Doctor Who

[TheGerkuman]

End of Time wasn't great, but I always loved that Wilf got to be a companion for an episode. He was one of my favourite characters (in the same way that Donna became one of my favourite companions).

[Big Panda]

And here's Doctor Who Farted

 

[Doctor MK]

Lost episode The Power of the Daleks is finally getting re-released in animated form:

It's definitely a piece of Who history worth keeping an eye on, as it marked Patrick Troughton's first story as The Second Doctor!

[ZERO_ninja]

It's definitely a piece of Who history worth keeping an eye on, as it marked Patrick Troughton's first story as The Second Doctor!

And it's a great Dalek story to boot and one of the very very few in the Classic series not by Terry Nation.

After years of being told the BBC can't afford to animate more than 2 episodes for a serial I'm really excited about the potential this has. I'd love for it to do so well we could see all of the other 81 still missing eps that haven't yet been animated get the same treatment over time, but that's probably a bit too optimistic. Hopefully we at least get the popular stories, I'm expecting at least an Evil of the Daleks release next year too as long as this has some success.

[The Tenth Doctor]

It seems Mr Moffat won't be leaving after all....

 

http://www.metro.us/entertainment/steven-moffat-will-stay-on-doctor-who-after-season-10/zsJpjg---RarPAFTI8tdQw/

[PickleBrows]

1 hour ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

It seems Mr Moffat won't be leaving after all....

 

http://www.metro.us/entertainment/steven-moffat-will-stay-on-doctor-who-after-season-10/zsJpjg---RarPAFTI8tdQw/

I'm not too sure this means anything other than what we knew previously. We knew Moffat would do series 10 and that Chibnall would be coming in from 2018 but the 2017 Christmas episode seems to have been left unmentioned until now. The Christmas episodes are usually considered part of the previous series as far as the production side is concerned but since we don't have a series this year I'm assuming Series 10 will technically be an episode longer than usual, having two Christmas episodes tied to its production block.

[ZERO_ninja]

So we're now getting Doctor Who books in the style of Mr. Men. First wave is 4 books for Doctors Hartnell, Tom Baker, Smith and Capaldi.

 

I actually think it's a pretty cool idea, looking forward to the Doctor stripped down to Mr. Men style parodies of himselves. Assumptions seem to be as long as these do well we'll get 3 waves of 4 books.

 

On 09/10/2016 at 4:07 PM, Joy said:

I'm not too sure this means anything other than what we knew previously. We knew Moffat would do series 10 and that Chibnall would be coming in from 2018 but the 2017 Christmas episode seems to have been left unmentioned until now.

Moffat had mentioned before now he was doing both Christmas specials. So the article is basic click bait with nothing new. Guess Metro were especially desperate that day or something.

[Big Panda]

With David Tennant's casting as Scrooge McDuck, I thought I'd look back and see the other times a Doctor had lent their talents to the Mouse House.

Jon Pertwee: appeared in the 1975 Disney-produced movie "One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing"

Tom Baker: the one rare occasion in which Disney and the Doctor Who universe technically crossed over, Baker once hosted an episode of the 70's UK holiday-sceduled TV series "Disney Time" in character as the Fourth Doctor.

Paul McGann: appeared in Disney's 1993 live-action version of "The Three Musketeers".

John Hurt: being an acclaimed film actor in his own right before becoming a Doctor, John Hurt voiced the Horned King in "The Black Couldron" (the only time a Doctor has lended his voice to the actual animated canon) and was the narrator of "The Tigger Movie". He was also in the 1982 live-action movie "Night Crossing".

Christopher Eccleston: while never working directly for Disney, Eccleston appeared in Touchstones "Gone in 60 Seconds" and in Marvels "Thor: The Dark World".

David Tennant: Tennant has surpringly had many Disney-related roles before being cast as Scrooge, all of which have been TV-shows. He had guest-spots on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Fish Hooks, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and for Marvel he currently appears in the Netflix series Jessica Jones.

[The Tenth Doctor]

It's official. Series 10 is Capaldi's last.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-01-30/peter-capaldi-confirms-hes-leaving-doctor-who-at-the-end-of-series-10

It's sad that he's leaving, he was damn good. He may have had more bad episodes than other Doctors but that was not his fault. He made it his own and did a darn good job of it. I guess this means the new show runner gets a new Doctor to play with.

