine, and I can't imagine any of the other recent doctors letting that scene play out the way it did. They would have put the fear of God into any companion who pulled that stunt.

[Ameriganastan]

A good example would be the last episode, where Ryan picked up the alien robot's gun. Whittaker's response was to tell him to stop, and then watch as he ignored her and ran off to make a cool of himself before telling him "I told you so." This really brought home the Doctor's lack of authority-
Whittaker's acting was sanguine, and I can't imagine any of the other recent doctors letting that scene play out the way it did. They would have put the fear of God into any companion who pulled that stunt.

I actually think she did that better than Ten.

Rather than be the obnoxious moral authority on guns like he was in that Sontaran two-parter, she lets him learn from experience instead of acting all holier than thou about it.

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

Best episode so far, I thought. Still nothing stunning, but getting there.

[Auristania]

I do not believe it. Villain's cunning plan = change a few minor details and all of History will change. Which could work for many events, but not this one.

It had to be Rosa personally on that night versus that particular bus-driver otherwise Civil rights would never have happened.

I believe Civil Rights would have happened anyway, whoever had been the Spark.


Stormcage = big shout out to Stormfront. Wasn't that River Song's gaol?

Episode 1, they made a big deal of being PC by making Ryan retarded. This week Ryan can easily repair Space-tech.

[Astrolinium]

by making Ryan retarded

Yeah, that's not what he is, and even if he did have the sort of disability that used to be called by that word, I'm pretty horrified that you would refer to anyone that way. The show was pretty clear that Ryan has dyspraxia, which is a specific disability of coordination that makes it hard for him to do things like ride a bike or climb a ladder or tie shoes and has no effect whatsoever on his mental capabilities.

Ameri, opinions are one thing, but it would have been a total disgrace not only to the show but to all the people who fought and died for the civil rights movement to have glossed over racism in 1950s Alabama just to please you.

I'm here to have fun. Not be preached to on how racist 1950's America was. This was almost as bad as "Far Beyond The Stars".

So they were supposed to... what? Set an episode in 1950s America without racism? It was -- and, honestly, still is -- a hugely integral part of the culture. This isn't politics, it's historical accuracy.

[The Huskar Social Union]

I do not believe it. Villain's cunning plan = change a few minor details and all of History will change. Which could work for many events, but not this one.

It had to be Rosa personally on that night versus that particular bus-driver otherwise Civil rights would never have happened.

I believe Civil Rights would have happened anyway, whoever had been the Spark.


Stormcage = big shout out to Stormfront. Wasn't that River Song's gaol?

Episode 1, they made a big deal of being PC by making Ryan retarded. This week Ryan can easily repair Space-tech.

he has dyspraxia which effects your coordination and balance, not intelligence.

At least as far as i am aware

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

I do not believe it. Villain's cunning plan = change a few minor details and all of History will change. Which could work for many events, but not this one.

It had to be Rosa personally on that night versus that particular bus-driver otherwise Civil rights would never have happened.

I believe Civil Rights would have happened anyway, whoever had been the Spark.


Stormcage = big shout out to Stormfront. Wasn't that River Song's gaol?

Episode 1, they made a big deal of being PC by making Ryan retarded. This week Ryan can easily repair Space-tech.

Charming.

Anyway, I don't think it much matters that the villain's plan wouldn't work. It's exactly the sort of thing that certain petty, irrational people would do, and stopping him was a symbolic victory about protecting Parks' legacy.

[New Ciencia]

Doctor Who hasn't done a historical (or pseudo-historical, in this case) in a while... They definitely seem to be returning to their roots, what with the new intro being reminiscent of the First Doctor's intro and all...

[Astrolinium]

I do not believe it. Villain's cunning plan = change a few minor details and all of History will change. Which could work for many events, but not this one.

It had to be Rosa personally on that night versus that particular bus-driver otherwise Civil rights would never have happened.

I believe Civil Rights would have happened anyway, whoever had been the Spark.


Stormcage = big shout out to Stormfront. Wasn't that River Song's gaol?

Episode 1, they made a big deal of being PC by making Ryan retarded. This week Ryan can easily repair Space-tech.

Charming.

Anyway, I don't think it much matters that the villain's plan wouldn't work. It's exactly the sort of thing that certain petty, irrational people would do, and stopping him was a symbolic victory about protecting Parks' legacy.

I think there's also something to be said that even if stopping Parks would not have meaningfully impacted the start of the Civil Rights Movement, it still would have effected history fairly significantly enough that the villain was worth stopping — ripple effects mean that maybe certain people who are supposed to be born don't end up being born, for example, and so the time stream is inherently worth preserving.

[Philjia]

I do not believe it. Villain's cunning plan = change a few minor details and all of History will change. Which could work for many events, but not this one.

It had to be Rosa personally on that night versus that particular bus-driver otherwise Civil rights would never have happened.

I believe Civil Rights would have happened anyway, whoever had been the Spark.


Stormcage = big shout out to Stormfront. Wasn't that River Song's gaol?

Episode 1, they made a big deal of being PC by making Ryan retarded. This week Ryan can easily repair Space-tech.

1) He didn't repair it.
2) Dyspraxia inhibits hand eye co-ordination, movement planning, and fine motor control. It's not a disorder that affects intelligence. Him being able to put pinpoint accurate shots into those robots in The Ghost Monument made less sense.
3) Using the word "retarded" to describe people with learning difficulties is grossly offensive.