There's pics of RTD visiting the Tardis set on DS - part of The South Bank Show.
I admit I got all excited when I saw the picture before the headline. Totally forgot to include him on my wishlist for Series 10 writers... just the one episode? Please
None of your emphasis says or even implies that Clara was there each and every time. The "always" is from Clara's perspective, not the Doctor's. She's always saving him. But he's not always being saved by her.
The monologue isn't even literally true. Each splinter clearly has a moment where it's crucial to save the Doctor (as in the Snowmen) but also clearly each splinter has spent their lives up to that point (and sometimes beyond) not rescuing the Doctor. Doing other things.
The splintering mechanism is deliberately obscure to create the dramatic tension (the splinter concept is full of logical inconsistencies) but I think the meaning is clear. The monologue is not meant to be taken quite literally.
We will have to agree to disagree here.
Given the video which goes along with this monologue (showing her with every single Doctor, directing the First Doctor to a specific Tardis, etc..) and the monologue itself, I think that it is heavily implied (if not explicitly shown) that she is always there ("Thousands of lives" - he hasn't even had a thousand adventures as of yet). To think otherwise, I believe, is to willfully downplay the entire scenario in order to not have to face the absolute mess that Moffat has made of The Doctor's past.
Given the video which goes along with this monologue (showing her with every single Doctor, directing the First Doctor to a specific Tardis, etc..) and the monologue itself, I think that it is heavily implied (if not explicitly shown) that she is always there ("Thousands of lives" - he hasn't even had a thousand adventures as of yet). To think otherwise, I believe, is to willfully downplay the entire scenario in order to not have to face the absolute mess that Moffat has made of The Doctor's past.
"To think otherwise from me is to be blissfully ignorant"
I can't speak for everyone, but for me it is to willfully not see it as that big of a deal at all. As said, Clara essentially cancelled out the GI's meddling in the background; you're not going to see her throttling the GI to death on your Ark in Space DVD. By the time the universe was restored, it didn't matter, as it's not like the end of the world itself was much of an event when it was undone and I'm pretty sure the episodes events had been cancelled out themself. Same as how the finales of S3 and S5 technically never happened. I really don't think it's that much of a mess at all.
"To think otherwise from me is to be blissfully ignorant"
I can't speak for everyone, but for me it is to willfully not see it as that big of a deal at all. As said, Clara essentially cancelled out the GI's meddling in the background; you're not going to see her throttling the GI to death on your Ark in Space DVD. By the time the universe was restored, it didn't matter, as it's not like the end of the world itself was much of an event when it was undone and I'm pretty sure the episodes events had been cancelled out themself. Same as how the finales of S3 and S5 technically never happened. I really don't think it's that much of a mess at all.
But its different to s3 and s5, as what happened in s7 wasn't undone, but changed. You had the GI, by the clips we saw kill the Doctor essentially every single adventure, then Clara undid it?
That in itself wasn't well explained how she managed to stop the GI, but what i gathered from it is the GI meddled at every single important moment in The Doctor's life, then the Clara's were essentially his guardian angel meddling every single moment herself to 'save' him. And this is shown at the sequence in the beginning and where she IS the reason The Doctor chose the TARDIS and influencing his every story.
What i am about to say may sound confusing, but i'll give it my best shot. In Asylum of the Daleks it is Oswin/Clara who saves The Doctor. But lets remember, that isn't the original Clara, which means Asylum of the Daleks initially never had a Clara there to save The Doctor. What does this mean? It means if that is the influence she had to save The Doctor there, imagine what she would have had to do in every other adventure. I hope you understand what i am trying to say in that last paragraph.
All in all, it wasn't necessary and Moffat just wanted to put his hands all over the history.
