Doctor Who - Spoilers!

[bcm77]

hehe Brendan.

What I mean is, Robert Holmes was never afraid of keeping things dark if necessary. A favorite phrase of his behind the scenes was said to be "how shall we scare the little buggers this week".

Compare that with RTD who seemed afraid to do anything remotely family unfriendly, no innocents ever got badly hurt or died without a reset in the last few minutes, he couldn't write long term companions out decisively and the only time he succeeded in sending kids ( & some adults ) running for the cover of the sofa was when Catherine Tate was hired

But enough on that era. It's done.

Bring on what should hopefully be the rebirth of the Daleks as a credible force.

 

[ProgMatinee]

my problem with the Cybermen is many of their episodes are the same theme. They convince (force) one egomaniac human to try to turn other humans into robots using brainwave technology.

What is the greater motive here? Do cybermen even need to turn humans to achieve the greater motive? And why do the cybermen always need a egomanical human to help achieve this? And what does brainwashing humans do for the cybermen?

 

[pixletwin]

Yup thats the formula and why Terrance Dicks despised them... Hence their absence during Pertwee's era.

 

[barbelith]

As far as the K-9 thing, isn't that only if they used the new designed version and that the use of the old version is still theirs cause it was a matter of owning the design?

The BBC owns the vintage K9 design. Baker & Martin own the character itself due to 1970s copyright rules. So basically both parties have to agree for the characters to be used (the same is true of the Daleks actually; the BBC owns the design and the Nation estate owns the characters).

The new K9 series changed the design so they wouldn't have to get permission from (or pay) the BBC. Baker decided he wanted the original K9 design in the first episode and so hashed out a deal whereby the BBC could use the character in several more episodes of SJA in exchange for the K9 series getting access to the vintage design for one episode.

In both cases (Daleks and K9) the mixed ownership creates a sort of mutually assured destruction scenario, where everyone by and large cooperates in order to maximize their ability to profit on the characters.

 

[William Shatners Toupee]

Yup thats the formula and why Terrance Dicks despised them... Hence their absence during Pertwee's era.

I'd say that's lazy writing if they are a popular enemy and as a writer/script editor you can't think of a way to make them better and fix them. I'd think of that as a fun challenge. There you have a chance to effect the course of a popular creation and maybe set them on a better/stronger path.

 

[William Shatners Toupee]

The BBC owns the vintage K9 design. Baker & Martin own the character itself due to 1970s copyright rules. So basically both parties have to agree for the characters to be used (the same is true of the Daleks actually; the BBC owns the design and the Nation estate owns the characters).

The new K9 series changed the design so they wouldn't have to get permission from (or pay) the BBC. Baker decided he wanted the original K9 design in the first episode and so hashed out a deal whereby the BBC could use the character in several more episodes of SJA in exchange for the K9 series getting access to the vintage design for one episode.

In both cases (Daleks and K9) the mixed ownership creates a sort of mutually assured destruction scenario, where everyone by and large cooperates in order to maximize their ability to profit on the characters.

Yup, I knew it was something like that, Thanks for clarifying!

 

[bcm77]

I think the same criticism for the formula of the Cybermen stories can apply just as easily to any other story where aliens use traitorous humans in some way.

There has to be a human traitor in alien invasion stories because the audience needs someone to relate to on both sides of the fence and another member of our own species, however corrupt will naturally always be easier to understand in terms of motivation than a Cyberman/Dalek/whatever.

 

[pixletwin]

Classic Doctor WHo formula...

Doctor lands in strange place.
Doctor meets strange person in weird clothes.
Strange person in weird clothes takes Doctor to meet other weird people in strange clothes.
Doctor discovers strange people in weird clothes are at war with other strange people in weird clothes.
Original strange people in weird clothes think Doctor is a spy for the other strange people in weird clothes.
Doctor convinces original people that he is not spy and helps them win war.
Strange people in weird clothes win with the Doctor's help.
Doctor leaves in TARDIS.

 

[ProgMatinee]

Hmm. Its definatelty a tried and true formula, but I don't think its a necessary one.

It is a bit lazy to make every episode have a corrupt insider. I thnk it would bring some fresh air to either the cybermen or the daleks to just have them be evil for the sake of being evil and not have to mitigate their evil by having a Judas character that we scapegoat instead of just focusing on the alien.

I wouldn't want to make every episode like that, I think there is plenty of room to do a lot of things, even making Cybermen or Daleks anti-heros or something on occassion, but the same formula time after time gets old.

 

[Memnoch]

I'd actually like to see a pure zombie story and I think the Cybermen can provide that. The Daleks can really be anything (within reason) and Im curious to see what they are exactly on Saturday.

 

[bcm77]

Classic Doctor WHo formula...

Doctor lands in strange place.
Doctor meets strange person in weird clothes.
Strange person in weird clothes takes Doctor to meet other weird people in strange clothes.
Doctor discovers strange people in weird clothes are at war with other strange people in weird clothes.
Original strange people in weird clothes think Doctor is a spy for the other strange people in weird clothes.
Doctor convinces original people that he is not spy and helps them win war.
Strange people in weird clothes win with the Doctor's help.
Doctor leaves in TARDIS.

You forgot,

The Doctor visits a planet that may or may not be a quarry.

 

[pixletwin]

Doh!.......

 

[Memnoch]

You forgot,

The Doctor visits a planet that may or may not be a quarry.

My vote is may.. I mean it usually is To us in the US that's all there is in Britain are quarries.

 

[ProgMatinee]

I'd actually like to see a pure zombie story and I think the Cybermen can provide that. The Daleks can really be anything (within reason) and Im curious to see what they are exactly on Saturday.

What do you mean "pure zombie story"?... to me zombies always roam around the town trying to create other zombies, which is what every cyberman episode is.

Oh yeah, I forgot this part of the cyberman formula, in the end the controlling egomaniacle human is always subjugated by the cybermen his/herself and thus we get the nicely packaged Aesop fable.

I could even live with a typical cyberman story if at the end we learn that the Daleks or even a Solaran was using the Cybermen as an army...just to be evil or just to progress a war or something.

I'm just tired of the human betrayer angle.

 

[bcm77]

My vote is may.. I mean it usually is To us in the US that's all there is in Britain are quarries.

We have quarries, chalk pits, gravel pits, bits of forest and large country houses disguised as top secret research establishments.

We can also do post apocalyptic settings as several cities look like they've been nuked already. Sheffield for example would make a perfect Skaro

 

[Blackhole]

If you want a formula for the few recent series, the whole series is made up of either:

Old Villain Episode
Man in Mask episode
CGI Villain episode

There have been only a few exceptions to this, and it's not necessarily a bad formula, just something I've noticed...

 

[bcm77]

I'm going to watch a couple of Dalek stories this next couple of days to get me in the mood for Saturday's episode.

The first 2 weeks have been encouraging in so many ways so I'm hoping it continues as the Daleks deserve better treatment than they've got in all but their first story during the previous regime.

 

[William Shatners Toupee]

Interesting points/gueses

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/04/14/the-great-doctor-who-conspiracy-of-the-fifth-season/

 

[barbelith]

Interesting points/gueses

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/04/14/the-great-doctor-who-conspiracy-of-the-fifth-season/

Haven't the fan conspiracies been wrong more often than not? Although we see the Doctor fly over the Millenium Dome before meeting young Amy, which already throws off the timeline.

 

[William Shatners Toupee]

This site is pretty good with info/guesses. Time will tell. The badge was an interesting point.