Doctor Who

I came across this, and it was to hilarious not to share.

You lost!

Recently finished the Masterful Big Finish audio story. Overall its enjoyable, though it feels torn between being a character examination of the titular figure and an over the top adventure, thus it doesn't always feel its doing either concept complete justice.

Cast wise its tremendous. Gomez, Macqueen, & Jacobi are great as expected (though the latter's story feels a bit of waste of him) and Milo Parker makes for an intriguing young Master who's not quite become the ruthless figure he later would. Simm isn't bad but it goes for the more manic End of Time characterization than the restrained Doctor Falls variation and verbally his voice just sounds different from what I remember.

The real standouts are Beevers and surprisingly enough, Roberts. The former gets some real emotional material to sink his teeth into and creates an believable little character journey for the incarnation that's most known for being power hungry and vengeful. The latter feels like he finally finds his voice as the Master, giving an unnerving sense of malice even though he plays almost all his scenes fairly calm and friendly. If Jacobi is the Master who can fake affability to the point where you almost want to believe his façade, Roberts pulls off being the snake you're constantly waiting to strike.

Edited by BorneAgain on Jan 15th 2021 at 12:14:54 PM

Still waiting for a Legion of Losers movie...

Eric Roberts is actually a pretty good actor, he just has no interest in being picky about roles, so he does a ton of really bad movies that don't give him any ability to actually act. He also doesn't generally try harder than the script or the director.

Edited by Zendervai on Jan 15th 2021 at 1:10:07 PM

Not Three Laws compliant.

I finally got around to watching the new years special. It was a massive win for me. Despite not being all that thrilled with Chibnil's era my wife and I really really had a lot of fun with this one.

It was political in a way the chibnil era has kind of failed to be consistently, it had a character focus I've been missing from Doctor Who, the villains are delightfully fun? And the labouring of continuity actually felt inoffensive or additional rather than reductive and stagnating than it has been.

Really enjoyed it.

I kind of really liked the new Dalek design and I did hope that they'd stick around to add veriety to the Dalek ranks. (I do like it when we get crowd shots of RTD Daleks and we see a few Moffat Daleks peppered in there)

The trump stand in returning to be bullied by the fam was good fun, and him getting away with everything ike he's covered in Teflon rings so true to the current political climate. I hope he makes a third appearance and does eventually get his justice disserts.

I kind of loved Jack in this? I like seeing Jack fill the role Sarah-Jane did in School Reunion. It suits him well? I also love the joke about how convouleted and outlandish the RTD Rose plot was.

I really liked seeing the Doctor in Prison? Perhaps it was a retread of Heaven Sent, but it was fascinating to see and I gladly would have seen more of it. Also the Weeping Angel and Silent cameo actually massively worked for me, and I'd happily see those two monsters exist as regular cemeo monsters for the Chibnil era like the sontarans and Daleks were in the Moffat era.

The soloution for the Daleks was so juicy. I love the image of a hundred Daleks cramped into a consol room shaking with excitement and confusion. Amazing. Daleks unable to prevent themselves from rushing into a tiny box after the Doctor. Amazing!

Also I LOVE Ryan and Graham's exit. I've said for ages now that I want companions to stop leaving due to traumatic ultimatums. And I love that the two of them left because pretty much their family together was the bigger adventure for them. Wonderful.

that poor Tardis

New theme music also a box

Oh yeah that was grim.

I think what I liked about the episode was that it was a Dalek episode that was fun? It wasn't grim dark. It still treated the Daleks as a major deal but still had fun with how predictable they can be.

Though by drawing attention to that it really does make it super obvious that holy crap Daleks are predictable. Which in turn leaves me wondering if there is much (if anything) left to do with them.

Cybermen have their spiffy new upgrade courtesy of the Master, Asharad was also an interesting spin on the concept. The Master himself is in a weird headspace after the Timeless Child reveal and his love/hate relationship with the Doctor. But Daleks? They kind of feel redundant and tired all over again, to me at least.

Edited by jakobitis on Jan 18th 2021 at 3:33:06 PM

"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."

I mean, I think they've been tired and redundant since Series 5. And that's being generous.

Doctor Who — Long Way Around: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13536044/1/Doctor-Who-Long-Way-Around

I recall being really surprised when Moffat said the show doesn't have to bring the Daleks back every series to keep the rights, because quite frankly contractual obligation feels like only justification for most Dalek stories in the last decade.

Still waiting for a Legion of Losers movie...

They have kinda tried doing different things with the Daleks. What immediately jumps to mind: Davros, the Dalek Emperor, Human Factor Daleks, the Imperial-Renegade Civil War, the Cult of Skaro, the human-Dalek hybrids. But these things either don't stick around, or just become part of the predictable formula.

Personally, I think they should bring Special Weapons Dalek back. I just think it's neat.

I think an interesting angle for Daleks would be to have a story where they're attempting to invade a planet or something, but the story is focused primarily on the government of said planet taking it as an excuse to get increasingly totalitarian.

