Doctor Who General /who/

"Happy to see me again? I've been gone for a while" - Your new companion


Not happy to see me:

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/52aSutmfTBg
tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_Mitchell
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

The Doctor literally says "it doesn't make sense", and the whole plot was cobbled BY THE VILLAIN from footage to mislead. The Doctor never put it together, and so some of the plot weirdness was intentional. The Doctor's conjectures about "mucus monsters" may not make sense, but because the episode explicitly points out it's conjecture, and the Doctor's last line is almost literally "I've missed something here", we can assume that the "mucus monster" theory is wrong (part of the episode is poking fun at how the Doctor usually figures out the villain's plots correctly based on little information) Notably, the villain's revealed plan (using the video broadcast as a signal) is never guessed by the Doctor, and is never referenced by the actual video.

Essentially, the villain took a bunch of footage, and tried to make a Who plot from it, as a cover of his plans. You don't realize that you've been tricked by your desire to "figure out the mystery", until the end. And the Doctor's theory ("mucus dust") is not only wrong, but every attempt for him to figure it out is thwarted--because he was looking up the wrong tree. Like the viewer was. (Which is foreshadowed by the "where are the cameras?" line. The viewer assumes there's an objective camera, both due to the "found footage" genre, and because of the general use of a "third-person view". But there is no objective 3rd person view. The "cameras" are aliens, and the "plot" isn't objective. It's been, ahem, doctored by the villain.

Mark Gattis is essentially attacking the idea of an "objective" found footage film. There's always bias. The reason that the plot doesn't add up isn't Gattis being stupid--the "mucus monster" explanation isn't the truth. It's just something the Doctor speculated, which the viewer assumed was true, just like the viewer assumed the camera was objective.

There's always speculation, and bias. And if you're wondering why things didn't make sense, realize that

1/2

DRINKIN' SAKE ON A SUZUKI WE IN OSAKA BAY

A) the Doctor never figured out the truth

B) the villain has literally edited the "objective" story, for his benefit.

2/2

Who is this black man

I agree with the general thrust of this but defending the Sandmen falls too much into "it's supposed to be bad!" for me. The episode would have been better with a better villain, it wouldn't have reduced what the episode was doing structurally or conceptually. And I don't see the Sandmen as a satirical take on shitty Who monsters, though that argument could be made.

This doesn't have anything to do with what i posted last thread, did you respond to the wrong user?

i feel like this is giving Gatiss wayy too much credit to suggest he'd write something that deconstructive

Yeah, wrong person. Sorry.

Sandmen probably needed a better design.

Hints to it happen enough for it to be intentional. The episode literally ends with the villain saying "You were fooled." The Doctor literally says "I'm missing something..." It's definitely intentional.

I get what you're saying, but when is the concept of dreams brought up in the script? What about the episode suggests that it's dealing with dreams specifically as opposed to the general concept of sleep?

I don't know how much was Moffat's brief, or if it was just a serendipitous turn on Gatiss' part, but Sleep No More and Face the Raven both structurally breaking down Doctor Who stories (Sleep No More with its format and the villain winning at the end, Face the Raven with the companion fucking dying) was perfect for S9, and enabled things to be built back up in the finale. So maybe some credit is on Moff's end. I wouldn't be surprised if it more coincidental though, Moff seems fairly happy to let Gatiss do his own thing. Either way, I'm sure Moff brainstormed/told Gatiss his S9 plans so some of that might have leaked into his ideas for Sleep No More.

The sleep-stealing device is literally called Morpheus, after the God of Dreams. The episode refers to this:

CLARA: What are these?
CHOPRA: Morpheus?
CLARA: Morpheus? Named after the God of Dreams? Oh, yeah.

The episode uses the song Mister Sandman multiple times, which also namechecks dreams

(Thud. Clara has disappeared inside a Morpheus cabinet.)
DOCTOR: Clara!
(An alarm sounds, then four small holographic ladies in Dior New Style dresses with full skirts appear on the cabinet and start singing Pat Ballard's 1954 hit, just like the Chordettes did.)
SINGERS: Bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom. Mister Sandman, bring me your dreams.

Apart from that, I've explained how I feel it's implicit in the premise and concepts the ep deals with. I understand if you disagree.

God, S9 really was Moff's Magnum Opus. Will Who ever reach that level of pure kino ever gain?

