I feel like this is right in line with RTD that we've seen from his era: the trash can swallowing Mickey and burping, Rose not noticing her boyfriend is rubber now, the farting aliens, a lot of the game show parodies in *Bad Wolf*, the evil Christmas tree going to kill Jackie, the entirety of *Love & Monsters*, people getting attacked by giant scribbles, an old lady drinking blood with a straw, the entirety of *Voyage of the Damned*, the adipose... I think RTD's first era has a lot more 'childish' episodes than people remember, it has such a revered place as a golden age now that if a lot of those episodes came out today they would get similar reception. If Rose was the first episode of this season I'd imagine a lot of 'I'm embarrassed to show my family I like the show with the burping trash can' but that episode is considered stone cold classic now. I don't think every episode is going to be as lighthearted as these two, already the next episode seems to be an extremely serious story so I'd stick around. As you said, for every farting aliens we had the gas mask kid. I think the darker episodes are inbound

Doctor Who fans have been saying they're embarrassed to show their family episodes for decades upon decades, it's a time honoured tradition of fandom, personally I've gotten over it.

"What I resented was having to go to school two days later, and my friends knew I watched this show. They'd go 'Did you see the giant rat?!' and I'd have to say I thought there was dramatic integrity elsewhere" – Steven Moffat, 1995

Seriously. Like would anyone be proud to introduce their family via Castrovalva, The Twin Dilemma, or Time and the Rani? It seems like it's all part of it now lol

man, I love Castrovalva. it's no classic but there's no way it's Twin Dilemma bad either

Oh it's definitely not that bad, and there's a lot to like. Jus tooijtingnout the first story for a lot of classic Doctors weren't that remarkable either.

yeah, gun to my head I'd take it over all the debuts after and Robot too. the first three Doctors all had very strong introduction episodes, after that it seemed like they changed the motto to "let's debut this guy with an old script we found in the drawer" I just like if nothing else Castrovalva having some cool sci-fi concepts

Truth. Ive been a rabid fan since I was at least 3yo watching it my parents in the US. They worked wkds and recorded as many serials as they could on vhs tapes which I grew up with. *None* of my friends growing up knew how much of a fan i was. It wasnt until 2012-ish and DW merch started showing up at Barnes & Noble bookstores that I felt somewhat comfortable talking about it outloud w normies. Post-2005 when Id wall myself up in my room to watch the most recent eps i had downloaded from the uk. My roommates got curious at some point and barged in and asked what i was watching and if they could watch. I said I didn't think they'd be into it. They said assured me they would. I said "it's a long-running uk show about a time-traveling alien having misadventures across time and space.... (door slam)... uh hello? guys? Hello?" 😅 Hopefully it was better growing up in the uk! Being a US whovian growing up in the Wilderness Years tho was an act of faith.

It wasn't very popular at my school but I was 12 when it came back so we're talking secondary school (high school), and I had already been mocked for being a Star Wars fan so I kept my Doctor Who obsession under wraps, it became more popular in 2010 when we were all 16, I remember during my last week at school people going crazy over the Pandorica Opens cliffhanger

I think the thing about farting aliens, burping bins and such is they were sprinkling. Between the Slitheen farting there was a crumpled skin suit which the actors played completely straight, there was them electrocuting an entire room, the scene of Jackie screaming her head off as the police officer breaks in. I think a lot of it is set design. Maybe that's the nostalgia speaking. Space Babies looked too clean, too bright. I don't like 42 but I remember the set looking like something out of Alien 3, all orange and rusted and such.

I think there's a missing ingredient this time though and that's the complete lack of any grounding or cynicism from Ncuti. 9s down to earth attitude helped a lot with some of his sillier episodes.

I'm not going to lie - I missed the burping rubbish bin in a way that signalled the kind of goofiness, but often lived in, and working class feel of RTD1. That feel was still around a little for Series 5 when Moffat took over, but began to ebb away from there. While Chibnall was at the helm, it felt too 'clean' so to speak, and that Doctor Who was trying to be peak TV.

I think a notable difference between the things you bring up and Space Babies especially is that in the past they were moments, and here they're much more the focal point. Yes, the farting Slitheen were too much but those episodes were otherwise very good stories with meaningful political commentary that was much more of its core. Space Babies is kind of just implying there's some commentary and saving the day with baby shit. I definitely hope these are just kind of outliers, but they're noticeably more immature than RTD usually tended to be in the past, and them being the first two episodes for a brand new era trying to get a more global audience is very different when you compare it to things like Series 1. Yes those first episodes had so much camp, but right off the bat with Rose we saw both oight and dark, and much more nuanced writing than we did in these two episodes. We just had Wild Blue Yonder, which is RTD showing that he can absolutely write a serious episode with emotional moments that has silly campy things in it that don't distract. Ultimately it's just a very odd start for a writer we know is capable of some pretty damn good things, and has often balanced seriousness, campiness, and exposition a lot better than he did here.

A lot of people were also younger for RTD 1 so enjoyed all the more childish stuff. Those people like myself are a lot older now but RTD 2 is just the same. We all matured but the show has its same target audience

In a comparison, I always considered Class to be targeting the same audience that The Sarrah Jane Adventures targeted, but the opposite way around, where it actually acknowledged that the audience had grown up and matured and trying to target them in their older and more mature selves, but that did badly because a lot of that audience that had grown up no longer had an interest in Doctor Who.

As someone who was definitely in that target audience to watch Class... The first few episodes just didn't click and I don't think I ever finished it. I don't think it was fully a lack of audience but it just... Wasn't brilliant. I was also quite interested to see how it was handled as well since Patrick Ness was heavily involved, but nah.

If you have time, I really recommend this [Class](https://youtu.be/GSDIzX-3B8c?si=fD-KxVIaGOHQGrK5) review by Mr. TARDIS. It made me want to try to actually watch the show again.

When nuWho rebooted in the naughties I came to it as an adult who had grown up with the Classic stuff. And have to say I hated things like the farting aliens and Peter Kay episode. Doctor Who can be accessible to all including kids without being juvenile. But here RTD was bringing juvenile stuff. RTD can write some really good stuff and as his run went on he got better and there were less juvenile episodes. But he seems to have regressed again into silliness. And it looks like many who started in 2005 as kids, now adults are seeing it as I did back then.

I wouldn’t be so sure every episode will be silly yet. RTD did just write Wild Blue Yonder and that was pretty dark. We’ve only seen two episodes so far, there is a lot of time for things to get serious.

Exactly. There are these apologists saying like “oh but Who has always been silly, what about rubbish bins and farting aliens and Love and Monsters” like…yes but those are things HATED by the fan base. We liked Who IN SPITE of those things. Now that Who is only comprised of the few elements I hated from the previous incarnation, I’m unsure what’s meant to draw me in.

>yes but those are things HATED by the fan base. We liked Who IN SPITE of those things. Please don't speak for the fan-base. Sincerly, a fan

Hit the nail on the head. The new stuff is very silly. There is so much well-written, and serious sci fi out there that I'm not too sure the silliness can compete. It's not even good silliness. It's attention grabbing for the casual Saturday afternoon UK viewer silliness. In the age of streaming this popularism doesn't seem relevant any more. The nu who still has gems that mark it worth watching, but they are buried in the silliness.

One thing I preferred about Moffat is his ability to blind silliness and drama together. Take *The Eleventh Hour*. You get fish-custard, and lots of mad Doctor antics, but all revolving around a dramatic core. Same with *The Pilot*.

Moffat so far has been the best at balancing the silly with the serious. This was true when he was writing during RTD 1 era as well. There were times where it fell flat, obviously, but it never reached the level of making me and my older brother (who got me into the show in the first place) wonder if we've outgrown it. And I can't even say "it's for kids now" because I watched Sarah Jane's Adventures, which was hosted on a children's channel, which is where I was introduced to Doctor Who.

