#toby whithouse

[thefiresofpompeii]

keeping this episode in my heart as a problematic fave due to the single transphobic joke and the unfortunate implications of featuring a literally predatory lesbian antagonist. however, the characterisation, drama and dialogue (as well as telepathic monologue) is just so brilliant that i can’t even try and pretend that i won’t be rewatching. still giving it five stars and a heart on tardisguide. sometimes there are missteps that are a product of their time (2006 for fuck’s sake wasn’t exactly a progressive era for opinions on trans people by the average cis population. i’m sure whithouse has changed his ways by now, he must have just been uneducated. casual transmisogyny was the norm. not an excuse by any means, but an explanation) one particularly shoddy line can’t ruin something so well written otherwise. that’s on that

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Feelings about Bringing Back Moffat For RTD2 + Other Writers I Think Should Get the Chance

Whelp, just found out that Steven Moffat is going to be writing an episode of Fifteen and I'm just like...eh? about the whole prospect. Like, not as terrified as I once might have been but like...hoping he grew as a writer. Because even though I vastly prefer his one-offs to his overarching season ideas...let's not pretend that you couldn't see the warning signs looking back. The focus on either women as mothers (Doctor Dances) women companions as operating in service/deference to the Doctor (Empty Child/Blink) or women as the Time Traveller's Wife (Girl in the Fireplace, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead). Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Blink, and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead are all fantastic episodes and I think Blink is the strongest one-off (though let's all remember that the ending was suggested by Gatiss, not Moffat) though I will adore Empty Child/Doctor Dances until I die (though let's not forget that Jack Harkness was an RTD invention).

I really hope he learned his lessons through writing latestage Clara and Bill as companions, but I'm honestly just as scared of his racial undertones as am of RTD's. Let's not forget that both of the black companions under Moffat (Bill&Danny) were both dehumanized/turned into Cybermen in order to service Clara and the Doctor/Missy's arcs (though Bill's ending is far better handled in terms of giving Bill her own ending than Danny's, imo), just as RTD really callously handled Martha's treatment, especially in historical episodes. That is not to say that I don't have some hope due to how Bill's race was handled in Thin Ice, but let's just say I'm cautious about getting super excited like some people are.

All of which is to say...I want Toby Whithouse to write a one-off in the RTD2 Era. Or many. I want his examination of the fucked-up and complicated psychological aspects of the Doctor/Companion relationship and even the Doctor themself (I mean he is the one who wrote School Reunion, God Complex, A Town Called Mercy, Under the Lake/Before the Flood, and Vampires of Venice).

ALSO more women and writers of color. I want to see what kind of new voices in sci-fi can be brought to the table and explore more aspects of their experiences, especially as it pertains to historical/future episodes. I'm done with pretending that Demons of the Punjab wasn't one of the best episodes of Doctor Who, and that was specifically because an Indian writer (Vinay Patel) was brought in to write it. (Also, can we see Vinay back as well? He also wrote Fugitive of the Judoon which was another banger. He's also really good at exploring character feelings/implications of time travel/memory.) I also think that Joy Wilkinson, who wrote the Witchfinders, could be a fun choice as well. I really liked the Witchfinders and I'm curious to see how she might tackle a subject matter like that again.

[box-tunnel-pod]

Full moon is almost here! Tomorrow the Being Human podcast says goodbye to Mitchell and the first era of Being Human.

[youlooklikeabeeandilikebees]

when lord toby says on @box-tunnel-pod that he's very interested in a spinoff of hal leo and pearl in the 50s:

when lord toby says the execs didn't like the idea and only wanted a completely new trio set in modern day:

[drjohnweston]

Being Human Q&A 17th December 2022

Everything I can remember from the Q&A, under the read more because it's pretty long!!

Unfortunately, due to Covid, Kate Bracken was unable to attend the event.

Toby Whithouse on being asked why he had selected Making History 4.07 as the episode to be shown: "It was the most ambitious series where we changed the genre slightly, having two timelines running alongside each other with one happening 25 years in the future. This was the episode where those timelines converged."

They then aired the episode before Toby was joined onstage by Jason Watkins and Damien Molony.

Question to Toby: “Where did it all start?"

