#david tennant in this scene is just phenomenal

[nobleriver]

DOCTOR WHO | Forest of the Dead (4.09)

[dudleyguildford]

i know david's acting in that final scene is utterly heartbreaking but i have to draw attention to the minute decisions michael made during crowley's monologue which are just.... so fucking perfect

because even though aziraphale isn't saying anything as crowley starts to speak, there is no doubt about the sheer turmoil this character is in

the fact that aziraphale cannot keep his gaze on crowley, keeps darting his eyes away as if to look for too long would crumble the resolve he has

the absolute panic on his face when he realises what this is. this love declaration he never, ever anticipated coming from crowley of all people. the dawning realisation that crowley feels with such intensity, that he would happily give up everything just to run away with aziraphale...

you can see that it's all just too much

that little open mouthed, wide-eyed expression that is begging for crowley to stop even as he is desperate to hear more. the limp arms now frozen at his sides because physically as well as emotionally he is in complete shock

the tiny quirk of the eyebrows as crowley continues because aziraphale can hear what crowley is saying but he doesn't understand it any better. how can this be happening? how did he not see it earlier? was he really this blind?

not to mention the breathing! because you can't hear it, not the audience, but you can see how aziraphale is taking great lungfuls of air. it's partly the realisation of what is happening, but also i think seeing crowley so willingly vulnerable. exposing everything that both of them had deliberately left unacknowledged for millennia.

and then finally that slow, gradual shake of the head which is as instinctual as it is tortuous. i love how michael does that. if it had been any other actor i would have hated aziraphale in that moment. but michael made it seem so plaintive, shaking his head not out of rejection or repulsion but rather out of a desperate kind of anguish, a fearful timidity at the scale of this wild and reckless offering he was being given.

that scene could so easily have tipped the scales in terms of seeing crowley as good and aziraphale as bad, but somehow michael still made aziraphale's reaction understandable. sympathetic even. every expression, every gesture was boyish and oh-so sincere. there was a child-like naivety to his gestures which meant, rather than anger, i felt pity instead.

it takes an incredibly skilled actor pull off that kind of trickery.

[random-weirdo]

Self care is not watching Ellie find out her husband is a murderer.

[princeloww]

OK I watched Good (David Tennant) as it was airing just now and oh my god it was incredible

As a theatre tech nerd (3 years of stage managing + sound tech) I was absolutely transfixed by the technical stuff. The lighting, the music, the overall staging -- it was just so good. It reminded me a bit of Amadeus, the most recent show I did, in the way that the music is so interwined with the story. The scenes of Halder speaking over the music really brought me back to Salieri's impassioned, verbal breakdowns over Mozart's music.

The music was phenomenal. The lighting was as well -- the sudden shifts as we jump from one thing to another? It's simple, yes, in theory, but the execution was just so flawlessly smooth and perfect each time. The red lighting to represent flames during the book burnings and the final scene with Maurice was perfect. It really encapsulated the entire feeling of the scenes --- I might be looking into it too much, but the way Halder's face is completely cast in red when he looks at Maurice? Oh my god.

The acting was obviously the stand-out thing, but combined with the clever staging (I was quite excited when it opened up at the end, and then immediately unexcited when I remembered what was happening), lighting and sounds??? I was sitting there with my mouth open struggling to finish my orders because I was just so engaged by it all.

I don't know her name, but the woman who played Anne/Helen/The mother/the nazi guy was AMAZING. I am so obsessed with her. The scenes where she rapidly switches between one character and another? Fucking perfect oh my godd. The lighting shifts when she switches to the dementia-ridden mother was amazing, but only worked so well because of her incredible acting. There was such a stark difference between each of her characters. Actors really amaze me, I've got to say. Maurice's actor was great too - I loved his small movements and the way he spoke.

I don't need to say how great David was, because we all know.

Very much worth the watch, please check it out -- theatre nerd or not

[doctorwhogirlie]

Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge:

Day Twenty Two: Scariest Moment

The moment when the Midnight entity took over the Doctor... Did not like that, David Tennant's acting is just phenomenal! But this scene always gives me the chills!

Click here for the full list of days

[aceofwhump]

(Go2 spoilers)

THE LAST EPISODE? opinions about the episode?

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!! Mildly incoherent keyboard smashing below

OH MY GOD!!!

I AM HEARTBROKEN!!! I was crying during the entire end scene!!!! Legitimately sobbing sitting on the edge of my, mouth hanging open in shock!

But it's like a good heartbroken? Okay so first of all I fucking love angst. I think that's pretty obvious here lol. So watching all the angst between the two of them in last few minutes was a delicious kind of heartbreaking! And I fully plan on making gifs especially of Aziraphale's angsty face. Cause god its beautiful.

And David Tennant and Michael Sheen are just so so amazing at their jobs and their acting during that scene was PHENOMENAL. They had me on the edge of my seat, crying like a heartbroken teenager. It takes a lot to get me to react like that to a show especially lately but David and Michael destroyed me.

And I personally think this is AMAZING writing/plotting. Of course this will on depend on Amazon giving us season 3 so everyone better watch the crap out of this season okay! Because season 2 focused a lot on Crowley and his realizations of feelings so I'm expecting season 3 will see Aziraphale let go of this picture of Heaven = Good and Hell = Bad thing and realize he loves Crowley and wants to be with him forever and the teo of them will talk and apologize and work things out and end up in the cottage in South Downs. That's the ending I'm sure we'll get. But we need to get there and there was bound to be angst on the way. This kind of angst feels so in character to me and feels right. Not all things are happy all the time and sometimes angst is good for plot development. This is GOOD ANGST! This will further the plot, create a viable route for character development that will inevitably give us our happy ending!

I know a lot of people are upset by it in like an angry why kind of way but I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT A LOT!

And a few random thoughts:

I never pictured Crowley being the first to make a move and I was so proud of him for putting himself out there and asking Aziraphale to stay with him and they can just be an us and then going further and showing his feelings by kissing him! It was beautiful and deep and scary and wonderful and I DIED! And his face and body language after Aziraphale did the thing was SO HEARTBREAKING! DAVID AND MICHAEL ARE SO GOOD AT THEIR JOBS!

And Aziraphale! Oh my god this angel is killing me! All he wants is to be with Crowley! He didn't give a shit about the Metatrons offer until he said Aziraphale could make Crowley an angel again and they could be together. Look at his smile in that scene! That made him so happy! He could be with Crowley and they could go home and be good angels again! In his head thats the perfect ending! They would be home together, doing good work and Crowley could make things again and ask his questions without fear of retaliation. Aziraphale remembers how happy Crowley was at the beginning, making his stars and galaxies, and believes Crowley wants that again. He also always believed in Crowley's goodness AND Aziraphale is still stuck in the belief of Heaven and angels being inherently good and the good guys while Hell and Demons are inherently evil and the bad guys. So he still believes that they should both be up in Heaven.

But Crowley knows the truth! Crowley sees that both sides are toxic and that for the two of them to be happy they need to be just the two of them like they have been these past few years. And they were happy! So he tries to get that through Aziraphale but Aziraphale isn't ready to hear that.

