Well now he's floated the idea, maybe it'll get in the producers heads and he can in 2018.
Doctor Who
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The worst thing about April Fools' Day are jokes about things that you never knew you wanted and can never have.
After seeing Rowan Atkinson as the Doctor…..that's who I would want (reminded me a lot of 7).
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The worst thing about April Fools' Day are jokes about things that you never knew you wanted and can never have.
IMO that was the best thing to come out of this April Fools Day. :)
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Buzzfeed actually floated an idea about American actors for a Doctor Who in USA.
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The worst thing about April Fools' Day are jokes about things that you never knew you wanted and can never have.
Where the hell is his sonic chainsaw though
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You mean his sonic BOOMSTICK?
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I'm wondering if she's going to be from the 80's….
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Anything as long as it isn't "modern day" companion again. Even the 80's would at least be a little different.
Still miffed years later we didn't get Victorian Clara, who was better in her one episode than Clara actually was in most of the others. (And her time as a Dalek as well. Such a fun great personality for the two fakes, the real one doesn't get any of it?)
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With a name like Bill, you can't help but ponder on the idea of Bill Nye being a companion and calling BS on the Doctor whenever he mentions the Blinovitch Limitation Effect and so on.
Don't really know what to think of the new companion as the 2 minutes didn't provide a whole lot, but as Robby said, a not-modern (main) companion is long overdue.
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I personally found those two minutes insufferable.
"HA HA HA, LOOK AT HOW CLEVER WE ARE, MAKING FUN OF DALEKS, THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF NEW WHO!"
I'm just so sick of Moffat's smarmy, smug, whedony dialogue. It's also a tonal disaster that makes it impossible to take the Daleks seriously.
As for the companion, she looks like a Clara clone with fuzzier hair. She might turn out different but so far, first impressions not good.
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@TLC:
As for the companion, she looks like a Clara clone with fuzzier hair. She might turn out different but so far, first impressions not good.
Are you perhaps, legally blind?
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Are you perhaps, legally blind?
I didn't mean physically, I meant character wise, she seems like another smarmy, bland chick without any personality. Her gimmick looks like she'll be pointing the corny aspects of the show which looks like it will get old very quick.
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¯_(ツ)_/¯
I'm not going to make any judgements about her character based on a short clip that they clearly put together so fast that they didn't even take time to properly edit the font on screen.
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@TLC:
I'm just so sick of Moffat's smarmy, smug, whedony dialogue. It's also a tonal disaster that makes it impossible to take the Daleks seriously.
But that's the thing, it's kinda hard to take them as a serious threat anymore. The most threatening I've seen them is in Season 1, Day of the Doctor (briefly) and maybe Season 7. Other than that? Nooo. The voices may be iconic, but I feel they take away from the menace factor.
I like that she points out how corny they look, because it's kind of a glaring oddity now to look at the things and see them be called the #1 enemy in the universe.
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I'm pretty sure it's impossible for the Daleks to really seem scary to adults. They still manage to be scary to kids, though.
Doctor Who is still made to be a family show with kids in mind. -
Doctor Who is still made to be a family show with kids in mind.
Which is why they frequently show people dying horribly and pointlessly.
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The problem with the Daleks is that, as the number 1 enemy, they show up ALL THE TIME, and so get defeated ALL THE TIME, and thanks to the extremes NuWho has eventually reached, defeated by the billions. Moffatt had it right when he wanted to give them and the Cybermen a rest for a bit.
But I think they're legally obligated to have them appear at least once a season or else the rights to them leave the franchise. So… we can't have them vanish for three or four years like they could back on the old show. They have to get at least a cameo and that just diminishes returns.
Similarly, weeping angels were fantastic once and have had incredibly diminishing returns since. Especially when they're thrown in as a random scare/prop monster that's just there for under a minute.
