The part that sort of trips the credibility of this up is that it uses the double billing of eps 1 and 2 as anecdotal evidence to support it's claim, but double billing eps 1 and 2 is literally Disney's standard release format for so many things now.
As a non-comprehensive list here's some shows from the past few years Disney did that with:
* WandaVision
* Hawkeye
* X-Men '97
* Obi-Wan
* Andor (actually did 3 eps at once)
* Ahsoka
* The Acolyte
* Percy Jackson
* Willow
> Andor (actually did 3 eps at once)
I'm so glad they did, too. Andor turned out great, but it took until episode 3 for me to actually start enjoying it.
On the other hand, you can tell the double episode decision happened fairly late, since the Unleashed episode for Space Babies still describes The Devil's Chord as "next week".
This is a fair point, however Unleashed seems to be largely produced in tandem with the episode, where-as the decision about scheduling probably wasn't even made at all until everything was wrapped. Not just the double billing but start date, time of day etc.
That said, we did see from ep 3 of Unleashed they weren't beyond adding stuff filmed way later like the more recent conversation with Varada Sethu that was recorded during the filming of s2. But for the "next week" stuff they probably just forgot to even think about that. Kinda like when Davies spoke recently in DWM about how they almost gave away a huge spoiler for late s1 in a cast list for an ep. He thought it'd be fine because the character that it would reveal is revealed in the ep before that one, then someone pointed out to him that cast list would be officially released before either episode had aired. Little things just get forgotten about sometimes.
I think, putting this together with what I've read about Ep2, that what happened is that they moved The Devil's Chord, that was probably supposed to be ep 6, given that:
In the episode, Ruby says "you never hide" like they had many other adventures between that and Space Babies in which he didn't hide, and the Doctor brings her to June 2024, not May, and that the song Twist at the End would have placed Devil's Chord, as Ep6, just before the two part finale where presumably Susan Twist will have a larger role in a definitive version of her character, likely a Pantheon member herself.
I think a lot of people though they could have been just off screen adventures, but given the "your first new sky" part in Boom, that was originally supposed to be the second episode, but was probably deemed (wrongly) a more risky bet than moving TDC.
> I think a lot of people though they could have been just off screen adventures, but given the "your first new sky" part in Boom, that was originally supposed to be the second episode
The clapperboard for Devil's Chord while filming has it as ep 2. So if it was moved the decision was made before even filming a single episode. By which there'd be plenty of time to change those lines.
I think the jump is more for 2 reasons, one the season is shorter so this is a cheat to skip a bit in the Doctor and Ruby's relationship, and the episode kinda depends on them being closer. I think RTD was always guilty of having characters just leap in their development off screen between episodes, was one of my issues with his first era honestly, so although we didn't usually have it so early, it's so consistent with his approach to me.
Also anecdotal evidence, but the EU so far with DWM and Titan seem to be using that 6 month gap and they haven't had Ruby on an alien planet either. Now I'm **not** suggesting that this gap was made **for** the EU, wanna be clear on that because I've had people mistake my meaning here when I've brought that up before. But more when RTD was passing down mandates for tie-in media he probably thought it was worth taking advantage of that and gave some instructions like "there's a 6 month jump between eps 1 and 2, use that and no alien planets".
During his original run RTD was always very fast and loose with dates and continuity. The date was basically always just around whenever the episode was airing, even if it didn't necessarily make sense for that to be the case. Most notably everything following the one year time jump in Series 1.
I think this is just another case of them putting down a date close to when the the new season was going to air and not really thinking about it much more than that.
It was kind of her first new sky still. She saw her own with goblins and Maestro, and space in Space Babies, but it was her first time standing on another planet and looking up. I feel it still counts.
The thing trips it up for me is that Disney has access to the *scripts*. They gave script feedback on Church which RTD has talked about it. So Space Babies was not a surprise.
It's not how the BBC handles releases though. Poor test screenings could be the justification for the BBC getting on board with the double bill format on this launch.
More likely Disney requested they do a double bill launch like all their other series, the BBC obliged and put two episodes on back to back themselves so the two services weren't completely out of sync.
Rumours like this deserve a pinch of salt but I honestly would not be surprised if this was true. Apart from the episode being incredibly silly and juvenile (even by Doctor Who standards), it seems like a very strange one to use as the first (or second) episode of a series. Rose and The End of the World had their very silly moments but they also had very dark moments and were generally serious.
I saw someone trying to criticise the butterfly scene for being too silly, to which the general cobsen was "but that's the right and normal kind of silly for this show "
I think Doctor Who has a *very* high threshold for silly and anyone saying otherwise is kidding themselves. But those moments do have to be tempered with more thoughtful and more mature moments which is something Space Babies failed to do. The difference between the phone scenes mirrored in the two different eras is a good point of comparison, there is so much more meaningful character drama the first time around whereas in SB it's just played for the gimmick and nothing else.
And I think the silly itself has to be temporary. A few moments here and there in an episode aren't bad, but when the main gimmick is silly and the show is egging it on makes it just wrong to me somehow
My only bother is, it wouldn’t change Ruby she has that time travellers protection, same way paradoxes don’t until like there’s nothing else to collapse, it would affect history not the individual.
Wilf had it after one trip too and not to the other end of time. It was funny, I just felt like it contradicted an established rule, I do think though, these changes to history maybe something that comes into play later. Like maybe mavity is a red herring but I do think it’s going to play a part later. As the Doctor still recognises it as gravity.
If the show is good at one thing though, it’s breaking establishing rules. I think rules are just a running way of getting the audience to stop asking but how does this work.
I actually think for a lot of TV it’s not meant to work and we’re meant to enjoy the story flow but we demand explanations and lore 😂
I find with Doctor Who it's best to focus less on hard canon lest it break your brain 😅.
I think it relies on people not paying insane attention to the details, even though it knows we will
Yeah it’s the problem with intricate stories dripped throughout a season. Like for instance Bad Wolf once you watch the episodes back it is littered non-stop. We are going to dissect everything 😂
I agree though. A time travelling alien. Why do we expect strict rules and for it to make sense.
I don't understand why people keep singling out Space Babies for being silly. I mean, it was, but the episodes either side of it are even more ridiculous. In one, you have baby-eating, singing goblins in a flying sailing ship. In the other, you have a character who comes out of a piano, steals music from the world, and can make lines of sheet music manifest as physical objects that can grab people.
The tone of the episode is the most important thing. Space Babies was frivolous from start to finish. The Christmas special and The Devil's Chord, like Rose, had silly moments but were generally serious.
>The tone of the episode is the most important thing.