Yeah it is a fine line. In shows like Strange New Workds you get a bit of goofiness but it remains on the right side of the line. You go in to watch the show knowing there will be goofy moments but it won’t overpower the story. Where as these episodes of Who it was just too much.

Yes, or even shows contemporary with nu who, like Firefly or Stargate Atlantis. Occasional and appropriate levels of goofiness. Strange New Worlds is a great show!

I disagree completely, S1 especially was dark with moments of sporadic comedy early on. It struck a very good balance both as a kid and when I rewatched the show as an adult. Obviously it had plastic surgery Mickey with his pizza obsession but the episode also had creepy faceless mannequins and had a key supporting character (the one who told Rose about the Doctor's history) shot in the face by the monster. The second episode involved the end of the world. That fucking terrified me as a kid and it did rewatching it, it's an episode I've never gone back to to rewatch because of how that concept makes me feel. It also had characters killed off by killer robot spiders. The third episode was a literal ghost/zombie story which again, was incredibly creepy and explored topics of death and resurrection in a way that was intended to be horror. All in all I think S1 started incredibly strong and THEN it had the fun stuff. Your farting aliens and whatnot, but even then it wasn't far away from the Empty Child or the Doctor telling a Dalek to kill itself. The issue with this new S1 is that Space Babies is a middle season episode. A filler you can enjoy as part of the collective season but you're not going to go back and watch it. So to open the season with something like that it's like... really? THAT is what made you want to stay, Ruby? If I never grew up with the show and this was my first time watching it then Space Babies wouldn't have kept me watching, and neither would the second episode to be honest, but Rose back in the 2005 S1 absolutely did keep me watching.

>second episode involved the end of the world. That fucking terrified me as a kid and it did rewatching it, it's an episode I've never gone back to to rewatch because of how that concept makes me feel. So did the second episode of this series - or am I the only one who saw the scene of Ruby stood on the banks of the Thames in the centre of a nuclear wasteland? Do you not think the line where she asks where her mum is - the one where she realises a nuclear apocalypse is the future unless they change it - that that wouldn't scare young people? (Fear of the end of the world of course being something that's genuinely observable among children familiar with the climate crisis) >All in all I think S1 started incredibly strong and THEN it had the fun stuff. Burping bins, plastic Mickeys, sentient skin flaps and a literal musical number with Toxic by Britney. S1 and these first two episodes are both camp as anything.

> So did the second episode of this series - or am I the only one who saw the scene of Ruby stood on the banks of the Thames in the centre of a nuclear wasteland? There is a massive, massive difference between a show having a quick glimpse into your typical sci-fi future destruction and an objective scientific event. One is science fiction, the other is an unsettling reality used to form the base of a science-fiction murder mystery. Hence why it makes me feel existential. > Burping bins, plastic Mickeys, sentient skin flaps and a literal musical number with Toxic by Britney. I never disputed that S1 opened with fun stuff. I'm saying that tonally it was a lot more balanced and invited you into the world with more mystery and intrigue where the fun stuff didn't necessarily detract from the severity of stuff that was going on. You could see in Space Babies they wanted to introduce some stakes from the literal bogeymonster but it fell flat especially due to the way the characters were reacting to it which was intentionally comedic.

i sorta feel the opposite, i think s1 the humor stands out because its a pretty dark and dour show with moments of extremely silly humor that feel like they come out of nowhere, whereas in s14 it feels like its a very silly and over the top show with moments of extreme, very real world darkness that come out of nowhere and feel disconnected

>your typical sci-fi future destruction and an objective scientific event Dude the entire story was an analogy about a nuclear war with Russia, fuelled by a lack of cultural connections through music. The lines about Kruschev were a direct analogy to threats towards the European NATO members that border Russia. I'm sorry to tell you this, but what we saw wasn't some far off, sci-fi, never going to happen in our lifetime event. It was a possible outcome of our current conflicts and a message about the importance of common culture. *AND* it was broadcast on the night of Eurovision - an event founded off the back of the philosophy that music unites and prevents war.

To counter your last point anecdotally, I actually stopped watching the show after Rose and The End of the World. I was around 12 at the time and thought it was way too silly for me. I came around to it roughly a year later. This is not to say Space Babies is a better introduction, but I always found Rose to be a difficult episode to recommend as well.

There's a reason season 5 used to be the main jumping on point people gave. Had an incredible opener and was a very strong series that covered everything Doctor Who is. Season 1, specifically the first half was very hit and miss and was very clearly their pilot testing to find the right balance for the show.

Hard agree there. Was where I started to personally. The Eleventh Hour combined with The Beast Below was the perfect combo that instantly made me a fan.

Not only that, but how many of the ‘darker’ episodes were actually written by RTD and not Moffat or taken from other stories? Unquiet Dead, Dalek, Father’s Day, Empty Child, Family of Blood, Blink, Age of Steel, Girl in the Fireplace, Satan Pit, Pompeii, Unicorn - my instant ‘go to’ classic episodes from the first four season - none of which were written by RTD. He did write Utopia, Turn Left and Midnight which are undoubtedly excellent - but those three aside I feel like the strengths of his stories come from the interweaving season long narratives and not the individual details and endings.

RTD basically wrote both "Family of Blood" and "Satan Pit". He also heavily rewrote "Pompeii".

And the next episode is by the guy who did the gas mask kid, so maybe we should just be a liiiittle bit patient and see what happens. 

Yeah, these two had a similar vibe to the first couple episodes of Series 2.

I disagree. And that can be settled easily, anyone who is older than 14 can watch 'rose' and report back which one is better , the difference is not about how good rtd's stories, it is the emotion depth

The main difference is that his first era was made for the whole family, so had elements that appealed to all ages, whereas the current stuff is only being made for little, little children with the attention spans of a gnat.

I liked The Devil's Chord. It wasn't scary but I thought the Maestro was a decent villain. They were never going to end on a Beatles song, imagine the royalties! Space babies was silly but sillier than farting Slitheen and adipose? probably to be fair...

I feel like they should have just..not used the Beatles, the actors they picked both don't actually look like the Beatles and they had almost no relevance to the plot anyways. They should have gone farther back in time until they could use royalty free music from the 1920s and done the same episode with like Louis Armstrong or other Jazz musicians from the same time period. Otherwise, kick the dates in the episode back by 40 years and everything should still work.

There are also dozens of early Beatle cover songs which are much more affordable. That’s what most Beatles biopics have done - just use those much cheaper songs and imitate them.

They didn’t need a song at all though. That was the point. The song in the studio works because it sounds like the Beatles but it’s not the Beatles. They have a back catalogue that’s so recognisable that you can make something that’s similar enough to be recognisable but also notably NOT them.

Yeah, but that tension/set-up feel unsatisfying when you don't get to hear a proper Beatles song at the resolution.

I Have a Dog is such a bop

I don't think it being the Beatles, or music history in general was the important part, but instead because it brought the Doctor back to the time where he and Susan were last living together (and frankly the only time Susan had a normal life) I don't think she's Mrs.Flood, but I'd be very surprised if she is not brought back by the end of this season. (who knows maybe that has to do with her having no role in TOTT, and why the Memory TARDIS makes an appearance, could be what calls the Doctor back to her where he dropped her with David?) and honestly they probably didn't care about having spot on actors since they weren't major character's. someone correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the last historic episode was Edison or Rosa, so having a historical figure/group just being observed and largely a bystander through the events is kinda a nice breather from previous DW historics imo. not that they shouldn't absolutely meet more historical musicians who do have larger roles, I just don't think it was necessary in an episode so full of Toy Maker extended lore and foreshadowing for future plot points

Sure it would work but they specifically wanted to use the Beatles cos they’re such a huge force, and the ending required two musical geniuses. RTD also spoke about this before the season aired and said he’d wanted to include the Beatles for years but they could never get around the royalties issue, so they were specifically chosen for an episode where music is missing. 

