Reports of Olly Alexander having been cast as the next Doctor. Highly doubtful myself mostly because it comes from The Sun but also because he'd be benching an awful lot for a long time to do it.
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Reports of Olly Alexander having been cast as the next Doctor. Highly doubtful myself mostly because it comes from The Sun but also because he'd be benching an awful lot for a long time to do it. -
Barroman addresses his exposure reports for what he says is the last timeComment
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Personally it doesn't need a break - it needs consistency and a better guiding hand behind the wheel.Comment
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That article does raise some valid points, but misses out on a key critical detail: people still like watching it in their 100 of thousands across the globe.Comment
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Doctor Who: Series 13 will tell one single storyline arced across all of its eight episodes.
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Bez from the Happy Mondays is in it now!Comment
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Chibnall looks set to try and replicate the Davies/Tennant era event as it's been confirmed that in 2022 there will be three specials instead of Series 14, the specials will build up to and cover Jodie Whittaker's exit from the role of the Doctor and following the last of the three Chibnall himself will step down as showrunner meaning that from Series 14 in 2023 there will be a showrunner and a new 15th Doctor.Comment
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I've got a feeling that the next Doctor will be:
A-Male
B-Relatively young (35-45)
C-Black
D-A relatively unknown actor
As much as the arrival of Whittaker was heralded as a major moment for the show I think it's unavoidable to consider the move a failed one and whilst there will no doubt be several female Doctors in future I think the precarious position the show has now found itself in will see the BBC retreat back on that front a little, however they'll still be keen to maintain a progressive push so having a non-white Doctor has been talked about for many years and has been avoided by the Beeb for nearing six decades.
As usual the list of rumoured names is beyond naive, whoever takes on the role is in effect suspending their career for it for the next 4 years at a minimum. If the BBC has even the smallest shred of common sense left as well they'll finally get their act together and return the show to being 10-13 episodes every year instead of these long audience losing gaps and schedule changes that just kill its ability to hold on to viewers interests.
Honestly, won't happen because his career is beyond that point now but Daniel Kaluuya would have been a good choice. Before he got into things like Black Panther and Get Out he was also great in stuff like The Fades and has also dabbled with the comedy side meaning he has the right range to cover comedy/serious/emotional stakes etc.
That ties in with the showrunner thing, I feel with Who - due to Davies run - the role of showrunner is overplayed. Most shows change showrunners regularly and the audience has no idea but Who allows the showrunner to overly dictate everything about the show instead of the showrunner simply being in charge of maintaining the programmes own identity. As much as it had its detractors I think the show really needs to get back to a modernised version of the Eccleston/Tennant era tone where the sci-fi sat alongside humour and emotion, able to dial up things to a heartbreak point where needed. Since probably the run up to Smith leaving there's a real emotional disconnect with the show, with Moffatt and Capaldi it was because Moffatt wanted to make something closer to classic era Who in tone. The trouble is that without that connection it's hard to feel invested and care much about the Doctor or the companion, it's why Bill didn't work, she felt like a tag along who you were counting down to her exit because you neither cared and knew it was coming - the sci-fi had taken too much of the forefront of things.
With Whittaker - it's kind of awkward to say but after this long I don't feel there's much dancing around it - she's simply not very good. It's not her as an actress, more that it feels obvious that she's miscast. After playing the role for years she still comes across like she's playing the character in a very vanilla Childrens BBC shallow way. It's like she's a drama actor who isn't either suited or comfortable playing an oddball character and yet any rare time emotional elements come into things they don't land either, it's weird because she's doing the same northern Doctor thing Eccleston did but I think with Eccleston he got away with it because the show was new to the audience, the material was infinitely stronger and just as the good will swirled up he quickly bowed out so there was never chance to consider a low to his incarnation. She's definitely been poorly served by the material but there's not the same sense of wasted opportunity that Capaldi had who felt more unutilised.
I'd like the showrunner to be less of a presence in future, to have less of a personal touch to the show and for it to be more consistent and dramatically involving and whoever plays the Doctor needs to both available to make it consistently for the next 3-4 years and also be suited to the wide range of acting ability it needs just as both Tennant and Smith were well suited to.Comment
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Babylon 5's Michael J Straczynski has said that he has been in contact with the BBC regarding the role of showrunner suggesting that the BBC already has the process of identifying a replacement for Chibnall under way but that if the search doesn't pan out they will come back to him following him expressing a desire to helm the show.
Separate from this though it's also popped up that the three specials next year aren't quite as additional as it seems. Two of them are part of the Series 13 block meaning that when the show returns this winter it's now actually just a mere six episodes long.Comment
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Honestly, I'd can it and completely start from scratch. Call it 'New Doctor Who' or something and give it the streaming service budget and treatment.Comment
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That would just be Series 14 anyway
New showrunner, new style, new Doctor, new Tardis and new companion. It's painful that the BBC clearly doesn't budget or oversee the show well even before anyone gets to whether Chibnall runs it well either. The list of errors is scarily blatant and the beeb needs to open its eyes to why Davies era worked so well. Who isn't hard sci-fi and whilst I think MJS would make it better I think it'd still be too niche a target. In many ways they need a blend of Tennant era and Marvel, something a new generation of kids can easily latch onto as much as fans can enjoy the lore.Comment
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For me, the thing with Doctor Who was always the fun of seeing how he'd overcome the problem. Just like Bond, you know nothing is going to happen to him, but the thrill was seeing him solve the problem.
Lately its either solved by coincidence or it'd be solved just because 'im doctor who and I know everything!' Well that just feels lazy.
It needs some 'oh wow that's clever' moments. It also needs a good story arch per season. The season needs a beginning, middle and end, and I think its missing that.
Just my thoughts. I'm no mega fan.Comment
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Yep, there's pretty much little brain work in the recent series, it's very much like she's one amongst a group just having things happen around her rather than taking charge of a situation. I guess it was an attempt to veer away from the almost revered level things got to for a while but it's gone too far the other way and too much as eroded the backstory as well. Doesn't help that the acting and scripting levels are very CBBC a lot of the time too.Comment
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Timely, the BBC Head of Drama has said that Series 14 will be bring with it a radical overhaul of the show.
Also, timely. After my past rewatching of the show in the lead up to Series 12 I'm now in the process of rewatching Series 12 itself as a refresher for the incoming Series 13.
Spyfall Part 1 and Part 2
Horrible. Absolutely horrible. Dhawan stands out, mostly getting the role of the Master right in the second part. There are too many moments where he comes across as trying to play down to the role, to carry some quirk and oddity, but it comes across as awkward to watch. The more straight he plays it the better he is and he then begins to run rings around the rest of the cast. Whittaker is still utterly lost in the show, the material is abysmal. The plotting is bad, the internal logic embarrassingly poor and it's clear the writers couldn't be bothered to make much effort in mapping out the two parters arc. Time Lord abilities come and go with no reasoning, the secondary villain just disappears. It's not even an editing issue, the content that is there is badly handled and poorly acted. The only other person who does a reasonable job is Lenny Henry who's underutilised. Probably the weakest opener any of the modern series have had.Comment
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