Doctor Who Series 11 Discussion

[Taryn Tailz]

Am I the only one who thought it was crap? The Dr can go anywhere in the whole of time and space, and her first adventure is in England in the present day? That's bollocks!

This is hardly unheard of: besides, the drunk bloke clearly said it was a month before Halloween, so this could very well have been set a couple of weeks ago and not the present day.

[Mattofthespurs]

Am I the only one who thought it was crap? The Dr can go anywhere in the whole of time and space, and her first adventure is in England in the present day? That's bollocks!

No TARDIS. Stranded...Pertwee? I'll leave this here.

[Richard]

I'm not saying it's the first time it's ever happened. I'm just saying it's not good enough.

[IndigoPrime]

You could actually hear the dialogue. The music wasn't some half-arsed tribute to bombastic 1990s cinematic scores. All. The. Time. (Hurrah, Segun Akinola!)

Bar that one piece of utterly unnecessary fridging, I thought it hit the spot.

[Leigh S]

Yeah, the incidental music was actually incidental, hurrah! New theme tune sounds good, though the extended version at the end felt a bit clunkily taped together - Jodie and Bradley were great.  Acting wise it was all good, though the chap playing Ryan seemed oddly flat at times of peril and his accent seemed to be more Brummie than Sheffield (or was that just the flatness!)?

The only glaring plot oddness was the DNA bombs - if they were designed to kill witnesses, why not just kill them on the spot?

[Andy Lambert]

I had no problem with the setting. Sheffield was sufficiently different enough from Cardiff pretending to be London, and I couldn't help but feel Blackcastle was only down the road, where the 4th Doctor encountered the Meep so very long ago...

[rogue69]

I am a traditionalist Doctor Who fan and I don't care if this makes me politically incorrect but I will never accept a Doctor Who with Bradley Walsh in it. 

[TordelBack]

Music was the standout bit for me - it was mostly good (except when doing the Who Wants to Be A Millionaire theme), and it was mostly unbtrusive and at a volume which meant I could hear the dialogue.  In fact there was relatively little shouting too.  Dr Who threads the internet over are filled with me requesting this very thing, so only fair I give it the thumbs up!

Favourite sequence was the Doctor* McGyvering her screwdriver.

Least favourite was the bit where Yaz killed everyone by toppling the crane. No, wait,  that was should have happened given the way she was swinging those controls around. Well,  it wouldn't be a Dr Who thread with some stupid nitpick.


*There,  that wasn't so hard now,  was it?

[Andy B]

I'm not saying it's the first time it's ever happened. I'm just saying it's not good enough.

It's standard practice when they're trying to attract an audience of normal people. At least it wasn't London. And I'm impressed we're getting an alien planet as soon as next week: Christopher Eccleston, for example, never made it out of Earth orbit.

Damn - BBC America went out of their way to ruin that. Advertised as a 'global simulcast', then loaded it with adverts. And no credits! I still haven't heard the new theme.

But as far as I could tell from the fragments, it was pretty good! Likeable cast, and Jodie Whittaker is perfect.

My only criticism is, I was expecting something more different from what has gone before; a really new style. But it wasn't: very similar to previous plot-lite season openers. But maybe that was just an unrealistic expectation. Looking forward to seeing where they take it.

[Funt Solo]

Am I the only one who thought it was crap? The Dr can go anywhere in the whole of time and space, and her first adventure is in England in the present day? That's bollocks!

An odd complaint.  Of the 12 other new doctor episodes on offer, 11 of them are set on Earth (and 6 of those around the present day of their respective eras).  So, if it's bollocks, it's always been bollocks.  It's okay to just not like Doctor Who as a premise.

... there's a long list of actors almost none of whom I've ever heard of...

Does one need recognizable actors to make something good?  (Rhetorical: I already know the answer.)

[Richard]

No, it doesn't have to have recognisable actors to be good, it just concerns me that they used to have them and now (for the most part) they don't. It suggests the BBC doesn't care about the show as much as they used to. I hope I'm wrong.

I do like Dr Who; if I didn't I wouldn't care enough to come in here and say what I think about it. It doesn't matter to me how many times a previous new doctor has had their first episode on Earth, just because they've made the same mistake 11 times before doesn't mean it's the right thing to do this time. You can go to any planet you can imagine, at any time ever, and you go to England in 2018? Fuck that. I can watch Eastenders for that.

[Funt Solo]

I just don't see how recognizable actors can be either a measure of inherent quality or a measure of how much the production company cares about the production.  I would say the quality of the actors would be the measure in both cases.  Example: Attack the Block.

And I don't buy your Eastenders argument either.  Unless you can point me to the Easties episode where weird murderous aliens crack out of space-eggs and a flying electric spaghetti monster plants a DNA bomb in Dot Cotton's neck.

Anyway: loads of great British sci-fi is set on Earth.  This makes it easy to relate to and easier to produce.  I'm not sure which is the major factor, but it doesn't make them either inherently rubbish or like a contemporary soap opera.  Look, a list:

Humans
Black Mirror
Misfits
The Prisoner
The Quatermass Experiment
Day of the Triffids
The Tripods
War of the Worlds
Sapphire & Steel

Also, setting things off-planet doesn't make them good.  (See Survivors or Hyperdrive.  Or don't.)

[Andy B]

just because they've made the same mistake 11 times before doesn't mean it's the right thing to do this time

To be fair, they haven't made that 'mistake' 11 times. Occasionally, they did it right, and we got 'The Twin Dilemma' and 'Time and the Rani'

[Fungus]

Poor. As a non-fan my opinion may not matter at all...
Jodie Whittaker is fine but the obvious dialogue and mannerisms weren't great.
Fell asleep halfway through. Some alien pulsing blue thing was a threat but was dispatched somehow.

It's fine. You're either a fan and liked it or it's just another telly show.
The early Eccleston episodes were worthwhile, since then I periodically give Dr Who a go but it's not for me.

[Jim_Campbell]

"Man watches series he doesn't enjoy. Doesn't enjoy it. Film at eleven."