THEN THE KISS HAPPENS AND AZIRAPHALE ISN'T READY FOR IT AND HE ENDS UP BREAKING CROWLEYS HEART EVEN THOUGH AZIRAPHALE DOES LOVE HIM AND YOU CAN SEE HIS HEARTBROKEN CONFUSED AND IN LOVE FACE AFTER CROWLEY LEAVES AND AZIRAPHALE TOUCHES HIS OWN LIPS!!!

I AM FUCKING DYING NONNY!!! I'M DYING!!! IM LOSOMG MY MIND AND I KNOW THERE ARE OTHERS THINGS I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT. IT I CANNOT THINK STRAIGHT!!!

[butchyblues]

right so i started good omens last week and since then i’ve seen it at least four times and i have some THOUGHTS about season 1 episode 6

forgive me if they’ve been said in better ways before (spoilers obviously)

so

the ineffable body swap is, i believe, the moment that is most revealing of aziraphale and crowley’s relationship dynamic, and, more importantly, their true thoughts about one another.

zira-as-crowley is self assured, suave, and cheeky as anything. he never falters and takes every opportunity to be a smug bastard without actually being mean-spirited. (he also looks fairly pleased with himself, as I imagine it’s the most directly aziraphale has been able to rebel in front of people that aren’t crowley - living vicariously through the freedom he perceives crowley to have… but i’ll get to that later). It’s obvious how many of the little details about Crowley he has memorised: the slight pout, his pensive eyebrows, the way his eyes go full yellow when he’s stressed or excited… he even attempts the walk for a bit, though I think Crowley may have been practicing that for millennia. This in itself shows how much love he has for crowley, the hours he’s dedicated to being with, seeing, absorbing this person he’s found kinship with. The thing that’s most devastating about this, though, is that he is clearly imitating what crowley is like around HIM. when they’re THEM. Crowley interacting with the other demons is snarky and a little smug, yes, but there’s a tension that hangs on him whenever he’s near hell or his coworkers that clearly is never present when he’s with Aziraphale. Zira gets to see him at his most relaxed, his most assured, because Aziraphale makes Crowley relax, and this is the version of Crowley he’s actually spent time with. Of course, there’s also a hazy layer of heart eyes in making Crowley a little cooler, a little softer around the edges, because that’s how Aziraphale sees him.

And, of course, as I said earlier, he sees Crowley as free. Damned, sure, but to Zira, Crowley gets to do what he likes when he likes, without the constant fear of heaven’s wrath on his back. This is a flattening of Crowley’s actual experiences and trauma with heaven AND hell - fallen doesn’t mean you don’t mind that you fell, of course, and we as the audience know this - but we have to remember that Aziraphale is currently in the grips of religious conditioning stronger than any, and he still has the threat of potentially falling. I don’t believe he registered that threat further than his subconscious until Agnes’s prophecy, but regardless, he is a little afraid, always. He sees crowley as fearless, and doesn’t understand the constant stress his dearest demon is under. So, for him, he’s using Crowley’s freedom as a shield for himself - calling michael dude, making them miracle him a towel, splashing holy water at the demons - all things he wouldn’t do as Aziraphale because he is terrified of not fulfilling his duties as “the good guys”. As crowley, the weight of his obligations seem no object.

Now, Crowley-As-Aziraphale…

David Tennant’s performance throughout the entire season and PARTICULARLY in the above described scene has been phenomenal, but this is where I truly realised the talent oozing from Michael Sheen, because this performance’s nuances gave me chills. Crowley-as-aziraphale has a face set like granite. Zira’s usual softness has left his cheeks almost entirely, and while Crowley does have his mannerisms down, as we see just before he steps into the fire, his own protectiveness over his angel makes it near impossible for him to mask his disdain and keep up the constant nervous beaming that Aziraphale tends to adopt around the angels. A tension has entered his brow, and while he flashes those cherubic smiles intermittently, it’s clear that the way Zira is treated in heaven utterly incenses crowley. He is also likely reliving the trauma of his own trial-without-a-trial, and so it’s Very likely that the only thing keeping him from expressing his true feelings is the thought of protecting Aziraphale from the fate that Gabriel was all too eager to send him to. We see how angry he is about this interaction in season 2, but it is also communicated in the micro expressions that Michael Sheen knocked out of the fucking park. Every time one of them says something unkind, his face takes on a new shade of quiet rage hidden beneath his attempts to maintain the optimistic serenity and unrelenting kindness of the person he knows and loves the most. The angels morally outrage Crowley, and if he’d had a word with them as Crowley he’d likely have tried something stupid. But the soft veneer of his friend, his love, keeps him grounded enough to limit his chastisements to things Aziraphale had already shared with him, in private.

The scene just underscores how well they know each other, how much they love each other, and how much they’re willing to risk for one another. It also reveals personal wounds; ways their experiences and traumas and fears fragment the image of the one in front of them. This is where we lead in to season 2, the season of the WORLD’S WORST COMMUNICATORS. But for season 1, they have each other, and they laugh, and the comfort that can only come with the trust they have for each other settles over them from the minute they’re reunited.

two angels dining at the ritz.

[darksideofparis]

DOCTOR WHO SPOILERS

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Can we agree Bi-Generation was a stupid idea? Felt like a very..cheap and anticlimactic way to introduce Ncuti as 15 and him having to spend his first few post Toymaker moments comforting and supporting "14" (*cough* 10.3 *cough*) felt like a disservice to Ncuti's start as The Doctor and a lazy way to keep David in and appease the idiots who have been making racist remarks about Ncuti.

Sidenote- Love and hate 15 acknowledging that Sarah Jane is gone

Yes, I HATE the bi-regeneration plot! To those who love the plot, please be warned a rant about this whole thing is below, in case you want to avoid it.

It has literally never been mentioned (to my knowledge, at least) in any Whoniverse material in the last sixty years, so what the hell is RTD doing just dropping it in now? The basics of regeneration have been, more or less, a constant since the very first one.

Honestly, RTD, if it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT!

I agree, this was nothing more than shameless fan-service to appease not just the racists making disparaging remarks against Ncuti (and it should be noted, that while they're vocal, it is literally a minority of people who feel that way) as well as to appease all the fans who were crying about not wanting to see David Tennant go again.

Look, I love David Tennant. He is a phenomenal actor and anything he's in is guaranteed to be good, or at least he will be amazing in it, but seriously. Enough DT. When the seventieth comes around, I don't want him in it. Let someone else have some time to shine. This whole bi-generation and letting 14 stick around defeats the entire purpose of regeneration and the show as a whole. To quote Peter Capaldi's Doctor, "Everything ends, and that's always sad. But everything begins again too, and that's always happy."

In addition, the whole thing, in my opinion, takes the attention off Ncuti. Just like Jodie Whittaker's regeneration, the whole thing is overshadowed by DT's Doctor. Ncuti absolutely shined in the scenes he was in, but we didn't get all the classic hallmarks of post-regen Doctors: the regeneration sickness, the outfit picking, seeing the TARDIS for the first time, etc. Instead, 14 sees 15's new jukebox-holding console room. We don't really get a reaction from 15. And that's really disappointing and just insulting.

