Robert Holmes's debut for the show - The Krotons - wasn't exactly well received. Maybe Frank Cottrrell-Boyce should be given a second chance to shine...

Also: Matthew Graham,

His first episode? FEAR HER
How Many of you liked that episode?

He later wrote the MUCH better The Rebel flesh/ The Almost people

100% Better then his first episode

His second story isn't very well thought of either! Third time lucky and never looked back, Mr Holmes...

Actually rather fond of The Krotons. Not a classic but has it's moments. Probably helps that it was my introduction to the Second Doctor in 1981. Took to him straight away.

While I think both Moon Egg and Magic Trees of No Consequence should never of gotten past the pitching stage (heck is should never of left the head of the writers who thought up the ideas) both episodes would of been better served being set on other planets..... for the good of the stories and ideas they were selling.... Having them on Earth made it impossible to buy into what were already ludicrous ideas...

But a Moon Egg to some alien world would be a pill easier swallowed (thought still not easily) in this Day& Age we are knowledgeable and any rational person would/should scoff at the idea that our moon could be a egg.... it made no sense what so ever, and DW while able to bend science quite a bit can't just do any old silly thing and go too absurd with the science, and that's exactly what they did by making our moon an Egg.... It was WAY over the line of believability...

Same with the Magic trees... if that had been some other world then they could of said that there was indeed great damage to the world left behind by the trees taking over... and now the world will have to rebuild.. but crucially (and would be one of the points of the episode) the magic trees have given the people of the world who have survived the chaos the chance to continue on... they would of all been dead otherwise without their interference... the trees while effectively destroying and killing many have ensured that the people/race as a whole will survive... it could of been like the end of Independence Day or Mars Attacks where the Earth has been wrecked but there's the optimism of that the people survived a potential wipe out of the species... and those who did survive will carry on and rebuild, life will go on and all that....... But instead they have to put it on Earth and it renders the situation absurd, no consequence where there should be huge consequence....

But that's a problem modern DW has had.... a un-willingness to stray to far way from Earth, to do and explore other planets... It really does very little of it, which is disappointing....... and makes one wonder why they bother making a show which has a tagline saying that its supposedly about travelling through time and SPACE..... and yet it does very little of the SPACE thing... more like travelling through time and Earth....

So, after the news that Gatiss (who's contributions to the show have been mixed at best) is writing yet another episode, with the suggestion that it may even be a sequel to sleep no more (an episode which I actually don't mind too much but I know is mostly hated amongst fans), we now have news of the fact that somehow, the writer of possibly the worst episode of who ever - In the forest of the night, has, for some reason, been given another go at writing an episode for series 10

Not looking good is it?. I said I was more eager for series 11 than series 10 months ago, and the news going around so far about series 10 is only reinforcing that feeling.

All three were poorly paced in my opinion. Far too much running pointlessly back and forth in TRF/TAP. They should have been just one episode.

In regards to Kill the Moon, I thought it was an otherwise great episode when the moon-egg reveal is forgotten. Writer Peter Harness did a decent job otherwise, and his Zygon story in Series 9 was an unexpected highlight. It really was all down to that 'plot twist' that the episode is so heavily slated, and with time I'd say rightfully so.

With In The Forest of the Night I can see why that particular story was set on Earth. It never explored the stakes at hand properly, and was abysmally resolved and there was a lack of real consequence leading to the feeling it was all rushed and haphazard. But it did need to be set on Earth for its themes to work, for its sense of character. It was just poorly done. It's the kind of story that would have benefited from being set a hundred years in the future or something, just to spare us the frustrations of lines like 'people will forget all this' because it could actually be worked into future human history.

Funnily enough Kill the Moon sets itself in a few decades time, and so you'd think it would spare itself the same kind of scrutiny. But it's the kind of story that messes with something to an extent that you just can no longer suspend your disbelief. When I watch Smith and Jones now, do I really have to think that Martha and the hospital were actually transported to a giant egg in the sky? The episode would not have been altered in any real way by taking the story off of Earth. Peter Harness is great at writing decent, real human drama - the intricate details we learn in that episode about the weather in the future, the lack of funding in space travel in that particular decade, the decision to have it randomly be a Mexican mission that had previously visited the moon - these little moments tell us little things about a future that make it a little more real. But they're not worth it when there's moon-egg reveals... you've already distanced us from the present day so there's no investment in the Earth properly anyway, you do no harm in setting it elsewhere in space. Have the astronauts be part of an Earth colony in the 31st Century, visiting the moon of a planet they inhabit. The whole episode would have worked exactly the same, to the point the only substantial thing that would have needed changing would be the CGI shots of Earth in the sky to that of a fictional planet instead. Thematically though the plot remains unaltered, it's abortion allegory remains intact, it's moral dilemma, it's characters, it's alien threat, you could even say the colonists of this fictional planet had hailed from Mexico and you could then keep the little historical Earth details.

It was indeed an example of the fixation on Earth in the show, and a wasted (free) chance to have an episode set elsewhere. In The Forest of the Night would have benefited from being set at another point in time, Kill the Moon would have benefited from being set somewhere else in space. Too much fixation on the here and the now.

