The All-Purpose Current Doctor Who (2005-) Thread

[spflog1]

But it's not supposed to be a complete personality change.

It hasn't been a complete personality change. It's never been a complete personality change.

You mention The Three Doctors. Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee were all radically different in their interpretations of the character. All vastly different but all three having certain core traits that persisted. Whittaker's incarnation is both just as different and equally the same as all her predecessors.

I really do see no difference. All in keeping with that great idea way back in 1966 that enabled us to get from The Tenth Planet to The Power of the Daleks. An idea that's kept the series fresh and facilitated its impressive longevity.

[brigham]

But it's not supposed to be a complete personality change.

... All in keeping with that great idea way back in 1966 that enabled us to get from The Tenth Planet to The Power of the Daleks. An idea that's kept the series fresh and facilitated its impressive longevity...

The 'regeneration' idea, you mean?

It was new and innovative at the time. Special, in fact.

Does anyone else think that it has since been rather overused? It's routine now, and expected.

Time for a change?

[Richard Charles Skryngestone]

Jodie Whitaker is far more of a 'Doctor' than, for instance, the awful version played by Colin Baker

There we disagree again. Colin Baker had a lot of both Hartnell and Troughton about him. I don't believe that he was "awful" at all. The Doctor is not supposed to be a pin-up for preteens. There was always something somewhat unlikable and abrasive about him.

- I'm not keen on the current Doctor but there are plenty of ticks in boxes for the principles shown across the years.

If those years are 2005-2013.

I can't help but feel that, as ever over the last couple of years, it's all about a refusal to accept a female lead.

Perhaps. But not in the way I think you mean.

If you go on YouTube or the like there are just lots of angry folk who can't accept change,

It's not the act of change itself. it's the way it changes, and, of course, the real-world reasons for why the change has been made.

whether that be the new Star Wars (esp Last Jedi); Star Trek spin-offs (esp Picard); any number of superhero titles which have tweaked the gender or sexuality of the leads; or going back further the disgraceful behaviour regarding Ghostbusters.

The only "disgraceful behaviour" regarding the all-female Ghostbusters was coming FROM the people who made the movie. They even stooped to deleting any negative comments made about the movie by females, as a way of trying to 'show' that it was only sexist males who objected to the movie.

In the current political / health / economic climate it does seem rather trivial.

Is that more or less trivial than the way certain sections of society were demanding that the Doctor absolutely positively HAD to be a woman, and then making some revolting comments when Matt Smith, and then Peter Capaldi, were cast? At the exact same time genocides, famines, illegal invasions etc. were going on in the world.

I find it rather perverse that the same people who were flooding message boards and forums, and stating that it was the most important thing ever that the "patriarchy" be destroyed by casting a woman as the Doctor..are now the same people who are saying "Why are you so upset by a female Doctor? it's just a tv show!"

[Richard Charles Skryngestone]

But it's not supposed to be a complete personality change.

It hasn't been a complete personality change. It's never been a complete personality change.

You mention The Three Doctors. Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee were all radically different in their interpretations of the character. All vastly different but all three having certain core traits that persisted. Whittaker's incarnation is both just as different and equally the same as all her predecessors.

I really do see no difference. All in keeping with that great idea way back in 1966 that enabled us to get from The Tenth Planet to The Power of the Daleks. An idea that's kept the series fresh and facilitated its impressive longevity.

But there were common traits to the first three Doctors. They all just emphasised certain traits more than others.

To be fair, the first "That's not the Doctor!" moments for me came with McCoy. And Eccleston and Tennant were in there as well, at times. And now Jodie Whitaker. is clearly a character who has links to Tennant, but nothing that makes you think it could be the same character as Doctors One Through Six.

Missy meanwhile couldn't be any less like the Master if that was the deliberate intention. Maybe it's an age thing, but it fascinates me that so many people can easily accept that Michelle Gomez's Missy is the same character as Roger Delgado's Master, but can't possibly fathom why anyone would think that Edward Brayshaw's "War Chief" could be.

[Private Frazer]

... the first "That's not the Doctor!" moments for me came with McCoy...

McCoy is one of my favourites! That first regeneration in 1966 would have been quite a "That's not the Doctor!" moment. Accepting that novelty as part of the programme I don't really feel like saying that about any of the new incarnations.

[brigham]

The first 'That's not Doctor Who' moment came for me when that little Irish bloke with the long hat and tin whistle turned up.
I'm sure I'd seen him at Chipperfield's the week before!