I don't object to the idea of the Doctor pausing travels for a while to come to terms with everything that's happened to them, but are we really supposed to believe 14 spends the rest of his days living in the copy TARDIS in Donna's backyard? A few weeks or months would be plausible, but I can't buy the rest of his days, watching Donna and the others grow older and eventually die.

Back to the whole bi-regeneration itself. . . The whole thing is never really explained. All they say in the episode is that it was considered a myth on Gallifrey. But what specifically does it entail? Are 14 and 15 two completely separate individuals now? When 14 dies, is that it? Would he regenerate into 15? And if so, would that mean there's just now two separate Doctors running around or would he somehow merge with his future self? Is it a time loop of some kind?

Just. . .really annoying. If RTD is going to introduce a game-changing concept, the least he could do is spend five minutes explaining it to the audience, instead of leaving us to do guesswork.

This just really sucks, because I LOVED 'The Star Beast' and 'Wild Blue Yonder'. The first half of this episode was *chef's kiss*. But then the last half fell flat. Too reminiscent of the Chibnall era, in my opinion: introduce a shocking new concept but spend very little time properly explaining/having the characters reacting to it. The Toymaker wasn't as much of a threat as he was hinted to be, though Neil Patrick Harris definitely had fun with the role, lol. It would have made far more sense if he was responsible for 14's face coming back as some kind of twisted gameplay, instead of some lame "It was you coming home".

And, on a purely selfish note, how the hell am I supposed to write my OCs in this, lol?!? Do they stay with 14 or go off with 15? Lol, long time away though in my writing, so maybe we'll actually get some concrete resolution/explanation about bi-regeneration before then.

Okay, rant over. With the caveat that I, too, love/hate them acknowledging Sarah Jane is gone.

[shipaholic]

Episode 5: “The Ball”

Good Omens S2 Ep5. This is a liveblog, so spoilers!

- ‘Autistic Aziraphale’ this, ‘autistic Muriel’ that, we need to talk about autistic Shax.

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- “Are you actually going through with this?” “Indeed I am.” “Can I watch?” OTP dynamic to rule them all.

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- “Are they going to talk about the Christmas lights? Because I have things to say.” “.......Yes.”

- This entire sequence is too delightful to stop and comment on, but I love all of these shopkeepers, all of Aziraphale’s methods of bribery, all his earnest, stilted French, and all of Crowley’s disbelieving poses in the background.

- On the flip side, Shax is babygirl and so is Eric, but sadly only one of them can live.

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- Nina is asking Crowley if Aziraphale is his bit on the side and I am being extremely calm right now.

- The thing is! In S1, most of the comments other characters made about A/C being a couple were only said to Aziraphale. The only time it happened in front of Crowley was Sister Mary interrupting the tender moment that was the wall slam. And there was a lot going on then, so Crowley had the luxury of not reacting to it. This conversation with Nina is the first time he has had to nervously vomit up a denial to someone assuming Aziraphale is his boyfriend. Turns out his best retort is, “He’s just an angel I know”. Whoops.

- The ending to this scene is weird, though! Nina says something about other people’s love lives looking much simpler than our own, and Crowley suddenly looks like he’s been given weeks to live. I’d understand a thunderstruck look, but distraught? Why?

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- oh my god a date, Crowley’s set up a date, there’s wine and everything, the restaurant is French, they could have crepes!!!

- “Smitten, I believe.”

...............

SMITTEN, I BELIEVE

OK JUST SAY THAT LIKE IT’S NO BIGGIE

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- Good, Nina deserved at least one of the “fuck”s this season.

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- Ohhh Crowley’s got drunk and angry to talk to Gabriel. This, uh. This could be a whole thing.

- Aaagh they did a callback to “Let there be light” and made it SAD and kind of threatening

- Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit. Crowley’s going to give away that they did the body swap. Gabriel’s going to get his memory back and realise that it wasn’t really Aziraphale he tried to execute and he’ll know they’re not immune to hellfire and holy water. shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

- this scene is amazing and excruciating to watch. Crowley is so drunk and cruel and so recklessly protective. He tries to make Gabriel commit suicide. He’s possibly just endangered himself and Aziraphale both without realising. And then! He orders Gabriel back off the ledge and tries to get real answers, because he knows they’re important!

- David Tennant and Jon Hamm are both being phenomenal rn, and the empty house dialogue is a beautiful piece of writing.

- “Where is your memory then?” “In a matchbox.” AAAAAAAAHHHH.

- NOPE, I need the full dialogue down here:

“In a matchbox. No, I took it out first.”

“You took your memory out of a matchbox?”

“Yes, that’s right. I took it out, and I put it in the box and I brought it here, and it’s...”

“Yes?”

“Everywhere.”

“What else do you remember?”

“If it happens again it will make it seem like it’s an institutional problem.”

- Whaaaaaaaatttt!!! OK, thought: The last line about the institutional problem sounds like a direct quote. Either Gabriel said that, or someone said it to him. It sounds like a Michael line, potentially? And.... it sounds to me like somebody took Gabriel’s memories from him and put them into the matchbox, and then he or someone else stole the memories back from the matchbox and put them in the moving box for him to take to Aziraphale’s. So there might be two people involved here, one trying to harm Gabriel and cover something up, and one trying to help him and protect the lost information. It definitely sounds like he knew something he shouldn’t, and someone wanted him out of the way. The matchbox was found in Heaven, so that suggests an angel is the culprit. I would have pointed the finger at Michael immediately, but I’m possibly more inclined to look at the Metatron instead. I think this goes higher than Michael, somehow? I can see her trying to get Gabriel out of the way so she could be the boss, but it sounds like something bigger than that is going on.

(EDIT: Hang on!!! The whole thing about the matchbox is that it’s a material object! Muriel and Michael were uncomfortable touching it! Gabriel’s memory was taken from him ON EARTH, at the Resurrectionist pub, and whoever was sitting with him is probably the person who did it! But then how did the matchbox get into Heaven?)

And then there’s “everywhere”! Gabriel’s memory is everywhere? Is this because Aziraphale opened the box and let it out?? Also, I’ve been treating the memory Gabriel’s talking about as his entire memory, but maybe it refers to a specific memory? Perhaps the only way to remove the one important memory was to nuke all of Gabriel’s memories at once. I’m just waffling now, I have no clue what Everywhere could mean.

Finally, the line about the institutional problem. “If it happens again.” Could this be Armageddon? Is someone saying, if Armageddon fails for a second time, it will start to seem like an institutional problem? One that could only be dealt with by removing Gabriel?

I got NOTHING, and this is the last episode to figure ANY of this shit out in advance of the finale. My head hurts like Goob. :( I should get a hot chocolate.

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- How about that fly buzzing noise while zooming in the matchbox, huh???

- If Beelzebub is the one who took Gabriel’s memories and put them in the matchbox, but then Gabriel took his memories back out and put them in the moving box, then maybe he went to Earth/Aziraphale under his own power and Beelzebub genuinely is trying to track him down?

