Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Doctor Who Regeneration 03: Reversing the Polarity

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts



    Comment


      Though we’re not going to see it until late next year, it has been confirmed that actress Jodie Whittaker has shot her final scenes in the role of the thirteenth incarnation of The Doctor in the BBC’s long-running sci-fi series “Doctor Who”. Whittaker’s final run includes a six-episode thirteenth season which premieres at Halloween, and […]

      Jodie Whittaker has completed filming of her final scenes as the Doctor for her specials set to air next year. Usually this would mean that the next Doctor has already filmed their first scene too but there's no rumble of that so presumably the delivery will separate out the two incarnations.

      Comment


        Comment




          Mandip Gill has said that people will cry come the final episode of the new series run - hopefully not tears of relief

          Comment


            Here we go again:

            The Halloween Apocalypse:
            Largely a bait and switch title as references to Halloween barely exist. It's a hard episode to judge as with this series being one storyline over six episodes there's an obvious writing angle applied whereby the show assumes you'll see the rest so it can brush things aside for now. However, there are good ways to open a multi-ep arc and bad ways. This episode sets up the Flux as being a universe destroying threat that potentially errs a little too close to the Nexus from Star Trek Generations. It looks good though. The villain they've set up was positioned as being a serious threat but I suspect will immediately hit a wall with many viewers as he clearly exists to try and create a storyline to make the Timeless Child arc harder to retcon in future. John Bishop was... John Bishop? Not Peter Kay bad but no sign of surprising like Tate did.

            Main issues for the episode? You really had to grin and bear it through the dog species bits but the show has pre-existing form on that front so you can't really hold it against them keeping a lighter element like that in. The effects... the space stuff looks fine but the opening action sequence was rough as hell, the show simply doesn't have the budget to convincingly do a lot of what it attempts and until the BBC funds it enough so it doesn't look cheap they should reign some bits in. Yaz is Yaz, still no sign of meaningful character development. Hopefully they do something with her given she's nearing the end of the road so there must have been some point to keeping her around.

            Main problem though was that rather than set up the arc cleanly they introduced around 10 characters and multiple time periods, enemies and scenarios with no context to them so as things stand the episode was light and fast but also messy and with little depth.

            Again, if you could binge the show it probably wouldn't stand out but on its own it was an easy but forgettable episode.


            Series 01 - 4 Strong Episodes (Total 4 for Eccleston)
            Series 02 - 2 Strong Episodes
            Series 03 - 3 Strong Episodes
            Series 04 - 8 Strong Episodes (Total 15 for Tennant)
            Series 05 - 3 Strong Episodes
            Series 06 - 5 Strong Episodes
            Series 07 - 4 Strong Episodes (Total 12 for Smith)
            Series 08 - 2 Strong Episodes
            Series 09 - 3 Strong Episodes
            Series 10 - 3 Strong Episodes (Total 8 for Capaldi)
            Series 11 - 2 Strong Episodes
            Series 12 - 1 Strong Episode
            Series 13 - 0 Strong Episodes So Far

            Comment



              Series 13 opens slightly down on the viewing figures for Series 12, not enough to rock the boat but suggesting the 'event' and Halloween timing aspects failed to draw lost attention back to the show.

              Comment


                Just went to watch this weeks episode... the shows on Sundays instead now ever episode. I swear... the BBC doesn't deserve this thing to be a success. Mismanaged to hell.

                Comment


                  I'd love a network with higher quality output to have a go at Doctor Who. The show can go anywhere at any time and somehow they make nonsense. Imagine a HBO version!

                  Comment


                    I genuinely don't understand it anytime I hear comments that the show has never looked so good. It looks awful a lot of the time. It's abundantly clear the budget has been tightened too far and the shift to filming it in HD has just emphasised how basic and cheap everything looks. The earlier series in the Tennant era lack the image quality now but were muich more along the right lines and that its being outsourced for Series 14 is something I hope means will see it shaken up. RTD has talked about the need to make the show competitive to the things Netflix and Disney are putting out online so hopefully that means the look of the show is getting attention too.


                    Ep2 saw a half million drop in viewers, normal but the shows lower figures to begin with don't help.

