Doctor Who 2008: Sontarans cometh, RTD Ood 'ave 'im etc.

I love that the Steven Moffat episode is set in a library!

Season 4, Episode 7: The Unicorn and the Wasp
Original Air Date: 17 May 2008
The Doctor and Donna meet Agatha Christie.

I'll be mad if this doesn't feature cheery racism.

The eruption of Vesuvius could be an amazing setpiece. So, what massive alien space station is hidden in the core of the volcano then?

Season 4, Episode 1: Partners in Crime
Original Air Date: 5 April 2008
Donna must track down The Doctor to save London from an alien emergency.

Again?

To be fair if you ruled out saving London from an alien emergency you'd lose vast swathes of all Doctor Who.

kind of getting bored of it being the plot of every season (excuse me, series) premiere.

guest star suggestions (bit late now tho):

Harry Hill (straight role)
David Essex (space pirate)
Dean Gaffney (as himself, and his EVIL TWIN)
Stephen Merchant (UNIT dude)
Montserrat Lombard (well she's in everything else)
Paul Putner (Davros)

Dean Gaffney (as himself, and his EVIL TWIN)
Stephen Merchant (UNIT dude)

Or they could just work at a cell phone shop that's been taken over by aliens.

At least it's not all American cities being attacked by aliens for a change.

The aliens do seem curiously uninterested in any of Brtain's great cities other than London and Cardiff, though.

Well, the werewolf wanted to bite Queen Victoria in rural Scotland (not a euphemism).

Yeah, a bit of alien action on the Tyne wouldn't go astray.

'cwor, our famous bridge is gworn'

why don't they ever want to attack torquay? or, continental europe?

Why dont they fucking go to some planets!

That's what Hyperdrive's for.

Amy Winehouse as The Rani anyone?
http://www.nme.com/news/amy-winehouse/35547

"Lots of planets have a Priory"

(Look at the date, Anna!)

I'm really tired today.

Also, it doesn't seem quite stupid enough to be an April fool. This probably says quite a lot about both the NME and Russel T Davies.

Purely from an image standpoint it would be inspired casting, I've got to say.

Well, see if the story's still up at noon as it stands, also ought there be a writer credit on it? It's already being disseminated by a bunch of music sites.

1. Partners in Crime
2. The Fires of Pompell
3. Planet of the Ood
4. The Sontaran Stratagem
5. The Poison Sky
6. The Doctors Daughter
7. The Unicorn & The Wasp
8. Silence in the Library
9. River's Run
10. Midnight
11. Turn Left
12. TBA
13. Journey's End

6. The Doctors Daughter

"I was a dad once..."

thought it was supposed to be a son he had/has

RTD sez

"At 6.20pm, it'll get 1.5m less viewers than it already has," he said, speaking at a Broadcast event in London. "I've told them this, but they won't shift at all. You need to maintain slots and they've gone and cocked it up now. Maybe they're right, but I think they're wrong."

The producer, who was behind the revival of the show, also confessed to rewriting others' scripts if he did not like them. He said: "I'll rewrite 100% if I have to. With Steven Moffat's scripts, I don't touch a word, but anyone else's I do...

"We're not there to experiment and we're not there to let someone fail. You've got to do everything you can to make it brilliant every week."

so just think how bad some of the scripts must've been before re-writing!

Oh God, please tell me that "The Doctor's Daughter" has absolutely nothing to do with that awful Lance Parkin book...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JY8GBG18L._AA240_.jpg

AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID

NO WAI

RTD is bit grumpy this year, isn't he? What changed?

6.20 is a stupid time. Fucking reality tv must go out at 7.

Lance Parkin wrote two of my favorite Who books (Just War, Cold Fusion) and then followed them up with a bunch of mediocre-to-bad ones.

Does this mean they're bringing back Susan?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/Whitney_Houston-_My_Name_Is_Not_Susan.jpg

How great would it be if Whitney was Susan?

yeah and have the doctor's granddaughter be a massive druggie.

That would be kinda woah.

TS William Hartnell vs Bobby Brown

悪狼

Why the hassle over the broadcast time, doesn't everyone have a video or sky+ or tivo or something these days? Also, it's not like it doesn't get repeated on BBC3 or anything.

Ratings innit

BBC innit, ratings shouldn't matter that much.

Also it's DOCTOR FUCKING WHO you'd think the thing would be popular enough that enough people will switch on whatever happens regardless of half and hour here or there. Especially with some decent promotion.

why not make it 6.23pm

BBC innit, ratings shouldn't matter that much.

^lol

Probably want people to miss it and watch on iPlayer then the bbc can point to what a roarinf sucess iPlayer is.

damn thing stalls every time i try and watch Torchwood on it (not so bad with other shows)

The Sontaran Stratagem

that would be sontarans then. hello ILX

Probably want people to miss it and watch on iPlayer then the bbc can point to what a roarinf sucess iPlayer is.

-- Ed, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 21:45 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Doctor Who most-viewed iPlayer show
12 April 2008

This weekend's Doctor Who's fourth season premiere is the most popular programme in the iPlayer's history, a BBC spokeswoman said today.

The episode, featuring Catherine Tate's debut as a regular in the series, was requested by 2,830,000 computers in the UK. Director-General Mark Thompson is a git.

Maybe the Sontaran's strategem is ... erm ... not to appear in the episode!

A friend has just asked me to participate in his fan fiction. PARTICIPATE. As of this moment I have nfi wtf he's talking about.

Is that like cosplay, life modelling or just being written in, whichever it is I fear you may be finding out if the doctor's little TARDIS is bigger in or out.

man i have no way of watching this, and it is bothersome

yes you do. Get your bt client up & runnin'.

SOME DO NOT LIKE TO STEAL THE BREAD RIGHT FROM THE WRITER'S MOUTHS, KINGFISH.

EVEN IF IT IS A HAMMY, JOWLY MOUTH.

and some of us like in the u.s., where broadcasts aren't as easily seen...

and some us live in something called REGION 4 which basically means YOU WILL DRINK WATER FROM THE COLD TAP.

Also it's DOCTOR FUCKING WHO you'd think the thing would be popular enough that enough people will switch on whatever happens regardless of half and hour here or there.

