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Best Producer/Showrunner?
This poll is closed.
Verity Lambert 49 7.04%
John Wiles 1 0.14%
Innes Lloyd 1 0.14%
Peter Bryant 3 0.43%
Derrick Sherwin 3 0.43%
Barry Letts 12 1.72%
Phillip Hinchcliffe 62 8.91%
Graham Williams 3 0.43%
John Nathan-Turner 15 2.16%
Philip Segal 3 0.43%
Russel T Davies 106 15.23%
Steven Moffat 114 16.38%
Son Goku 324 46.55%
Total: 696 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
  • Locked thread
Zaroff
Nov 10, 2009

Nothing in the world can stop me now!

bobkatt013 posted:

Then what is Three Doctors? Chopped liver?

That's why I specified being broadcast around the anniversary.

Can't forget The Three Doctors - as far as I'm concerned it's the best of the multi-doctor stories!

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MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!
It was made for the tenth anniversary series, so you're being a bit nitpicky

Yvonmukluk
Oct 10, 2012

Everything is Sinister


CobiWann posted:

Yes. Yes, it did!

Would you believe I've never seen it?

It's actually pretty good, every who fan should watch/listen to it at least once.

Too bad I can't seem to get the BBC website to play it anymore. And the only option for downloading the audio (legimately from the BBC website mind, it's not :files:) is freaking realplayer. who the hell uses that?

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Yvonmukluk posted:

It's actually pretty good, every who fan should watch/listen to it at least once.

Too bad I can't seem to get the BBC website to play it anymore. And the only option for downloading the audio (legimately from the BBC website mind, it's not :files:) is freaking realplayer. who the hell uses that?

Back in 2003? Everyone, unfortunately.

vegetables
Mar 10, 2012

Yvonmukluk posted:

It's actually pretty good, every who fan should watch/listen to it at least once.

Richard E Grant is dreadful in it, though, and steals the wooden spoon for "worst Doctor ever" from the previous holder Richard E Grant.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

Jerusalem posted:

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the show!

And the 50th anniversary of the Daleks!

(A portion of the proceeds from this post has been paid to the estate of Terry Nation)

Astroman
Apr 8, 2001


Davros1 posted:

Heads up, In "Emperor", Debbie does all the main narration, since it's her story, so it's her playing Troughton, not Frazier.

And in "Cobwebs", while it's only been a few days for the Doctor and crew since Nyssa left the TARDIS in "Terminus", it's been decades for her since she's last seen them.

Ah, that's weaksauce then. I might skip that one. Kinda lame choice on BF's part not to let Frazier do his thing when he's right there.

And I knew about that in Cobwebs, I'm just not sure why from a narrative perspective then needed to make her 50 years older. It was just
;-*: "Wow, Nyssa, you got old!"
:downs:: "Yeah, I know!"
and it didn't really affect the plot at all.

But it was a really, really good audio. BF really does get better as it goes along.

MattD1zzl3
Oct 26, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 4 years!

Jerusalem posted:

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the show!

It would be a shame to not recognize a reboot making a 10 year run because we wanted it to be an unbroken continuation of the original so badly. I don't like old who or audios anything like as much as the new show, and i think it deserves its own respect independent of the old stuff :colbert:

I've noticed a slowly building "Dont mention the 10th anniversary, it takes away from the old show-new show continuity" frame of thought, and i have to say i don't agree with it. (I'll take a "10th anniversary special" with mcgann and capaldi happily)

Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

Astroman posted:

Ah, that's weaksauce then. I might skip that one. Kinda lame choice on BF's part not to let Frazier do his thing when he's right there.

And I knew about that in Cobwebs, I'm just not sure why from a narrative perspective then needed to make her 50 years older. It was just
;-*: "Wow, Nyssa, you got old!"
:downs:: "Yeah, I know!"
and it didn't really affect the plot at all.

But it was a really, really good audio. BF really does get better as it goes along.

It was more of a plot continuity thing than anything else, apparently it would have felt awkward trying to jam in more stories between Mawdryn Undead and Terminus. I think they also wanted to use post-Enlightenment Turlough instead of having to keep a plotline from thirty years ago going. Also it's not like Nyssa ignoring major parts of her backstory for most of the stories with her in them is anything new.

