The Doctor Who Spoilers and Speculation Thread V3 - "Oh, brilliant." - Film, Television and Music

See, if I were Chibnall, I don't think I'd want to stay on when there's so much criticism levied towards me, he must be having a really horrible time right now tbh. I can't imagine what it must be like to work on a TV show for a year+ and then everyone goes on to condemn it as boring and the most disappointing series of the revival. I think that's probably a factor in him wanting to stay. Yeah, basically I just think the show's position is a little more tenuous now we're going into the second gap year only 20 months after the last one ended.

Honest to god I think a big reason I just sort of stopped caring with S11 (of the four episodes I've watched so far) is because it just feels a bit... I dunno, it feels like your average series, there's not really any charm or Doctor Whoey ness about it. I didn't expect to see all the bollocks of the past series, but for something with such a long-lived lore I was expecting to feel like it was a continued, but refreshed, series borne out of the old one but with a whole new face. Remember how Moffat established his own identity right in Eleventh Hour with Smith walking through the globe with all the other doctors' faces in? Brilliant moment. Chinball just doesn't really feel like he's done that, it's.. neyuh.. I don't know. Some aspect of it doesn't feel like it's all that special anymore. It just feels sort of generic?

If you didn't like s11, what were some things you did like about it? Me personally: - No episodes set in London at all - Earthbound episodes are spread across the globe instead of all being in the UK, and the locations they used for the other countries really lend it an air of authenticity and realism that RTD and Moffat never achieved, even in s6 when they actually shot in America it all felt exaggerated and stereotypical. The foreign countries of s11 feel real. I was particularly impressed with Montgomery, when you consider they filmed it in South Africa they did a 10/10 job of recreating it without making it silly like RTD and Moffat would have done. - Rosa (minus the weird out of place pop song at the end), particularly the way we actually got a realistic and gritty depiction of racism (and to a smaller degree, sexism) in Doctor Who. - Jodie. I love 13 in It Takes You Away. That's how she should be written in every episode. There NEED to be more dark, 'Doctory' moments like the 'map' in s12. - I genuinely think It Takes You Away is my favourite New-Who episode, despite the fact that the general s11 problems sort of leak through Hime's frankly incredible story. Maybe it's because I lost my mother in August and the story sort of resonated with me and I'm blinded by that, but fuck me it was good Doctor Who. - Graham - 'Doc', this simple little quirk of Graham's does so much for his character, I think. And it was Bradley Walsh's idea, legend. - The little moments were the Doctor forgets she's a woman now. The best possible way to deal with the gender change without it becoming overbearing and without ignoring it totally. - Probably my favourite TARDIS exterior, I love the black - The cinematography + cgi - not having Murray Gold's 13th Doctor theme played every 30 seconds There was a fair bit to like about this series, shame about everything else. Oh and because I haven't mentioned this yet or reaaaally seen anyone else mention it: the way they're shooting the inside of the TARDIS most of the time is absolutely shite. I'm not sure if the design means filming in there is difficult or what, but I really don't like the new TARDIS and even feel like we've barely seen it, even though we've had 9 episodes with it. I bet it looks great but we haven't even had a proper shot of the Doctor using the console once.

Here's a small thing I love: I was re-watching The Ghost Monument and for some reason when the Doctor said "I really need you right now" to the TARDIS I just started crying, and I'm not even completely sure why. I think it's because it just made me realise how much Doctor Who means to me because it's always been there for me when I'm having a hard time, just as I'm sure it's been there for a lot of people. The line that my brain always goes back to is in the 50th when the Moment says "that sound brings hope wherever it goes" and it's just.. very true. That big blue box always gives me hope in my worst moments, personally, even if it's an episode that I didn't think is the best. So I guess the thing I love is that even though I have criticisms towards the new series.. it's still Doctor Who and I still love it. And not to get personal but the honestly.. I did really need it right now, and it was there. And continues to be there. And it's great. Sorry to get mushy!

The thing that comes to mind with me with Season 11 is 'missed potential'. A huge overhaul in visuals and some companion character development was not matched in stories or villains.

Again, only four, five eps in, but Bradley Walsh is my favourite aspect of the new series. The man isn't the world's greatest actor but he has such wonderful charisma that he's a joy to watch.

