Dr. Who

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Overly Serious said:
She became emotionally super-competent, plot-special (the timeline stuff you mentioned, becoming essentially a time lord at the end).
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See I don't think they got rid of her flaws, they just only became relevant when dealing with enemies as opposed to being an appropriate foil for the Doctor in the same way the other companions did. A good example of this is in The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar, when she has to deal with the Mistress. Her prickliness (arguably from some degree of jealousy when Missy reveals the Confession Dial was sent to her) gets two UNIT members killed. Clara 'travels' with Missy and you can tell she sees something of the Doctor in her but her trust in the Doctor means she's completely unprepared for how utterly treacherous she is, especially as Missy almost kills Clara with the cruelest stroke. However, when quizzed by Missy on the Doctor himself, she very quickly identifies his methodology on principles she shouldn't really understand, which makes her unideal as a role of a companion. It's not that she's just clever, it's that the Doctor has stopped being a mystery to her, and thus the audience, who she is supposed to be a stand in for. And then yes, she has to invade his timeline to save him from the Great Intelligence somehow. I can't speak for the pre-2000 companions, but Rose, Martha, Jack, Donna and Amy were always humanizing influences on the Doctor but never truly allowed in to his life or to how his mind worked. And yes, to Coleman's credit, she is a giant plot hole and would be unbelievably irritating by today's standards where she played by a less talented actress.

Talking of Daleks, that episode was a creepy touch. Whatever they say, it's filtered through a modulator to be 'Dalek appropriate'. To me that's what makes them scary, a people literally extruded through technology against their own will, every natural instinct or emotion vectored towards destruction. And when Clara panics and starts firing, Missy starts laughing uncontrollably at it out of pure sadism.

 

Pete McTighe writes his best Doctor Who episode in this 4 minute minisode promoting the newest Blu-ray set. These mini episodes are probably the only new Who things I like aside from youtubers talking about the series like Clever Dick Films or Stam Fine.
 
You know things are rough when channels like Who Culture are making videos about what went wrong.


Their reasons if you can't be arsed to watch:

10. Casting a Doctor who could not fully commit
9. Abandoning sci-fi roots
8. Commissioning a spin-off too early*
7. The degeneration of regeneration (mentions bi-generation)
6. Mystery box arcs with clickbait payoffs
5. Flaky character work
4. Disney's failure to properly push the show
3. Too much deep cut lore in a 'relaunch'
2. Starting with Space Babies
1. Failing to secure the future of the show

*The first two episodes of said spin-off are available now on the BBC iplayer, but for whatever reason it's not out until 2026 in America.
 
starborn427614 said:
10. Casting a Doctor who could not fully commit
9. Abandoning sci-fi roots
8. Commissioning a spin-off too early*
7. The degeneration of regeneration (mentions bi-generation)
6. Mystery box arcs with clickbait payoffs
5. Flaky character work
4. Disney's failure to properly push the show
3. Too much deep cut lore in a 'relaunch'
2. Starting with Space Babies
1. Failing to secure the future of the show
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Not one of those appears to be pushing an unwelcome agenda.
 
Vect said:
Talking of Daleks, that episode was a creepy touch. Whatever they say, it's filtered through a modulator to be 'Dalek appropriate'. To me that's what makes them scary, a people literally extruded through technology against their own will, every natural instinct or emotion vectored towards destruction. And when Clara panics and starts firing, Missy starts laughing uncontrollably at it out of pure sadism.
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I already griped a little while ago when i was talking about the gradual butchering of the daleks the last several years how this was kind of retarded because weve SEEN daleks saying shit that's not "dalek appropriate" whenever they want to get their way so, SO many fucking times.
 
Dante Alighieri said:
I should keep track of the times the Daleks are totally finally finished for all time.
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At least OG run 60s doctor who handwaved away it as "well this was actually from earlier in their timeline" when they showed up again. It happened a lot more after nuwho but it was always like "oh well see there were daleks in a tiny experimental cloaked ship ah no see there was ALSO daleks in a prison thing they had" sometime after doing the whole episode about the doctor and a random no-name dalek being the last guys of their kind left and having to deal with that knowledge of them not being so different in terms of actions despite being from 2 sides of an offscreen war. I think a bigger thing to keep track of is each time they add some bullshit onto daleks that takes away a bit of their agency and conflicts with how thy act in practice because that was happening even in the classic series.
 
The Lawgiver said:
At least OG run 60s doctor who handwaved away it as "well this was actually from earlier in their timeline" when they showed up again. It happened a lot more after nuwho but it was always like "oh well see there were daleks in a tiny experimental cloaked ship ah no see there was ALSO daleks in a prison thing they had" sometime after doing the whole episode about the doctor and a random no-name dalek being the last guys of their kind left and having to deal with that knowledge of them not being so different in terms of actions despite being from 2 sides of an offscreen war. I think a bigger thing to keep track of is each time they add some bullshit onto daleks that takes away a bit of their agency and conflicts with how thy act in practice because that was happening even in the classic series.
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There's also the various Emperor Daleks, Supreme Daleks, Davros...
 
Dante Alighieri said:
There's also the various Emperor Daleks, Supreme Daleks, Davros...
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That's more easily explainable as different points in time in the alien's history but it is interesting how frequently they change upt he order of command.

Biggest retcon never addressed or brought up ever is how they randomly started calling the pre-mutant Daleks Kaleds instead of Dals. I get the Idea behind the change with "they're a complete inversion of the ideal society of these people who've been at war forever" but the original name also works in the way calling someone subhuman might given they are mutated to the point of requiring mobility machines to even do the most basic tasks.

Of course, genesis of the daleks changed their origin to be an engineered creation of davros rather than a gradual thing like the OG daleks and the cybermen that came after those daleks also had going which is something always worth noting.
 
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Moaning Myrtle gets absorbed, and then later becomes a floor tile with a love life.

Edit: "You didn't need to kill him!" "Neither did we need him alive."
 
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Overly Serious said:
Small world - I was just telling someone about that the other day. It's a good call - Cerebus is almost the archetype for this. Dave Simm said "300 issues, Cerebus's life and death" and stuck to it. So far as I know even the weird little cross-over cameos like with TMNT were done whilst the main Cerebus run was ongoing and nothing after.
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I see that you are not a man of culture, or you would have been aware of the horror that is Narutobus, Dave Sim's very real Naruto/Cerebus crossover.

Narutobus Cover.jpg
 
I think it says something about the lack of quality therein that nobody in this thread has talked about that spin-off series yet. Apparently they changed the name of the Sea Devils?
 
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