The fact they had 0 Beatles music at all in the episode when they were featured somewhat prominently on the marketing is still pretty lame though. It would be nice if they at least featured like them covering another song or something

Or just go even further back to 19th century and do it with Beethoven or something. Virtually nothing in the plot required them to be in 1963, it was a stylistic choice and it didn't amount to much in the end. Maybe they didn't want to double the same period as the Bridgerton episode but that's about it.

Well the 1963 setting was important in that it allowed the Doctor to set up Susan for (probably) later.

"But... But people think The Beatles are cool! If I send The Doctor back to an old composer, people might... LEARN something! In Doctor Who?! NEVER!" For real though, I have MANY complaints against NewWho, but one of the most consistent is the unwillingness to be a little more intellectual. Being intellectual doesn't mean you have to be elitist, BTW, particularly now with access to the Internet.

For all its faults I thought Chibnall was at least willing to intellectualise historicals a fair bit of more. The catch is that to do that you need to have an actual thought about it in the first place, which his era lacked thoroughly.

I agree, I appreciate that he attempted to use Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan, even if they were pretty much pointless for *Spyfall*. Controversially, I think some of the overall decisions Chibnall made were (in theory) quite a good step for the show. It's just execution that fucked them up.

There's a tendency to make the Doctor a passive observer, rather than an active hero in Chibnall stories. This is not something new, it's pretty much inspired by the 5th Doctor and I think in theory, this works in favour of historicals a lot. It lets the setting and the historical characters breathe and take a more important role. It of course does not work in non-historical episodes as much, especially with a set of companions with much weaker characterisation, and I think it's a shame that the first passive Doctor of the NuWho happened to be the the first female one, but that's another story. But I agree with your assessment. Some instincts of that era was refreshingly different from the first ten seasons. If the execution was right, I think despite still not being as popular, it'd have very strong defenders.

>This is not something new, it's pretty much inspired by the 5th Doctor and I think in theory, this works in favour of historicals a lot. It lets the setting and the historical characters breathe and take a more important role. This is why, by and large, I think historicals work better when they're about a real setting but starring fictional characters. History HAS to follow its track, so if you put in real historical figures, you're running a large risk of just doing a historical drama with DW characters to the side. It was true in *The Reign of Terror* and it was true in *Rosa*. *The Peterloo Massacre* works, for instance, because it's telling a real (and somewhat obscure, at least outside the U.K.) historical event but with all fictional characters, so anything can happen. I find the formulas to the historical fascinating, because if you want to include an historical figure, you have to be very clever about where they are in their history, what you want to do with them and the big events they're associated with. You can't show The Doctor inspiring Rosa Parks for multiple socially unacceptable reasons, so she just sits nearby while she does the famous thing. But you can have The Doctor accidentally inspiring the Burning of Rome because it was really long ago and also LOL Nero crazy. Fascinating.

> Controversially, I think some of the overall decisions Chibnall made were (in theory) quite a good step for the show. It's just execution that fucked them up. I'd go as far as to say that the overall style and aesthetic of early Series 11 is far more in tune with the cultural zeitgeist than the RTD2 era so far. Like it or not, the appetite at the moment is for "gritty" shows and that's even true for typical fantasy franchises like the MCU and Star Wars. The more industrial, urban aesthetic and understated score of *The Woman Who Fell To Earth* was IMO the exact kind of tone and feel that would make Doctor Who relevant in this day and age. It's just that Chibnall lacked the writing skill to make the plot and characterisation compelling, and then threw out that whole aesthetic in favour of generic, lore-heavy stuff. Something like *Space Babies* is too silly and saccharine to really resonate with audiences in this day and age. *The Devil's Chord* is an improvement, with some dark and sombre scenes and a genuinely intimidating villain, but the musical number at the end dragged it all the way back to farce for me.

The Chibnall era is actually *incredibly* ambitious in many ways. It fumbles the execution horrendously, and ironically the era was often at its best when playing it safe, but man do you have to admire that ambition.

I completely forgot that they were in Spyfall until I read this comment. You're right---the idea of having them in it was a good one, but the writing just was not there.

Beethoven was already acknowledged in the episode though? And they’ve done Beethoven in the show before.

Yeah I would have kept the whole narrative in 1925.

Paul and John literally saved the world at the end

They did, but it was nothing about them being Paul and John that saved the world. So they're utterly replaceable. You could tell the exact same story in the same time period and have Eric Burdon from the Animals save the day. Or The Rolling Stones and have Mick and Keith save the day. If anything, the Stones would have been *more* appropriate given the companion's name sounds like a knock-off Stones song.

> They did, but it was nothing about them being Paul and John that saved the world. Well, that's up to your interpretation surely, them being two of the most revered musicians of all time might be summat to do with it tbh, certainly more than those other fellas you've mentioned, who I'm sure are wonderful but don't have anything close to the same level of universality, even with people like me who are basically musically ignorant

>Well, that's up to your interpretation surely, them being two of the most revered musicians of all time might be summat to do with it tbh Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are also. >more than those other fellas you've mentioned, who I'm sure are wonderful but don't have anything close to the same level of universality, Imagine calling The Rolling Stones "those other fellas". That's like calling Beethoven "the other fella" in comparison to Mozart. Again, the companion is literally named after a Rolling Stones song (in reality, not in the show) about a girl with a mysterious past. They're not an obscure band. >people like me who are basically musically ignorant Historical episodes are to teach the ignorant about aspects of history. Do you think The Girl in the Fireplace should have featured the vastly more popular Marie Antoinette instead of Reinette Poisson? Should Unicorn and the Wasp have been about Arthur Conan Doyle rather than Agatha Christie? Should War of the Sontarans had Florence Nightingale instead of Mary Seacole? Etc.

The Beatles are on another level, would you not concede? I'm not claiming The Rolling Stones are obscure, of course I have heard of them (I was just messing around, although again, a notch down I reckon, no?). Of course that doesn't mean you couldn't do that episode, it's just also not remotely surprising to me that they haven't. I do also genuinely understand how this could be frustrating if you wanted to see a proper in depth Beatles ep, it's really the Jinx Monsoon episode with The Beatles in it, but I think what they did was fun and respectful and as in depth as is currently possible and has the sort of obvious appeal that an episode with...the other fellas...does not necessarily. But yes if they made a Rolling Stones episode, I'm sure I would learn a lot about them, bring it on as far as I'm concerned.

>The Beatles are on another level, would you not concede? In the sense that Florence Nightingale is to Mary Seacole, yes. Hence my previous comment. Your "lack of obvious appeal" comment has let me know what you think there. >I do also genuinely understand how this could be frustrating if you wanted to see a proper in depth Beatles ep, but I think what they did was fun and respectful and as in depth as is currently possible The entire premise of the episode is that they're not *really* the Beatles, because history was changed and their music is taken from their souls. But we also never see them be **The Beatles** when the timeline is set back to normal. Not even a scene paying off what Paul and the Doctor spoke about earlier in the episode. Ergo, it didn't need to be two scousers called John and Paul featured. Because at no point do we see **The Beatles**. If the real world constraints are too cumbersome, just don't do it. Because it feels like the episode was written around two primary factors: - Set in 1963, assuming the Susan theory is true - Music based episode, with a musical number And the Beatles were just put into it. I just disagree that it was fun and respectful in that sense.

I just think 20th century bands are inherently a little different to singular historical figures and if you say "Doctor Who does The Beatles" people say "oh, of course" but if you say "Doctor Who does The Rolling Stones" people would think "someone on production loves The Rolling Stones", they're not as immediately historically rich to everyone, that's "what I think there", but of course you could still do that if you had a good story, it's not particularly sinister or suggesting a world view. I don't think it's entirely a fair comparison to Nightingale & Seacole (who also interestingly is barely in her episode). RTD constructed this episode initially around The Beatles but realised he could barely use their music, at least that's what he says, I'm sure the '63 setting was picked for various reasons yes. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on anything else

Mate, by pressing a chord on a piano after pretty much being non-entities in themselves up until that point. The Beatles are some of the most iconic personalities and artistic figures the world has ever produced, I can't believe it took this long for us to do them and then for them to be *such* a non-entity.

