Doctor Who 2024

[Psyren]

Doctor Who is back! Anyone else started the new season? Any UK Playgrounders miffed at the release schedule?

Quick non-spoilery thoughts: I'm loving Ncuti as the 15th Doctor - in two episodes he's already had a much better balance of lightness and gravitas than 13 managed in her entire first season, including Doctory speeches ("No one grows up wrong" and "The memory changed" in Space Babies, as well as "That's where music comes from" in the Devil's Chord) and I'm also loving Millie Gibson/Ruby Sunday as the companion. She's getting a lot more to do than be an exposition prompt, showing her companion chops very early by leaping into danger in Space Babies and exploding with rage in Devil's Chord. Their chemistry is already top-tier. And lastly, I love the new Tardis interior, they put that Disney money to very good use.

More spoilery thoughts follow:

Spoiler: E1 Space Babies

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This was... a bold choice for the series opener. I could easily see people seeing the goofy CGI babies and thinking that's just what Doctor Who is and deciding it's not for them; maybe that's why Disney felt the need to release the first two episodes instead of just one. It had some great moments in it, including doing way more with the Timeless Child reveal in a fraction of an episode than Chibnall managed in two seasons, and giving snappy recaps of Church on Ruby Road for those who missed the special. And while exposition-heavy, the opening sequence that lays out the basics for new viewers is decently paced and fairly snappy.

There are a couple of political anvils in this episode (the baby machine being illegal to turn off and the refugee planet.) I was fine with the messages but won't elaborate further on them here.

Sidenote: I hate that they've doubled down on all the other Timelords being blown up again. The Master destroying Gallifrey I can buy, but not a single other Timelord escaping? How the hell did he manage that, did he get his hands on the Moment? The whole point of the 50th was the Doctor saving all the children, but oops, guess that didn't matter. They even go out of their way to have the Doctor think Susan is dead despite not even having been there. I'm hoping they retcon at least part of this, or that the Doctor is mistaken.

Spoiler: E2 The Devil's Chord

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Loved this episode's more serious tone, even with all the camp. Jinkx Monsoon was a better villain than any we got in Chibnall's entire run. And the premise was an inventive way of getting around doing a Beatles episode without having to pay for any Beatles music.

I love that the show acknowledged its 1963 roots given that's where they went.

Regarding the action in the episode, the Doctor's silence trick with the sonic was fantastic, and I was really happy that Paul and John helped save the day here. (As with most Beatles popular fiction episodes of course, George and Ringo get done dirty here.)

Spoiler: Miscellaneous Recurring Mysteries

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- There's always a (Susan) Twist! (i.e. there's an actress named Susan Twist that has shown up in every episode since the 60th specials so far.)

- The Oldest One who hid a song in Ruby and seems to be responsible for the random snow flurries reaching across time.

- Both the Toymaker and the Maestro being connected to the 1920s in some way. (That's where the Toymaker went to sell Stooky Bill and start the Giggle, and that's also the decade Paul McCartney tells the Doctor music started going wrong.)

- Still no answers about who Mrs Flood is, but given that she recognizes a TARDIS (especially that TARDIS) the leading theory is that she's Susan, particularly given the amount of time they spend talking about her in TDC.

I am VERY much looking forward to Moffat's return this week in Boom, and early reviews are already saying it's the big shot of heavy drama that the show has needed since pre-Chibnall.

[Errorname]

Spoiler: E1 Space Babies

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Sidenote: I hate that they've doubled down on all the other Timelords being blown up again. The Master destroying Gallifrey I can buy, but not a single other Timelord escaping? How the hell did he manage that, did he get his hands on the Moment? The whole point of the 50th was the Doctor saving all the children, but oops, guess that didn't matter. They even go out of their way to have the Doctor think Susan is dead despite not even having been there. I'm hoping they retcon at least part of this, or that the Doctor is mistaken.

