Yeah, I feel like series six is the darkest by far.
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Doctor Who: Time Of The Doctor |OT| 11's hour is over now... The clock is striking 12
- Thread starter infiniteloop
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Yeah, I feel like series six is the darkest by far.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Yeah I know, I like to call them wax figures becuase it remind me to that Tom Baker wax photo with the other doctors lol
Quick Mustard
Member
S6 is definitely the darkest year, but I think The Angels Take Manhattan is the darkest single episode - at least of Moffat's run.
I just rewatched it the other day and there's this horrible atmosphere of dread hanging over the whole thing, like everyone is in this losing battle that they only slowly realize as it goes on.
paradox121
Member
Its essentially an episode where Amy chooses to 'commit suicide' twice in order to be with her husband. So yeah, pretty dark
I'd put The Girl Who Waited up there with it though. Not only the idea of the Doctor leaving a companion stranded on a planet and ultimately refusing to let them back in the TARDIS, but the general setting of a facility set up so that you can watch your loved ones live out the last days of their life in fast forward. Kind of a chilling reflection of how the Doctor views the world.
acheron_xl
Member
Its essentially an episode where Amy chooses to 'commit suicide' twice in order to be with her husband. So yeah, pretty dark
I'd put The Girl Who Waited up there with it though. Not only the idea of the Doctor leaving a companion stranded on a planet and ultimately refusing to let them back in the TARDIS, but the general setting of a facility set up so that you can watch your loved ones live out the last days of their life in fast forward. Kind of a chilling reflection of how the Doctor views the world.
How did I not pick up on this before? It's so obvious in hindsight.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
He loves you too Ridley!
Would have been a hilarious callback if they used that statue for Baker in that dream sequence at the end. Only for him though.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Watching the Bluray of the 50th.
"Great men are forged in fire, it is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame."
So good.
"Great men are forged in fire, it is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame."
So good.
Couldn't stand Tennant? I can't even...
Nope. I actually thought he was great in the 50th anniversary, but I really couldn't stand him during his run. I thought he tried way too hard to be wacky and weird, but Eccleston and Smith felt more natural. I'll have to rewatch Tennant's run, but he didn't impress me at all as a first time watch.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
I feel the same. Tennant wasn't bad, but he came off as a bit too goofy for me. Eccleston had a passion about him, and Smith, while not up there with Eccleston was able to pull it off too.
Tennant's Doctor was also too nice. The Doctor is supposed to be a bit of an asshole.
Tennant's Doctor was also too nice. The Doctor is supposed to be a bit of an asshole.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Tennant is my Doctor. Loved his run. He could do fun and quirky and then jump to serious when needed. Smith is great, but he doesn't do serious quite as well. When talking about time lords, etc.
Love both though.
Love both though.
acheron_xl
Member
I don't think this is true at all. Smith is a lot goofier.
In fact, I was watching The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances recently and I could so clearly imagine how Smith would've delivered the same lines (Moffat's writing is so distinctive) that I realized how low-key and muted Eccleston's performance was.
paradox121
Member
It's weird that, for me, when I see a Tennant episode I love him and think he's my favourite Doctor. But if I see more than one episode of him at a time I can't stand him. I think in part the writers were to blame towards the end of his run for just hand picking 'Tennant tropes' and catchphrases so he just ended up like a caricature.
I liked Ecclestone's performance but I need a bit more...levity in my Doctors.
Smith kinda falls in the middle so I typically say I prefer him to the other two but, like Tennant, he has moments of becoming a caricature. The Colonel Runaway speech will always be one of my favourite moments of his, wish he'd had more like that.
I liked Ecclestone's performance but I need a bit more...levity in my Doctors.
Smith kinda falls in the middle so I typically say I prefer him to the other two but, like Tennant, he has moments of becoming a caricature. The Colonel Runaway speech will always be one of my favourite moments of his, wish he'd had more like that.
Thanks.
No problem.
Smith has sometimes come across flat due to the 'talking really fast with his hands waving' but Tennant turned over delivery into his 'thing' over the course of his run. It got so bad (for me) that he basically had 3-4 modes of very shallow expression that he seemingly cycled between. Smith (to me) had maintain a lot more depth and range to the Doctor, which I'm been very appreciative off coming off of Tennant.
Tennant was pretty subdued in the 50th though, and I liked his performance then. There were times when Tennant did away with the over the top acting, and he was simply fantastic, such as when he's talking with Wilfred about his impending death during The End of Time. I wish he'd decided to play his version more natural, as it really showed off his strengths. He was at his weakest when it felt like he was going through the motions of just any old episode, he was at his best when he was given notable material to work with.