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

MattD1zzl3 posted:

It would be a shame to not recognize a reboot making a 10 year run because we wanted it to be an unbroken continuation of the original so badly. I don't like old who or audios anything like as much as the new show, and i think it deserves its own respect independent of the old stuff :colbert:

I've noticed a slowly building "Dont mention the 10th anniversary, it takes away from the old show-new show continuity" frame of thought, and i have to say i don't agree with it. (I'll take a "10th anniversary special" with mcgann and capaldi happily)

This is actually sort of a good point, has anything ever been revived as well as Doctor Who? Battlestar Galactica, maybe? I would have said Star Trek before Into Darkness mucked that one up.

Keeping a revival of an old show going for ten years, and being pretty good for all of them, is honestly probably more impressive to me than the franchise as a whole making it to fifty.

Cleretic fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Mar 12, 2014

bobkatt013
Oct 8, 2006

You’re telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

MattD1zzl3 posted:

It would be a shame to not recognize a reboot making a 10 year run because we wanted it to be an unbroken continuation of the original so badly. I don't like old who or audios anything like as much as the new show, and i think it deserves its own respect independent of the old stuff :colbert:

I've noticed a slowly building "Dont mention the 10th anniversary, it takes away from the old show-new show continuity" frame of thought, and i have to say i don't agree with it. (I'll take a "10th anniversary special" with mcgann and capaldi happily)

But the 50th was already that. The stars were from the new series, and the only old Doctor that appeared in new footage was Tom Baker.

Sydney Bottocks
Oct 15, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 31 days!

MattD1zzl3 posted:

It would be a shame to not recognize a reboot making a 10 year run because we wanted it to be an unbroken continuation of the original so badly. I don't like old who or audios anything like as much as the new show, and i think it deserves its own respect independent of the old stuff :colbert:

I've noticed a slowly building "Dont mention the 10th anniversary, it takes away from the old show-new show continuity" frame of thought, and i have to say i don't agree with it. (I'll take a "10th anniversary special" with mcgann and capaldi happily)

I personally hope that the 10th anniversary is celebrated by them holding a stage production that's only available for viewing if you go and see it in the theater. :v:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

The Idiot's Lantern is an admirable but failed effort by Mark Gatiss. Another easily forgotten episode from season 2 of the revival, the episode feels like an attempt to mimic the period piece spookiness of Moffat's season 1 2-parter. While it has a strong start, it quickly falls apart, and offers an entirely unsatisfying conclusion to the main story and a wishy-washy failure to commit one way or the other on the subplot involving the "abusive" patriarch of the family. However, it also features perhaps THE best example of Rose coming into her own as a capable and proactive character. Too often the show has relied on the Doctor TELLING us that Rose is wonderful, while her own heroic actions are generally in response to danger/a threat either to herself, to others, or more usually towards the Doctor. However however, it also abandons this promising glimpse at Rose's potential about halfway through and reduces her almost literally to a prop, something to be rescued by the Doctor, incapable of doing anything but stand around and wait to be saved.

The creepiness factor is handled well early in the story - a local electronics store owner in the early 1950s is spoken to by one of the expensive newfangled televisions he owns, which with terrifying politeness (so British in her Received Pronunciation) proceeds to drag his face away from his body and into his television. Strange things start to happen to members of people's families, mysterious men appear and bundle these victims away and seemingly disappear into thin air. When the victims are finally revealed, they're creepily blank, lacking faces and apparently with barely any signs of brain activity. It's all very good set-up to sell the horror of "The Wire", an alien creature punished by its own kind by being turned into a living transmission (shades of Whispers of Terror), whose pleasant, reassuring maternal appearance/voice does a great job of contrasting with her actions. Unfortunately, these horror elements disappear at about the halfway point and never return, and The Wire's constant refrain of,"HUNGRY! HUNGRY!" comes across as more giggle-worthy than terrifying. Not every "monster" needs an oft-repeated catchphrase (as the Cybermen's "Delete!" shows all too clearly) and The Wire is no exception. Where Moffat has mostly been able to get away with the creepiness of repeated phrasing for his creatures, Gatiss' attempt robs his creation of a lot of her menace, she (it?) is far scarier when politely smiling and noting,"Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin" before dragging its victims faces from its bodies. It becomes almost farcical in the end as The Wire sits in its little portable TV screaming,"HUNGRY! HUNGRY! HUNNNNNNN-GRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" while the Doctor clambers about on the transmission tower and electricity leaps about all over the place.