Best ways to have Daleks be scary is to have them go one on one with heavy ordinance like tanks and win (not in the budget) or to have just one of them terrorize an enclosed space you can't escape from. They're waaay more effective then. (Or when they're damaged, ancient, or insane.) Whenever they start having a dozen of them, they become incapable of killing anything and just sort of escort the Doctor around to their leader so there can be some monologing, rather than just killing him. Generally true for most of the monster really. The show likes to escalate threats to worldwide or galactic levels, but its almost always better on the small scale, where the Doctor is an annonymous stranger rather than a renowned galactic guardian. Been a huge flaw with NuWho in general. (Even the silly "forest takes over the world" episode would have worked better as an isolated incident in one small town city somewhere.)
I'd still like to have seen them take a friendly Dalek with them for a season just to muck with things, (and they've had two different chances now) and have to play off the intimidation factor and whatnot when around strangers. HAve the Doc actually get attached to that one and then.... (sorta done with Handles, but not really.)
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I remember laughing so hard when in the first modern Dalek episode they make this huge dramatic and horrifying moment out of a Dalek being able to levitate up a pair of stairs.
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ANyway. New companion gives off a Donna vibe.
Which is great because Donna was best Nu companion.
And I'm still kind of annoyed that she only got like 1/3-1/2 of a real season due to Martha, River, Martha again, and Rose guest starring and stealing most of the episodes. (And I'm sorry RTD, Sarah Jane reappearing was amazing because it had been 30 years. Martha returning wasn't a thing because it had been 3 episodes.)
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I'm pretty sure it's impossible for the Daleks to really seem scary to adults. They still manage to be scary to kids, though.
Doctor Who is still made to be a family show with kids in mind.I think it's possible to be scary for adults, but it just has to be done right. When my friend was telling me about daleks before I got into Who, I thought they sounded pretty awesome as villains. And then when I actually saw them, I was kinda disappointed (granted, the episode was Doomsday). The voices were part of it, they just seemed to weird to me.
But I think they're legally obligated to have them appear at least once a season or else the rights to them leave the franchise. So… we can't have them vanish for three or four years like they could back on the old show. They have to get at least a cameo and that just diminishes returns.
I hear this a lot and looked many many times, and have yet to see any solid proof that this is the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were legit. (I understand that if there really is a contract that it really isn't obligated to be a public record or anything like that)
But Waters of Mars and Season 6 finale sure make you wonder why they bothered with the cameos…
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That the Terry Nation estate owns the Daleks is pretty clearly in public record, as is the fact he tried to sell them as a spinoff show in the US, and at first did not agree to let them be used in NuWho.
The Nation estate however demanded levels of creative control over the Daleks appearances and scripts that were unacceptable to the BBC. Eventually the Daleks were cleared to appear in the first series.
We don't know exactly what deal was ultimately struck, but it's very very likely that the deal was either "pay the estate for every appearance" or "pay X amount per season", and in either of those cases if they're putting up the cash every year anyway, then they're damn well gonna use them. Otherwise them making those odd 20 second cameos here and there makes little sense, they wouldn't pay out to have them for such a brief bit (not when they have free and clear monsters to use instead) so there must be SOME sort of bulk deal in place.
At what point they would not be able to use them is unknown, but… the estate does have a say in it.
Those are all technicalities and shenanigans and specifics, its easiest to just trim it down to simply "they have to use them every year because of the rights"
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That the Treey Nation estate owns the Daleks is pretty clearly in public record, as is the fact he tried to sell them as a spinoff show in the US, and at first did not agree to let them be used in NuWho.
Well of course! I wasn't questioning whether the Estate owns the Daleks or not in public records.
The Nation estate however demanded levels of creative control over the Daleks appearances and scripts that were unacceptable to the BBC. Eventually the Daleks were cleared to appear in the first series.
We don't know exactly what deal was ultimately struck, but it's very very likely that the deal was either "pay the estate for every appearance" or "pay X amount per season", and in either of those cases if they're putting up the cash every year anyway, then they're damn well gonna use them. Otherwise them making those odd 20 second cameos here and there makes little sense, they wouldn't pay out to have them for such a brief bit (not when they have free and clear monsters to use instead) so there must be SOME sort of bulk deal in place.