Toby had been asked to write a TV series about 3 university friends buying a house together, which after struggling to come up with ideas, eventually evolved into a person with anger management issues, a person with agoraphobia, and a person with addiction issues sharing a house, with one of the characters being named George.

At the same time TW had also written a short film romcom about a werewolf named George. The two ideas merged together to give the characters a story and the connections were made between agoraphobia and being a ghost and addiction and being a vampire.

The very first draft of the script was written purely as a sitcom and the second draft of the script was written as if it was an independent American short film.

At first people could not understand that it was a combination of horror, comedy, and drama, but Toby Whithouse thought that this was much more representative of real life, where we are never confined to one genre.

TW also spoke about how the stories he connected with the most were the ones that took place in our world. He said that “The best escapism was into stories that could take place around us.” And that “I was writing for 14-year-old me.”

On the subject of Being Human spanning genres, Jason Watkins added that in reality, at their most horrific moments, people make jokes. He also said that there was “Something colloquial, speakable, domestic, and modern” About the Being Human script.

Q: Were there any references to favourite vampires when creating the show?

TW spoke a little about the mythology and the limitations they were under. “If you can have the vampires only appear at night that is a production nightmare, a scheduling nightmare.”

He also spoke about two new pieces of mythology added in series 4 and how one they thought was perfectly logical and that they would get away with, and another that they thought there was no way the fans would forgive them for and would accuse them of “making shit up.” However, when the series aired those two pieces of new mythology, toxic werewolf blood and Rent-A-Ghosting vampires were received completely the opposite way around and TW was shocked that people hated toxic werewolf blood as a concept so much.

Q: What was it like for Damien Molony joining the series and how did he prepare?

When he went for his audition, he had been acting in the play Tis a Pity She’s a Whore and was spending every night being covered in fake blood from head to toe “like in Carrie”. He said that when he travelled down to the audition, he’d been unable to clean off all of the fake blood and thought that might have helped him to get the part, that the casting agents probably went “wow that guy’s really method.”

After getting the role, Damien watched all the previous series of Being Human and was sent 10 DVDs of vampire films to watch as a crash course 5 days before filming started. He was also given a playlist of music that Hal would listen to and talked about OCD and dominoes.

Later in the QA, an audience member asked specifically how he prepared to show Hal’s OCD, to which Damien replied that he watched lots of documentaries on channel 4 on demand (as the service was called back then) and that he used to spell out the name of the old American actor Hal Holbrook on his fingers on set.

He also added that the domino spiral was set up on set 2 weeks in advance of filming and that everyone on set had to resist the temptation not to touch it and had to tip toe around so as not to accidentally knock it, causing hours of work to put it back.

Another anecdote from Damien Molony came after being reminded about how much beetroot juice he had to drink when they were filming Making History, with 10 litres of beetroot juice having effects that caused him to phone his doctor dad with some worried questions.

The Q&A moved back to Jason Watkins, airing a clip of Herrick in the isolation chamber with Mitchell, George, and Annie in Bad Moon Rising 1.06.  Jason was asked “How did you approach a character with such a black heart”

Jason spoke about Herrick’s complete enjoyment of all the things that he does, his psychopathic nature. “As a villain, he has a pure appetite for it. He ticks all those awful boxes.”

Toby Whithouse added that Herrick “has one mode, summed up by the line “You’re a shark, be a shark.” He never has a single moment of doubt.

Jason Watkins also talked of Herrick as a “paternal figure, he has these sort of sons.” And how he needed to have people like Mitchell in that position, because he needed to be in control, describing it as “having control over somebody and needing that control to know where you are in the world.”

This prompted Ruby, the interviewer to ask about the relationships between vampires and their makers, pointing out that we had just witnessed a twisted version of that relationship in 4.07 between Hal and Cutler.

Damien Molony described Hal as a “straight-jacketed, terrified loner being suddenly confronted with the victim turned master” in Cutler. There was much praise from the panel for Andrew Gower’s performance as Cutler.

Another question to Damien: “As we as fans often see good Hal and Bad Hal and separate people, like Angel in Buffy”, do you see them as different” Damien described good Hal as closed off, straight-jacketed (again), and very controlled. Whereas he said that bad Hal is at ease and open.

Back to Jason Watkins who was asked “Could Herrick be redeemed if he shared a house with Annie Sawyer?” Jason started to go into a longer explanation, but Toby Whithouse replied with a simple no.

