The Doctor Who Thread

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The best episode so far and i did enjoy it but it was by no means perfect.

Jodie needs to grow into the role and quickly. She still seems to be doing impressions of Smith and Tennant when she delivers half her lines, again though that's the script. When she entered the family apartment she was almost identical to Smith in The Lodger. and that's just one example.

I hope we don't see Yaz's mum again, i found her annoying, and she quite obviously doesn't know much about her own daughter. Chris Noth was fine, Bradley Walsh excelled again and this was the episode that felt the most like Doctor Who so far. Definitely channeled The Green Death among other classic horror / sci-fi tropes, but that's not a bad thing, and the spiders were quite impressive in their realisation.

The ending felt very rushed. What happened to the other spiders throughout the city? A lot of questions not answered really, but brain to one side it was pretty enjoyable stuff.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Woman Who Fell to Earth - 6/10
The Ghost Monument - 4/10
Rosa - 4/10
Arachnids in the UK - 7/10

There's no way i'll be buying the dvd box set on the series so far. That will be two series in a row if it remains that way.

[Rob4]

only a slight improvement.

the best parts were with Bradley remembering his dead wife - a nice character touch. the discovery of the first cocooned body was a good horror moment and the spiders were good too. i also liked that it was an environmental storyline for a change.

theres still quite a few problems for me: there was no intelligence behind the threat and i never once thought our heroes were in any particular danger; the comedy asides are still too broad, and the cast's comic timing too off to be funny; the return to earth to look up companion's family has been done to death and is really boring now; the political swipes are way too heavy handed - this time american gun control got a hammering; the comedy american villain was just embarrassing in its broadness.

its just 5/10 for me.

there needs to be an episode with some weight, some gravitas, some sense of real danger.

also are the writers making the Doctor a bit too lightweight? previous Doctor's would meet their threats head-on, violently if necessary, but not in a gun-toting sense (UNIT would provide that sort of back-up). Jodie has yet to show this harder edge.

[Susan Foreman]

October 29th: Today in WHO-story

Births
1884 - Bert Sims (extra in The Web of Fear)

1927 - Bernard Martin (Control Room Assistant in The Ambassadors of Death)

1935 - Michael Jayston (The Valeyard in The Trial of a Time Lord and the Big Finish audios He Jests at Scars, Trial of the Valeyard, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure and the Bernice Summerfield story Every Dark Thought and the Tsar in the AudioGO story Serpent's Crest)

1937 - Hugh Futcher (Hickman in The Sea Devils)

1940 - Angela Douglas (Doris Lethbridge-Stewart in Battlefield)

1959 - Stephen Marzella (Police Constable in Fear Her and David Penn in the Torchwood story From Out of the Rain); Glen MacPherson (director of photography on the TV Movie)

Deaths
1999 - Cavan Kendall (Achilles in The Myth Makers) aged 57
2010 - Mervyn Haisman (writer, with Henry Lincoln, of The Abominable Snowmen, The Web of Fear and The Dominators [under the pseudonym Mervyn Haisman]; co-creator of the Yeti, the Great Intelligence, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and the Quarks) aged 82

2015 - Kenneth Gilbert (Richard Dunbar in The Seeds of Doom) aged 84

Episodes
1966 - The Tenth Planet, Episode Four: 7.5 million viewers

1977 - Image of the Fendahl, Part One: 6.7 million viewers
2006 - Torchwood: Ghost Machine (BBC Three): 1.77 million viewers
2007 - The Sarah Jane Adventures: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith, Part One (CBBC): 1.61 million viewers
2009 - The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, Part One (CBBC): 1.59 million viewera
2016 - Class: Nightvisiting (BBC Three)

Introductions
1966 - First use of the concept of regeneration; Patrick Troughton's first appearance as the Second Doctor

Departures
1966 - William Hartnell's final regular appearance as the First Doctor

Releases
1992 - Issue 193 of Doctor Who Magazine (Marvel)