Character reactions play a large part too, Magpie's supposed self-loathing and building horror doesn't really come across, and the Doctor going,"NOW it's personal!" because Rose is a victim is actually kind of annoying, since he's just literally seen a sweet ol' grandma turned faceless and get kidnapped but NOW it's personal? There's also little sense of the so-called atmosphere of fear that the people of the street are living in. Even though people are being turned faceless and getting kidnapped, you still have people going on about their every day lives, including going to work, watching television or organizing parties - there is no sense that anybody is really much more than slightly put out by the strange goings-on. Even when The Wire transmits itself and begins attacking all the gathered viewers of the Coronation there is no real sense of the scale of the threat. You get the feeling this is only really affecting a very small section of the viewers, and even they don't seem particularly all that bothered by everything, when it all ends they just kind of shrug it off. While it was a cool idea to set the story at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (her coronation was one of the first massive televised media events) the story can't have its cake and eat it too. Even if the Coronation was taking place I can't see people getting their faces removed only getting a couple of police detectives assigned to the case, and The Wire's complete lack of impact was necessary to keep history "intact". Making everybody seemingly unaware of almost having their faces removed doesn't fit in at all with what we saw in the story before that point (the Doctor, the detective and Tommy seem to have no trouble remembering their attack) and what about all the people restored at the end of the episode? Or their families? Do they just go on about their business and act like the night Grandma's face disappeared never happened? There's also the issue of the lack of casualties, apparently despite being unable to eat or even breathe these victims were able to survive just fine for days on end with no ill-consequences. It is always madness to push too far down the,"Real consequences" hole when dealing with a show like Doctor Who, but they don't even throw in a hand-wavey bit of techno-babble to explain how this is all possible. In the end, it's surface over substance - the story required a shocking visual of a faceless person so that is what we got, even if it makes no sense whatsoever.

For half the story, Rose proves herself a more than worthy investigator in her own right. The Doctor gets them into the Connolly household and has a neat bit where he catches the "traditional" Mr. Connolly in the trap of having to do "women's work" himself or risk badmouthing the Queen ("Are you suggesting the Queen does the housework?"), but it is Rose who really hammers home the point and takes the wind out of Connolly's sails. While the Doctor's lines are a fun bit of baiting, Rose hits him with patriotic facts that make him look the fool (to be fair, he's a pretty good example of a straw man), noting the difference between the Union Jack and the Union Flag, and pointing out that he has placed them upside down. When the Doctor chases the kidnappers, Rose for once doesn't blindly follow the Doctor but stays behind to investigate her own lead, stamping out a little independent ground for herself. She checks out the television, notes that they're being sold ridiculously cheaply for the time period and tracks them back to where they're being sold. She questions Magpie, breaks him down, encounters The Wire and all in all demonstrates a rarely seen ability to be more than just the Doctor's hanger-on. So it is quite disappointing that after being turned into another victim of The Wire she is reduced once again to the damsel in distress, waiting for the Doctor to come and save her. She's little more than a prop, a spark to fire up the Doctor (are the fate of multiple other innocents not enough?) and then rejoin him once he has fixed everything.

To be fair, once the major threat is over, it is Rose who convinces Tommy not to give up on his father. That's an element I like, because while Mr. Connolly is a straw man, there is an admirable attempt to remind us all that a divorce (or separation) doesn't have to end the relationship between a parent and a child. That just because you may not LIKE your blood relative doesn't mean you can't still love them. It's just unfortunate that the Connollys are so thinly sketched out, there is little depth to the characters and Gatiss doesn't appear to want to commit one way or another to their characterization. That might be more realistic, but it makes it hard to get a read on the characters - the father is a respected former soldier and a pillar of the community, but he's also an abusive and domineering figure.... but is that so strange from a 1950s British middle-class setting? He's never once physically abusive but doesn't come across as a particularly effective emotional/mental abuser, the way his wife and son cringe from him suggests a violent temper but all he ever does is bluster about impotently. At the end of the story, his wife kicks him out and we learn the house belonged to the Grandmother all along, but what should come across as a triumphant moment for Mrs Connolly kind of falls flat, not helped by her earlier defiance being immediately followed by her cheerfully settling down to watch the Coronation WHILE HER FACELESS MOTHER IS IN THE HANDS OF UNKNOWN KIDNAPPERS! :supaburn:

