UKH

Is it just me or is the new Doctor the best thing since David Tennant, with potential to grow into the role even more?

Or is it just that the storylines have returned to being more standalone, less self-referential and less relying on in-knowledge?

Or is it simply that the episodes so far have been based in Sheffield?

Possibly just you. As extremely over-the-top northern as she is, I don't mind the new Doctor. 1st episode okay, 2nd episode guff, haven't watched the 3rd yet. As ridiculous as it may sound I find it a bit juvenile so far but feel there's potential there.

How can someone be over the top Northern? 

Do you think "Kes" is a bit far from actuality?

(Your profile doesn't say where you live. It might explain a lot)

I'd say definitely worth persisting with, as it's finding its feet well.

Actually the third one was something of a classic - not to be missed.

I've just caught up with #4, which was good too, but less memorable

It's different and certainly better than some of the previous doctors, but is the BBC not trying a bit too hard with the womens equality. Female doctor and going back in time to the womens rights fight. Seems a little predictable. And the oh look I'm a northerner, isn't the BBC great for not being London centric or forcing actors/tresses to tame their accent etc. 

As you say, give it time. 

Yes, a female main character and one female driven storyline is definitely going over the top with women's equality.

I'm going to write a strongly worded lett....AARGH! SPIDERS!!!!!!!

runs behind sofa

Billy Casper wasn't a time lord!

I think you’ll find that Rosa Parks was fighting for racial equality rather than gender equality, but why let facts get in the way of your rant

Is all very well for you in France, but that landfill site is genuine and I go cycling in the woods nearby at least once a fortnight. And I have noticed the spiders getting bigger recently.

Well that should help your strava times.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott wasn’t about women’s rights. Rosa Parks wasn’t told to move because she was a woman.

Edit to add: I see I’m not the first to point out Summo’s embarrassing blunder.

I'm impressed with the filming as it is more cinematic rather than for the small screen. Maybe because more people have large tellies these days.

I'm also impressed with Bradley Walsh and how he keeps the acting grounded at times.

It really, really upsets me that Bradley Walsh is currently my favourite thing about the show.

Sheffielders who think they're from "the north", and not just the less fashionable outer fringes of the Midlands?

Ditto, yikes! lol

I'd say that the Rosa Parks episode is as iconic as the two episodes with the WW2 gas masks and the weeping angels.

Sorry I think the BBC have lost the plot in an overdose of virtue signaling. 

Plot consists of female lead, diverse ethnic mix of accompany for Dr on her travels. Most villains are male white middle aged. 

Accompanying messages ‘guns are bad’, ‘everything has a right to life’ (man eating spiders and others). Eco driven plot lines, etc, etc. 

I know You cant argue with any of it but virtue signalling is become the curse of the beeb.

The scene in Yaz' flat talking to her family and pretending to be normal is the most Doctor thing I've ever seen and she's perfect.  I love her and I love this.

Although I don't know what happened at the end of the last episode because I had to retire to a room that wasn't displaying gigantic spiders.

It wasn't a man eating spiders.  It was a spider eating men.

And I think its right great!

I long for the simpler days of the Daleks. They were evil and you blew them up. 

Virtue Signaling ? Why does "doing the right thing" have to be given a negative label ?

You're forgetting Rusty.  Not even Daleks are simple!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Dalek

I hope the Doctor brings out her dark sinister side at some point.  Christopher Eccleston and Peter Cerpaldi were excellent at showing how dark the Doctor could be.  The Doctor can't be all sweetness and light.  He did wipe out his race after all.

Because apparently you can't have a programme with a female lead, ethnic minorities or based outside of London without some snowflake crying "Virtue Signalling". And God help you if you have all of those things.

That is a good question. I suppose it is the motivation behind the production. Strong female lead good. A Whole program of writing which is ‘on message’ of showing how fair and equality aware they are I find to much. 

It is not realistic (as much a a light entertainment si-fi can be), it has no subtly or depth. It represents ‘safe’ and non contentious. ‘Everything in moderation’ seems to apply. 

