All New Who

{{River Song, Kate Stewart and Osgood in the latest BF }}

Ah yes, Osgood, the cosplaying fan insertion.

{{Also a well written fun character with a decent arc over her appearances, and hugely popular.hence why she keep popping back up. Good writers can do that. But yes this is why I have largely stopped posting anything of substance on here or anything which take so considerable amounts of my time like newspapers etc- the forums attitude is so miserably fucked these days and not in any meaningful ways, just cheap shit.}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Also a well written fun character with a decent arc over her appearances, and hugely popular.hence why she keep popping back up. Good writers can do that. But yes this is why I have largely stopped posting anything of substance on here or anything which take so considerable amounts of my time like newspapers etc- the forums attitude is so miserably fucked these days and not in any meaningful ways, just cheap shit.}}

eh? I am sure everyone really appreciates you posting newspapers, and appreciates the time you put into them. There are not many people around these days, maybe that's the problem? I am sure you don't really mean off-the-cuff comments are just being negative for the sake of pissing you off, because I really don't think that is the case.

{{ What got my crabbit in this instance Figg was I take time to post something, like say the lengthy pieces on the themes running through Moffat Who, none of which is a commentary on quality at any point, just on what those themes are and how they are expressed through the narratives and characters.

I basically get, if anything, as a response to such postings- Moffat is shit and not worth even discussing.

Which apart from anything else has no indication of if the person even bothered reading it first.

So I give up, figuring the couple of hours of research and writing each part takes is not worth the trouble of that level of response and feedback. So I leave the thread alone for a while and post nothing.

Then I decide eventually just to put up something neutral and BF related as I know some folk who pop by here quite like their BF and a new BF serial is always of interest to them as well as to myself.

But no its just a chance for folk to go back to the same crap again.
And as a result, when I am going to do something for the forum now, newspapers or a Who piece or whatever that I know will take me a bit of time, which I will have to find somewhere, it no longer feels like its worth the effort, not because of few responses but the tone of them more often than not and the lack of knowing if they have even been read (in middle of doing ep 3 of Hitchhikers, is it worth posting here? I have no idea, there have been no responses to part 2 so know way to know if there is any desire by anyone to read any more of it. I happen to be doing it for other reasons, but if it were just for folk here to read and leave their thoughts on would I bother keeping going with it? Probably not.}}

Well, with the Hitchhiker's pieces you have to remember you are writing 30 minute scripts which take nearly as long to read, not less comment on. Your dedication is amazing and hugely appreciated, even if we can't match your effort.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ What got my crabbit in this instance Figg was I take time to post something, like say the lengthy pieces on the themes running through Moffat Who, none of which is a commentary on quality at any point, just on what those themes are and how they are expressed through the narratives and characters.

I basically get, if anything, as a response to such postings- Moffat is shit and not worth even discussing.

Which apart from anything else has no indication of if the person even bothered reading it first.

So I give up, figuring the couple of hours of research and writing each part takes is not worth the trouble of that level of response and feedback. So I leave the thread alone for a while and post nothing.

Then I decide eventually just to put up something neutral and BF related as I know some folk who pop by here quite like their BF and a new BF serial is always of interest to them as well as to myself.

But no its just a chance for folk to go back to the same crap again.
And as a result, when I am going to do something for the forum now, newspapers or a Who piece or whatever that I know will take me a bit of time, which I will have to find somewhere, it no longer feels like its worth the effort, not because of few responses but the tone of them more often than not and the lack of knowing if they have even been read (in middle of doing ep 3 of Hitchhikers, is it worth posting here? I have no idea, there have been no responses to part 2 so know way to know if there is any desire by anyone to read any more of it. I happen to be doing it for other reasons, but if it were just for folk here to read and leave their thoughts on would I bother keeping going with it? Probably not.}}

well a lot of it is personal taste and having the time to respond to large pieces of work, its not meant as a personal slight. I know its frustrating when you have put a lot of passion and interest into something and then you get a flippant response or no response, its irritating and deflating. I get where you are coming from, it makes you feel shit. But its not something that can be controlled. To give an example of my own, I am passionate about ceramics and if I get a meh or a bemused response to something I wrote it kind of takes away the pleasure in writing, and I think "fuck it, why bother" But if I talk to fellow ceramics nerds they give me an enthusiastic response. I don't think many people here are as invested in Who as you are, apart from Malick maybe. Its not meant as a personal insult or anything. We all love your newspapers, and you get a good response when you post them, they are interesting to everyone, and are less a niche interest than Who.