- .....I’m AN IDIOT who only just realised Gabriel was humming Everyday because it was playing on a loop in the pub, and it’s probably the last thing he heard before he lost his memory. Sorry, everyone else probably got there in Episode 3, I’m slow >_<

- Muriel repeats the obvious lie A/C told her that you have to wait a few days to see if humans are in love because humans are weird and that’s how it works. Michael, without skipping a single beat: “I knew that.” They. They’re just as dumb as Gabriel. Every angel is an absolute girlfailure.

- Muriel: “It’s just Aziraphale -” Uriel: “The traitor.” Michael: *odd little sideways frown at Uriel* What’s with that...? Does Michael just feel Uriel spoke out of turn, or is she a little bothered by calling Aziraphale a traitor? It’s a weird expression on her face, can’t quite read it.

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- The bookshop! Everyone gets a magical transformation! Mrs Sandwich looks fabulous! Aaah

- One concern I had going into S2 is that most of the main characters appeared to be angels/demons, and it seemed as though humanity would be deemphasised, which struck me as out of keeping with the themes of the book. And, to be fair, no humans have got to drive the main plot this time around (so far). But I still love the fleshing out of Wickber Street and all the shopkeepers, and the various interactions our boys have with humans in the minisodes. Maybe humanity isn’t saving the world this time, but we are a vital part of what makes the world important.

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- ...Oh dear. Ms Cheng. Who (or what?) are you...?

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- This is enchanting, everyone looks beautiful <33 Love the magic shop owner and his spouse, those are some amazing tattoos.

- BEHOLD THE MAJESTY OF GOOB

- He is doing so well distinguishing the key differences between selling books and handing round canapes!

- Nina did get to say “fuck” again!

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- PROTECTIVE CROWLEY STRIKES AGAIN and he’s protecting HUMANS, he’s protecting the people Aziraphale cares about 😭😭😭

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- The “seamstress” conversation is delightful. Maybe nothing’s up with Ms Cheng? Don’t know why there was that weird shot of her entering the bookshop, then.

- This is just the Pride & Prejudice dance, isn’t it.

- Aziraphale is the soppiest old romantic, look at his faaace

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- Aw yyyeah, everyone wants to fuck Goob

Goob: *does that thing with his face*

The People no longer want to fuck Goob

- “Tell me while we dance” IT’S HAPPENING

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- Shax still does her funny bobbing little walk in full battle armour. I love her.

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- OK, it’s not that all demons are vampires, it’s that the bookshop has its own  demon-repelling forcefield. After the zombies I was fully prepared to accept anything.

- GOOB IS HEROICALLY SACRIFICING HIMSELF OH NO

- THAT OUTFIT IS MAGNIFICENT ASDKLGASD

- “T - O - S - T - ........... - E! TOAST!”

- This scene is somehow actually threatening, despite the fact that it is just Shax with a woeful army of scrub demons, none of whom can spell, demanding something that she is incapable of seeing even when it literally walks out and hands itself to her on a silver platter. Beelzebub was SO setting her up to fail.

- Crowley/Mrs Sandwich pals 4 life please.

- “You’re a good lad.” “I’m not actually. Either. But thank you!” NB Crowley canon dialogue, I never thought I’d see the day

- Nina: “Why don’t you stand up for yourself? Make your own plans!” Aziraphale: “Oh, I am. But rescuing me makes him so happy.” aaaaaAAAAAaaahhhhhhhhhh

- oh my god it’s the end of the ep, I’m not ready

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- Swing band theme song, you are my only comfort in this stressful time

[ins0mnia-an0nym0us-au]

i just really need Jodie Whittaker to know that most of us know that it wasn’t her that made her seasons of Doctor Who tank - it was the absolute shit writing from Chibnall

idc if you liked the new seasons or not - the metrics speak for themselves. 

a large majority of viewers did not like it. a very small amount of them were the sexist ones. but most doctor who fans are actually very forward thinking about the whole gender of the doctor. what they didn’t like was the writing

the fact that Chibnall came in with Jodie’s first season & said that there would be nothing from the previous seasons/iterations of Doctor Who (villains/companions/etc) was dooming it from the beginning because New Who has been nothing but based on Old Who & banking on the old fans to come back & bring new fans with them

so much so that Chibnall had to reverse it so fucking fast they brought Daleks back in the Christmas special 

Jodie’s second season got better but only a few episodes. i also noticed this. it was incredibly strange. it felt like they filmed the episodes that were essential to the seasons plot & then read the fans feedback that they wanted more random adventures & scrambled to film more episodes to address some of the feedback & then shoved them in every other episode. it made those episodes feel completely out of place against the other ones

some of the episodes never even showed the TARDIS or them arriving with it - which made it feel incredibly weird. i’m sure that some other (new) Doctor Who seasons had episodes like that but never so many all jammed together that i can remember

not to mention the very controversial episode Fugitive of the Judoon which now rewrites Old Who lore/canon. which a lot of old fans aren’t okay with. personally i don’t mind it. what i didn’t like was the fact that they technically took the mantle of being the first female doctor from Jodie??? like??? was that really necessary??? don’t get me wrong. the actress - Jo Martin was great & the chemistry between the two was phenomenal but like??? really???

the most current season has been much better in my opinion but it’s too little too late. Jodie has said she’s leaving. Chibnall is going as well (thank god) but we didn’t get from this season what i was hoping for -

a scene with the level of Matt Smith’s rage, sorrow & happiness during A Good Man Goes to War or something like Peter Capaldi’s epic performance during Heaven Sent or maybe a two-parter as tense & heartbreaking as David Tennant’s - Human Nature & The Family of Blood. i’d even have taken a moment similar to the Christopher Eccleston episode The Doctor Dances where “Just this once - everybody lives”

but there hasn’t been a single moment during these seasons where i’ve been brought to tears or moved emotionally like the past doctors have done. Thirteen has made me smile & yes i have laughed. but a good story can do both & it can tell you the difference between right & wrong without pointing at the bad & going “see. see that right there. bad. we bad humans need to stop. so bad.” which is exactly what Chibnall did during most of his run

most people watch sci-fi or fantasy as a form of escapism from daily life. this doesn’t mean it can’t have some form of message in it. but that does mean you have to be more careful with how you deliver it. because otherwise people won’t digest it well - hell they won’t even swallow it. they’ll just spit it right out & call it propaganda. that’s the difference between good writing & bad writing. getting people to empathize with your point of view without them even realizing it.

but anyway. i’ve ranted long enough! TLDR -

REBLOG THIS if you NEED Jodie to know that WE KNOW it wasn’t her

also that we would love for her to stay on for another season if she’s up for it now that they have a new head writer planned. because i’ve watched Broadchurch - she has the range. they just never gave her the chance

[rose-tinted-juls]

juliana's fav tv shows updated: 26.07.2021.