I think in the UK there is still a silent majority who think ‘that’s just what you have to say or do these days’ but don’t speak out or necessarily agree. 

"Cerpaldi"?

Its a kids SiFi show.  Just because the target audience keeps growing, should the show develop and have more mature themes just to keep the adult audience satisfied?

Maybe something similar should happen to Newsround.  When I was a kid those news articles were hard hitting and cutting edge.  But now, 30 years on they seem childish to me.  But then maybe there is a young audience that appreciates the level that Newsround and Dr Who are set at.

Typo.

My bad.

The trouble with silent majorities is that they are silent, so anytime anyone claims to speak for them, it can usually be assumed that they are speaking merely for themselves.

It amused me when they slipped in: "What are you again?", "I'm your niece's wife, sir." 1:34 in

I think there's a lot of people in the UK who are upset by all this gender and racial equality. Not sure whether they are a majority, but they certainly aren't silent.

I saw that phrase, equal rights does not mean less rights for you, it's not cake!  Which made me smile.

Cheers

Toby

This is just made up:

Episode 1: Baddy is a blue alien with teeth in his face, I'd estimate mid-thirties - 0 points

Episode 2: Baddy is ethnically asian - 0 points

Episode 3: Baddy is a young white man - 1/2 point

Episode 4: Baddy is middle-aged and white but also a clear and acknowledged satire of the sitting American President and a certain strand of American culture so it would be difficult to carry off any other way - 1 point

Total: 1.5 points from a possible 4 for accuracy.

Well, it's only a ''curse" if it's detrimental. This has been the best, most even series of new Who so far. The production, direction, dynamic and acting have surpassed anything from recent series. It feels like you and others have decided to get upset over certain points irrespective of whatwh in front of you.

Any programme that gives airtime to those abominations is taking arachnid rights too far!

Aye. But they'd stand no chance on t'cobbles.

Err.. it's Dr Who.

I think if you're getting angry around concepts such as fairness and equality in a kids TV show you really need to have a word with yourself.

Just because most of the viewers live with their parents doesn't mean that it's a kids TV show...

It's a pity the hole in road has gone - that would have been a perfect set for some scary sci-fi

youtube.com/watch?v=N3gBS7nuxZU& 

Mind you when the featured Hunter House Road in the first episode, I did wonder if some terrible creatures would emerge from the cellars up there.

Your quite right, I have made the classic error of expressing a view on UKC. Arguments twisted, opportunities for more virtue signaling...degenerating quickly into personal insults. 

Posting on here is about as productive as kicking a turd.

I wonder if there's an episode based around Hendos planned?
A barrel of relish morphs into a man eating blob or something or other, maybe?

Can't happen.  We all know Hendersons is vegan.

Ah, now ...

Some people have disagreed with you in a quite gentle way with no personal insults. You have had a hissy fit. I had the impression that you were a slightly more grown up contributor, but obviously I was wrong.

Just rewatched. Trump character did actually say " oh my god, they killed Kevin!!"

I like the new Doctor but Rosa aside I haven't been super impressed with the scripts so far and even Rosa was a tad derivative of American Sci-fi series "Timeless". I am not saying that they are totally bad, I have really liked the interaction between the characters and Bradley Walsh is a revelation, the down to earth stuff is great. But I feel that so far the episodes lack punch and I am getting a bit irritated by the "don't kill anything weapons are bad" line, yes the previous Doctors did it to but not so in your face and leaving the writers to fudge the issue when obviously the spiders have to die or someone has to be rescued with a knife. And really wish they wouldn't keep having the Doctor say things like when she/he was a little girl. It just puts me in mind of Highlander II everytime.

But those issues aside I think it has great potential and I really love the new sound track.

May be now it is based in sheffield we'll find out what the Doctor has done on Grit?

Sorry you lost my sympathy with the use of the phrase "Virtue signalling"

I'm in the same position as a number of people I think - I like the cast but the writing hasn't really grabbed me. 