I wasn't overly fond or overly critical of Sleep No More. Like most Gatiss episodes I found it to be dull and uninspired. Retrospectively that makes it a bigger disappointment than I'd realised, because it actually tries to do something new/innovative/different/inventive and it still feels that way. Even in his stronger episodes, and there's a couple I've enjoyed, there's not one since The Unquiet Dead that I don't feel could have been better in someone else's hands.

In terms of talking sequels, so few episodes in the show get proper ones. I guess there was the New Earth trilogy across Series 1-3. You had the Lodger duo in Series 5-6 (which would be far more worthy of another installment than SNM) and Planet of the Ood felt like a bit of a spin-off to The Satan Pit story too. But largely we don't get many sequels, mainly as you don't really get that many episodes to work with. I'd be disappointed if we did get a 'Sleep No More 2' not because the first offended me but just because it doesn't need a sequel.

I don't think Nardole will be back in a companion role, I think it'll just be recurring - in the same way Ashildr was in Series 9, Danny Pink in Series 8, the Paternoster's in Series 7, River in Series 5 and 6... Moffat seems to work with characters this way rather than having an established companion family to revisit - Jackie and Mickey being the recurring figures in Series 1-2, Martha's family in Series 3, and Donna's in Series 4.

I hope I'm right at least. Of all the characters you could be bringing back anyway - Susan, Jack, Craig, Martha, Ace - Nardole just seems incredulous. I enjoyed Series 9 a lot so I'll give Moffat the benefit of the doubt for now, and I loved Donna despite insisting I'd hate her as a companion beforehand... but he didn't impress me the first time around and felt distinctly 'bit-part'. Not someone I cared to revisit.

But far better than Forest of the Night.

The issue i have, there is nothing about that episode, which screams potentially if he gets it right it could be good.

Lets see if he proves me wrong,but i have my doubts.

I'm surprised at the negativity going round, simply at the mention of certain writers. One thing we've learned over the past 53 years of Doctor Who is that no writer is consistently, unswervingly excellent - even the best writers have written dud episodes; even relatively poor writers have written passable episodes.

Agree almost entirely, though I am kind of at a point where I do feel a bit disappointed to hear Mark Gatiss is getting another one. He's written eight episodes now across nine series, and yet only three of them are ones I don't feel bored at the prospect of seeing again, only two of them I actually consider to be very good, and only one I think is a standout - which was also his first effort over ten years ago now.

I don't think it helps when it's a shared opinion too. You can't fall back on the notion that at least lots of others still enjoy it, as mediocrity seems to be a common consensus to a good number of his episodes.

Still, as I now end up saying every year - he may end up pleasantly surprising us, you never know.

I'm willing to give them a chance, but for me not a single series has gone without its bad episodes yet, even Series 9, so I don't think it's quite the end of the world if they turn out to be not so good. Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Mark Gatiss wrote my two worst episodes of Series 8, and it didn't exactly ruin the entire series for me.

If anything I'm happy to see those other two, Bartlett and Dollard, writing for Series 10. That's very positivie news to me and I look forward to see what they can offer next year.

I'm hoping that Jamie (Mummy on the Orient Express, Flatline and The Girl Who Died) Mathieson will return for an episode or two. The former two were particular highlights of series 8 for me.

Lee Hall would be a nice addition to the writers.

He was Oscar nominated for writing Billy Elliot.

Must say although I did enjoy Matt Lucas in the Christmas special as Nardole I do wonder where now the writers can really go with his character given he's inside a robot! Its suggests a much lighter tone for the show which I don't know how to feel about yet.

I didn't watch Doctor Foster so the writer Mike Bartlett is new for me but the others feel 'safe and reliable' I would love to be really surprised and wowed by Season 10 though. Season 9 definitely had its moments and I hope it builds on that.

Yeah,definitely like to see another episode from the lad. 'Mummy...' was my favourite episode of Series 8 and 'Flatline' was up there. TGWD was pretty good too. He seems to really 'get' the programme.

I'm sure we'd all like to extend condolences to the Star Trek family today over Anton Yelchin's untimely death. He was only 27.

Warp factor R.I.P. Mr Chekov. You will be missed.

I get the sentiment, but is the doctor who spoilers thread really the right place for this completely unrelated to doctor who bit of information?

Surely, there is a more appropriate place for it in the wider forum.

In fact, just looking, there has in fact been a thread made for it in the wider forum


http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2157512

They started filming today so "WHERE ARE MY SPOILERS???"

Yup, Jenna Coleman sent Pearl Mackie some lovely flowers for her first day.

Now lets set the bar there and hope the revelations get better

Spoilers, don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.... series 10 will feature......

You b*****d.

There's always someone who has to go and blurt out stuff like this.

Right. You're going on 'ignore'. I know you gave a warning, but you know we're weak and have exploited that weakness with this gamechanger...

(Um, anyone know how to put FM's on 'ignore'? Assume there's a big red button or something?)