la casa de papel / money heist (2017-) nationality: spanish created by: álex pina main actors: úrsula corberó, álvaro morte, itziar ituño, pedro alonso, miguel herrán, jaime lorente, esther acebo, alba flores short summary (imdb): "an unusual group of robbers attempt to carry out the most perfect robbery in spanish history - stealing 2.4 billion euros from the royal mint of spain." seasons: 4 - (season 5 is coming in september + december 2021) why i love it (in a few words): it's thrilling, all the characters are perfectly written, i love listening to spanish speech, the actors are awesome, SO INCREDIBLE PLOT, uncountable twists, i got attached so fast, i binge watched it, it never feels forced

band of brothers (2001) nationality: american created by: tom hanks, steven spielberg main actors: damian lewis, ron livingston, ross mccall, rick gomez, james madio, kirk acevedo, neal mcdonough, scott grimes, dexter fletcher, donnie wahlberg short summary (imdb): "the story of easy company of the u.s. army 101st airborne division, and their mission in world war ii europe, from operation overlord, through v-j day." - based on the book band of brothers by stephen e. ambrose seasons: 1 why i love it (in a few words): it's ww2 and i'm a huge ww2 enthusiast, i love hbo war, it shows the good and the bad, we follow the whole journey of these soldiers and it's amazing, the actors are absolutely incredible, their friendships are 100/10, the cinematography is beautiful, it's based on a true story

downton abbey (2010-) nationality: english created by: julian fellowes main actors: hugh bonneville, maggie smith, michelle dockery, dan stevens, robert james-collier, allen leech, penelope wilton, matthew goode, lily james short summary (imdb): "a chronicle of the lives of the british aristocratic crawley family and their servants in the early twentieth century." seasons: 6 + 1 movie (the second movie comes in december 2021) why i love it (in a few words): it has phenomenal actors, the plot is exciting-thrilling, there are twists you don't expect, so many love stories and i love them, fantastic characters, it's often so funny i can't stop laughing, dame maggie smith and her performance as the dowager is just incredible and i love her, costumes on point, tom branson o.o

broadchurch (2013-2017) nationality: british created by: chris chibnall main actors: david tennant, olivia colman, jodie whittaker, arthur darvill short summary (imdb): "the murder of a young boy in a small coastal town brings a media frenzy, which threatens to tear the community apart." seasons: 3 why i love it (in a few words): david tennant, his scottish accent i can't-, olivia colman, their duo oh my god these two together are something extraordinary, it's such a thrilling show wow, SO MANY PLOT TWISTS, cinematography is phenomenal and gorgeous, it's so funny at times oh lord (especially david), it's impossible to stop watching

the pacific (2010) nationality: american created by: tom hanks, steven spielberg main actors: joe mazzello, jon seda, james badge dale, rami malek, ashton holmes short summary (imdb): "the pacific theatre of world war ii, as seen through the eyes of several young marines." seasons: 1 why i love it (in a few words): hbo war, it's ww2 and i'm such an enthusiast of it, joe mazzello is incredible oh my, it's a bit graphic (for some people it's too graphic and i can see why) but i love it, it makes you feel you're there fighting and like wow, actually all the actors are amazing in it, we see three different story lines so we get to know different aspects of the whole thing

the crown (2016-) nationality: british created by: peter morgan main actors: claire foy, matt smith, olivia colman, tobias menzies, vanessa kirby, helena bonham carter, josh o'connor, emma corrin short summary (imdb): "follows the political rivalries and romance of queen elizabeth ii's reign and the events that shaped the second half of the twentieth century." seasons: 4 - (season 5 and 6 are in the making) why i love it (in a few words): i've always been interested in queen elizabeth's life, this is a look inside the royal family that you don't often have, the actors are SO AMAZING, honestly sometimes it's so funny and then the next minute it's heartbreaking, it teaches me more about them than anything else, i guess it gives you their point of view so you can understand them a lil bit better, as a child i loved the british royal family so baby me is happy inside when i watch it

the falcon and the winter soldier (2021) nationality: american created by: malcolm spellman - stan lee main actors: anthony mackie, sebastian stan, wyatt russell, daniel brühl short summary (imdb): "following the events of 'avengers: endgame', sam wilson / falcon and bucky barnes / winter soldier team up in a global adventure that tests their abilities - and their patience." seasons: 1 why i love it (in a few words): i'm a huge marvel fan, my fav characters are sam and bucky, SEBASTIAN STAN, it's funny (honestly which marvel movie/series isn't?), the cinematography is gorgeous, the plot is great, fight scenes on point

biohackers (2020-) nationality: german created by: christian ditter main actors: luna wedler, jessica schwarz, adrian julius tillmann short summary (imdb): "a fast-paced thriller following medical student mia akerlund who discovers the use of highly advanced biohacking technology in her university town." seasons: 2 why i love it (in a few words): exciting, plays in a city i know, plot twists, the cinematography is amazing, a beautiful show honestly, the plot is interesting and one of a kind imo, the actors are pretty great

the mandalorian (2019-) nationality: american created by: jon favreau main actors: pedro pascal short summary (imdb): "the travels of a lone bounty hunter in the outer reaches of the galaxy, far from the authority of the new republic." seasons: 2 - (season 3 is coming) why i love it (in a few words): i love star wars and the star wars universe, pedro pascal is amazing, honestly i fell in love with pedro just by his voice literally without even knowing his face, BABY YODA, the character development, exciting plot, pretty awesome fight scenes, great actors

the queen's gambit (2020) nationality: american created by: scott frank, allan scott main actors: anya taylor joy, thomas brodie-sangster, harry melling, jacob fortune-lloyd short summary (imdb): "orphaned at the tender age of nine, prodigious introvert beth harmon discovers and masters the game of chess in 1960s usa. but child stardom comes at a price." seasons: 1 why i love it (in a few words): cinematography is beautiful, anya taylor joy is gorgeous, and she's such a talent oh my, i love chess, the plot, TBS is in it, it's a show you can't not binge watch it just pulls you in

( +1 )

peaky blinders (2013-) nationality: british created by: steven knight main actors: cillian murphy, paul anderson, helen mccrory, joe cole, finn cole short summary (imdb): "a gangster family epic set in 1900s england, centering on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss tommy shelby." seasons: 5 - (season 6 is coming) why i love it (in a few words): i love mob stuff in general, so amazing actors oh my, cillian murphy, helen mccrory, it's so dark i love it, plot plot plot, the soundtrack is phenomenal (especially when it's arctic monkeys shhh), it's british (yay)

[senadimell]

Characters I like AKA ‘hurt face’ master post

The characters I like in movies and books are distinctly different. With books, I have all sorts of favorite characters, and I love that I know what they’re thinking. I just love a good deep third or first person. 

In contrast to books, there’s just something different about movies. We’re watching actors, and the visual component really dictates how I interact with film. I can get over a bad storyline if the emotional journey I’m watching looks real. 

When I’m watching a movie, I will almost always fall for lonely characters played by actors who can clearly express pain and sadness. Bonus points for guilt, insecurity, and a history of rejection. I will like them even if they’re not likable, or kind, or nice, or even good. They are visually compelling. Of course, I’ll love them even more if the backstory actually backs up why they’re in pain, and gives me a reason I shouldn’t dislike them beyond “they emote so pretty.” Experience with high school theatre productions has taught me there’s so much more to anger than volume, and so much more to sadness than tears; I’m in awe of actors who can communicate those emotions with subtlety and/or clarity.

