Current Events > Literally new Doctor Who season and no topic about it. On Didney+.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Didney+ is being dogshit on mobile networks for downloading so I can't watch it without inconsistent steaming quality so I can wait.

I watched the "Space Babies" episode and thought it was one of the dumbest episodes of Doctor Who I've seen to date. Haven't watched the next one yet, gonna see it tonight.

But IMO, RTD isn't doing too well with his return as showrunner and actually has me pining for Chibnall so far. Chibnall.

Didney did it?

To copy my comments from the topics on the Doctor Who board:

Space Babies:

I've got to admit, when the opening 5 minutes was just the Doctor stood around giving a massive info dump of Doctor Who lore and trivia I was pretty worried about whether the episode was going to be a bit shit. I get that they were working on the assumption that there's a whole new audience out there thanks to Disney, and there's literally decades of history to catch them up on, but... it wasn't exactly subtle. One of the things that RTD did really well in Eccleston's first season was drip feeding the lore over several episodes, revealing bits and pieces as they became necessary, so I do wonder whether this bit was Disney mandated?

After that, though, I enjoyed this one. We got a genuinely terrifying new monster (talking of course about the Space Babies, not the bogeyman), and the story was fun. The gags about the monster literally being made of bogeys and the farting spaceship didn't really land for me, but to be fair as a 40 year old I'm not really the target audience for those jokes, and I imagine for the younger viewers that was probably pretty funny.

The story was a bit lightweight (and the whole "The Doctor arrives on a colony ship in space and finds that the children are terrified of a creature at the bottom of the facility, but the creature reminds the Doctor of himself and turns out to be quite a nice dude really" is basically just The Beast Below), but RTD's season openers are usually fairly fluffy romps to get us used to the new TARDIS team, and in that respect I think this was one of his more successful attempts - I'm definitely digging this duo.

Gatwa was absolutely brilliant - so much warmth and charisma in his performance, and the delight on his face every time he said "Space Babies" was infectious.

And the shot of Eric rolling into battle with his tiny little wooden sword is iconic, haha.

We also got our first glimpse of the season of our new favourite old woman. Interesting that she was gone before The Doctor and Ruby even arrived, so I don't think she's following The Doctor around.

The Devil's Chord:

Okay, that one was mental. I think it was mental in a good way, though.

I agree that I kinda wish they'd have just committed fully and made the whole thing a musical, but I suppose that would directly go against the whole "music has been stolen" story, and at least when they finally cut loose at the end it was fucking glorious.

One thing I found interesting - if Ruby's "present" was June or July in 2024, then we've had a massive time skip since the last episode which made a big point about still being set at Christmas. Not an issue in and of itself - hell, there's six months between Terror of the Autons and Mind of Evil and they follow on directly from each other, and you've got to leave gaps for Big Finish to fill, haha - but they don't make any reference to unseen adventures in-between. Given that June or July would be real time in a few weeks, I wonder whether this was written to be later on in the season and was moved forward after it was too late to change things. It was a good call, if so, because having an episode as bombastic and colourful as this on Opening Night (and, going by the BBC One transmission later on today, as a lead-in to Eurovision in the schedule) is a great idea.

The wildest thing about this episode - and that's saying something, given that we had Ruby singing with Cilla and dancing with Shirley Ballas, and we had Murray Gold actually appearing on screen - is that, canonically, we've now seen that the TARDIS jukebox plays the actual Doctor Who theme.

This episode was so stupid, and I absolutely loved it.

They definitely missed a trick having a certain someone show up early in the episode, though. Surely "There's Always A Twist At The End" would have been the perfect spot for it, from a meta point of view.

I'm really not interested in the concept of space babies, reminds me of that god awful Baby Geniuses movie and its really killing my desire to watch the episode. I think I might just skip it and watch the 2nd episode which sounds way more interesting.

Didney!

DrizztLink posted...

Didney did it?

Well they aren't called Dontney.

Watched Devil's Chord. Definitely a step above Space Babies, but kind of a really weird tone and VERY high stakes for an early-season episode that's still supposed to be easing the viewer into this Doctor and companion.

Also the ending felt very out of place and not-Who-like at all. Unless it was supposed to be the Maestro's influence lingering like the Toymaker's at the end of the special.

Someone should open an airlock and solve this space baby problem once and for all.

TomClark posted...

