Series 11

Boofer wrote:I blame McCoy for starting all the gurning.

Last ep of the War Games with the new face schtick, surely. Pertwee of course regularly placed first for it, but then he also brought gravitas and actual acting when needed so I sort of forgive all but the worst of his face pulling.

With no store of good will to call upon, Series 11 has to sink or swim on the strength of the lead actor's acting, and she simply isn't up to the task. Medium talent bland actress whose main focus is pulling stupid faces isn't exactly a crowd puller.

In that respect yes, very much like "McCoy"- no good will left to encourage the remaining viewers to be charitable so the gurning is just another provocation and irritation.

I hate the fact that the era that gave us Remembrance of the Daleks,Ghost Light,The Greatest Show In The Galaxy & The Curse Of Fenric is being compared to Chibnall's plebeian offal.
Is McCoy a great actor?. No. Was he a great Doctor? Yes. And miles better than Whittaker.
Is chibnall a better showrunner than Cartmel? not in a million years. Seasons 25 and 26 are Shakespeare compared to this current tripe.

bryanbraddock wrote:I hate the fact that the era that gave us Remembrance of the Daleks,Ghost Light,The Greatest Show In The Galaxy & The Curse Of Fenric is being compared to Chibnall's plebeian offal.
Is McCoy a great actor?. No. Was he a great Doctor? Yes. And miles better than Whittaker.
Is chibnall a better showrunner than Cartmel? not in a million years. Seasons 25 and 26 are Shakespeare compared to this current tripe.

We'll have to disagree re McCoy, I think he was a terrible actor and a middling Doctor. The producers of his era were the powerhouse that put so-so scripts through a process that still managed to make recognizable Doctor Who out of, to be honest, cack.
There no longer seems to be a functioning cack-to-script module.

bryanbraddock wrote:I hate the fact that the era that gave us Remembrance of the Daleks,Ghost Light,The Greatest Show In The Galaxy & The Curse Of Fenric is being compared to Chibnall's plebeian offal.
Is McCoy a great actor?. No. Was he a great Doctor? Yes. And miles better than Whittaker.
Is chibnall a better showrunner than Cartmel? not in a million years. Seasons 25 and 26 are Shakespeare compared to this current tripe.

Completely agree. Sylv's time was, and likely will always remain, the last great era of Doctor Who.

Is chibnall a better showrunner than Cartmel? not in a million years. Seasons 25 and 26 are Shakespeare compared to this current tripe

Agreed. The McCoy era was apart from its first season as good as any other.

McCoy's Doctor fits in with the first 6 no problem. He is naturally eccentric, mysterious, ruthless, asexual, an explorer and a Holmseian/Quatermass style insufferable genius.

If he had snogged Sophie Aldred, slapped her on the bum, burst into tears when she left, dressed like a London hipster then yeah he would have been as bad as the new who Doctors.

Also one thing I really appreciate about McCoy is that he covered up his accent and didn't draw attention to the fact that he is Scottish.

I myself am Scottish, so its not like I have a problem with a Scots actor playing the role, but I am fed up in New Who of them drawing attention to the actors accent.

We accept that an alien like the Doctor is going to have a human accent, just like with Spock. Unless you want the actor to put on a silly voice it has to be done.

However you get round that by keeping the actors accent slight, and not mentioning it so as not to break the illusion and make people ask "why is an alien speaking like a guy from Glasgow".

In New Who however, my god we have LOTS OF PLANETS AVE A NORF, Capaldi going on about space Glasgow and Missy comparing him to a drunk Rangers fan and all of his "OOOOOOH I'M SCOTTISH, I CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT THINGS AND BLAME THE ENGLISH", and worst of all Jodie not trying to tone down her accent in any way to the point where no one can fucking understand her.

bryanbraddock wrote:I hate the fact that the era that gave us Remembrance of the Daleks,Ghost Light,The Greatest Show In The Galaxy & The Curse Of Fenric is being compared to Chibnall's plebeian offal.
Is McCoy a great actor?. No. Was he a great Doctor? Yes. And miles better than Whittaker.
Is chibnall a better showrunner than Cartmel? not in a million years. Seasons 25 and 26 are Shakespeare compared to this current tripe.

