Topic: New Doctor Who (Read 59278 times)

Misha · « **Reply #80 on:** July 08, 2008, 03:33:23 AM »

I especially loved the way that right after yet another "final" appearance of the daleks the trailer indicated that the cybermen would also be coming back. I understand that these are classic doctor who enemies, but either stop defeating them totally and forever or give it a fucking rest.

Thad · « **Reply #81 on:** July 08, 2008, 09:28:14 AM »

The difference is that nobody's claimed the Cybermen were entirely wiped out -- we haven't even SEEN "our" universe's Cybermen in the new series, and it's been two years since we saw Cybermen of any description.

The Cybermen, the Sontarans, the Nestenes -- I never got a "they're gone forever" vibe from any of them. The Daleks are the ones where the Doctor keeps swearing they're gone forever. (Well, and the Time Lords, but the dodge they used for the Master was decent enough, even if the "I AM IN A RING NOW AND WILL BE BACK" ending wasn't.)

I definitely think the classic villains should all be given a rest, but the Daleks are the ones who have been really egregiously overused. The Cybermen haven't quite hit that point yet. And of course there are old monsters that haven't been used at all yet.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #82 on:** July 08, 2008, 12:17:52 PM »

Hopefully Moffat will find a better use for them, because seriously, Macra.

Thad · « **Reply #83 on:** July 14, 2008, 11:46:11 PM »

Nrama interviews Tony Lee on The Forgotten. Not a whole lot of info that wasn't already in that last interview I linked, but:

In answer to my rhetorical question on why nobody ever thought of a "Doctor meets companion from the future" story yet -- turns out somebody actually has: Lee, in an Eighth Doctor comic.

Also, he linked a fan comic called The 10 Doctors -- I don't ordinarily check out fanfic, but from the first dozen or so pages, this one actually seems pretty good (#3 chastising #9 for having an inappropriate relationship with Rose is worth the price of admission all by itself, and #5 giving #4 shit for "deciding to show up this time" is a fun reference). Character proportions are wildly inconsistent, but the art's pretty charming other than that.

(Can't help but wonder about the legal ramifications of a guy reading a fan-made 10 Doctors comic and then writing an official, licensed 10 Doctors comic. I remember from my old days as a member of Sonic fandom that the Archie Comics writers, while very good about interacting with the fans, stayed the fuck away from fanfic. Though that might be more of an Archie/Sega paranoia thing.)

Thad · « **Reply #84 on:** July 24, 2008, 11:07:58 PM »

comingsoon interviews Moffat, misspells Davison's name.

Highlight:

Quote

CS: But do you find yourself re-watching the old episodes and thinking, "Maybe we could use that?"
Moffat: Oh sure, yeah! I think that when the show first came back, it was a question of raiding the old shows for the emblems or the icons. This really is Doctor Who! There's a Dalek! There's a TARDIS! There's a sonic screwdriver! There's the cybermen! But people no longer think of it as "New Doctor Who." They just think of it as "Doctor Who." Now it's one big thing. Now we're raiding the back catalogue not to validate ourselves but for really great ideas. There are some cracking ideas in "Doctor Who" through the course of the series. Brilliant monsters! Brilliant ideas! Sometimes thinking "it's time we took that idea or that monster or that trick and gave it all the modern tech that we have now." Give it another time around the block. That's good. That's right and proper but - at the same time -- fundamentally, the absolute paradigm of "Doctor Who" stories is -- right from the TARDIS -- is that everything you see is brand new. I always think there should be more new stuff than old stuff in "Doctor Who". You sit down to plan the series and think "I'm bringing back something new every single story." What's the use? You might as well call this "Doctor Who 2." It'd be a sequel and "Doctor Who" shouldn't be a sequel. Every year there are new eight-year olds watching it and those new eight year olds saw it at the most important age because they're going to live a lot longer than the rest of you. I want them to have their monsters so that in 40 years time they can grump to their children, "Oh, it's not as good as it used to be. I remember the episode. The very first time we saw the Weeping Angels. I remember the first time we saw that episode." You're not getting lost in nostalgia. You're creating nostalgia.

Mothra · « **Reply #85 on:** July 25, 2008, 12:48:44 PM »

Really, really wish more writers understood this. 2010 is just too damn far away.

MadMAxJr · « **Reply #86 on:** July 30, 2008, 11:17:19 AM »

Hi. I don't watch the show, but I bet you guys would like a Dalek Voice Changing Helmet. No? How about an 18" one you can command.

Bal · « **Reply #87 on:** August 21, 2008, 01:46:01 AM »

I was just watching Journey's End, and German Daleks are definitively more frightening than normal Daleks, due to the well documented "Everything is scarier in German" effect.

Thad · « **Reply #88 on:** August 21, 2008, 01:01:35 PM »

Doctor Who: The Forgotten #1 is a deft mix of fan service and compelling premise, of compressed and decompressed storytelling.

It starts off in a museum full of artifacts from the Doctor's various adventures, rather like the first-season Dalek ep of the current series. Then they find a room full of the Doctor's previous costumes and artifacts, and treat the Sixth Doctor's Coat of Many Colors with the derision it deserves. (There's even a shoutout to Shalka, if I'm not mistaken -- when Martha points out #9's outfit, the Doctor responds, "You should have seen what I ALMOST wore.")

From there, the premise is compelling but shaky -- a mysterious shadowy figure turns a dial and somehow makes the Doctor forget everything prior to his most recent regeneration (except a few details like the Time War). Martha gives him #1's walking stick, which helps him recover his memory by telling a black-and-white story-within-a-story set somewhere in the earliest days of the series, some time prior to The Aztecs.