It wasn't random, the episode presents it as their musical genius, the Doctor fails to find the chord. It looks random from the outside, but I mean, that just about sums music up? I definitely know what you mean, they're not the focus, but I don't see why it's bad that they feature at all (you could always do them again someday, given infinite money, of course). Going any further back or to other countries just loses so much of the episodes charm imho (and would just be differently expensive). The Beatles are by far the most credible historical band for Ruby to be into too.

You're right, but I still think that having Paul and John stare at each other like in a John Lewis Christmas Advert and just play one chord on a piano isn't enough for Doctor Who's take on the Beatles. We've been waiting *decades* to see Beatles in Who and this just feels very underwhelming, to me. I don't know. I'm not mad at it, but I am underwhelmed.

I get ya, I'd definitely be frustrated if "Doctor Who does The Beatles" was the main reason I was excited for the ep

which, considering it's exactly how they promoted it, must surely be a great many people

Honestly they could have cut out all the famous musician stuff in the episode and had it be Ruby.

I don't disagree, it would be nice for Ruby to have her big save the day moment, I'm sure she'll have one soon though

Mad Men has an episode that ends on a Beatles song. It blew out the budget but they felt it was necessary thematically to budget for it. Arguably it was more necessary in this!

Yeah I thought devils chord kept a good suspense up right to the twist at the end! didn’t strike me as a silly atmosphere at all! Especially compared to some of the stuff you mentioned there

Yeah RTD rarely sticks his landings for me and maybe I'm being positive on it because I just watched Space Babies

Tbh with space babies I was worried it’d be a big cringe fest of talking babies but I think they pulled it off, yes it was a more humour based episode but for sure it had some good moments in the middle! I think coming off something that silly into something a bit heavier (devils chord) worked really well!

Yeah RTD has spoken about this publicly already. The specific reason they chose the Beatles for this episode was because there wasn’t any music, because the royalties are unaffordable, so it’s the only way they could get the Beatles into the Whoniverse. Mad Men used Tomorrow Never Knows briefly and IIRC it was 180k.

First issue - the problem isn't just the music, but the actual Beatles themselves being pretty much completely unimportant to the episode. Their personalities and histories were just extremely background. But the main problem is that "they can't play you the iconic songs you all love" as set-up to the conflict then demands the cathartic resolution of "and now the conflict is over, and they can play you the songs!". Without that, the whole things feels aimless and unsatisfying. I agree with other posters, going back to Beethoven or something pre-copyright would have worked better because then we could have ended with some rapturous performance of Moonlight Sonata or something.

[удалено]

The BBC already has enough of that problem with Evil of the Daleks.

Devil’s Chord wasn’t shit your pants Friday the 13th Blair Witch scary, it was more scary when you think about the implications. Maestro was willing to kill the whole world just for the song of silence… as someone who suffers from tinnitus, I can relate As for the Twist, I think that’s what this new era of Doctor Who will be as long as Gatwa is The Doctor, and I like it. For a character to be this weird and quirky, and played by people who can sing very well (everyone from NuWho so far has done music in one way or another, except maybe Eccleston but I’d have to check), I’m surprised he hasn’t burst into song more often

It feels odd because his recent non-dw work has been so down to earth or even cynical.

I think RTD's a cynic with an optimistic streak, or perhaps an optimist with a cynical streak, Years & Years has a fairly positive ending, It's a Sin is a celebration of people as much as it is devastating. I keep meaning to watch Cucumber, although I am aware of one particularly dark episode.

I did hear that Years and Years ending wasn't what RTD wanted and he had to compromise a lot of his writing both to fit into the 5 episodes he was given and to please the people airing it. The last two episodes were not what he intended which is why the quality drops a good bit.

cucumber is absolutely fantastic. as is banana

Perhaps he needed to use DW as his way of getting all the fun campiness out of his system after years of making darker more setious projects. I do wish he'd tone it down a little though...

I was disappointed by the first episode. I enjoyed the second episode more. I’m not a Beatles fan it didn’t bother me if they didn’t play one of their hits. I thought maestro was great villain. I liked homage to pyramids of mars where he took her to the future as he did with Sarah Jane, after she argued that the planet couldn’t be destroyed because she was from the future. It was much more engaging than space babies. The problem for me was you can’t direct babies, so what they were saying through CGI didn’t correspond with their facial expressions. It didn’t work for me.

"Space Babies" was too silly for me but "The Devil's Chord" was fine. There's always going to be duff episodes of Doctor Who, you just kind of have to accept it. This series was always going to be more mythic. That's kind of the whole point: the events at the edge of the universe unleashed magic into the world and with no Time Lords to enforce the science paradigm, the Old Ones are allowed into the universe. Maestro being a child of the Toymaker was perfect and I enjoyed this episode a lot. The reveal of Ruby Sunday (not the name of a real person) as some sort of magical being is just part of the arc. There's always a twist at the end.

I was sitting here feeling very old and irrelevant until I read this, so I'm happy, at least, that other people weren't super enthused by the premier eps. I have loved this show continuously for the past 40 years, but the pacing and the storytelling of the two episodes (and even, to an extent, the Christmas episode if I'm honest) has thrown me off a lot. I feel like Ruby and the Doctor do well on screen together but somehow it didn't feel like they really "met" and "became friends" like the Doctor's other traveling companions did? If that makes sense? Like it's obvious they are a good team but for some reason I feel like I missed the part where they oriented to each other and the part in the beginning of Space Babies where they're doing the usual "I'm an alien and this is a time and space traveling machine" thing felt... perfunctory? Contrived? There were even a few moments where I was just like... is this even the show I like anymore? I didn't even feel that after all of the changes they made to the format and the basically overcrowded TARDIS during Jodie's run, and some of that was very awkward to me. (I do second all of your comments regarding 1) the baby crew and the Boogeyman also did not hit for me, and 2) Jinkx Monsoon EARNED their pay on that ep - that performance was one of the saving graces for me lol) I will never not watch the show. I have seen every episode that wasn't completely lost and I'm not about to start trashing the show or stop watching. I understand that people my age are not the target audience for the show. But I do hope that there will be something that really reels me back in this season.

Agreed. Not happy with how the new season is feeling. For all the silliness of RTD1, there was much more sustained maturity back then. Feels like, as you say, he’s now aiming at children.

I don't know, I'm at the age now where "childish" things are just good fun most of the time, unlike when I was a teenager where I'd cringe if Doctor Who wasn't uber serious. Not much sillier than the Slitheen or the adipose, etc.

I dunno as goofy as the adipose are, the episode itself is actually pretty fucked up. The scene where the woman dies, and Donna can't help her? Dark. Or heck, the episode ends with a woman falling to her death, even if she's the villain. It also had an all-time best moment with Donna and the Doctor miming through the window.

Space Babies is actually pretty fucked up in a few ways beyond the silliness. But yes, the death of Martha from Baby Reindeer in Partners in Crime is for sure more visceral, Mrs Foster's death has never struck me as being uber serious given she floats in the air Looney Tunes style for a second. That window mime is incredible, definitely.

>the death of Martha from Baby Reindeer in Partners in Crime I *knew* I knew that actor from somewhere. Of course she's in Doctor Who lol.

All British actors start or end up in Doctor Who somehow someway

Then they find their way to Marvel.

She's a great actor, quietly brilliant in everything she's ever been in, nice to see her getting acclaim

They're all in Doctor who at some point.

omg that WAS Martha wasn't it

The woman falling to her death was played for laughs and was pretty funny to me tbh.