You'd think the thing would be popular enough that it would stay in a prime time slot. Prime time is prime time for a reason. It's when most people get most time to watch TV.

Maybe it's on early because it's a children's programme?

^

Where's the thread for the christmas special? I watched it last night for the first time and thought it was GREAT. I almost cried!??

When the ABC waits six months to broadcast the series, yeah BT is warranted.

I think they call it family viewing. xxp

When the ABC waits six months to broadcast the series, yeah BT is warranted.

You're not fucking wrong.

I couldn't wait for the S3 finale, so I downloaded it before it aired on Sci-Fi here. Then I caught parts of it when it did air, and I was horrified - you wouldn't think a couple minutes cut here and there would ruin an episode, but they did more than that, cutting literally seconds out of the middle of scenes, reaction shots, etc. It ruined the pacing and feeling of the show far more than I expected. I shudder to think about what I've missed in pieces from the show over those seasons by watching these hacked versions on Sci-Fi.

So this year I'm not bothering to wait, BT it is. RSS torrenting = godsend.

That's why I can't watch it on sci-fi -- the editing is just so awful and random.

Why is that? I'd always assumed the whole reasoning behind the 45 min episode length was so they could sell it to the international market without need for additional editing - 45 minutes of content plus 15 minutes of ads snugly fills a one hour slot.

Networks are cocks. They whine when people torrent yet they pull devious shit like this.

It needs to be about 38-40 minutes long to fit an hour in the US.

Hang on, it became a problem because *MARTHA* was in love with him? Um, hello? Rose?

Not a bad start otherwise, tbh.

As I put in the wrong thread

The only thing missing from that was the two goons with the guns walking into the blue oyster bar.

-- Herman G. Neuname, Saturday, 5 April 2008 19:10 (29 minutes ago)

Nice start.

Well that was better than it had any right to be.

Let's not get carried away.

Pretty goofy.

Goofy, yes, but RTD's been responsible for plenty, plenty worse.

Catherine Tate was definitely more likeable in this one. Bodes well, fun ep. The through-the-window screaming bit was pretty funny. I was a bit surprised they gave up the Rose reveal so early, but I guess realistically everybody knew about that by now.

(Rose wasn't a problem because their feelings were first platonic then reciprocal... while Martha kind of always had that puppy dog attraction from the start.)

It's pretty early to call but I have this feeling that this year might be it for Tennant, and this season perhaps wraps up the last three (it looks like everybody is back at some point) and there will be a mini-reboot whenever the show comes back.

Yeah, mini-reboot sounds on the cards. I reckon Tennant and Davies are off after this year.

Pretty goofy.

-- Gukbe, Sunday, 6 April 2008 16:37 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Goofy, yes, but RTD's been responsible for plenty, plenty worse.

-- Mikey Bidness, Sunday, 6 April 2008 16:49 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

It's a character introduction episode. No character introduction episode is ever going to be spectacular. It did its job and it did it well.

Can someone explain to this dense viewer why Catherine Tate was snooping around at the beginning, saying she was from health and safety, asking for a list of customers, pinching the pendant, basically acting like a detective?

RTD seems inordinately obsessed with pregnancy and children.

It's because, having turned down the Doctor on the first go, she changes her mind because her life is shit and goes looking for him in places where Weird Shit is happening in case he turns up there.

Oh yeah - she mouths through the window that she was looking for him! Man what a great scene.

I still like to think that she was going through all of that just so she could scam some free Adipose.

What IS the deal with all the annoying, overbearing mothers? Though both Mrs. Tyler and Jones did eventually get some character redemption (as I'm sure Mrs. Noble will eventually) they're all introduced as these obnoxious hens.

i hope we never see Donna's Mum again. i'm sure Cribbins will somehow end up saving the world tho.

I didn't mind the episode in itself, and there were some nice touches, but it just seemed a bit stuck together with old bits of nu-Who. A bit of the doctor running about for some reason as yet unexplained, a bit of aliens going about their evil business by exploiting modern mores (after bluetooth headsets and cheap TV sets and age-reversing technology), a bit of a woman persuading him to let her be his companion. You know.

Oh yeah, and the overbearing hen thing.

A friend has just asked me to participate in his fan fiction. PARTICIPATE. As of this moment I have nfi wtf he's talking about.

-- Autumn Almanac, Thursday, 3 April 2008 11:04 (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

Turns out it's a film he's making, and he wants me to play an old man. (a) I don't know what he is saying about my age and (b) I have been asked to ACT in a FAN FIC MOVIE. Is there a thread for people who have been asked to act in fan fic movies?

So, half the season until a Moffat ep?

Also, the bt was worth it, since Sci-Fi won't be airing the premiere for another 2 weeks. Not that I have cable anyway...

also, the wiki says this:

2009 and beyond

David Tennant is confirmed to star through to 2009. However, during the second half of 2008, Tennant is committed to a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet. After the 2008 Christmas Special, three Bank Holiday specials have been commissioned to air throughout 2009.[13][14] The programme will then return in 2010 with a fifth full series. Russell T Davies has suggested that the programme is expected to follow this pattern, of full series interspersed with occasional year-long breaks, for some time into the future.[15]

Pompeii episode looks gangsta. 'I Cladivs' meets the fruitier bits of BSG in the CGI bits of a Vesuvius doco.

i didn't expect to see Wose in the first episode

I much prefer the historical episodes when ignore the lure of big historical events and figures. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often.

"When they ignore," I mean.

when did that last happen? all recent historical stories have involved famous figures and events no?

Human Nature/The Family of Blood

I know it had the impending first world war as its backdrop, but it wasn't like "OMG LOL Lord Kitchener".

Er, World War I was a pretty famous event, I thought. YMMV, obviously, haha xpost

while Martha kind of always had that puppy dog attraction from the start

No, in her first ep she made a big song and dance about how she didn't do aliens etc, which makes me surprised that he fell for Donna saying the same thing.

Overbearing mothers = a reason to not feel bad for bailing on them (even though Rose frequently did, which was one of her more redeeming features and made her probably the most realistic companion - I'm figuring Bernard Cribbins may fulfil this role for Donna rather than Donna's mym though).

