Having Faun
Is that linked to the 3 episodes about a different type of monk?
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
No, totally different. The Meddling Monk is a rogue Time Lord who was all about "improving" history, but he was also not very good at actually thinking his plans all the way through.
Not Three Laws compliant.
For me the Monk's narrative appeal is that he's a fitting antagonist for a historical with the Doctor going on about history having to remain unchanged. He's an answer for the Audience Surrogate going "why don't we try and fix x event?"
On the new theme of RTD 2, I wonder if we'll get to see some of the more surreal 7th Doctor cosmics like the Gods of Ragnarok. I'm also curious as to what beings like the Black and White Guardian were doing when cosmic upheavals like the Last Great Time War went down
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The Big Finish approach tends to dial up his difficulty making plans. Like, he schemes to do a huge grand plan and starts doing stuff on the fringes of it and doesn't actually stop to connect how fucking with some random English duke is supposed to lead to him ingratiating himself into the court of the king of France.
He'd be a pretty good way to show how changes can ripple out with the ultimate result being incredibly unpredictable.
Not Three Laws compliant.
He also seems to have a hard time admitting to himself that he likes being the center of attention. At least the Rufus Hound incarnation, who at one point is hiding out on Earth from the Time War and decides to impersonate Henry the Eighth (which leads to him singing "I'm Henry VIII I Am" by Herman's Hermits, which was the hardest I've ever laughed at Doctor Who in any medium.).
Edited by ArthurEld on Apr 28th 2024 at 8:14:17 AM
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
I just caught up with the thread after having put off watching the specials, and I wanted to share some thoughts.
(What happened was I got spoiled that The Star Beast was going to have positive trans representation and had a deep emotional panic over "oh no, this means a lot to me, what if it hurts" and put off watching for months, and then when I finally watched it it turned out I was right and it made me unnecessarily cautious about the rest.)
- The Meep is an adorable ET-looking alien, and on a show like this it was always going to turn out to be evil so I'm glad that was settled early enough to get to the fun parts.
- I enjoyed the Doctor's courtroom, partly because I'm glad RTD is dropping incredibly evocative descriptions like "psychedelic sun" again, and partly because I remember one of my own Doctor expies I made up - I called him the Victor because he was inspired specifically by Ten in "The Waters of Mars", and he dressed like a colonial-era judge including the wig, so the coincidence amused me.
- Rose was very nicely portrayed; I appreciated how smoothly they established she was trans and how she was characterised, especially the moment it enabled about the Doctor's own gender identity. They were very normal about her, and then they moved on. That lulled me into a false sense of security for the twist.
- I think I had the exact opposite reaction to the climax as I saw people commenting in this thread. I can't find everything I wrote about it when I was trying to describe my feelings to friends right now, but it amounts to this: throughout the episode, the Doctor's relationship with their companions and Donna in particular felt like it was being used as a metaphor for the relationship between the show Doctor Who and its fans, highlighted by all the nostalgia and fix fic elements. So the revelation about Rose felt like a direct statement that "when we started writing this show, we did not anticipate how you would see yourself in it and what you would use it to become, but you were right about what you saw, and we're glad you did, because it is more beautiful than anything we intended". I don't know that any other series could say something like that. Doctor Who's relationship with its own narrative is unique.
- And then after I cried for about twice the length of the actual episode and unpaused, I immediately got smacked with the stupid gender essentialism line about male-presenting Time Lords. So I guess that just further confirms RTD is back. :P
- I think of this one as "Doctor Who does John Carpenter" - only a little The Thing, bits of the rest of the Apocalypse Trilogy as well. There's a lot I enjoyed about it; I have only two things I would do differently, though they significantly alter the second half of the episode.
- The first is that the explanation for why the Not-Things are hostile was not only ludicrous, but unnecessary; the episode would have worked just as well if the Not-Things were trying to become real through imitation without any malicious intent. I don't care much for either Humanity Is Infectious or Humans Are Bastards independently, much less in an egocentric yet self-loathing combination.
