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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 15:58:55 GMT -5
Christmas 2017 Special, sneak peek: Link |
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Post by Jesse on Nov 20, 2017 16:40:14 GMT -5
New trailer for the upcoming "Shada" release looks fantastic!
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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 20, 2017 19:22:47 GMT -5
New trailer for the upcoming "Shada" release looks fantastic! That looks really great, can't wait to catch this! |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2017 12:58:05 GMT -5
New trailer for the upcoming "Shada" release looks fantastic! That looks really great, can't wait to catch this! To be honest, I think I'd prefer this if it was all animation, which does look good, but the mix of animation/existing footage for this version of Shada isn't that exciting a draw for me. |
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Post by Jesse on Dec 16, 2017 12:11:39 GMT -5
BBCAmerica will be airing their Doctor Who marathon starting on the morning of Tuesday the 19th running 24 hours a day for a full week and of course culminating in the Christmas special and regeneration.
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Post by String on Dec 22, 2017 11:25:57 GMT -5
BBCAmerica will be airing their Doctor Who marathon starting on the morning of Tuesday the 19th running 24 hours a day for a full week and of course culminating in the Christmas special and regeneration. Yeah, I've been catching spurts of this throughout the week. I caught Sally Sparrow and Madame Pompadour so I'm good now. Two days to go! |
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Post by Jesse on Dec 26, 2017 15:49:41 GMT -5
"Twice Upon a Time" I thought this was a pretty good send off for a story that didn't really feature a proper villain. The character interactions were really good and there was plenty of sentimentality. The reveal about the Testimony reminded me about something Moffat once said reguarding an idea that Davies had during his tenor as showrunner that would explain why the Doctor reuses other people's faces but they didn't go that far with it. Still I felt the glass humanoid design of the Testimony was creepy and it was also nice to see Rusty the Dalek return. I was kind of expecting the reveal about Mark Gatiss' character being related to Lethbridge-Stewart just based on the character design shown in the trailers. I think there was also a cameo by writer Toby Whithouse who played the German soldier. I was glad that they reused the footage from The Tenth Planet that featured the original actors as opposed to reenacting it. Peter Capaldi's last moments as the Doctor were pretty heart felt and the regeneration scene was pretty cool looking. I'm sad to see him go and I'll miss is him chewing the scenery in this series. I'm excited to see Jodie Whittaker's take on the character but am reserved about Chris Chibnall as showrunner given his output on DW and Torchwood was a bit all over the place. I'm hoping for more like "The Hungry Earth" & "Cold Blood" and less "Cyberwoman". |
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Post by String on Dec 26, 2017 19:11:14 GMT -5
Whew, yeah, may have to watch this a few more times to really let it digest.
But I thought this was a fantastic coda for both Capaldi and Moffatt. It's going to be hard to let them both go but the flashes of Whittaker at the end has me very excited for what's upcoming.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2017 8:56:32 GMT -5
Twice Upon Time was a lovely low-key Doctor Who Christmas Special with tons of nice touches to embellish the story. {Spoiler: Click to show}
The story itself wasn't as OTT as I expected for a regeneration story but there was still plenty of great moments for fans. (Including the return of Rusty!) The First Doctor being 'sexist' thing went on a bit too long I thought, but with no real villain it was the interactions between the two Doctors that made this story entertaining. I'm sure some could find plenty to moan about, but for me Twice Upon a Time worked as a Christmas Day TV programme and it was a fitting goodbye to Peter Capaldi and Steven Moffat.
Out with the old and in with the new... |
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Post by Jesse on Dec 27, 2017 14:22:28 GMT -5
The First Doctor being 'sexist' thing went on a bit too long I thought, I didn't quite understand that bit myself as I remember the first Doctor being a bit more "woke" than that. Maybe it was there and I just don't remember as it's been a year or so since I last watched any of his run because Verizon got rid of RetroTV which was showing most of the classic Doctor episodes. Unfortunately there now seems to be a segment of the online fandom attacking Hartnell as being a sexist bigot which I've never actually heard before and it was a pretty unfortunate thing to read. |
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Post by String on Dec 27, 2017 18:37:38 GMT -5
Unfortunately there now seems to be a segment of the online fandom attacking Hartnell as being a sexist bigot which I've never actually heard before and it was a pretty unfortunate thing to read. I've been reading a lot of fan backlash on this very point; devoted Hartnell fans who feel Moffatt unjustly highlighted this one singular attribute for which they feel they must now defend Hartnell versus those who see it as just shining a new spotlight on old behaviour. I haven't watched nearly enough Hartnell to form an honest opinion one way or the other. I thought David Bradley did a top-notch job in his portrayal and even thought those particular lines of dialogue were funny, especially in contrast with Capaldi's reactions to them. Of course, some fans saw that as the show self-congratulating itself too early, as if to say that, " Hey, we've outgrown such thinking cause look, we finally got a woman for the title role!"