I'm guessing RTD may have some issues with his mother?

'The Unquiet Dead' did the Historical Figure Hangin' Wit' The Doctor thing with some degree of subtlety, I think.

Didn't like that. Read somewhere that Mark Gatiss's original script got changed significantly.

Wikipedia comes to the rescue:

Mark Gatiss stated in the Radio Times that the original script was more bleak and frightening, but that he was advised by Davies to "make it more of a romp."

Fucking romps.

No, in her first ep she made a big song and dance about how she didn't do aliens etc, which makes me surprised that he fell for Donna saying the same thing.

It was a sheepish lie/joke on her part, after she was flirting ("You're the one who kissed me!"), and when he turns away she looks sadly down. Watch it again, it's pretty clear even from that point that she wanted him.

I do think the writers want to set up Donna as a non-romantic companion, just one who wants that thrill and adventure, but I'm afraid once all the others come in it's going to be a madhouse between all of them. Though you do have to wonder why with the exception of snap-pop-open-head guy from S1 all his companions want to sleep with the old Doctor. (Man, that dude was a random pickup.)

Overbearing mothers = a reason to not feel bad for bailing on them
Yeah, you're probably right about this. And wo yea, I think RTD's got some mommy issues.

I didn't know about the '08 X-Mas special/Bank Holiday stuff coming up, that's cool to hear.

Martha's intentions might be clear to the viewer, but it wasn't clear to him, so why believe Donna when she says the same thing?

(especially when she's been stalking him with all her clothes in the back of the car ready to move in)

Ok, that's a good point. I guess... Catherine Tate full-on snark power means no falling in love? I'm just gonna have to go with that.

Fucking romps.
LOL, romps with the Doctor.

Believe me, I *want* Donna not to fall in love with him and just be his "mate". I just don't get how he seems to believe it's not going to happen when all the evidence points to the opposite.

Because... the only other Time Lord is dead, he's just lost another companion and the Doctor is very, very lonely and will probably take anyone at this point? It's a shame cause I think she'd be more fun as an annoyingly pesky, non-romantic companion but yeaa I also think Donna will deffo fall for him.

I liked that opener though... No fireworks, just felt very familiar. Loved the mouthing-through-the-windows bit, hilarious.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7333321.stm

have discovered problem with earlier timeslot does not factor in going for a pint on the way home from the football. This doesn't matter though because I have means of watching it not at 6.20. Do the people who axe shows for shit ratings take into account that people are recording them/watching them on iPlayer?

(I realise I could google this info, but thought I'd ask the people worried about the timeslot on here)

What IS the deal with all the annoying, overbearing mothers?

RTD did say in the Confidential that one of his favourite things in drama is the bickering mother/daughter set up. He didn't say why exactly, though he did hint that he believes that that's just what mothers and daughters do.

The time slot didn't result in low ratings, as RTD and others feared. About 8.9 mill or something. The higest opener since "Rose", anyway.

8.4 according to the article I linked to above

You should maybe indicate what your links are if you want people to click on them.

OH MY GOD SOMEONE HAS ALREADY KNITTED AN ADIPOSE BABY

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3270/2391380337_87e3acd43c.jpg?v=0

GAHHR! It's so cute, I want one!

But I don't want the ones that are clinging to my bod. :(

omg
i thought they were all going to cling together and form the staypuff marshmallow man

What IS the deal with all the annoying, overbearing mothers? (re: russell t davies) haha the other question, pos related, is What is the deal with all the fatness?

at this point it's more of a rhetorical question

Adipose babies looked like pokemans.

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/funny-pictures-cat-dr-who-bbc-budget.jpg

I thought it was kind of ropey - the plot felt really thrown together, Tennant didn't get a chance to shine, and there were several annoyingly protracted emo scenes. The silent shouting bit was funny, but again went on too long. Didn't help that I watched it with my girlfriend, who has enjoyed Who in the past, but was all like "What the fuck is this, why are we watching this shit".

Much as I'm anti Rose returning, her cameo did raise the old goosebumps a bit, I have to admit.

That moment was just too hair-raisingly awesome.

I'm curious to see how long Donna sticks around, and how they handle her character arc. I don't know if I can take her bellowy thing for an entire season.

Have finally caught up with the show(finished the new ep & kylie minogue christmas ep at 5 this morning).

Next week's ep looks proper.

The Adipose deserved better once they were out and all running about. That episode could have got away with being a lot more like Gremlins.

What's up with Rose just vanishing though? Surely that's a faux Rose of some kind? And she never used to be so slinky and sultry.

That's Rose drifting between the universes innit.

Also is there a Bad Wolf/Torchwood/Saxon for this series that anyone's noticed yet?

The Doctor vanished in a similar way when he briefly accessed Rose's dimension at the end of S2. So my theory is she was beaming a trans-dimensional image of herself for some reason.

xpost - bees disappearing

which apparently is a true thing and we're all going to die in 20 years

It's a good guess. I just put it down to RTD throwing in a topical thing for laughs, but I'd quite like a bee-related arc, as long as it doesn't culminate in a giant CGI bee romp.

So my theory is she was beaming a trans-dimensional image of herself for some reason.

But didn't Donna tap her on the shoulder? (I could be wrong here)

And can ayone explain why the sonic screwdriver didn't work on the 'lock down'? Then did work further down the building?

Because the sonic screwdriver is RUBBISH SCIENCE of course.

starring jerry seinfeld?

Solid start to the series, I want the adipose back, mainly to find ut what the parents are like, could be a good monster epecially with hordes of tribble like cute children.

Presumably If Rose can project herself across the dimensions this leaves and opening for the cybermen/daleks/whatever else might be in her universe to come through as well?

Wasn't Bernard Cribbins a companion to a previous doctor and if so, is he playing the same character?

bbc budget even more slashed

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2162/2390330596_b4c2e3da6b_m.jpg

cribbins was in one of the cushing movies i think

dalek invasion earth

Bernard Cribbins was in one of the films I think. He was also in the 2007 Christmas special, right? Is that meant to be the same character?

