- 2 days ago
Regenerations, CGI tweaks, and other ways Doctor Who has changed for the better!
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00:00Hello, hello everybody, how are we all doing? Ellie here, and today we're going to be talking about change, my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon.
00:09Look, to quote Ross Geller, nobody likes change. I don't like change, you don't like change, but in time we learn to accept it.
00:16I hated it when they changed Matt Smith's first title sequence. Absolutely hated it.
00:20But after a while, I... Oh, no, actually, I still don't like the Series 7 title sequence.
00:25Okay, so that was a bad example, but the point is, Doctor Who has changed in ways both big and small, and many of these changes have been completely the right decision.
00:34So, let's get into it. This is 10 Doctor Who changes that were completely justified.
00:40Number 10. It feels different this time.
00:42You'd imagine that a biological process would be fairly consistent in the way it works, but regeneration in the classic run was always a bit weird.
00:49Sure, you had the majority fall into the general box of whooshy effects around the face area, but then there were some outliers, like 7 Frankensteining himself into 8, 2 dropping acid and falling down a big hole, and Tom Baker getting a cuddle from a bald ghost made of cotton.
01:04Nobody seemed quite sure how they wanted regeneration to work. They weren't even consistent in whether the change happened pre- or post-death.
01:11Cue the revival, in which all three showrunners have remarkably seemed to be in agreement with the style established in 2005.
01:18Minus Matt Smith's little time sneeze, but he did already have his light show on the clock tower.
01:22This has been a nice connecting through line over the years, making jumps between Doctors and showrunners a little less jarring, and frankly, it's a really great special effect too.
01:31Nothing says drama like having a little cry and shooting fireworks out of your head.
01:34Number 9. I'm over screwdrivers.
01:36We've had a little while now to sit on the recent Sonic Screwdriver changes, and while the jury is still out on 15's TV remote, we quite like the new features of the screwdriver, in particular the holographic display elements introduced in the Starbeast.
01:50It's always been a little odd how the revival doctors seem to get information from the Sonic Screwdriver without any sort of display.
01:5611 frequently just sort of stared at it and reeled off information, while 10 would wiggle it next to his ear like it was whispering to him.
02:03The Sonic often serves as a free exposition tool, and having this visual display makes a big difference, with it seeming a little less like the Doctor gaining temporary omniscience for the sake of the plot.
02:13And then of course there were the Sonic Shades as a temporary switch up, though let's be honest, they would have been awful if paired with any other modern Doctor.
02:22With 12, they kind of did work. They did seem exactly like the kind of thing your weird rock and roll uncle would find cool.
02:28But I stand by my thoughts. Sonic Shades? Too far.
02:31Number 8. A Flat Team Structure
02:33Back in the day, a common criticism levelled at the show was the companion dynamic, which often played hard into damsel-in-distress tropes.
02:41Now that's not to say that the classic companions didn't have their moments of heroism, but a less than ideal amount of time was spent screaming,
02:47Doctor! Or just screaming in general, particularly the female companions.
02:51The trend was bucked with characters like Ace, but the likes of Susan and Mel really didn't have a whole lot to contribute.
02:57The 2005 revivals saw a major shift in this regard, essentially promoting the companions to co-leads, giving them a ton more agency and massively increasing their contribution to saving the day.
03:08We also spent a lot more time getting to know them, their families, and giving them meaningful character arcs and journeys.
03:14The modern companions are much more well-rounded as a result, and tend to have stronger emotional connections with the Doctor.
03:20Except Dan, who speaks to Thirteen about four times and then buggers off.
03:23Number 7. Can you hurry up please, or I'll hit you with my shoe.
03:27One of the biggest changes in Doctor Who has been an overhaul of how stories are structured, and it's a change that's difficult to argue with.
03:33Classic Who was heavily serialised, with stories running over many weeks comprising four or six parts, but sometimes stretching to as many as twelve.
03:41Granted, the episodes were shorter, but the show famously had a problem with over-padding scripts.