So, to summarise
We live inside a meme

I'm just happy it got made at all. I still feel so contended and positive about the show since we got it at all. The show gave me a perfect version of itself I always wanted, whatever it does in future we'll always have that.

I tried to edit the "live inside a dream" superimposition over an Extremis scene a while back but failed, one of the photoshoppers here could probably do it

has matt smith done any big finish stuff?

Personally, I'd infinitely prefer Sleep No More if it completely scrapped the found footage/meta-narrative angle and singularly focused on the sleep deprivation idea.

Granted, the whole meta-narrative thing is a really interesting idea and i think it would've worked in a different story.

Fuck, that sounds brilliant

Not yet, he's said in the past he's open to it youtu.be/52aSutmfTBg but iirc Briggs addressed in a DWM why it hasn't happened, he's too 'busy' (or maybe it wouldn't be cost effective to employ him at this stage, agent might be asking too much)...I imagine he'll do them in future eventually

Yeah not every writer can make an ep bursting with different ideas actually work, I think Moffat's good at it at least (I love that scene in Time of the Doctor that basically burns through a series' worth of plot).

Hopefully someone else takes up the torch and does it!

lol

Oops posted this in the old thread without seeing the new one. I'll re-post here

Anyone else kinda really superstitious? I don't believe in like, step on a crack break your mum's back or anything, but I do odd things like make wishes at 11:11 and 1:11. Sometimes it seems like they come true. I get really sad and angry at myself when I forget to make those wishes at least once a day.

I feel silly admitting it but I wanted to ask if anyone else did these sorts of things.

Just more proof, the Doctor keeps on saying this plot doesn't make sense, meaning that Gattis definitely knows what's he's doing.

NAGATA: Come on, man. We've got to go!
(The Doctor has his glasses on again.)
DOCTOR: This doesn't make any sense.
CLARA: What?
DOCTOR: A man who hasn't slept for five years?
CLARA: Well, you heard what he said. That's the first Morpheus patient.
DOCTOR: But the dust consumes the host.
CLARA: And then they make Sandmen. They conglomerate.
DOCTOR: We escaped from that cold storage room because they were blind. And why power down the grav-shields when he did? It's like this is all for effect.
CLARA: Look, can we maybe have this conversation when we get off this thing?
(The Doctor removes his glasses.)
DOCTOR: Like a story.

"Like a story." "For effect."

And at the end, as they're escaping:

>DOCTOR: Neptune's gravity is pulling them apart, bit by bit! It doesn't make sense. None of this makes any sense.

The episode throws hints that what we're seeing is inaccurate.

Yeah, the actual plot might have been more interesting, if actually done, than the post-modern elements.

sure, why not. People who think they have the universe figure out would say its dumb but im open to anything really.

Remember kids, the scientific method cannot prove the scientific method

This is the Doctor Who general.

>tfw this was gonna be resolved in s11 but gatiss made his stupid ice warrior fanfic instead because he's leaving.

i hope he atleast explained the story to someone so they can finish it

Sting of the Zygons is pretty solid

Haven't read any of the others

Is /who/ all atheists? Agnostics?

I'm a Christian Communist, can't speak for anyone else.

Christian

>the scientific method cannot prove the scientific method

You could scientifically prove the scientific method by testing it besides several other methods, and comparing the results of each.

Yes, some things are more emotional than rational, and a flower smells just as sweet , even if you don't know why. And keeping your mind open is good. But "scientific method cannot prove scientific method" runs close to "anti-science." Nor is faith necessarily any less valid than science.

I thought it was the Killa Cam general.

According to him, he was planning to make a story that showed the begininning of the Sandman invasion. A lot of people didn't like Sleep No More, so that got scrapped.

It's not scientific, but that doesn't matter. It's an emotional custom, that hits on the passionate part of our brain that recognizes patterns, and so there is nothing silly about believing in those patterns, or being so used to them that you follow them, as long as you're aren't hurting anyone by following them.

How do we "fix" Tennant's specials?

Afraid I can't relate. I don't even do stuff like wishing a slow car would turn off quickly on the road, or that there'll be an empty park when I show up wherever anymore. I find I'm happier to just be mindful and accepting of the world. I don't stress over things I can't control, what's the point in that. When you invest yourself into stuff like that you're giving random chaotic events power over determining your mood. Best to be zen about life, in my experience. I know not everyone is like that though, I had a long relationship with someone who thought very differently.