According to this month's DWM, they're filming block 1 which is episode 1 and 2 of Series 10 (Moffat and Cottrell Boyce episodes), then block 2 which is episodes 3 and 4 (Dollard and Bartlett episodes) and then the Christmas episode at a later point. Wonder if Pearl will get a holiday whilst that films if she's really not going to be introduced until next year, or if they will double bank the episode alongside a Doctor-lite episode from S10?
Interesting that Moffat said in the DWM that it was a real possibility that he could of gone after series 7/50th special episode.... Did the BBC have someone in line to take over had that happened... ultimately Moffat decided to continue as he didn't want to end with a year that he had such a difficult time with and wanted to end on a more positive front....
Can't help but think of the alternative.... its a personal opinion if it would of been good or not if he had left at that point... I fall down on the side it would of been good for him to go with Matt Smith... and Series 8 could of been the fresh start... I think it would of probably of been better for the show, and we would of had a stronger series 8 and 9 (with Capaldi still getting the role as he's great) and series 10 would only be a few months away, rather than nearly a year....
But its different to s3 and s5, as what happened in s7 wasn't undone, but changed. You had the GI, by the clips we saw kill the Doctor essentially every single adventure, then Clara undid it?
That in itself wasn't well explained how she managed to stop the GI, but what i gathered from it is the GI meddled at every single important moment in The Doctor's life, then the Clara's were essentially his guardian angel meddling every single moment herself to 'save' him. And this is shown at the sequence in the beginning and where she IS the reason The Doctor chose the TARDIS and influencing his every story.
What i am about to say may sound confusing, but i'll give it my best shot. In Asylum of the Daleks it is Oswin/Clara who saves The Doctor. But lets remember, that isn't the original Clara, which means Asylum of the Daleks initially never had a Clara there to save The Doctor. What does this mean? It means if that is the influence she had to save The Doctor there, imagine what she would have had to do in every other adventure. I hope you understand what i am trying to say in that last paragraph.
All in all, it wasn't necessary and Moffat just wanted to put his hands all over the history.
We already saw her help stop the GI in The Snowmen, and help the Doctor in Asylum of the Daleks. There would have been a multitude of ways she stopped him which wouldn't really fit in 45 minutes.
With the TARDIS thing, I think it's likely the GI tried to meddle there and have the Doctor choose the wrong one. Not confirmed, but I think implied considering the story is about Clara stopping the GI from meddling like so.
I do think the whole episode is now more of an alternate reality thing rather than an actual part of the timeline. The Time of the Doctor shows that the Doctor managed to cheat his death with the help of the Time Lords and so he never actually died on Trenzalore, meaning the big swirly timeline thing of his wouldn't be there anymore for the GI to jump into.
1 Moffat episode in the first 4 is pretty disappointing. I feel like the showrunner needs to get the series out of the blocks at a good speed, not settle into the interchangeable filler episodes too early.
I liked the format of Season 5 (Moffat's 1st): 1st 2 eps by Moffat, then back quickly after that for a 2 parter and then back again for the two-part finale. I realize Moffat does not want to write 6 episodes a series anymore but I think that really worked. It's usually too obvious that the non-Moffat episodes are going to be largely inconsequential. Season 6 was the worst for that. Season 8 integrated the guest written episodes well and was not a bad example of how to do a season with just 4 showrunner episodes. Last season's structure, for me, was abysmal.
1 Moffat episode in the first 4 is pretty disappointing. I feel like the showrunner needs to get the series out of the blocks at a good speed, not settle into the interchangeable filler episodes too early.
I liked the format of Season 5 (Moffat's 1st): 1st 2 eps by Moffat, then back quickly after that for a 2 parter and then back again for the two-part finale. I realize Moffat does not want to write 6 episodes a series anymore but I think that really worked. It's usually too obvious that the non-Moffat episodes are going to be largely inconsequential. Season 6 was the worst for that. Season 8 integrated the guest written episodes well and was not a bad example of how to do a season with just 4 showrunner episodes. Last season's structure, for me, was abysmal.