"He was also in the 2007 Christmas special, right? Is that meant to be the same character"

yes cos he says 'that's him' when he sees donna waving from the tardis

as long as it doesn't culminate in a giant CGI bee romp.

Didn't they show Donna having a giant CGI bee romp on the Jonathan Ross show?

(or was it a wasp?)

if the giant wasp is in the Christie story then do we get a giant unicorn as well?

Though you do have to wonder why with the exception of snap-pop-open-head guy from S1 all his companions want to sleep with the old Doctor.

This is known as Russell T. Davies Syndrome (read Damaged Goods and you'll see what I mean; dude had his Mary Sue character fuck the hot young male companion during a stakeout for no discernable reason).

apart from him being hot

Well, yeah. It was a total out-of-character move for the companion; he was pretty much unrelentingly straight up to that point (which, you know, whatever) but more importantly, he was always portrayed as someone who takes his work very, very, VERY seriously, ie someone who would not decide that a stakeout was the time to explore his sexuality.

It was so jarring and out of place that it really hurt the book, especially since the entire scene could have been moved to a point after the stakeout and weaved into the plot by it being a release after the tension of the chase without coming across like the author just decided at that point that he really wanted his stand-in character to bone the companion.

OH I forget the really tacky bit; boning the companion cured AIDS.

Wow, that sounds... Not that I had any interest in reading the Who books to begin with, but, uh... no.

The rest of the book was really, really good, which is the most frustrating thing. It's really the only time I've ever thought the reactionary wing of Who fandom had a point about the 90s authors pushing some type of "gay agenda", mostly because it had pretty much zero to do with the story. (I supose it was intended to be a silver lining upbeat ending because most of the story is unrelentingly brutal and grim, but it was executed in such a flippant manner that the end result was just... wrong.)

I can't imagine RTD's prose style being particularly good, but maybe I'm wrong.

I think Rose herself might be the Bad Wolf/Torchwood thing, maybe she'll crop up in the background for a couple of seconds on most episodes.

That was teh rubbish, I think you're all being a little too forgiving. Save for the ending, it looked like one of those cheap filler episodes. Tate and Mum and Voice of Buzby also all highly irritating and pointless.

Tennant was fine, though, and looking forward to better things, etc.

I can't imagine RTD's prose style being particularly good, but maybe I'm wrong.

I thought it was fine up until the stupid boning scene.

Generally speaking, the authors whose writing impressed me the most amongst the 90s novelists were Lawrence Miles, Ben Aaronovitch, Dave Stone and Jonothan Morris. Paul Cornell had a tendency to allow some unforgivably twee bullshit mess up an otherwise fantastic story and Kate Orman was a little too into Doctor torture porn to be consistently good. Many others started out well than began believing their own press, turning their later work into incredibly self-indulgent messes (Lance Parkin was the biggest offender like this), plus there were those who were so pleased with themselves for being all postmodern and random that, without someone else to reign them in, they tended to write incredibly stupid things that didn't really hang together very well (Paul Magrs, who co-wrote what may be the best book in the series in The Blue Angel but was also responsible for some of the dumbest, most irritating books in the line, aka The Scarlet Empress and Mad Dogs and Englishmen).

I think I've mentioned this before, but Magrs was my academic advisor at university.

Funnily enough my strongest memory of him is him mischeiviously reading self-penned Doctor/Dalek slash at an open mic night in a pub.

P4ul C0rn3ll walked into my elbow last night (but then it was my fault for standing in a doorway, except the people in front of me were also not moving).

One of his books is the sum total of my Who-book reading (thought I'd make the effort to appreciate my smalltown's local talent). Is the thing of "I have this totally awesome pet character in my head but nobody will publish my novels so I'm going to write a Who book which is mostly a vehicle for my own pet character and incidentally has some Tardis-whooshing stuff thrown in" par for the course? If they all have book-exclusive companions rooting away on stakeouts then I guess it is.

PS I like the guy's TV episodes a lot (the two-parter is possibly my favourite nu-Who, up against Blink and the WWII two-parter; too indecisive to vote on the other thread) and am sadface at not getting one this season, so I am not just here on a personal grumbling mission.

I'm guessing the way UK TV shows are written are different from the way most are done in the US (table-written by committee, split scenes, usually led by the head writer or showrunner), since it does seem like the well-written Who episodes tend to be consistent by writer. Someone clue me in?

I could be wrong, since I think RTD wrote half of all the new Who eps, and the ones he's written vary widely in quality (just look at the last three episodes of S3 vs. Voyage of the Damned). But then you (I) realize the guy who wrote Family of Blood also wrote Father's Day (both quite good), not to mention it seems Moffat wrote all the best eps (Empty Child / Doctor Dances, Girl in the Fireplace, Blink).

I think Dr Who stories are all basically authored purely by the credited writer, with RTD doing tinkering along the way. The trouble with him is that he's undoubtedly a talented writer, but he spreads himself too thin and has quite poor jugement when it comesto his own work.

Hahahahaha aps, which book did you read?

One of the B. Summerf13ld ones, maybe the first one seeing as it read like it was introducing her. I was hoping that seeing the title would jog my memory, not realising that there were more than 40 with her in! Well, if she was that popular I guess I'd better take it back.

Love & War? Did it involve a sentient fungus that was infecting and taking over a planet and were they stopped by the Doctor getting Ace's new boyfriend to blow himself up in their midst? Regardless, I just knew you were talking about Benny hahahaha.

Of Cornell's books, his best is EASILY Human Nature. There's good stuff going on in a lot of the rest of them but most of the time his own infatuation with twee silliness gets in the way (the only one where I think it full-on works is Oh No It Isn't! because it's a self-knowing panto pastiche and incredibly funny as a result).

That sounds like the one. I'd be interested to read HN after enjoying the TV episode of that name so much. Meanwhile my mind is being kinda blown by web synopses of "No Future".

Speaking of panto I saw Clive Rowe doing a turn as Dick Whittington's mom (I almost said "doing Dick Whittington's mom") at the Hackney empire this year! He was SO GOOD it was outrageous. I'm just watching the last Who Xmas special for the first time although sort of half paying attention but I heard that voice and was like.. Sarah they're pinching your patties!