[Mark]

I had no trouble at all with Patrick Troughton, accepted him straight away (much as I liked William Hartnell, and still do) in that first episode of "POTD", especially loved the hat, getting rid of that was a big mistake.!

I can't honestly say I have ever thought of the Nu-Who Doctors as being the same person as the originals, Ecclestone was possibly the worst, The Doctor is enigmatic and mysterious, but CE came across as ' a bloke from the local pub'.

In his radio doc about Target Books, Mark Gattiss said that one of the characteristics of The Doctor, is that we never really know his thought processes, but with JW, she talks so much and explains everything away, basically thinking out loud, but less is more, a sensible witty laid back Doctor?...that's not going to happen again is it!

[Private Frazer]

Tom Baker's Doctor had an air of 'guy from the pub' too and I think he even had a few drinks (it is only wine in City of Death that comes to mind!). The 15 year gap didn't help but I did feel when Doctor Who came back in 2005 that CE was still portraying the same enigmatic, if outwardly a bit down-to-earth, Doctor character.

[Brian F]

Two points.

The "Gender Identity" idea would apply to a human, I know, but would it apply to a non-human race? We can't say.

If living 900+ years it would be a very good idea to not carry on exactly the same after a regeneration as it would give a new enthusiasm for life to change and be coded into the Time Lord genes for that reason.

[Mark]

Two points.

The "Gender Identity" idea would apply to a human, I know, but would it apply to a non-human race? We can't say.

If living 900+ years it would be a very good idea to not carry on exactly the same after a regeneration as it would give a new enthusiasm for life to change and be coded into the Time Lord genes for that reason.

Gender identity does seem to count on Gallifrey, as the episode a few years back proved, when a male Time Lord regenerated to female and she said, 'How do you cope with such big egos?', or something like that, a joke before JW's casting was known about.

[Mark]

Tom Baker's Doctor had an air of 'guy from the pub' too and I think he even had a few drinks (it is only wine in City of Death that comes to mind!). The 15 year gap didn't help but I did feel when Doctor Who came back in 2005 that CE was still portraying the same enigmatic, if outwardly a bit down-to-earth, Doctor character.

I can't see that really, Tom's Doctor was totally alien ( Tom maybe!) I had no trouble believing the first seven were the same character, McGann was lumbered with that 'Half-Human' nonsense, and so we were introduced to Time Lord smooching!

CE is obviously a good Actor, but with his northern swagger and accent, plus the leather jacket, he just seemed like an ordinary bloke, I'm not sure, but I got the impression he'd never watched it in his life.!

[paul.austin]

I think the fact that TV characters generally no longer talk in RP/BBC English is actually a *good* thing.

If you are Australian, it's very hard to get a decent handle of how the Australian English accent has evolved because on-air people in the Golden Age of Radio and television until about the 1970s (e.g. news presenters like John Royle and Eric Pearce) were trained or forced to speak in the "cultivated" Australian accent which was pseudo-British RP.

[brigham]

It's always good thing for Aliens (I'm talking about non-Earth types here) to speak 'straight' English.
A broad-Yorkshire speaking being from another planet does nothing for your ability to suspend disbelief.

[Richard Charles Skryngestone]

Not to mention that the Doctor is a Time Lord. He is one of the aristocracy of his people. (I've just realised I still referred to the Doctor as 'he'.)

Maybe it's a topic for another whole thread, but I also feel newsreaders should speak in "standard" English, rather than some regional accent.

[voyager]

A couple of things about the last series endings:

The retcon means that William Hartnell is no longer the first doctor which is an insult to the franchise. Secondly the doctor is no longer a Gallifreyan timelord but is in fact a regenerated version of the Timeless Child who was killed/murdered many times before it's regenerative dna was extracted and incorporated in the Gallifreyan dna to create the regenerating timelords.

The retcon has totally obliterated nearly 60 years of cannon in one fell swoop.

Aside from that the preachy issue led episodes of the series were largely very poor, overburdened with a posse of assistants with nothing to do and a doctor whose sole purpose was to spout exposition

[Brian F]

Either Hartnell wasn't the first Doctor or the Master lied. I know which I find more probable!

[brigham]

Doctor Who was first played by the actor William Hartnell.
There's a thin line between reality and fiction, and some television enthusiasts are a long way over it!