To be fair if you look back to Series 4, RTD only wrote the first episode and then was absent all the way through to the tenth when he had the home stretch all to himself. I felt it was a terrific balance... starting the series with as much variety and tonal change as possible to reflect the whole 'anywhere in time and space' aspect. And then getting the showrunner to reel it all in towards the end and bring it to a coherent conclusion. He fell at the final hurdle if you ask me with Journey's End, but his heart was in the right place with the story I think, and someone who might not be so creatively exhausted at that stage might benefit from this structure.
I feel too many showrunner episodes early on makes the series feel top-heavy (an issue Series 9 also had by having two consecutive two-parters at the start, spared only for me by the fact I liked all the episodes except The Magician's Apprentice). Standalone episodes later in the series are more inclinded to feel like 'filler' than earlier ones. Episodes like The Fires of Pompeii and Planet of the Ood fare a lot better as solid efforts and were early on in the series, compared to say Fear Her or Sleep No More which feel very much like placeholder stories that fill a gap before the end.
I do really think Series 4 struck the gold when it came to structure. And it demanded only five episodes from the showrunner to make it work. Now the series' are an episode shorter, I think they could aim to replicate the same with Series 10 if they wanted giving Moffat just the usual four episodes. Get a two-parter in the middle and you've got the structure that I think would have made Series 8 much better.
On the other hand I consider the first half of season 4 to be terrible
I agree that guest written episodes later on have more of a tendency to feel like filler than ones early on, which is why you need to plot some big events to be happening in those episodes to make them seem substantial: in Season 5 the death of Rory. Last season the death of Clara. In Season 6 the apparent departure of the Ponds. I think its the early season episodes where very little happens in terms of sub plots or ongoing storylines and that's why I feel they need the boost of being written by the showrunner to seem important. Launching into a standalone two-parter in the 3rd and 4th episodes last year just seemed like an invitation to switch off and come back towards the end.
I don't feel like you want to dazzle with variety early on; you want to establish the season and its storylines. Later on, you want a bit of that variety to keep it fresh.
With a few BBC series being premiered on BBC iPlayer ahead of transmission (New Blood is fantastic by the way), what if the first episode of the new series was released ahead of it's BBC One showing? Would anyone object? I know I wouldn't. It's a brave new digital marketing world out there for streaming TV and Films and Doctor Who shouldn't pass it up.
With a few BBC series being premiered on BBC iPlayer ahead of transmission (New Blood is fantastic by the way), what if the first episode of the new series was released ahead of it's BBC One showing? Would anyone object? I know I wouldn't. It's a brave new digital marketing world out there for streaming TV and Films and Doctor Who shouldn't pass it up.
I think with it being freely accessible to everyone still I might not be as opposed to it as my gut feeling on the matter would suggest.
I remember back in 2005, the BBC premiered Walking with Monsters (a prequel to Walking with Dinosaurs) on BBC3 with literally no fanfare whatsoever. The series was released as one long 90 minute film, and it was months before it "premiered" as the three-part series it was as a flagship item of BBC1. There's barely a mention to this even being done, but it was meant to give the additional digital channels a bit more of a platform to trial out upcoming main channel content.
I think with Doctor Who, my only concern would be the division of people who discuss it online. You'd end up getting an "online pace" and a "BBC1 pace" of discussion depending on the gap between online and television broadcasts. Even Game of Thrones which is only released 19 hours ahead in the US (and even then is legally accessible from within the UK as part of the US-oriented simulcast) has this issue - not just with those who discuss it, but with news articles and spoiler headlines all over the place even with such a small window of time between releases. Maybe I notice it more as I work a fair bit with social media but there ends up being so many people frustrated by spoilers that emerge from inconsiderate or ignorant fans.
With a few BBC series being premiered on BBC iPlayer ahead of transmission (New Blood is fantastic by the way), what if the first episode of the new series was released ahead of it's BBC One showing? Would anyone object? I know I wouldn't. It's a brave new digital marketing world out there for streaming TV and Films and Doctor Who shouldn't pass it up.
