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Doctor Who (13th Doctor)

Started by JamesC, 09 November, 2017, 02:30:49 PM

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Colin YNWA

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 28 January, 2020, 12:57:38 PM
There is the old quote that you have to make Doctor Who complicated enough for the kids but simple enough for the adults.

Yeah I did used to question how kids would handle some of the more long term twisty turny storylines, genuinely not knowing. Now my kids are watching I can observe, at least with a small sample, that they handle it just fine and accept not having complete understanding, as long as they are having fun while being confused as heck.

They seem much better placed to accept that you don't have to have all the answers, and don't do that adult fan thing (?) of needing to force predictive guesses to a story and just roll with it,asking smart questions when they can... not that I can answer them yet!

M.I.K.

I don't think that's necessarily an adult fan thing, 'cos I've always done that. I blame all those detective telly programmes in the 70s and 80s.

However, one of my favourite programmes when I was wee was Sapphire and Steel, so make of that what you will.

Dandontdare

#167
Quote from: M.I.K. on 29 January, 2020, 05:34:59 PM
However, one of my favourite programmes when I was wee was Sapphire and Steel, so make of that what you will.

Exactly - that made no sense and had zero explanations - I mean - "transnuranic elements will suffice" - what the hell did that mean? Didn't matter though, I lapped it up

Quote from: abelardsnazz on 29 January, 2020, 06:54:03 AM
[spoiler]We never saw who the War Doctor regenerated into. Steven Moffat upended Russell T Davies' continuity, so it could happen again. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]
We sort of did - as he began to change you could see Ecclestone's features briefly and blurrily over his own[/spoiler]

gurnard

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 29 January, 2020, 07:52:22 AM
They seem much better placed to accept that you don't have to have all the answers, and don't do that adult fan thing (?) of needing to force predictive guesses to a story and just roll with it,asking smart questions when they can... not that I can answer them yet!

Yeah that is what always gets me with these threads. Doctor Who is a kids show. I was watching it aged 5 and up. Now I am 50 I still just watch it for what it is and love every minute. When there is a bit of continuity or back story that pops up it is most satisfying but I don't care about inconsistencies. Some shows are better than others I prefer some characters to others but all in all it is just a tv show to be enjoyed not anal-ysed.  Same like all the Star Treks just fun TV.  :-)

And yeah Saphire and Steel was great never understood any of it really, same like Blakes 7.

Tiplodocus

Some people just want to watch the world burn. I bet you don't even care how many links are in Dredd's badge chain.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Hawkmumbler

Here's the thing about canon in Who. It's always been lucid, Hartnell didn't even refer to himself as "The Doctor" until the second season in '64. The Time Lords didn't exist until '69. Two Hearts? '70. The notion of pre-Hartnell incarnation first came up in Remembrance of the Daleks in 1988, so as far as canon is concerned, if ever their was a long running franchise more ripe for innovation than Doctor Who i've yet to find it.

IndigoPrime

Personally, I'd say there are different kinds of inconsistency. Some matter, and some don't. Arguably, in a show like Doctor Who, 'canon' has relatively little meaning, at least in the sense the show can be repeatedly upended and still make some kind of sense. It is, after all, dealing with aliens and time travel, and so can be fluid and morph to whatever the current showrunner demands. Fixed points in time? Sure. Want to 'reboot' the entire universe? Go for it. Decided that everything's now in flux? OK.

Where things become more problematic for me are inconsistencies within character, quality, and episodes. The second of those is simple: a show should always be objectively good. Doctor Who right now is all over the shop. Characters can change and evolve, but should remain broadly consistent, or you should at least see that change. Doctor Who can be wobbly there, and right now I still haven't figured out what this Doctor stands for (other than she hates guns but isn't terribly fussed about genocide).

Consistency within episodes, though, is something that shouldn't be readily dismissed. Plenty of Doctor Who defence comes down to it being a children's show. OK, but I have a kid, and you don't see that kind of mess everywhere. When things not only don't make sense within the show's universe but even the current episode, that suggests a deeper problem in plotting, editing, and direction. Arguably, a slew of modern TV has the same issue, but it's been especially obvious in Doctor Who for years. I suspect in part it's down to the nature of the show (no writers room; a showrunner who also acts as senior script editor.

Within Doctor Who, even the inconsistency is inconsistent. It leaps from sloppy mess to solid entries week to week. I guess that's just what the show's always been. But when you place it alongside broadly comparable fare on other networks, it these days comes across as unnecessarily sloppy – not least given that the majority of issues could be solved by hiring a decent script editor.

Dandontdare


Hawkmumbler


von Boom

The best episode by far this series. While I did feel that there was too much of Captain Jack, this new Doctor was a breath of fresh air. The Doctors played pretty well off each other and I'm interested to see where this goes.

And I absolutely adored her TARDIS interior.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Dandontdare on 30 January, 2020, 02:39:43 PM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 30 January, 2020, 02:15:03 PMa show should always be objectively good.

No such thing.
It's an aim. Doctor Who's quality is absurdly variable, though.

Colin YNWA

Okay so the series has found its stride!

Was that the same co-writer as the last one. The difference between these last two and the rest is taking a similarly complext story and pacing and structuring it well. Its as simple as that.

That in short was really good.

Tiplodocus

Yeah, fun. And I was amazed at how subtly they got the message(s) across.





I'm joking , of course, but still enjoyed that.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

von Boom

I don't know how fun that episode was, but that plastic-virus skin thing was very creepy looking. Why did Ryan even touch it? Shouldn't he have been infected?

I would say it was a solid good episode.

IndigoPrime

Mrs IP and I were less keen. The basics were fine, but the message was relentless and had less subtlety than the sort of thing you see in programming for three-year-olds. It all just feels so rushed.