Chibnall’s Era: The Commentaries, Part 1 — Finality | Doctor Who Podcast

Why did the Chibnall Era end the way it did? What motivated the final decisions across the three final episodes? What sort of finality did the era arrive at? How do the actor and audience relationships with Doctor Who differ? We explore these questions in a metacommentary unpacking the audio commentary tracks for The Power of the Doctor, Legend of the Sea Devils, and Eve of the Daleks. Along the way, we discuss circularity, ‘we’ll fix it in post’ mentality, unity of effect, character continuity, audio afterlives, accumulated history, performer humility, editing bay instincts, Guinness Recordification, & more! (00:00:00) Metacommentary (00:03:00) The Power of the Doctor introductions (00:04:26) The lost bullet train episode (00:07:15) Extra special + showrunner changeover (00:09:54) Chibnall coming up with episode titles + spoilerphobia (00:13:35) Dan’s departure (00:15:48) Killing off companions (00:18:34) The triple threat (00:20:26) UNIT led by women (00:24:36) Sacha getting lots of lines; Jodie humility (00:29:04) Sacha Dhawan interview + draft issues + clarity of focus (00:39:28) Audio afterlives; living on in Big Finish (00:47:24) Splitting actors up (00:49:02) Original oil rig idea for the Daleks (00:51:05) Ace & Tegan’s guns + actor authority (01:11:34) Forced regenerations (01:13:18) The Master’s dance (01:14:50) Splitting the centenary in half (01:16:42) Eve of the Daleks introductions (01:18:46) Creepiness & tone (01:22:59) Briggs on Chibnall’s reorientations (01:23:46) Marvel moments (01:27:14) Focusing on love (01:28:47) Legend of the Sea Devils introductions (01:30:51) Sea Devil ADR + production issues (01:33:36) Directorial choices (01:35:37) Featurettes: Jodie and Mandip’s friendship (01:39:40) Resuming The Power of the Doctor: 13’s costume on men (01:42:35) Chibnall writing the multi-Doctor scenes (01:47:27) ‘Insane ideas’ (01:50:58) Sylvester and Sophie + accumulated actor history (01:54:15) The meaning of ‘The Power of the Doctor’ (01:56:54) Deleted Master scenes (01:59:20) Chibnall’s oldest ideas (02:00:44) The un-kiss (02:02:23) Ice cream loneliness (02:05:09) Grief group therapy (02:09:56) Ian’s return (02:14:54) Jodie on her regeneration (02:17:51) 13’s last lines (02:21:58) Segun’s last cue + music as a resource (02:26:25) Regeneration secrets…

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