{{{ If anyone is interested in watching all the River episodes, in her chronological order, what with BF launching the new River/UNIT stories, here is a list of how I think they should be seen.
This is not as straightforward as it might seem, first you have to work out what order things happen in for her, then there are occasions, like Impossible Astronaut or Wedding of River Song, where she appears twice at different points in her life.
But it can be done, you just have to watch only some parts of a few episodes rather than the whole episode.

Ive listed the episodes in the order I think they should go, and after that Ive summarised all the major events in order if you don't want to watch all the episodes but are curious as to how and where it all fits together.

1. A Good Man Goes to War
2. The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon (young Melody scenes)
3. Let's Kill Hitler
4. The Wedding of River Song (up until she shoots the Doctor and time is restored)
5. Pandorica Opens/Big Bang
6. The Time of Angels/ Flesh and Stone
7. The Wedding of River Song (final scene only with Amy)
8. The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon (older River scenes)
9. Angels Take Manhattan
10. Husbands of River Song
11. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
12. The Name of the Doctor.

1. Birth of Melody Pond to Amy Pond and Rory Williams on Demons Run in the 51st Century. Kidnapped by Kovarian who is part of a faction of the future Church, the Papal Mainframe, and who travels back in time with a plan to prevent a war with the Doctor which is ongoing on the planet Trenzalore in the 51st century, from ever starting.
Melody is taken by Kovarian to Earth in the year 1969 to be raised and conditioned then used to create a fixed point in time around the Doctor dying (by converting a still point in time into a fixed one that must happen by weaving history, myth and legend around the Doctor dying at a particular place and time on Lake Silencio in the year when the still point exists). Thus preventing the Doctor ever getting to Trenzalore in the future, or dragging Kovarians Church into an endless defence of the planet in order to prevent the return of the Time Lords through a Crack in the fabric of the universe and the Time War re-erupting.

2. Melody however escapes the orphanage on Earth where she had been raised and conditioned and makes her way to New York as a child where living on the streets she becomes chronically ill. Melody undergoes her first regeneration.

3. Melody is inserted, either by her programming or personal desire, into the young Amy and Rory's life and becomes their best friend. Once Amy's life intersects with the Doctor's Melody attempts to hijack the TARDIS and kill the Doctor as she is programmed to do.
Over the course of events Melody regenerates for the second time and becomes River Song. She falls for the Doctor breaking her conditioning when she finds out who River Song is and how important her future self is to the Doctor and her parents and how much the Doctor will sacrifice for them all, resulting in River giving up her remaining regenerations to save him.
The Doctor gives River her diary with instructions to keep a record of their encounters in order to keep the time lines straight and including a list of rules, among which is that any other version of him must never be allowed to read the diary.
After her recovery River goes to the Lunar University and enrols in Archaeology.

4. River is recaptured by Kovarian and having broken her programming the astronaut suit is programmed to do the killing of the Doctor for her. River breaks the fixed point by preventing the suit firing and time collapses as a result, only corrected when River lets events play out and apparently shoots the Doctor dead, fulfilling the fixed point in time.
The Doctor however marries River just prior to his seeming death in order to be close enough to her to let her know his secret and no-one else, that he has a way to survive that preserves the fixed point by making the stories and history recorded be believed to be true without actually being true. But in order for it to work he has to let everyone, including her parents, think he is really dead. And she will pay the consequences for his murder.
River promises to keep his secret and lets him restore time and meet his 'fate' at Lake Silencio.
River is sent to prison in the Stormcage in the 51st century for the crime of his murder but is regularly visited by the Doctor and they sneak out in the TARDIS for trips and adventures (see several minisodes).
By the time of her imprisonment River was already a Doctor of Archaeology and had amassed as much historical information about the Doctor as she could unearth, including the myths and legends saying she killed him or married him and that they spent a last night together at the Singing Towers of Darillium before her death.