Say what you like about RTD, his episodes are a gag a minute. after watching Clive Rowe fall to a fiery death off the rickety bridge they're clinging onto but must cross, his wife is urged by the Doctor to get across it. "No! What's the point? I can't live without him." Tennant takes her by the shoulders and does his looking-you-in-the-eyes thing and says "What would HE want you to do?" "HE doesn't want anything, he's DEAD!" she says, collapsing in tears.

And the Doctor on Xmas: "It's a long story. I should know. I was there! Had a nice room."

Also for the first time I wondered how anyone knows what "years" means if they're all from other planets.

Yes, I did like the banter in the new ep rather more than the storyline, which had some good ideas a bit wasted.

"I'm not really a cat person." "No, you're not. I've met cat people. You're nothing like them, really."

"I just want a mate." "You just want to mate?!! [...] You long thin streak of, of, of nothing!" etc etc

RTD is very very variable. Some of his stuff is great, some woeful. I really wish the last Christmas episode had been better. Writing the thing specifically for Kylie Minogue ("The only time I've written specifically for a specific actor!"), who has all the presence of toilet paper, didn't help.

Putting this here, might come in handy later:

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/2008/yoyoux3.gif

GUYS, SOME BBC BOOKS HAVE BEEN REPRINTED

INCLUDING LEGACY OF THE DALEKS BY JOHN PEEL LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Legacy of the Daleks, War of the Daleks, Gallifrey Chronicles, Time Zero, Wolfsbane

2 out of fucking 5 for quality there

And can ayone explain why the sonic screwdriver didn't work on the 'lock down'? Then did work further down the building?

i think he used the pen that the nursery woman had instead after he nicked it from her.

Yes but I thought the sonic screwdrivers were identical, isn't that what he said when he jammed them up against each other? I also didn't get why he just tosses hers once everything's over. He's always going on and on about not losing his own - why not have a spare?

I got the impression that her sonic pen had different 'permissions' than his sonic screwdriver, if you get what I mean.

I can't help but think putting it in the bin means it's going to turn up later on again in some fashion

Do not question the sonic screwdriver. It is the universe's mightiest weapon of never having to think about plot continuity.

(Was initially pleased to see the woman have one as a sort of "lol same way out of this one as every week, amirite? OH ZOIKS NO not this week!" but Tracer OTM. Also ambivalent about "just like old times" re inevitable corridors-and-staircases running scene - amused at acknowledgement of tired blueprint, but can we have something else next week please? Time for a ban on any building with more than 3 floors. If it's enough for Blink it should be enough for everyone.)

...xposted

You can't be suggesting an embargo on corridor running in Doctor Who? Come now...

You're right, what was I thinking? Well, I'll see how it goes next week in not-so-highrise ancient Rome. Maybe I'll be begging for the corridors back. Generally the pre-C20 historical episodes aren't my favourites, so I am just being unreasonable here.

I see RTD as an impresario, a PT Barnum type who doesn't give a rat's ass about plot or character or anything like that -- instead he creates a framework into which he can cram as many gags and set-pieces and bits of schtick as he possibly can. It's like total showbiz. If every episode were like that the show would get tiring and tiresome but it's a lot of fun in doses.

95% agreed there - though i think he does care about character.

Ha, he's Stan Lee - a gifted conceptualiser/overseer working with far more artistically talented collaborators, for whose work he inevitably gets assigned some of the credit.

That's true but the character stuff is written SO ham-handedly that in itself it almost feels like schtick. The Doctor's guilt, Martha's crush... yada yada!

xpost

have you seen Queers As Folk, TH?

another classic rogue pluralisation there...

this japanese piggybank made me think of doctor who:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/144127-11/10_cool_gadgets_you_cant_get_hereyet.html

btw, bbc4 are currently showing the first dalek series at about 7:30. only you've missed the first 4 now (and i missed the first 3 of those due to set top box wonkiness)

I have a Tardis piggybank. Goes "whooHOOOSH whoHOOOSH whoHOOSH" with flashing blue light when you put a coin in. YES!

Ooh I liked that one, good combination of new and old-skool values, and I can't tell you how relieved I was when the curtain was pulled back because I'd been expecting annoying spider-monster thing to be behind there.

Kind of wanted the Doctor to be ice-cold and not save the family though.

disappointed by lack of reference to TARDIS as "chariot of the sky!" but yeah that was decent

capaldi's "so vulcanic...like a...volcano" moment was hyper groany

Not as groany as "TK Maxximus" but yeah.

Poor. Weak jokes and shouty nonsense.

LOLs at the Cambridge Latin Course refs. "People will remember you..."

Not Evelina though :(

Middling. Better than last week. The premise was kind of similar (aliens growing new bodies inside people). Tate's not very good at the serious bits. On the plus side, the production values were very good (leftover sets from Rome according to the guide).

Shot in Cinecitta, Rome - leftover sets from every other ssword'n'sandal epic you've ever seen in your life.

It was just a shame the director made it look like a cramped set in the corner of a Cardiff studio.

Curate's egg. A couple of really nice ideas completely choked by rubbish.

^^^ 21st century Who in a nutshell

rong

LOLs at the Cambridge Latin Course refs. "People will remember you..."

I think Rose herself might be the Bad Wolf/Torchwood thing, maybe she'll crop up in the background for a couple of seconds on most episodes.

"Doctor... she is returning."

I liked that ep. Shitty jokes aside, thought it was much better than last week's and can't wait for next week's with the Ood. I hope they make the Ood as creepy as possible.

I enjoyed that, and way better than the Shakespeare rubbish that did for the let's go back in time with the probationary companion episode last year.

The bad jokes were wonderful! Dr Who is all about terrible jokes! Isn't it?

Thought the Doctor SLIGHTLY overdid his blithe-and-chatty-blind-eye-to-deadly-danger stuff (i.e. we need to actually feel scared), but Tennant's so good at that stuff it must be nigh impossible for the writers to control themselves.

Strangely, when Donna really tries to burrow into the never-explained distinction the Doctor makes between historical events that are in flux vs "fixed" events (the former of which he can/will alter, the latter of which he can't/won't), when she asks the very sensible question "How do you know the difference?", the Doctor 99% of the time would give some deflective, cavalier "timey wimey" answer but this time he turns serious as night, levels his gaze at her and practically pronounces himself God, saying something like "I know what has passed, what will come, and what must never be. For that is the burden of the Timelords."

Of course, five minutes later he realizes that he's actually responsible for the destruction of Pompeii.

Also, and I'm excusing this on account of the compressed iPlayer audio, I have no idea what was going on with those circuit boards.

The lava joke was played perfectly.

What's up with Rose just vanishing though? Surely that's a faux Rose of some kind? And she never used to be so slinky and sultry.

I say the walls between universes are getting porous, and she's no idea she's crossing between the two. Mebbe.

I think Rose is a Cylon.

He didn't seem to know whether the family were fixed or otherwise, surely he was meant to save them because otherwise we'd have ended up with a Father's Day scenario?

Can you explain what you mean to those of us who haven't seen the episode you're referring to?

I think he means she's the last of the Final Five.

Haha I guess there's a lot I missed. Oh well.

Tracer the episode I'm referring to is when the Doctor takes Rose back in time to see her father's death (happy jaunt that it is). Rose breaks free of the Doctor and pushes him out of the way of an oncoming car. The fact there's a guy alive that shouldn't be means the earth is invaded by time reaper type things whose job is to 'tidy up' the paradox by essentially eating everything on earth. Then Rose's dad works out what's going on and kills himself, and everything reverts to normal.

It's one of the best in nu-Who, well worth seeing.

Crazy! But what paradox would a dead marble merchant's family create?

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/w/images/7/7f/MarbleMadness_lvl2.gif

The kind of paradox where someone has to explain the existence of a 1950's Police Call Box on a stone tablet in a household Gods shrine in Rome.

That family was nothing like an ancient Roman family. The dialogue was like bloody Hollyoaks. Why??

Crazy! But what paradox would a dead marble merchant's family create?

This is also covered in Father's Day - Rose says "but he's just an ordinary man he's not going to change anything" and the Doctor is all "that makes no difference".

So he takes them up a cliff and makes then watch all their friends and family hopelessly tortured to death, then just leaves them there.

Um sorry am I missing something? Rose's dad was supposed to die - he gets hit by a car. She goes into the past and saves his life. Which creates big problems, Reavers come, he kills himself, time is healed, yay.

In the Pompeii episode, the Doctor realizes that unless he blows Pompeii to smithereens, these stone-beast alien thingies will destroy the entire planet. So Pompeii must go. The family is huddled all together in the corner, waiting to be buried in ash. If the Doctor just lets them die, what paradox or time problem would he be creating??

I thought he decided to save them because Donna's pleas touched his heart.

The dialogue was like bloody Hollyoaks. Why??

TARDIS translation circuitry. At the beginning of the episode Donna tries out saying "Veni Vedi Vici" to a tradesman and he says "What? Speak up, darlin."

No he would be creating a paradox by saving them, UNLESS he was supposed to save them in the first place. But he didn't seem to know that. Which would be fine but doesn't really square with "I know what has passed, what will come, and what must never be. For that is the burden of the Timelords."

Yeah not much at all, in any episode, really squares with that.

is saving some random people really any different than selecting companions tho? he doesn't foresee things on that level

The dialogue was like bloody Hollyoaks. Why??

TARDIS translation circuitry. At the beginning of the episode Donna tries out saying "Veni Vedi Vici" to a tradesman and he says "What? Speak up, darlin."

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, 14 April 2008 20:56 (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

But the way they were acting toward each other, everything, it was just awful. The other historical stories didn't do that.

Wasn't the conceit of the recent "Rome" series on television that the ancient Romans really just acted like we do, except with more togas and licentiousness? I thought this episode was just sort of running with that.

xxxpost "I know all. Except I spend about 5 minutes in every episode going 'WHAT?? That's impossible!!'"

Tracer has the right attitude.

Roman family talking like crap soap characters was played for deliberate lolz and it worked.

I liked the sulky son.

I'd just like to point out that the "Father's Day" paradox is not a general paradox rule but it tells you what happens when you try to interfere with your own timeline. Rose can't save her dad because in her timeline, her dad was never alive. Also worth noting that the doctor says if the Time Lords were still around they would be able to fix the paradox but in the doctor's own timeline, the Time Lords are gone preventing them from fixing paradoxes and making sure time works exactly as it should.

Same with the Doctor interfering with past historical events, but making small changes that make no difference - the only reason he's in the past is because his companion is from the future. They become part of events - so many times it's the Doctor himself who causes the historical event, something that he himself can't know beforehand because it's in his own future timeline.

But he does know what happens to the rest of the universe - so he knows that aliens can't destroy the human race in ancient Rome because he meets all his human companions in the future, and it's his job to keep the events as he knows them, otherwise he'd be creating a paradox in his own timeline and that's when them reaper things turn up. Time is a very personal thing for a Time Lord.

also, because it all makes damn good TV.

i would like it to be known that near the end when roman family son and daughter held hands, there was a cry of 'hurray, roman incest' from the Rome watchers here.

Maybe there's an INCEST AGENDAR running through this whole series?

(OK Roz that makes sense)

I loved it, but whenever I see Peter Capaldi or Phil Davis in anything, no matter how shit it sounds, the instinct is OMG YAY.

Yes.

Phil Davis is Britain's greatest actor, large or small screen. Just thought I'd mention that.

I even watched that subpar North Square to watch the Davis act the schmuck, brilliantly.

Does anyone else think by casting Capaldi now they've scuppered a potential post-Tennant nu-Who? It better not be fuckin' Nesbitt.

Nu-Who has already been cast (from my grapevine) as failed UK > US actor Sean Maguire. Staying young, and staying short.

I know this is true because Pete told me.

If they really wanted to cast Capaldi as the Doctor they'd just do it anyway, have him make an in-joke about slightly Roman features in his first scene and then move on.

Haha Capaldi would make an awesomely irascible Doctor

Next Doctor should be a zing master, really. Like when Ecclestone used to be a complete cunt to Mickey just for the fun of it, but worse.

Phil Davis kinda lacks range tho. i think his lahndan accent came thru a few times during his more bullish Doctor-trolling.

I am standing by my nomination of Julian Rhind-Tutt for next Doctor.

Maybe he'd done time in Lahhndinium?

Rhind-Tutt = subtle zinger as witnessed in Hippies, Green Wing and those Barclaycard ads. But maybe he's TOO dry. I have yet to hear a better contender tho.

He lacks an X factor though.

or specifically THE x factor required of a 21st century doctor

He's a bit weedy and ineffectual (though I do love him very much), isn't he? xpost, yes, lacking in x factor

I would like David Morrissey to do it. Or Aiden Gillan (RTD can write him as a zingy bastard no bother at all).

David Morrissey to play Gordon Brown in this year's Christmas special apparently, so that looks off the cards. (Although I am reminded of Colin Baker on the Arc Of Infinity documentary.)

and Eve Myles in the etc etc.

The same insider that tipped me off on Sean Maguire has also said the downtime between series (the three specials next week) will see a BBC Talent Show which has the working title of Who Wants To Me A Companion - but will probably be called Who's Baby, or something silly like that to find the next assistant.

Unlike Maria-esque shows however they will be looking at particular Who skill's like reactions on things being bigger inside than outside, screaming, wuving the Doctor, having irritating parents and running down corridor skills.

No he would be creating a paradox by saving them, UNLESS he was supposed to save them in the first place.

I get the feeling that the Doctor should not have saved them, and while it may not have created a paradox it may create problems for him somewhere down the road. Maybe it causes the timey-wimey rift that let Rose shift between worlds in the first ep?

Obviously he was supposed to save them so they could live on in the Latin course most British students take. Most Septics would miss that detail.

This Sean Maguire rumour has to be a joke. Right? RIGHT?

It's a joke. The new doctor is actually Dean Gaffney.

"Who's Better Who's Best?" would be the talent show.

or "The Regeneration Game"

I get the feeling that the Doctor should not have saved them, and while it may not have created a paradox it may create problems for him somewhere down the road. Maybe it causes the timey-wimey rift that let Rose shift between worlds in the first ep?

-- Nicole, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 01:09 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ this

also, who outside language aspirants does Latin anymore?

I liked this past episode, especially that it had a more serious tenor than the other "first companion's adventure in time" episodes (End of the World, Shakespeare Code).

And especially that they FINALLY at least TRIED to give some kind of wobbly explanation about his whole causing paradoxes vs. changing history by himself thing that I whined about in another thread. The weak explanation of "some things are fixed, and others are not" is at least, well, something.

The Rose / Father's Day thing made a lot more sense paradox-wise, though, because if he saved her father, she probably never would have met the Doctor and had a completely different life, leading to Earth being destroyed by the Daleks well into the future (but earlier than expected) during Bad Wolf time. Saving one random family from the volcano should have unexpected effects, who knows, maybe it'll be addressed later. It's vaguely implied that it will - or it might just be forgotten as a joke, like the police box relief. We'll see! Good ep overall.

Also, nice (very brief) glimpse of the "wow, shit, that is COLD" Doctor, like the one we saw at the end of Family of Blood.

That's probably my favourite aspect of this incarnation, the contrast between the character's jovial, clowning side and ruthless, wrathful side. Has this distinction been as stark in any previous Doctor?

Have we talked about nu-Sontarans yet?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/54/Sontaran2008.jpg

Bit too 'action figure' for my liking.

They were always the most boring aliens. Apart from looking like potatoes, all they did was bang on about war. So did the Daleks, and they were boring too, but at least they were scary in some way.

That's probably my favourite aspect of this incarnation, the contrast between the character's jovial, clowning side and ruthless, wrathful side. Has this distinction been as stark in any previous Doctor?

7, no doubt.

Apart from looking like potatoes, all they did was bang on about war. So did the Daleks

guess what's gonna happen

I always hated the Sontarans.

guess what's gonna happen

NO. No!

NO NO NO NO NO OH GOD

i 100% support Who enemies battling each other.

http://io9.com/380763/now-you-can-own-two-bakers-and-another-doctor

new freakish toys:

http://io9.com/380763/now-you-can-own-two-bakers-and-another-doctor

or rather:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5188/drwhotoysbigoc1.jpg

I quite want the Tom one.

I love the story about the BBC costume person being given a bunch of yarn to knit that scarf with, and not understanding that she wasn't expected to use the ENTIRE thing of yarn.

As if I'm not already a big enough spod:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/vzbx/dwbooks.jpg

NOTE THE PRESENCE OF HUMAN NATURE AND DAMAGED GOODS AND HAPPY ENDINGS

What's on the top shelf? And are all of these novels, or are there any DVDs in there? And what the heck's a spod?

And what were you measuring with the tape-measure? An extra-long scarf?

All books. Top shelf is Virgin books. Tape measure because I only just assembled the bookshelf.

no target novels, no credibility

no target novels, no credibility

-- f. hazel, Saturday, 19 April 2008 19:40 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

five (not pictured)

also lol I get the scarf reference now

plenty of target novels(like, several dozen) available at local hueg city-block-sized bookshop.

if you want me to pick them up for you, lemme know

So, what's this Jekyll show I'm hearing about?

lol, Seeing I

I rather enjoyed that one, pretty soppy ending but there was a surprisingly high body count for an episoed that was transparently for the kiddies. First time in a series or so that I've missed Ecclestone though, he could have pulled off a tremendous speech of indignation in that one.

A few thoughts:

- Bees gone missing mentioned again
- What did the Ood mean when he said to the Doctor "your song too will end"? FORESHADOWING.
- Am I right in thinking that the Ood pretty much saved themselves and didn't really need the Doctor there in the first place?

Will people still find the Simpsons funny in 4126?

A huge improvement on last week, plus it had someone falling into a giant brain.

Am I right in thinking that the Ood pretty much saved themselves and didn't really need the Doctor there in the first place?

Yeah, he didn't do much at all. Certainly not enough to warrant such a send-off, I reckon the Ood are a bit free and loose with the compliments.

All in all it was a good un, though. Lord Percy was a fun pantomime baddie. There was a pricelessly awful bit of acting from Martha in the trailer for next week.