I'm a theist.

Christian

I am legitimately surprised. Everyone who's replied so far is a theist. Huh.

Meme magic.

im pretty anticom but i honestly cant even be med since you're also christian. Like i'd probably hate you to an extent if you were an athiest commie.

i guess my loyalties are like

>god
>family/friends
>queen
>country
>political ideology

>How do we "fix" Tennant's specials?
Replace Planet of the Dead with something better. Everything else is good.

Well, more like I believe in God. Not necessarily part of a denomination.

That's not actually Neo, look at the tripcode. "CLSTR" is Neo.

>the user pretending to be Neo actually gets his religion right

Can we keep Michelle Ryan as Lady Christina?

I'm surprised as well.

I'm not a Christian.

So you ARE a communist. We figured it out guys.

I love the idea of replacing Planet of the Dead with a River story, to bridge S4 and S5 better and give Tennant another adventure with her like Moff wanted.

>Like i'd probably hate you to an extent if you were an athiest commie.
hello, meet me, cats12

>that user got his religion right!
>akshully that's wrong
>durrrrrrrr then he got his politics right, even though that post was only about religion

We hate you already cats, no need to brong religion into it.

>trips talking about doctor who
>anons talking about trips

what is going on

Neo confirmed for Zoroastrian

Did any extended media, comics or something, ever do more with Lady Christina? Surprised BF isn't trying to do some silly range with her.

I'm pretty sure he's pretty clearly Buddhist or something like that, he literally says zen and goes on about mindfulnesses, in this very thread

doctor who is lebbit garbage but cam'rom is a cute

post 8values results NOW

I believe she was in an IDV 11th Doctor comic, but I haven't read those.

Lady Christina met Eleven in the comics. The story wasn't all that good.

I believe in quantum mechanics which is basically god

It's all just interpreting the same concepts in different forms innit

I don't believe in intelligent design if that's what you're asking; reality is all just dice rolls

Sounds about right. Still more graceful than "a companion true" tier reaching I suppose.

>a companion true

What are you referencing?

BUT WHO ROLLED THE DICE

tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_Mitchell

She's in Time Trips or one of the other anthologies around then except there's a twist involved I shouldn't spoil

It's a short story go read it short story anthologies are the best

We all do, reality is entirely dependent upon the one perceiving it and we're all just a means by which the universe experiences itself

only the fucking dwm comics would stoop to this level. why????? why does every minor character need to come back? neither of these added anything good or important to the companions' arcs, they were just shoehorned in for fanwank purposes. unless, of course, you think adam's redemption was necessary, which it really wasnt
;)

Fuck commies desu

It really bothers me how some of the extended media tries to squash everything back into traditional DW narratives, like it can't cope with the "loose end" (that isn't a loose end at all) of Adam being a shit companion and just a prop for Rose's story, so it has to contort this fanwank around him to make him "a companion true". It reduces all the actual storytelling in S1. Things don't need to be constantly pressed down. Adam sucked...and he was meant to.

That said, I haven't actually read those comics and am just going off the summaries and pictures I've seen.

Why not?

Your post literally has absolutely nothing to do with Doctor Who, television or film. Please keep the thread at least vaguely on topic.

I just did what I was asked m8, you can complain to

i guess part of it is that the comics aim for young kids, who tend to like formulaic plots. though i think most kids reading dwm are probably a bit above that and honestly deserve better.

No one forced you to make your post, take some responsibility.

Keeping Up With the Joneses.

Still better than Grant Markham. He's a book-only companion of Six whose companion departure happens in Perfect Timing , an out-of-print charity anthology. It was a good ending, too (He's the only companion I know of to say "Fuck you!" to the Doctor. He had a good reason, though.)

I somewhat like adding more to companion's stories--I remember a fic where Ten regrets his treatment of Adam, and after meeting an adult hobo Adam whose head-hole is bleeding and old, decides to go back and try again with him.

I also like a fic where Adam meets 12, wanting a second chance, and 12 basically says "Screw off. I need a selfish person around me like I need a hole in my head."

No, but nobody complained about the other post either, so I thought "what the hell".

That's true. Do young kids like fanwank though? Why not just make a new character.

There's no need to penalize someone for a slightly off-topic post. /who/ has rarely been that strict.

