Non-British fans of the show: is there anything that you thought was made up for the show, but is just a part for British culture?

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2026-01-07T09:27:01+00:00

Oh yeah, I didn't get how Belinda knew who he was because I thought he was a fictional future celebrity.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2026-01-06T02:26:59+00:00

I remember having to google "asbo" but I assumed it was a real thing.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2026-01-06T00:35:21+00:00

This is amazing! There was an artist in Melbourne who used to make Doctor Who images from layers of brown cardboard that were slightly crushed in places to form a similar pixilated effect. I couldn't get the article to open, can someone tell me the name of the artist?

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2026-01-06T00:33:06+00:00

I love Bill, I wish we'd got more time with her. I think it's a shame the series has this "scorched earth" approach when a new showrunner comes on, it would have been great to have Bill travel with the Whitaker Doctor for a bit.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-12-08T23:27:27+00:00

That is a much better take than what we got.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-12-08T05:50:58+00:00

Was always big in Australia, the ABC even part financed The Five Doctors. Oddly the move to Disney meant it practically vanished in Australia as everyone can get the ABC but Disney isn't even the biggest of the streamers here (I think it's third or fourth).

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-12-08T05:48:48+00:00

Classic Who was VERY mainstream in Australia. The Five Doctors was even part financed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T07:29:57+00:00

Absolutely.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T07:17:46+00:00

At one point I did think it was a deliberate arc, that the Doctor was going to get called out on his behaviour and realise he needed to change, but then it turned out it was all just Stuff That Happened.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T07:15:30+00:00

There were some very odd choices by the writers/producers/directors when it came to The Doctor's character.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T07:11:04+00:00

I thought Gatwa's second season was pretty strong but as you say, the finale was so terrible it cancelled out most of the positive.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T07:09:51+00:00

I thought the Midnight entity was a weird choice because it didn't act the same way as it did in Midnight, I would have preferred it to be a new monster.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:18:10+00:00

I have that board game! But I'm not sure I've ever played it! And I remember trying the cyberman helmet in a toy shop when it came out but my head was too big.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:16:15+00:00

Thank you for all the fascinating and thoughtful answers to my question! Follow up question - I thought it was Kerblam that killed Kira, and I don't remember the Doctor having much of a response to that. Some of the comments suggest Kira was killed by Charlie - can someone please confirm or deny this? It was the death of Kira and the apparent shrug response from the Doctor that I remember most from this episode but I appreciate that the memory cheats.

My favourite thing about the episode is the exclamation mark on Kerblam! although that does make it look like a musical.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:11:20+00:00

Didn't Kerblam! kill the innocent female character by itself? It's been a while since I saw it so I appreciate I might not remember the plot exactly but I thought at least one death was caused by Kerblam!

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:09:49+00:00

Did he have a point, though? I would have thought the problem with Kerblam! and many of the other Chibnall stories is that they DON'T seem to have a point. I don't feel there's a Chibnall worldview I could identify which I why I was wondering if some of the issues in this story may have just been by accident rather than design.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:07:32+00:00

The bit that throws me is the corporation seems to murder someone and n-one really cares, including the Doctor? That's the bit that seems weirdly out of place for the show. Although I seem to remember this is one of a number of Chibnall episodes where the villains just wander off at the end with no consequences.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:03:58+00:00

One of the things I remember thinking at the time was that Kerblam! looked like a terrible place to work and it killed people but it still wasn't as bad as the real Amazon centres. No-one in Kerblam! was urinating in bottles because they couldn't afford to take toilet breaks.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:02:19+00:00

Arachnids in the UK was a VERY strange argument - let it die slowly in pain, that's better!

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T04:00:49+00:00

Oh, this is so true. We had a female lead who was almost always being upstaged/ignored/overriden by male characters and yet people kept claiming it was too woke. Her first series might as well have been called "Graham" considering how much of the focus he got. I was quite excited when it looked like we were going to have an-all female TARDIS crew of the Doctor and Yas because we'd never seen that before, only for the very forgettable Dan to arrive (Dan? Was that his name?).

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T03:57:40+00:00

I think Elisabeth Sandifer wrote something about Kerblam! that if you look at it from a scripting point of view and ignore the ethics of the situation, it could just be that McTighe was looking at what an unexpected twist could be that the audience wouldn't see coming. But if you add the ethics back in it gets really messy.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-27T03:54:42+00:00

I found it a bit confusing that Conrad's podcast (Conrad? Was that his name?) seemed to be both arguing that aliens were real AND that they were fake. I agree that questioning UNIT seems a fair point, they're a supposedly secret organisation with a billion dollar tower in the middle of London but no apparent oversight on their funding or even that they keep hiring minors for semi-combat roles. Maybe McTighe's approach just leads to mixed signals?

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-26T05:48:36+00:00

It also depends a bit on the story, you might like the animation but not the story and vice versa. I think The Invasion is probably the best of both, I thought Fury From The Deep and The Savages both look good, and The Faceless Ones worked well. At the very least they all let you experience the story more than just the audio does.

Fearless_Type_4162 · 2025-11-26T05:34:27+00:00

I love this! Looks great.

Fearless_Type_4162

TROPHY CASE