The Doctor Who thread

[UltraMarginal]

And hopefully the Doctor might bump into some old friends too -- it'd be really interesting to see how some of her past companions would react.

This for sure

[GoktimusPrime]

One thing that has impressed me with the first episode of the Thirteenth Doctor, and this is something that I hope will become a recurring thing in this new series, is the apparent attempt to marry the best elements of Classic and New Era Doctor Who.

Elements of Classic Who:

* Your Friendly Neighbourhood Doctor.
The New Doctor typically does things which saves worlds, galaxies or the entire universe. They're really huge epics. The Classic Doctor on the other hand more often just focused on saving individuals; either people, communities or just a world. He would sometimes end up saving the galaxy or universe but only if the localised threat happened to also be an expansive threat. There's nothing wrong with big expansive and epic stories, but it was kinda getting worn with the New Doctor and I think it was nice to go back to the old format of just dealing with more localised problems. In the first episode the Doctor's objective was to save just one person. In doing so she also saved others, but her primary objective was to save just one dude.

* Doctor Who?
The Thirteenth Doctor literally fell into this story not fully remembering who she was due to post-regenerative trauma. But this also had the benefit of removing the pomposity that we've seen in the recent New Doctors. She didn't traipse up to the threat and declare herself to be THE Doctor, the Oncoming Storm" or "Destroyer of Worlds." The New Doctor had established a reputation for being really quite terrifying - so much so that the Doctor's enemies once all formed an Alliance against him because they feared that he would destroy the universe (re: the Pandorica). And they weren't wrong! And there were plenty of times when the New Doctor would use this reputation to his advantage; to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. The Thirteenth Doctor hasn't done this. She didn't say something like, "Instead of a Time Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn!" Yeah, nah. We just had a humble, friendly neighbourhood Doctor. Her companions had never heard of her (and initially refused to believe that she was an alien). The threat didn't know who she was. She didn't evoke any Shadow Proclamations or anything like that. She just told him to stop what he was doing or that she would have to stop him.

Elements of New Who:

* Faster story-telling format/pace.
And this is due to the new format of Doctor Who being series of weekly longer episodes vs daily shorter episodes. While it's true that the Classic format did allow for much better world-building, it also dragged the pace down. Under the old format we would've spent a lot more time getting to know the companions, the target and the alien menace before the Doctor even shows up, which would probably be towards the end of the episode and as that thing attacked them on the train it would've cut to the end credits. The old format was a much, much slower pace of story-telling, which just doesn't cut it for TV today, especially as a weekly series instead of daily. And honestly, the episode tells us all we need to know about the companions and the alien threat. And part of the reason why Classic Who took so long to build up these things was because they had a much smaller budget, and often the locations and sets looked really generic. Oh look, a random Welsh quarry. No, uh... it's an alien world... let's explain it to the audience, but really we're just filming in a Welsh quarry. The superior production value of New Who no longer necessitates this amount of exposition.

So yeah... that's where I think the first episode has drawn the best from both worlds. I hope that future eps will continue to try to do the same, but I can't wait for episode 2!

[GoktimusPrime]

Ep 2 spoilers

Episode 2 seems to continue blending elements of Classic and Neo Who. The new theme song is interesting... it's as if it takes a Neo breath before plunging into a more Classic sounding theme. But yeah, the episode certainly placed greater emphasis on the Doctor using her mind to solve the mystery - a staple of Classic Who. But it also had lots of running and immediate peril, a more common element seen in Neo Who. Having the Ghost Monument actually be the Tardis was a Neo Who thing, but I thought it was pretty cool. I'm not sure how I feel about this episode also being tied to the Stenza. I guess there's pros and cons to making them an over-arching villain or plot point of the series. The main downside is that this has become an overdone thing with Neo Who and I think that some fans might long for the simpler days of Classic Who where not everything and everyone had to be linked or related to some greater overarching story MacGuffin. The companions don't seem to be linked to any greater destiny, so does this mean that they've shifted the focus to a recurring villain/threat instead?

I don't mind if the Stenza make a return as a bigger threat... but I just don't want it to become the hanging plot point of the series. It's all fine for Doctor Who to have recurring villains - we've had plenty in the past like the Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels etc., but they usually weren't an endpoint for the story to reach. We've had enough of that... cracks in walls, impossible girls etc. I dunno... I guess when everything becomes epic then nothing is. :/

[SMHFConvoy]

I have a feeling the Stenza plot thread will be resolved sooner than later, I'm hoping the "timeless child" is just a reveal that the Doctor now has infinite regenerations

[mirrorman]

Ep 2 spoilers

Episode 2 seems to continue blending elements of Classic and Neo Who. The new theme song is interesting... it's as if it takes a Neo breath before plunging into a more Classic sounding theme. But yeah, the episode certainly placed greater emphasis on the Doctor using her mind to solve the mystery - a staple of Classic Who. But it also had lots of running and immediate peril, a more common element seen in Neo Who. Having the Ghost Monument actually be the Tardis was a Neo Who thing, but I thought it was pretty cool. I'm not sure how I feel about this episode also being tied to the Stenza. I guess there's pros and cons to making them an over-arching villain or plot point of the series. The main downside is that this has become an overdone thing with Neo Who and I think that some fans might long for the simpler days of Classic Who where not everything and everyone had to be linked or related to some greater overarching story MacGuffin. The companions don't seem to be linked to any greater destiny, so does this mean that they've shifted the focus to a recurring villain/threat instead?

I don't mind if the Stenza make a return as a bigger threat... but I just don't want it to become the hanging plot point of the series. It's all fine for Doctor Who to have recurring villains - we've had plenty in the past like the Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels etc., but they usually weren't an endpoint for the story to reach. We've had enough of that... cracks in walls, impossible girls etc. I dunno... I guess when everything becomes epic then nothing is. :/

Have watched who for a long time and concur on all points you make here GoktimusPrime.

EDIT - Forgot to mention, this is my first post here.

[mirrorman]

I wouldn't mind if they just gave the Master a rest during this Doctor's run. I'm sure that some fan favourite villains will return, but I'm more looking forward to seeing what new complications the Doctor will encounter. And hopefully the Doctor might bump into some old friends too -- it'd be really interesting to see how some of her past companions would react.

Please - yes!

The Master character was used in good measure through the 70's-80's, making the show and character the better for it.

Unfortunately Missy was a large part of why I missed a lot of Capaldi's run as the Doctor.

[SMHFConvoy]

Haven't the new showrunners said that this season will feature new villains and that daleks, cybermen and the master/mistress won't be appearing for the foreseeable future?

Tbh they were done to death in RTD and Moffat's run.

[mirrorman]

Haven't the new showrunners said that this season will feature new villains and that daleks, cybermen and the master/mistress won't be appearing for the foreseeable future?

I do hope so.

Time to get some new monsters.

[Autocon]

Yeah anything from moffats run wont be here, starting a-fresh

[GoktimusPrime]

"Rosa" -- absolutely amaaaaazing episode. Powerful and confronting in its historical accuracy.