There's good ways to do fanwank.

There's definitely good additions to companion stories, but there's a world of difference between Peri and the Piscon Paradox and The Boy That Time Forgot. I think it makes things feel small when the Doctor continually reencounters people from TV, but I suppose extended media thrives off recognition stuff like that.

no idea. maybe the ones obsessed enough to read dwm do

>slightly
It's not slightly though. I wouldn't care about a slightly off-topic post. But it literally has nothing to do with Sup Forums or /who/. It's just that user declaring his political values and saying "fuck commies". It is 100% completely off topic and bait for political arguments that are further off topic.

None of that is DWM, it's all IDW. At least get your facts straight if you have to complain.

Nothing inherently wrong with formulaic, some of the most fun things work within a formula; it's just a matter of how much the wheel is reinvented

oh. idw comics are fanwankled too

Speaking of fanwank, the latest Titan 12th Doctor story is one of the biggest piles of it I've ever seen. It's got Ice Warriors, the Flood and Fenric.

>I never use formulas. The trouble with formulas is you can never tell...who's formulating who.

>>Wow...bromance! Did NOT see that coming!

Not all the time, but from certain angles/lighting Bill looks stunning. Out of Doctor Who she looks more amazing, weirdly.

Also a black Viking, for some reason.

...

There were the occasional reference to "blue people" (Viking's word for black means "blue") in the Norse texts. They were usually opponents, but it's not unconceivable at least one or two black Moors converted to the Viking lifestyle. It's a stretch, but within possibility (and the Vkings did meet some black people at one point or another.)

>Vkings
Sounds like a fancy name for folks who pirate stuff from VK- VKings!

What would Paradigm-style multicoloured Cybermen be like?

How about an episode from Dalek POV?

A Super Sentai team but less fun and more distressing

this is unequivocally the best /who/ meme and i'm not just saying that because i started it

Technically Moffat started it!
Was this one of yours?:
>You know what I hate about perfection? Perfection can never surprise you

Delete Planet of the Dead and replace it with kino River adventure like you said
Don't touch a hair on The Waters of Mars's head
As for The End of Time... hmm...
Well, most importantly you give the Doctor an actual complete character arc by having him accept change at the end (like Moffat is undoubtedly going to do at Christmas) but that still leaves you with the myriad other problems the story is plagued with. I want to say Russell's original intimate spaceship story idea would've been better (it certainly would've been more ambitious and interesting), but there's always the chance that would've been bad too, you never know with Russell. But in the end, I think that's the story I'd rather have seen.
Plus, if Series 10 was the first time we'd seen John Simm's Master since 2007, it would've been even more thrilling.

Yup! Still proud of that one, especially since it's indistinguishable from actual unironic Moffat profundities.

Addendum: Keep Wilf in the story and keep those few isolated kino scenes from The End of Time ("I think you look like giants.")

What do you /who/res think of The End of Time, by the way? Personally I consider it one of Russell's all-time worst.

Happen to have any more up your sleeve?

Sacrilegious, but I like all the 10 characterisation in EOT, it's just the actual plot (Vinvocci, Eternity Gate, Obama fixing UK recession, X-Men Master) I can't stand. If you drilled down the 2 episodes into 1, made it more of a character piece with 10 (keep the Wilf scenes, keep the Time Lords returning and all that, just do away with everything surrounding it, I'd probably do away with the Master and focus on Rassilon a bit more, keep the focus just on the Time Lords coming back at all instead of the Master being there too, although then again having them all at the same spot kind of worked) I'd have been a happy duck.

>Russell's original intimate spaceship story idea would've been better
Ah yes,
>The expansion of Tennant's finale to two episodes meant that Davies had to abandon an idea he had already been considering. This would have seen the TARDIS materialise on board a spacecraft carrying a family of aliens; the Doctor would sacrifice his life to prevent a radiation leak and save these ordinary, unimportant beings. Although Davies liked the notion of the Doctor's regeneration taking place in such unremarkable circumstances -- as opposed to the blockbuster events that had characterised each of his season finales -- he was already concerned that viewers would consider this to be too great an anticlimax. With twice the amount of screen time now available to him, however, there was no debate: such a simple idea could not support two episodes. Davies decided to salvage only the beginning and end of his story. The prologue would see the Doctor summoned to the Ood-Sphere, to be warned that the end of his life is imminent; this would tie into the prophecy of Season Thirty's Planet Of The Ood which warned that the Doctor's “song must end soon”. The epilogue, meanwhile, would involve the Doctor staving off his regeneration long enough to visit each of his companions one last time.

