Does it, though? In “Heaven sent” Rassilon isn’t even sure how many regenerations they’d given the Doctor.

The timeless child might have indefinite regenerations, but if they were chameleon arched into a Timelord, that would be down to a genetic level, so regeneration cycles still count. In “Human nature”/“Family of Blood” John Smith is human through and through.

True. And can she transform all of that to an arresting comics story? We don’t know.

Yeah, and that infrastructure is required in the invitation to tender, right? On the plus side, that could mean he might focus on the writing and have an existing entity do all the business stuff. I dunno.

That was explained during Moffat’s run, though. Specifically Matt Smiths last episode.

I can’t help but wonder if J. Michael Straczynski has thrown his hat in the ring

AFAIK he did, to the extent that he as an individual can: he posted on social media that he was interested. [Edit: here’s a source]

If he is (or has since become) associated with a UK production company eligible for the tender, I haven’t heard about it. But then, we wouldn’t know unless somebody at that company or at the BBC let it slip.

Do comics do ghost writers?

I mean, there is the Marvel Method where Stan Lee would brainstorm with artists, let them go off and do the brunt of the work, and take a writing credit for filling in dialogue.

More to the point, I guess nobody has as much head canon about Dr Crusher as McFadden. She’s spent decades creating back story for character motivation where it may not have existed on the scripted page. As I understand it that’s pretty much par for the course.

I’m pretty sure IDW have “support writers” in staff to make those ideas conform to industrial narrative standards and formatting…

Pinning this for when the BBC picks their choice to lead the next Who production, so we can kvetch over which of the also-rans would have been better, akshually 😂

If nobody choose to do anything with that plot again, or they do and it still doesn’t stick — I hope this will become the standard response.

At a first glance, it looks fun enough! But I’m 40+ years out of the target group, so if the actual show turns out not to be for me… mission accomplished, I guess 🙂

The character Toast-IE did remind me of this old gem:

That is pretty accurate, yes 😂 A big part of it I think is fans watching new episodes as they air, and going mad with waiting a week for the next one. The hyperfocus on picking over details of the week’s story and speculating on what will happen next creates a weird and often (mostly) overly harsh criticism. Especially when discussed online…

And that’s when previously hated runs are suddenly viewed through rosier glasses. Seems it’s only now that the fandom can embrace Whittaker’s Doctor (i.e., not spit bile on others for expressing moderate appreciation). Because apparently Chibnall did still ruin the show, but RTD really, really ruined it?

Also, don’t forget the subset of fans who only really liked Tennant’s run and the Rose romance arc, and will continue to comment like those three seasons are all that really count out of a >60yrs show 🙂

Can’t really disagree with him about the substantial leaks, nor about the online outrage professionals. It’s an exhausting environment to navigate as viewers, especially because it largely feeds off our passion for shows like Who and Trek.

However, I’ll be interested in following the reactions of other parties involved in the production of the show for the past couple of years, once they’ve digested Davies’ version. If the messy season arcs and anticlimactic finales are any sign, there must have been more happening on the production than just unfounded optimism about Disney extending their streaming deal.

“Far future”? This was supposed to be for Discovery, which is initially set around 130 years from now. How much visible evolution do you imagine would take place in such a short timespan?

Cultbox has the best header image to go with the headline:

(a still from “The robot revolution”, 2025)

They also theorise that what Britton was “sent” and watched was a pretty terrible “gen AI” fan project that was published to Youtube earlier this month, and then taken down fairly quickly after.

I thought it would be an advantage for the show to have a Director General who’s a Doctor Who fan… but I guess I willingly overlooked that he’s also a tech bro 🙄

All of that utopian nonsense about “enabling diverse voices” and “allowing more creative risk” is so clearly the exact opposite of what’s happening with “AI”. Instead, 200,000 American creatives have lost their jobs in the four year period since the first ”generative AI" models were released.

Actual creativity, craft, and imagination is being eliminated from the equation of media production as that trend continues to develop worldwide. Of course, that would sound A-okay to a former Google exec, but it paints a very bloody dire picture for future productions.

Yeah, the racially charged complaint against the DSC design doesn’t entirely add up given the darkface makeup used in all previous versions of (white people playing) Klingons, including the TNG through ENT depictions.

I did like the DSC Klingons as aired, and if people had the patience required for things to play out, they could have waited for future writers to make up an elegant answer like the augment virus in ENT 🙂

Honestly? Also Gillian Anderson 🤣

Yeah, that was my thought as well. The jawline spikes are a bit much.

Whatever do you mean, this was only released 10 years after the fact (and 2 yrs after the show had run its course well beyond his involvement) 😄

You talk a lot about trust, and I think that’s an important factor. Sure, you can argue that the shows’ utopianism changed entirely because the powers-that-be warped the messaging. That’s probably true too, certainly now with the Ellisons at the top. But that’s pretty recent.

I think there’s also an aspect of how much viewers would be able to suspend their disbelief if they were served '60s or even '90s era scripts today. Especially TNG was very diplomacy focused and based in mutual respect. My guess is there has been an erosion of trust in Western society in the meantime. Again, ultimately because Capitalism, I’m sure — but in a broader sense than I interpret from your comment?

I dunno, I don’t have a neatly wrapped theory about this. Sorry if I go completely off on a tangent based on your comment.

I think the first season of Discovery tried to earnestly grapple with real world politics through the whole Klingon war/Mirror Universe arcs. All of Picard seemed to be about conspiracies and shadow governments, which certainly also speaks to its time of production… while dulling the shine on the utopian vision for the future.

And it’s not just badmirals and Section 31 that have been at issue. We’ve seen plenty of disgruntled pirates (read: regular-Joe capitalists) turned terrorists in the eyes of the Federation. Our main casts have visited enough dystopian “slum” planets in the past ten years, where criminals organise and prosper, that the idealism of Star Trek is depicted as precarious.

Way out in the 32nd century, as Osyraa bites into a Federation-produced apple, admiral Vance comments that “it’s made from our shit, you know”. Way to sell post-scarcity, buddy. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made. I think the past decade of Trek has done a good job of postulating soft values, standing up for minorities and diversity. It’s been pretty shit (to stay in the vocabulary) at representing the very foundation of that sort of tolerance, though.

Trek should be a means to imagining the end of Capitalism, even if only as a background note for all kinds of weekly weird encounters and philosophical twists. But that is not just hard to depict in the 21st century — it’s actively being played as downright unsexy in the shows.