So in real life, most of us aren’t that good at communicating with our faces, are we? For me, anyways, it’s hard to distinguish between tired, angry, or annoyed. When someone’s in pain or hurting, they rarely just look sad. Life’s not like a movie, when a good actor can show you exactly how a character feels without saying anything at all. I’m not so good at telling what people are thinking and often assume that that people are mad (and that they’re mad at me), when in reality I think pain must be more common. Most peole think of actors as imitating real people. I think they have to do more: they have to be expressive, and yet have it come off as genuine, so that we don’t even see the face but the character. 

I only just figured out why it was that when Frozen came out, I was obsessed with it. The story itself leaves a lot to be desired, but I was willing to excuse that. My phone was full of pictures of Elsa,  but most of them were stills from the movie rather than fan art. I had pictures of almost every face Elsa makes in Let it Go, when she just looks exhilarated and like she can’t believe how happy she feels. I also had every frame from when she hugs frozen Anna (pictured below). It was the first time I’d really seen an animated character visibly express insecurity, loneliness, self-rejection, guilt, and anxiety.*

This whole “visibly expressing negative emotions” thing is also one of the main why I’m obsessed with the first four seasons of Doctor Who. The Time War plot checks off every box, and Eccleston and Tennant are just brilliant about letting that emotion show through. 

Same thing goes for musical theatre. With cast recordings, the best is when you can just hear everything they’re saying in the way they sing things. Pretty Funny from Dogfight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-HBOsY50s) is just brilliant. Some other favorites: Track Down This Murder/Down Once More from Phantom, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (see: all of Les Miserables, actually), I’m Not That Girl as well as its reprise and No Good Deed from Wicked, Satisfied and Burn from Hamilton**

There are these characters who are...awful. They have objectively done awful things. I don’t think their actions are excusable. Yet the visual part of my just loves to watch them because they’re in pain and it’s written all over their face. (Loki and Kylo Ren fall into this category for me). I want to make all of these excuses for them, and am not repulsed, and spend all of this time analyzing them because what the actors can do with their faces just sucks me in. 

Now that I think about it, this is probably why I hate Elijah Wood’s performance of Frodo. The boy had exactly four faces: happy, sad, sick, and demented

A warning: this is a rough collection of GIFs that don’t all match in shape and format. 

 I will take the ring to Mordor. 

Rose. 

In the most loving way possible, David Tennant as the 10th Doctor is rather melodramatic and constantly aggrieved, so I’m going to leave it at these two scenes even though I could probably mine a gifset from almost every episode he appears in post-Rose. 

Everything I am dies

Loki: 

Massacre your entire species to prove your worth and please your father

It’s just rocks and dust.

There was a war, and we lost. 

(I love just about every face Christopher Eccleston makes as the Ninth doctor, but will save that for another post.)

I actually didn’t care one way or the other for Alan Rickman’s Snape until this scene. After watching that, I was moved and reevaluated my whole take on the character. I don’t personally see Snape’s relationship with Lily as romantic like I once did, but I don’t think I would have gone back and evaluated the character as deeply as I did without first watching Rickman in that scene. I’m now firmly in the Snapedom. 

Frozen: 

Then leave.

AKA Viggo Mortensen breaks a toe.

This jerkface. 

Samantha Barks was amazing to watch and hear. 

Eddie Redmayne is a gift.

Anne Hathaway was phenomenal.

Les Mis was actually really hard to watch in movie theatres because there were so many closeups of the actors’ faces during intense emotional moments. It was a little overwhelming. 

Pearl Mackie is a gift.

Some concluding observations:  

This is a very white list. It was also feeling pretty male until I added Doctor Who companions and musicals. 

This was harder than I was expecting, emotionally. Here’s some more Bill Potts to lighten things up.

*Actually, one of the reasons I couldn’t stand Anna is because she comes off as completely ignorant when Elsa’s every expression is plainly written all over her face, even though narratively she has every reason to be in the dark. If Elsa wore the regular, confusing expressions most of us wear, Anna wouldn’t come off as so silly. (Also if she would stop talking for a few seconds and listen). If Elsa’s animations weren't so expressive, I probably would cut Anna a lot more slack naturally **After I had the privilege of seeing Hamilton, Quiet Uptown joins this list possibly the best bit of acting I have ever seen without a single word being said. You can’t completely hear it in the recordings, but Eliza’s face goes through about 50 emotions without even opening her mouth moving, and I was sobbing as I watched. 

[mostweakhamlets]

Yeah, for me Staged would have worked better as one sketch than as a series. Like, 10 minutes of clashing theatrical egos in lockdown? Perfect. That would have been funny *and* self-aware. But that joke gets old and without it, what's left? Comedy is founded upon relatability, and relatability is nigh on impossible when the main actors/characters are so immensely privileged. That's just my opinion, though.

I think that’s valid for you to think. 

I was speaking to someone earlier today that after watching the teaser with Ben Schwartz, I think that Staged would have been better in general if they had actual comedians front and center. I think that David Tennant and Michael Sheen are phenomenal actors, but I also think that every actor has their strengths and weaknesses. They have great chemistry and are wonderful in every role they play, but they also just aren’t comedians. 

Michael Sheen especially has a very specific brand of humor when he doesn’t have a script (as we can see on his Twitter and from some interviews). He’s hilarious on There’s Something About Movies, but I think that that’s because it caters so well to what he does--phenomenal acting without breaking character--and what the others do--improvised, on-the-spot comedy. David Tennant, meanwhile, seems to be better with physical comedy--which you can’t really do if the audience only sees you from the shoulders up most of the time. 

I don’t think that comedy has to be relatable to succeed. I think that it certainly helps at times, and there are specific types of comedy that do rely on the audience being able to relate to the content. But maybe that’s where Staged kinda failed. It wasn’t relatable at times but it also wasn’t not relatable, either. They sort of straddled a line, and the more you have time to sit on it, the more you’re unsure about how you were supposed to feel. Yes, they talk about being spoiled on set because they’re actors, and they miss being offered thermals to be like hedgehogs. It’s a great scene! We can laugh with them. But then there’s parenting strife and someone gets Covid. And then all of a sudden we’re on their side and we understand this part. I understand where they were trying to go with it, but it didn’t necessarily work. 

And it totally didn’t need to be relatable. They could have gotten away with it being a total clashing of the egos. There didn’t need to be any attempts at “Yeah, we’re just like our viewers and the rest of the country.” 

You’re right, too, when you say that it would have been really good as a sketch. The parts that really made me laugh were the clips taken totally out of context. I love the pineapple scene! I love the middle names scene! I did laugh through Staged! I thought they were clever and delivered well. They could have been so good on their own. But by the end, you’ve heard the same jokes again and again, and you’ve really tested the comedic limits of non-comedians. 

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

Great Things About the RSC 2009 Hamlet

the security camera's everywhere, STELLAR choice that highlights how everyone in the castle is being watched and how Hamlet has to keep his mask on at all times

How Hamlet's carrying around his camera especially during the Mousetrap is him trying to mimic that and let Claudius feel the fear he's been feeling

Actually now that I think about it it also lends a significance to his scene with Gertrude. Cameras everywhere but surely not in the kings own bedroom, there he can be free.