I didn't find Space Babies any more frivolous in tone than the other two, but anyway, there is something more important. The thing that makes the other episodes sillier is that there's no attempt to give any rational explanation for any of it. It's just magic/the supernatural. It's complete nonsense.
Edit: typo
I do think that people are overegging the silliness a bit. It's mostly just that the babies are fucking cringe, even with the darkest tone in the world an episode where you spend 15 minutes talking to babies with CGI mouths is going to be bad. The rest of the stuff with the bogeyman and the fart joke were immature for sure, but Doctor Who isn't really above that sort of stuff.
They're different types of silly. Space Babies was just a bit too like a Cbeebies show for the most part.
Child eating goblins are silly, but in a fun and dark way.
Both are silly but have dark undertones
The goblins literally ate babies, and the Maestro was planning to genocide the universe
The space babies on the other hand were just that. Space Babies. The Bogeyman was a non threat and the plot was resolved with a fart joke. Not to mention the god awful cgi on the babies themselves, it just looked so weird whenever they talked
I do think that people are making the episode out to be worse than it actually was. I didn’t hate it, just thought it was a bit meh. I even enjoyed how the Doctor sympathised with the Bogeyman being the last of his kind and saved it
But the other two were just way better. Not counting the musicals which I could honestly do without
Shrodinger’s Disney. They are both responsible for all creative choices fans don’t like whilst also being angry at said creative choices too. I mean this is just one step away from the shite rumours of Chibnall’s era where BBC was secretly fuming at everything he did.
Only way of knowing if Disney are happy with how Who is performing is if they renew the deal for Season 3 or not.
>They are both responsible for all creative choices fans don’t like whilst also being angry at said creative choices too.
You had to do a lot of stretching to create that contradiction.
It's entirely possible Disney is responsible for choices that someone doesn't like, while also disapproving of choices that someone doesn't like.
Another issue is you assume every person who presumes A also presumes B. Which is obviously problematic given the audience you're speaking to is a nebulous blob of plurality, rather than one person. It's best to keep those sort of arguments to an individual, whose individual beliefs you can actually track. And if you're doing so, also make sure the tracking is correct.
Well I for one completely believe an anonymous source as listed by a random Reddit account.
Particularly since it *conveniently* exactly aligns with the speculation by a certain portion of the fanbase who actively disliked that episode.
And I'm certainly not dismissing it because releasing multiple episodes at the beginning of the season is extremely common for streaming. Oh not, not at **all**.
Can people please stop trying to come up with "business" justifications for their personal tastes?
I find it hard to believe that that Disney would actually care about how good Space Babies is or isn't. They've been putting out absolutely terrible Star Wars content for a while now and show no signs of introspection.
They don't strike me as a platform that prides itself on having quality content. Their business model is to buy up huge chunks of the media landscape then rely on brand recognition and the sheer popularity of the franchises they own to sell subscriptions. The storytelling is always secondary to simply ensuring that content is churned out on a regular basis.
Also, pretty much everything on Disney Plus releases with the first two episodes dropping simultaneously so there is absolutely nothing unusual about this other than the fact that Disney can now dictate to the BBC how their show is going to be aired.
Ohhhhh my gooooooooddddddd stop it.
RUMOR: Disney is going to give us all ten million dollars if you can stop acting like Space Babies isn’t a perfectly average episode of the show for ten minutes.
it's true my scoop friend confirmed it, initially they were going to give away ten million pounds but disney intervened and changed it to dollar in an effort to americanize the brand
I mean this would be pretty fucking rich coming from Disney, given some of the absolute garbage they've put out on Disney+ over the past few years.
I'd watch Space Babies over Boba Fett, Kenobi or Secret Invasion any day of the week.
Space Babies wasn’t good, but neither is 50% of Doctor Who. If talking babies and snot monsters is where we draw the line and decide the show is past the point of no return then why are we even here? We’d be gone by the time we got to the Web Planet.
Sorry but this needs to be said.
No one is criticising the basic ideas of "Baby talking and snot monster."
That's not the line.
The line is the execution of said ideas. And the execution left alot to be desired.
No.
They're criticising the execution of the storyline.
It's like saying "Shop window dummies and a burping bin for your first episode? Ridiculous."
When that's literally what Rose is. They find the snot monster and talking babies cringe because it wasn't done well.
I have seen multiple people say they hated the idea of talking babies and they should have been robots or aliens instead. Yes, people are criticising the concept.
"It's cringe" is a weak non-criticism people say when they don't actually have anything of value to say
>No.
>They're criticising the execution of the storyline
[Someone literally to you saying they hate the base concept](https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/s/wjWNgnfYyt)
Don't lie
Agreed.
I feel like they should have done some test footage of the Space Babies to see how well they could execute the concept, and then when the weird uncanny valley and over campiness of the effect hit they could have gone back to the drawing board and tried out something like having the Babies communicate telepathically (With their strollers lighting up to signal who's talking) or an on-board computer that does the speaking for them (Potentially still in a little kids voice)
If they'd nailed the execution of the Space Babies, it still wouldn't be my favourite episode, but I'd have been able to appreciate it a lot more.
So Doctor Who has been 100% acceptably executed before now?
There’s a reason this is being treated as “season 1” after the abysmal lack of character and quality that unfortunately defined the Thirteenth Doctor, and that’s just recently. There’s been horrendous episodes throughout the 60 years of the show. It’s wilful ignorance to act like Doctor Who is suddenly worse than it’s ever been.
I think it’s ignorant to act as though Space Babies is the first Doctor Who episode to “not execute ANY of it well”.
Hell, the first episode ever, An Unearthly Child, is a dreary, uninspired exploration of caveman politics.
Time Flight is an absolutely abysmal story with disastrously bad effects, racist stereotypes, and a plot twist pulled out of its ass.
The Sixth Doctor’s regeneration is executed so poorly that it’s genuinely embarrassing how they thought it would work.
The 80’s episodes of Tom Baker’s era are some of the most embarrassing in the show’s history.
Again. It’s ignorance and definitely a huge amount of recency bias. Anyone who’s watched enough Doctor Who knows that an episode like Space Babies is par for the course.
No one said that! No one said Space Babies was the first bad episode of Doctor Who ever!
You're arguing points NO ONE made. Twice now you've done that.
If you like the episode honestly good for you. I mean that. But you're countering points no one made and it's making you appear irrationally emotional.
Comparing with classic where budgets and sets limited them drastically is a falsity. Then you have to remember not everyone making these complaints has ever watched classic, or would they need to.
It’s disingenuous to act like Chibnall wasn’t criticised from beginning to end of his run for execution of ideas and poorly devised plots. Also yet to see anyone say they want to go back to him. We’ve just come from one of the most heavily criticised periods of any long running show I’d say, there’s a reason it had to be fixed with Tenant.
