The Road to Series 11: The Great Big NuWho Binge

Since the BBC iplayer has put all episodes of NuWho online (Netflix is missing the Tennant and Smith specials) and because I hate myself, I've decided I'm going to go on long journey of mental torture and watch the lot. I haven't seen most of these episode since they first aired and some I haven't seen at all.

I'll share my thoughts on the episodes as I remind myself of the horrors and potential joy the show has offered us over the last 13 years. As an added challenge I will try to say something positive about EVERY episode.

Any brave souls willing to join me on this mission are welcome.

I might join you up to Day of the Doctor, after that you are on your own

I have been watching series 10 recently and it isn't quite as bad as I remember but even when watching it I keep thinking "I wish I was watching something else". Sorry, just wanted to get that out there. The Monk Trilogy doesn't inspire me either but the last couple of Series 10 was the best since Matt's era. Never understood the Motief of Bill's mum, I don't recall it coming to anything

1. Rose
I almost forgot how terrible the look of the RTD era was, or at least series 1. The cinematography, lighting, colour and bloom effect are so bad it's like watching a degrading copy of a 90's children's show... with the music to go with it. You could smear vasoline on a camera lense and film an episode of Mr. Bean and it would still look more dramatic than 'Rose'. The attempts at humour and dialogue trying to make the Doctor seem alien are so terrible and hamfisted that when combined with the episode's inconsistencies, the episode comes around as an unintentional comedy masterpiece. With that said, watching the Doctor blow up a shop and Autons shooting down large groups of people in a city centre after the events in this country and around the world in the last few years retroactively makes the scenes of violence more effective than they once were.

Positive comment: The Auton costumes were quality.

I have to say Plastic Mickey is the beginning of the series going a bit tits up. How is it that the Autons can make a realistic looking General Scoby but manage to fuck Mickey up?

The thing I like about this episode is Clive. He says the Doctor’s constant companion is death and then despite being a bit part gets mercilessly slaughtered by the Autons. In front of his family as well, poor Clive. I love that. I remember JMW on PMF completely missing the point about nobody dying in the new series anymore, arguing that DW isn’t about death. It isn’t, but death causes creates more emotion than somebody coming back to life every 5 mins. Drama needs absolutes. And it was a nice organic call back to Spearhead, rather than bring back Movellians or something. I always liked the lots of planets have a north line. Bidmead moaning about it really misses the point.

At 58 secs that’s just pedantry

Murray’s music wasn’t too bad either. I think this could have possibly done with being a two-parter. I think using the Millennium Wheel as a transmitter was quite a nifty idea.

A few things I remember that were going through my head when I first watched Rose back in 2005.

- How terrible Eccleston's outfit looked. He looked like an Eastenders character that wandered off and got lost in an episode of Doctor Who.

- How terribly animated the Auton wheelie bin was and how cringe worthy the slapstick was as it literally swallowed Mickey and then burped.

- How ridiculous Auton Mickey looked and how fucking oblivious Rose was for not noticing anything.

I remember I wasn't exactly thrilled by this episode at the time of it's original broadcast, but I still saw some hope for NuWho and prayed that it would eventually get better.

I'll pass on this.

JMW is a notorious tit.

At the time :

Was dismayed that a Doctor as wearing jeans

Disappointed that Mark Benton wasn't kept on

The hasty resolution with a phial of "anti-plastic" (over in a flash)

The excess Earthiness


Was pleased with -

The retention of the wheezing,groaning sound

Billie's acting

The spinning Earth awareness.

An opportunity to frequently expose myself on Doctor Who Confidential.

Series 1 is the most overrated of all the new who series.

I don't get why fans praise it as a lightening in a bottle series? Even here it seems to get off easier, I have no idea?

Its full of cringey pop culture references to things like the Weakest Link which just date it. TBH all of the attempts at appealing to the younger crowed in series 1 kind of remind me of this bit from Still Game.