- The second was that, as a result, RTD didn't commit to the existential horror as fully as he could have. I'm not suggesting that Donna should have been left behind and completely replaced, that would be a worse insult than her original departure; rather, what I noticed after that amazingly unsettling introduction to the Not-Things was that they first appeared when the rooms became strongly colour-tinted, and that the vivid lighting continued to appear everywhere but the main corridor. So what I imagined was that every time the lights changed, everyone aboard the ship would mysteriously "refract". Whatever had caused this, the Captain had reacted by setting the ship up to (eventually) self-destruct, and it would take all the Doctors and Donnas working together just to save one of each of them. The audience would naturally lose track of everyone, so whether the originals were the ones who escaped would remain unclear... but it wouldn't really matter, since they are (after all) perfect duplicates. (The glitching phenomenon would be a side-effect of refraction, not a sign of who was an imposter.)
- That said, I still enjoyed most of it, and the idea that invoking a superstition on the edge of the universe is something that can have consequences is exciting to me - though given this is coming well after Moffat's Doctor-as-fairy-tale theme it's unclear to me how different it will actually be. :P Still, my favourite thing about Moffat was that he tried to portray the kind of weirdness onscreen that Davies would often only mention in passing, so I'm hopeful his ambitions now are for more like "Midnight" or "The Sound of Drums" than "Bad Wolf".
- Much like my previous comparison, this one felt like "Doctor Who does Grant Morrison". There were several ideas that felt borrowed from Doom Patrol in particular - starting with the unique plot point of "a global telecommunications system became haunted by an alien spirit because its inventor accidentally performed a summoning ritual during his first successful test", but also how Toymaker's domain takes the form of a labyrinth surrounding an extradimensional Punch and Judy theatre where the Doctor has to catch him in a contradiction, and the Spice Girls scene reminded me of the Brotherhood of Dada's kind of chaos. Ordinarily I'd say this is Fan Myopia on my part (no need for additional inspiration when "Voodoo Child" already happened, after all), but there are just enough unrelated but oddly specific parallels that I'm actually unsure.
- Despite all the pieces I liked, though, the episode itself didn't quite come together for me. A nostalgia overdose, maybe, with the Toymaker being just a little too much like a retread of the Master, and it's getting repetitive that the Doctor is still surprised when another Time Lord legend turns out to be true. Bigeneration seems more like something he might've learned about in college and then forgotten about because it's never come up since.
- "Doctor Who does Jim Henson", obviously.
- I don't have nearly as much to say about it (probably a good thing for the length of this post). The first few scenes confirmed Gatwa as the Doctor for me in a way that "The Giggle" didn't quite, and the scene when he talks with Ruby about being adopted was a surprise but a highlight. And the Toymaker and the goblin ship together answer my earlier question of how magic in Doctor Who would look any different from its technobabble - it runs on intuition and dream logic without even attempting to rationalise it.
Edited by Noaqiyeum on Apr 28th 2024 at 5:28:20 PM
The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
Reports are flooding in that a strange blue police box
has been spotted at Disneyland in Anaheim, California!
Eyewitnesses and experts are dumbfounded by this phenomenon, but are encouraged to be on the lookout for a "Doctor something-or-other" arriving to Disney+ on May 10!
he/him
First look review of episodes 1 & 2, via the Guardian.
Contains some spoilers.
The short spoiler-free version is that they think episode 2 is stronger and Jinkx Monsoon delivers a great performance as the villain.
For episode 1, the reviewer feels RTD spends too much time spoonfeeding new viewers with exposition about the show's premise, and some of the messages are anvilicious or shoehorned in.
Hmm.
Edited by Mrph1 on May 6th 2024 at 7:44:35 PM
Jinkx is a great performer so its good to see her skills translate. I still maintain she'd make a wonderful Terrible Zodin.
Having Faun
The only thing I've seen Jinx in was the first episode of Helluva Boss and she was great as a villain in that.
Russel promises more diverse writers in 2025
he/him
I can understand that RTD wants to largely do the first season of the new era himself. Matt Smith's first season was a similar relaunch and Moffat wrote six episodes of that, for example.
But I think that's just not sustainable for a showrunner after season one, given the pace of production. You want the different, diverse voices - and you want the showrunner to be focused on holding it all together, but not stretched too thin.
I wonder who we've got lined up...
Maybe we'll also get Gaiman back next season. I'd love to see him writing for Ncuti (I wouldn't mind seeing Whithouse or Mathieson back at some point, either).
