The Series 10 Rumours, Spoilers, speculation thread

***** Moderation *****

All off-topic posts regarding Brexit have been moved to this thread. Please keep on topic.

Thanks

***** End Moderation *****

Tony

Just briefly. I personally wouldn't mind if the posts were to be permanently deleted, as out of context they don't make much sense...

Two parter!

Not gonna derail this thread again, but just quickly wanted to address this 'why can't BF writers do NuWho' bit (these echo things that Nick and John Morris have said in the past on interviews, podcasts and other bits and bobs):

1) It's not about progression (though dalek is not wrong in pointing out the difference in formatting and disciplines), but experience. Most of BF's staff are novelists, comic writers or non fiction authors, with little to no TV experience. Production companies and broadcasters won't consider non screenwriters for projects most times without a track record of some sort. And then there´s the five tons of legal red tape involving solicited submissions and agents, but that would take all day and, again, keeping this brief.
2) Competition: compare the two or three dozen BF regulars that we all want to see on the show versus the thousands of UK TV writers who all want to write for Who and have likely pitched for it multiple times. As a showrunner and script editor with superiors and executives to answer to, are you more likely to gamble on novices in this particular field, or go with someone experienced, who can be trusted to meet a deadline and not need potentially time consuming handholding (and before you say it, no, this is not about who is more talented, but again, experience and dependability)?
3) Schedules: it's no secret that BF make their stuff months before they are even announced, meaning they have to contract writers for however many stories/series they need, which affects how much spare time they have and when they are free (in addition to sometimes doubling up as actors, script editors, directors and producers, as well as outside projects). Same goes for the TV series: Series 10 is nearly all in the can and I imagine Series 11 has most of, if not all, of its staff and stories locked down, so even if they wanted to, Dorney or Morris or Magrs or Smith or whoever you'd want may or would not be able to contribute at this point.

On the news, yeah. On TV, I dunno. The BBC are meant to educate people, anyway.

I think it would be fine so long as it was subtle but I can't imagine they'd be allowed to have the Doctor's opinion be biased towards the left or right wing. He always tends to have a neutral approach to politics (Kill The Moon being a good example) unless he's trying to make a pacifistic statement (Doctor Who and the Silurians). 

I rate it being subtle. I like the Doctor being neutral because, in modern times, the Doctor being a figurehead doesn't work. Subtlety is key when doing Brexit. That was one of my key problems with Zygon two-parter.

I had the same here, Doctor Who is usually a lot better with its political commentary. Take The God Complex for example, where the Muslim character Rita says -- "Don't be afraid." That's a beautiful bit of subtext, it almost flies right past you if you're not paying attention. Ironically, The Zygon Invasion also feels really black-and-white despite its subject matter too. Drawing parallels to Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons really didn't do the story any favours either because that show dealt with the infiltrator concept a lot more harshly. We kill your friends, your family, the ones you trust and respect, we replace them with our own people and use them to hurt you. Badly. We never got to know any of the Zygons outside of Oswald, so these people being ousted by their own kind as defectors and traitors are left with no voice.

And it's not as if there wasn't any opportunity for exploring some of the greyer aspects of terrorism and infiltration like having a Zygon character who is press-ganged into it for fear of his brood, a UNIT missile base shoot down their own plane, a human media character trying to ramp up people's paranoia, the Doctor going to help the terrorists and UNIT coming down on him for trying to save the lives of enemy combatants, etc. There's a lot that could've been done if only they hadn't pulled their punches. You don't want to be subtle about it? Okay, that could work to your favour. You want to make it a horribly grey situation? Show us how horribly grey it can get. If there's one thing I know children hate, it's being talked down to.

Fair enough. But I'd rate that Silurians did it in a way so that you could still disagree with the Doctor.
Also, the Peladon tales deviate from the actual politics a ton, (yeah, murder mystery and an invasion) so I kind of let them off.