I really don't see the point of that strategy, what does it actually gain other than a reduction in the broadcast audience and potential for spoilers? If they're still only being released one episode at a time, what's the problem of the online release time being the same as the episode is actually broadcast on TV.
Comments
I admit I got all excited when I saw the picture before the headline. Totally forgot to include him on my wishlist for Series 10 writers... just the one episode? Please
We will have to agree to disagree here.
Given the video which goes along with this monologue (showing her with every single Doctor, directing the First Doctor to a specific Tardis, etc..) and the monologue itself, I think that it is heavily implied (if not explicitly shown) that she is always there ("Thousands of lives" - he hasn't even had a thousand adventures as of yet). To think otherwise, I believe, is to willfully downplay the entire scenario in order to not have to face the absolute mess that Moffat has made of The Doctor's past.
"To think otherwise from me is to be blissfully ignorant"
I can't speak for everyone, but for me it is to willfully not see it as that big of a deal at all. As said, Clara essentially cancelled out the GI's meddling in the background; you're not going to see her throttling the GI to death on your Ark in Space DVD. By the time the universe was restored, it didn't matter, as it's not like the end of the world itself was much of an event when it was undone and I'm pretty sure the episodes events had been cancelled out themself. Same as how the finales of S3 and S5 technically never happened. I really don't think it's that much of a mess at all.
But its different to s3 and s5, as what happened in s7 wasn't undone, but changed. You had the GI, by the clips we saw kill the Doctor essentially every single adventure, then Clara undid it?
That in itself wasn't well explained how she managed to stop the GI, but what i gathered from it is the GI meddled at every single important moment in The Doctor's life, then the Clara's were essentially his guardian angel meddling every single moment herself to 'save' him. And this is shown at the sequence in the beginning and where she IS the reason The Doctor chose the TARDIS and influencing his every story.
What i am about to say may sound confusing, but i'll give it my best shot. In Asylum of the Daleks it is Oswin/Clara who saves The Doctor. But lets remember, that isn't the original Clara, which means Asylum of the Daleks initially never had a Clara there to save The Doctor. What does this mean? It means if that is the influence she had to save The Doctor there, imagine what she would have had to do in every other adventure. I hope you understand what i am trying to say in that last paragraph.
All in all, it wasn't necessary and Moffat just wanted to put his hands all over the history.
Given that this is for the new series, are we to assume the Xmas special has already been filmed?
That's filming later on. Not sure why, but it is apparently.
Can't help but think of the alternative.... its a personal opinion if it would of been good or not if he had left at that point... I fall down on the side it would of been good for him to go with Matt Smith... and Series 8 could of been the fresh start... I think it would of probably of been better for the show, and we would of had a stronger series 8 and 9 (with Capaldi still getting the role as he's great) and series 10 would only be a few months away, rather than nearly a year....
We already saw her help stop the GI in The Snowmen, and help the Doctor in Asylum of the Daleks. There would have been a multitude of ways she stopped him which wouldn't really fit in 45 minutes.
With the TARDIS thing, I think it's likely the GI tried to meddle there and have the Doctor choose the wrong one. Not confirmed, but I think implied considering the story is about Clara stopping the GI from meddling like so.
I do think the whole episode is now more of an alternate reality thing rather than an actual part of the timeline. The Time of the Doctor shows that the Doctor managed to cheat his death with the help of the Time Lords and so he never actually died on Trenzalore, meaning the big swirly timeline thing of his wouldn't be there anymore for the GI to jump into.
I liked the format of Season 5 (Moffat's 1st): 1st 2 eps by Moffat, then back quickly after that for a 2 parter and then back again for the two-part finale. I realize Moffat does not want to write 6 episodes a series anymore but I think that really worked. It's usually too obvious that the non-Moffat episodes are going to be largely inconsequential. Season 6 was the worst for that. Season 8 integrated the guest written episodes well and was not a bad example of how to do a season with just 4 showrunner episodes. Last season's structure, for me, was abysmal.