At what point they would not be able to use them is unknown, but… the estate does have a say in it.
Those are all technicalities and shenanigans and specifics, its easiest to just trim it down to simply "they have to use them every year because of the rights"
Hm ok that makes some sense. Kinda sucks though, since the constant appearances aren't really doing a whole lot for the daleks.
The legal reasoning reminds me how Fox still holds the rights for the 8th Doctor's movie companions. Kind of a dick move, since it's not like Fox could use them in any shape or form. But they weren't exactly compelling companions, and Big Finish uses the actors to play similar characters anyway :P
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I dunno about you guys but I always found the Daleks super threatening, corny designs or no, that intro episode in the RTD era was fantastically done and really made them look terrifying. Of course it's been a case of diminishing returns since then especially when they're facing off a bunch of them opposed to a few.
Regardless, could you try and not make a joke out of them ESPECIALLY in a scene where we're supposed to be threatened by them? There is such a thing as consistent tone.
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Which is why they frequently show people dying horribly and pointlessly.
I can't think of the last time someone died in Doctor Who and stayed dead.
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I can't think of the last time someone died in Doctor Who and stayed dead.
You mean other than lots and lots of innocent civilians?
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@TLC:
You mean other than lots and lots of innocent civilians?
Someone that mattered, which is sadly true.
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And let's not forget Danny Pink
Also…
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@TLC:
You mean other than lots and lots of innocent civilians?
It happened a lot more in the classic days…for which they always proudly announced was made with children in mind. Though they got in trouble with parents a couple of times for scenes like when Tom Baker was being held underwater. They still market heavily towards children and that's why the current doctor always does big events in rooms full of kids...not sure why people are denying this. XD
Danny Pink is kind of still alive in sort of a technological heaven...much like River.
You know the old Stalin quote: "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"
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It happened a lot more in the classic days…for which they always proudly announced was made with children in mind. Though they got in trouble with parents a couple of times for scenes like when Tom Baker was being held underwater. They still market heavily towards children and that's why the current doctor always does big events in rooms full of kids...not sure why people are denying this. XD
I'm not denying it. I'm just saying Britain has an interesting idea of what constitutes a "kid's show"
You know the old Stalin quote: "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"
Except in many cases we do get to know some of the characters and explicitly witness the gruesome ways in which they're killed off.
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I'm not denying it. I'm just saying Britain has an interesting idea of what constitutes a "kid's show"
I didn't say "kids' show". I said "family show"; there is a difference, at least as far as the BBC are concerned. They have always expected people of all ages to watch.
Except in many cases we do get to know some of the characters and explicitly witness the gruesome ways in which they're killed off.
I must be really desensitized or something, because I just see a lot of very unrealistic, almost cartoonish deaths, usually for people that are nobodys in the story, so it's rather easy to brush it off. It's like the difference between the violence in Legends of Tomorrow and Daredevil. Remind me again which characters we get to know in the story that die a horrible death, and actually STAY dead?Just in the new series.
Well, since season 4. Waters of Mars was pretty rough. Seems like Moffat has decided "everybody lives" more often than not. It's one of the things that bugs me about his showrunning.
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I didn't say "kids' show". I said "family show"; there is a difference, at least as far as the BBC are concerned. They have always expected people of all ages to watch.
To rephrase my previous statement, "Britain has a very interesting idea of what is acceptable for kids to watch." And since Doctor Who is a "family show" this implies that kids would watch it. And, I dunno, is there really that big a difference? In my experience, kids and family shows alike are pretty tame.
I must be really desensitized or something
Possibly. It could also be that I'm too sensitive, but here we are.
because I just see a lot of very unrealistic, almost cartoonish deaths, usually for people that are nobodys in the story, so it's rather easy to brush it off. It's like the difference between the violence in Legends of Tomorrow and Daredevil.
