Hey There Doctor Blue Skies - A Doctor Who TLIAD

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Richard Ayoade
2009-2012


"This angst business is boring. I'm bored. Come on! Let's go on a quick, twenty minute, self contained adventure. It'll be fun."

The return of Doctor Who in 2009 after nothing since a book series in the mid nineties ruffled feathers not just because it had a black doctor but because the series ran online only through BBC Open.

The series was despised by critics, when it wasn't ignored. Richard's performance was deemed to lack emotional depth and the planet-of-the-week surreal feel of it was seen as completely out of sync with the needs of a modern, sophisticated audience who were hungry for gritty realism and tackling serious issues. The series was very popular.

In the end, critics couldn't help but take notice. But they continued to dislike the story lines and declared that the series had finally jumped the shark whenever the actual viewers were most happy with it. By series three, where the Doctor accidentally taught the Daleks to love and had a doomed romance with a Dalek, the show had won the accolade of Most Popular Show That No-one Admits to Watching. Though the number of conventions and fan-fics showed that the stigma against admitting to like it was mostly in the heads of the TV experts.

The show avoided having a single companion, and instead the Doctor travelled with a number of people depending on what themes and mood the episode required. The Doctor playing the role of guide and counsel for an adventure that usually tackled other issues. Ayoade admitted very readily that this was because he wasn’t a fantastic actor, and having other actors on board helped to carry the show. However, his enthusiasm for the part and for the stories usually shone through and he remains very popular with the fans.

Ayoade's time as the Doctor came to an end when he was captured by The Auditor, a drab man in a grey suit who was meant to be a Time Lord police officer. The Doctor was strapped inside a box with no exit, filled with antimatter, and thrown into a black hole. The Doctor escaped using the Schrodinger Device - which operated on the Uncertainty Principle. Inside an inescapable box there was no way to know whether someone was alive or dead. As the Doctor was alive when he activated the Schrodinger Device, somewhere in the universe there must be an unopened box where he was dead. By ending his life he teleported to that box, and regeneration began...
 

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Konnie Huq
(2012-2013)

“I’m here for two things: to save the world, and to eat your biscuits. And you’re all out of biscuits. You need to go an get more biscuits.”

The first episode of the new Doctor was called “Murder on the Orbital Express” and brought together a cast of five time-shifted companions, one of whom would turn out to be the Doctor. Over the series of a three episode special, the actual identity of the Doctor was worked out, as well as the identity of the first two companions of the series, and of the Master (Tamsin Greig). The episode was unusual in that it actually attracted positive reviews.

It also attracted a large amount of negativity. Many “fans” of the show were unwilling to accept a non-white, non-male Doctor. Konnie received constant death threats throughout her stint on Doctor Who, which the police showed no interest in investigating until an attempt was made on her life. When David Davis was replaced by Harriet Harman in 2014 Konnie was one of the celebrities to give evidence in parliament on the topic of online bullying, leading to the Internet Safety Act of 2016.

Konnie’s time on Doctor Who was dominated by high octane, stunt heavy adventures, and cosy English domestic scenes. In the first episodes of the series, the Master served as a villain, pulling off a bank heist in the 38th century and trying to take over the world in the time of ancient Egypt, In Egypt, the Master's own TARDIS was destroyed and The Doctor was forced to take her in. An attempt to return the Aster to Gallifrey misfired and allowed the Master to save the Doctor's life. After this point they acted as flat-mates and frienemies as The Master attempted to steal a new time machine and get on with her life. The two actors played off each other well, and while some people never felt that Konnie Huq looked like a Doctor, she is often listed as a fan-favourite.

Konnie announced she was pregnant in 2013, and various solutions were presented to how to keep the series running with her in it. The idea of the Doctor having a baby was seriously considered. However, while she loved the show and continued to be involved in the fan-community she opted to pass on the role, believing that constant death threats would interfere with her ability to start a family.
 

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Emma Watson
(2013-2014)

“You’re not my mum, in fact, aren’t you my arch-nemesis? I liked you so much better when you were trying to kill me.”


Fans were concerned to hear that Emma Watson - best known for her minor role as an annoying girlfriend on BBC Two’s Flat Mates - was taking the role of Doctor. She was seen as far too young, and serious fans believed that she lacked the gravitas and knowledge of the series that would be necessary to successfully play the role. The series she starred in left the critics feeling vindicated.

The plot for the series had been hurriedly rewritten following Konnie’s departure, with the pregnancy plot given to Tamsin Grieg, who would take on a more central role. The Doctor’s dialogue was re-written in an attempt to create a slightly different character, but frequently it fell flat with the audience, and the series was suffering from a lack of new ideas and an inflation of stakes. Almost every episode in some way revolved around saving the galaxy, universe, or if it was a slow week, the world. Daleks and Cyber-men had been defeated so many times that they had ceased to seem like serious threats and the light-hearted silliness of the series was no longer so unique.

