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Well, not really. After a ten-episode series and a special for New Year's Day, we're getting another year with NO DOCTOR WHO. For the record, RTD produced 12 episodes per calendar year and Moffat produced 10.5 episodes per calendar year. Now that we've got that out of the way, how was the past series? I'd categorize it as 'terminally fine'. Despite the bold decisions, there weren't any jaw-dropping moments that made you say 'Oh my God!', for better or worse. The Doctor's character was defined as an eternal optimist, Ryan and Graham bonded as grandfather and grandson, and Yas also traveled on the TARDIS. In my humble opinion, season 37 tried really hard to be Doctor Who. Alas, it felt like a show TRYING to be Doctor Who, and not Doctor Who proper. The actors played their parts to the best of their ability, don't get me wrong, but the writing took very few chances, if any, with conflict resolution. Instead, half the season relied on making humans the REAL villains. At least we got an interesting Dalek story! Were there good moments? Oh, definitely. Were there moments that made me roll my eyes? About the same amount. We had a perfectly average season of Doctor Who. So, now what? Well, there's new OLD Doctor Who, in the form of an animated reconstruction of the Macra Terror coming in March. Plus, with the Thirteen Doctor officially doing things on the show, tie-in material such as books and comics will now feature her and the fam. Of course, there's always Big Finish, but we'll get to that in a second. Other than that, there's jack poo poo! The previous thread can be found here. Now for the formalities. NO SPOILERS By edict of the moderators, this is a SPOILER-FREE ZONE. Other than backstage stuff (hiring people), DO NOT POST SPOILERS. AT ALL. Even if the Washington Post reveals video of Donald Trump handing a big stack of government secrets to Vladimir Putin and one of the papers is labeled 'Martha Jones is a Rutan', DON'T POST IT HERE. If you must post about spoilers, go to the spoiler thread. Episode titles can be spoiler-y, so use discretion when discussing episodes yet to air. For example, 'Hide' doesn't spoil anything, but 'OH poo poo IT'S THE DALEKS' does. WHERE DO I START? Good news! This past series is a good place to start, beginning with The Woman Who Fell to Earth. If you want to watch the original series, there are plenty of places to start. You COULD start with An Unearthly Child and watch everything in chronological order. You could also watch individual serials of all the Doctors and determine which you like the best. Keep in mind, don't shotgun a whole Hartnell or Troughton in one go, or else you'll get complacent. Those 60's episodes are meant to be seen one at a time, and if you only just rented the DVD, wait a few hours between episodes. The most popular serials for the original series you can jump into are: First Doctor: An Unearthly Child, The Aztecs Second Doctor: The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Enemy of the World Third Doctor: Spearhead from Space, Carnival of Monsters Fourth Doctor: Pyramids of Mars, The Robots of Death Fifth Doctor: Kinda, Frontios Sixth Doctor: Vengeance on Varos, Revelation of the Daleks Seventh Doctor: Dragonfire, Remembrance of the Daleks WHERE CAN I WATCH DOCTOR WHO? If you're an American, you're in luck! You can watch the original run of Doctor Who both on TV (Retro TV and some PBS stations) and online (via BritBox*)! Canadians get BritBox, too. If you're not North American scum, I'm sorry but you'll have to buy or rent the episodes on DVD. For the current run: ON TELEVISION UK - BBC One (first run), W USA - BBC America (first run), most PBS stations Canada - CTV Sci-Fi Channel Australia - ABC (first run), ABC ME, Syfy STREAMING UK - BBC iPlayer, Netflix USA - Prime Video (moving to HBO Max in 2020) Canada - Crave Australia - Stan, Prime Video *Day of the Daleks, Planet of the Daleks, the Five Doctors, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, and Remembrance of the Daleks are not available, along with almost every serial missing at least one episode. SHOULD I BUY THE DVDs AND BLU-RAYs? Just for the bonus features alone. THE NOT-AT-ALL BRIEF GUIDE TO BIG FINISH There are literally thousands of Doctor Who and Doctor Who-related audio dramas released by Big Finish Productions. This is not a post telling you what audio dramas to listen to, because everyone has an opinion that is different from everyone else (some people like Minuet in Hell, believe it or not). This is a post telling you the basic info on the different series of titles there are. I'm only covering ongoing ranges, since devoting a paragraph to the Stage Plays seems a bit silly. If you're wondering why I'm about to spend a good portion of the OP about audio dramas, you are clearly new to the Doctor Who thread. The Monthly Range Since 1999, Big Finish have released, on a consistent basis, mostly standalone stories featuring the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh (formerly including Eighth) Doctors. Up to 247th(!) release this month. The Fourth Doctor Adventures Tom Baker gets his own line of releases. The Seventh Doctor: The New Adventures Hey, remember the Virgin New Adventures? These take place during those! No, I don't know how to find cheap copies of those books. The Eighth Doctor Adventures / Dark Eyes / Doom Coalition / The Eighth Doctor - The Time War / Ravenous Paul McGann's Doctor also gets his own line. Goons love 'em. The Tenth Doctor Adventures David Tennant reprises his role in mini-seasons every chance he can get, and the results are very RTD-like. In a good way! The Companion Chronicles / The Early Adventures This is important: SOME OF THESE ARE NOT AUDIO DRAMAS. These are "enhanced audiobooks" for the most part, which means that one person does all the parts while another gives narration, but also contains sound effects and music cues. The Companion Chronicles originally were one-handers, but now may contain small casts, which the Early Adventure always have. The Ones with Fake Doctors The First Doctor Adventures, the Third Doctor Adventures, and the Doctor Chronicles feature people who are not the original actors playing the roles of the title Doctor. If you're OK with that, by all means give them a try. Spinoffs There are a ton of these, ranging from good (I, Davros) to who gives a poo poo (anything involving a companion from the audio series). THE DISCORD Here it is. The future is now! FINALLY, let's take a look back....all the way to ten years ago! Or maybe 45? Brigadier Sockface posted:Why have they cast another tall and curly-haired Doctor with a big nose? It's lazy and safe casting - Baker is just Pertwee-lite! Besides he's far too young, he's barely 40! He probably hasn't finished off paying his mortgage yet. Edward Mass fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Sep 19, 2019 |