To copy my comments from the topics on the Doctor Who board:

Space Babies:

I've got to admit, when the opening 5 minutes was just the Doctor stood around giving a massive info dump of Doctor Who lore and trivia I was pretty worried about whether the episode was going to be a bit shit. I get that they were working on the assumption that there's a whole new audience out there thanks to Disney, and there's literally decades of history to catch them up on, but... it wasn't exactly subtle. One of the things that RTD did really well in Eccleston's first season was drip feeding the lore over several episodes, revealing bits and pieces as they became necessary, so I do wonder whether this bit was Disney mandated?

After that, though, I enjoyed this one. We got a genuinely terrifying new monster (talking of course about the Space Babies, not the bogeyman), and the story was fun. The gags about the monster literally being made of bogeys and the farting spaceship didn't really land for me, but to be fair as a 40 year old I'm not really the target audience for those jokes, and I imagine for the younger viewers that was probably pretty funny.

The story was a bit lightweight (and the whole "The Doctor arrives on a colony ship in space and finds that the children are terrified of a creature at the bottom of the facility, but the creature reminds the Doctor of himself and turns out to be quite a nice dude really" is basically just The Beast Below), but RTD's season openers are usually fairly fluffy romps to get us used to the new TARDIS team, and in that respect I think this was one of his more successful attempts - I'm definitely digging this duo.

Gatwa was absolutely brilliant - so much warmth and charisma in his performance, and the delight on his face every time he said "Space Babies" was infectious.

And the shot of Eric rolling into battle with his tiny little wooden sword is iconic, haha.

We also got our first glimpse of the season of our new favourite old woman. Interesting that she was gone before The Doctor and Ruby even arrived, so I don't think she's following The Doctor around.

The Devil's Chord:

Okay, that one was mental. I think it was mental in a good way, though.

I agree that I kinda wish they'd have just committed fully and made the whole thing a musical, but I suppose that would directly go against the whole "music has been stolen" story, and at least when they finally cut loose at the end it was fucking glorious.

One thing I found interesting - if Ruby's "present" was June or July in 2024, then we've had a massive time skip since the last episode which made a big point about still being set at Christmas. Not an issue in and of itself - hell, there's six months between Terror of the Autons and Mind of Evil and they follow on directly from each other, and you've got to leave gaps for Big Finish to fill, haha - but they don't make any reference to unseen adventures in-between. Given that June or July would be real time in a few weeks, I wonder whether this was written to be later on in the season and was moved forward after it was too late to change things. It was a good call, if so, because having an episode as bombastic and colourful as this on Opening Night (and, going by the BBC One transmission later on today, as a lead-in to Eurovision in the schedule) is a great idea.

The wildest thing about this episode - and that's saying something, given that we had Ruby singing with Cilla and dancing with Shirley Ballas, and we had Murray Gold actually appearing on screen - is that, canonically, we've now seen that the TARDIS jukebox plays the actual Doctor Who theme.

This episode was so stupid, and I absolutely loved it.

They definitely missed a trick having a certain someone show up early in the episode, though. Surely "There's Always A Twist At The End" would have been the perfect spot for it, from a meta point of view.

Lets be real. The new season was designed to rope in new and unfamiliar fans, which the series really needed.

Holy shit. I take it back.

The Doctor is fucking scaring the babies with the bogeyman. This has potential.

Space Babies was as dumb as the name would suggest but had a couple good moments.
The Devil's Chord was meanwhile pretty great all around, if not kind of silly at times.

I like the fantastical elements, though, that characters like the Toymaker and the Maestro are bringing to the table. And Ruby's mystery arc is interesting.

So overall...it's pretty much what I expected.

DrizztLink posted...

Didney did it?

It's exclusively on D+ in the US, but is still through BBC in the UK.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

He's great.

Slipped into the role super fast and easily.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

From what Ive heard, pretty good. He plays the friend of the lead in Sex Ed and he was great there too.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Absolutely brilliant.

Agreed, Ncuti Gatwa is already doing great as the Doctor, and he's only three (four?) episodes in to the role.

I'd say so far the current run has the same issues that Whittaker's run had, where the Doctor is great but the scripts range from bad to weird for the sake of weird. But I'm pretty sure that The Usual Crowd will give RTD a pass on that because he gave the Doctor a penis again.

So this guy actually does specifically hate me, it has nothing to do with anything I ruined his job

Space Babies was pretty bad and a really generic Who story with weird shit thrown on top of it but it was fun at points. Definitely a forgettable episode rather than a Fear Her level flop.

The Devil's Chord was pretty great. Writing still seems kind of bad and a little too silly but maybe I'm just growing out of it. Still a fun episode all around. Maestro was great and I really hope they bring more of these characters in. They feel like the Elders of the Universe from Marvel comics.

People who have seen it are saying that "Boom", this week's episode, is something very special. I've definitely missed The Moff, so I'm very much looking forward to it.