And yeah, I guess this is just where you and I differ. To me, a person's a person, no matter how well you know them. And I don't mean to sound condescending, I just genuinely do feel sympathy for people hurt or killed, even if they're just one-off background characters. And it's not like the deaths are outright humorous (most of the time); in fact, some really are meant to evoke sympathy (Age of Steel, The Almost People, Before the Flood).
And as for their cartoon-ish nature…eh, I don't know, some of are pretty terrible if you think about it. Having your eyes gouged out and the flesh ripped from your body (Deep Breath), Being drained into a dried husk (Lazarus Experiment), Being eaten alive (School Reunion, and one of them was a child), having your mind destroyed in what the Family of Blood assured was a very painful process (again, one of them was a child), having your flesh eaten away by microscopic creatures (Silence in the Library), etc. And yes, some of the deaths are pretty outlandish and "cartoon-ish" I suppose, but in a way that kinda makes it worse for me since it seems so degrading. But really, it isn't even necessarily about the gruesomeness, just the fact that these people died at all.
Well, since season 4. Waters of Mars was pretty rough. Seems like Moffat has decided "everybody lives" more often than not. It's one of the things that bugs me about his showrunning.
Yeah, polar opposites you and I.
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To rephrase my previous statement, "Britain has a very interesting idea of what is acceptable for kids to watch." And since Doctor Who is a "family show" this implies that kids would watch it. And, I dunno, is there really that big a difference? In my experience, kids and family shows alike are pretty tame.
There are shows that are made for kids only. You can't hold the attention of adults with something like Peppa Pig; and you can trust a kid to watch it without needing any parental guidance. There is a reason why we have a variety of ratings - Doctor Who is rated PG in the US and UK. I find it very tame most of the time. Every now and then they have that slightly more scary/violent episode and a big discussion blows up on the internet about how they thought it was a little too scary for their kids. Then the next episode has all the adults complaining it was too silly.
I think back to my parents taking me to see movies like Ghostbusters back in 1984. Definitely not a kid's movie, but it was appropriate enough for them to bring me at age 6 (and I loved it at the time). Then they turned it into a cartoon. ^_^And yeah, I guess this is just where you and I differ. To me, a person's a person, no matter how well you know them. And I don't mean to sound condescending, I just genuinely do feel sympathy for people hurt or killed, even if they're just one-off background characters.
A person is a person in real life. Fiction is, well, fiction. Even in real life, I can't feel sympathy for everyone who I read about dying in the news or I'd go crazy. I save my emotions for people I know personally.
And as for their cartoon-ish nature…eh, I don't know, some of are pretty terrible if you think about it. Having your eyes gouged out and the flesh ripped from your body (Deep Breath), Being drained into a dried husk (Lazarus Experiment), Being eaten alive (School Reunion, and one of them was a child), having your mind destroyed in what the Family of Blood assured was a very painful process (again, one of them was a child), having your flesh eaten away by microscopic creatures (Silence in the Library), etc. And yes, some of the deaths are pretty outlandish and "cartoon-ish" I suppose, but in a way that kinda makes it worse for me since it seems so degrading. But really, it isn't even necessarily about the gruesomeness, just the fact that these people died at all.
Pretty sure that stuff just doesn't even process through me because of how fanciful it is. I can't hardly remember any of it. When I see truly gruesome death scenes in adult shows, they stick with me and disturb me. Doctor Who doesn't, it's like playing a video game.
Yeah, polar opposites you and I.
Maybe, but probably a bit of stretch going off of something as small as opinions on a TV show.
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I think back to my parents taking me to see movies like Ghostbusters back in 1984. Definitely not a kid's movie, but it was appropriate enough for them to bring me at age 6 (and I loved it at the time). Then they turned it into a cartoon. ^_^
Well, all kids are different. I actually just heard a story about one a guy who went to see Ghostbusters as a kid and was scared straight out of the theater at the librarian scene. Hell, my brother got scared out of seeing Monsters Inc.
A person is a person in real life. Fiction is, well, fiction.
And yet we still feel emotions for fictional characters. If we didn't have any emotional investment, we wouldn't be watching them.