I'm going to give it a chance though.  I just hope I didn't miss any important arc stuff last week, because **** spiders!

Only in your head.

"Idiot signalling".

Idiot confirmation.

Didn't want to disappoint you... and, by the way, it's "you're" not "your".

Maybe you should be called deadpan! Thanks for making me laugh (a lot) on a dreary afternoon.

It was a perfect set for some scary real life!

I've just watched recording of Saturday's episode and rapidly losing patience.  Bring back a bit of menace and drama and intelligence.  This is just kids stuff now (or am  just getting old?)

You are really going to struggle watching the Saturday episode!

Ok Sunday’s episode smartarse!

I like Jody Whittaker but she needs to be careful she doesn't turn into Victoria Wood.  I have to say the scripts are a tiny bit preachy for me.

That is just it - the format is wrong - if you go back and see some of the sixties stories the sci fi is really chilling.  The death of Sara in the Time Destructor field as she ages and becomes skeletal is something I'll never forget.

You've just single-handedly ruined Jody Whittaker's run for me! I was quite enjoying her but now all I'm going to see and hear is Victoria Wood (which in my eyes is not a good thing).

Sorry!  There's still hope - her regeneration isn't quite complete and she has time to dial down the Northern thinking out loud bit.

This is pretty unforgivable. The latest Doctor is quite Yorkshire, Victoria Wood was very much Lancastrian.

I generally like Whittacker’s Doctor and the supporting cast around her, it would be nice to some stories run over a couple of episodes to let them develop a bit. However, it is ultimately a kids tv show.

re my comments of the old chilling stories in the 60s - I was 7 in 1963 when I saw the first frightening episode, uniquely repeated the next week (because of Kennedy's assassination that first week, I believe) before the next episode followed on immediately, set in the stone age.  What age is the new doctor aimed at?  Pre school?  They could do far better with a better concept - take some decent actors and shut them in an infantile madhouse with lots  of unoriginal stolen ideas, that's what this new post classic series did.

I am waiting for Mr Chibnall to pass the reins over to one of the team who can write. Last Sunday's episode under sold Whitaker's Doctor as Graham said "It just sort of ignored you didn't it."

I felt the same way while While Russell T Davies was at the helm.  He produced some right old rubbish.
Meanwhile one of the team, Steven Moffatt, wrote consistently superb scripts.  They were often pretty scary and had plot lines that actually hung together without any gaping holes in them:  "Are you my mummy?", The Girl in the Fireplace, Sally Sparrow and the timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly Weeping Angels, the library one that introduced River Song and had carnivorous shadows that killed people so quickly it took them a little while to realise they were dead.

Then Steven Moffatt took over the reins, and while he was at the helm we had "The Moon is actually a giant dragon egg.  Oh no, it's hatched out and flown away!  This will be a disaster for planet Earth!  Phew, it's ok, everyone - before it left it laid another egg exactly the same size and mass and in precisely the same orbit as the one it hatched out of just a second ago."

Moral of the story, careful what you wish for.  The current series so far does seem a wee bit juvenile compared to some of the older and relatively recent stuff.  I console myself by trying to remember that it is supposed to be for kids.

Russell T wrote some rubbish but he also very often nailed the drama and emotion, even Aliens of London had some excellent lines delivered by Rose's mum. Steve Moffatt wrote some excellent stories under RTD but then wnet onto produce some rubbish of his own as show runner. He still produced some good stuff (Mostly later in Smith's run and Capaldi's) but also some things that had me going WHAT! like in the Moon egg thing, Sleep no more, and that equally daft one with all the trees growing over night. So far Chibnall has just been, well a bit dull, not bad but I have yet to go "wow that was a great episode". I think though it will sort itself out. I hated Matt Smith's first run and felt Capaldi was wasted in his first series (quite liked into the Dalek though).