The way Hamlet throws himself into Horatio's arms when he sees him, especially after having been so down

In fact the Horatio in general is phenomenal, Peter De Jersey was my favorite Hamlet for a while, and I always felt a little bad he was unseated by Michael Caine. Hamlet at Elsinore was so Horatio friendly and for example didn't cut any of his ending lines which was where Caine shined the most, whereas this production ends right after Horatio says now cracks a noble heart. but even with these limitations there is a great Hamlet Horatio dynamic.

How David Tennant works with the actors in general. He can carry a soliquoy just fine but other Hamlet's have done better. No where he shines (and I think this is true across his acting career) is when he has to portrary a relationship dynamic. His concern for Ophelia morphing into disgust, his disdain for the brash flattery of R&G it's why he's my favorite

Also I'm partial to the player king, I love his monologue it makes me feel cozy and draws me away from Hamlet's troubles into a nice story, I'm a fan of John Woodvine in general

Hamlet fussing with Horatio's tie & jacket before the Mousetrap? Great choice

Mmm the whole after play aesthetic with Hamlet's crooked crown and loose bowtie and how he plays R&G like a fiddle and how Horatio just sort of watches n smirks like "that's right my bae don't take shit now GO"

The way Horatio and Hamlet play Hot Cross Buns together to make Polonius leave

Now I can't stress this next bit enough.

Gertrude.

Gertrude.

Gertrude

This production is not flawless, and I can nickpick plenty of things that I think other renditions did better. Penny Downie's Gertrude is not one of them.

I have NEVER seen another actress come CLOSE to doing what Downie does with the character.

She is brave, she's sharp, she's shrewd, she's a mother, a politician.

Gertrude is someone even otherwise good productions can underdevelop, she doesn't have too many lines and often during her big scene with Hamlet she kinda just cries and whimpers while Hamlet monologues.

Not so here. Both Tennant and Downie give the performance of their lives for Act 3 Scene 4 it is RIVETING and probably the number one reason it's my favorite production is because this scene is so flawless.

Mmm mirror shattering when he shoots Polonius. It's been done before but for me that imagery of broken characters staring into shattered mirrors will never get tired.

The way Gertrude challenges Hamlet and the body language where they're both shoulders back head up eyes defiant and Gertrude just demands "What act is this that roars so loud and thunders in the index!!!"

How Hamlet just shrinks when the ghost appears, like a little boy. Hamlet's afraid of his father, and it's heartbreaking. Definitely think that ol' dad was abusive and Hamlet was in denial.

Just. Just the dynamic. Gertrude frantically trying to see what makes her son so upset and looking straight at her dead husband's face unseeingly. Oof.

That desperate hug. God that hug. It shows to the audience how under all the hurt and betrayal Hamlet loves his mother. He needed her after his father died, as a commiserator in grief, someone to be close to and that he was denied that hurt him more that he knows. He reached for that hug here, grasped for it and she returned it. I felt that hug in my bones, the desperation of it and the messed up familial love they have for eachother despite everything.

The calm cool down of the end of thescene, how all the anger melts from both of them into exhaustion

Gertrude ending the scene laughing like a madwoman

Okay moving on

Claudius tying Hamlet to the chair and drugging him. Nice. No more masks between these two. Their hatred of each other is out in the open

Hamlet going "to England," while sardonically rocking the chair forward. Sums up the whole "fuck this bullshit I don't care anymore" crazy energy Hamlet has is summed up in little acts like that.

Horatio n Hamlet best buds traveling back through the countryside to Elsinore

I love how Tennant plays Ophelia's death. When he acts it I get it. I get why he freaks out (already posted about that so I won't repeat)

Also how it's acknowledged when Horatio runs after him that Horatio IS the one looking out for him. The only one.

Patrick Stewart just swigging that poison like a boss

Hamlet dying in Horatio's arms. Nice

[stevishabitat]

“These are the perils of working from home,” mutters David Tennant, typing into his phone, filmed by his computer and watched, bemusedly, by me.

The 49-year-old actor has been texting, intermittently and apologetically, throughout our Zoom call. One of his five children (aged 18, nine, seven, four and eight months) has returned to school, and it seems pickup arrangements have been miscommunicated.

Tennant’s correspondent – I assume it is his wife, Georgia – is messaging from inside the house; Tennant is in the garden, his long lockdown locks pushed back into a Beckham-style headband. Over yonder, he gestures off-camera, a homeschooling lesson is under way: “I came outside to avoid the maths.”

Yet Tennant seems to have embraced the realities of home life, with two BBC projects drawing on his experience of raising a family. In the meta, of-the-moment series Staged, he and Georgia play versions of themselves in lockdown in their Chiswick home, while There She Goes (which returns for a second series tomorrow) captures an oft-unspoken truth about parenting, says Tennant: that “it’s sort of a slog”.

Coupled with doing interviews from his garden – Tennant tips his camera to show me Myrtle the cockapoo, flopped at his feet – it offers a surprising glimpse into the family life of an actor who has previously been reluctant to reveal any of it.

“We’re not quite as squeamish as we were,” he agrees, not least because his eldest son, Ty, is now also an actor. “I don’t think we’ll ever be sharing pictures of our children in Hello! magazine, but I think a lot of that comes from an insecurity about being uncovered or invaded. The longer you’re together, the less that feels like a threat.”

Tennant met Georgia (then Moffett) in 2008 on the set of Doctor Who – her father is a former Doctor, Pete Davison. “As our relationship was born out of people trying to stick lenses through windows, it’s taken us a long time to slough off that residual nervousness about sharing anything.”

These days, their guard is low enough for Georgia to post on Instagram a shot of herself breastfeeding – and to rail against Mark Zuckerberg when the image was removed by Facebook for breaching community standards (“I’ll come round there and squirt you in the eye”).

But, Tennant adds: “It’s still important to us that the characters in Staged are not us,” “David” being “more pathetic” than Tennant and “Georgia” more indulgent of him. “We’re not telling the actual story of our private life.”

There She Goes, however, he praises as scrupulously honest. The comedy stars Tennant and Jessica Hynes as parents of a child with a severe learning disability, based on the experience of the writers Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford with their daughter, who was born with an extremely rare (and still undiagnosed) chromosomal disorder.

Tennant plays Simon, the character Pye based on himself: a loving but somewhat hapless father, always out to foist young Rosie on to his wife so he can head down the pub. Tennant says he tried to catch Pye out on set: “I’d go: ‘This bit we’re doing today – that didn’t really happen, did it?’ And everything is true.”

The first series was widely praised for refusing to sugarcoat the realities of parenting and marriage, while still finding moments of sweetness. Hynes won a Bafta for her turn as Emily, Rosie’s harried but devoted mum who, in a low moment, admits to struggling to love her newborn.

Simon, meanwhile, leans on booze and dark humour. There She Goes can be an undeniably uncomfortable watch. But the dual narratives of each episode – switching between a challenging but joyful time for the family and a more desperate early one – provide relief and perspective.

Tennant considers the series a mainstream comedy. Yet there had been trepidation within the BBC about how it would be received, he says, “because it lacked a certain sentimentality and political correctness – there was a real fear”. He disdainfully recalls a journalist at the press launch playing devil’s advocate, warning of a coming “shitstorm”: “He said: ‘You are going to be destroyed for putting this on television.’ We all hoped he was wrong – but we feared that he might be right.” And this was after the huge critical success of the police drama Broadchurch, which might easily have convinced Tennant he could do no wrong.