Back to the question about relationships between vampires and their makers, Jason Watkins brought up the existence of a script for a scene that was never filmed about Herrick’s recruitment (this is still accessible via the old official Being Human Blog archives and there is a link on my blog).

Jason also recalled the time they were filming Herrick’s resurrection for the end of series 2. Which was not filmed in an empty snowy field, but in a park in the middle of Bristol with a group of elderly people from a local care home watching from the side-lines.

Lastly from Jason Watkins, replying to an audience question about what he took from the role of Herrick, he spoke about how “it was a bit of a break for him” (career wise) and how Herrick’s confidence “was him on a really good day,” and that by playing Herrick it increased his own confidence in his work and performance.

As both members of the cast on the panel had played vampires, the questions had been more focussed on them.

Speaking about the werewolves, Toby said “Werewolves become boring after they’ve transformed, they just become a thing. … It’s all about the tension, the lead up and the aftermath.” That’s the interesting part.

An audience member asked if Toby could discuss the ghosts, saying “they are the glue of the show, how did you come up with them?”

Toby responded that actually, the ghost episodes had always been the hardest ones to write and that he tended to lean more into the comedy aspect with them, because both Lenora and Kate were good at comedy. He said that he always paired their characters up with more experienced ghosts, because both Annie and Alex were new to that world. But he also said that he had to start to break his own rules and bring Annie out of the house as “Ding Dong, it’s a ghost” turning up at the door as a plotline would have gotten old very quickly.

He shared that he and Gilbert had the same musical taste, and that it meant he could “write jokes about people like Marc Almond that only he (toby) would find funny.”

And finally, one audience member asked, “Did you ever see things online and think I wish we would have done that?”

Toby Whithouse replied “the online community I absolutely loved. It added another layer of joy. During series 2 airing someone came up with the idea that Professor Jaggat was a werewolf and that was why she wasn’t there at during the (first) transformation, and I thought oh that’s a really good idea.” He went on to add “You can’t pay too much attention to audience feedback.” And spoke about writing what audiences need rather than what they might necessarily want to see. But that he would read the (official) blog because it was fun and so many lovely things were said.

[box-tunnel-survivors-group]

Might as well jump on the bandwagon..

[khruschevshoe]

My preference for showrunners for the Thirteenth Doctor in order

1. My favorite fanfic authors (showout to all the Thasmin homies and @aletterinthenameofsanity for the Thirteen/Amy/Rory pairing that I was NOT expecting to adore the character development of)

2. Toby Whithouse (listen, the man who gave us The God Complex, Under the Lake/Before the Flood, A Town Called Mercy, and School Reunion would have SLAPPED from a character writing pov)

3. Chris Chibnall (props where props are do for the unhinged Thoschei of Season 12 and pushing for Jodie as 13, but, well, I think he'd do better at one-off episodes like End of Days and Cyberwoman in Torchwood instead of trying to write season-long companion arcs bc as much as I like Graham, Ryan, and Yaz as characters their arcs/importance in the story leave a LOT to be desired)

4. Idk, Steven Moffat? (Grew to appreciate the unhinged 12/Clara and 12/Missy dynamics and Bill was refreshing but not really how he usually writes women characters, but would still not trust him with a woman doctor, especially a gender-chaotic gremlin like 13, sorry, but them's the breaks)

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Toby Whithouse "Would've Loved to be Doctor Who Showrunner"

Toby Whithouse "Would've Loved to be #DoctorWho Showrunner"

Toby Whithouse has revealed that he would’ve loved to be the showrunner on Doctor Who, but apparently wasn’t approached for the job. Toby has written a number of episodes, including School Reunion, A Town Called Mercy, and Under the Lake/ Before the Flood. He even appeared in Peter Capaldi’s final episode, Twice Upon A Time. Whithouse said: “I’d love to have done it. I really would – it’s such…

[doctorwho-rewind]

S2 E3: "School Reunion"

The Krillitanes - aliens with a mix-and-match physiology - are trying to crack the 'God-Maker', a paradigm to give them ultimate power. They are using children as a computer, and only the Doctor and Rose, re-united with Sarah Jane Smith and K9 can prevent them from becoming masters of time and space. (IMBD)

Episode: S2, E3: "School Reunion" Date: April 29, 2006 Writer: Toby Whithouse Director: James Hawes

Doctor: 10th Companion: Rose Tyler Main Villain in This Episode: Krillitane

–

A nice mystery right from the off. Just from the first 5 minutes: why are the Doctor and Rose working in a school as a teacher and a dinner lady? What’s up with the little kid genius? Why are the dinner ladies so carefully trying to move a vat of something that seems to make a woman start to evaporate like the Wicked Witch of the West? What’s special about the chips?!

