Doctor Who Discussion Topic

Sounds interesting! Idk if I have the dedication for the truly deep lore, but if nothing else, I’m glad there’s a part of the DW world that fully embraces timey-wimeiness. The most disappointing thing about the show is that it doesn’t exploit time travel that much.

Matt Smith over here.

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Smith and Capaldi are my two favorites. More than any other, Matt Smith is able to show how much of a facade the Doctor actually keeps up all the time.
Capaldi was technically my ‘first’ Doctor. His writing was unfortunately, more often than not, abysmal, but every now and then you’d get an episode like ‘Heaven Sent’ where you really saw how perfect Capaldi was for the role.

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I’m a Richard E Grant guy personally. Shalka is fantastic, as is Curse of Fatal Death.

Shalka really is fantastic. Favourite Doctor, favourite Master. It’s been absurdly difficult keeping myself from preordering Anti-Genesis and completely emptying my bank account.

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12 is thiiiis close to 11 for my favorite nuWho Doctor (and is near the top in general). I thought the writing was generally great for his first two seasons, though.

It’s that good, eh? I borrowed the DVD collection that has it from the library a few months ago, to see the reconstructed Shada. Guess I’ll have to get it back out!

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Are we going to talk about the latest episode at all? Because it seems too plot-shattering to not talk about.

Tbh, I haven’t watched this latest season at all, just been finding out what happens through internet reactions, but I think it’s bold for anyone to assume this show has a “canon” anymore :joy:

I’m fine with this retcon, though, it certainly makes some past events quite a bit more amusing (and allows others to actually make sense).

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Meh. While I’m not personally bothered by the twist, I doubt this will last. To me, this is the new series equivalent of “the Doctor is half-human.” Yes, Doctor Who’s “canon” is very fast and loose (the old series has three different versions of Atlantis), but there are some fundamentals that you don’t mess with unless you want to anger half the fanbase.

Anyway, I’ve been slowly going through every Classic Who for the first time, and that’s been surprisingly enjoyable. Then again, I’m on the Tom Baker era, when the show was at its height. Once I get to Colin Baker, though… I might just skip to McCoy’s second season.

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If you’ve made it this far, you can absolutely make it through Colin Baker! His first season is actually a bit underrated imo–there’s some awful, awful stuff in there, but also a classic story or two. Conversely, I think McCoy is a bit overrated–his era is marked by ambitious young writers with big ideas who didn’t know how to effectively format those ideas into TV scripts. Tl;dr, watch it all for yourself and make up your own mind!

As for the recent plot developments: I strongly dislike them, because the Doctor is supposed to be the Gallifreyan equivalent of an everyman. Every time he meets other Time Lords, he’s outclassed–they’re smarter and stronger. He just has more street smarts. I find such a character far more interesting and inspiring than a legendary figure who’s special because of who they are rather than the choices they made.

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I so, sooooo agree. This fundamentally changes one of the very core aspects of Doctor Who; that the Doctor is so out of his/her league everywhere he/she goes. Knowing that they are now the progenitor of one of the most powerful races in the universe just makes them seem like an idiot. You know, more so than usual.

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Oh dang this show still exists.

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It’s also weird that the Doctor just so happens to have two hearts despite being a different species from the Time Lords.

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Perhaps the Time Lords previously did not, but now do, have two hearts because their regenerations were based on the Doctor’s DNA?
Tbf this could have been contradicted by the episode in question, I never actually saw it myself…

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Yeah, I guess that would make sense.

So, update on my Classic Who watch: Finally got to Colin Baker. And, yeah, it’s a slog. Honestly thinking about skipping the next two seasons. I feel like once Doctor Who hit the 80’s, it slowly but surely declined. Anyway, here’s my thoughts on the classic series overall.

When it comes to the classic doctors, Tom Baker is everyone’s favorite, but for me it’s Patrick Troughton. Sure, William Hartnel was the first doctor, and he has his charms, but I don’t feel like the character really became the doctor until Troughton took the role.

The 60’s is probably my favorite era of the show. Sure, it has the pacing of a snail, there’s a lot of… outdated attitudes. But there’s a lot of creativity and experimentation. It doesn’t always work, but it has a b-movie charm. The Web Planet was terrible, but it was uniquely terrible.

