Worst RTD script

As a follow up to my ‘Shittiest Moffat script’ thread, here’s one on the shittiest RTD script.

Figured I’d make this poll now, as I am both ill and void of anything else to do at the moment.

The Long Game.

So painfully clunky and on the nose, I felt punched there.

It was also the *real* prototype for the obnoxious smugness and cliqueyness between the Doctor and Rose that dominated Series 2.

Technically I think Love & Monsters is the more horrible story, but as much for its visual and editing clusterfucks as its script. The Long Game is mostly just bad on a script level so I voted for that.

So many to choose... New Earth, Voyage, Partners, Journey's End and more.
Fuck, what a hack.

New Earth.

My brain went with Love and Monsters, but my heart dictated Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords.

SOD (rofl, the acronym) is'nt bad for a while, but then it nosedives into hyperbolic pantomime, and the bloody pop song dates it immediately (who's even heard of these people anymore?), ditto for the use of the song in LOTTL. Dobby Doctor was the first real crack I detected, and I was quite the sycophantic cheerleader for the show back in the day...I did my best to spin positives out of it, but it's just not possible to defend. Really wanted LOTTL to end on a literal cliffhanger with the "now it ends" speech

I’ll probably gravitate towards New Earth at the moment, mainly due to just how infantile and moronic everything about it is. This can also be said for Love and Monsters, Last Of The Time Lords etc, but I have to give it to New Earth just due to how insufferable the comedy is, and how embarrassing Tennant is in it. His performance after being taken over by Cassandra is beyond parodic in how bad it is.

Today its Aliens of London / WW III. An Earth Invasion story on a big budget that pissed it up against the wall and focused on pigs in spacesuits and aliens characterised by excessive flatulence.

But most days its Love and Monsters.

stengos wrote:Today its Aliens of London / WW III. An Earth Invasion story on a big budget that pissed it up against the wall and focused on pigs in spacesuits and aliens characterised by excessive flatulence.

But most days its Love and Monsters.

I just finished rewatching series 1 again and dear god is that entire series awful.

The 9th Doctor is a dreadful incarnation overall. Eccelston is so uncomfortable in the role, the character I don't think saves the day in a single story, and so much of the goofy, faux eccentric shit we'd see in the later Nu Who Doctors begins there.

The "Rose, Rose, Rose, I can dance again" bit is almost as bad as Capaldi on the tank.

I do agree though the Slitheen two parter is fucking terrible. It angers me actually. Remember the mainstream critics and self loathing fanboys going on about how New Who restored its reputation, by taking it seriously?

FFS the Slitheen even when not farting are the campiest and stupidest looking villains I've ever seen. Look at the expressions the actors pull in their human forms?

burrunjor wrote:

stengos wrote:Today its Aliens of London / WW III. An Earth Invasion story on a big budget that pissed it up against the wall and focused on pigs in spacesuits and aliens characterised by excessive flatulence.

But most days its Love and Monsters.

I just finished rewatching series 1 again and dear god is that entire series awful.

The 9th Doctor is a dreadful incarnation overall. Eccelston is so uncomfortable in the role, the character I don't think saves the day in a single story, and so much of the goofy, faux eccentric shit we'd see in the later Nu Who Doctors begins there.

The "Rose, Rose, Rose, I can dance again" bit is almost as bad as Capaldi on the tank.

I do agree though the Slitheen two parter is fucking terrible. It angers me actually. Remember the mainstream critics and self loathing fanboys going on about how New Who restored its reputation, by taking it seriously?

FFS the Slitheen even when not farting are the campiest and stupidest looking villains I've ever seen. Look at the expressions the actors pull in their human forms?

I’ve taken a break from my Who viewings recently (currently reviewing the fourth respective stories of each decade on the ‘Which Who stories have you watched recently’ thread), although I’ll be re-watching that two parter next from series 1. I’m three stories in to series 1 now, and I agree with you in terms of it being tonally embarrassing and awful. Eccleston does remind me of a crap comic relief Disney character much of the time (so much for being a dark and serious Doctor as stated in the media), and almost everything about each story I’ve re-watched thus far is profoundly camp without being funny, especially the staggeringly awful ‘The End Of The World’.

When watching it alongside the previous decades (and series 5, for that matter), it is easily the most infantile and idiotic out of all of them.

Bernard Marx wrote:

burrunjor wrote:

stengos wrote:Today its Aliens of London / WW III. An Earth Invasion story on a big budget that pissed it up against the wall and focused on pigs in spacesuits and aliens characterised by excessive flatulence.

But most days its Love and Monsters.

I just finished rewatching series 1 again and dear god is that entire series awful.