>Realising that he needed a much more spectacular storyline for the two-part regeneration tale, Davies decided that the time had come to resurrect the Master. Although he had killed off the character in Season Twenty-Nine's Last Of The Time Lords, Davies had included a scene in which the Master's ring is retrieved by an unknown woman, intending this to be a potential means by which a future writer could resurrect the evil Time Lord. Now he would make use of the device himself.

Sigh

>On May 1st, John Simm agreed to reprise the role of the Master. Davies then set about developing his idea. His first instinct was to have the Doctor and the Master swap bodies.

What the fuck

>However, Davies wasn't keen to spend time during Tennant's final story with the actor playing anybody other than the Doctor, and was also mindful that he had used a similar notion in New Earth at the start of Tennant's first full season. Instead, by mid-June he had inverted this idea, with the Master using an alien device to take over every being on Earth besides the Doctor -- possessing them not just mentally but physically as well, so that the Earth would wind up being populated with literally billions of copies of the Master. He considered calling the episode “The Immortality Gate”, after the alien device.

le master race

>Davies had hoped to broaden the scale of the finale by taking the action out of the United Kingdom; in particular, he envisaged location filming in a desert locale to provide a very different backdrop for the Doctor's conflict with the Master. In late July, however, Davies decided that such a setting would better suit Planet Of The Dead, the Easter 2009 special. Towards the end of September, Davies met with Simm to discuss the storyline. Simm indicated that he wanted to draw on Heath Ledger's portrayal of the insane Joker in the recently-released Batman movie The Dark Knight; he also suggested that his hair be dyed white for his return. This suited Davies' notion that the Master would somehow be caught between life and death because his resurrection had gone awry -- a scenario inspired by Voldemort in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels -- and would occasionally transform into a living skeleton.

Hmm

>In early October, Moffat accepted Davies' invitation to write the final moments of the second special, in order to introduce the Eleventh Doctor. Around this time, Davies was also considering the sequence of events that would lead to the regeneration. He had decided that it would involve two linked chambers, one of which must always be occupied. The Doctor would enter one of the chambers to save a technician trapped in the other, just before both were flooded with radiation -- a variation on the one-part story idea Davies had originally had for the Tenth Doctor's final adventure. On October 17th, while corresponding with journalist Benjamin Cook for what would become Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale -- The Final Chapter, Davies realised that the man the Doctor saves should in fact be Wilf. This would be the ultimate explanation for the string of coincidences which had always surrounded the Doctor, Donna and Wilf.

The Writer's Tale has a few moments of Cook fixes like that, keeping the ending of Journey's End morose instead of doing le kooky Cybermen cliffhanger was 1 too

>Davies and Gardner had independently decided that Gallifrey should figure prominently in the final adventure, bringing full circle the Time War arc that Davies had introduced when he resurrected Doctor Who in 2005. However, Davies was unhappy with his initial idea -- that the Master's ultimate goal would be to trap Earth in the Time War in place of Gallifrey -- and considered dropping the plot strand.

That's interesting

>At the same time, inquiries were also being made to ensure that all of the actors who had played the Tenth Doctor's companions would be available to film cameo appearances for the final episode. Davies indicated that if any of them proved unavailable, then only those scenes involving Donna (and her mother and Wilf), and Rose and Jackie, would be retained.

I guess the victory lap would have felt weirdly uneven otherwise

>Davies finished the script for the first episode on February 13th. For a time, this included a scene in which the Doctor actually met Trinity Wells, the American news anchor who had appeared intermittently ever since Aliens Of London in 2005. Davies was eager to give actress Lachele Carl a proper appearance in the series, but ultimately dismissed the sequence as too self-indulgent.

kek

>As he prepared to begin work on his final Doctor Who script, Davies came up with the idea of making the Time Lords' corruption explicit by showing them to have entered into an allegiance with the Daleks they had fought for millennia. However, Moffat was also planning to bring back the Daleks (in Season Thirty-One's Victory Of The Daleks) and expressed his preference for this to be the first Dalek story in a while. Keen not to undermine his successor's first season, Davies abandoned the notion.

Interesting