APZonerunner
Member
The funny thing is I feel sort of opposite to you in terms of opinion on development - I really like that Tennant's Doctor ended his run a changed man, in a completely and totally different place to where he was when he popped into existence. He had tropes, but the thing about Tennant's Doctor (in my eyes, anyway) is that the tropes weren't something at a writer-level but were something at an in-universe level - the Allons-ys and gurning and frantic hands-through-hair and "WELL, (contradiction)" were a mask, a defensive mechanism of Tennant's particular version of the character.
I think they all have this element to them - at least all three of the modern ones - but it's far more surfaced in Tennant, and deliberately - especially as things got worse and worse for him as time went on, as he lost everybody. This is most on display in The Waters of Mars, really, where he's doing it - he's being that caricature - except in this context you aren't cheering him on. The brilliance of that moment of that episode isn't that he's changed - his Doctor has ALWAYS been that way, as early as The Christmas Invasion - but that it shows you his fakery from a different angle, and you truly see that it's fake. People describe that moment as being like a heel turn, but it isn't - he's always been that way, and Matt's Doctor is a LOT less like it (Colonel Runaway speech being one of the occasions where he slips into it.)
I think Smith's Doctor developed more in Series 5 than Tennant's did in two series', but since then he's sort of just continued to tread water. There was a slip of a light of real change after he lost Amy and Rory, but then once he had a companion again he defaulted back to that caricature. He doesn't feel like he's really changed, and that saddens me a bit. This isn't down to Smith's performance, either, but more just what he's been given to work with. The time it really dawned on me was actually in my favourite episode of his, A Christmas Carol, where he actually is one of the less impressive things about it (Character writing. The plot & Matt's performance are both magnificent). I remember thinking when that episode aired that the way he was written felt like a 'best of' compilation of all the things Matt did in Series 5 that people liked, and then that just carried on and on throughout Series 6 and 7, and is probably at its absolute zenith of awfulness for me around The Doctor, The Widow & The Wardrobe, where his motivations and actions feel like an ill-considered greatest hits compilation.
Love 'em both, though, and I could happily marathon either or both for hours.
yeah it's hard for me to explain, it's just that Smith's (and Tennant)'s goofiness feel endearing to me, whereas Eccleston's doesn't have that same kind of charm. Which is also why I feel those two did dark/angry/serious better than Eccleston did - because I bought into their more light-hearted bits, it made more the dramatic scenes that much stronger, whereas Eccleston's usually rang hollow for me.
I like Eccleston, but his Doctor was a straight up goof in comparison to Tennant and Smith. Tennant's rage, his ridiculous grin, being happy as a kid, his descent to a scary place of trying to be something more than he ought to be all worked for me. I wonder if anything can top his goodbye.
Don't get me wrong, they're all goofs. You know what I mean.
Don't get me wrong, they're all goofs. You know what I mean.
paradox121
Member
That's a great point actually. I think a lot of that has to do with Smith and the new team having a point to prove with S5. He needed to prove he was worthy to play the part which he pretty much did within The Eleventh Hour, and so in future series he just kept that momentum without really altering it. Though I think his relationship with Amy and Rory, and his dependence on them to the point that he enters a depression after they leave is a nice mini arc. I think in some ways his obsession with the mystery of Clara should have been emphasised to show that he's somehow...unstable? That's not the right term but you get my drift. The idea that he's only travelling with her because he needs a new obsession is nicely dark in a way we haven't really seen with the Doctor before. They should've explored that more really. You saw hints of it when he's basically yelling at her and accusing her of being some kind of trap in Journey To The Centre of The TARDIS.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
I really like Eccleston in The Doctor Dances. I remember watching the series for the first time and I was surprised at how many deaths where per episode (and I thought it was a family series), so when Eccleston goes and says the line, "only for this time, everybody lives", it was awesome to hear, and see his inmesily happy reaction that you know was truly real, not when he does goofy things in the episodes before becuase you really knew that was only a facade. Same with his last line, the "You were fanstasic and so was I"
Cant hate him, he makes me laugh evry time I see him!
Well, maybe they did lol
I suppose is a head photo of the real Tom, but it really looks there like the wax figure.
He loves you too Ridley!
Cant hate him, he makes me laugh evry time I see him!
Well, maybe they did lol
I suppose is a head photo of the real Tom, but it really looks there like the wax figure.
acheron_xl
Member
There was a fair amount of Clara stalking at the beginning of The Rings of Akhaten too. It was a little creepy.
He's a heterosexual human male, so probably!
Anyone else see the War and 9-11 this way:
Hurt - The adult. Assured of his own importance and dissmissive of the senile old man and the impetuous kid.
Eccleston - The Teen. Moody, brooding, and self-concerned.
Tennant - The Kid. Self-aggrandizing and vain.
