Topic: Doctor Who - The Regeneration Game

[Krakow Sam]

That's always the way with finales though. The promise of a really strong first episode can never be fulfilled in the second part. Heaven Sent (Capaldi's "solo episode") is probably my current favourite episode of all time and despite some nice Gallifrey fanservice the concluding part was pretty pants.

And totally agree on the sockheads. The Cybermen have always been a decent monster but back in the day they quickly came "generic baddies" who had plots where the villain could have easily been Sontarans or Ice Warriors or pretty much anything else instead, then in the revived series they became a hivemind borg knockoff which they never really were to begin with. Luckily Neil Gaiman sort of ran with that in an interesting direction and gave them a bit more personality and worked back in the survival at all costs angle. Cool to see them come full circle and amp up the medical body horror stuff as far as it'll go in a show that's allegedly for kids

[Person21]

That's always the way with finales though. The promise of a really strong first episode can never be fulfilled in the second part.

The show's been fumbling followups in general. "I bet the guys who can accurately simulate the Earth down to Doctor Who's magic glasses working and interfacing with the real one will need some really clever and unpredictable plan some guys running into their base with guns and the power of love to be beat."

I agree on Heaven Sent. It was the right mix of weird concept and strong character stuff with the Doctor, like the kind of thing that got Moffat noticed when he wasn't having to crank out billions and billions of scripts.

The Cybermen have always been a decent monster but back in the day they quickly came "generic baddies" who had plots where the villain could have easily been Sontarans or Ice Warriors or pretty much anything else instead

Remember that time the emotionless cyborgs got so full of hatred and anger at Adric Earth they decided to get revenge on it by destroying it?

[Krakow Sam]

Remember when the cybermen pretended to be the loch ness monster?

[Person21]

Which Loch Ness monster?

[Krakow Sam]

The one that was a cyberman.

[Ultimatum]

A decent final,I must say!

[Neoadept]

Yeah, Moffat actually stuck the landing this time around.  Bill's getaway was a little fairy tale, but actually had groundwork laid out ahead of time and felt deserved.  And Missy's exit was superb.

[Ultimatum]

For a moment I thought The doctor would use his regeneration powers to change her back into a human,somehow

Still i like how she gets to live on

[Krakow Sam]

What had better happen is that Bill has a couple of adventures, realises "Uh, actually I'm not that into magic puddles mate, sorry" gets turned back into a regular human and immediately bumps into the freshly regenerated Doctor. "It all worked out in the end Doctor, no hard feelings" and adventures with Best Companion^TM resume.

But yeah, was pretty good. It seems appropriate that Capaldi bows out on a really rather low stakes caper, and his David Tennant impression was eerily spot on.

[Mr. Wizard]

Yeah, seems it left Bill's fate open. Seems to have also left The Master's fate open. When the Master next surfaces, will it be a regenerated Missy or a regenerated Master? The direction for the series is also very open. I hope they can seize on that openness and come up with something truly wonderful.

[Haseri]

So, what do people think of the 13th Doctor?

I, for one, love it.

[Ultimatum]

I am outraged!

shaking with fury

writing angry letters to the bbc as we speak!

(just kidding,love it too)

[Krakow Sam]

Looking forward to experiencing what the fangirls experienced with David Tennant.

I'm talking about experiencing it in my pants.

[Brandonazz]

I was hoping it would be someone I recognized.

But ok.

[Krakow Sam]

If you look at the track record that's almost never going to be the case.

The norm with casting the doctor is to go for established but relatively unknown actors. Aside from stunt castings like John Hurt the actors cast as the doctor tend to be accomplished tv actors at most (if they've been in movies they tend to be in cult stuff like Paul McGann in Withnail and I) which would limit their international exposure pre-casting.

Looking at just the revived series. Christopher Eccleston mostly did british cult movies, David Tennant was an established theater actor with some reasonably high-profile tv roles (Cassanova) but no real international work, Matt Smith was totally unknown and apparently got the part purely on the strength of his audition, Peter Capaldi had been in plenty of tv as a character actor, but again, mostly cult stuff like the Thick of It and had some bit parts in movies (before he was officially announced he was in World War Z credited as "WHO Doctor").

It has more money to play with than it used to but Doctor Who is still a British TV show which means they don't have the budget to pay a big star salary. People like Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton were never really that likely because they can probably earn the same money doing a single marvel or James Bond movie that they would doing an entire season of Doctor Who (which apparently has a long, punishing filming scheduel). There's also apparently considerations about career trajectory. A role like the Doctor can elevate a moderately well known actor into international stardom but if the role were taken by someone who's already a huge star it would probably give the preception that their career is on the rocks and they have to resort to easy popularity with a show for NERD KIDS.