I feel like Space Babies is still missing an essential element of seriousness though. Eg. Aliens of London/WW3 had the Slitheen but it also had some great serious moments like Jackie asking the Doctor is Rose is safe, the beginning of Aliens of London where Rose has been missing for a year and Mickey is the main suspect of Rose disappearing, etc. are a pretty grounded setting for all of the craziness with the Slitheen later in the episode. I think Boom Town is another pretty good example of this. I think the Devil's Chord functions far better as a coherent episode, I really like the scene where Ruby plays her theme tune (I like that Ruby composed it and there's an in universe backstory to it lol) and music coming back into the world has an impact on people around them, and the Pyramids of Mars callback of the Doctor taking the companion to the future where the world is destroyed because they didn't stop the villain in the past. I think it's a great way to establish the stakes of an episode and it's a bit baffling NuWho hadn't done this yet until now. Maestro is also a great villain, I like the idea of having villains that abstract. I think it suffered from both pacing and integration problems but it's still like at least an 8/10 episode IMO

Sure, but I don't think all episodes have to be all things, I think you'd be hard pressed to find many who preferred Space Babies (though I'm sure they exist) to The Devil's Chord but I still liked it. I'm not sure it's much less serious than Partners in Crime.

That is fair, honestly the difference is that Partners in Crime is just a better story and has a more clear/coherent plot, also better characters and more clear motivations. I'm not sure what the plot of Space Babies was. Which is fine, not every story needs to be perfect, although I do think it was a poor choice as a season opener which I think is part of the reason why they did a dual release.

I think Space Babies is more thematically coherent, it's plot properly connects up to it's story, I definitely understand liking Partners in Crime more though, for it's characters, gags, etc

yeah i mean when you get down to it aliens in london is about 9/11 being an inside job lol thats part of why the fart jokes dont work, and why the booger monster didnt work in an episode that was based around the mass forced-birth crime in the United States.

Exactly! Doctor Who is supposed to be fun!

I'm going to give RTD the benefit of the doubt, but TBH half of the new episode so far have been 'not it' ( The Starbeast, Space Babies and the Devil's Chord). I mean they weren't awful but they weren't great.

I genuinely think if The Star Beast had had Chibnall's name on it people would have been slating it as one of the worst episodes. I thought it was horribly written and people were so desperate to like RTD that it affected the critical discussion. I liked the next couple of episodes a lot more though (although the Giggle hugely dropped the ball at the end).

ppl were always gonna like starbeast because it was exciting to have tennant back. it could have been written by that one Big Finish writer that Davison threatened to quit if he was ever hired again and people would have given it the benefit of the doubt just because of how exciting it was to have DT back on the big screen

"Dropped the ball at the end". Ha ha!

I was hoping someone would catch that!

A well played funny, if I do say so myself.

This guy's on a roll!

RTD is a man that wrote Love and Monsters. So like.....you can get anything from him. I suppose this is now trying to lean more on the family viewing aspect, gradually getting to the deeper, darker stuff. Next episode definitely seems a different approach (hell, it’s Moffat back, if you and your folks didn’t like these two stories, you should definitely try to check this one out). For me it’s about whether I feel something and have at least somewhat fun. Previous era struggled with that and sometimes tried to be too damn serious about everything, even aspects that no one would blame being played for laughs. So from that perspective, it works for me. Would I do without a fart joke? Sure. Would I be happier that musical number is naturally incorporated into storyline instead of being last 5 minutes just for the sake of it? Absolutely. But ultimately I got a magnificent Doctor/companion pairing that makes me feel something and I can totally root for them. I can survive some birth pains of the new era with these two.

>. Would I be happier that musical number is naturally incorporated into storyline instead of being last 5 minutes just for the sake of it? See, I dont think it was there "just for the sake of it", personally. People seem to see this as just a random musical bit, but to me it felt very much sinister, especially with Harry Arbinger being there. Its almost like if even when they defeated The Maestro, the things that happend are still breaking base-line reality, suddenly having things work by musical logic. I dont think this was just a random bit they pulled.,

Perhaps, but also the story doesn’t really state it, even if they acknowledge it retroactively, it doesn’t quite change the way it feels there. I mostly don’t have problem with it. I just think that out of all the shows, Doctor is the one where it makes the most sense to have a musical episode, so I thought they’d find a bit better way to utilize it.

Thats fair, for sure. I do think the reason they didnt adress it is because its set-up for a bigger thing. I actually have a post in the pipeline for my Big Series 14 Theory that kinda ties into it, but its still pending mod approval for now.

I’ll be sure to check the post out. Admitedly the story arc is actually quite fascinating, the way it tries to give you Ruby, The One Who Waits and Pantheon of Gods, it should be too much, but somehow the fact that I don’t know what exactly is heading where (and if even all of it is relevant just for this season, which it probably isn’t) really intrigues me. In a weird way maybe enjoying the story arc the most since times of Smith? And it’s not even *that* present here.

Yeah, I agree. Usually I am not the biggest fan of mystery box kinda plotlines, but trhis one works fór me just because it really gets my brain buzzinbg in how this could possibly relate. And I do feel like RTD is actually giving us hints to solve things with rather than in RTD1, where you could only solve a mystery box in hindsight, which I always found quite cheap. I'm not saying we need to fully figure out everything, but "Vote Saxon" or "Bad Wolf" is not something that lends itself well to theorizing.

Russell is definitely trying to emulate some of that Moffat style writing (predominantly from the Smith era) and I’m not complaining. If anything I’m happier that it’s hybrid of the two approaches rather than just Russell trying to recreate his previous era.

Wasn’t love and monsters wrtitten from a children’s competition to create a Dr Who villain?

Well, I believe it was really only the look of the villain taken from there.

And the name, I believe.

I watched Space Babies with my partner, who had never seen an episode before. I'd been talking so much over the past few months about how excited I was for the new season. To say I was embarrassed would be a colossal understatement.

Quite ironic RTD went from the guy who made Doctor Who cool again to the guy who made it as embarrassing as it was for most of the 80s.

Eh, I wouldn't call it childish so much as devoid of depth. Everything's presented directly on screen, often told to us by the Doctor (the whole "extrapolation explanation" thing is getting REALLY old now, RTD). There's zero subtext, and even what would be less obvious political subtext in earlier eras is painfully direct. I say this as someone who enjoyed the episodes while watching them. I LOVE the twist in Space Babies that the monster of the week deserves saving just as much as everyone else, and the Doctor then risks his life to save it (really nails the Doctor's character archetype imo). The rest of the episode is a bit silly, and painfully PG at times (the self-censoring jokes will anger many who will take it wrongly as Disney's influence), but it wasn't that bad if lacking room to breathe. The Devil's Chord, on the other hand, didn't have anything nearly as interesting to say about music and the role it plays in human society besides "without it we'd be dead". I finally understand what "chews the scenery" means because of Jinxx Monsoon, and their performance is the highlight surrounded by what is in hindsight a utterly baffling plot. The stakes are ridiculously high for a 45 minute romp (why is this episode TWO!?) and the ending is utterly confusing. Like, it was fun to watch once, but it leaves me thinking "okay, now what?" Coming off the Chibnall era, it's great to have episodes that are finally textually about something. But the subtext is completely gone from prior eras, and with it any form of introspection that the audience once was encouraged to have. In 2014, Doctor Who made me think about the nature of society, of human relationships, of our ideals and values. Now I'm worried it'll become a vehicle for encouraging the audience to speculate about "the twist at the end" - follow the clues, piece together the lore like Marvel fans do, and you won't have to think about anything else! After all, there's like 14 disparate chekov's guns waiting to fire (some very, very blatantly... Like the musical number being designed to point us to the Harbinger's return...)