The resolution of the main threat is very unsatisfying, consisting mostly of the Doctor throwing technobabble at The Wire until it is defeated. There's even a little joke about this in the story itself, as the Doctor blathers on about the incredibly complicated thing he did before revealing what it all boils down to was directing The Wire's transmission into a betamax videotape. The ending is perfectly plausible (as much as Doctor Who ever can be) but it feels empty, and really renders The Wire as little more than a joke, and hardly the terrifying and spooky presence it could have been. The Doctor also makes a joke about recording over the videotape to prevent The Wire escaping which is pretty muchEXACTLY murder. The Man Who Never Would casually declares he is going to execute The Wire, and the response is a light-hearted joke from Rose. This does fit in more with what I have argued before was the (probably accidental) storyline of the Doctor considering himself THE moral authority in the Universe, but it is still pretty surprising to hear him just throw out,"I'll just kill this sentient being" like it wasn't nothing but a thing.

The Idiot's Lantern could have been so much more than it was. Half-formed characters, a depressingly abandoned development of Rose as an independent figure, a spooky story turning into a farce, a "monster" that started strong and ended terribly. If he could have just stuck the landing, this could have been a really drat good story, but Gatiss' failure to committ one way or the other costs him. He'll get that balance right much later with the superb The Crimson Horror (helped enormously by Dame Diana Rigg hamming it up gloriously), but for now this was just another example of an okay but not particularly memorable Mark Gatiss episode of Doctor Who.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Mar 12, 2014

MattD1zzl3
Oct 26, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 4 years!
^^^ My first exposure to "Doctor who" ever, and an all-time favorite episode that made me an instant fan. :(


edit: I'll give it a re-watch and report back, Jerusalem. Off the top of my head i enjoyed the family featured in the episode, the time and place as a setting (postwar england as a setting is underused before the pop/rock era begins, as rose/doctor sort of comment on as they burst out of the tardis in flashy clothes on a scooter). A new and exciting technology destroying people lends itself to a real sense of danger, as in "Wow, in the 50's i would have been all about watching television, and i would have been one of those faceless monsters, i sure hope the doctor saves me". This is capped off by the drama between the husband and wife in the episode, culminating in a woman in the 50s finding her confidence and power and not taking any poo poo from her husband.


I rarely remember or even care what the companions, and to a lesser extent the doctor does in an episode, the setting and drama of "The idiots lantern" are top notch, and the setting and drama of "Doctor who" has always been first and foremost in my reasons for watching.

MattD1zzl3 fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Mar 12, 2014

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

For the first half of the episode I think it is really solid and bordering on real quality, but I feel like everything after Rose is "defaced" lets down what came before. There is some redemption in the ending when she encourages Tommy not to give up on his father, but I feel like Gatiss put his best stuff into the set-up and then kind of whiffed the resolution. I don't think he half-assed it, I don't think Gatiss would ever half-rear end anything to do with Doctor Who, but he just couldn't wrap up what he started satisfactorily.

Did the latter half fit in well for you? I'm always interested in hearing a different take on an episode I didn't particularly think highly of, what worked for you and made it into one of your all-time favorites?

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!
I'd kind of like to see them try the Idiot's Lantern again, because it's a good idea, just let down by their inability to do it justice. I suppose the Crimson Horror was that in many ways, and indeed it was better. I'd also say there were shades of it in The Bells of Saint John too; the Great Intelligence's depiction in that episode felt like a similar base idea, done completely differently, and since I'd actually forgotten a lot about his depiction in The Snowmen I actually thought it was The Wire.

As someone who isn't British, though, I'd say that the 'public response' to the whole thing actually did work for me. It felt like a very British way to respond to the problem, especially for the time period - the Cold War was heating up, and while I wasn't alive for that period of time the prevailing 'feel' of the time I get through media and such was sort of 'EVERYTHING IS FINE, CARRY ON'. Just pretend the problem doesn't exist, here's people on the job fixing it, go about your lives. It may not be accurate, but it fits well enough into the overall image of the period in the media that I could buy into it.

Fun fact remembered from the commentaries: The grandma's actress holds the record for the longest gap between appearances on Who, having previously been in... I want to say a Troughton episode.

EDIT: Yep, Troughton. She was Megan Jones in Fury from the Deep.