I love when an episode makes you immediately start questioning what the heck is happening and then all the pieces fit into place – the perfect Doctor Who episode structure.

Also, Anthony Head as the headteacher! (Anthony Headteacher?) Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith! K-9! The Doctor’s face when Sarah Jane appeared and the chills you get when she realises who he is! Another episode I forgot how much I loved.

Initially, one thing that annoyed me was the whole “pitting women against each other” thing. I thought, why do Rose and Sarah Jane immediately hate each other? Is there any reason other than them just being possessive over the guy they travel with? My pet hate is women characters hating each other for no reason. But then I realised they are both possessive about their time with him. They both thought they were his one-and-only; a special one. But meeting each other makes them realise they’re not the only one, and I really appreciated them eventually bonding over their experiences.

Also… how absolutely dare Mickey Smith tell Rose to go easy on the chips. Another line that hasn’t aged well 🙃

The ending – with the Doctor saying goodbye for good to Sarah Jane – feels so much sadder now that Elisabeth Sladen is gone.

–

⬅️ Previous episode: S2 E2: “Tooth and Claw” ➡️ Next episode: S2 E4: "The Girl in the Fireplace"

[of-monsters-and-werewolves]

Ah, of course, it wouldn't be a Toby Whithouse episode without the obligatory specific obnoxious brand of Doctor Angst™ he insists on including every fucking time.

[helmstone]

Bergerac reimagined for a new generation

Bergerac reimagined for a new generation

UKTV has announced a ‘reimaging’ of BBC detective drama Bergerac. The six-part series will be written by Toby Whithouse, alongside Brian Fillis, Catherine Tregenna and Polly Buckle. Filming will begin this summer, with locations including the Channel Island of Jersey. Casting to be announced in the coming months. The announcement tells us: Bergerac will be based on the original series created…

[thefiresofpompeii]

the impossible leninist church as yet another one of the twelfth doctor's mirrors

these two shots from before the flood come back to back. one after the other

he is unwavering faith and belief in the impossible and repentance and strict moral code and guilt and confession and trust and foresight and transcendence and surrender

he is rationality and control and conscience and materialism and skepticism and historicity and atheism and truth and dignity and survival and victory (the red block lettering on the poster says "pobedim" — "we will be victorious")

.

the friend inside the enemy and the enemy inside the friend. the scientist and the magician. the priest and the folk hero and the reluctant politician. call him doctor dialectics

cinematography as communication!

[denimbex1986]

'...Celebrating the show's upcoming 60th anniversary, Whithouse, who wrote the School Reunion episode, spoke exclusively to RadioTimes.com about working alongside Sladen.

"It was amazing. What a privilege, what an absolute privilege," he said...

In the School Reunion episode, the Krillitanes disguise themselves as school faculty members, using the minds of children to solve a theory of everything that would allow them to control time and space.

The episode takes place some time after the events of The Christmas Invasion, and involved the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) reuniting with former companion Sarah Jane Smith.

Whithouse added: "In hindsight, you just realise what a privilege it was. And when I met her, she was just such a delight and so lovely and so complimentary about the script. Yeah, a real, real privilege."...'

[box-tunnel-pod]

Same old supernaturals. New town.

The Box Tunnel Pod moves to Wales. Listen to the housewarming on 01.08.23!

[fresh-bag-of-ham]

i hate that we have to caveat "RTD has his faults" because of course he does. so does moffat. so does literally every writer. so does literally every human. listen to yourself. RTD and moffat are my friends who tell me fun space stories that they made up. not chibnall though chibnall is fash

[drjohnweston]

It's now confirmed that Damien Molony, Kate Braken, Jason Watkins, and Toby Whithouse will be at the BFI for a Q&A in December!