[Celestia]

Series 11 will see a new showrunner, so I can see why he and/or the rest of the crew would agree he should step down. Still, I was hoping to see him for at least a little while longer, so even tho' the timing makes sense...I'll be sad to see him go.

[Salamander]

A pity; I would have really liked to see him do just one series under a different showrunner.  When given material with a little gravitas, Capaldi is unmatched - but all too often, the scripts have let him down.  Moffat had better give him a good send-off; himself, too.

[Kevin]

What a shame that Capaldi is leaving because he did such a great job playing The Doctor. I hope whomever replaces him does just as good of job,

[QuantumEdge]

God, it only feels like yesterday when I decided to finally get into this show and watched his first series.  It's a massive shame.  He had almost unmatchable presence and charisma, which gave him a helping hand whenever dealt a poor episode (sadly there were more than a few of those), but when everything lined up, he was really compelling as well as hilarious.  Hopefully he goes out with a proper bang.

[ZERO_ninja]

3 series in 4 years is fast becoming the done thing for Doctors these days it seems...

Not happy to see him go, but am happy Moffat will be writing his exit and that Chibnall gets to have a total clean break Doctor wise to reinvent the show again like Moffat did himself.

[Big Panda]

I hope that, unlike Ten and Eleven, Twelve's regeneration will be, in-universe, an actual unexpected event, as opposed to something that's been fortold to him beforehand.

I mean, I was fine with the first two, but the concept would just feel stale for the third time in a row.

[ZERO_ninja]

Mark Gatiss episode confirmed to have the Ice Warriors returning in their second appearance in the new series.

It's also being reported by RadioTimes that Chibnall's s11 will begin filming early 2018 and will be airing Autumn that year. Also as a surprise to no one it's been confirmed that Chibnall will be the one leading the team casting the new Doctor who's almost certainly going to debut at the end of the 2017 Christmas special.

[ZERO_ninja]

Don't think anyone will be surprised to know, but Missy confirmed for s10.

I do love that since Moffat brought the Master back she's been able to just pop up in stories like she used to in the classic show rather than have to be saved for the big stories and go years without appearing like in RTD's era. Also helps that Michelle Gomez is the best Master since Delgado. =P

 

I'd really like for Missy to be a big part of Capaldi's regeneration (and I think she will be) given how big a part she's been of his Doctor's era.

[ZERO_ninja]

Finally got around to watching my BD for Power of the Daleks. Grabbed it at release but hadn't gotten round to it till yesterday.

It's a really great story, and one of the incredibly few that does something unique and interesting with the Daleks. It wasn't my first time going through it having sat through the reconstruction years ago, but that just made me all the happier to go through it again in a much more engaging way. It's a great release and I do hope we can get more animated reconstructions like it in the future.

More detailed review in spoilers since it's a bit long.
 

Spoiler

The story opens as the very first post-regen story and it's absolutely perfect at making the audience feel uneasy with this new Doctor (taking it in the context of the time when there's no precedent for what just happened). He doesn't act the same, he has some very suspicious moments, even Ben doesn't trust him and most of all he seems to flip himself between talking about "The Doctor" as another man. On the other hand, he seems to remember and know things that only The Doctor would and Polly seems to trust him, giving you just enough trust in the idea that he may still be the Doctor. What makes it work so well is that Troughton is such a wholly new Doctor, and Troughton is such a secretive Doctor which makes it so easy to be suspicious of him. Obviously the aim of the story is to convince you that this man is in fact the same Doctor, and what's the best way to do this? Have the Doctor defeat his greatest foe the Daleks.

The Daleks in this are intelligent, threatening and manipulative, it's just great to see Daleks downplay themselves and manipulate others into giving them what they want in seemingly innocent ways when only the audience and the Doctor know better. It's a rare well paced 6 part story for the classic show, creating an interesting separate but overlapping story to complement the Dalek story. The characters are well put together and most have their own motivations that are well constructed, and the strength of this story is what allows the Dalek side of it to so effectively be put aside to a slow building threat in the background. All story you know the Daleks are coming, and as it progresses you really see them amount a terrifying force, but it's not until right at the end when the Daleks roll out in thier full force and unleash a mad slaughter. If the non-Dalek parts of the story hadn't been so well done it'd just be a dull story you wait for the Daleks to finally appear, but thanks to the strength of the story it allows the Daleks to be more menacing and intimidating as this slowly mounting threat unlike we've ever seen them before and just gives the story such amazing suspense.

