Best Capaldi series?

[Ludders II]

Too hard to choose, based on the fact that the meagre amount of episodes that I can even tolerate from his era. 
By process of elimination it definitely wouldn't be S9, which leaves only 2 stories in each remaining season that I can just about bear on a good day. (Into the Dalek, Mummy, Empress, and the Cyberman 2 parter)
Into the Dalek is a bit dull. It's like a derivative of Dalek with a bit of Invisible Enemy thrown in.
Mummy is the best one of the season.
Whilst Empress is basically Gatiss doing a Tarantino, it's reasonably watchable. And the Cyberman 2 parter has the best single episode of the era in many ways, for it's first half, but as usual with Moffat it fails dismally in part 2, and on top of all that we have to put up with bleedin' Missy.
So it's bloody hard, because the rest of the era isn't worth a shite as far as I'm concerned. On balance I actually think that the Jodie era is a touch better overall. Which is weird, because she's far worse as a version of the Doctor than Capaldi, but he's like the Colin Baker of NuWho. A great Doctor (at least, potentially) who was served up with a lot of crap.
So yeah, I can't choose because it's all tainted with shit. Even the good ones, albeit to a lesser degree.

[burrunjor]

Nov 21, 2024 23:46:45 GMT ClockworkOcean said:

Nov 21, 2024 23:15:09 GMT rushy said:

I maintain that if they just *made good television*, no one would really care about the Capaldi/Whittaker/Gatwa debacles.

That's probably true for a lot of people, but I can't see it ever not being an issue for me. Even if the unthinkable were to happen and the show managed to pull of an era that wasn't completely unwatchable in and of itself, I could never make peace with a conception of the overall story that included that crap. Never.

Sorry but Rushy is just being stubborn on this because of an irrational fear of multiverses (even though as we've been over you don't need a multiverse to split DW up into different continuities. The multiverse was really just throwing the makers of new who a bone to be honest. It was a way to connect alternate sequels and remakes whilst still allowing them to be separate, that's all it was, but we both got to hung up on it. Ultimately DW should have different sequels, remarks etc regardless of a multiverse or not.)

Rushy's point of view is demonstrably wrong on this, sorry I know that sounds arrogant, but it's true. He's basically saying none of the following things matter. 

Character development.
Story arcs.
Characterisation.
World building. 

Even if he doesn't think that's what he's saying, that is what he's saying LOL. "Oh who cares if last episode we had the entire earth blow up in the 20th century? As long as the next story is a good adventure in its own right, viewers won't care. Who cares if we killed Adric at the end of Earthshock? Let's have him back next series, because viewers don't care about continuity. Who cares if in this weeks episode the Doctor slapped his companion on the arse and went on about all the hot babes he's shagged throughout history and was revealed to be an octopus alien who assumed a human form? Next week we'll have him go back to being asexual and a Time Lord and nobody will care if that individual story is good enough." 

EVERYTHING unless it is a surrealist comedy like The Goodies and The Mighty Boosh and The Young Ones, or a crazy one off story, needs a baseline continuity and characterisation for the hero. Sure mistakes and blips will pop up now and again, but the continuity needs to be there.

Anyone who says Classic Who never had that is either being deliberately obtuse or hasn't watched it properly. From Ian and Barbara wanting to get home, to the first Doctors development into a hero, to the Cybermen's home planet being destroyed, to the Doctor meeting Travers and the Brig across multiple stories, to the Great Intelligence's arc, to the Doctor being exiled,  to Mike Yates betrayal, to the key to time, to the Master hunting for new lives, to Davros' story arc, to Adric's death, to Ace's story, Classic Who very clearly had a continuity, a consistent lore and background, a key characterisation of the Doctor and actions mattered, there were consequences for larger actions, things mattered etc. 

People seem to think unless it's all one story like say Angel season 4, that means there is no continuity, but that's bullshit. Continuity can exist in ways you don't even know, like this is how the Doctor gets out of this situation, rather than use his eye beams, because continuity has shown that he doesn't have magic eye beam powers as he would have used them before now. It's a basic rule of writing. 

Also as for mainstream viewers not caring about continuity? Bullshit. Mainstream viewers need it to get invested in a story too. Again that doesn't mean mainstream viewers need to have hundreds of references, but they need to get to know a character and care about what happens next. Press the reset button too many times and they will leave, which is EXACTLY what happened to New Who along with its PC bullshit. 

Classic Who again contrary to popular belief didn't reboot itself completely with every change of Doctor. That only happened once from Troughton to Pertwee and even then, the Pertwee era was more of a sequel to the Troughton era following on from its last story. Every other instance had companions crossing over and kept up other traditions from the previous Doctors era to make the change gradual. That and the Doctors core characterisation remaining are what allowed viewers to endure from one Doctor to the other. New Who however has lost viewers every single time a Doctor changes (apart from Eccelston to Tennant) because they think they have to reboot the whole thing. 

We need to drop this insane continuity doesn't matter to anyone but the anoraks attitude once and for all. 

[burrunjor]

Nov 21, 2024 23:44:27 GMT Cherry Pepsi Maxil said:

But we've had over six years to undo whatever damage was done back then. People won't believe me, but Chibnall was steering the show in the right direction with Series 13 and its specials. They're not as "woke" as you'd expect and apart from the Timeless Child talk there's absolutely no lore destroying elements on display. Russell came in and buggered everything up by casting the absolute worst actor ever to play the character. Season 1 offered several good episodes but I can't help but feel that Doctor Who is past the point of repair.

We haven't fixed what the Capaldi era did wrong in the 7 years since it finished because the show has been run by people from the same clique, with the same ideas and is conforming to the same neo liberal pc agenda. 

And it's been an absolute disaster since LOL. Every single series apart from Jodie's first due to the novelty has got record low viewing figures and there have been multiple gaps. If DW wasn't made by people in with the bricks and wasn't used to promote again a shallow neo liberal agenda. DW would have been axed with the viewers its had since Capaldi's second series.

You don't get Jodie and Ncuti after the Williams era, or the McCoy era, or the Pertwee era, or hell even the Tennant and Smith era. You get them after the Capaldi era that has driven away as many classic era fans as it possibly can with Missy, Cyber Brig and President Doctor, that made it trendy to smash up the past from sexual braggard Hartnell, to the Hybrid (a precursor to the Timeless children) to Missy, that has made the show one sided politically and desperate to talk about the current thing, like Trump, that has made the Doctor into an avatar for SJW activists punching racists and going on about hating Trump and being non binary and hating the fact he has testicles etc. 

All of this made Doctor Who fandom into an SJW only club. (Let's not forget that era's production team also promoted people like Whovian Feminism and started rewriting biographies and articles on websites to say Roger Delgado wanted to f*ck Jon Pertwee to make theirs fit.) 

Sorry but no era of any show as toxic as the Capaldi era. Jodie was just the cremation and Ncuti scattering the ashes. Capaldi was the death. 

Of course don't think that you can't praise it here LOL I don't want to be a thought police, but honestly that era just makes me bitter more than any other. I have quite a unique hatred for the Capaldi era.