DRWHO

The song choice in the trailer is giving me some CW vibes and I am ok with that

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In terms of its “oh, that certainly is there” quotient it reminds me of KOFXIV.

This could be the longest week of my life. So ready for this

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GEE THAT SEEMS FAMILIAR SOMEHOW

But yeah.

I’m curious about Akinola’s take on the theme. Apparently he’s incorporated elements of Derbyshire’s original arrangement, but in unexpected ways?

TOONG!!

i love her ahhhhh

Seh y’ loof ha?

I have read that the first episode at least plays out like a William Hartnell episode, if it were filmed in 2018. I have no idea what that means, but it certainly grabs my interest.

Lots of wandering around and looking at stuff with just the TARDIS crew and the Doctor goes “hmm!” a lot i guess

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thinking about hartnell i wonder if the new showrunners would ever do a “historical” with no monster of the week

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This has been a big point of rumor since the location shooting suggested that Montgomery Bus Boycott episode. Especially with all the talk of revising current ideas about what Doctor Who is, and returning to an educational framework, and ditching all returning monsters for now. If they’re going to be hitting such thematically rich periods in history, would it even make sense to include “monsters”? Hard to say!

The Hartnell era was like the walking simulator period of Doctor Who. Maybe that would be en vogue again?

well we already know that Jodie Whittaker is willing to be filmed in the same scene as a person of color so that’s one essential update from the William Hartnell era

Hopefully its just a season of german expressionist bug politics

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In Sheffield 2018.

Subtle thing worth noting, I think: the current production team has changed up the terminology again. As suggested by the trailers, it’s no longer the Doctor and companions. Officially, in retrospect, all allies of the Doctor – companions, regulars, semi-regulars – are now referred to as friends.

Which I guess is an upgrade of sorts, much as companion is a step up from assistant. It’s a bit nondescript, but I guess that’s the point. It’s just interesting to see it projected backwards, and to observe what happens as a result.

Like, all these little quibbles over whether the Brig was a companion or not, they’re gone now. He was a friend, much as Jo and Wilf and Ian and Barb and Katarina and Mickey Smith were friends. The show is an ensemble again, as it once was.

Melting down the special status is probably a good thing. It makes things more expansive, as they should be. And the daftness of excluding the Brig, who was a series regular for years and one of the Doctor’s very closest allies, just because he didn’t regularly take trips in the TARDIS, while including someone like Katarina who was around for, like, 75 minutes before she kicked it and had no idea what was happening around her, seems absurd.

Anything to undermine the fan pedantry, I’ll get behind.

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A slime draws near.

So far I like her. Glad the asshole Doctor thing is over—been getting major David Tennent vibes from her.

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Whittaker is so, so good. Also impressed with the companion cast. The episode didn’t entirely make sense but it sure is a breath of fresh air coming off the Moffat years

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So what we’re getting out of Chibnall is “Tim Kring with a Heart,” which is… basically what I expected. Tune in for the melodrama; never mind the actual stories.

The characters are well-drawn, and I will enjoy following how they’re affected by what they go through as they replay Tom Baker’s first season. I’m not so invested in what those actual things will be, though.

I’d forgotten that these jerkos allowed Whittaker to do all her own stunts for the first episode. Which would include that crane business. That’s pretty irresponsible! But, it’ll be something to look for on a rewatch.

That last 10 minutes or so seems to be Chibnall reminding us that he also wrote Broadchurch.

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It’s more Paul McGann I get. The sort of, uh, breezy, eager romanticism. Though it’s not quite that either. This is a pretty original take, though clearly within a genre.

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So Chris Noth, huh.

Oh yeah, I totally see that too. I wonder if it’s just because I think all of the modern regeneration episodes owe a bit of a debt to the TV movie.

It’s curious just how much influence it seems to have had on the modern-day show. If anything, the tonality of this episode is probably closer to the TV movie than to anything else in prior Doctor Who.

There’s all the location night shooting, of course. But also the cinematic direction, the grimmer-than-it-probably-should-be story.

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