5. River escapes prison and acquires a vortex manipulator to access Time Travel. She meets the Doctor in Roman Britain to prevent the Pandorica Opening, but realises too late its a trap for the Doctor.
Kovarian uses the opportunity whilst River is alone piloting the TARDIS to try a plan B to stop the Doctor, by destroying his ship and so the Doctors only means of every reaching Trenzalore. When triggered by her implanted command line 'silence will fall' River blows up the TARDIS, inadvertently causing every star in the universe to go supernova at every point in time destroying the universe, until its restored by the Doctor from the shrinking remains of the old one.
This explosion however creates permanent damage to the fabric of the universe, which appear as the Cracks in space/time. Thus in trying to prevent the Doctor reaching Trenzalore and the Time Lords returning, Kovarian causes the very Cracks in the universe though which the Time Lords will signal to the Doctor for their return on Trenzalore.

6. Still in prison for the crime of murdering the Doctor, River is up for parole on condition she helps the soldiers of the Papal Mainframe to track down and defeat a Weeping Angel by recruiting the Doctor to the cause.

7. River visits Amy shortly after Amy has witnessed the death of the Doctor at Lake Silencio and comforts her by  revealing the Doctors secret and telling her how he survived and that he is not dead after all.

8. River is visited in prison by Rory asking her to help them at Demon's Run, she refuses saying she can't, and only turns up after her younger self has been taken by Kovarian, so maintaining her own timeline.

9. Still in prison River receives a summons to America in the early 2000's. She escapes prison to join the Doctor and her parents and travels back to 1969, where she has to lie about what they are uncovering so as not to reveal her younger selves part in events and upset the time lines. Witnesses her younger self shooting the Doctor dead at Lake Silencio, she was brought here by the Doctor so she understands these events have to remain unbroken and play out as they are unchanged.

10. Having been released from prison and returned to her academic work River is now a Professor of Archaeology. She is following a group of Weeping Angels who have infiltrated 1940's New York when she is once more involved with the Doctor and her parents. Witnesses her parents being zapped back in time and trapped there, dying eventually of old age in 1950's New York. River travels on and off with the Doctor for some time (minisodes)

11. Believing the Doctor to have run out of regenerations in his cycle with the 11th, River is hired to find an archaeological treasure that was stolen by a tyrant and got embedded in his head, River marries the said tyrant with a plan to kill him and steal the diamond back, when she encounters the 12th Doctor, who she at first does not know is the Doctor. They eventually reach the Singing Pillars on Darillium by accident in a crashing ship and River knows from the legends that this may well be her last night with him, but the Doctor reveals to her that one night on Darillium is 24 Earth years long.

12. River is hired to investigate what has happened to the largest library in the universe. Her night on Darilium is running out but she has been sneaking off having adventures with earlier versions of the Doctor (see BF) and when she sends the 12th Doctor a message to join her at the library the message goes astray in the time lines and is received by Doctor number 10. Who does not know who she is yet.
She sacrifices her life to save the Doctors and restore the lives of the thousands trapped in the computer system of the library. Realising her Doctor, 12, must have known when she left that her time was running out on Darillium and she was coming here to die.
The 10th Doctor uploads her essence to the computer as a data ghost.

13. River's data ghost is summoned from the Library by a 'conference call' held by Madame Vastra, the data ghost River helps Clara and the 11th Doctor against the Great Intelligence before finally the Doctor and River have one final goodbye, and River's data ghost finally fades away forever.





If you want to be really completist as well as the tv episodes plus associated minisodes, River has also met the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Doctors now I believe in BF adventures, as well as Kate Stewart and UNIT (BF seem to be wisely just ignoring Chibnall's destruction of UNIT for the sake of a weak Brexit gag).
But exactly where they all fit into her timeline I am not 100% sure about, and they are ongoing adventures too so it will get more complicated yet.
But from what I can tell series 3 of the River BF is her earliest stuff in her timeline, and everything other than that is after the events of Husbands of River Song during her time with 12 on Darillium.
In most of the BF stuff she is either not physically present with the classic Doctor in same scenes, interacting by other means, or she is disguised or the time lines are out of synch, throw in 8's amnesia excuse too and you have the excuses for why the NuWHo Doctors dont recognise her and how River can still claim to have met most of his earlier incarnations, just not in the right order, requiring a spotters guide! And of course its entirely up to personal preference if BF is 'canon' or not, Who having no official canon as it doesn't make much sense in a show around someone who can change history and events and where several contradictory things can be held to be true, 'wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimey', even within the tv show.}}}

is new who on uk netflix? my GF has expressed interest in watching it through from the beginning (she's seen most of the Eccleston/Tennant episodes at least once, though not for years, but knows the general gist of the series and has seen the odd clip of the other doctors), I'd quite like to do the marathon myself, it's got to be ten years since I've seen some of the earlier episodes...