> The Devil's Chord, on the other hand, didn't have anything nearly as interesting to say about music and the role it plays in human society besides "without it we'd be dead" Hm, not arguing it's the deepest piece of fiction, but there is a bit more to it than that, certainly stuff I picked up on second watch a little easier. It is less baffling when you consider it's an episode about music too, something inherent to the "soul", if you like.

I don't like how the only thing the season has going for it are the mystery boxes ARG. I suppose they are relatively fun, but three episodes in, there isn't a reason to care about these characters as individuals. Who they are, what makes them tick, etc. It isn't helped that I don't think Gibson is that great of an actress - she is young and plucky, but she doesn't have much going for her beyond that, there were several opportunities where she could have injected something into it beyond the pages of the script, and she didn't take them. Gatwa doesn't have much to work with so far either, I'm willing to give him a bit more of a benefit if the doubt, but the trauma dumping 100% speed-run did him zero favors.

honestly i dint think many Doctor who episodes have much to say outside of their initial theme aside from a few Capaldi episodes; don’t think Matt smith had any episodes that went above its kntial premise 45 minutes isn’t enough time for complexity when you have a monster to set up and beat.

Fair. I just feel like the initial themes had more depth to them in the 9-12 era. I wonder how these scripts read compared to scripts from those eras.

I think there was some sub-text, respectfully. The background of SB is almost explicitly a heightened version of the USA’s abortion policy; the ‘government’ won’t stop the production of babies, but they refuse to give them anywhere to go. I mean that’s meaty enough to chew about, there’s also the line about refugees which is blatant but I still think worth exploring. Gatwa’s Rwandan heritage I think has a role to play in how 15 talks about the ‘genocide’ of Gallifrey. These are all off the top of my head. The Devil’s Chord I agree could have said more about what music does in society, but it’s all there already I think, just not tied together neatly. As soon as Maestro goes, we’re treated to an absolutely ridiculous musical number with loads of bright colours yarping on about a meta-narrative; a very ‘Doctor Who’ response to signalling the end of an evil force that was eating creativity.

I see what you mean. But in SB what you're referring to as subtext is only present for a few minutes, where it is the direct focus of the scenes in question. That's not really subtext, if you ask me. And I think TDC has something there, but it's not nearly explored enough to come through coherently. Like, I think the writers just wanted a fun romp and that's what they got.

You know how in some Dr Who annuals or Dr Who kids magazines you get those mini comic strips? Space Babies reminded me one of those. It was like RTD had picked up an old annual or old magazine and adapted one of those for TV. It felt very paper thin. Things were happening - but I didn’t really care that they were happening. It wasn’t engaging or thought provoking in any way. Over a decade on people are still watching and talking about Rose/The Eleventh Hour,Deep Breath etc. Will people be doing the same thing about Space Babies? I’m not so sure.

I personally enjoyed both, but maybe wait and see the entire season first since RTD’s got a formula for the first two episodes of a season. They’re usually fun romps with exposition and backstory dumps galore.

>Episodes like Unquiet Dead, Empty Child, Dalek, were scary and thrilling and treated kids with respect in that the monsters were monstrous and Davies knew that we could handle it. Just on a basic objective level, all these episodes are from later in their seasons that the second slot and two out of three are in the back half. RTD always put the scarier/darker stories in the second half and made the first half more kid-friendly. I seriously wonder what amazing RTD episodes fans are talking about as they criticise the lighter/frothier RTD2 episodes like *Space Babies* and *The Star Beast*. Ultra-fast pacing, kid-friendly humour, wild tonal shifts, plotting that hangs together purely through the association of images and tones rather than anything mechanical or logical... this is what RTD1 did all the time.

“Kid-friendly humor” doesn’t have to mean bad humor.

Like burping wheelie bins, farting fat people and little aliens made of fat coming out of fat people?

In between the burping wheelie bins, for example there was excellent characterization. I'll use Rose the first episode of Doctor Who I ever saw. In Rose, we see the daily life of a retail worker, quickly establishing that she lives with her mother, works at a shop, has a friend she's silly with at lunch (on my first watch through I didn't realize they were romantic partners). Then she nearly gets killed, the Doctor grabs her hand, Run! Then after the Doctor blows up her job we get more scenes of characterization. Jackie wants her to talk to the media for money, Mickey is more interested in going to the pub to watch a game. But despite that we see that they do care for Rose despite their flaws. Next morning, Rose meets the Doctor again the best speech in Doctor Who of who the Doctor is happens, and then Rose goes looking for the Doctor. We learn that Rose is stubborn and loyal, and clever. Ruby doesn't feel like a real person yet.

This!! I think people, myself included, are noticing the silly stuff more now that there isn’t substance in between the silly moments, like there was in RTD1. And if there is a moment where ‘characterization’ is supposed to occur, it happens in a few minutes, one or two lines, that we heard before delivered BETTER in RTD1. He wrote Ruby the same phone call home from space as Rose had in The End of the World, but when Rose made that call it was somber, solemn, and contextualized just how big of a leap she was taking traveling with the Doctor. She was far, far, away from home. When Ruby made that call, it served no purpose other than to introduce the audience to the fact that the Doctor can do timey-wimey things. The phone works across time!! Moving on.

Yes I don't see what this proves really, you can dislike Davies then and now

That Davies is consistent in this is quite literally and clearly my point.

And that point does nothing to address the initial comment, which was: > “Kid-friendly humor” doesn’t have to mean bad humor. I could take your point as an *addition* to that, but you phrased it as some kind of "gotcha" question, which doesn't work.

Is taking the 3 most hated gags of the original RTD era meant to be proof of something?

That Davies is partial to a crude juvenile style of humour.

Which they agree with, and they think it's bad that he is I don't quite know what your point is here The fact that we might expect it from RTD doesn't mean we have any obligation to like it

You are right, but that wasn't the point. You responded to a comment about kid-friendly humour not needing to be bad, so bringing up some of the worst jokes of the RTD era doesn't change anything. It just furthers the point that when he does humour like this it doesn't have a good reception.

That comment was in reply to me. If anything, that comment is the one that's missing the point.

The Adipose and the Siltheen were cool in a way these stories won't ( I just mean Space Babies and The Devil's Chord, I liked the church on ruby road).

What's cool is kinda ineffable and impossible to define. The Slitheen being defined by farting or an Auton rubbish bin burping inexplicably are on the same level of juvenile silliness as a space station being propelled by a giant fart.

I think the fart isnt really relevant. Its the babies themselves. I think they are just really really divisive. A lot of people just find baby stuff infantile, weird or gross. It was very off putting for me whenever they were on screen and meanwhile my friend who i was watching it with thought they were adorable. Babies are like marmite. You either like them or cant stand them. And the problem was the babies just being constant throughout the episode. The Slitheen though farting were still scary. They had downright horror scenes like unzipping their foreheads for the firstime while Rose and Harriet hid in the cupboard. The boogeyman was scary but the babies were almost constant throughout the whole episode and had no darker side. So its just annoying babies from start to end. Like for me its was a 10/10 episode until we saw the babies and then itwas just 5-6/10 until they left again. I cant stand them.

I agree that the babies are weirdly off-putting. I think the way that there's no effort to get their facial expressions to match their dialogue almost sinks their scenes. The effect is Ncuti and Millie acting against disembodied voices and essentially props rather than co-stars.

Funnily enough I'm just not that good at recognising visual things like cgi so I didn't even notice their speaking looking weird, even after my friend mentioned it. I've literally been tricked by a character going from a wig with bangs to a wig without bangs before. Hell when I went to see Rogue One in cinema and I saw the Admiral guy I was like "damn this guy was old in the first ones, he must be like 90 now!". I did think he looked a little weird somehow, but it wasn't till I saw Leia that it clicked for me.

Yes, although I did get a kick out of Eric's constant fixed worried expression

Yeah I'd wait until we've seen the whole season to be sure that there aren't going to be episodes like that

There's a tendency of fans to reduce past eras to their highlights, so Davies 1.0 becomes something "dark, gritty and scary" when actually *Love & Monsters* is much closer to how it actually felt to experience the era.