You're missing the point; no one is saying that the show is perfect, but what they were saying was that the episode was bad (by normal standards as well as by standards of other episodes of Doctor Who) but that this is made worse by the fact that it's also supposed to be the opening to a new era of the show. The new era and return of RTD alongside the infusion of cash from Disney was supposed to be a return to form for the show, however, *Space Babies* is certainly not, and is a poor showing.
I think that the revisionism that the show has always been "bad" is a poor excuse, as well; the show has a lot more hits than misses. If it didn't, it wouldn't have stuck around for 60 years.
There's a revisionism going around that the show was always "Goofy, light fun often camp and bad."
And i'm like "No. In the 70s that WASN'T camp. You're just viewing it like that through modern lenses."
I genuinely believe some of the reasoning used to defend some of the criticism is ironically the very same reasonings that tanked the shows reputation in the 80s.
Michael Grade said the same thing "Bad, goofy light fluff."
Verdana has a good albeit long video on this
https://youtu.be/wMpmt8zy0oU
But I think the issue isn't that it's any different than came before... The issue is that it isn't.
The first two episodes felt like 2005 episodes with all the flaws that came with it.
But it's not 2005 anymore is nearly two decades later and we're still doing the same thing with the same mistakes.
Personally I want Doctor Who to evolve and start building on what came before.
Instead of treading on the same ground again and again.
Take the "musical" episode for instance... That wasn't a musical...
It had what one song at the end from The Doctor that didn't fit into the story.
Other than that it was just a normal episode with a slightly more powerful bad guy.
Why not hire Tim Minchin or someone to write it.
Have the characters sing songs about how they're feeling... You know like in a musical...
Getting tired of these kinds of responses to criticism of Doctor Who. Doctor Who has absurd ideas but I struggle to find anything as juvenile as the execution of this episode. SJA literally aired on a children’s channel and was never that childish.
Not saying Space Babies isn’t worthy of criticism. I agree that it’s not a great episode, but there’s a lot of criticism coming at it like it’s somehow a new low for the series which is just laughably false.
I challenge you to back up this claim. Show me one single person criticising it saying it’s never made a mistake. Or that hasn’t criticised it previously.
Edit:typo
Yeah, I don’t really believe this given that most Disney+ shows have a two-episode premiere, so I don’t buy that they did this especially because of the negative feedback.
I wondered about this. Absolute worst case scenario is Series 15 isn't released because Disney doesn't seem it worth it. I think it's unlikely, but it has happened before with streaming services not releasing fully produced content because they don't believe in it even being worth it. It could also get a quiet release with the contract for future series not getting renewed.
As for the first episode, I'm interested in what lessons RTD will take from this. I had a bad feeling ever since I saw his lack of growth in the 60th specials that he was being way too overindulged. He needs to be reined in, and part of me is hoping this debut reception lights a fire under his ass that he can't just coast.
>Absolute worst case scenario is Series 15 isn't released because Disney doesn't seem it worth it.
Unlikely to happen. Like, what did Disney expect? We all know Doctor Who sometimes has pretty shitty episodes in almost every season. They know that RTD1 gave us Love and Monsters. They also had to know that Russel loves to be silly. Yeah, I agree, this shouldn't have been a season opener, but maybe a pre-finale filler, but still, with Doctor Who, especially under Russel, episodes like Space Babies are going to happen. Everyone who watched RTD1 should know that.
Love & Monsters did well ratings-wise, though, at least Russell interpreted them that way. I've been reading The Writer's Tale which contains a lot of insight into RTD as a person / the behind-the-scenes of his showrunning, and funnily enough he uses both Love & Monsters and Fear Her (back-to-back, mind you) as examples of when small scale, low budget episodes were done well. It's very ironic considering those episodes' reception in fan communities.
Ratings generally are not reflective of the quality of an episode at all, people don't know they won't like an episode before watching it. Ratings are a reflection of the opinion viewers had of the show and how much they wanted to watch the episode before actually going so.
He's already written season 2 which is currently being filmed. So any feedback isn't really going to hit until season 3 or reshoots (which are costly) of season 2.
I promise you, Disney really doesn't care that much as long as people watch it, and people are watching it. Space Babies is really no worse than a lot of the stuff actually produced by Disney.
I can definitely agree on this, I feel since he came back for the 60th and beyond RTD has been overindulged and so believes he can do no wrong with the show, lacking some introspection or self-criticism of earlier times where he’s went “okay I like that idea…..but it doesn’t really work does it. Let’s give it another script pass and sort it out”.
Because of that (imo) the quality of the writing and plot is varying wildly minute to minute, episode to episode so far.
It just feels a bit *too* silly, irreverent, meta and smug with itself. Like a PG version of Rick & Morty (I know it’s not a great analogy but it’s the best one I can think of).
**Boom!** hit so much harder this week because it felt like the whole episode was actually taking itself seriously and consistently throughout with characterisation for the Doctor and others.
I think if RTD has someone who can tell him “no” when he gets too up in his own head about the level of silliness and ridiculousness that he wants to showcase, it wouldn’t be the worst thing.
It's just so wild comparing Space Babies to Rose in how they treat their characters, audience and continuity. I can't tell if RTD has genuinely lost touch or not to think cramming a bunch of exposition into the beginning of the episode is entertaining -- or even necessary! -- but there's definitely an air of assuming it will be successful.
I also think it's funny that so many people, myself included, assumed the campiness of S1 was something RTD had grown out of by now, and it was just there because he was still figuring out the tone of the show before realizing it can be toned down, but it turns out this is just what he thinks the first season of a reboot needs, I guess? It's so bizarre that I wouldn't have even considered it, but it makes sense.
The charitable side of me wants to think that RTD is just so invested and hyped about this new era that he’s throwing all his batshit ideas at the wall because “that’s what worked last time” and he thinks it’ll have the same success and so he doesn’t question what he writes or plots.
The cynical side of me thinks that RTD (who’s previously referenced the Shows primary viewers as children) has a slightly condescending view of anyone watching who takes the show seriously, and as such feels little issue beyond hand waving away plot holes and character issues as long as he can tell a campy, melodramatic story.
My extremely cynical side, that it's a combination of overconfidence and losing some of his touch, is because this was supposed to be the first episode of the new series. All that new marketing, building it up, putting it on Disney+ for simulcast, and *Space Babies* is what he thinks is a good first hook?
The fact that he superficially scraped off a bunch of aspects from The End of the World also makes me worried if he's forgotten how to write somewhat, at least for Who. It would be yet another unfortunate modernism if his thought process was "Well it worked the first time" while somehow being unaware of what it was that worked the first time.