# ? Jan 5, 2019 02:54 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 09:58 |
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DALEKS DO NOT READ OPS this much is obvious
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 03:02 |
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I feel it's disingenuous to not list the War Doctor in the OP
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 03:13 |
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Yaz is good because it's very telling that despite becoming a woman herself and finding two other companions she's clearly far more interested in, the Doctor can't get over her centuries-old predilection for young British women.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 03:15 |
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Davros1 posted:I feel it's disingenuous to not list the War Doctor in the OP Again, not an ongoing series.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 03:46 |
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daleks don't look at explosions
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 03:47 |
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Edward Mass posted:Again, not an ongoing series. It was for a while and still would be! (And he still has more eps than Tennant!)
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 03:48 |
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I can't believe I get to make the "round things" joke again.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 05:21 |
jivjov posted:I can't believe I get to make the "round things" joke again. I love the round things joke
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 05:35 |
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The amount of effort that Jeru puts into providing us all with armies of free gifs and giving them all to us in a handy set of links is pretty cool when you think about it.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 05:50 |
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Davros1 posted:It was for a while and still would be! How does that work? This sounds wibbily wobbly timey wimey to me, if I may. Been a while since I saw those eps/specials.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 06:07 |
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Bicyclops posted:The amount of effort that Jeru puts into providing us all with armies of free gifs and giving them all to us in a handy set of links is pretty cool when you think about it. I'm just amazed he gets it on the first page every time.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 06:34 |
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That episode took a hard turn from "some kind of monster that you can't see you if you don't look at it maybe?" to "talking to a frog in a chair"
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 06:59 |
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Burkion posted:That episode took a hard turn from "some kind of monster that you can't see you if you don't look at it maybe?" to "talking to a frog in a chair" If it had been just a touch sillier and more cynical it could have been something from a later Douglas Adams book.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 08:55 |
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Pocky In My Pocket posted:I love the round things joke What is the round things joke?
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 09:20 |
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I loved that talking frog, gently caress the haters.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 09:27 |
AndyElusive posted:I loved that talking frog, gently caress the haters. It was genuinely the best thing all season
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 09:45 |
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AndyElusive posted:I loved that talking frog, gently caress the haters. Who the gently caress hates the sentient universe frog? I'll fight them in real life at Scrabble
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 10:16 |
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Just an addendum to where Brits can watch Doctor Who... BBC iPlayer has the whole revival series available as ‘Box Sets’. Useful if, like me, you watched the New Year’s special with your four year old who now wants more episodes with “squiddies”.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 10:53 |
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Robert J. Omb posted:Useful if, like me, you watched the New Year’s special with your four year old who now wants more episodes with “squiddies”. So you're playing your four year old The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, right?
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 10:58 |
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Or Daleks in Manhattan
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 14:07 |
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Heavy Metal posted:How does that work? This sounds wibbily wobbly timey wimey to me, if I may. Been a while since I saw those eps/specials. Talking about Big Finish. John Hurt did twelve episodes (over four boxsets for them), while Tennant, so far, has only done six (with another three this May).
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 14:32 |
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TinTower posted:What is the round things joke? No idea...
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 15:33 |
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Oh! You’ve redecorated! I love it!