Cleretic fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 12, 2014

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Sydney Bottocks posted:

I personally hope that the 10th anniversary is celebrated by them holding a stage production that's only available for viewing if you go and see it in the theater. :v:

:lol:

Seriously though, it's not like the 50th didn't focus intensely on celebrating the most recent run (with some nice little nods to old Who).

It's particularly weird to want an Eight and Twelve team up that doesn't acknowledge Old Who continuity, considering McGann's Doctor exists almost entirely in the audios! :psyduck: I'm sure they'll do a little celebrating for the 10th anniversary of the revival, though. I think this season will also have the 100th episode as well, so that should be fun :toot:.

Mordiceius
Nov 10, 2007

If you think calling me names is gonna get a rise out me, think again. I like my life as an idiot!
Wife and I just started watching Luther recently. Seeing McGann in it weirds me out.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

There are definitely echoes of The Idiot's Lantern in The Bells of Saint John, even down to the faces of victims appearing on monitors screaming silently for help (hell, there are even scenes of the Doctor and a companion riding a motorcyle!). It is definitely a story where you could throw The Wire in and it would make just as much sense as The Great Intelligence did.

Edit: MattD1zzl3, I absolutely agree about the setting being a nice change of pace and something I would like to see come up again in the series (along with some more Edwardian/pre-WWI era stuff).

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Mar 12, 2014

LividLiquid
Apr 13, 2002

I gotta' tell ya', as a guy whose first exposure to Doctor Who was The Day of the Doctor, who went on to watch the entire reboot, at no point did I ever feel as if I was on the outside of the inside joke. Everything from the old series was explained adequately, and the stories all played out as if I were being told about this character's unshown past, not as if there were a series I missed that I should've seen.

Starting with the 50th was actually a really cool way to get into the show, because while everything made sense, I wanted to see as many emotional beats as I could that led up to the catharsis I saw, because the catharsis still came across as cathartic even without knowing what the Daleks were, or who the Timelords were, or who The Doctor really was. Everything still landed, emotionally speaking.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

That's where I think the revival has mostly done a really great job. They've acknowledged continuity without alienating new viewers - things are either explained, have impact on their own merit, or are just an extra little nod to classic viewers that new viewers don't notice because it isn't vital knowledge to make the story make sense.

LividLiquid
Apr 13, 2002

Exactly. It's why I can't exactly understand why people think that nods to the old continuity are bad. I've never seen any of the old stuff, and they're my favorite part of the show.

I'm exactly the guy who should be confused by them, and they've not only never been confusing, but have given this sense of weight and history to the world that makes me :allears:.

Edit: I take that back. I watched the McGann movie and Genesis of the Daleks, but only after I saw everything in the reboot.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

MattD1zzl3 posted:

I've noticed a slowly building "Dont mention the 10th anniversary, it takes away from the old show-new show continuity" frame of thought

Have you? I, for one, didn't give it any thought either way.

Repeating the "Why does it matter?" question, the 50th anniversary special was all revival anyway.

Box of Bunnies
Apr 3, 2012

by Pragmatica

bobkatt013 posted:

But the 50th was already that. The stars were from the new series, and the only old Doctor that appeared in new footage was Tom Baker.

That and the story dealt with what is entirely a new-series invented concept.

Not that I'd be against Matt and David (and sure, McGann, why not?) popping back in for another multi-Doc special next year. Doesn't matter what occasion.

Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



Astroman posted:

Ah, that's weaksauce then. I might skip that one. Kinda lame choice on BF's part not to let Frazier do his thing when he's right there.

And I knew about that in Cobwebs, I'm just not sure why from a narrative perspective then needed to make her 50 years older. It was just
;-*: "Wow, Nyssa, you got old!"
:downs:: "Yeah, I know!"
and it didn't really affect the plot at all.

But it was a really, really good audio. BF really does get better as it goes along.

Well, not yet.

You know "Cobwebs" is the first of twelve stories?

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Has anyone ever watched any of the wilderness years stuff by BBV? Are any of them worth checking out? I've heard P.R.O.B.E. (apparently the first scripts Mark Gatiss ever wrote) isn't terrible. I guess Shakedown and the Auton trilogy are the big names here, and I'm interested in watching them, but I'm not sure if either of them are on DVD.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Have you? I, for one, didn't give it any thought either way.