[Richard Charles Skryngestone]

I find the entire gender-altering Time Lords, Peter Capaldi having to say how Time Lords don't even recognise gender etc. absurd. And not just because, as pointed out, the General had to say how terrible it had been to be a man, how Jodie has to repeat how she's "upgraded" etc.

When the Time Lords were introduced in The War Games, it was repeatedly established that they were like dusty old Oxbridge dons, who never actually do anything. What made the Doctor and the Master so different was that they actually left their home world, and went out and saw the universe in person. The old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud nature of the Time Lords was stated over and over.

And it's hardly as though non-cisgender roles never existed in Classic Doctor Who. In the very first Season, Barbara was mistaken for a previously male deity. Eldrad was a man, who came back as a woman in the Tom Baker Era. And, of course, Alpha Centauri from the Pertwee Era struggled with the very concept of "male" and "female". to name just a few.

But the Time Lords were never like that. This whole "We don't even notice gender, unless it's to belittle males" attitude, and this "timeless child" rubbish has nothing to do with any Time Lords prior to Moffat taking over. As well as the issue, also stated, that when a male Time Lord changes to a female body, is that all it takes for said character to now be referred to as "she"?

And then the reply is "Oho, but they're aliens! They think differently!" Except, we found out exactly how they thought for decades. And, aliens or not, even this Moffat/Chibnall idea of Time Lords is unambiguously a hopelessly self-contradictory mess. But then, Chibnall's writing and production is so poor, he needed a gimmick that he would be remembered for.

[brigham]

Time Lords are the gender of the actor who plays them.
It'll soon be 'offensive' for an actor to play a character of a different gender.

[Mark]

When the Time Lords first appeared they were God-like, to be feared, with the War Lord saying 'They're coming!'

They remained more or less like that until "The Deadly Assassin", when they became a bit more fuddy duddy and with frailties, it was understandable they did that, as you can't have them as portrayed in "The War Games" for four episodes.

Although the God-like ones were explained away as the CIA, the Celestial Intervention Agency, it did give more credence to the reasons The Doctor cleared off, with a stagnant society lumbered with thousands of rules, due to the responsibility of being able to Time travel.

I am still of the opinion that The Doctor will not turn out to be the Timeless Child, and the Master has got it wrong due to the damaged matrix data.

It's an old trick, string viewers along by suggesting a well know character might not be what we thought they were, only to discover it was a mistake, stokes up interest, when ratings are flagging.

[brigham]

"...t's an old trick, string viewers along by suggesting a well know character might not be what we thought they were, only to discover it was a mistake, stokes up interest, when ratings are flagging...."
Are you sure the current writers are capable of this much 'joined-up' thinking?

[Richard Charles Skryngestone]

The Time Lords were a people who were extraordinarily advanced, technologically, but had stagnated as far as spirit or imagination. They were content to sit and observe from home.

I don't believe there was any real contradiction between the Time Lords in The War Games and The Deadly Assassin. My only problem with the latter was that Gallifrey looked like a BBC television set.

And there's also the feeling that they punished the Doctor for interrupting them from their sitting around and complaining when he summoned them.

The Time Lords from Nu Who are something totally different, and it's now impossible to think it's the same people at all.

[Brian F]

Perhaps they based the Panopticon on what they had monitored from BBC TV as it seemed to be a ceremonial only area. :-)

[Mark]

"...t's an old trick, string viewers along by suggesting a well know character might not be what we thought they were, only to discover it was a mistake, stokes up interest, when ratings are flagging...."
Are you sure the current writers are capable of this much 'joined-up' thinking?

Good Point!

[Mark]

There was criticism of "The Deadly Assassin" at the time, and even I was surprised to see guards with guns, I must admit I was Lexpecting "War Games" type Time Lords, but it's a classic of course.

Robert Holmes made them hypocritical, suggesting that they exiled The Doctor for interference, but in a time period they knew the Earth would need a lot of help.

One odd thing about the Nu-Who Timelords, is the reappearance of Rassilon, where did he come from all of a sudden ?, popped out of his tomb to sort things out did, did he?

[Brian F]

Luckily Rassilon didn't come back changed in a way we didn't have to say where did "She" come from. :-)

[paul.austin]

Luckily Rassilon didn't come back changed in a way we didn't have to say where did "She" come from. :-)

Rassilon from "The Five Doctors": Couldn't you tell that my moustache was one of my old brassieres rolled-up?

:)