Of course by the end of the story The Doctor has done some amazing things and saved the day from the Daleks who even seemed to instinctively recognise him, so surely this man must be the same Doctor we've always known even if in many ways completely different. It really is to Troughton's and the writers and producers credit that his Doctor is so different and yet the story really by the end convinces you he must be the same man. Had we just had Hartnell-lite it's very hard to imagine people being as interested in the show long term and it'd have made it much less likely the people making the show in later eras would look for something so different and unique from each new Doctor, which is where the shows greatest strength really lies.

The animation itself is very clearly a budget effort, but that's to be expected given the niche appeal of such a release. Given the budget nature of it, I think it's a wonderful job, it tries really hard to capture the feeling of the era and there's a great faithfulness in capturing the exact motions from the surviving clips as best they can. It always very apparent the limitations of the animation, it's at times jerky and you always have a sense of assets being moved independently, but it's not far short of other current successful budget animations like Archer and definitely strong enough to keep the story engaging and entertaining and very of era. It very much is a great effort from the animators that they could put together such a good product on what were definitely limited resources and I really hope to see more lost serials brought back to life in this way. It's so much easier and more inviting to sit down to an animation than any of the other options available for a missing story and I can now come back to one of my favourite Troughton stories without a moan and a groan about having to sit through either a dull clipshow reconstruction or an audio drama of a story not designed as one.

 

 

[Salamander]

So, here's some news which gets me excited for Series 10:

The original Mondasian Cybermen will be in the two-part Series 10 finale, along with Missy; written by Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay.  Source.

Capaldi has been saying I think for years that he wanted to appear in a story with the original 1960s Cybermen, and I'm really glad they've given him that opportunity.  It also makes me wonder if this might tie into his regeneration; Capaldi's Doctor references the First Doctor in a couple of ways, and his regeneration was in The Tenth Planet, which introduced the Cybermen in this form!

More spoilerish Cybermen details, derived from set photos:

Spoiler

"Topknots":

https://mobile.twitter.com/IndieMacUser/status/838872933355368448/video/1

Crossover:

 

...With that said, I do have a bit of a qualm about this approach.  The original design for the Cybermen was very much a product of its time, a creature born of the limitations of practical effects and budget.  I'm not sure that simply recreating them whole-cloth (as it were), with no updating or tightening up, was a good idea, because those limitations are now very much on display for all to see.  The mask needed more of the medical gauze about it; the hands needed to be more obviously attached to false arms rather than just poking out of the end of the sleeves...  (Though frankly, I also have qualms about the very concept of the Cybermen as a monster now, since people are more enthusiastic about transhumanism and considerably less disturbed by prosthesis.  I don't know if they're scary.  They might even be offensive.)  But it's just the one picture, so I shouldn't anticipate the story itself without knowing much about it.  I'm looking forward to finding out more.

[Big Panda]

So the original Cybermen really did look that crappy in-universe? lol

[ZERO_ninja]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!! THE MANIACS ARE ACTUALLY DOING IT!!!!! THE DREAM IS ALIVE!!!!!!!

 

(Personally I'd always wanted to see the original design but with a Borg like update, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT I'LL TAKE THIS!!!)

Also a bit sad it's both nuWho variants and only 1 classic. But goddamn, s10 confirmed for best series already.

[Big Panda]

Bill's gay.

Glad we finally have a longterm LGBT companion on one hand.

On the other, I wish they'd just kept it a surprise.

[ZERO_ninja]

18 hours ago, Ernest-Panda said:

On the other, I wish they'd just kept it a surprise.

Well considering it was known even before they confirmed it now I don't think there was much chance of that even with the best efforts. =P

[Salamander]

Fair warning for the first episode of the new series:

At the end of Series 10 Episode 1, there is going to be a trailer for the rest of the series.  At the end of that trailer, Steven Moffat warns us, there will be an absolutely massive spoiler - so big that, in the trailer itself, there will be a spoiler warning and a giant countdown clock ticking down to the spoiler!  Moffat has personally advised that fans might genuinely be better off closing their eyes and waiting for the properly-timed reveal when it shows up in an episode several weeks later!

Gosh.

[Patticus]

What a stupid decision. I mean, even considering the already abysmally spoileriffic state of trailers today anyway that sounds bad - a ploy to draw in more viewers, I'm sure. I for one will not be watching the trailer.