The 9th Doctor is a dreadful incarnation overall. Eccelston is so uncomfortable in the role, the character I don't think saves the day in a single story, and so much of the goofy, faux eccentric shit we'd see in the later Nu Who Doctors begins there.

The "Rose, Rose, Rose, I can dance again" bit is almost as bad as Capaldi on the tank.

I do agree though the Slitheen two parter is fucking terrible. It angers me actually. Remember the mainstream critics and self loathing fanboys going on about how New Who restored its reputation, by taking it seriously?

FFS the Slitheen even when not farting are the campiest and stupidest looking villains I've ever seen. Look at the expressions the actors pull in their human forms?

I’ve taken a break from my Who viewings recently (currently reviewing the fourth respective stories of each decade on the ‘Which Who stories have you watched recently’ thread), although I’ll be re-watching that two parter next from series 1. I’m three stories in to series 1 now, and I agree with you in terms of it being tonally embarrassing and awful. Eccleston does remind me of a crap comic relief Disney character much of the time (so much for being a dark and serious Doctor as stated in the media), and almost everything about each story I’ve re-watched  thus far is profoundly camp without being funny, especially the staggeringly awful ‘The End Of The World’.

When watching it alongside the previous decades (and series 5, for that matter), it is easily the most infantile and idiotic out of all of them.

Series 1 is abysmal. Easily the worst pre Capaldi.

I find it baffling that you get these people, old and new praising it, particularly above the Matt Smith era?

I can only assume that they A/ watched it once and were so glad DW was back, they thought it was better than it was as they'd take anything DW related? B/ are not sci fi or fantasy fans, so all the stuff it takes from Xena and Buffy and Smallville seems really groundbreaking to them (this is definitely the case with Mr Tardis, Five Who Fans, Claudia Boleyn etc, who come out with crap about Rose being a groundbreaking role for women, or Captain Jack being groundbreaking for LGBT people. Yeah Willow and Tara and Xena never happened did they?) Or C/ it introduced them to DW and they won't judge it fairly?

There has to be some reason, as there are very few good things about series 1. Even by the standards of the time its fucking mince. I can't believe it came ten years almost after Buffy and Xena and Babylon 5, and 6 years after Angel season 1. It looks far more dated, primitive and unoriginal than any of those series.

John Barrowman, and Billie Piper are really the only things along with the new Daleks that are watchable. John in contrast to Eccelston isn't self conscious and has at least some charisma, whilst Billie I think would have been a fine companion, were it not for the romance crap.

Everything else however is garbage. There is also so little variety in the stories.

Four episodes about aliens invading modern earth, three Dalek episodes, three Slitheen episodes, and three episodes on satelite 5 with the same fucking set.

The new monsters are appalling too. Lady Cassandra is one of the worst villains in the shows history, the Anne Droid and the Trinny and Suzannah robots take the show into parody almost as much as Missy later would, and the Slitheen, dear god!

I also think that the WW2 two parter everyone raves about is bollocks too. Its got some of the most embarassing Doctor/Rose moments like the "dance" bit, and the ending is not only a cop out that makes no sense, but is a lot of mawkish, cheesy disney bullshit.

"JUST THIS ONCE ROSE EVERYBODY LIVES" UGH the delivery and line, and premise are all fucking awful in that scene. Why does Colin Baker think that was better than any of his stories like Revelation of the Daleks, or Vengeance on Varos or even Attack of the Cybermen? I can only assume that was the beginning of his trying to kiss the arse of the fandom incrowd?

Had it not been the first series in a while, and had the Fitzroy crowd not been bullies who were in with the mainstream media, then series 1 would rightfully be regarded as a trainwreck, almost as big as some of the later Capaldi stories.

At the time, I liked Series 1 simply just because I was glad Who was back and it was a step above other shite at the time. I knew it was heavily flawed but I hoped that they would improve greatly over the next couple of series.

Mercury wrote:At the time, I liked Series 1 simply just because I was glad Who was back and it was a step above other shite at the time. I knew it was heavily flawed but I hoped that they would improve greatly over the next couple of series.

Yeah, I agreed with Tiberius when he said that Series 1 was still a potentially promising start that put the show back on the map, and from which the new series could've gone either way, and had the show gone the right way, maybe its more tacky and moronic moments and unpleasantries could've been ultimately forgivable in the long run.

Sadly that didn't happen, and instead the worst stuff was doubled-down on.

I'd still rather watch series 1 than 2. Any day of the week.
Though I agree with the premise that the worst aspects (the ones I thought "oh, well they'll tweak that next season") were the ones the production team apparently thought was the direction to go in!