03:46Things tightened up as we entered the latter classic years, with the introduction of the 45-minute episode in 1984's Resurrection of the Daleks, and reduced episode counts in the McCoy era.
03:56In 2005, we transitioned into a modern format, with more stories per series spread out across fewer episodes, each with a longer run time.
04:04This also put the pacing issues to bed, forcing writers to submit scripts that were contained within 45 minutes, which thankfully resulted in a bit less fluff.
04:13Though this gradual shift to less and less episodes per year is a frustrating one, 14 in 2005 versus 9 in 2024, it has correlated with an increase in production value.
04:23It's expensive to make good-looking TV these days, and for Doctor Who to compete, quality over quantity is ultimately the best approach.
04:31Number six, it's them aliens, I bet my pension!
04:34Earth has a rough time of it in the Hooniverse.
04:36During the revival alone, our planet has been invaded dozens and dozens of times, and that's just counting the modern day ones.
04:43It happened so many times that they made a whole episode that was just a highlight reel of all the previous invasions.
04:48If you're living in London, you're asking for it.
04:50It's the equivalent of moving to Albert Square, or accepting a teaching job at Waterloo Road.
04:55Not really worth all the hassle, is it?
04:56Despite all this, the general public in most eras of the show seems to not believe aliens exist.
05:02At some point, the suspension of disbelief gets to the point where no magic cracks in the fabric of the universe can paper over it.
05:09We'd argue that RTD is the one who nailed this particular aspect of the show, quickly knocking that trope on the head in his first series,
05:16by having the people of the UK fully aware that they live in a hellscape where at any given moment,
05:20they may be under invasion from a Dalek fleet, an angry Christmas tree, or an army of babies made of fat.
05:26It helps make the show that bit more believable and grounded,
05:29and thankfully, people don't seem too phased about aliens these days either.
05:32See Dan booping Carvanista on the nose, or Rose meeting the meep.
05:36Number 5. A bit of a love life
05:38There was never much time for romance in a classic series, for better or worse.
05:42Beyond the odd flirtation, the Doctor never showed much of an interest in anyone or anything,
05:46and the companions didn't fare much better unless an excuse was needed to write them out.
05:51Many fans decided the Doctor was asexual, and there's certainly an argument for keeping things that way.
05:55But then Paul McGann arrived, and any notion of sticking to the famous no hanky panky on the TARDIS rule went out of the window.
06:02The revival continued this trend, with romantic elements feeding into Rose, Martha, Amy, Clara, and Yaz's relationship with the Doctor.
06:09We even got the first romantic couple on the TARDIS, excluding two in Jamie, in Amy and Rory.
06:14Love was well and truly in the air, and the success of the revival indicated this was a change for the better.
06:19The show even managed to give us a love interest for the Doctor that didn't involve a power imbalance,
06:24with River, the best character, solidifying herself as the Doctor's one and only, in the eyes of many.
06:31Personally, we're very glad that they finally managed to make this work.
06:34Number 4. Have you had work done?
06:36Classic Who might be a goldmine of quality sci-fi, but even its most ardent defenders must admit it's a tough sell to a modern newcomer.
06:43The show's notoriously hokey effects, which were stretching the bounds of credibility even as they aired, are perhaps what it's most remembered for.
06:51Unconvincing aliens cobbled together from the BBC's lost property boxes, metal spaceship walls that wobbled if someone sighed too heavily,
06:58and planets that all look suspiciously like the same quarry.
07:00There's certainly a degree of charm in this, but with hundreds of episodes to get through, we can understand how that charm might start to run a little thin.
07:08Over the years, however, these classics have been re-released on DVD and Blu-ray with improved CGI effects.
07:14These still aren't necessarily in line with the standards of today, but they go a long way to helping stories like The Dalek Invasion of Earth feel a lot less outdated.
07:22This goes doubly so for stories like Kinder, which is thankfully no longer stuck with its jumbo-sized novelty inflatable snake, which is now much more convincing.
