Review Series 11 (2018)

Filming in South Wales (Monmouth) last week....

I remember some of the rumours from earlier series of Nu-Who! Like Paul McGann was going to turn up during the End of Time during the Time War segments! Also that Sylvester and McGann and maybe Ecclestone were going to turn up during The Stolen Earth and help Tennant defeat Davros!!! The ones I read about The Master returning during the third series and being played by John Simm were spot on though!
JB

Yeah, the rumours have always been with us. I am still waiting for the Ice Warriors to turn up whenever I put TERMINUS in the dvd player!

I guess the most repeated one recently has been, whenever a mysterious female character has a scene or scenes, then it might be either The Rani, Romana or Susan!

I never heard the rumour about the Ice Warriors in Terminus funnily enough, but I suspected that they would turn up in it! I don't know why, it just seemed the ideal place for them to be considering we were told that in each story of the twentieth series there would be an element from the Doctor's past! I was pretty depressed when they didn't turn up as well I can tell you! Annoyingly that turned out to be Omega (from series ten) The Mara (from series nineteen) The Black Guardian in three stories (from series sixteen) The White Guardian (also from series sixteen) and The Master ( from series eight, nine, ten, fourteen, eighteen and nineteen) I always felt that it was an ideal opportunity to bring back The Ice Warriors but nope! And the fact that the final story featuring the Daleks was postponed doesn't let JNT off the hook!
JB

I think what happened was that after the season had been planned out, Ian Levine said to John: "Do you realise that there are returning elements in every story?"

John hadn't, but was savvy enough to instantly publicise the fact, as if it had been planned that way all along for the 20th anniversary.

Well maybe, but I would have thought that a publicity hungry producer of JNTs ilk would have promoted the old baddies for the twentieth series rather than the twenty first, which seemed to be a better rounded bunch of stories for me anyway!
JB

Such a shame about WARRIORS OF THE DEEP as the season opener. A good story, I thought and a good script, just ruined by a rushed production and that damn lighting.

The Myrka and the loose flap at the back of one of the Silurians took away the greatness this one could have had! Strange isn't it that only Barry Letts in the entire history of Doctor Who could produce a credible Silurian story or two!
JB

From PLANET MONDAS....

Also rumours about how difficult and precious Whittaker is on set. Predominantly on GB.

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I've read that the "Jodie is a jerkass" rumor doesn't have much traction on GB from members in the thick of it, and other sources have said she's great to work with.

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While I can't shake the notion that Jodie was cast for political reasons, but realise that others welcome the gender change, I have to say that all of the interviews and on-set photos of Jodie seem at odds with this idea of her being a person that is difficult, precious and a jackass on the set. I get the total opposite impression. She looks like a lot of fun and handles interviews and crowds very lightly, with a pleasant, bubbly demeanour. I can't imagine her then saying: "I'm not coming out of the Tardis until that person is removed from the set!", or suddenly going all Christian Bale at a lighting technician!

So, while I don't think she's the right fit for the Doctor, I have to say that this sounds like mean-spirited rumour-mongering by people wanting her to fail, which, if true, is hardly very fair to her.

Doctor Omega said:

I have to say that this sounds like mean-spirited rumour-mongering by people wanting her to fail, which, if true, is hardly very fair to her.

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Exactly. If you have issues with a female Doctor, or her as an actor, that's your deal. But don't make up stories just to cause problems. We're not in elementary school.

There’s a hidden secret in this Jodie Whittaker Doctor Who picture

Chris Chibnall hints that there’s more to the latest image of the Thirteenth Doctor than meets the eye






When Doctor Who’s new logo was released last month, it came accompanied with a dramatic picture of Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, framed in silhouette as she looked over a grassy plain.


However, it now seems there is more to this picture than meets the eye, with Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall suggesting there was quite an interesting story behind it.


“Remind me to tell you the story of the silhouette photo of the Doctor that you’ll find elsewhere in this issue,” Chibnall wrote in Production Notes, his irregular column in the monthly Doctor Who Magazine.

“There’s a nice fact behind that. One for later in the year. Promise.”

Could this “nice fact” relate to something that happens in the series, maybe even suggesting a hint of a future storyline? Perhaps some real-life or pop cultural inspiration for Whittaker’s pose? Or is it just an intriguing anecdote from the shoot itself?