Smith - The Elder. Bitter and mostly unconcerned with what others think of him.
Hurt - The adult. Assured of his own importance and dissmissive of the senile old man and the impetuous kid.
Eccleston - The Teen. Moody, brooding, and self-concerned.
Tennant - The Kid. Self-aggrandizing and vain.
Smith - The Elder. Bitter and mostly unconcerned with what others think of him.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Rifftrax has goten Video-on-Demand rights to the second (fake) Dr. Who movie...
Dr. Who: Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.
Dr. Who: Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.
APZonerunner
Member
Another new Director for Capaldi's series confirmed - he tweeted he's returning to the show "on Monday" to prep for "a couple of eps."
Douglas Mackinnon. Previously directed The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky, The Power of Three & Cold War.
Douglas Mackinnon. Previously directed The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky, The Power of Three & Cold War.
Huh, that doesn't bode well at all. Do you mean he will oversee the series instead of Moffat?
Sontaran/Poison wasn't anything special from what I recall, the Power of Three had an interesting enemy but went nowhere in the end, and Cold War was... okay. I liked it for some reason but it was still lacking a little something.
Then again maybe Mackinnon will be a reverse Moffat: so-so when working on single episodes, but amazing as a director. One can only hope.
APZonerunner
Member
Well, he's not a writer, he's a director - he'll be directng some of the episodes. Probably three, as that's a block. At least two though. I think all four of those episodes are well-directed, really. I remember really liking the way the Sontaran ship stuff was lit and shot in Stratagem/Sky, even if the story had issues.
BrokenFiction
Member
I agree with this, even if I did enjoy the Strategem and Sky for the camp value. He's a good director, especially on Cold War.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
My favorite director will forever remain Nick Hurran. Every episode under his belt are utter crackers.
Rimon-hanit
Member
Loved smith but looking for to see an older Doctor portrayal, still wish Idris Elba was the Doctor I think he would of been fantastic sort of a stern and authoritarian Doctor but at the same time psychotically whimsical,Sort of like the first Doctor.
Okay, in that case I'm reassured. Cold War and Three were well-directed, I agree.
That's a showrunner. Directors just direct individual episodes.
acheron_xl
Member
I think you might get something like this with Capaldi anyway.
APZonerunner
Member
He's great, yeah.
I really miss Euros Lyn and Graeme Harper from the previous 'era'. It's weird they've not had them back but have had Mackinnon back. I mean, look at their Who Directorial resumes:
Euros Lyn: The End of the World, The Unquiet Dead, Tooth & Claw, The Girl in the Fireplace, The Idiot's Lantern, Fear Her (ugh. Direction is not the problem though), The Runaway Bride, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, The End of Time, and all of the EXCELLENT Torchwood: Children of Earth.
Graeme Harper: The Caves of Androzani, Revelation of the Daleks, Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, 42, Utopia, Time Crash, Planet of the Ood, The Unicorn & The Wasp, Turn Left, The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, The Waters of Mars
I understand Moffat's series changed style, but Lyn can both do the more cinematic style if asked (Children of Earth is better shot than pretty much all Doctor Who, tbh) and Harper should get an episode just because he's the only director who has worked on both eras of the show, classic and new. Also, I just think Harper gets really good performances in all his episodes. Wish they'd have him back.
Rimon-hanit
Member
Quick Mustard
Member
So, Marcus Wilson (Producer) tweeted this earlier...
"This is about how I feel right now... pic.twitter.com/faTDnVFvAq"
I havent included the picture as it may be seen as a spoiler but my thoughts:
"This is about how I feel right now... pic.twitter.com/faTDnVFvAq"
I havent included the picture as it may be seen as a spoiler but my thoughts:
You can see on the Monitor it says "DW Christmas 2013" So I reckon the image is of the Regeneration Explosion.
infiniteloop
Member
I don't think Moffat and Harper get on. I believe some of the recent spoilers (John Hurt appearance in NOTD, Time of the Doctor plot) originated from him.
APZonerunner
Member
What?! Really?! He never did direct any Moffat episodes prior other than Time Crash, so maybe this originates way back somewhere. Huh at the leak thing, though. I mean, didn't the hurt in NOTD leak just come from the DVD fuck up? As for the Time of the Doctor thing, that's... fascinating, if true. Can I ask where you heard that?
infiniteloop
Member
It was from the Spoiler thread on GB a while ago, i'll see if i can dig it up.
The John Hurt thing leaked from a poster called TheDoctorsTrainers, in April I think.
APZonerunner
Member
Ah, TDT has been around for ages, though. I remember reading Doomsday spoilers from him, even! He just used t be a set report person, but it seems like the years of him hanging around has earned him some production team friends.
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