You know, excuse the double posting but I feel like the writers of this series really don't get how to sell a sci-fi setting. A lot of these bloody episodes have been a hell of a lot of setup and then a shitty wanked-out payoff to quickly wrap up and finish off the huge amount of spiel they rolled out over the first 30 minutes. It's Doctor bloody Who. You can just go "oh yeah it's a hyperdrive" and we'll assume that it's a hyperdrive. This hospitalship episode goes out of the way to explain almost every oblique reference that the Doctor or the guest stars mention and I'm just sat here like "This is 2018. Sci-fi is in the relative mainstream, I'm gonna gather a sonic mine is some kind of big bloody 'ow' device, I don't need to be told how it affects someone's innards." Even as a kid I didn't need to be told that the Daleks were Bad Shit and the organic effects of their laser death ray when I first watched Dalek. I just sort of instantly gathered that because it goes BWEEOW and flashes up skeletons when it hits someone it must be some kind of scary alien laser. But here they're going out of their way to overdetail this shit. Reminds me of how Warhammer is written nowadays. Rick Wright said that music is the space between the notes and I still feel like that applies to sci-fi.

The best phrase I've seen used to describe s11 is "an imitation of drama" and it's so accurate.

I might just be getting old but this feels... too fast? For contrast I've been rewatching Dark Angel lately - a really hit and miss series - and that's meant to be a Fly And Dope Down With The Kids series and yet the dialogue is so much slower paced? S11 feels like Gilmore Girls with all the pauses for breath taken out. People say shit, plot-crucial shit, and it flies past in an instant. It's too quick. I don't want to take on any info, I just hear noise and see people talking and it's all too fast.

I really liked ep1 of the season and thought it was the start of a season of great adventure, tracking down the tardis, then taking on Tim Shaw and the Stenza while developing the various character arcs that had been seeded. But that fizzled out so fast and only a handful of episodes meaningfully contributed to the character arcs and the arc story

Found this in a local charity shop: https://i.redd.it/926bgk5urg421.png Surprisingly, they were selling it at its original price (95p). Given that it's the one immediately following the 20th anniversary special, I thought it was too good to pass up as a neat piece of DW history.

The most damning thing I can say about Series 11 is that I haven't missed it this week at all.

Same... I really love Jodie as the Doctor but I feel like I'm still waiting for her first series. It didn't feel much like Doctor Who to me

fingers crossed the year long break gives them enough time to finally realise we need jack back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD_-at5fsw0

I'd rather see Torchwood revived tbh. I have no idea how they will manage to unfuck what happened in season 4 though.

If you're a big Doctor Who fan I can't recommend Big Finish enough. They have some of the best stories ever. The Torchwood series they're doing is really good and a worthy successor to the show, imo.

https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1077539963481276416 Merry christmas everyone!

So it's definitely cybermen

Well that's a reveal and a half. Come on fam, pull your fingers out.

Nah man, didn't you hear it? It's Sontarans

You joke but I want them back.

When Capaldi eventually does Big Finish do you think we can get a 12 Doctor + Frobisher (the penguin not the Children of Earth man) set? Fit it inbetween Hell Bent and Husbands of River Song or something. I'd love it. Why isn't there more Frobisher in Big Finish in the first place? He's so good in The Holy Terror.

Like we'll ever get a Sontaran back as an actual threat. Despite liking Strax, he's pretty much made Sontarans as a whole a complete and total joke.

So now that S11 has been over for a few weeks and Resolution comes out next week, what did you lot think of S11? For me, it's honestly one of my favourites, I loved pretty much the entire season. Kinda feel like I'm the only one reading online tho.

I enjoyed Rosa and The Witchfinders (Alan Cumming's performance as King James was glorious). The rest of the season felt underwhelming, IMO.

I'm a lot like you, I enjoyed the series a lot. I thought Jodie was wonderful and I liked the mix of episodes.

I thought this season was fairly mediocre. It Takes You Away, Demons of Punjab, and Rosa were the highlights, while Witchfinders, Tsuranga, and Arachnids were all lowlights imo. The rest would work fine individually as totally acceptable filler in any other season, but having so much of it this season soured me. Though, I will say, unlike others on reddit who've really hated this season for not having any real arc, I'm glad it didn't. Each episode being it's own standalone procedural adventure is what kept me watching weekly instead of waiting until the end to binge, and if the whole season was a more traditional/serialized arc, I'd probably not have cared much this season based off the first few episodes.

Rosa and Demons would be 100x better if they removed the sci-fi elements and made them pure historicals. Have the balls to do it, Chibnall. They're both solid episodes, though. Apart from the pop song at the end of Rosa, take that out and have a nice orchestral track and bob's your uncle. It Takes You Away, Kerblam! and The Witchfinders are all really good. The Witchfinders was the schlocky Gatiss-like fun I thought we were gonna miss this series, Kerblam! was just a solid episode all round and It Takes You Away is head and shoulders above every other episode in the series (though I wish it was a two parter, it felt like one). The rest range from meh to so boring they're nigh-unwatchable.

I don't know if I'd classify character development as being a story arc, especially when you could go from the first episode to the final and not actually miss anything in that development.

a thing I would like to happen: for the doctor to mention in passing about having an off screen adventure with sarah jane some time