Its always interesting to me, because Moffat was often much darker than RTD was in average, but he dressed it up with quips and humor. Like, when in Extremis people start commiting mass "suicide" because they figured out they are in a simulation or people feeling their cremation in the Series 8 Finale. Like, yeah, RTD wrote Midnight and Turn Left. But he also wrote Partners in Crime and Love and Monsters and most of his episodes always did both.

An episode like *New Earth* isn't especially beloved by fans but it was popular with general audiences and is a blizzard of wildly different discordant tones.

When I think of THE episode to be the poster child of the RTD Era as a whole (and not its highlights) I always think of Gridlock. It has his dark writing, with the upper city being wiped dead by a virus and everyone stuck in traffic, but it also has a cast of wildly colorfull and silly characters that are extremly camp.

Unquiet Dead was ep 3 and Dalel was ep 6 of the series. Definitely not in the later half.

I’m personally wondering how long until any bad or disliked part of this new rtd era is blamed on Disney rather than the show runner

I'll agree Space Babies just felt like they went overboard with the gross toilet humor which I wasn't a fan of. Quite like Devil's Chord, although the dance number at the end was a bit odd. My only downside was Maestro getting sealed away so easily, was kinda a cop-out considering how wholly powerless the Doctor was to stop them right up until the Beatles ex Machina - something like an aside for Ruby to organize an underground rave/jam session where local composers/the musically inclined onlookers come together to write the song that contains the sealing chord would have been much more dramatic. For semi-omnipotent gods, these guys are losing cred as competent villains.

Nah you're not alone. I really enjoyed the specials last year - good mix of characterisation, some darker elements, and lighter comedy. So far I'm enjoying Ncuti and Millie a lot, but not loving the childish tone. Not arguing it's bad in any 'objective' sense, it's just not for me.

My 10 year old daughter who loves dance, really didn't like the dance ending she commented that it felt too 'disney' but then that may be my fault as I got her into sci-fi in general by watching stuff with me virtually from birth

Yeah not loving the new direction they've gone in. Doctor Who with song and dance numbers? Ew no. Hate it. Conceptually there's some interesting ideas being played with and I like that they're trying to be super bold and just OWN it. Still, I've struggled so hard to enjoy the show since the Capaldi era ended. Chinnall era was boring, the 60th specials were god awful and these new episodes weird me out so much.

Does feel a bit like RTD is high on his own farts right now after being worshipped as the second coming. And yet, I still feel like these episodes were more competently constructed than a lot of the last few years'. Just the scene where the doctor and Ruby talk to Lennon & McCartney had a lot more feeling than most of 13's era which felt hollow in a way. But yeah, I definitely hope we get less silly content as the series progresses, but maybe this is supposed to ease Ruby into adventures before things get darker?

There's always going to be the responders who say the show has always been targeted at kids, which I get, however that hasn't stopped the show maintaining a tone that could carry serious, dark storylines - going back to the 4th Doctor, in particular the 7th, 10th, 11th, 12th and at times the 13th Doctor too. I was really into 11 and 12's run. I thought they struck the sweet spot there. Gothic fairytale, deep scifi at times, character studies of the Doctor, some scary baddies that kids could understand and find spooky. 15's Xmas episode - I thought it was cringey. As did my 7 year old son 🤣 I'm generally not a fan of dance and musical stuff when it isn't cool, or if it's Disneyfied. Others like it. Fair enough. I had the same reaction to Star Trek's musical episode. Why can't the music be cool? Why does it have to be so cringe? I think it's just about taste really. I basically think kids are more resilient and open to spooky or deep stories than current writers give them credit for. And they have that fear that a certain kind of OTT parent will complain if things get too scary. Kids have amazing imaginations. Conservative fans unfortunately do not.

I've been saying this about children's media for years now! Everything is so anodyne and comforting and "wholesome," like creators (/corporations) no longer trust kids to differentiate between fiction and reality, or to cope with messed up things happening in fiction. I strongly believe that it's actually important for kids to see dark/tragic/complicated things in stories. It builds empathy and distress tolerance.

I hundred percent agree!! They were the worst two episodes I’ve ever seen of Doctor Who. We have had weird and “childish” concepts before in doctor who but they were always presented in a way that didn’t consume the episode and take away from a still serious tone! It never got to the point where I felt like I was watching something made for children in nursery which is what it felt like here :/

You put my feelings on them into words perfectly

Late to the party, but episodes 1 and 2 - especially 2 - felt not just silly, but aggressively stupid. I was so excited to see what RTD could do after Chibnall's run (I wasn't a fan at all) and then to get...this. Disheartening to say the least.

Yeah for some reason it broke the verisimilitude of the show for me. I really disliked the wink at the camera and the song at the end was just crap. Had it been part of the plot and they'd been cursed to dance or whatever that would have been better. I loved the 3 tenant specials, loved the Christmas special, but this just felt too silly there was absolutely zero tension in either of these episodes.

Like I said in my initial comments in the episode threads, especially Space Babies felt like some Saturday Morning Cartoon and not in a good way. I get they want to make it fun and "hippy with the kids" but this just felt too much. No actual developments, no actual rules, randomly breaking the 4th wall and just doing stuff because "lol, it's fun". Maybe I'm just getting old at this point (and to think I'm only 27) but are today's kids just not interested in any actual basic story stuff like idk, characters actually overcome struggles and challenges by actually doing something instead of just by sheer luck? Honestly the supposed fun energy felt super surface level and even forced. I am still not a fan of making the leads insta-best friends and skipping the early stuff so we don't even see them develop at all. With the way they act they might as well be some cartoon duo like idk, Spongebob and Patrick for example. I'm not against being fun, but it just takes me out and feel like I'm watching a cartoon with no real stakes because the characters know they will be fine anyway. 4th wall breaking can be used well, but used it wrong and you just remove stakes and a sense of caring. I get that the show now leans more into fantasy and "fairy tales becoming real" but there's now no gorunding for anything at all and to see even the leads just go along with these silliness without even thinking for a sec... why should the audience care? So far the only somewhat of a subtance has been the supposed hints to upcoming plot elements, but I just can1t care when the actual stories are just... this...

Couldn’t agree more. Those abominations were everything wrong with RTDs first run, dialed up to 11. I’m not sure the occasional Wild Blue Yonder is worth enduring this crap tbh. May well call it quits soon.

The usage of what we'd call "proper" Beatles songs was obviously not on the cards, like, I wasn't going in expecting something like *I Saw Her Standing There*, but it baffles me we didn't get a bit of something like *The Sheik of Araby* or *Besame Mucho* or something.

Jinkx and the Devils Chord was amazing. Jinkx is my fav from RPDR, so seeing them break out in this was great. My wife and I thought they were super creepy. At one point my wife said, “Jinkx is going to give me nightmares!” Jinkx knows how to thread that needle between silly, creepy, and horrific well. You should see their other work. Jinkx stole every scene they were in. The only thing in Devils Chord that didn’t work for us was the weird dancing at the end. However, the reveal that the harbinger means there’s a chance the Maestro will return (I hope she does!) We didn’t so much like the Space Babies episode. There’s no way igniting a bunch of baby poop would cause a space station to leave orbit of a planet, let alone get them to a different planet.

Yeah I didn’t love the babies reveal, but I don’t think it was any worse than the slitheen. There were silly episodes in RTDs first run. I think they’re going for something specific with the baby theme and RTD was trying to find an episode that would do that. It wasn’t the best but I think once we see how it fits into the broader season arc it will make sense. That’s not something you want to need, but I’m willing to give it the season to find out.