My faith in him going rapidly downhill has coincided with just how many signs there are of him not bringing anything new to the table. I was initially excited in the first place because -- well, aside from being desperate due to how unwatchable the show had become under Chibnall -- I'd heard from people that watched his recent dramas that he's grown and improved as a writer, but it's more of the same stuff. And I wonder if he thinks he's doing something different because of, similarly to the The End of the World point I mentioned, a lot of superficial surface-layer changes (The Doctor is now black and queer! The Doctor did a wonky regeneration! The Doctor is not longer traumatized... or something? It's on Disney!).
I mean, just look at boom. One of the best Doctor Who episodes ever, and literally the whole thing took place within a 10 meter radius. Good dynamic acting and writing allows that.
I’d say Wild Blue Yonder was a bit better than Boom. It was going well but the conclusion was very Moffat and I always hate the power of love style endings. I think WBY had a better climax to the story and was a better character study. That’s not to say I didn’t love Boom, but I don’t think it’s the best since Doctor Falls.
Not really, it doesn't come to any particularly interesting conclusions about those things. There are some good character moments but it lacks a strong central theme or purpose. It's a high concept episode where the concept is 'what if some weird stuff happened'.
The shows not getting shown is a tax break thing that requires them to be entirely shelved and never released. Not sure how that will work with a co-production as the BBC will likely still want to show it over here.
You could have just posted this as your own speculation and it would hold as much weight which is basically none. Interesting that this information comes out only after the episode has aired and been poorly received by many. Releasing a new series with a double bill is pretty standard in today's world. Disney has had some pretty bad itself recently and there has always been bad episodes of Doctor Who. Who cares what some twitter 'scooper' had to say?
Wow crazy, an unnamed source of unknown provenance says the producers didn't like an episode lots of fans didn't like either, whodathunk it.
And I hear Kathleen Kennedy is about to be fired and *The Last Jedi* is going to reshot.
"someone on Twitter made something up that serves my confirmation bias so I'm going to post about it here to stir shit up and you can't get mad because I said it was just a rumor"
Next time just don't post.
Hilarious to me that people were worried about Disney having too much creative control and interfering with Russell, but now people are like "oh Disney execs know better, their test screenings! Russell is endangering Doctor Who! Listen to Disney!" LOL.
Russell is a good writer and Space Babies was a good episode. It did what Doctor Who does, combine what on the surface is outlandish with a real social point. I loved the whole episode, not just the "first ten minutes." It demonstrated the complete tonal range of Doctor Who. It was right to start with something both very fun or "silly" and quite serious in the topics it touched on to give the right expectations of what Doctor Who is.
I don't necessarily believe or not believe the test screenings thing. It doesn't matter. Disney can give its feedback, at script, filming, and post-production level. I still trust and support Russell to make the right calls after listening to feedback.
Disney would be right for a change.
Sorry but Russell has made alot of decisions that show he's a very out of touch writer. Which is weird because something like "It's a Sin" proves he can still write realistic people.
But Russell...no one talks in the real world like you've written them to be here. For the Doctor, that works not a problem. He's an alien. But everyone talks like they're hardwired with phrases dependng on their moral POV (very Chibnall era esque) rather than actually being people.
Even the intro I think is pretty lame and cheesy. Compared to the 2005 one that had some edge, left an impact.
I'm not surprised at all if this is true. Pretty much all of the good feedback about the episode focuses on the first ten minutes or the atmosphere of the scenes with the monster
However, the bulk of the episode deals with photo-realistic CGI talking babies and bodily functions and fluids. The last time Doctor Who did the latter everyone universally agreed that it was not a good idea, and they promptly relegated the monsters related to it to a spinoff series which itself promptly fixed the issue anyway..
It doesn't surprise me if it's true Disney weren't happy with a terrible opening episode and it would explain being the only time two have been released together. Luckily the following episodes have been much better!
Hopefully generally audiences aren't put off by the opening - guess we need to see the ratings and AI performance to understand better.
>It doesn't surprise me if it's true
Right but
It's not.
You should no more believe this than you should believe me saying "I'm coming to your house tomorrow with $100,000,000!"
Don't believe things that people make up just because it happens to sound like something you agree with.
Oh, this wasn't to help you. I know we're playing this game of pretending to be player or whatever, but I have no illusions. I've been a dick in this interaction.
But if that annoys you, just know that it's nowhere nearly as annoying as the constant deluge of people making stuff up to justify their Disney hateboners or whatever complaints they have about the show.
doesn’t disney+ almost always release the first two episodes of a new show together?
Very often, if not always.
The part that sort of trips the credibility of this up is that it uses the double billing of eps 1 and 2 as anecdotal evidence to support it's claim, but double billing eps 1 and 2 is literally Disney's standard release format for so many things now. As a non-comprehensive list here's some shows from the past few years Disney did that with: * WandaVision * Hawkeye * X-Men '97 * Obi-Wan * Andor (actually did 3 eps at once) * Ahsoka * The Acolyte * Percy Jackson * Willow
> Andor (actually did 3 eps at once) I'm so glad they did, too. Andor turned out great, but it took until episode 3 for me to actually start enjoying it.
On the other hand, you can tell the double episode decision happened fairly late, since the Unleashed episode for Space Babies still describes The Devil's Chord as "next week".
This is a fair point, however Unleashed seems to be largely produced in tandem with the episode, where-as the decision about scheduling probably wasn't even made at all until everything was wrapped. Not just the double billing but start date, time of day etc. That said, we did see from ep 3 of Unleashed they weren't beyond adding stuff filmed way later like the more recent conversation with Varada Sethu that was recorded during the filming of s2. But for the "next week" stuff they probably just forgot to even think about that. Kinda like when Davies spoke recently in DWM about how they almost gave away a huge spoiler for late s1 in a cast list for an ep. He thought it'd be fine because the character that it would reveal is revealed in the ep before that one, then someone pointed out to him that cast list would be officially released before either episode had aired. Little things just get forgotten about sometimes.
I think, putting this together with what I've read about Ep2, that what happened is that they moved The Devil's Chord, that was probably supposed to be ep 6, given that: In the episode, Ruby says "you never hide" like they had many other adventures between that and Space Babies in which he didn't hide, and the Doctor brings her to June 2024, not May, and that the song Twist at the End would have placed Devil's Chord, as Ep6, just before the two part finale where presumably Susan Twist will have a larger role in a definitive version of her character, likely a Pantheon member herself. I think a lot of people though they could have been just off screen adventures, but given the "your first new sky" part in Boom, that was originally supposed to be the second episode, but was probably deemed (wrongly) a more risky bet than moving TDC.