The casting of a non-disabled actor as nine-year-old Rosie – who is non-verbal, with the mental age of a toddler – was one sensitivity, says Tennant. The possibility of casting an actor with a learning disability had been explored, he says, “because, of course, that’s a live issue and one that has to be rightly unpicked”. But the demands of the role were found to be too great for a young actor with a disability. “Anyone who appreciates the kind of challenges that a child like Rosie would have doesn’t doubt that it would not really have been possible.”

Miley Locke, who is now 11, was “an incredible find”, says Tennant, praising her as nimble and uninhibited in a challenging role. Locke has met Jo, on whom Rosie is based, and has “an incredible capacity to find the truth of that character”, he says. “She’s also very game – I’m endlessly having to pick her up and fling her about and yank her around …”

Any parent will identify with “that constant sense that you’re falling short”, he says – now, perhaps, more than ever. A scene in which Emily tries desperately to work in the face of Rosie’s demands has taken on new relevance during lockdown. “Well, quite,” says Tennant, while texting in response to the latest news from Georgia. “Erm. Sorry …”

A big part of the challenge of shooting Staged was finding moments when the children were “either asleep or quiet”, but Tennant counts himself as “phenomenally fortunate” to have had the work, given how acting has been affected by the pandemic. This October, he was due to appear in CP Taylor’s play Good; that now seems unlikely.

Even when theatres are able to reopen, Tennant does not foresee audiences flocking back, “to sit there watching three hours of Chekhov as someone coughs all over them”. The impact on British culture could be catastrophic, he fears, even for institutions such as the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. “It’s a huge bill just to keep those buildings running … We could be left with a cultural scene that’s vastly changed, and that’s a huge part of who we are as a nation.

“Even if the theatre is of no interest to you, even if it feels like an elitist playground, it’s places like that that all the other creative industries feed off,” he says, adding that the arts make a significant contribution to the UK economy – nearly £11bn in 2016, more than agriculture.

Tennant’s career first developed in theatre. As a teenager in Paisley, the son of a Presbyterian minister, he became one of the youngest students at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Even as his work in television and film has taken off, Tennant continues to be a regular on stage, especially with the RSC.

It faces a “titanic problem” in the pandemic, he says, having furloughed 90% of its staff. Government intervention is needed to support theatres until they can reopen, he says, but he is sceptical of it materialising. “If one felt more inclined to trust this government, one might relax, but they haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory thus far.” In fact, since I spoke to Tennant, the government has promised the arts and heritage sectors a rescue package worth £1.57bn, which the playwright and funding advocate James Graham described as “surprisingly ambitious”.

A longtime Labour supporter, Tennant appeared in an election broadcast in 2015 before becoming disillusioned with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership (to summarise various diplomatic responses to interviewers). Asked if he was a fan of Corbyn in 2017, he said he was a fan of the party – although its ambivalent position on Brexit (which Tennant has called a “shitshow”) was a sticking point.

Before last year’s general election, he said he was not even sure if he would vote for Labour. He did – to return Ruth Cadbury to her Brentford and Isleworth seat: “And, also, what was the actual alternative?”

He admits he found Labour’s defeat and the postmortem “disappointingly predictable”, although he still struggles to fathom how so many red seats turned blue. “How do you go from ever being a Labour supporter to supporting Boris Johnson?” he asks, dumbfounded.

He expresses some limited sympathy for politicians handed a pandemic when they thought they “were only going to have to talk about Brexit”. “But if you choose a cabinet purely to surround yourself with people who won’t disagree with you, you’re not necessarily getting the greatest brains in the country,” he says, although a caveat is quick in coming. “One might postulate, were that to be the case, and I’m not for a minute suggesting it is …”

Last year, Tennant singled out Michael Gove’s call for “enough of experts” as a “political lowpoint”. That attitude has had deadly consequences during the pandemic, I suggest. Now the government is “hiding behind them”, he agrees – “selectively, of course. If the experts then say: ‘We told them not to do that,’ suddenly they’re evil again.”

He shakes his head in despair. “Ugh! It’s a very sad state of affairs. Remember when there used to be clever people? When you look back on David Cameron and George W Bush with some kind of sentimentality, you think: ‘Jesus – how low have we plummeted, when they look like better options than what we’ve got currently?’”

Under Keir Starmer, Tennant says Labour “are looking a lot stronger”: “We’ve got a clever grownup in the room, which makes the other side look as ridiculous as they are. Let’s hope he can fulfil his early promise.”

Tennant has said he was inspired to act by watching Doctor Who at the age of three. When he was cast as the 10th incarnation of the Doctor, in 2005, he quipped that the first line of his obituary was written. Ten years since ceding the role to Matt Smith, Tennant remains as connected as ever to the programme, recording a new Doctor Who audio drama while in lockdown. “It’s a nice show to be associated with, because people feel kindly towards it,” he says. “You may not be a fan, but it sort of sits there in the cultural firmament. As a nation, I think we’re quite proud of it.”

Unlike many vehicles for British nostalgia, the malleability of the format has allowed Doctor Who to move with the times, he thinks. “It absolutely comes with all that nostalgic goodwill, but it also manages to live in the moment.

“It felt like a very different show in 2005 than it did in 1963, but it also has that link to the past – which is a positive, rather than preserving it in aspic in any way.” And the Doctor, defined by his (or her) kindness, a peaceful champion of the underdog, is “a wonderful character to aspire to. It’s about being the cleverest person in the room, not the strongest.”

Tennant, meanwhile, remains in his garden, the school pickup plan no more clear for all the messages sent back and forth over the threshold. “Probably would have been quicker just to go and have a conversation,” he says, cheerily. “But less fun for you, obviously.”

[aceofwhump]

For There She Goes you might also like to check out 2x4 where he falls and breaks his shoulder. Also, the 2023 special that came out this year. This one's quite upsetting to watch but his daughter has a violent outburst and when she starts hurting herself, he tells her to hurt him instead. Shortly afterwards there's a brief scene where he and his wife show each other their bruises on their arms.

Ooooh okay. So I literally started watching it last night cause that one gifset really got me intrigued and I kept meaning to watch it anyway so last night I watched the first season and I LOVE IT! This show is so so good. It's the perfect mix of humor (the nerdy and kind of sarcastic humor I love) and gut wrenching angst that is perfect. And it just feels so real (and I know it is based on the creators experiences raising his daughter which explains why it feels so real). Only a few episodes in and I already cried multiple times. David Tennant and Jessica Hynes are killing me. They're such great actors. Every flashback scene rips my heart out. I can't wait to watch the rest of this show. It's so well done. I have a lot of feelings.

Anyway I am loving this show and I cannot wait to get 2x04 and see him break his shoulder!! That sounds amazing! I'm a big fan of shoulder injury whump. Looking forward to that!

I did not know there was a special too! I'll have to see if I can find that as well. That does sound a really difficult and emotional scene to watch but knowing how good David is at difficult emotional scenes and how much respect and knowledge has gone into this I'm sure its phenomenal. I have a feeling its gonna make me cry though. Oh I'm totally going to cry.