Quite honestly, until today I hadn't even heard anybody mention the 10th year since the revival came back was coming up. It never even occurred to me by myself, I guess because this year is the 8th season thanks to the Year of Specials.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Jerusalem posted:

Quite honestly, until today I hadn't even heard anybody mention the 10th year since the revival came back was coming up. It never even occurred to me by myself, I guess because this year is the 8th season thanks to the Year of Specials.

And we lost a year thanks to last season.

PassTheRemote
Mar 15, 2007

Number 6 holds The Village record in Duck Hunt.

The first one to kill :laugh: wins.

Jerusalem posted:

The Idiot's Lantern

Excellent review Jerusalem. I agree that the whole father being abusive could have been done better by making him not just a blustering idiot and doing a better job at implying the abuse; but considering Fear Her, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

Burkion posted:

And we lost a year thanks to last season.

Well, if someone knew how to fly this thing...

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor

Cleretic posted:

This is actually sort of a good point, has anything ever been revived as well as Doctor Who? Battlestar Galactica, maybe? I would have said Star Trek before Into Darkness mucked that one up.

Keeping a revival of an old show going for ten years, and being pretty good for all of them, is honestly probably more impressive to me than the franchise as a whole making it to fifty.

Next Generation and Deep Space Nine are still the gold standards of television revival, and probably the closest to Doctor Who in terms of new fan comfort vs. classic references. We can argue at what point the franchise went to poo poo, but we can all agree it was years and years after they got it back off the ground.

bobkatt013
Oct 8, 2006

You’re telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

After The War posted:

Next Generation and Deep Space Nine are still the gold standards of television revival, and probably the closest to Doctor Who in terms of new fan comfort vs. classic references. We can argue at what point the franchise went to poo poo, but we can all agree it was years and years after they got it back off the ground.

TNG was not that great in the first season, and after a disastrous episode they did not mention the original series until the third.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

bobkatt013 posted:

TNG was not that great in the first season, and after a disastrous episode they did not mention the original series until the third.

I would actually say that it's downright terrible in its first season, but it was successful enough to rebirth the franchise and imbued it with enough life that it lasted for about fifteen years. There are all kinds of factors that were probably involved, just like there are all kinds of factors that were probably involved in making the RTD years successful at rebirthing Who.

Whatever problems I have with Moffat, I think he did a great job of holding that interest and building upon it. I'd be surprised if New Who didn't last another five years, at least.

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009

Bicyclops posted:

I would actually say that it's downright terrible in its first season, but it was successful enough to rebirth the franchise and imbued it with enough life that it lasted for about fifteen years. There are all kinds of factors that were probably involved, just like there are all kinds of factors that were probably involved in making the RTD years successful at rebirthing Who.

Whatever problems I have with Moffat, I think he did a great job of holding that interest and building upon it. I'd be surprised if New Who didn't last another five years, at least.

I actually can't think of an episode in S1 of TNG that I'd call good. Acceptable, maybe. Even enjoyably camp or so-bad-it's-good. But the show didn't even learn how to be actually decent until season 2, and even then it feels more by accident until they threw Maurice Hurley out on his rear end.

bobkatt013
Oct 8, 2006

You’re telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

Gaz-L posted:

I actually can't think of an episode in S1 of TNG that I'd call good. Acceptable, maybe. Even enjoyably camp or so-bad-it's-good. But the show didn't even learn how to be actually decent until season 2, and even then it feels more by accident until they threw Maurice Hurley out on his rear end.

Conspiracy was good.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Gaz-L posted:

I actually can't think of an episode in S1 of TNG that I'd call good. Acceptable, maybe. Even enjoyably camp or so-bad-it's-good. But the show didn't even learn how to be actually decent until season 2, and even then it feels more by accident until they threw Maurice Hurley out on his rear end.

Maybe, maybe "Code of Honour".

Chokes McGee
Aug 7, 2008

This is Urotsuki.

CobiWann posted:

Well, if someone knew how to fly this thing...

It hasn't stopped him for a millennium, I don't know why it would matter now! :v:

bobkatt013
Oct 8, 2006

You’re telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

Metal Loaf posted:

Maybe, maybe "Code of Honour".

You mean one of the most racist episodes of a tv show ever?

marktheando
Nov 4, 2006

I liked the one with the frozen people from the past, and the one where Picard and Riker shoot a guy until he explodes. But yes season one of TNG is pretty bad.

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Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

bobkatt013 posted:

You mean one of the most racist episodes of a tv show ever?

Whoops.

I meant the Klingon one. "Heart of Glory".

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