07:31For the purists, though, the effects are optional, so everyone's a winner.
07:34Number 3. My future is in safe hands.
07:37An Adventure in Space and Time is a wonderful one-off biopic that aired as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations.
07:44Dramatising the story of the show's creation through to Hartnell's regeneration, it starred David Bradley as the main man and was penned by Mark Gatiss,
07:52rather awkwardly blowing any of his actual Doctor Who scripts out the water.
07:55It's a must-watch if you haven't already.
07:57The tearjerker of a final scene sees Hartnell looking forward at what the show, at what his legacy will become,
08:03at which point he sees Matt Smith standing across from him.
08:06If you're sticklers like we are, this scene is ever so slightly undercut by the fact that the green-screen Smith is standing in front of the console he's clearly meant to be behind,
08:13completely taking you out at the moment.
08:15It's a minor oversight, but fans have moaned about it for years.
08:18Well, 10 years later, An Adventure in Space and Time was broadcast again, but with one vital difference.
08:24The green-screen mistake was fixed, and even better, it wasn't Smith standing behind the console.
08:29It was, in fact, the first on-screen appearance of Shuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor.
08:35It was a powerful, powerful moment.
08:37No other show could do something like this, and the only downside is that we'll know what to expect with version 3 in a decade's time.
08:44Number 2. Welcome to the Sisterhood.
08:46When Will We Get a Female Doctor has been part of the discussion around Doctor Who for far longer than most fans realise.
08:52This idea didn't just spring up in the latter half of the revival.
08:55It had been batted about for much of the classic era too,
08:58with the likes of Joanna Lumley and Dawn French being suggested as possible 7th Doctor candidates by Doctor Who creator Sidney Newman.
09:05Of course, these seeds were also planted with the introduction of female time lords like Romana and the Rani.
09:10But it wasn't until Moffat's era that the idea of gender-swapping regenerations was cemented on TV,
09:15with the master being given first dibs, albeit off-screen, and the general soon after.
09:20With Missy, we got the best incarnation of the Doctor's nemesis ever put to screen, and a complete breath of fresh air.
09:26A few years later, the Doctor followed suit.
09:28If nothing else, the idea of a female Doctor makes speculation about the next incarnation even more exciting,
09:34because it really can be anyone.
09:35Never say never on those long-standing fancasts of Hayley Atwell and Olivia Colman.
09:40Maybe one day.
09:41Number 1. The Last of the Time Lords
09:43When Doctor Who returned in 2005, it returned to a vastly different cultural landscape to the one it left.
09:49The schlocky runabout vibe that most casual fans associated with the classic run was, unfairly or not, hard to shake.
09:55And so, one of the many smart decisions Russell T. Davis made with the 9th Doctor
09:59was to modernise the character and give him more of an edge,
10:02more in line with the noughties' trend towards grittier telly.
10:05Gone were the question mark sweaters and technicolour dreamcoats.
10:08This new incarnation sported a buzz cut and a leather jacket,
10:12with a dash of crippling loneliness and a heavy serving of PTSD.
10:15This was largely due to the time war,
10:17possibly the single greatest source of character development the Doctor has had in 60 years.
10:21It went a long way to giving 9, and especially 10, mainstream appeal,
10:25and has been a well the revival has drawn from for almost 20 years.
10:29Loneliness, grief, guilt, rage, hardly groundbreaking characteristics,
10:33but they kind of were for the Doctor.
10:35In 2005, everyone wanted their heroes to be a little angrier, a little darker.
10:39Had this not been the route Russell T. Davis chose,
10:42the show probably wouldn't have taken off in the way that it did.
10:44And there you have it.
10:45Speaking of change, though, Doctor Who is changing its numbering,
10:48so why not check out our discussion about the real reason Doctor Who is resetting to Season 1.
10:53In the meantime, I've been Ellie for Who Culture,
10:55and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
10:58We'll see you next time.
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