The rants and arguing have expanded to include any particular sexist behaviour seen on-screen or rumored off-screen throughout the decades (good grief at some of the supposed rumors that I've been reading about Pertwee). I consider myself a long-time fan of the show but in no way do I have every bit of minutiae about it committed to memory. All I can say at the moment is that any such behaviour or attitude (whether real or perceived), I can only put down to being part of the times and societal norms of when those particular shows were created. I don't see it as some hidden great wound on the history of the show which Moffatt somehow ripped the bandage off of here before he left. One could question, based on the plot of this special, why the First Doctor was there in the first place. Add to that this highlighting of supposed sexist behaviour in the very episode where Whittaker takes over the role and I have to wonder on the timing of it all. I would hate her upcoming season and her inherent quality in the role (whatever that may become) to be overshadowed by growing fan rants and raves over sexist and/or feminist (in)tolerance. But I fear this is just the opening salvo of such. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Dec 27, 2017 18:44:40 GMT -5
The First Doctor being 'sexist' thing went on a bit too long I thought, I didn't quite understand that bit myself as I remember the first Doctor being a bit more "woke" than that. Maybe it was there and I just don't remember as it's been a year or so since I last watched any of his run because Verizon got rid of RetroTV which was showing most of the classic Doctor episodes. Unfortunately there now seems to be a segment of the online fandom attacking Hartnell as being a sexist bigot which I've never actually heard before and it was a pretty unfortunate thing to read. Hartnell's Doctor was definitely not sexist but I guess if you want to make your version of the character look better, you kind of have to piss all over the original. Although it's unlikely that I'll ever end up watching this, out of curiosity, did Bradley sleep walk through his performance here as he did in An Adventure in Time and Space? It bothers me that William Hartnell played The Doctor as such a wonderfully magical eccentric being with all sorts of little nuanced touches but if you've only heard of him through what Bradley has done, he was a bland, tired, old man. How do you manage to ruin something like: with something like this: |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 27, 2017 20:16:45 GMT -5
I thought that was a really fun episode, and as someone who counts Hartnell as his third favorite Doctor I wasn't bothered by the sexist jokes. Was sexism rampant during his run? Not really, but there are several elements that when you see them they definitely feel like an element of their times and there's no harm in joking about that.
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Post by String on Feb 10, 2018 12:54:26 GMT -5
I was reading an interview with Moffatt in DWM where he makes an interesting point about the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker.
Recently, DWM has been running reader/fan polls of their favorite episodes, ranking them all from best to worst. Colin Baker's first appearance episode, The Twin Dilemma, came in dead last. That seemed to add fuel to the argument that the Sixth Doctor wasn't all that good or popular.
But Moffatt makes an interesting discovery when he recently re-watched some Baker episodes. He believes that, while fans are generally right in thinking Baker's multi-colored costume is awful, the costume is really wrong for the type of character Baker is playing. The garishness and wrongness of the costume has all but superseded any true value of Baker's overall performance, it's all anyone remembers or sees.
So Moffatt suggested the next time you watch a Baker episode, turn the color off as he did. Even turn up the contrast some. That way, the costume becomes merely another eccentric Who costume and you can really see the depth of Baker's performance, which Moffatt simply loved.
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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 10, 2018 23:38:46 GMT -5
Baker had hoped for a darker outfit but of course, that isn't what he got. I believe he's been depicted in a blue outfit though I'm not sure for what media - Baker has done quite a bit of Doctor Who audio and there are novels, but I can't imagine what point a change of garb in those formats would matter. I found this on deviantart and it serves as a nice comparison between what Baker got, what he might have wanted (though he said when Eccleston got the part, his look was close to what he had in mind), and what his Doctor sometimes wears today.  From a storytelling perspective, the Sixth Doctor's outfit is too conspicuous to make sense, but it actually doesn't bother me that much. Colin Baker has remarked that one plus of being in that outfit meant not having to see himself from the outside. Another, is that its colorful nature has made his dolls a popular choice for little kids just getting into the character. As for Colin Baker and his performance overall, I enjoy it a lot. I think any actor playing the Doctor has to have a certain enchanting, magical personality which comes naturally. Tom Baker largely played himself; I suspect Hartnell did as well since he seemed so taken with a character he described as a cross between "Father Christmas and the Wizard of Oz"; and Jon Pertwee seemed to have a passion for excitement which carried over nicely to his Doctor (actually, it's only been in fairly recent years that the public learned of the scope of what he did for the world during WWII when he reported directly to Churchill). It likely helps that to this day, I don't think I've ever seen A Twin Dilemma where he's playing a psychotic madman in full, but I have seen Attack of the Cybermen where you can tell that Baker was either a very talented actor or a guy who just happened to share a lot of traits with the character he was playing. I don't think any moment in the show's history captures The Doctor as a mischievous button pusher better than that scene with the fake police officer. For the rest of his term, I feel that there are two performances he was giving - the one the script called for him to give (which I could do without) and the one where he just played himself (which I passionately wish we had more of). Baker also seems like a really nice guy with a quick wit in real life so I suspect that's why his Doctor is so captivating when he's clearly not supposed to be. |
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