Doctor Who

[MsMiaWallace]

Anyone going to be watching the new Doctor Who now it is a woman?
Love Jodie as an actress. Never been fussed on the doctor before!!

Another episode with no aliens. I liked that it wasn't the robots (well, except for poor Kira) and that the baddy was the last person we'd expect.

I've been watching some of the MS episodes with the DDs and they just get confused. And over 50 years it makes sense that the style of the show changes. I do kind of wish they'd go back to the old fashioned one story per series, I understand why RTD wanted to make it single episode adventures (plus the story arc) but I think it makes it difficult to explore the stories well and after several years of it there's a tendency for the episodes to become samey. That's going to make it feel even more like a little kids show if there is no story arc.

We had the robots pegged as the baddies and I was complaining that it was just like the cyber man. I was pleased to be wrong!

You should have known, it’s always the janitor. And he’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids...
I actually like this series as Doctor Who - it’s very like the show was when I was the “right” age for it (Baker/Davison era mainly. RTD wrote the best Who, and I miss those days when it really did work for kids and adults, but this series really does what DW is supposed to be - a teatime family sci-fi programme.

But it’s mostly about people and their ambitions, prejudices etc. I want to see battles against scary aliens!

The badly behaved humans come after, in Strictly.

I really don’t think Dr Who can carry off human interest stories using aliens only as a pretext. It’s just too basic, especially with this cast.

There’s been lots of ‘human interest stories using aliens only as a pretext’, (or not including aliens at all) in Doctor Who, including the very first story, and classics such as The Enemy of the World, The Green Death, Robot, Robots of Death, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl Who Waited and The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People. I wouldn’t describe any of those as ‘too basic’

I’m not familiar with those. How many examined pivotal civil rights events, geo-politics, and contemporary concerns in respect of technology and it’s effect on the economics and universal rights of labour ?

As opposed to general themes like love, hate, friendship, betrayal, and so on? Which form the basis of virtually all stories.

I shouldn’t have said ‘human interest’; I should have said ‘social commentary’. Fair enough.

I agree with you Housemum. I think that is why I am enjoying this series. If I see another Dr Who with Cybermen or daleks I just switch off.

I'm not as fluent with the context of older who, but the revival of Dr Who with RTDs 5 year long era is pretty much constant social commentary.

SM includes it as well, but was more focused on the joy of time-travel and paradoxes.

I don't find it at all unusual that social commentary is a part of this season.

On a different note, do you all think an 8 yo could watch this or would it be too scary? I honestly don't know. And who better to ask than all of you?

My DS is 8 and watches it, he's only been frightened at the big spider episode, not significantly though. Oddly he won't watch Harry Potter because it scares him (again, big spiders)

We rewatched the all the PC episodes together, he was very underrated! The one where it's basically him in a tower with the skulls, I don't think any other Doctor could have done that justice like he did. Now rewatching DT and Rose episodes, they are the people I would avoid at a party!

My 9 year old DD who generally is quite young in her tastes has loved this series. Although she found the spiders scary but as PP said not horrendously. In contrast my now 10 year old found the monks last series terrifying and after enjoying the beginning of the series missed out those episodes. I think so far this series is less scary.

My younger ones decided not to watch the spider episode, but the whole series is a big hit with my 9yo, and I wouldn't say she is a particular fan of anything scary. Some bits have made her jump, but not enough to put her off.

Thanks. In that case, I can share it with DD1 who is pretty ok with things but maybe not the spider one.

Alien mud monsters were OK, butvthen it got silly. It was doing so well until the tree-is-a-lock stuff.

Liked the Monty Python reference though!

That episode was a little silly. Laughed when Willow said she was the only one who knew the path up the hill. The hill was covered in grass. Hardly challenging to navigate.

I thought camp King James was quite amusing.

Classic Who tonight.
Haven’t been keen on the Rosa Parks type ones but loved giant spiders in Sheffield and this one tonight. I think the series is getting better.

We enjoyed it too!

I'd've preferred Becka's part to have been scripted as a man, if we're going for learning about the past here... But I loved the mud people and King James!

We thought King James undercut the peril a bit!

I still think the body count is high this series.

And, just to add to our list:

Deforestation is bad.

I was thinking that too Whirlwind - it was usually men in charge of torturing, ducking and burning witches. But overall I liked this episode - they missed sneaking in the famous description of James I and VI as "the wisest fool in Christendom" but they did capture that aspect of his personality very well - loads of intellectual curiosity and not an ounce of common sense.

Tonight's episode had been the best so far but i still can't get on board with this series. The Dr is too watered down by the companions. I can't connect with any of them. There is not room for any of them to have a personality or build a relationship with the Dr. And the Dr is very one dimensional. The Dr was always funny, kind, dangerous, silly, wise, such a complex character who could save the world using their wit. This one solves everything by waving her sonic screwdriver. I'm sad.

I'm really enjoying Jodie Whittaker as the doctor, she feels closest to the Sunday tea time vibe of the halcyon Tom Baker years. I loved this episode - Alan Cumming hamming it up was a real treat combined with some scary mud monsters. I'm happy.

This was definitely the best episode of the series and the only one that actually felt like Doctor Who. It was better written, more entertaining, the whole caboodle. I thought the mud monsters were a maybe a bit scary for early evening tv, I mean for kids that is, but other than that it was fab. Alan Cumming was very good, Jodie Whittaker was the doctor through and through, and there were some great one liners - loved it when Graham told the witch-finder lady that they were putting her 'in special measures' like she was some failing school or something, that made me laugh aloud.

I notice the writer of this episode is not Chris Chibnall but a writer called Joy Wilkinson - sadly this looks like the only episode she has written. They need to get rid of him asap and pass the whole thing over to her, she is clearly the better person for the job.

I don't think the doctors of old would pass up on the opportunity to chase after mud monsters for a chat!