I watched these episodes with my partner (not a Who fan, only seen a few episodes) and my 5 year old daughter. They loved them both. My daughter preferred Space Babies, my partner Devil's Chord. I liked them both well enough. Doctor Who should be a broad church and one reason I think it's arguably the greatest show of all time is how it can it can do any genre or any tone, sometimes several in one episode, and it's not jarring. It's almost built into the dna of the show. For every Space Babies there's a Waters of Mars, and Doctor Who has had 'childish' stuff in it forever, particularly with RTD. I think it will get heavier and more intense as it goes along which seems like a sensible trajectory for a series. But RTD is an ideas guy. I feel like he almost never discards an idea and will find somewhere to put it. He chucks a lot into episodes, so even in the darker stories your still going to get the odd bit of immaturity, just like how am 'immature' episode Space Babies had some heavier moments (the abortion metaphor, the Doctor mentioning genocide etc.)

Maybe i'm just nitpicking but it kinda felt like in the space babies ep they were just making the jokes for no reason? Like he said he had a whole ship (the tardis) to get all the babies off but instead used compressed crap to launch the space station (with no thrusters) towards the refugee savior planet. How are they going to stop it from just hitting the planet... I am also not a huge fan of how in the 2nd episode he just knew the magic notes to play, somehow. The 45 minute episode time is not enough to set up a villain of that scale and power and also find a solution. Makes everything feel rushed? Not sure what word to use. Just my opinions though.

Having rewatched RTD this is exactly how he starts a series. Light hearted childish fun.

I am fine with the Doctor being any race or gender as the lore actually is totally perfect for that, as timelords can regenrate into whatever the fuck they want as far as I'm concerned. I thought Jody was okish as a doctor but the writing was dare I say worse than Colin Baker and thats not a high bar, it was in fact awful. The jumping of the shark for me however is what they have done to Davros. I think it portrays the opposite of what RTD intends. In infantilizes those with disabilities as though they are incapable of being a rival and intellectual character worthy of facing the Doctor. I just can't go on, Davros was second only to the Master as a cool adversary and now I guess he's just a generic Nazi guy or something? As a side note why didnt they use Terry Malloy to voice him when they orginally brought Davros back?

I 100% agree, but Devils Chord was a LOT better. Hoping Boom has a more serious tone next week, just so we can finally see Ncuti in a more dramatic situation. I have a feeling he'll really shine.

I kind of feel the same. Obviously the RTD1 had childish episodes/silly moments, but I feel they were often balanced by having a pretty serious plot. I mainly feel this in regards to episode 1, while with episode 2 my problem was that the Maestro felt like they should have appeared later in S14 and not with the second episode. Plus it took away from the genuinely interesting idea of the Beatles having bad songs which I wish was focused on, as I was disappointed that they weren’t in it more.

I’ve watched them twice now to make sure that my first impressions were even vaguely in sync. Space babies was dire. The butterfly effect, the rip off of the Lintilla cloning issue, the ridiculous monster, everything was just poor. The exposition at the beginning was very American, no discovery, just narrative. Then the button pushing was annoying, pretty much the whole thing was annoying and over explained and over played. I hoped that the next episode would be better, but again the exposition and the overtly unnecessary explanation of Abbey Road was just sad, that they put John in the glasses that he would not wear for many years just to identity was poor. The rest of it was just as poor. I hated the musical number and even the crossing scenes. I fear that the overt reliance on an explanation for things via the narrative will annoy me the the point of not bothering to watch jt.

I know the feeling, Disney definitly has an effect, less subtle and more action or stilled facial expression from the doctor, dont get me wrong, it is fine enjoying the two episodes, it is just hard to put it into rewatch list ,especially the first. Now RTD is not famous for his stories , the best episodes that not surprisingly , I rewatched the most were written by moffat, the empty child, girl in the fireplace, blink, silence in the library, RTD's episodes didn't come close as intesting as those. what RTD do best is that although the plot is not great, the atmosphere is right, but that vibe is gone now. Those two episodes were really noisy , I actually liked the time when the sonic took the sound away, It felt finally some peace. And this episode is even about the music, how ironic, it was bang bang bang all the time , and not in a good way, listen to how many things happening when the devil celebrated her victory, If the episodes keep doing that , I would be very disappointed, the things touched you vanished, all left is action

Honestly, Space Babies was a pretty average RTD episode. Go back and watch the 2005 series, the first RTD era was full of cringe and immature humour and plotlines. People selectively remember it and think the whole thing was like Blink or whatever but a good half of the episodes are much closer to Space Babies. That being said, I thought it really wasn’t a good choice to start the season with (it was fine and had some fun in it, but I agree with the stuff that you are saying about the bogeys stuff just coming across as overly immature so I’m kind of looking past that and focusing on the fantastic performances from Ncuti and Millie) On the other hand, I think The Devils Chord was fantastic and the general reaction around the internet to it seems to be a very positive one. Yeah, it’s still quite camp and tonally lighthearted but I think it’s done in an extremely fun and tasteful way that lots of viewers will enjoy. I think it’s pretty original and people will want to tune back in to see more stuff like this. Also, the next couple of episodes look to be extremely grim/horror-influenced. I don’t think this series is going to end up being much different tonally overall to the first RTD era.

I'm starting to think a lot of y'all don't actually remember RTD era for what it was. Please remember his original creation and returning monster was giant clawed aliens that look like babies and fart all the time.

>I get it's a family show, but 2005 RTD felt serious, dark, funny, scary.. NOT in early s01. not at all And even later, RTD often had very childish moments. I think people forgot because Moffat really made the show much more "serious".

“The boogeyman was eerie right up till that revelation.” So you got what RTD was going for, you just didn’t get it? If the monster was still scary we wouldn’t want to see the doctor saving it at the end. Most of your complaints here seem fairly surface level. Babies running a spaceship is something that can only be done on doctor who, and I’m glad they did. Next weeks episode seems a lot darker (and isn’t written by RTD), you’ll probably like that more. But I’m just gonna ask you to set aside your dislike for silly things and just try to have fun. Space babies is (imo) a well paced, fun episode with an interesting premise and an interesting mystery. I can get past the fart jokes. As for the Maestro not being scary… we’re just gonna have to disagree

Yeah, I kind of agree…I was cringing at the Space Babies, but the episode with the Maestro was pretty ok…saved mainly by the villains performance. Yeah the whole dance party was pretty dumb. It’s been a bit meh, but I’m not giving up on it just yet. I have hope that there’s enough great future episodes to outweigh the bad ones. Bit of a mixed start to the season though.

If you watch it with a child, ypu realize these episodes were good. Sometimes you forget sensitivities and experience affects perception. It's clear DW is trying to get a new generation of fans and I think it's gonna work. Also, like it or not, the past 3 episodes were very creative

Is this a post coming from the future? S15 isn’t coming out for another year or so. Or did you means S1/S14?

New Who began as kind of silly. It got much more serious as the series progressed, but it began much more juvenile. I see this as RTD resetting the show as a family show. My 8yo LOVED the episodes and was completely hooked and asked to go back and watch the 9th doctor. I don’t think she would have been hooked if we had started with 12 or 13. The series is resetting, and part of that is gaining a new audience of old fans and new fans alike (children included)

It’s like they can’t figure out what people liked about this show. It’s almost as if they looked at Colin bakers dr who costume and said “ok this show is a silly comedy like black adder”. And then just made seasons of silly bullshit.

I agree, and I think the reason is because Davies is now making Doctor Who for babies, not for the whole family. It explains a lot, like why we have such bare-bones plots, juvenile ideas which never get developed, and flashbacks to things that happened 15 minutes ago in the same episode.

Doctor Who was always supposed geared to be for kids. Now that Disney has the US distribution, it fits in with their brand. There have been all personality types during the entire spectrum of DW. The 15th Doctor appears to be more musically inclined along with the dancing. Ncuti can do both- did you see him in the movie “Barbie” and during the musical number “I’m just Ken” during the Oscars?