Speaking of which, here’s a quick MS Paint sketch of my interpretation of a zarbi. They had human legs in the show due to poor costume design, but what if they had large hind legs because they were ant-velociraptors?

zarbi sketch

Also The Green Death is just Arachnids the UK but good

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I have a hard time sitting through a lot of 60s serials, but Troughton is great. I have a hard time picking a favorite between 2, 3, 4, and 5. I do see what you mean about the creativity of the 60s stuff–I have have similar reasons for appreciating the original Star Trek.

How much of 6 have you seen? Vengeance on Varos and Ressurection of the Daleks are his only stories I particularly like. The first story of season 23 has some classic Robert Holmes moments as well, but it’s far from his best, and season 23 as a whole is pretty bad imo.

That Zarbi reminds me a bit of the Tractators lol.

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Maybe I give the black-and-white era a lot of leeway because, well, it is 60’s television. You have to tamper your expectations accordingly. The biggest issue with early Doctor Who is the pacing, but I quickly adjusted to it.

On his first season, currently on The Two Doctors. I actually found Attack of the Cybermen interesting in the first half but there was too many elements at play in the story. For example, the subplot about two slaves trying to escape Telos. They were a fun duo but they were ultimately pointless.

Also, I have seen a few stories before I started my classic watchthrough. The ones ahead that I’ve seen are Resurrection of the Daleks, Silver Nemesis, Remembrance of the Daleks, and Survival. Oh, and the TV movie, if that counts.

Maybe I’m excited for the McCoy era is because Remembrance of the Daleks is the first classic story I watched. Ace beating up a dalek with a bat never gets old.

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Yeah, you definitely have to have the right expectations when you watch TV from a different era. 60s DW is still tricky for me, though, because American shows from the same era like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Star Trek are much better-paced. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that the BBC had very little money back then. So they had to stretch out stories because they couldn’t build a new set every episode or two.

Attack of the Cybermen is an odd one. I found it very jarring tonally–it has some of the campiest stuff the show has ever seen (the Tardis turning into silly objects, 6 literally jumping on a guy in his ridiculous coat) but also some of the most gruesome (there were at least two or three onscreen Cyberman decapitations, and the plot was drenched in Eric Saward’s trademark cynicism). And I agree that the second half was really odd.

The Two Doctors is worth it to see 2 and Jamie again, but there’s a lot of wasted potential, and Robert Holmes was badly influenced by Saward, I think.

Remembrance of the Daleks is definitely one of McCoy’s best. Honestly, since you’re past Varos and have seen Resurrection of the Daleks before, I wouldn’t blame you for skipping ahead to 7.

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So far, AotC stands out the most to me in this season because it was almost good, but there was so many odd clashing things in that story. Spoilers for anyone else who wants to watch Attack of the Cybermen, I guess:

Like, the cybermen want to steal the Doctor’s TARDIS to travel back in time and prevent the destruction of Mondas. Okay. But they already have a time machine. And they how enter the TARDIS is completely unexplained. There’s a scene in episode one where they realize the Doctor is nearby. And the next scene they’re already inside. How? Why would you skip over that?

Plus there’s a subplot about the bad guy from the last dalek story, a subplot about the two slaves escaping, a subplot about the planet Telos, and a subplot about cryo aliens that’s suddenly introduced in the second half. It’s like they had two or three ideas for a cyberman story and they decided to do them all at once.

Would have been far stronger if they either focused on stealing the TARDIS or the planet Telos. If it dropped Telos, the story could have made the fixed chameleon circuit relevant to the plot. The cybermen could have tracked down where the TARDIS is… only to be completely stumped why there’s a random piano and not a police box.

And then there’s the scene where the cybermen crush a someone’s hands. Showing blood might be crossing the line given how Doctor Who normally handles violence.

Sorry for the rant. XD

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A big hallmark of the Saward era is that a lot of stories have convoluted plots because they’re more interested in the show’s canon (in this case, minor discrepancies between The Tenth Planet and Tomb of the Cybermen) than in telling a good story.

I should note that as much as I’ve been badmouthing him, I actually kinda like Saward. The issue is that he was allowed to indulge his worst tendencies more and more as time went on. I like most of his 5th Doctor stories, and even in season 22, I’ve already stated my fondness for…oh wait, I’ve been getting titles mixed up! Revelation of the Daleks is the one I meant. Resurrection is the one with 5.

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