{{ Yeah it is, at least as far as series 9 or 10 anyway }}

ok, what about the xmas specials? i know the dvd/blu ray sets sometimes skips them (she has netlfix i dont)?

Kinda tempted to start her with Capaldi as she said she likes the look of him (and it is my favourite era of new who anyway), but his era is very heavy on classic who references and not sure Deep Breath is a good jumping on point...

{{I'd say if your starting later then series 5 is the best natural jumping on point. But stuff like the whole 50th period would be less meaningful without having seen 9 and 10.
There's some rough eps to get through in those early series though, burping bins, farting Slitheen, demented Master and the like.

Not sure about the xmas eps, I would need to check and not got Neflix myself the Better Half does and I'm not there at the moment. But I'll try to remember to check when I am. }}

{{ Three new 10 and Donna BF full cast audios. And this one sees the return of Wilf, with Bernard Cribbens reprising his role- which makes me very happy indeed. Thank Eru for Big Finish producing actual Who content instead of whatever that rubbish masquerading as Who was we got from Chibbers. }}

Wilf! And Donna! Awww...

I sometimes think that I should ask when there will be new episodes of Who. Then I remember it will be Chibbers and that I am sort of hoping he will be replaced first.

{{ I would highly recommend giving BF a go Amarie.
There are stories for every classic Doctor, 10th Doctor, spin off characters like Diary of River Song, or the War Doctor stuff with Hurt, or the Time War Master series with Derek Jacobi's Master, there's UNIT stories and stand-alone stuff like I,Davros.
Plenty to keep your Who fix going while we await a change of guard again.

classic

https://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/doctor-who

NuWho

https://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/doctor-who---the-new-series

spin-offs

https://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/the-worlds-of-doctor-who

you can listen to I,Davros ( a personal favourite no-Doctor story, being an origin story for Davros) for free on spotify- you need an account but you only need the free one.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/36yjpxWB6yA59FPCvLFsN0

give it a go and let us know what you think of your first BF }}

Oh, there's lots and lots of BF Who on Spotify. Might just give I, Davros a go.

Why did I think that Bernard Cribbins died?

{{ I have to admit to having a moment of 'wow he's still alive' when I saw Wilf was in this. But yeah, ole Cribbens is still going and still playing Wilf, at 90.   (incidentally in End of Time when Wilf is on a spaceship for the first time and sees Earth from orbit and points out Palestine and tells the story about how he fought there in WW2- that was actually Cribbens own story, he volunteered for the Parachute Regiment and was posted to Azib in Palestine and suggested it for the scene. }}



This scene is a good example of RTD at his strongest, and his Who at its strongest, its character based, beautifully written and performed, emotive and Gold's composing is perfectly pitched to support it ( some folk felt Golds stuff overpowered the scenes, but I always felt he had a good feel for when to go quiet and when to pay off the emotion).

But its also an example of my main issue with RTD era- its full of wonderful character scenes like this, but like this one they are often buried in a pretty poor plot. This is the same story that has skeletor "I'm HUNGRY!" Master zapping about the shop, it has the entire plot of the first half undone in the second episode with a literal wave of the hand and without a single consequence, it has the Doctor surviving falls that not only should have killed him, but which have in the past and from less height. The entire last third of the story is a very self-indulgent farewell to every main character from the RTD era. And worse it rewrites the Masters character motivation all the way back to the start, but in a way that does not sit well or fit with the Master as we had previously seen him throughout Classic.

I find this a lot when rewatching stuff from that era of Who- wonderful character moments and writing but - with a few notable exceptions - in mostly forgettable stories. }}

This is parallel universe levels of strange for me. Was it not posted here about how the actor who played Donna's grandfather died? Was that someone else?

{{ You thinking John Hurt? That or the Mandela Effect! }}

ahhh the golden age of Who.