Even in real life, I can't feel sympathy for everyone who I read about dying in the news or I'd go crazy. I save my emotions for people I know personally.
No, I understand that completely. And, would that I could, I'd turn off the part of my brain that apparently gets me so invested in this minor characters, because it definitely doesn't feel good to be so concerned and bothered by it.
Maybe, but probably a bit of stretch going off of something as small as opinions on a TV show.
Well, yeah. I mean just in this one regard.
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Well, now this is a possibly interesting development. http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-05-03/doctor-who-considering-us-style-writers-room-under-chris-chibnall
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I would like this a lot. It seriously bothered me that some of the "lost episodes" from the 6th doctor's time couldn't be adapted for an audio drama because they didn't have the right to the script and couldn't get permission (and the person who wrote them usually had already passed).
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You're talking about what was supposed to be the 23rd season before the hiatus and what was re-written into the Trial of a Time Lord story, right? I've read a little about that. Some of it sounded like it would have been a lot more interesting.
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However, Tennant's leaving had nothing to do with RTD leaving, he had already decided before then, and Moffat reportedly tried REALLY hard to convince Tennant to stay.
Hm, is this some new kind of bot? Because that's a random excerpt of something I posted here a while back.
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Looking at their post history, yes, they were a cyberman.
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That was sneaky…those bots are getting smarter...but not smart enough....
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So I got around to listening the new 10th Doctor audios.
Verdict? Pretty good! The 3 stories are better than average, but what really seals the deal is the how the Doctor and Donna play off of each other and banter. Easily one of the best NuWho companion relationships, and this set only proves it more so. And it's amazing how well Tennant just slips back into the role. It helps that his voice hasn't aged a bit, so it feels like you're literally listening to an audio track straight from season 4.
The three stories aren't really connected to each other, which is different from the usual BF boxset, so it's enjoyable in the sense that you're essentially listening to three self-contained stories.
Now that Tennant can officially do Big Finish, I wonder what else they'll have him do, such as more adventures with Rose and/or Martha. Wasn't a huge fan with how both of them were handled, but if Big Finish can make the 6th Doctor (more) interesting and appealing, than I'd like to see how they'd do with those two.
Smith has said he's talked with Big Finish and was interested in doing it, and the only real conflict with that his how busy he is, so I imagine he'll be doing some in the near future.
Eccelston, though…
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Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about the 10th doctor audios.
I'd love to get Smith/Gillan/Darvill, of course, but yeah, they're all quite busy. You'd think Tennant is very busy too, though. Surely an opening will come up eventually.
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The nice thing about the audios is it doesn't take a whole lot of their time, they can do an entire book in a day or two of recording.
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Well, looks like Moffat went ahead and confirmed that Bill is yet another modern day companion. Ugh.
The nice thing about the audios is it doesn't take a whole lot of their time, they can do an entire book in a day or two of recording.
Precisely! Even if some of the actors can't get together, there's still the option of having them record separately, even though it's preferred to have all the actors together to work off of each other.
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Well in Matt's case though, I'd like to see him pal around with some other companions than just Amy and Rory. I'm sure there's room for more adventures with them, but there was a pretty complete arc including times they were seperated for years at a time. I'd like to see some of the 200 years Eleven spent early on…. since his later years are pretty much all stuck on Christmas.
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@Mr.:
Well, looks like Moffat went ahead and confirmed that Bill is yet another modern day companion. Ugh.
A little bit disappointing, but it's not like having her be from another decade would really change all that much. Every past non-modern companion was basically the same companion in that sense. Even the "aliens". That were completely human.
Well in Matt's case though, I'd like to see him pal around with some other companions than just Amy and Rory. I'm sure there's room for more adventures with them, but there was a pretty complete arc including times they were seperated for years at a time. I'd like to see some of the 200 years Eleven spent early on…. since his later years are pretty much all stuck on Christmas.
Yeah, there is definitely a lot of story to tell in all his "missing" years where he disappeared for a while.