2009 - Issue 139 of Doctor Who Adventures (BBC Magazines)
2010 - Evacuation Earth and Return to Earth (Nintendo)
2012 - Series 7: Part 2 (DVD and Blu-ray - region 2)
2013 - 1963: The Space Race and The Queen of Time (Big Finish Productions)
2015 - Lethbridge-Stewart: Beast of Fang Rock (Candy Jar Books); Toby Hadoke's Who's Round 144 (Big Finish)

Behind-the-Scenes
1963 - John Mair sent a memo to Joanna Spicer regarding the budget for Doctor Who's first stories
1994 - The first installment of the Doctor Who spin-off Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans premiered at Dreamwatch 94 at Earl's Court, London

2004 - Recording of the Big Finish audio The Game took place
2008 - David Tennant won an award for Outstanding Drama Performance at the National Television Awards. During his acceptance speech via video link, he announced that he was to leave Doctor Who after the 2008-10 specials

2015 - Recording of the Big Finish audio And You Will Obey Me took place

[iank]

Derrick Sherwin has died. Sherwin wrote the 2nd Doctor classic The Invasion and worked as script editor and producer during that time, also producing the first Pertwee story, Spearhead from Space. He created the concept of UNIT and was responsible for the "exile" format that lasted for so much of the Pertwee era. RIP.

There is now only one classic Who producer still alive.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Arachnids in the UK had 6.43m overnight figures. A slight improvement on last weeks 6.39m.

It currently stands as the third most watched programme of the week.

Even with the add ons i doubt it will topple the two Strictly shows, so third is where it will stay no doubt.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Sorry to hear of Derrick Sherwin's passing.

The creator of UNIT.

Nothing more needs to be said except he was always an interesting listen when he contributed to Doctor Who dvds.

RIP.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Rosa ended with 8.09m viewers. The fourth most watched programme of the week behind two Strictly's and Bake Off.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

A Scarecrow from 2007's Human Nature.

[Susan Foreman]

October 30th: Today in WHO-story

Births
1912 - Preston Lockwood (Dojjen in Snakedance)

1914 - Anna Wing (Anatta in Kinda)

1944 - Michael Wade (BBV actor - Lockwood in the Auton trilogy and Alex in the audio adventure Silent Warrior; Big Finish Productions actor - Oberst Oskar Steinmann in the Bernice Summerfield story Just War and the President in The Sirens of Time and The Apocalypse Element)
1954 - Chris MacDonnell (Arnheim in Dragonfire)

1972 - Jessica Hynes (Joan Redferne in Human Nature/The Family of Blood, Verity Newman in The End of Time and Glory Bee, Carla & Woman in the Big Finish audio Invaders from Mars)

Deaths
1978 - Brian Hayles (writer of The Celestial Toymaker, The Smugglers, The Ice Warriors, The Seeds of Death, The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon and the unmade TV story-turned-Big Finish audios The Dark Planet, The Queen of Time and Lords of the Red Planet; creator of the Celestial Toymaker, the Ice Warriors and Alpha Centauri) aged 47

1979 - Graham Ashley (Overseer in The Underwater Menace) aged 52

1997 - Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman aged 80

2003 - Freddie Eldrett (extra in The Tenth Planet) aged 57

Episodes
1965 - The Myth Makers, Episode Three ('Death of a Spy'): 8.7 million viewers
1976 - The Deadly Assassin, Part One: 11.8 million viewers
2009 - The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, Part Two (CBBC): 1.47 million viewers

Documentaries
2006 - Torchwood Declassified: In Living Memory (BBC Three)

Introductions
1976 - The Deadly Assassin was Doctor Who's first story where the Doctor travels alone and without a full-time companion

Releases
2008 - Issue 88 of Doctor Who Adventures (BBC Magazines)

Behind-the-Scenes
1963 - James Mudie, head of Scenic Servicing for Television, sent a memo to Joanna Spicer regarding the high workload on Doctor Who and suggested that the show should be blocked from transmission
1994 - The second and third installments of the Doctor Who spin-off Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans premiered at Dreamwatch 94 at Earl's Court, London
2008 - Recording of the Big Finish audio anthology The Company of Friends took place

2013 - Recording of Big Finish's audio adaptation of the Doctor Who novel The Romance of Crime took place
2015 - Recording of the Big Finish audio And You Will Obey Me took place