                    War of the Sontarans
                    See, this episode was better. However, it exposed Flux quite early too. After multiple cliffhangers and the imminent arrival of the Flux we just see follow up on some of those which feels like a cop out. Also, 99% of this episode is effectively stand alone. In effect the sequences we saw in the first episode took place before the Flux scrambled time so it's sketchy how it holds up but I guess the intention is 'wibbly wobbly timey wimey'. Going off the teaser for the next episode and the synopsis for the fourth it's fairly clear that the serialised format set up for this run is something of a lie, this is a couple of stand alone episodes with a loose arc across them which is frankly pretty typical for the show. The real distinction really is that we're missing around seven stand alone episodes fleshing it out and we're still on course for more timeless child info which I frankly just don't care about. I love as well how much focus was put on the episode cliffhangers which the teasers immediately undermine. So, all in all a very middling episode which was serviceable by normal standards (the Sontarans are a very repetitive villain) and spinning its wheels arc wise.

                    Series 01 - 4 Strong Episodes (Total 4 for Eccleston)
                    Series 02 - 2 Strong Episodes
                    Series 03 - 3 Strong Episodes
                    Series 04 - 8 Strong Episodes (Total 15 for Tennant)
                    Series 05 - 3 Strong Episodes
                    Series 06 - 5 Strong Episodes
                    Series 07 - 4 Strong Episodes (Total 12 for Smith)
                    Series 08 - 2 Strong Episodes
                    Series 09 - 3 Strong Episodes
                    Series 10 - 3 Strong Episodes (Total 8 for Capaldi)
                    Series 11 - 2 Strong Episodes
                    Series 12 - 1 Strong Episode
                    Series 13 - 0 Strong Episodes So Far

                    Comment


                      In an interview with BusinessLive, Bad Wolf director Natasha Hale stated that Doctor Who production will move out of Roath Lock and into another studio complex in Cardiff. “We have also got Doctor Who (from 2023) which is pretty major and back to the dream team of Russell T Davies writing and that is going … >

                      Doctor Who: Series 14 will see the production of the show move from the studios it's been made in since Series 7 and relocate to Bad Wolf Studios.

                      Comment


                        Will have to write up on last nights ep tomorrow. Started watching it but fell asleep abotu 20 mins in because it was sheer excrement

                        Comment


                          You misspelled "excitement".

                          Comment


                            One day hopefully... one day...

                            Comment


                              Once, Upon A Time
                              Managed to sit through this last night, I started it again from the beginning. I get what they were going for, it's nothing new, essentially random seperate scenes that come together at the end to reveal what is really happening so it all makes sense. The trouble is that it's handled so badly. It opens with a resolution to the cliffhanger to the previous episode, not a continuation though, it wholesale retcons what happened because they just wanted more dramatic effect in the last episode and wrote themselves into a corner so events don't align at all. They're all cast randomly through their own timelines but also into each others events presumably just as a way to keep all the cast involved regularly as there's little reason to it. Yaz is stalked by a Weeping Angel, it makes little sense in the episode until it's left at the end as still having little context to it outside of setting up the next episode. The new guy is forced to experience his backstory which is fine enough simply just to get us up to speed with who he is (though there's still no context as to his and his newly introduced girlfriends relevance) and Dan gets... to speed date? Except his date at one moment seems self-aware as though it's in Dan's head? But it's not and we find out where she really is so that doesn't work either. Meanwhile the Doctor conveniently relives a past mission as the Ruth Doctor (apparently the only pre-Hartnell incarnation to do anything). Oh, we also find out what the Flux is. It's a spacial weapon. It rides through space and annihilates worlds... except for when it just ravages them... well, except for when it ruins some buildings and leaves some people alive... well, except for when it just displaces individuals in time...

                              The main issue with the structure of the ep as well though is that this is effectively the same structure the entire series is trying to pull off as well and without any real resolution to anything at the end it's just a mess. We're halfway in, the next ep looks to be very much more conventional but still chasing the cliffhangers from Ep1 so it's really looking like the whole series intent is just to try and lay hard to move anchors to the Timeless Child arc to make later retcons harder to attempt. So far, it's all becoming very much more of the same from the previous run. Weakest ep of Series 13 so far.

                              Comment



                                Whittaker and Chibnall's final special is set to air Autumn 2022 as part of the BBC's Centenary Celebrations. With the New Years special in place that leaves just one other which presumably is a lock for around Easter 2022.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X