I dig season 25 and 26. I even have a great deal of affection for season 24, a season that's disliked by the vast majority of fans for reasons I fail to understand. I find it just a little bit weird that every episode of Series 11 is paying homage to Mission to the Unknown by having the Doctor be completely absent in the proceedings. Utterly bewildering.

Season 24 had strong scripts and original ideas, it just felt a little 'tacky', and distant from what Doctor Who was in its 'glory days'.
I doubt that many people who actually watched Season 25 and, especially, 26 would suggest them subpar - problem was, not many people did watch them.

Then it was cancelled, and the most influential voices in the fandom - later to become NuWho writers - pushed the calumny of the show's qualitative decline.

Amusingly, so many of them took to resurrecting and exaggerating those same qualities they once criticized ... Chibnall being the most congruent example. Series 11 feels like everything he'd make believe was wrong about 80s Who, only avec overly patent politics, and sans good scripts.

I said at the time that Moffat was like fandom's nightmare version of JNT - rather than what he actually was - writ large. Fuck knows what Chinballs is.

iank wrote: Fuck knows what Chinballs is.

a hack. in the technical and as used by professionals sense, a hack.
no feel for the material, no great skill, just slopping it together scene by scene, gluing it up so it doesn't fall apart immediately and out the door it goes. By the numbers. Needs right-on poitics inserted - jam it in. Lead actor is gurning - who gives a fuck, out the door it goes. Needs non-whites drowning out whites - jam them in. Needs overt moralizing - jam it in.
Thematic foreshadowing? Bah fuck that. Consistency and callbacks - what are they? Continuity within his own series? Who cares. Out the door it goes.
Chibnall is making the Doctor Who equivalent of Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

As a friend of mine once said: “You can wrap a turd in gold - it’s still a turd.”

There isn't a bad story from Remembrance onwards. Even the much-maligned Silver Nemesis is a fine watch due to it being shot almost entirely on location (except for the model shots) which showcases the beautiful English countryside setting. Nemesis also has some well-staged action sequences and a cracking incidental score to boot.

Aside from have some weak-sauce Cybermen, I agree, Silver Nemesis is a cracking watch and I wish we got to see more of Peintforte. Not even Big Finish has touched on her.

They surely will, honey! They surely will!

iank wrote:They surely will, honey! They surely will!

Coming Soon From Big Finish...SOCIAL WORKERS

Zarius wrote:

iank wrote:They surely will, honey! They surely will!

Coming Soon From Big Finish...SOCIAL WORKERS

The Majestic Adventures of Pigbin Josh, Bin Dipper.

We need a thread for this.

1. A stack of letters, a pressed flower, a broken watch
2. “Don’t read the filthy bits.”
3. Line most likely to spawn a Big Finish audio: “I have apologized for the death-eyed turtle army. Profusely.”
4. Graham admits the real reason he’s continued to travel with the Doctor: to be *****ted.
5. The Doctor again awards “points” . . . sorta.
6. “Oil, water, tree bark, a sauce pan, nine containers, an old newspaper, a touch of ox spit, a chicken poo, and a biscuit.”
7. Someone takes “a bit of a shine” to Graham.
8. Second best line: “I never did this when I was a man!”
9. Telepathic circuit! Transmat! Einstein! shopping, catching a movie, bowling
10. She’s not just pushing boundaries, she’s eliminating borders!
11. “Manish, will you let me f*** you?”

These are actual bits from the upcoming episode. I am NOT joking.