Also Eccelston I'm sorry was a terrible choice for the first of the New Doctors. Good actor, but A/ not eccentric enough B/ looked REALLY awkward when trying to be quirky (look at the bit in The End of The World when he is gurning at the aliens. Dear god it reminds me of Rick from the Young Ones going "aren't I a bit nutty everyone, oh look my arms have fallen off BOINK") B/ his costume was atrocious, C/ his relationship with Rose was out of character and inappropriate for the character.

Of course that's not to say that there weren't some good things about series 1, but overall it is to Doctor Who what the 1998 Godzilla was to the Godzilla franchise, or the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing was to Van Helsing.

JMW is a notorious tit.

Who?

NuHu loving apologist pedant poster on Mondas.

iank wrote:NuHu loving apologist pedant poster on Mondas.

You are making him sound too likeable

burrunjor wrote:Series 1 is the most overrated of all the new who series.

I don't get why fans praise it as a lightening in a bottle series? Even here it seems to get off easier, I have no idea?

Davies writing is nappier and a lot less convoluted would be my guess. And it is. Just watch Rose back to back with the Wedding of River Song. It's straightforward, pacey, doesn't feel like you need to watch it 5 times to work out what the hell is going on and lacks the more obvious plotholes. It feels like an adventure and just tells a story. It isn't hung up on surprises that always have the same resolution.

RTD's era may not have been the best but it pisses over most of Moffat's stuff

"Rose" at least has the turn of the Earth speech.

I watched up to the Witch's Familiar a little less than a year ago and I can't say I have much of an urge to rewatch. Even the 'good' episodes bore me nowadays.

I do have a bias to Series 1 being that it was the first of Doctor Who that I watched. It's subjective of course but the episodes do seem rather more consistent than in the later series.
I did notice that under RTD there seemed to be an unwritten rule that every couple must either be gay or interracial but the politics were never so egregious as in the later Moffat years.

Zarius wrote:"Rose" at least has the turn of the Earth speech.

That's not even that good though, is it?

It's a completely incongruous piece of melodrama shoved in after the zany events in the flat and a brisk walk through Turdsville (or whatever the estate was called).

The shift in tone is ridiculous. As if Davies decided: 'Ooh, this all a bit too manic and ker-azy. Need to make the Doc all brooding and mysterious so people take my characterisation seriously. I know, I'll have him stop in the middle of the street and talk utter bollocks about planetary momentum.'

2. The End of the World
I'm pretty sure RTD was intending for the show to be tongue in cheek--almost a parody--it's the only way to explain the tone. I think If I continue to watch the show under that lense I might enjoy it a lot more. This episode could have been a decent murder mystery episode but the pacing is so fucked that there is no murder mystery and the plot is resolved less than 10 minutes after the threat is properly established. The sound design is awful, sometimes hillariously so and the Face of Boe speaks in one scene with an English accent and high pitched voice which doesn't fit with what they do with him later on. It's almost like he was a weird character created for this episode but they later wanted a "funny" twist and just pulled it out of their arses, but that can't be it.

There's a scene where a tree lady burns to death turning the air conditioning off long enough for the Doctor to walk across the bridge, he then casually and safely walks back across like the giant fan blades didn't need to be slowed at all... that got a good laugh out of me. There's also a little blue midget with an obvious giant dick on its head. So there's that.

Positive comment: Some of the designs and costumes were well done, I guess?

3. The Unquiet Dead
Wow. I didn't care for this episode when it first aired but I watched this late last night and it was, as the big eared twat of a Doctor would say, fantastic. At least for nuwho standards. It was almost like watching a classic Who story, in fact if someone were to edit this to alter the colour and slightly degrade the picture quality, it could almost pass for a classic who story.

They changed the lighting to match the setting which rids the episode of the oversaturated, bloom effect look that plagued the previous episodes, though the orange tint remains. The cheap looking camera work is a positive here and combined with the new characters and their dialogue completes the illusion that The Unquiet Dead could have been ripped right from the early-mid 70s Who era.

My biggest surprise was the music, or more the lack of it. Most of the episode has no music at all, entire scenes go by with nothing but the dialogue and some atmostpheric noises and what music there is is mostly well done and effective. Simple notes being drawn out, growing in intensity to match the mood of the scene.