IIRC, Gaiman has said he'd like to come back but he's been consistently busy with all his various projects.
Episodes 1 and 2 are available now on Disney+ and BBC I-Player. Binged both at Midnight.
Devil's Chord really ought to have been the premiere. Easily the stronger of the two, while Space Babies was an average RTD series opener. If you're in no mood for what it's trying to do, it's cringe, but your mileage may vary of course.
I didn't mind it, even with the gross out toilet humour-based twists and resolutions, but it reminded me a lot of some of the less funny episodes from the DAVE era of Red Dwarf. What saved it was the excellent chemistry between Ncuti and Millie, and there are some peculiar things that connect to Ruby's overall story, such as the Snow from the Church on Ruby's day of discovery following them into their present time and place, or bleeding from memory into reality.
There's an interesting discussion involving The Doctor saying his name was chosen for him by the Time Lords...which walks back on what he told Clara in The Name of the Doctor that he chose it like a promise
Devil's Chord is the show's next big 'myth arc' story, a direct sequel to The Giggle, with nods to lots of Classic Who. Susan. Totters Lane. Toymaker's family. Pyramids of Mars. And a further hint at the twists to come in Ruby's story. She has a song in her heart which makes her 'all kinds of wrong'....and Maestro suspects that another ancient being may have been present at Ruby's birth.
And if we're to expect any more of The Toymaker's legions, they will identify themselves with the Toymaker's giggle...and The Doctor will notably soil his pants and high-tail it
Also sounds like The Doctor can't afford to go through another bi-generation as this one almost splintered him mind, body, and soul
Maestro's scenes with Ncuti were so good, and it's Ncuti's most mesmerising performance yet as The Doctor
My nitpicks:
Why only use Lennon and Mc Cartney as your last minute heroes? What about George and Ringo? Couldn't they have all played together? Maybe on the roof like how they finished their careers so it was a nice book end? That's what I thought the piano being set up for Ruby earlier. Paul was also an arse to The Doctor and didn't even apologize to him at the end.
That song and dance twist at the end may seem random....but if you pay attention, the "Twist at the end" is the re-emergence of Maestro's child, Harbinger, at the close
Edited by Zarius on May 11th 2024 at 2:12:43 AM
Goku Black
So who we think is He who waits
Fenris? Suthek? The gods of Ragnarok?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Disasturbator
Goku Black
Uh no that's definitely not who it is. The toymaker beat him pretty easily and mentioned he who waits is someone's he's afraid off
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Russel teased that the threat for the finale involves something closely guarded from the Third Doctor's era
Kronos?
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
The audience scores for the new season are pretty low on Rotten Tomatoes… less than fifty reviews though. Sounds like review bombing.
Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 11th 2024 at 10:39:46 AM
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
Having Faun
Just saw the Baby one and I thought it was pretty good. Love Gatwa in the role, like Ruby but I think I'll need a bit more time before I fully grow on her and I love the concept of this episode (I'm glad the show is still willing to get very weird). The Space Babies better get a spinoff. Only criticism is I though it was a tad too fast paced, only by a bit. I didn't mind the gross-out stuff, mainly because Russel actually managed (weirdly) to tie it into the story somewhat.
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Eh, I liked the Slithereen (though I get why many don't).
Edited by king15 on May 11th 2024 at 7:03:53 PM
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
IMO, it works a lot better than the Slitheen.
Not Three Laws compliant.
Disasturbator
We're never living down the 'farting aliens' joke are we?
New theme music also a box
he/him
Devil's Chord also has Ncuti's Doctor briefly dancing with Johannes Radebe. So... two of the best known Black LGBTQ+ stars in the UK. It's a very small cameo in the musical number, but I'm sure it'll make a big impression on some folk.
So... firstly, still annoyed by them dropping it at midnight
I overall enjoyed both episodes, but they felt a bit too silly to me, especially as a double-bill. I do like Gatwa as the Doctor, and he and Ruby have pretty good chemistry. Still not sure how this myth arc and Ruby's backstory is going, could go either way for me. Maestro felt a bit too like Toymaker for me, would have liked if they maybe tried a bit more to diverge them. Would be open to them turning up again if they could get some more development.
The Monk was supposed to get an episode in Capaldi's era but it fell through