Also, Moffat has confirmed that he's writing this year's Christmas episode.

TomClark posted...

People who have seen it are saying that "Boom", this week's episode, is something very special. I've definitely missed The Moff, so I'm very much looking forward to it.

Also, Moffat has confirmed that he's writing this year's Christmas episode.

Oh boy more Moffat Who.

I got tired of it to the point I quit watching

TMOG posted...

Agreed, Ncuti Gatwa is already doing great as the Doctor, and he's only three (four?) episodes in to the role.

I'd say so far the current run has the same issues that Whittaker's run had, where the Doctor is great but the scripts range from bad to weird for the sake of weird. But I'm pretty sure that The Usual Crowd will give RTD a pass on that because he gave the Doctor a penis again.

I was kind of thinking the same, the Doctors all used to have very distinct personalities, but I think you could swap out Whittaker into these episodes and they would work the same. Their energy and tone feel very similar to me.

The one big advantage with the new season is that Ruby already has more characterization than the 13th Doctor's companions had in their entire series.

opopopza posted...

I was kind of thinking the same, the Doctors all used to have very distinct personalities, but I think you could swap out Whittaker into these episodes and they would work the same. Their energy and tone feel very similar to me.

I feel like these two, and Matt Smith, just swing way too hard into the clown part of the character. It was always very hard to take Smith or Whittaker seriously when shit got real. And the writing has been a lot more whimsical than it was 15-20 years ago. Hopefully he can balance it better, because he's got great energy.

TomClark posted...

Also, Moffat has confirmed that he's writing this year's Christmas episode.

Oh good, that means it might actually be a Christmas episode instead of just an episode that happens to take place on Christmas.

Also on a rewatch of Devil's Chord, I think my issue is that coming directly off of the Toymaker special, the Maestro felt way too similar to the Toymaker and his abilities. Which, yeah, I get it, they're the Toymaker's kid. But with only two episodes between them, and hints that there are going to be more of these god-level beings showing up this season, it kind of gives the impression that it's going to be a very samey run.

opopopza posted...

I was kind of thinking the same, the Doctors all used to have very distinct personalities, but I think you could swap out Whittaker into these episodes and they would work the same. Their energy and tone feel very similar to me.

IMO they could have even kept 13 for last year's specials, she would have still fit great with those stories and the tone/energy they required. Hell, maybe better than 14 did, and we (probably) wouldn't have had that weird "the clothes now regenerate too for some reason" moment.

Also does it bother anybody else that they keep breaking the Fourth Wall this season? The line at the end of Church on Ruby Road was cute but it's already starting to feel really overdone, like the show's becoming its own parody.

Boom was incredible. One of the best episodes in years.

specialkid8 posted...

I feel like these two, and Matt Smith, just swing way too hard into the clown part of the character. It was always very hard to take Smith or Whittaker seriously when shit got real. And the writing has been a lot more whimsical than it was 15-20 years ago. Hopefully he can balance it better, because he's got great energy.

I felt the exact opposite. He was always so affably clownish that on the rare occasion where he got angry or upset it really contrasted well.

And over time it made the world weary backstory believable.

I didn't have much of a problem believing 11s anger/seriousness.

I had more problems believing all the Moffat Who

Boom was a GREAT episode, loved it. So tense from start to finish and ended on a really satisfying note.

TMOG posted...

Also does it bother anybody else that they keep breaking the Fourth Wall this season?

I'm assuming it's being done on purpose.

Like the Toymaker and Maestro are extra-dimensional beings who can interact with the 4th wall like that anyway, and I'm assuming it's rubbing off on the Doctor due to him being exposed to them so many times now.

That said, Capaldi broke the 4th wall a couple times as well, so it's not really a new thing -- but it does some more plot-related this time around.

TMOG posted...

IMO they could have even kept 13 for last year's specials, she would have still fit great with those stories and the tone/energy they required. Hell, maybe better than 14 did, and we (probably) wouldn't have had that weird "the clothes now regenerate too for some reason" moment.

I mean, those episodes were written to specifically tie in and resolve stuff from the 10th Doctor's era, so getting Tennant back was really the only way that would've made sense.

divot1338 posted...

I felt the exact opposite. He was always so affably clownish that on the rare occasion where he got angry or upset it really contrasted well.

And over time it made the world weary backstory believable.

Yeah, Smith was great a conveying his Doctor's anger and darkness. He put on a friendly outer shell, but harbored deep issues, and Smith portrayed that well. He was also really good at switching between those two facets -- going from lighthearted to dark at the flip of a switch almost.