I think Davies was quite happy to get the Timeless Child because it fits into how he likes to write the Doctor, the sole survivor of the time lords with some serious angst hidden just beneath the surface. I've never been the biggest fan of that, although I was amused when I saw the interpretation that because the Time War was an obvious stand-in for the cancellation and dark age, using the Timeless Child to fill the same role implies that Chibnall's tenure was equally bad and traumatic for the show.

[Ionathus]

I have heard good things about both the David Tennant specials (II: Electric Boogaloo ) and now the 15th Doctor as well.

Count me among those who think Jodie Whittaker would've shone with any other showrunner giving her useful things to say and do. I'm sad her tenure had to fizzle out under Chibnall but am excited to get back into it.

Now I just need to track down a friend's Disney+ login...*grumble grumble*

[Psyren]

Count me among those who think Jodie Whittaker would've shone with any other showrunner giving her useful things to say and do. I'm sad her tenure had to fizzle out under Chibnall but am excited to get back into it.

I'm very hopeful she comes back for an episode under RTD. She got so much hate during her run when the writing wasn't her fault.

I think Davies was quite happy to get the Timeless Child because it fits into how he likes to write the Doctor, the sole survivor of the time lords with some serious angst hidden just beneath the surface. I've never been the biggest fan of that, although I was amused when I saw the interpretation that because the Time War was an obvious stand-in for the cancellation and dark age, using the Timeless Child to fill the same role implies that Chibnall's tenure was equally bad and traumatic for the show.

I'm hopeful that they use the Toymaker to continue tweaking that aspect of the canon. Last of the Timelords worked the first time around first because it was totally mysterious exactly what happened ("There was a war. We lost.") Later, when they began fleshing out the details, it turned out to be the Doctor themself that was the cause ("I watched it happen! I MADE it happen!" "Fear me; I killed all of them.") And you get to invoke all the power and scariness that comes from a sort-of-pacifist being pushed to that kind of extreme.

This time around... the Master did it offscreen (...how?...) and the Doctor had no chance to do anything about it (even with a time machine - again, how, there's no time lock this time?), which undercuts the angst considerably, and begs the question - why feel angst at all? And if we're not using it as a source of angst, well, why bother saying he's the last one all over again? I'm hoping they mix up the formula this time by saying, okay, Gallifrey is indeed gone, but a few of the other Time Lords made it off but they're all over time and space, good luck finding them. It would at least be a fresher take than reverting us to the 2005 status quo with even less justification or credibility than we had 19 years ago.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, it's a real shame how dirty Whitaker was done. I really enjoyed her acting in the one season of hers I watched but the writing for almost every episode was mediocre at best, abjectly terrible at worst.

At least Peter Capaldi, while horribly wasted in his own bad writing dark age, still got to shine in a few episodes where Moffat shook the sleep out of his eyes and decided to deliver a banger for once. I don't think Chibnall ever once delivered an episode I'd call "good", much less "great".

[Malimar]

I loved the last 4 specials, and was totally on board and looking forward to this season, and now that it has begun, I am massively, thunderously disappointed with the two episodes so far.

"Space Babies" was colosally underwhelming:

• They were probably overrelying on the audience thinking human babies are somehow cute, not nauseatingly revolting.
• Also the Doctor constantly correcting himself for no reason, "babies -- space babies", was annoying, not funny.
• And "push the button" reads like the Doctor trying way too hard to have a catchphrase.
• The bogeyman made of bogeys is just juvenile humor.
• The whole butterfly thing ineptly hangs a lampshade on something better left unacknowledged.

"The Devil's Chord" was a very good and interesting premise; shame the villain was so horrendously obnoxious. I don't have tremendously much else to say about it.

Especially not keen on how the Doctor has panicked and run away 2/2 episodes this season so far. Hope that doesn't keep up.

The one shining bright point: Ngatwa's Doctor is refreshing in that he seems to be having fun tourisming the universe, unlike every other Doctor of my lifetime except Whittaker.

[Ionathus]

At least Peter Capaldi, while horribly wasted in his own bad writing dark age, still got to shine in a few episodes where Moffat shook the sleep out of his eyes and decided to deliver a banger for once. I don't think Chibnall ever once delivered an episode I'd call "good", much less "great".

Yeah, Capaldi's tenure was the most inconsistent New Who has ever been for me. It felt like you could easily lurch from one of the best episodes to one of the worst with very little warning. His middle season was my favorite and overall the best consistent quality, but to be honest all of them contained zingers and duds.

The one shining bright point: Ngatwa's Doctor is refreshing in that he seems to be having fun tourisming the universe, unlike every other Doctor of my lifetime except Whittaker.

I always thought that both Nine and Ten were great at this too. Of course I could listen to David Tennant read the phonebook and I'd consider it charming, but Chris Eccleston really gave it his all in seeming to have a lot of goofy fun with the adventures (in between the heartache at least).

[Psyren]

Yeah, it's a real shame how dirty Whitaker was done. I really enjoyed her acting in the one season of hers I watched but the writing for almost every episode was mediocre at best, abjectly terrible at worst.

At least Peter Capaldi, while horribly wasted in his own bad writing dark age, still got to shine in a few episodes where Moffat shook the sleep out of his eyes and decided to deliver a banger for once. I don't think Chibnall ever once delivered an episode I'd call "good", much less "great".

I found Capaldi's quality to be much more consistently good than Smith's, especially comparing their freshman outings. For me, Matt Smith was phenomenal in the Eleventh Hour, Amy's Choice, Vincent and the Doctor, and the Pandorica Opens, and everything else in Series 5 was a slog; Series 6 was so heavily serialized around the River Song Arc with Moffat's favorite OC that for me the only great episodes were the ones that ignored it like Doctor's Wife, The Girl Who Waited and the God Complex (though Good Man Goes To War was pretty solid), and then Series 7 was just a mess until Day of the Doctor.

Yeah, Capaldi's tenure was the most inconsistent New Who has ever been for me. It felt like you could easily lurch from one of the best episodes to one of the worst with very little warning. His middle season was my favorite and overall the best consistent quality, but to be honest all of them contained zingers and duds.

I disagree completely - not only did I find Capaldi much more consistent than Smith as per above, I thought his middle season was his weakest (the Hybrid arc was way more poorly executed than Series 8's "Am I A Good Man" Arc, and Series' 10's Missy Redemption Arc, imo.)

"Space Babies" was colosally underwhelming:

• They were probably overrelying on the audience thinking human babies are somehow cute, not nauseatingly revolting.
• Also the Doctor constantly correcting himself for no reason, "babies -- space babies", was annoying, not funny.
• And "push the button" reads like the Doctor trying way too hard to have a catchphrase.
• The bogeyman made of bogeys is just juvenile humor.
• The whole butterfly thing ineptly hangs a lampshade on something better left unacknowledged.

I agree with you that Space Babies was massively held back by its uncanny valley CGI and toilet humor. I put it below Devil's Chord for those reasons. But I appreciate RTD actually doing something with the Doctor now having been revealed to be a foundling, certainly more than Chibnall did with it.

"The Devil's Chord" was a very good and interesting premise; shame the villain was so horrendously obnoxious. I don't have tremendously much else to say about it.

Being a big fan of Drag Race, I loved Jinkx Monsoon in TDC.

Especially not keen on how the Doctor has panicked and run away 2/2 episodes this season so far. Hope that doesn't keep up.

To be fair, they explained it in the narrative each time, so it's definitely not him merely being cowardly. (Though I do recall 9 saying "I'll be a coward any day.")

The next one is Boom, where he physically won't be able to run away, so.

[Psyren]

Moffat is back, and he's still got it! Best episode so far - the premise, the setting, the callbacks (Villengard!) and the acting (especially Ncuti, whose emotional range is a plot point) are all top-notch.

My one criticism is

Spoiler

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the ending, it felt a bit too neat/rushed. Not so much that it ruined the episode, it's just a blemish that for me makes it A-tier rather than S-tier.