Sadly, it seems we won’t know for a while, with secrecy paramount for the new series, as Chibnall’s fellow executive producer Matt Strevens explains in a separate interview for the magazine.

“In a way, I think our job is to protect the audience and the fans,” he said.

“I genuinely believe that audiences want to come to the show and be surprised – I don’t think they want all the secrets out there. We’re trying to retain the mystery and keep the magic of discovery intact for them.”


Oh well – at least we still have the logo to enjoy, a topic Chibnall waxed lyrical on in his column.

“Don’t say we never reveal anything,” he joked. “Look at it, fizzing and glowing with energy and warmth – with a Tardis bursting through the central line in the animated version.

“Clever people came up with that. I mostly grinned and enthused and encouraged.”

Chibnall added that the future of the BBC sci-fi series was in very good hands when it came to his new team.

“All these brilliant people, working on all these different components of our favourite show right now,” he said.


“Not just the production, but the whole way it’ll roll out, the support structures, the holistic world of Doctor Who.”

His job is to protect the fans? That's a good one!!! He's just driven off a good third of the series' long term fans already!!! So just who is he referring to?
JB

Admitted Moffat had already forced a whole herd of us to give up on the show with his rubbish writing and changing the canon of the series without a qualm!
JB

Doctor Omega said:

Chibnall waxed lyrical

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If there is one element of the modern show that has grated on me more and more as time has gone on, it is the incumbent showrunner "waxing lyrical" (i.e. blowing own trumpet/boasting) and hinting and teasing about "wait until you see this scene or that moment. And telling us how people cried at reading a certain upcoming script. (I usually cry after seeing many episodes, but I don't think this is what these self-aggrandising showrunners meant.)

I have been waiting for Chibnall to start his boasting and this may well, indeed, be the beginning of that tiresome road.

Doctor Omega said:

“Clever people came up with that. I mostly grinned and enthused and encouraged.”

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But he is still trying to show what good taste he has in choosing and "encouraging" it's creation. Success has many father's.

Doctor Omega said:

“All these brilliant people, working on all these different components of our favourite show right now,”

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Including himself, of course.

Doctor Omega said:

our favourite show

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I wish it were still mine, but I just can't make out a lot of the dialogue nowadays as it is often drowned out by the sound of David Whittaker and Robert Holmes spinning in their graves.

You're so right, Doc! Moffat particularly has boasted of how great his writing is and individual scenes that have left people crying over! Another thing that has always annoyed me with Moffat's tenure is how actors like Matt Smith and others have said how great Moffat's script for this episode or that is and I feel like eating my own elbow afterwards! Like I've said before, Terrance Dicks has said how he rates Moffat as a writer but also that he does not really like it either! Now we know Uncle Terrance was not the world's greatest writer, especially with his repeating phrases and sentences in his novelizations but I much prefer his actual stories to anything by Moffat and his cronies!
JB

johnnybear said:

Uncle Terrance was not the world's greatest writer

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I think that Terrance was a master-craftsman, hence his ability to write THE FIVE DOCTORS, pulling together all those random elements in a cohesive script, then writing Tom out when it was finished - while Robert Holmes gave up on it, being the kind of writer who wanted to do his own inspired thing. Both great writers, but Terrance could "build a script" to order, under enormous pressure.

As far as the modern era goes, the scripts remind me of that scene in FALLING DOWN when Michael Douglas goes into a burger place and points out that what is advertised looks really good quality, but what we get is limp, sad and pathetic - and nothing like the poster said!

I'm certainly not knocking Uncle Terrance my dear Doctor O! He was behind some of the best years of Who and I loved his Target novels that no one else wanted to write!
JB

Oh, I know you weren't knocking him Johnny, and I agree, he had his moments of greatness. I thought he got a bit complacent with the Target books, ending pretty much with "he said", "she said" for a while, until other authors started moving in - and he upped his game again.

He wrote my favourite story of all time: THE HORROR OF FANG ROCK and not once did he or the rushed and under-budgeted team boast in advance about the story or script of any story that season!

Unlike now, where we are told that the forthcoming glossy epic that has had time spent on it is going to be a classic that will break our heart.

And it never is.

Nothing during the Capaldi reign or Matt Smith's has really grabbed my attention (The Doctor's Wife not included and that was only because it reminded me of Brain of Morbius)
JB

BBC South Today - Dr Who comes to Gosport