Demons of the Punjab

I will say this season is enticing to watch because its such a fucking trainwreck, but I'll still give it a miss. Its one thing to read about it, its another to torture yourself for 45 mins.

iank wrote:I said at the time that Moffat was like fandom's nightmare version of JNT

That's true, Moffat was everything fans always feared JNT would turn into and wrongly accused him of, without him actually being so.

Sure, JNT was no continuity expert when it came to Doctor Who and made occasional continuity clangers and was largely awful at casting actors and directors, but he had a true love for the original spirit of the show - something which NuWho has consistently lacked and actually shown complete contempt towards.

And ReTARDIS begins to sense the tide is shifting against the series, so he begins damage control by overrating several of the episodes before admitting we haven't had a knock-out story yet

Finally, we've gotten the advance review for "Demons of the Punjab"

“Demons of the Punjab” is an episode that demonstrates plenty of heart, and contains some nice moments for Yaz, but unfortunately there’s not nearly enough excitement to go along with it.

http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/demons-of-the-punjab-advance-review-heartfelt-but-humdrum-89285.htm

On IMDB, Currently the top 10 worst voted NuWho episodes are:

1. The Tsuranga Conundrum
2. Sleep No More
3. Fear Her
4. Arachnids in the UK
5. In the Forest of the Night
6. Love & Monsters
7. The Lazarus Experiment
8. The Ghost Monument
9. Victory of the Daleks
10. Curse of the Black Spot

Three of the worst nuwho episodes as voted for by actual nuwho fans come from the latest series.
Last weeks episode is the most disliked nuwho episode EVER.
And the latest reviews are in for tomorrow nights story, and it's another borefest.

http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/demons-of-the-punjab-advance-review-heartfelt-but-humdrum-89285.htm

" “Demons of the Punjab” is an episode that demonstrates plenty of heart, and contains some nice moments for Yaz, but unfortunately there’s not nearly enough excitement to go along with it."

There's a real possibility that by the end of this series over half of the worst episodes
voted for on IMDB will come from series 11.

bryanbraddock wrote:On IMDB, Currently the top 10 worst voted NuWho episodes are:

1. The Tsuranga Conundrum
2. Sleep No More
3. Fear Her
4. Arachnids in the UK
5. In the Forest of the Night
6. Love & Monsters
7. The Lazarus Experiment
8. The Ghost Monument
9. Victory of the Daleks
10. Curse of the Black Spot

Three of the worst nuwho episodes as voted for by actual nuwho fans come from the latest series.
Last weeks episode is the most disliked nuwho episode EVER.
And the latest reviews are in for tomorrow nights story, and it's another borefest.

http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/demons-of-the-punjab-advance-review-heartfelt-but-humdrum-89285.htm

" “Demons of the Punjab” is an episode that demonstrates plenty of heart, and contains some nice moments for Yaz, but unfortunately there’s not nearly enough excitement to go along with it."

There's a real possibility that by the end of this series over half of the worst episodes
voted for on IMDB will come from series 11.

Unsurprising. "Series 11" is really Series 1 of a female spinoff, not a continuation. The Sarah Jane Woke Adventures just don't cut it as genuine Who. It's sub-Big Finish tier. And to be fair, some of the old Big Finish beats anything in New Who. Recent BF is another story.

Another NuWho yes-man senses the tide is shifting and cobbles up a defense, all the while begging people not to dislike the video or roast him in the comments. They're afraid, they're very afraid.

Thoughts on "Humans of the Punjab"

On one hand, it was nice to see Yaz defined a bit by a tragic backstory...she's essentially the product of her grandmother settling for something else after being driven from her home and her true love. The Doctor got it wrong about the Vagarians and ultimately had to stand by helplessly while a fixed point occurred, and the true villain got away with the murder of his brother and the holy man. There were considerable stakes.

That said, the lack of a much bigger cast to properly reflect the sweeping change brought on by the partisan, the lack of alien menace, show not tell storytelling, and two needless PC sermon-on-the-mount speeches held back the story from being a real highlight of this near riskless series.