One of the things the series did well was to develop the relationship between the Master and the Doctor, which moved from being unlikely best friends to being a more mother-daughter relationship. The Master died in the final episode, when she was shot by a completely unimportant Dalek drone, by accident, when it was aiming at the Doctor. The Doctor quickly saved the day, but the Master’s injury had affected her regenerative abilities. The only way to save her life was for the Doctor to sacrifice her own life and kick-start the regenerative process. It worked, but both parties regenerated as male and the baby was lost. The episode injected some badly needed pathos into the series and was one of the few well-received parts of the series.

Since the show, Emma Watson has taken up modelling, vlogging and cosplay, and has become a mainstay of the conventions circuit, where she has finally won over fans of the show. She has even written a podcast series based on her character, which has been relatively well received by fans. With a further series expected it is possible that this will be how her Doctor is best remembered.
 

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@BrotherSideways This... well, I have to applaud your cleverness and off the wall thinking.

This definitely isn't a regular Doctor Who, by any means.

Thanks, I'm glad you said that. I know the Alt Doctor Who thing has been done a lot. But I thought this would be an interesting spin on it, and I've had it in my mind since Crystal Maze - which is amazing.
 
1) Great title.
2) My body is ready.
3) The breakneck off-the-wellness of these choices and the series chuntering on to spite its critics creates a distinctive new atmosphere. Can we expect some more eco-dystopian and/or neopagan plot arcs?:)
 

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Cecil Baldwin
(2014-2017)

“The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present. This now, this us? We can cope with that. We can do this together.”

The regeneration sequence ended with the Doctor and the Master male once again, and approximately the same age. The Master (John Barrowman) rapidly evolved into the far more action orientated character compared to the Doctor’s more cerebral character. A TARDIS redesign brought in elements of steampunk and miscellaneous weirdness into the show. To make the two more alien Time Lords understandable a Human companion was added, Ellie (Beattie Edmondson) added a human and domestic element to a show that was becoming more and more outlandish. She also provided a link to Britain which was important. The show had picked up a substantial audience in America and this was reflected in the casting of two Americans in leading roles - a decision that was unpopular with fans, but the series was used to taking risks with such things by this point and at least this time nobody was threatening physical violence over it.

At the time the series came out, Obama had just been elected, Labour were introducing important reforms, and the world was generally experiencing a suddenly increased level of optimism. This infected much of popular media, with shows like Star Trek and the Star Wars animated series returning to bright colours, blue skies, and optimism. It was therefore a surprise for many that Doctor Who - the torch bearer in science fiction for bright quirky comedy - chose muted colours and a story that placed the Doctor and the Master between corrupt elements in UNIT and the Time Lord government. Even the fumbling and awkward romantic plot between the Doctor and the Master was coloured by them both being aware that they were sharing their final regeneration and were, by Time Lord standards, terminally ill.

Doctor Who, now on its fifth series, had developed a solid fan-base and was being reluctantly taken seriously by critics. Episodes such as Neil Gaiman’s “Night in the TARDIS” and A.P. Clark's "Case of the Lost Cat" won serious credit for the show and or the first time the BBC was taking risks with the show's budget.

The third series pitted the Doctor and Master against the Time Lords directly. Rassilon (Scott Bakula) was plotting to break a fragile ceasefire with the Daleks and push the universe into an ultra-destructive Time War. The plan was to force the Daleks to attack Earth in the pre-first contact era, thus breaking the planet’s neutrality and bringing the time-faring races of the universe onto the Gallifrey’s side. This forced the Doctor to work with the Daleks against his own people and their agents in the Earth government. The plot was seen as particularly apt in a time of nuclear stalemate between America and North Korea and parallels were drawn between Rassilon and the slightly tainted President Obama as the real life president campaigned for his second term.

The third series was planned which would involve the conflict itself, and it was eventually turned into the plot for the first Doctor Who movie, to be called Doctor Who and The Time War, however, the plans that were put forward were far too ambitious for the BBC and the budget was never agreed. Scaled back plans for the series were produced, and while the audience stayed loyal it was obvious the BBC was losing faith in their producers. More comedic and light hearted elements were written in, and an effort was made to dial back what people saw as inappropriate levels of violence for a comedy show. Plans to kill off the Companion were shelved, but the writers were allowed to destroy the entire universe in the final episode, leaving the TARDIS drifting in a blank space between universes, packed with survivors from a thousand worlds. Somehow this was judged by the BBC to be the lesser of two evils.
 

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Donor
1) Great title.
2) My body is ready.
3) The breakneck off-the-wellness of these choices and the series chuntering on to spite its critics creates a distinctive new atmosphere. Can we expect some more eco-dystopian and/or neopagan plot arcs?:)

Thanks a lot! It's just a little thing that was on my mind, several Sideways levels below Wheels Within Wheels, which is probably the most me thing I've written in my life.
 