Have the end of the story be a reveal that the Daleks actually left years before and the government's been lying the whole time.

Like, have stories about how people and places react to the Daleks and how they're perceived outside of when they're actively invading.

I think one of the biggest issues with the Daleks is that the horror angle for them is just full on gone. It can kind of be brought back, but it's only really worked for Dalek and Resolution. The Cybermen, the horror angle is just kind of always there and while some stories completely fail to leverage it properly (The Next Doctor, for example) you can ramp it back up. There's also the weird element that the Cybermen are kind of more believable as this horrifying existential threat, and I think it's because they don't have constant civil wars or an obsession with their own purity. The Daleks reduce their own threat all the time. The Cybermen don't.

There's also the funky element that in the Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover, the Cybermen were able to overpower and take control of the Borg. I think the Daleks would likely have a much harder time of that.

Edited by Zendervai on Jan 18th 2021 at 12:32:59 PM

Not Three Laws compliant.

I definatly agree it's more interesting to see people interacting with the Daleks.

The government wanting to use Daleks technology as protest suppressants was definatly an interesting angle. I would have quite happily watched that play out eithout the fleshy Daleks ever turning up.

I would like to see more from Rusty. Actually having character arcs with Dalek individuals seems like it could have potential?

I really hope this convinces the Whoniverse UK to think "huh, maybe we shouldn't have shut down the organisation that could investigate these threats."

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

It's been done though really, between Rusty and Sec from 10's era they've pretty much covered every arc it's possible to see a Dalek go through - "personification of hatred" doesn't really have a lot of wiggle room.

"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."

I could see a dalek civil having potential. Not something like revolution, more two equal sides opposing each other. Each claiming to be the superior dalek breed or whatever.

You lost!

There was an interesting what if story from Big Finish's Unbound series where an alternate universe Third Doctor encountered Daleks that Davros programmed to have a sliver of mercy so they would not betray him. While they're still fascist conquerors, they're not quite the same genocidal exterminators they are in the main universe.

Utilizing a similar group of Daleks on the show a few times (perhaps with Doctor having to weigh the cost of not destroying them in order to defeat prime Daleks and what that might mean in the future) could be an interesting change of pace.

Still waiting for a Legion of Losers movie...

I think that's a Seventh Doctor story. There was a war between original formula Daleks and Daleks that Davros had either improved or contaminated depending on which faction you listen to.

Fresh-eyed movie blog

Daleks are engineered to be Static Character in-universe, because Nazi allegory and Davros projected his own insanity onto his entire species. Any time a Dalek gets some sort of boost to their self-awareness either they can't take it or the Daleks around them can't take them.

Though it'd be still be interesting for a more permanent "semi-reformed" Daleks. Given Caan became The Omniscient and figured how to break into the frikkin Time War, having him come back would be easier than Davros.

Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 on Jan 20th 2021 at 10:37:44 PM

The next series in the "Doctor Who Collection" range will be series 24, Sylvester's debut series as The Seventh Doctor. As always, the announcement trailer also provides a short minisode written by Jodie era scribe and superfan Pete Mc Tinge, and this one's probably the best yet, with a proper Doctor/Companion reunion

Edited by Zarius on Jan 21st 2021 at 7:38:13 AM

Shame it seems to be a Blu Ray release with no DVD release. I've never watched any Classic Who but this alone has sold me on Seven. Would've picked it up if it was available on DVD.

Well, all of series 24 is available on DVD already with all their original extras, but I see your point if what you desire are the new blu-ray exclusive extras

Just watched episode four of Russel T. Davies new AIDS awareness drama "It's A Sin", which features cameos from the Daleks, as one of the characters is an actor and gets to appear in Doctor Who

It comes and goes relatively quickly, nothing big, the character Richard making reference to securing a crystal and the world being in danger if they let the Daleks pass, then there's an explosion and the Daleks move in, Barnaby Edwards and Nicolas Pegg are the operators, they speak but the voice isn't credited, it didn't sound like Nicolas Briggs

There's some 'behind the scenes' scenes that come right after where the crewmember in charge of lighting notices something's wrong with Richard's skin (because he has HIV) and then we move on to something else

Edited by Zarius on Jan 23rd 2021 at 12:59:28 PM

Interesting things occurred on twitter today. T'nia Miller (female General from Hell Bent) did a message on Cameo for a fan who insisted she put her name forward as the 14th Doctor, but Miller teased she knew who the 14th Doctor was, and it's someone she's worked with in the past...she then 'let it slip' The Doctor could be a woman again before dialling back and assuring the viewer she/he/they would be 'fierce' in the role

The tweet has now been removed.

Fortunatly, Youtuber Nerd Den made a reaction video to it while it was up

I don’t really know how you can make a reaction video out of that.

I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.

Leaking casting info for money sounds like a good way to get shitcanned by the BBC.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran