Difference between revisions of "Talk:2727: Runtime"

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Why does it say there are seven Doctor actors (plus one announced) and the 8th already announced in new Who? 8 is accounted for in the movie mention, so it’s 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and “war”, making 6, with Ncuti Gatwa as the announced 7th. Tennant reprising his role doesn’t count as another actor, so it doesn’t add to the count of actors. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.148|172.68.174.148]] 20:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 
Why does it say there are seven Doctor actors (plus one announced) and the 8th already announced in new Who? 8 is accounted for in the movie mention, so it’s 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and “war”, making 6, with Ncuti Gatwa as the announced 7th. Tennant reprising his role doesn’t count as another actor, so it doesn’t add to the count of actors. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.148|172.68.174.148]] 20:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 
:Could they have been counting the {{w|Fugitive Doctor}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.158|172.69.79.158]] 22:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 
:Could they have been counting the {{w|Fugitive Doctor}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.158|172.69.79.158]] 22:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 +
:That's consistent (assuming you accept War Doctor as valid, squeezed into the number-sequence as a retrofit incarnation). In fact moreso, as War didn't like to be identified as Doctor, but Fugitive did (when applicable). But also, at a push, David Morrissey, Toby Jones and even Catherine Tate could (for differing reasons) be included. Tentatively, also Tom Baker. Never mind David Bradley or Richard E. Grant as, amongst others, '(p)replacements' to the standard set of One to Thirteen, seen in the post-Eight era although if you include Bradley then, at the very least, Richard Hurndall needs adding to the pre-Eight set as well.
 +
:Then there are the Doctor actors from {{w|Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death|The Curse Of Fatal Death}}, should you legitimately find a place to include those of them not already mentioned. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.139|172.71.242.139]] 16:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Revision as of 16:41, 22 January 2023


It has to be said that a first season of a series generally will be written as a whole season (give or take any pilot/feature-length-special that may be the heralding first episode). Whereas film sequences don't tend to be purposefully made/anticipated together (notable exceptions: Back To The Futures 2 & 3, the LOTR and (later) Hobbit trilogies, various sub-sets of Star Wars (the prequel and sequel trilogies, certainly, the OT's second and third conclusions to the story started with Ep4)). Sometimes it runs well enough to get up into high numbers of at least sufficiently similar-yet-innovating releases that satisfy the theme (the Fast And Furiouses... the whole Bond œuvre..?), though sometimes it might stutter (Highlander 2!) and may or may not actually recover. Either way, it risks becoming a made-for-TV-movie sinkhole (as Disney knows well enough), unless it was always intended to reproduce some previously successful serialisation (Tolkein's stuff, as already alluded to; J.K. Rowling's surprisingly popular product). I think, therefore that Cueball is right to more dread the effort of dealing with some multi-sequel monstrocity of a film-canon, compared to whatever degree of First Season Disservice he has suffered or heard that he must suffer before the kinks are properly ironed out in seasons 2-6. (Then it goes funny for 7, 8 and most of 9, until the story arc evolves into something that gets it to series 20 before a bit of cancel/uncancel shenanigans plague the production, spin-offs (including a prequel series and/or an animated version) take over the franchise and relegate the old stars to cameo-actors, the franchise then gets a Series: The Movie! which either does surprisingly well or surprisingly manages to upset the whole diverse fanbase in loads of differing ways... or some variation on all that.)
...but, anyway, it's not surprising. Yet it does probably qualify as an interesting point that fully deserves to be highlit or else we might never have thought of it for ousrselves, in as many words. 172.71.178.64 03:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think 8 moves are of about equal length to 1 season. I picked 8 random movies from the list of movies I'm planning to watch and it totaled 18¼ hours. Then looked at some series first seasons. The Mandalorian is 5½ hours, Wednesday is 6 hours, Friends is 6¼ hours, even an outlier like Dragon Ball Z is only 10½ hours. The premise of the comic probably still stands though, but can be explained by the fact that with a series it also gives the promise of more hours of good material. With movies if the first 8 are bad there might not be many good ones after that. Tharkon (talk) 04:13, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

You picked some BAD examples, though... AFAIK, Mandalorian and Wednesday are straight-to-streaming shows. STS, specialty channel, and non-North American shows (British, Australian) have particularly short seasons of 6, 8, or 10 episodes. A standard season is between 22 and 26 episodes at the very outside, usually around 24. Also, such discussions don't generally happen about half hour sitcoms & cartoons like Friends or Dragon Ball Z, most shows are hour shows (44 minutes without ads instead of 22). Quick and dirty math - rounding to 20 and 40 minute episodes, or 3 per hour and 3 per 2 hours - means you picked a weirdly short season of Friends of 18.75 episodes, their 26 episode seasons (as I recall they tended to hit 26) would be nearly 9 hours usually. Hour-long shows, using the average 24 episodes, is 16 hours. A usual average movie length these days is 2h per (used to be 1.5 until I'd say the late 90s, movies could be as short as 1:15 and rarely hit 2, but SO MANY long movies in recent decades) means 8 movies ALSO averages about 16. The math works out if you use standard, middle of the road examples - no long movies like Titanic or short seasons like streaming shows. NiceGuy1 (talk) 07:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
It's not just about the length, although yes, it's rare for movie series to have more than 8 movies. It's about continuity. Movies tend to be relatively stand-alone (although there are counterexamples, like LOTR) so watching 8 of them just to "get" the 9th is rarely needed. Meanwhile, with series, you usually NEED to watch the first season - or at least big part of it - to get the basic premise of the show. It's more likely you get away with skipping second one, if it actually gets better in third or fourth season (like ST:DS9, although you probably can just watch first four episodes then skip rest of first season and whole second and not miss much). -- Hkmaly (talk) 12:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The runtime of most movies is O(n), but the runtime of some TV shows is O(n log n) because you have to go back for context. 162.158.2.114 04:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I was surprised nobody noticed or made mention that with Doctor Who you CAN'T watch from the true beginning (not really) because of all the lost episodes from the 60s and 70s! So I added that to the explanation. I've collected every episode, but for those lost ones all I have is that they have the audio and some pictures so someone made a slideshow as a replacement, or they have the audio and someone animated a replacement (many of these replacements are shorter than an episode, though). And sometimes it isn't even full stories missing - as nearly every story spanned multiple episodes - so LOTS of stories aren't complete. So nobody can TRULY watch every episode from the beginning any more (I've done my best and got to season 3 before I couldn't find time any more). NiceGuy1 (talk) 08:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Is "The original Doctor Who, running from 1963-1989 was extremely low budget, and is generally considered to be not as good as the revived series (2005-present), which has a much higher production budget and is typically much more popular with modern viewers (who mainly ignore the older episodes)" actually true? Most of the discussion I've seen is not particularly kind to the revival relative to the heyday of the third through seventh doctors. It seems like someone just made this up to fit the comic's underlying narrative. An actual citation is actually needed. I would suggest in this case that being its own thing means that the quality varies from writer to writer more than from year to year. 172.70.210.145 08:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Without having read your comment, I made changes there that might help. But, really, the joke is not about Doctor Who (outside of the title text)v, and while there is much useful info to impart, the point is that it just isn't covered by the comparison and might even need to begiven a Trivia-like add-on for the detail, and leave the main bit as a "it's complicated!" to not distract..? ;)