I've just caught up on Sunday's episode - now that's more like it!

this evening's episode consolidating the return to form, and yet another dig at Sheffield local politics; this time on the folly of unnecessary tree felling

Did not realise Sheffield was in the heart of Lancashire?

Ooo yeah I missed that one. I agree this weeks was much more entertaining. Good fun

The king hammed it up a bit too much for me.

It felt like panto time

Oh no it didn't!

Ho yes it did!

Behind you

I wouldn’t say Pendle was in the heart of Lancashire, more like a clot way out in a limb!

I'm trying to work out which Peak District sport climbing quarry tonight's episode is set in?

It was a very good episode, tinged with sadness, as I thought of this thread at the end of the programme.  Chris the Tall would have enjoyed it I'm sure.  Safe travels Chris.

What did people think of last nights episode? I rather enjoyed what has been characterised as a Brexit joke, but actually spoke more about wider issues. Good to see a bit of Dalek action.

The Dalek looked as if it was wearing a helmet from Agincourt in the fragment I saw.

I really didn't like it. I just found the whole plot rather nonsensical. I suspended my disbelief so hard it asphyxiated.

I wanted to like this episode but I didn’t here’s why… 1) Daleks, which are a race that have enslaved countless worlds and even brought the Time Lords to their knees, are brought down by a bunch of Saxons with swords and spears. If we were still doing classic Daleks , when you could just chuck a towel over their heads and push them down a corridor, then I might have believed this. But since Eccleston raised the bar with “Dalek” which was damaged and yet still managed to resist attempts to get into it and create a very menacing threat. 2) Well maybe we could just about overlook that an early Dalek scout tripped up and got caught napping by a load of dark age warriors. Maybe, as was hinted, it was just a classic era Dalek prone to all sorts of easy kill methods. But then what do they do (having captured their clumsy Dalek)? Cut it into three bits and send it to the four corners of the earth. Not burn it or anything practical. One gets way laid enroute and we are expected to believe that he just lay on the path till time buried him. Then after over a thousand years the (vunerable without its shell) Dalek gets revived by a bit of UV and magically its bits reunite. So then we are expected to believe that a Dalek, in a rather inferior shell, the one the Vikings/Saxons (whatever it is never made clear) had to deal with, is somehow more evolved than every other Dalek. So evolved that it can remain dead for a thousand years and get revived by a UV lamp. 3) The A-team Junkyard Dalek put together from old Dalek bits on a farm looked cool and harked back to the making of the new sonic screwdriver (and the original Iron man film come to that), but just seemed too far fetched. Sure I bought the Dalek gun, we saw that earlier, and even the eye stalk, but rocket powered? Missiles in its skirt? I just didn’t believe that it could be knocked up in 5 mins by a mind-controlled girl in a shed, using damaged alien tech. It is just such goddam lazy writing, hey we’ve got some tin plate and a bit of alien tech we can do anything can't we? Not if you want me to believe in it all you can't. 4) The Dalek, which originally got done over by barbarians with spears, is now made of bits of old scrap and can take out a tanks and a load of soldiers with high powered rifles (bearing in mind it has no super Dalek shielding) but then gets blown up by a few bits from a microwave oven. Hey next time the Daleks invade don’t bother calling out the army just got to Argos. 5) Ryan’s dad. We could have had a noble sacrifice here but nope, let’s just duck out from the hard issues 6) The Doctor asking everyone if they thought she had done her best before killing the Dalek. It’s a Dalek! There was never going to be anyway that it wasn’t going to get destroyed (though given its apparent immortality who knows? Maybe chucking it into a super nova isn’t enough?) I just find the new don't kill anything, don't use knives, oh look I really, really, really had to kill that Dalek, you saw that didn't you? I did my best didn't I? Jeez enough with the excuses. It's a Dalek we know you have to try and kill it. 7) One line also really rankled. When Ryan’s dad is being sucked out of the Tardis with the Dalek, we can see this, everybody in the Tardis can see it but the Doctor still utters the lines “Its taking Ryan’s dad out with it.” Utterly redundant bit of script. All that being said I liked the Doctor’s scarf, I liked the look of the Dalek out of its shell and the Scrap yard Dalek looked good. I just couldn’t believe in any of it. Too much flaunting of its own internal logic. I am ambivalent about mothballing UNIT

Look, before you go on any more I can tell you that I had a Dalek book in the mid 60s that definitely said that Daleks landed here and had pyramids in Egypt and Mounds in ancient Britain built over them, so it must be all true.  But I agree, it didn't look like the internal diagram of the Daleks that that authoritative book had.