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Xu Jiao
(2018-2020)

Your mistake, Rassilon, was assuming I wouldn’t enjoy all this beautiful devastation you have created.

The new series of Doctor Who had a new look and a completely redesigned TARDIS. This time the control room was designed to be set in a vast countryside setting, with the control core reaching up into the clouds. The much-expanded TARDIS was home to hundreds of controlled environments designed to replicate life in different worlds and times, overseen by a vaguely dystopian group of Human-Time Lord hybrids. The series began with them finding out a way to resurrect the Doctor as a messiah designed to save the crew, a role that she was very reluctant to fulfil.

The new Doctor was Xu Jiao, a Chinese actress who received part of her education in America and was known to anglophone audiences from her role in Ice Fantasy, the first Chinese series to achieve mainstream success on Netflix. It was hoped that her selection would open up international markets in a time when Chinese consumers were becoming increasingly important.

Fans greeted the new series and the choice of Doctor with some scepticism, and critics considered the plots that revolved around people not realising they were in the TARDIS to be too cerebral and surreal for their audiences. But the BBC was ready to acknowledge that this was not the first time these reactions had been encountered. However this time, fans genuinely did not seem to get behind the new direction the show was taken. Series two allowed the Doctor to travel between dimensions in an effort to offload passengers and allowed for more traditional Dalek and Cybermen plots, which became more common as the series lost confidence in itself. The faintly dreamy, naive looking new Doctor who could run rings around the universe’s greatest military leaders and commanders was somehow too much for fans - a story that had run on too long, perhaps.

The BBC were committed to keeping the series running and had plans to reintroduce the Master and give the Doctor new enemies to face from her own destroyed former universe, but between series Xu Jiang announced that she planned to return to China to take part in the new series of Ice Fantasy. Various options were presented to replace her, but the budget associated with the show had grown and grown every season, and audiences were beginning to decrease. In the end, a bold decision was made, and the show was cancelled in favour of a Blake’s Seven re-boot. Fans were outraged, but they had been since the beginning of the new Who and this was no different. The series continued to have an underground following, and in retrospect many people believe that the 39th series of Doctor Who was better in potential and in the various fan fictions online than it ever would have been if it was actually produced.

In many ways, cancelling the show revitalised the fandom and this will be important. Twenty years passed between the seventh and ninth Doctors with nothing but a book series between them. It might be another twenty years until the Doctor returns. But when they do, we will be ready for them.
 
Quite an interesting take, particularly what we can infer didn't happen - no Big Finish, possibly no Potter or at least Watson not in it, and no RTD or Moffat involvement in Who (perhaps he former had a teacher who didn't quash his original dream of becoming a comic writer/artist). Much as I feel humor is vital to Who the initial seasons probably would have put me off, but the later might have brought me back.
 

Sideways

Donor
Quite an interesting take, particularly what we can infer didn't happen - no Big Finish, possibly no Potter or at least Watson not in it, and no RTD or Moffat involvement in Who (perhaps he former had a teacher who didn't quash his original dream of becoming a comic writer/artist). Much as I feel humor is vital to Who the initial seasons probably would have put me off, but the later might have brought me back.

Yeah, no Big Finish, no Moffat, no big budget at first. I was kind of thinking about how the series is caught up in being a flagship BBC product, and what it would be like as more of a camp silly thing that could take risks because who cares. But then, the negative there is we miss a lot of the drama and interest we saw in the Eccleston/Tennant years.
 

Md139115

Banned
Thanks a lot! It's just a little thing that was on my mind, several Sideways levels below Wheels Within Wheels, which is probably the most me thing I've written in my life.

Please, never mention that story again. I'm still in counseling for it.

Edit: And come to think of it, did you pay my bills yet?
 

Sideways

Donor
Please, never mention that story again. I'm still in counseling for it.

Edit: And come to think of it, did you pay my bills yet?

Have you read Ten Party State yet? It might get you back to sanity from the other direction. Actually Boxes and Standard Canvassing Anecdote may have a similar effect
 

Md139115

Banned
Have you read Ten Party State yet? It might get you back to sanity from the other direction. Actually Boxes and Standard Canvassing Anecdote may have a similar effect

Haven't read Ten Party State yet, but read Boxes and Standard Canvassing Anecdote. Boxes is a full-blown masterpiece on my opinion. I still see it in my nightmares.
 

Md139115

Banned
Haven't read Ten Party State yet, but read Boxes and Standard Canvassing Anecdote. Boxes is a full-blown masterpiece on my opinion. I still see it in my nightmares.

Just read Ten Party State.

I have a violent urge to strangle you.

Be thankful plane tickets to the UK are too expensive for my wallet right now.

That was incredible.
 

Sideways

Donor
Just read Ten Party State.

I have a violent urge to strangle you.

Be thankful plane tickets to the UK are too expensive for my wallet right now.

That was incredible.

You are the best reader. Never had death threats before, deffo appreciated.
 
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