I think the title text is less about the number of seasons of Doctor Who and more about the fact that people tend to suggest you start with the 9th Doctor. In other words, they're suggesting you skip the first 8 Doctors. Mrgvsv (talk) 15:22, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't know anyone who thinks the revival has been better than the Pertwee and Baker years. Since 2018 there's been no respect for continuity or canon, just one long retcon festival. It's not a story, it's a set of shorts with a theme. Not that the original was too great with continuity to begin with, of course. 172.70.211.91 19:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Horses for courses. I don't rate much of Nine's tenure (except as a useful re-emergence of the franchise), and the structure of the stories had changed (gone with the serials, apart from a few multi-episode stories, and of course the integration of series-arcs; then the awkward reliance on only a Christmas/New Year episode-or-two without even proper free reign in a mini-season or longer), but Classic was Executively Meddled With in its own ways more suited for the time and there was enough fan-grief at the time for all of that, and confusion by the more casual viewers.
Yes, perhaps a bit too much introverted navel-gazing and unsubtle nod-nod-wink-wink to the perceived obessesives. Some of the writers may be a bit too much fans themselves. And yet others just plan reckless and not as solidly faithful as we might wish them to be to our own personal headcanon.
But that's not unique to Who. And I can't judge the series's merit only on my enjoyment. There's far more than that to the successful commercial continuation. And this is a discussion that could really alienate those we might hope to appreciate the 'real' series, whatever that is. 172.69.79.159 20:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I interpreted the title text as saying that, although Doctor Who would by any reasonable metric (consistency of writing, consistency of worldbuilding, how compelling and/or realistic and/or complex villains are, plausibility, philosophical resonance, CGI, etc.) be rated as 'bad' or 'unlikely to be good' in almost any season, it is nonetheless good for the vast majority of it. But I don't want to put that in unless somebody else reads it that way too.172.68.35.32 15:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

To some extent I agree. I've heard enough times "You've never watched DW? I think you'd enjoy Blink..." (or "The Girl In The Fireplace", or "A Good Man Goes To War" or "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" or "The Five Doctors" or... ...whatever the speaker thinks will appeal to the curiosity and/or particular interests of their Who-curious but surprisingly still 'cherry' partner in conversation).
There are some episodes/serials/entire seasons that I'd not suggest as an intro, but An Unearthly Child is valid, as is Rose (consigning the whole available run of of Classic and especially the TV-Movie to "maybe later, just to get an idea"). But there are clunkers (or "hilarious in hindsight", like the rather less impressive 'preview' of the London Olympics in Fear Her) that I'd say to watch along the way through a series but not try to make too much judgement of as you advance onwards to other intresting points (Army Of Ghost, etc) or episodes which actually need quite a bit of prior knowledge to appreciate (Turn Left).
But this is going to be a subjective deal between the existing fan and the 'potential new recruit' that I can only really generalise about. And likely mystify some others as to my choice of examples and attitudes towards them! 162.158.34.231 19:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Why does it say there are seven Doctor actors (plus one announced) and the 8th already announced in new Who? 8 is accounted for in the movie mention, so it’s 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and “war”, making 6, with Ncuti Gatwa as the announced 7th. Tennant reprising his role doesn’t count as another actor, so it doesn’t add to the count of actors. 172.68.174.148 20:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Could they have been counting the Fugitive Doctor? 172.69.79.158 22:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
That's consistent (assuming you accept War Doctor as valid, squeezed into the number-sequence as a retrofit incarnation). In fact moreso, as War didn't like to be identified as Doctor, but Fugitive did (when applicable). But also, at a push, David Morrissey, Toby Jones and even Catherine Tate could (for differing reasons) be included. Tentatively, also Tom Baker. Never mind David Bradley or Richard E. Grant as, amongst others, '(p)replacements' to the standard set of One to Thirteen, seen in the post-Eight era although if you include Bradley then, at the very least, Richard Hurndall needs adding to the pre-Eight set as well.
Then there are the Doctor actors from The Curse Of Fatal Death, should you legitimately find a place to include those of them not already mentioned. ;) 172.71.242.139 16:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)