To be fair if you look back to Series 4, RTD only wrote the first episode and then was absent all the way through to the tenth when he had the home stretch all to himself. I felt it was a terrific balance... starting the series with as much variety and tonal change as possible to reflect the whole 'anywhere in time and space' aspect. And then getting the showrunner to reel it all in towards the end and bring it to a coherent conclusion. He fell at the final hurdle if you ask me with Journey's End, but his heart was in the right place with the story I think, and someone who might not be so creatively exhausted at that stage might benefit from this structure.
I feel too many showrunner episodes early on makes the series feel top-heavy (an issue Series 9 also had by having two consecutive two-parters at the start, spared only for me by the fact I liked all the episodes except The Magician's Apprentice). Standalone episodes later in the series are more inclinded to feel like 'filler' than earlier ones. Episodes like The Fires of Pompeii and Planet of the Ood fare a lot better as solid efforts and were early on in the series, compared to say Fear Her or Sleep No More which feel very much like placeholder stories that fill a gap before the end.
I do really think Series 4 struck the gold when it came to structure. And it demanded only five episodes from the showrunner to make it work. Now the series' are an episode shorter, I think they could aim to replicate the same with Series 10 if they wanted giving Moffat just the usual four episodes. Get a two-parter in the middle and you've got the structure that I think would have made Series 8 much better.
I agree that guest written episodes later on have more of a tendency to feel like filler than ones early on, which is why you need to plot some big events to be happening in those episodes to make them seem substantial: in Season 5 the death of Rory. Last season the death of Clara. In Season 6 the apparent departure of the Ponds. I think its the early season episodes where very little happens in terms of sub plots or ongoing storylines and that's why I feel they need the boost of being written by the showrunner to seem important. Launching into a standalone two-parter in the 3rd and 4th episodes last year just seemed like an invitation to switch off and come back towards the end.
I don't feel like you want to dazzle with variety early on; you want to establish the season and its storylines. Later on, you want a bit of that variety to keep it fresh.
I think with it being freely accessible to everyone still I might not be as opposed to it as my gut feeling on the matter would suggest.
I remember back in 2005, the BBC premiered Walking with Monsters (a prequel to Walking with Dinosaurs) on BBC3 with literally no fanfare whatsoever. The series was released as one long 90 minute film, and it was months before it "premiered" as the three-part series it was as a flagship item of BBC1. There's barely a mention to this even being done, but it was meant to give the additional digital channels a bit more of a platform to trial out upcoming main channel content.
I think with Doctor Who, my only concern would be the division of people who discuss it online. You'd end up getting an "online pace" and a "BBC1 pace" of discussion depending on the gap between online and television broadcasts. Even Game of Thrones which is only released 19 hours ahead in the US (and even then is legally accessible from within the UK as part of the US-oriented simulcast) has this issue - not just with those who discuss it, but with news articles and spoiler headlines all over the place even with such a small window of time between releases. Maybe I notice it more as I work a fair bit with social media but there ends up being so many people frustrated by spoilers that emerge from inconsiderate or ignorant fans.
Could this secret film project be...Doctor Who: The Motion Picture?
http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a799923/peter-jackson-steven-spielberg-have-new-film/
It would be a big surprise if it was. So I'm only speculating. But just imagine...:)
Hmm the Tardis exploding. Sounds familiar....:p
Hope we get a better explanation as to how and why in a quicker time this time.
They confirmed that it's not S10 related. But still - nice to look at, I guess
I really don't see the point of that strategy, what does it actually gain other than a reduction in the broadcast audience and potential for spoilers? If they're still only being released one episode at a time, what's the problem of the online release time being the same as the episode is actually broadcast on TV.