There's quite a bit of it in even the later seasons; McCoy's Happiness Patrol is partially about Thatcher while Greatest Show was kind of a meta joke on the BBC and Doctor Who itself. "Rememberance" also dealt with social issues of the 60s with the Daleks once again serving as a sort of analogy.
Speaking of which, the Dregs sort of seemed a lot like the Haemavores from Curse of Fenric-mutant humans created from pollution. However, the story also sort of implies that it wasn't the "industrial progress" as the Doctor says but Fenric dumping the chemicals into the sea that would've created the Haemavore future (The story *is* a bit confusing, like Ghost light). There's also of course the Futurekind and Toclafane from the Master trilogy but those seem to not have been caused by pollution but by desperate attempts to survive (Almost like the Daleks themselves-RTD even stated that if he wasn't allowed to use the Daleks he would've used the Toclafane).
Last edited by ChrisIII; 01-14-2020 at 12:57 PM.
chrism227.wordpress.com Info and opinions on a variety of interests.
https://twitter.com/chrisprtsmouth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60shMyabeMo
Interesting thing here-Lenny Henry (Spyfall) as the Doctor in a 1985 comedy sketch.
chrism227.wordpress.com Info and opinions on a variety of interests.
https://twitter.com/chrisprtsmouth
Big Finish's Day of The Master set the bar pretty high for the Master's 50th anniversary.
Basically every Dalek story was thematically about nazism and/or facism.
Battlefield was blatantly about the dangers and idiocy of nuclear weapons.
Survival was all about selfishness and how one's survival is nothing against the welfare of a larger community.
Ghost Light was basically a giant middle finger to creationists.
Silver Nemesis was about how greed corrupts and is self destructive. And again, a commentary on nuclear deterrents.
Meanwhile, Dragonfire was about how much Mel sucked as a character and how quickly she could be jettisoned from the show.
"Let me guess. My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie!"@Matt_of_Geek
Now writing at The Atomic Junk Shop
CBR Community Standards and Rules
This is a great summation of where I’m at. Too much backpedaling. Too many companions. I agree with the politics but dislike the directing, dialogue, and storytelling. Not enough time travel. IMHO, if you’re going to strand the series somewhere, go Victorian or something.
As an aside, it bugged me that part 1 was a James Bond pastiche but didn’t have Bond style music or intrigue. The Doctor tells everyone to be discreet then walks up to the tech guy and dumps a bunch of exposition about aliens. That’s a bad scene unless played for laughs about how awkward/goofy the Doctor is and it just failed to be funny while also being a bad spy scene. Flash did a so-so Bond parody this season but it was easily 10x better and snappier than Spyfall.
I can't say much about intrigue (that seems more like a stylistic thing and I never really paid much attention to intrigue in Bond movies, tbh), but the bombastic music instantly struck me as Bond-ish, particularly the Connery films -- almost every time he stepped out of a car in a tropical getaway, a big brass band would play! I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the incidental music in Spyfall isn't used in future episodes unlike other stock DW music (something Murray Gold really liked to do, though I like his stuff nonetheless).
Last edited by Cyke; 01-14-2020 at 06:38 PM.
It seems like they mainly dropped the spy/Bond angle apart from the laser shoes in the second episode for a more traditional "historical celebrity"/Master episode. Although the France part involved spying it was pretty much World War II stuff, not Bond really (Although some of Fleming's inspiration for Bond came out of his own World War II experiences).
The part with Barton designating the companions as public enemies kind of felt right out of "Sound of Drums" in particular (and of course the drums themselves made a comeback).
chrism227.wordpress.com Info and opinions on a variety of interests.
https://twitter.com/chrisprtsmouth
If you’re interested in both Doctor Who and gamebooks like me you might be interested in this! All proceeds go to a mental health charity.
https://gamebooknews.com/2020/01/15/...fescan-threat/
Dr Who has always flipped around a little, I think, between, all ages show, to children's show that can also be watched by adults. Since Dr Who restarted it's been pretty much an all ages program, but now with the new Doctor it feels to me at least, to be more 'children's that can also be watched by adults'. A more slick Sara Jane's if you will. I'm not sure this format is going to hold onto the viewers for very long. Though not rapidly, the viewing figures seem to be slowly dropping. I wouldn't be too surprised if the natural level for this is going to be under Capaldi's low ratings.
I think that more or less the ratings have been dropping since Tennant and RTD left.
chrism227.wordpress.com Info and opinions on a variety of interests.
https://twitter.com/chrisprtsmouth
Which is interesting as in terms of story quality, I think the high point since the reboot was the Smith + Amy + Rory era.
"Let me guess. My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie!"@Matt_of_Geek
Now writing at The Atomic Junk Shop
CBR Community Standards and Rules
American numbers shot up with Smith (not that BBC necessarily takes that into account) but plunged when Karen Gillen left and again when Smith left.
I can say anecdotally that tracks given my dozen closest friends and parents as a sample:
About a third watched Tennant. The majority watched most or all of Smith. My dad and I were the only ones who watched Capaldi.
We dropped Whitaker with Spyfall after never really enjoying any of the episodes before it and more or less feeling emotionally burned by the destruction of Gallifrey.
The Sun Makers was blatantly a dig at the Tax Man, no doubt. The difference is that it was written intelligently. The Happiness Patrol is another in that it was a satire of Thatcher. Helen A is as close as you can get to Thatcher without actually casting Thatcher herself.
Pertwee's era is when the show was really on the moral high horse. Barry Letts was pretty big on it since he was a Buddhist. Inferno, The Silurians, The Mutants, Green Death the list is endless.