And this is what I meant about compressed versus decompressed storytelling -- here's a book with a two-page spread that just shows the 9 previous Doctors' costumes and artifacts lined up, which then turns around and tells a complete, satisfying First Doctor story over the course of eight pages.

The end of the issue still has the Doctor mostly-amnesiac, and the Mysterious Shadowy Figure hints that he's a Time Lord and we can see he's got a goatee. Maybe they'll try and throw a curveball and have it be somebody other than the obvious, but for now I'm going to safely assume it's exactly who it looks like.

Of course, the Master showing up here begs its own set of questions. I'm going to reasonably assume that this is an earlier version of the Master (partly because the comics are non-canon and wouldn't bring him back after the end of season 3, and partly because this story chronologically takes place before the end of season 3 anyway), but that still requires some reconciliation with the whole "last of the Time Lords" bit -- are there other Time Lords still bouncing around time, "before" their deaths in the Time War? Did the Doctor just never expect to meet any? Or is this just made possible by the fact that the Master is still alive at the end of time, and is the story going to try to accomodate that by having him get away without the Doctor seeing him?

Anyway. A decent setup -- we've got a decent premise, we've got loads of fan service, we've got Martha being competent (and only briefly whining about Rose). But #2 is going to have to ratchet things up some. We're going to have to find out what the Master's plan actually is, how he managed to make the Doctor forget his previous nine selves just by turning a dial, and it would be awfully anticlimactic if the whole issue were just #10 sitting in the museum telling stories about #2 and #3.

All in all, good comic, good storytelling techniques, good art. Pick this one up.

Thad · « **Reply #89 on:** August 24, 2008, 12:37:21 AM »

Blink wins Hugo. Try to look surprised.

Misha · « **Reply #90 on:** August 24, 2008, 12:45:29 AM »

can't. Too busy not blinking.

Thad · « **Reply #91 on:** October 17, 2008, 11:21:51 AM »

The Forgotten #2 is out. Fun couple of stories; doesn't really move the main story forward any. The best part, really, is that Lee really nails the characters' voices -- all three Doctors and the Brigadier are all spot-on.

It even does a decent job of making fun of Martha's annoying schoolgirl crush, with the Doctor showing more affection for his memory of Bessie than for her.

Baker's up next. Looking forward to that.

Also, the first Grant Morrison Doctor Who reprint is out this week; I'll get to that when I read it.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #92 on:** October 17, 2008, 11:30:49 AM »

Spoiler alert: It's awesome. Although, I wasn't aware it was a reprint. I just thought it was a new Doctor Who series by Grant Morrisson. Guess that explains why Brian Hitch's art isn't the same as his Ultimate's stuff. Still though, the writing is clever and enjoyable, and the stories are brief and entertaining.

Thad · « **Reply #93 on:** October 17, 2008, 11:41:53 AM »

Quote from: Constantine on October 17, 2008, 11:30:49 AM

Guess that explains why Brian Hitch's art isn't the same as his Ultimate's stuff.

And why it features the Sixth and Seventh Doctors?

Royal☭ · « **Reply #94 on:** October 17, 2008, 11:53:25 AM »

It's not too crazy to think that a modern writer might go back and visit older Doctors for fun.

In fact, that sounded exactly like something Grant Morrison would do for fun.

Thad · « **Reply #95 on:** October 17, 2008, 01:13:38 PM »

And it's also the premise of The Forgotten, though that of course features the Tenth Doctor as the hub for the stories of the other nine.

There are a few things I'm thinking here: first of all, I'm betting Grant Morrison's getting an extra kickback from having his name not only on the cover of the book but actually in the TITLE. Even if IDW's not legally obligated to give him extra money for using his name as promotion (and they might be), they'd be wise to in order to keep him happy.

Which brings me to point two: I'm absolutely sure this is a sign that they're trying to convince him to do some new stories. Now's the perfect time: he's taking a break from his superhero books (except Batman) and working on personal projects, and of course we're in a Who drought until 2010 (the three movies notwithstanding). The rumors even have it that Moffat's going to leave a 1000-year gap in the Doctor's timeline between series 4 and 5; there's a whole lot Morrison could do with that. (I read an interview with him awhile back where he mentioned he's a fan of the current series; he said he preferred Human Nature/Family of Blood to Blink because of its focus on the Doctor's characterization.)

And third, as I've mentioned before, there's one bigger name in the history of Doctor Who comics than Morrison's, and I'm damned sure IDW's champing at the bit to reprint Alan Moore's Doctor Who.

Thad · « **Reply #96 on:** October 21, 2008, 12:05:41 AM »

Week-old news at this point, and hardly a surprise, but apparently Tennant confirmed through the 2010 series. I'd really like to see Moffat follow up on the Silence in the Library arc, but frankly I expect I'll be satisfied with anything Moffat does.

The most interesting part, though:

Quote

It was revealed last week that all seven surviving Doctor Who's are to feature together in a one-off television special for BBC charity Children in Need in a programme to be broadcast on November 14.

Always best to take anything the British press says with a grain of salt, but very very interesting if true. Baker and Eccleston, in particular, would have been difficult to coax.

That said, it's not without precedent.

Detonator · « **Reply #97 on:** October 21, 2008, 05:53:00 AM »

Quote from: Thad on October 21, 2008, 12:05:41 AM

Tennant confirmed through the 2010 series

Don't you mean Tenet?

Thad · « **Reply #98 on:** October 21, 2008, 11:04:21 AM »

Bal · « **Reply #99 on:** October 29, 2008, 03:55:43 PM »

Tennant confirms he was just joshing ya.

News:

Author Topic: New Doctor Who (Read 59278 times)