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 16:01 |
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Also Just, the gently caress is wrong with the Kerblam man episode Like what the gently caress was even- the entire ending feels like it was tossed in without thought or comment. THE CORPORATION *MURDERED SOME ONE IN REVENGE* Doctor! Stop acting like the corporation is in the right!
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 18:46 |
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Burkion posted:DALEKS DO NOT READ OPS It's just their excuse to they can scream at someone to
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 19:07 |
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Burkion posted:Also Also the AI is a maverick and in need of retirement.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 19:52 |
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I want to speak to your manager.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 20:13 |
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I noticed that the tactic for the Resolution Dalek was similar to this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMSvI1lsBEY&t=1233s
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 20:25 |
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Robert J. Omb posted:Just an addendum to where Brits can watch Doctor Who... Read that as "Squidbillies" and now I'm imagining Unknown Hinson as a Dalek.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 20:50 |
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ConanThe3rd posted:Also the AI is a maverick and in need of retirement. The AI isn't really a malevolent maverick, though. You can fairly convincingly argue that it's the best person majorly involved in this whole thing until the Doctor turns up, aside from a whole 'murders a girl' thing. I don't really see the problem with Kerblam as an actually ideological one, but rather a writing one that accidentally becomes an ideological one. If they came up with the setting and the concept and most of the characters first, then they would've had a pretty clear problem of 'wait none of these pieces lead to an ending'. It's a great setting, but it's a setting in stasis, and there's no catalyst for that change except for the Doctor herself. And that's a big thing to change with a lot of little things that'll be hurt, and that's not a situation the Doctor would sign off on, so that's off the table and we're back to square one. So we rewrite, find a way to add in an antagonist and something resembling a happy ending, and oops the ending has come out looking really morally nebulous and debatably pro-megacorporation, and we don't have time to fix it.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 22:10 |
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FelchTragedy posted:I noticed that the tactic for the Resolution Dalek was similar to this one: Shoulda brought a guitar.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 22:50 |
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If it had faked that poor girl's death and revealed she was alive at the end because it wanted him to understand the pain he was going to cause without actually going as far as him, it would have blunted the (I'm positive unintentional) message of,"Corporations are acting in your best interest!" - the Doctor could have pointed to it as an example of the saboteur having fallen so far down the rabbithole of his cause that he'd become less "human" than a literal piece of software. Instead she gets killed and... basically it never gets addressed again at any point afterwards.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 23:11 |
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There are any number of small fixes for the third act that could have fixed that episode, but as it stands, I think it's probably the worst of the season, which is a shame, because there's a lot to enjoy about it. Sometimes a bad ending can just ruin an episode, it's why nobody remembers any of the genuinely enjoyable parts of Love and Monsters.
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# ? Jan 5, 2019 23:48 |
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Bicyclops posted:There are any number of small fixes for the third act that could have fixed that episode, but as it stands, I think it's probably the worst of the season, which is a shame, because there's a lot to enjoy about it. Sometimes a bad ending can just ruin an episode, it's why nobody remembers any of the genuinely enjoyable parts of Love and Monsters. I've generally seen people rate Arachnids in the UK as worse, which I understand, even if I don't agree. Kerblam a good most of an episode, with decent ideas for the ending that it botches the execution of and looks kinda politically bad for it, even if its heart's in the right place. That, if nothing else, leads me to consider it better than Love and Monsters. There's no salvaging the ending of Love and Monsters without throwing it out completely, while Kerblam I think you can fix (like I said when the episode came out, I think adding Space Jeff Bezos as a background player would do it). Both of them are still better than In The Forest Of The Night, because there isn't even a fun part in that one.
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# ? Jan 6, 2019 00:12 |
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In the moment I thought Kerblam! was tremendous fun and was really happy at the end of the episode. Within a few minutes it was really sinking in just how hosed up a lot of what I'd just seen was, which has really colored my perception of it as a whole. Love and Monsters was appallingly bad even in the moment to the point that I overlooked for a long time the few good things it actually did quite well. They're kind of the the reverse of each other in that respect.
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# ? Jan 6, 2019 00:57 |
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Jerusalem posted:In the moment I thought Kerblam! was tremendous fun and was really happy at the end of the episode. Within a few minutes it was really sinking in just how hosed up a lot of what I'd just seen was, which has really colored my perception of it as a whole. Yeah, this was essentially my reaction too. And I think I said it before, but to me the most frustrating stories, not necessarily the worst ones but the ones that dig at me the most, are the ones that are so close to getting it right. This was a frustrating story.
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# ? Jan 6, 2019 02:28 |
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i really wanted Kerblam to be the season's Oxygen, and my enjoyment of the episode is pretty marred by the gap between the two
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# ? Jan 6, 2019 02:52 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 09:58 |
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Kerblam! would have been better had the bad guy not gotten what he wanted in terms of the company hiring more humans.
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# ? Jan 6, 2019 03:15 |