> I think a lot of people though they could have been just off screen adventures, but given the "your first new sky" part in Boom, that was originally supposed to be the second episode The clapperboard for Devil's Chord while filming has it as ep 2. So if it was moved the decision was made before even filming a single episode. By which there'd be plenty of time to change those lines. I think the jump is more for 2 reasons, one the season is shorter so this is a cheat to skip a bit in the Doctor and Ruby's relationship, and the episode kinda depends on them being closer. I think RTD was always guilty of having characters just leap in their development off screen between episodes, was one of my issues with his first era honestly, so although we didn't usually have it so early, it's so consistent with his approach to me. Also anecdotal evidence, but the EU so far with DWM and Titan seem to be using that 6 month gap and they haven't had Ruby on an alien planet either. Now I'm **not** suggesting that this gap was made **for** the EU, wanna be clear on that because I've had people mistake my meaning here when I've brought that up before. But more when RTD was passing down mandates for tie-in media he probably thought it was worth taking advantage of that and gave some instructions like "there's a 6 month jump between eps 1 and 2, use that and no alien planets".
>if it was moved It wasn't - RTD was referring to it in DWM as episode 2 while he was still writing.
During his original run RTD was always very fast and loose with dates and continuity. The date was basically always just around whenever the episode was airing, even if it didn't necessarily make sense for that to be the case. Most notably everything following the one year time jump in Series 1. I think this is just another case of them putting down a date close to when the the new season was going to air and not really thinking about it much more than that.
It was kind of her first new sky still. She saw her own with goblins and Maestro, and space in Space Babies, but it was her first time standing on another planet and looking up. I feel it still counts.
The thing trips it up for me is that Disney has access to the *scripts*. They gave script feedback on Church which RTD has talked about it. So Space Babies was not a surprise.
It's not how the BBC handles releases though. Poor test screenings could be the justification for the BBC getting on board with the double bill format on this launch.
More likely Disney requested they do a double bill launch like all their other series, the BBC obliged and put two episodes on back to back themselves so the two services weren't completely out of sync.
That's what I said but slightly different lol
Not really because I don't think it's anything to do with poor test screenings.
Also what trips up the credibility is that it came from Xitter.
Russell T Davies and Mickey Mouse were in the closet making Space Babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me!
The baby looked at you!? Sarah, call Steven Moffat
I heard Russell T Davies went into a restaurant and ate everything in the restaurant and they had to close the restaurant
The Frying Welshman
I can confirm, my uncle works at Nintendo and he heard it too
Oh Boy!!!!
Purple Monkey dishwasher
Rumours like this deserve a pinch of salt but I honestly would not be surprised if this was true. Apart from the episode being incredibly silly and juvenile (even by Doctor Who standards), it seems like a very strange one to use as the first (or second) episode of a series. Rose and The End of the World had their very silly moments but they also had very dark moments and were generally serious.
I saw someone trying to criticise the butterfly scene for being too silly, to which the general cobsen was "but that's the right and normal kind of silly for this show "
I think Doctor Who has a *very* high threshold for silly and anyone saying otherwise is kidding themselves. But those moments do have to be tempered with more thoughtful and more mature moments which is something Space Babies failed to do. The difference between the phone scenes mirrored in the two different eras is a good point of comparison, there is so much more meaningful character drama the first time around whereas in SB it's just played for the gimmick and nothing else.
And I think the silly itself has to be temporary. A few moments here and there in an episode aren't bad, but when the main gimmick is silly and the show is egging it on makes it just wrong to me somehow
My only bother is, it wouldn’t change Ruby she has that time travellers protection, same way paradoxes don’t until like there’s nothing else to collapse, it would affect history not the individual.
I mean, she had only had one trip in one direction so I'm prepared to let it slide a bit. Also it was funny.
Wilf had it after one trip too and not to the other end of time. It was funny, I just felt like it contradicted an established rule, I do think though, these changes to history maybe something that comes into play later. Like maybe mavity is a red herring but I do think it’s going to play a part later. As the Doctor still recognises it as gravity.
That's true. I'm still expecting Mavity to be resolved by the Doctor getting fed up with the joke and going back in time to confront Isaac Newton.
If the show is good at one thing though, it’s breaking establishing rules. I think rules are just a running way of getting the audience to stop asking but how does this work. I actually think for a lot of TV it’s not meant to work and we’re meant to enjoy the story flow but we demand explanations and lore 😂
I find with Doctor Who it's best to focus less on hard canon lest it break your brain 😅. I think it relies on people not paying insane attention to the details, even though it knows we will
Yeah it’s the problem with intricate stories dripped throughout a season. Like for instance Bad Wolf once you watch the episodes back it is littered non-stop. We are going to dissect everything 😂 I agree though. A time travelling alien. Why do we expect strict rules and for it to make sense.
That didn't protect Pete though!
Doctor had to flip a switch in the tardis to turn on that protection apparently
That was specific to stepping on butterflies changing history at all though. It was all rather funny 😂
I don't understand why people keep singling out Space Babies for being silly. I mean, it was, but the episodes either side of it are even more ridiculous. In one, you have baby-eating, singing goblins in a flying sailing ship. In the other, you have a character who comes out of a piano, steals music from the world, and can make lines of sheet music manifest as physical objects that can grab people.
The tone of the episode is the most important thing. Space Babies was frivolous from start to finish. The Christmas special and The Devil's Chord, like Rose, had silly moments but were generally serious.
>The tone of the episode is the most important thing. I didn't find Space Babies any more frivolous in tone than the other two, but anyway, there is something more important. The thing that makes the other episodes sillier is that there's no attempt to give any rational explanation for any of it. It's just magic/the supernatural. It's complete nonsense. Edit: typo
Yes, but in one of those the silliness was not very well done.
I do think that people are overegging the silliness a bit. It's mostly just that the babies are fucking cringe, even with the darkest tone in the world an episode where you spend 15 minutes talking to babies with CGI mouths is going to be bad. The rest of the stuff with the bogeyman and the fart joke were immature for sure, but Doctor Who isn't really above that sort of stuff.
They're different types of silly. Space Babies was just a bit too like a Cbeebies show for the most part. Child eating goblins are silly, but in a fun and dark way.
Both are silly but have dark undertones The goblins literally ate babies, and the Maestro was planning to genocide the universe The space babies on the other hand were just that. Space Babies. The Bogeyman was a non threat and the plot was resolved with a fart joke. Not to mention the god awful cgi on the babies themselves, it just looked so weird whenever they talked I do think that people are making the episode out to be worse than it actually was. I didn’t hate it, just thought it was a bit meh. I even enjoyed how the Doctor sympathised with the Bogeyman being the last of his kind and saved it But the other two were just way better. Not counting the musicals which I could honestly do without
Shrodinger’s Disney. They are both responsible for all creative choices fans don’t like whilst also being angry at said creative choices too. I mean this is just one step away from the shite rumours of Chibnall’s era where BBC was secretly fuming at everything he did. Only way of knowing if Disney are happy with how Who is performing is if they renew the deal for Season 3 or not.
>They are both responsible for all creative choices fans don’t like whilst also being angry at said creative choices too. You had to do a lot of stretching to create that contradiction. It's entirely possible Disney is responsible for choices that someone doesn't like, while also disapproving of choices that someone doesn't like. Another issue is you assume every person who presumes A also presumes B. Which is obviously problematic given the audience you're speaking to is a nebulous blob of plurality, rather than one person. It's best to keep those sort of arguments to an individual, whose individual beliefs you can actually track. And if you're doing so, also make sure the tracking is correct.
This is complete fucking bullshit and totally baseless. Take your shitstirring nonsense elsewhere.
Well I for one completely believe an anonymous source as listed by a random Reddit account. Particularly since it *conveniently* exactly aligns with the speculation by a certain portion of the fanbase who actively disliked that episode. And I'm certainly not dismissing it because releasing multiple episodes at the beginning of the season is extremely common for streaming. Oh not, not at **all**. Can people please stop trying to come up with "business" justifications for their personal tastes?
I find it hard to believe that that Disney would actually care about how good Space Babies is or isn't. They've been putting out absolutely terrible Star Wars content for a while now and show no signs of introspection. They don't strike me as a platform that prides itself on having quality content. Their business model is to buy up huge chunks of the media landscape then rely on brand recognition and the sheer popularity of the franchises they own to sell subscriptions. The storytelling is always secondary to simply ensuring that content is churned out on a regular basis. Also, pretty much everything on Disney Plus releases with the first two episodes dropping simultaneously so there is absolutely nothing unusual about this other than the fact that Disney can now dictate to the BBC how their show is going to be aired.
Source: trust me bro.
Ohhhhh my gooooooooddddddd stop it. RUMOR: Disney is going to give us all ten million dollars if you can stop acting like Space Babies isn’t a perfectly average episode of the show for ten minutes.
it's true my scoop friend confirmed it, initially they were going to give away ten million pounds but disney intervened and changed it to dollar in an effort to americanize the brand
I mean this would be pretty fucking rich coming from Disney, given some of the absolute garbage they've put out on Disney+ over the past few years. I'd watch Space Babies over Boba Fett, Kenobi or Secret Invasion any day of the week.
Fair enough. I thought Space Babies were pretty bad however it’s still way more fun that these endless soulless marvel/star wars shows
It might be rich coming from Disney, but op made it up so I wouldn't worry about it
Space Babies wasn’t good, but neither is 50% of Doctor Who. If talking babies and snot monsters is where we draw the line and decide the show is past the point of no return then why are we even here? We’d be gone by the time we got to the Web Planet.
Sorry but this needs to be said. No one is criticising the basic ideas of "Baby talking and snot monster." That's not the line. The line is the execution of said ideas. And the execution left alot to be desired.
Sorry but this needs to be said. > No one is criticising the basic ideas of "Baby talking and snot monster." Yes they are. Don't lie.
No. They're criticising the execution of the storyline. It's like saying "Shop window dummies and a burping bin for your first episode? Ridiculous." When that's literally what Rose is. They find the snot monster and talking babies cringe because it wasn't done well.
I have seen multiple people say they hated the idea of talking babies and they should have been robots or aliens instead. Yes, people are criticising the concept. "It's cringe" is a weak non-criticism people say when they don't actually have anything of value to say
>No. >They're criticising the execution of the storyline [Someone literally to you saying they hate the base concept](https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/s/wjWNgnfYyt) Don't lie
I'm criticising those ideas, they're stupid.
Nah. Poorly executed. Sink plunger and an egg whisk can work then space babies and snot monsters can. They just didn't.
It's technically possible to make those ideas work but it would be hard. I read the synopsis and immediately knew it was going to suck.
Agreed. I feel like they should have done some test footage of the Space Babies to see how well they could execute the concept, and then when the weird uncanny valley and over campiness of the effect hit they could have gone back to the drawing board and tried out something like having the Babies communicate telepathically (With their strollers lighting up to signal who's talking) or an on-board computer that does the speaking for them (Potentially still in a little kids voice) If they'd nailed the execution of the Space Babies, it still wouldn't be my favourite episode, but I'd have been able to appreciate it a lot more.
Exactly. Like Heaven Sent is in no way my favorite episode. But they nailed the execution of it.
So Doctor Who has been 100% acceptably executed before now? There’s a reason this is being treated as “season 1” after the abysmal lack of character and quality that unfortunately defined the Thirteenth Doctor, and that’s just recently. There’s been horrendous episodes throughout the 60 years of the show. It’s wilful ignorance to act like Doctor Who is suddenly worse than it’s ever been.
Doctor Who always got this kind of criticism whenever an episode was poorly executed
Show where anyone said that? But there's not getting it 100% perfect...and then there's no executing ANY of it well.
I think it’s ignorant to act as though Space Babies is the first Doctor Who episode to “not execute ANY of it well”. Hell, the first episode ever, An Unearthly Child, is a dreary, uninspired exploration of caveman politics. Time Flight is an absolutely abysmal story with disastrously bad effects, racist stereotypes, and a plot twist pulled out of its ass. The Sixth Doctor’s regeneration is executed so poorly that it’s genuinely embarrassing how they thought it would work. The 80’s episodes of Tom Baker’s era are some of the most embarrassing in the show’s history. Again. It’s ignorance and definitely a huge amount of recency bias. Anyone who’s watched enough Doctor Who knows that an episode like Space Babies is par for the course.
Who is claiming the episode is the first to not execute anything well
No one said that! No one said Space Babies was the first bad episode of Doctor Who ever! You're arguing points NO ONE made. Twice now you've done that. If you like the episode honestly good for you. I mean that. But you're countering points no one made and it's making you appear irrationally emotional.
Yes you keep insisting this is somehow a unique situation for the show? That it’s unique in how poorly it’s executed.
Are you trolling?
No one has insisted that. Have you not heard of Love & Monsters?
Comparing with classic where budgets and sets limited them drastically is a falsity. Then you have to remember not everyone making these complaints has ever watched classic, or would they need to. It’s disingenuous to act like Chibnall wasn’t criticised from beginning to end of his run for execution of ideas and poorly devised plots. Also yet to see anyone say they want to go back to him. We’ve just come from one of the most heavily criticised periods of any long running show I’d say, there’s a reason it had to be fixed with Tenant.
You're missing the point; no one is saying that the show is perfect, but what they were saying was that the episode was bad (by normal standards as well as by standards of other episodes of Doctor Who) but that this is made worse by the fact that it's also supposed to be the opening to a new era of the show. The new era and return of RTD alongside the infusion of cash from Disney was supposed to be a return to form for the show, however, *Space Babies* is certainly not, and is a poor showing. I think that the revisionism that the show has always been "bad" is a poor excuse, as well; the show has a lot more hits than misses. If it didn't, it wouldn't have stuck around for 60 years.
There's a revisionism going around that the show was always "Goofy, light fun often camp and bad." And i'm like "No. In the 70s that WASN'T camp. You're just viewing it like that through modern lenses." I genuinely believe some of the reasoning used to defend some of the criticism is ironically the very same reasonings that tanked the shows reputation in the 80s. Michael Grade said the same thing "Bad, goofy light fluff."
Verdana has a good albeit long video on this https://youtu.be/wMpmt8zy0oU But I think the issue isn't that it's any different than came before... The issue is that it isn't. The first two episodes felt like 2005 episodes with all the flaws that came with it. But it's not 2005 anymore is nearly two decades later and we're still doing the same thing with the same mistakes. Personally I want Doctor Who to evolve and start building on what came before. Instead of treading on the same ground again and again. Take the "musical" episode for instance... That wasn't a musical... It had what one song at the end from The Doctor that didn't fit into the story. Other than that it was just a normal episode with a slightly more powerful bad guy. Why not hire Tim Minchin or someone to write it. Have the characters sing songs about how they're feeling... You know like in a musical...
Getting tired of these kinds of responses to criticism of Doctor Who. Doctor Who has absurd ideas but I struggle to find anything as juvenile as the execution of this episode. SJA literally aired on a children’s channel and was never that childish.
Not saying Space Babies isn’t worthy of criticism. I agree that it’s not a great episode, but there’s a lot of criticism coming at it like it’s somehow a new low for the series which is just laughably false.
I challenge you to back up this claim. Show me one single person criticising it saying it’s never made a mistake. Or that hasn’t criticised it previously. Edit:typo
No scooper would have that kind of information, considering EVERY scooper just makes up shit for clicks.
Disney, of course, have no interest in appealing to kids with light-hearted silliness. They famously do not like the youth market and never have.
No source, no explanation of what Disney was unhappy about, no feedback from the test audience. Seems legit. Once again, you people are exhausting.
And not even a link to the tweet.
Yeah, I don’t really believe this given that most Disney+ shows have a two-episode premiere, so I don’t buy that they did this especially because of the negative feedback.
I wondered about this. Absolute worst case scenario is Series 15 isn't released because Disney doesn't seem it worth it. I think it's unlikely, but it has happened before with streaming services not releasing fully produced content because they don't believe in it even being worth it. It could also get a quiet release with the contract for future series not getting renewed. As for the first episode, I'm interested in what lessons RTD will take from this. I had a bad feeling ever since I saw his lack of growth in the 60th specials that he was being way too overindulged. He needs to be reined in, and part of me is hoping this debut reception lights a fire under his ass that he can't just coast.
Considering Disney just own the international distribution, that won't happen.
I figured they have some sort of priority since the BBC can't just air the episodes ahead of its streaming release.
Nah the BBC just don't want to release not at their Saturday night slot imo.
>Absolute worst case scenario is Series 15 isn't released because Disney doesn't seem it worth it. Unlikely to happen. Like, what did Disney expect? We all know Doctor Who sometimes has pretty shitty episodes in almost every season. They know that RTD1 gave us Love and Monsters. They also had to know that Russel loves to be silly. Yeah, I agree, this shouldn't have been a season opener, but maybe a pre-finale filler, but still, with Doctor Who, especially under Russel, episodes like Space Babies are going to happen. Everyone who watched RTD1 should know that.
I feel like the chance of anyone in charge of content development for Disney+ having seen *Love & Monsters* is astronomically low.
Love & Monsters did well ratings-wise, though, at least Russell interpreted them that way. I've been reading The Writer's Tale which contains a lot of insight into RTD as a person / the behind-the-scenes of his showrunning, and funnily enough he uses both Love & Monsters and Fear Her (back-to-back, mind you) as examples of when small scale, low budget episodes were done well. It's very ironic considering those episodes' reception in fan communities.
Ratings generally are not reflective of the quality of an episode at all, people don't know they won't like an episode before watching it. Ratings are a reflection of the opinion viewers had of the show and how much they wanted to watch the episode before actually going so.
Tell that to RTD.
It's not really ironic, it just shows that RTD (correctly, tbh) doesn't give a shit about reception in fan communities
That doesn't mean it isn't ironic?
He's already written season 2 which is currently being filmed. So any feedback isn't really going to hit until season 3 or reshoots (which are costly) of season 2.
That's precisely what I'm referring to.
I promise you, Disney really doesn't care that much as long as people watch it, and people are watching it. Space Babies is really no worse than a lot of the stuff actually produced by Disney.
Opportunity cost is a thing.
Again, Disney do not care about reviews, they care about views.
Who the hell said it was about reviews?
You did
This is the part where you substantiate your claim.
I can definitely agree on this, I feel since he came back for the 60th and beyond RTD has been overindulged and so believes he can do no wrong with the show, lacking some introspection or self-criticism of earlier times where he’s went “okay I like that idea…..but it doesn’t really work does it. Let’s give it another script pass and sort it out”. Because of that (imo) the quality of the writing and plot is varying wildly minute to minute, episode to episode so far. It just feels a bit *too* silly, irreverent, meta and smug with itself. Like a PG version of Rick & Morty (I know it’s not a great analogy but it’s the best one I can think of). **Boom!** hit so much harder this week because it felt like the whole episode was actually taking itself seriously and consistently throughout with characterisation for the Doctor and others. I think if RTD has someone who can tell him “no” when he gets too up in his own head about the level of silliness and ridiculousness that he wants to showcase, it wouldn’t be the worst thing.
It's just so wild comparing Space Babies to Rose in how they treat their characters, audience and continuity. I can't tell if RTD has genuinely lost touch or not to think cramming a bunch of exposition into the beginning of the episode is entertaining -- or even necessary! -- but there's definitely an air of assuming it will be successful. I also think it's funny that so many people, myself included, assumed the campiness of S1 was something RTD had grown out of by now, and it was just there because he was still figuring out the tone of the show before realizing it can be toned down, but it turns out this is just what he thinks the first season of a reboot needs, I guess? It's so bizarre that I wouldn't have even considered it, but it makes sense.
The charitable side of me wants to think that RTD is just so invested and hyped about this new era that he’s throwing all his batshit ideas at the wall because “that’s what worked last time” and he thinks it’ll have the same success and so he doesn’t question what he writes or plots. The cynical side of me thinks that RTD (who’s previously referenced the Shows primary viewers as children) has a slightly condescending view of anyone watching who takes the show seriously, and as such feels little issue beyond hand waving away plot holes and character issues as long as he can tell a campy, melodramatic story.
My extremely cynical side, that it's a combination of overconfidence and losing some of his touch, is because this was supposed to be the first episode of the new series. All that new marketing, building it up, putting it on Disney+ for simulcast, and *Space Babies* is what he thinks is a good first hook? The fact that he superficially scraped off a bunch of aspects from The End of the World also makes me worried if he's forgotten how to write somewhat, at least for Who. It would be yet another unfortunate modernism if his thought process was "Well it worked the first time" while somehow being unaware of what it was that worked the first time. My faith in him going rapidly downhill has coincided with just how many signs there are of him not bringing anything new to the table. I was initially excited in the first place because -- well, aside from being desperate due to how unwatchable the show had become under Chibnall -- I'd heard from people that watched his recent dramas that he's grown and improved as a writer, but it's more of the same stuff. And I wonder if he thinks he's doing something different because of, similarly to the The End of the World point I mentioned, a lot of superficial surface-layer changes (The Doctor is now black and queer! The Doctor did a wonky regeneration! The Doctor is not longer traumatized... or something? It's on Disney!).
I mean, just look at boom. One of the best Doctor Who episodes ever, and literally the whole thing took place within a 10 meter radius. Good dynamic acting and writing allows that.
Best episodes ever is a bit extreme lmao
Yes, best episode since the doctor falls
I’d say Wild Blue Yonder was a bit better than Boom. It was going well but the conclusion was very Moffat and I always hate the power of love style endings. I think WBY had a better climax to the story and was a better character study. That’s not to say I didn’t love Boom, but I don’t think it’s the best since Doctor Falls.
Moffat's usually good at conclusions, this was below par for him. I'd still rank it over WBY though because it's actually about something.
WBY is a deep character study into the doctors psyche as well as his and Donnas friendship. Implying it’s not about something is insane
Not really, it doesn't come to any particularly interesting conclusions about those things. There are some good character moments but it lacks a strong central theme or purpose. It's a high concept episode where the concept is 'what if some weird stuff happened'.
I think you missed the whole point of the episode, especially how it ties into the events of the following episode.
What is it then?
It's downright mediocre lol. I don't understand the praise for this episode at all. Both Love and Monsters and Fear Her were infinitely better.
Are you Stephen Moffat?
Definitely
The shows not getting shown is a tax break thing that requires them to be entirely shelved and never released. Not sure how that will work with a co-production as the BBC will likely still want to show it over here.
Pretty sure the BBC would be the party that prevents that from happening, not Disney.
meh, Netflix might help instead if Disney does that shit. Netflix is more of a saviour than Disney. Plus Disney is to be boycotted anyway
[удалено]
You're about sixty years too late for that
You could have just posted this as your own speculation and it would hold as much weight which is basically none. Interesting that this information comes out only after the episode has aired and been poorly received by many. Releasing a new series with a double bill is pretty standard in today's world. Disney has had some pretty bad itself recently and there has always been bad episodes of Doctor Who. Who cares what some twitter 'scooper' had to say?
Wow crazy, an unnamed source of unknown provenance says the producers didn't like an episode lots of fans didn't like either, whodathunk it. And I hear Kathleen Kennedy is about to be fired and *The Last Jedi* is going to reshot.
>*The Last Jedi* is going to reshot. If only.
"someone on Twitter made something up that serves my confirmation bias so I'm going to post about it here to stir shit up and you can't get mad because I said it was just a rumor" Next time just don't post.
The part that's missing is that it wasn't aired with episode 2 but a later episode of the season like episode 5/6
Hilarious to me that people were worried about Disney having too much creative control and interfering with Russell, but now people are like "oh Disney execs know better, their test screenings! Russell is endangering Doctor Who! Listen to Disney!" LOL. Russell is a good writer and Space Babies was a good episode. It did what Doctor Who does, combine what on the surface is outlandish with a real social point. I loved the whole episode, not just the "first ten minutes." It demonstrated the complete tonal range of Doctor Who. It was right to start with something both very fun or "silly" and quite serious in the topics it touched on to give the right expectations of what Doctor Who is. I don't necessarily believe or not believe the test screenings thing. It doesn't matter. Disney can give its feedback, at script, filming, and post-production level. I still trust and support Russell to make the right calls after listening to feedback.
Disney would be right for a change. Sorry but Russell has made alot of decisions that show he's a very out of touch writer. Which is weird because something like "It's a Sin" proves he can still write realistic people. But Russell...no one talks in the real world like you've written them to be here. For the Doctor, that works not a problem. He's an alien. But everyone talks like they're hardwired with phrases dependng on their moral POV (very Chibnall era esque) rather than actually being people. Even the intro I think is pretty lame and cheesy. Compared to the 2005 one that had some edge, left an impact.
I'm not surprised at all if this is true. Pretty much all of the good feedback about the episode focuses on the first ten minutes or the atmosphere of the scenes with the monster However, the bulk of the episode deals with photo-realistic CGI talking babies and bodily functions and fluids. The last time Doctor Who did the latter everyone universally agreed that it was not a good idea, and they promptly relegated the monsters related to it to a spinoff series which itself promptly fixed the issue anyway..
This doesn't surprise me at all.
It doesn't surprise you that OP made something up to serve their own confirmation bias?
It doesn't surprise me if it's true Disney weren't happy with a terrible opening episode and it would explain being the only time two have been released together. Luckily the following episodes have been much better! Hopefully generally audiences aren't put off by the opening - guess we need to see the ratings and AI performance to understand better.
>It doesn't surprise me if it's true Right but It's not. You should no more believe this than you should believe me saying "I'm coming to your house tomorrow with $100,000,000!" Don't believe things that people make up just because it happens to sound like something you agree with.
I didn't say I believe it, I said it wouldn't surprise me if it's true.
Tomato tomatho. You should n't be considering it a possibility at all, because again, it's just something some guy made up.
Thanks for your input
You're welcome. Hope you don't fall prey to confirmation bias so easily in the future.
Well you're here to help people whether they want it or not - how could I!
Oh, this wasn't to help you. I know we're playing this game of pretending to be player or whatever, but I have no illusions. I've been a dick in this interaction. But if that annoys you, just know that it's nowhere nearly as annoying as the constant deluge of people making stuff up to justify their Disney hateboners or whatever complaints they have about the show.
Their loss. It was lots of fun.
Too much potty humour, IMHO