There are still some issues however, mainly the pace. I think the story would have been improved if it were a two parter or done in the classic who format, again the reveal of the threat is too close to the resolution and it needed more time to set the tone and slowly escalate. And NuWho loves to reuse actors doesn't it? I had no idea Eve Myles was in this.

Positive comment: What more is there to say? Very solid episode and it'd be easier to try and say something negative about it, so I will. It's been three episodes now and I'm not buying Eccleston as the Doctor. His accent, his costume and the way he plays the part don't fit the role, especially not here where I'm taken out of the setting and mood every time he appears on screen.

Ecclestone looks like he is enjoying pumping the Tardis a bit too much in the opening scene of End of the World. Good old Doctor Who, it's the 21st century and we still have people painted blue

I know the Britney Spears song is meant to be humorous but it just makes me cringe. The tonal inconsistencies are RTD trying to balance entertaining the adults and the kids but all he needs to do is credit the children with a bit of intellect and just right a reasonable story.

I see the reasons for introducing the psychic paper, in the old days it would have been "what are you doing here?" as they are caught next to a corpse and wrongly accused and locked up or something.

I think Murray's music is mostly ok except that scene at the end just before he takes Rose back.

And they introduce the Time War, still can't see why that was necessary.

End of the World was complete and utter shite. Even worse than Rose.  

Cassandra is easily one of the stupidest characters in Doctor Who history (how on earth does she live, speak and eat?) and that scene where Jabe pointlessly sacrifices herself so the Doctor could get past the slowest moving giant fans in history was incredibly poorly produced.  

The Unquiet Dead on the other hand was surprisingly really good.

It's rich in atmosphere, the acting is quite good throughout (the guy who plays Dickens in particular is great) and the ending where the servant girl sacrifices herself to destroy the Gelth was rather well done and quite touching. No cheap deus ex machinas here.

Easily one of the best episodes of Series 1.

RTD's era may not have been the best but it pisses over most of Moffat's stuff

Well from 2014 on yes, but Matt Smith's era is much better than either Tennant or Eccelston.

Tennant and Eccelston were terribly miscast, and their costumes were terrible. Matt at least was right for the part, had a good costume and seemed to have a bit of an understanding of the character (notice that he said series 5 was his favourite and that was not only the best, but the one where he was most like the Doctor. Compare that to Tennant saying that Rose and the Doctor is a love story without the shagging!)

Also nothing in Moffat's first three years is as stupid as the Jesus Doctor, the Anne Droid, the blowjob or rimjob stone, the Meta crisis Doctor, or human nature/family of blood.

River Song is annoying "hello sweetie" but at least she is a bit more compatable with the Doctor. She is older, a time lady, a time traveller. Had Moff not written her as his MILF fantasy, she might not have been that bad a character.

However yes when Moffat let the feminists tie his hands behind his back, bent over and let them stick whatever they wanted up there, and desecrated the franchise to a far worse extent than RTD 2014 on, though don't worry I won't go into this again.

I would agree with most of that, but especially the "Hello Sweetie" stuff and the fact that Matt having to suffer such mostly poor material was criminal.

Capaldi probably got a worse deal but I preferred Matt's Doctor so that bugs me more

The first two eps had to introduce Rose and then The Doctor and the concept of time travel. The Dickens one is free from all that with mystery and actual characters it is very enjoyable. And Mark Gatiss wrote it!

Does anybody remember Lawrence Miles's rant about it?

The third paragraph here: http://lawrencemiles.blogspot.com/2005/04/unquiet-dead.html

I should mention he apologised after

I never liked TEOTW and Rose has aged dreadfully. Unquiet Dead I can never make up my mind about it - sometimes I really like it as a Gothic throwback, sometimes I think it's twee shite.

The Moxx looks like a cross between The Grinch and the sort of over-strangulated glans you might encounter in a gay BDSM movie.

I also remember rumours at the time the episode aired that the name was a coded reference to some aspect of a gay sex act.  

Mr. Happy wrote: