Doctor Who announcement at midnight tonight....

[RustyBear]

The New Doctor?

Or just the trailer for the 50th anniversary episode?

Or something else entirely?

To those saying they should have kept it quiet until the actual episode - it just doesn't work like that nowadays. There are websites and fansites devoted to stalking film sets, the very first day of outside filming there will be set photos posted all over the internet. Far better to control the reveal and use it to their own advantage by doing what they did.

The Doctor is 1000+ years old, how can Peter Capaldi at a youthful 54 be too old?!

And x-post with Rusty, too, I've just realised, re RTD/Moffat editing!

I rather like the existence of series arcs (and that's not anything new -- we had the Key To Time arc with the Fourth Doctor and the Trial Of A Time Lord arc with the Sixth Doctor, and they are some of the most highly-rated seasons of the show) but too many of the early Clara episodes were just a bit pants, and the plots didn't make much sense with or without context. It rallied for the last few episodes, though.

I'd like to see more two-parters (perhaps not every episode, but more than we get at the moment) to give the stories room to breathe and develop.

I didn't say Moffat didn't have "proper writing experience and talent", I said that was what is needed in a new person to take the helm.

However, I do think that Moffat has over-extended himself. He doesn't have the talent to oversee a long story arc and tries too hard to be clever. He allows the plots to become incomprehensible and overly complicated and then finds his only way out of this is to use a device like the sonic screwdriver (totally overused) or to say "oh, actually this isn't impossible because I am going to insert a totally ridiculous plot device which will mean everything is going to be ok in 1 minute flat".

I find it difficult to watch and enjoy something when you know that whatever happens the sonic screwdriver will have the ability to rescue everyone from certain oblivion. It makes it pointless. Most children's drama has more subtlety than recent Dr Who series.

Blink was one of the best episodes of the Tennant era and made DW a hide behind the sofa like I was when I was a kid event again (although, I really am a wimp so maybe that was just me).

I think with SM he's full of really good, interesting, clever ideas about how the story arcs should be but in order to make them fit what is essentially a kids tv show it all has to get watered down which makes them lose their impact.

With Sherlock he has less restrictions as it's 'grown-up' tv so he can be as smart alec-y as he likes.

The more I think about PC the happier I am - he's such a fine actor -

To be fair to Moffat, that was a problem with Classic Who too -- eventually it got so bad that they deliberately wrote out the sonic screwdriver part way through the Fifth Doctor's run and we didn't see it again until the TV movie. I'd like to see that happen again, but unfortunately (a) they've now established as canon that the TARDIS can generate replacement screwdrivers, and (b) the merchandising! DS probably owns nearly a dozen sonic screwdrivers of various sorts (most of them free tat from the front of magazines, but a couple of "quality" variants from Christmas and birthdays) and I can imagine that they make a fortune from sales of sonics.

I agree, I think you used to be able to dip in and out more.

There was an overriding plot line, but if you missed a bit it wasn't so much of a problem. Now the one plot episodes seem to (not all of them, but quite a few) just seem to exist to move the main plot arc forwards.

Oops, major x-posting, sorry.

Martha started out well-written, though. Her early scenes established her as an unflappable, very smart woman who was going to be a good intellectual foil for the Doctor -- and then RTD had to write in the mushy-mushy crush storyline. Because obviously no woman can be in close proximity to an interesting man without falling for him.

Just lost a long post when Mumsnet went offline!

Re Moffat over-extending himself - I think that overseeing Doctor Who is really more than one sane person can manage - if you read RTD's 'The Wrtiter's Tale' you can see that he was generally working all the time, all through his holidays and only just hitting (or sometimes missing) his own deadlines - he really did seem pretty obsessive about it. When he took on Torchwood as well it really did become too much and he ended up handing a lot of the Torchwood episodes he'd intended to write over to other people.

I agree about the 'having to fall for the Doctor' bit - like when Sarah-Jane returned in School Reunion it was all about her having been in love with the Doctor, which really hadn't been in the picture in the original series.

First off, let me say I utterly LOVE Peter Capaldi and like the incestuous poster malcolmtuckersmum I totally would... but
what IS that official photo about? WTF?

Is it meant to make him look a bit sinister? It reminds me of Mike Myers or a pantomime villain twirling a moustache or is he simply doing a C for...
canny?!

I know Rankin is a famous sleb photographer - he was on Heidi Klums Germany Next Top Model. But that photo is just...silly. He wants to know what we think of it apparently.

www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/496630/20130804/peter-capaldi-doctor-who-new-next-matt.htm

second photo down in link if you don't know what I'm talking about...

That is very pantomime villain isn't it

I have to say, I think I preferred the companions when they travelled with him, did a bit of running around, and occasionally needed to be rescued. I find all this hard-hitting emotion a bit over the top.

Agree about the magic screwdriver spoiling plots. It should be more about the Doctor ingeniously solving puzzles and working things out, not just being an ordinary bloke who happens to have a flash gizmo. Tom Baker didn't like K9 for a similar reason. If a magic very clever dog can sort everything out then the doctor becomes redundent and could just be anybody who has a flash time machine and a clever robot dog.
The doctor and his personality and intelligence has to be integral to solving the problems for the series to really work.

I think the photo looks enigmatic. I like it.

I like the photo too.

Someone upthread said PC was known for playing bad guys - IMO he was always known for playing the nice guy, but when he got cast as Malcolm Tucker he did it so well that no one can remember the nice guy roles. A lot of the photos you see of him are of him as Tucker - he has a gaunt, hungry, stressed, angry, desperate look in his eyes. It's good to see a photo of him with a warm twinkle.

That official picture is a little more Dr Evil rather than Dr Who....

He twinkles though so all is forgiven.

Two very good YouTubes:

. . .

That second clip is brilliant.

His tendency to fluff up the hair on the top of his head makes his face look longer. he needs to keep the top of his hair trimmed much more closely.

In the first clip, PC says it with such relish!

"I'm the new Dr!"

LOVE that second clip, properly made me laugh!

I love the way the clip goes:

Clara's patronising, knowing, flirty tones: "Run, you clever boy, run"

"FUCK OFFFFF!!!"

And again with the Doctor Tucker...