It should look like this, with a War Computer inside

https://www.flickr.com/photos/combomphotos/6014762015

Now you're talking!

See totally fabricated.

But seriously abandon internal narrative logic and you have a story that no one belives in

*Flouting. 

(Sorry, I tried and failed to suppress my inner pedant.  Killed it actually, cut it up and buried it in three separate places, yet somehow it was resurrected and took control of me anyway.) 

I'm with you on the review completely.  This was far from the best episode of the series, but in fairness I think it probably was better than most of the 'Christmas specials'.  But creaky script aside, there was a moment (I don't remember exactly when) that it suddenly struck me that Jodie Whittaker had finally hit her stride and properly made the character her own.  Now that she has, I hope she'll stick around for a good long while. David Tennant was gone too soon, Christopher Eccleston *way* too soon.

I too am a bit hmmm, about the New Year episode especially as it will be the only episode of 2019.  I think that's correct, but I hope not.

How could a single Dalek hold off technically advanced armies with superior weapon power yet it succumbed to medieval weapons and let itself be cooked alive by a bonfire?

That bit I found very lame. And the father and son bit was boring too.  However if the dad can build tech from a microwave to defeat a Dalek, then I hope we see more of him.

I hope the new episodes rein in their moral sub-text.  I just want some harmless Dr Who entertainment minus the Sesamy Street lecture of the day hidden in the plot.

I agree. I think Jodie Whittaker does make a good Doctor. I just have a problem with the script. To be fair I also had a problem with a lot of Peter Capaldi and Matt Smiths scripts but also felt they made good Doctors

With the current scripts I'm afraid the only way to improve things would be to speed up the video and add Benny Hill theme music.

The Serial format of story stands the test of time than a 50 minute fantasy wand waving make it up as you go along fantasy.  It has not been SciFi for a long time,not at all in the 21st Century DrW Ho

Agree, but is this not the way of quite a few things now?

Things have to be immediate, to the extent that some TV programmes start by telling what is going to happen later in the same show. Perish the thought that people might be expected to follow a story line that carries over from week to week!

Dave

There's a bit of nostalgia creeping in here too though.  Before there were box-sets, before we had the means at home to record programmes to watch later there were plenty of "wand-waving" violations of the internal logic of the show going on.  And often as not the dire situation the Doctor (or whoever) had been in as the previous week's 'cliffhanger' was subtly different at the start of the following week, leaving a nice convenient escape open and relying on the audience to forget it wasn't there before.  "And with a single bound, he was free!"

Plenty of the modern episodes of Dr Who have been entirely consistent with the internal logic of their plots (and the general 'lore' of the show).  Steven Moffatt was excellent at that before he took over as show-runner and stopped putting the effort into his own scripts.  'Blink' for example, when he first introduced the Weeping Angels.  It was timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly, but completely logical and consistent throughout.  You might not like it, but you really can't claim it's not science fiction.

It's also a bit unfair to the 'fantasy' genre to characterise lazy writing as fantasy as opposed to sci-fi.  Lazy writing is just lazy writing, good fantasy also retains it's internal logic throughout the plot.    You could say the difference between fantasy and sci-fi is that the former includes magic, but fictional magic also has a certain logic to it and there are always rules, just ask Willow Rosenberg or Esme Weatherwax.  Besides, as Arthur C Clarke pointed out, any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic to us anyway, the lines between those two genres are blurred.