I Mean, I Kind If Just Assumed That There Would Be??

The Master always bringing in diagetic music, (I Can't Decide, Hey Missy, Rasputin, etc) because they've always been a little miffed that THEY couldn't hear the non-diagetic theme music like the Doctor could.

Imagine your best friend swore up and down they could sometimes hear situationally relavent music. Yet you were stuck with a 4 beat pounding in your head or nothing.

Like sooooo unfair. Hand me the aux, I'm leveling the playing field

Does the whole 'bigeneration' thing as an introduction for Ncuti Gatwa make anyone else feel icky? Because I definitely feel like they did Gatwa dirty with a botched transition between regenerations because people are getting a liiiiiiittle too nostalgic with the whole RTD/Tennant thing.

Tennant is a brilliant actor, and I'm not trying to downplay everything he's done for the show, but by leaving Tennant alive, they robbed Gatwa of an introduction that shows respect to his iteration of his character, instead leaving him to be the Random New Person while The Real Doctor is yet to come into the completion of his arc.

It's just a disappointing diversion from giving Gatwa's Doctor the focus and development he deserves.

​sorry the doctor pinwheeling between ‘ace -> not ace -> ace again’ between regenerations will never not be funny to me.

So, you know how we all thought that that energy thing was definitely the Timeless Child for a sec?

What if it was?

Not in the way that it IS the Timeless Child, but what if what we were seeing it as, was what The Doctor was seeing it as, is The Timeless Child?

Supposedly, the energy had a shield on it that makes you see something you are hardwired to want to protect. What if The Doctor was seeing themself there, because they are subconsciously struggling with both their own grief at their past, and their constant battle to protect themself from the grief of the present? Isn’t the one thing The Doctor does best protecting themself, from aliens or heartbreak?

Idk. I’m just being sappy. Chibnall’s a shit writer, but I can find angst potential in anything, and I will make it into my own poetry.

dr. who is trying to open a door. alas; it will not open! but he hides the key and pretends it fits the lock and tells the keyhole very sternly that it matches the key and bam! the door flies open, whacking him in the face and breaking his nose. bloody academy party tricks

I find it funny how whenever I go into panic mode™, the automatic reaction of my friends is just to put doctor who images in front of me. Anyway, that's how I ended up staring at this for 2 hours in my English lesson today:

And did it actually work to distract me? Yes (I am very predictable)

I'm watching the edited version of the War Games (it's on BBC4 right now and my parents wanted to see it), so, have some thoughts.

I'm normally a bit iffy on colourisation but this is genuinely very well done. The titles are gorgeous.

Squishing it into 90 mins makes the opening very zippy. The pace feels a shade too quick if anything.

It also gets a bit weird when the cliffhanger is turned into continuous action.

This is despite the fact that they only cut about 10 mins of episode one.

They drink a lot of tea in the War Games but it comes across as even more when you cut out of the non-tea-drinking bits.

OK, there's some very fun editing around the redcoat and Buckingham remembering the mist coming down. (Dare I say possibly an improvement on the original?)

But then it goes back to feeling too zippy, but least because episode 3 is brutally cut. Very little of it left.

Gah, I'm trying to like this, because it's clearly been lovingly made and the colourisation is genuinely superb, but the grinding relentlessness of the War Games has been replaced by rattling through the plot at a frenzied pace and it's not really working for me.

Ooh, Murray Gold's Master theme has been added over the War Chief's appearance. Not sure how I feel about that, but it's certainly an interesting choice.

They've dealt with the cliffhanger issue at the end of episode 4 by taking it out entirely.

The little added CGI bits are not hugely successful - they look oddly plasticky. Which is a bit disappointing, because have I mentioned how good the colourisation is?

It's taken my dad until the episode six cliffhanger to note the place where the original cliffhanger was.

(My mum has given up because she doesn't like how much fighting there is. Not sure if the original edit would have been any better on that score.)

Episodes 6 and 7 are so thoroughly chopped up that it's tricky to trace the original storyline. It's neatly done but it's not really the War Games any more.

More of the Master's theme when the War Chief admits to knowing the Doctor.

My dad comments that this bit seems like it was inspired by the Prisoner (which he also watched when it first aired).

It feels a bit weird when it switches from Murray Gold to 1960s incidental music.

This really centres the War Chief et al over the rest of the storyline.

"Complete loyalty and devotion" - oh, Jamie. This loses a lot of character beats in favour of the Time Lord-centric storyline, but not all of them.

Oof, their last desperate attempt to escape is still just as grim and desperate in the edit. Like there's still part of me wondering if they might somehow get away this time.

There are new Who-style images of Gallifrey on the view screen.

"Is the next episode The Trial of a Time Lord?" asks my dad, who has seen all of Doctor Who, but mostly not very recently.

The middle bit of episode 10 is cut, which means that I can watch the ending without crying for once.

Lots of establishing shots of Gallifrey.

The too old/too young/too thin shows a series of New Who Doctors. Not entirely sure how I feel about that choice either.

And it ends with the Doctor regenerating in the TARDIS - again, New Who style - before the date ticks back and forth erratically between 1970 and 1980, a joke that will appeal to a small number of people that includes me, and finally the very opening scene of Spearhead from Space.

I think if you accept the premise that a 90-min version of the War Games could be done, it's about as good as it could be. A few of the choices make it pretty clear that this is primarily for a New Who audience - particularly that it becomes a very Time Lord-centric story - not really for existing fans of the War Games.

Still, I wasn't expecting to love the colourisation as much as I did, and it made me wish I could watch a colourised version of all 10 episodes.

I’m just going to leave this here

Doctor Who Theory: Tennant isn't the 14th Doctor. The change is a result of The Celestial Toymaker (NPH's character) messing with him. This is a reference to a scrapped storyline from the regeneration of the First Doctor, where originally the Toymaker was the one responsible for the change.

The real 14th Doctor is trapped inside the Doctor's mind (we can see him there in the promo).

Love that fifteen is a swearer let it out king you deserve to say shit every now and then. As a treat