Yeah, I hadn't noticed until this thread and now I can't think of a single way the Doctor actually helped. If the Ood want to be remembering non-Ood names they'd do better with the guy thrown into the brain. But anyway.

Gently pleased, I think. I liked the Ood being nice guys when SF has pretty much been powered since long before it had a name by suspicious anti-collectivist/communist allegories, yr identical masses of Borg or pod-people with no use for individual names (liked the Ood's farewell to combined Doctor-Donna entity; wd file Daleks or Cybermen here too except then there would be 60 posts about how they have ranks and/or names) as OH NO CRUSHING ASSIMILATION-DEATH BAD GUYS.

I thought it was funny how the Ood turned out to be a bunch of Sigor Ros fans.

BAFTAs blurb in the Radio Times:

Graham Norton hosts the TV Baftas from the London Palladium as the cream of British TV talent is honoured. And Steven Moffat should win for writing Blink, so there.

Two things I forgot to mention:
1. The Doctor being chased by the claw thing was one of the best action setpieces we've yet seen in nu-Who.
2. Are throwaway refs to Hartnell stories going to be a motif in this series? We had The Sensorites this week, and The Romans last week.

Is this the first time the Doctor has been called upon to save an alien race from evil humans?

The Sensorites, which supposedly took place in the same solar system, had humans poisoning the titular alien race for reasons I can't recall. I can't think of any other examples that come close, but I'm far from the biggest Who expert around here.

"A huge improvement on last week" WTF?

many ppl said of the Ood that they were rip-off/tribute to the sensorites. so ref to sense-sphere was a sort of in-joke.

Ood struck me as more Lisa Gerrard/Liz Fraser than Sigor Ros. Not quite so nordic, but the exposed-brains-in-the-palms thing gives them quite a bit of preciousness

Will people still find the Simpsons funny in 4126?

Yes, just as people will still be called things like Jack and John in the 51st century.

When were the bees mentioned in 4x02? Missed that.

'Your song too will end' means this is Tennant's last season, which I think we all knew anyway.

kingfish: Thanks for the offer but I'm not into the old Target novels.

I thought he was supposed to be in the 3 2009 specials before the show comes back for the next series.

Probably. They're very good at keeping secrets, though.

Anywho, here's the link to the local bookstore if anybody else wants to peruse. Their collection of licensed novels is a bit overwhelming, especially when you're there in person and it's an entire fucking aisle.

So, no one inspired to post by tonight's episode? Can't really blame you. liked the reimagining of the Sonatarans as slightly useless colonial sergeant major types, though.

I thought it was pretty good, I liked the references to 70's U.N.I.T.

Nu sontarans less scary than Old sontarans.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/Sontaran.jpg
I used to be scared shitless by those fuckrs.

But, yeah, the whole Colonel Blimp attitude was pretty good.

There was a pricelessly awful bit of acting from Martha in the trailer for next week.

This continued into this week.

Nice to see a big Earth invasion, but plz at some point go to another planet, where the sky is green or something, I mean you can go ANYWHERE/WHEN.

Yeah, I quite enjoyed this one. I hope cribbins doesn't die!

He's a gonner, greater good etc etc.

Alien planets = less emotional attachment = not right for the new show atm

Dull episode btw. Sontarans as crap as ever and predictable plot/plot devices/electrical-appliance-du-jour instrumental in destroying the world. Tennant and Tate got some good lines, though.

True, satnav-is-evil was a bit weak. But the one that exploded, that was a good enough gag to make up for it.

plz at some point go to another planet

They were just on the Planet of the Ood last week, don't tell me they sprayed all that fake snow over a rock quarry and nobody noticed.

I've seen almost no old-school Who, but this morning my sister downloaded The Sontaran Experiment for us to watch before the new ep. Damn, those fuckers were terrifying. Nu-Sontarans lacked that grinning rubber clown-face quality that made them so scary.

They're doing it again, as mentioned upthread(or an earlier thread). Modern tech neuroses used as plot devices(literally in this case). Instead of cell phones or bluetooth headsets, we got satnav rigs.

For a minute, the guy's makeup & accent were thick enough so I had difficulty distinguishing between "Staal" and "Styre".

Are they going to bring back Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart? Nicholas Courtney is still alive, at least.

The most entertaining episode of the series so far. And the rubbishy old Sontarans made a quite an effective villain for the first time since The Time Warrior, mainly thanks to Chris Ryan's characterisation. Not sure about the moulded foam-rubber suits, but at least the heads are better designed now.

Well Sontarans are a clone race so it should be tough to distinguish between them. Good opportunities for short-arse actor anyway, I can't remember the last time Mike from the Young Ones had an acting gig.

Some very good Doctor Donna stuff, though as mentioned evil sat-nav feels pretty old hat for nu-Who (and the evil sat-nav creating a deadly gas as well as crashing peoples cars is a bit silly). Yet again stakes raised so high as a cliff hanger that the only solution next week is deus ex machina / sci-fi gobbledegook.

Beyond that it was a nicely exciting episode with some nice UNIT call backs, but equally some Captain Scarlet call backs too for no good reasons.

Someone place odds that the bees will be mentioned next ep...

can't remember the last time Mike from the Young Ones had an acting gig.

heh. Didn't catch this when I was watching.

i last saw him in saxondale.

if last week's reminded me of colin baker era, this one just made me forget all nu-who. "Modern tech neuroses used as plot devices" (just to borrow the quote) is not nu-who of course. it was used all the time in 'classic' who too.

this was immensely old skool. sontaran voice while watching on a scanner is straight out of sontaran experiment. automaton/brainwashed workforce, doppelganger assistants recalled android invasion. jokes about UNIT being the 70s "or was it the 80s' (LOLZ). teleporting.

all = ONE FOR THE TRAD FANS

f'ing probic rubbish vents even.

"Dear the sontarans, i notice you have a vulnerable spot on the back of your neck, i have an invention here that would cover that up"

gas = terraforming, right? i wonder if the sontarans are after a new home planet too.

Were the Sontarans always so, erm, lacking in self-awareness? It was sort of refreshing to see an evil alien race exposed as complete buffoons but once you've done that you're reliant on other things (evil SatNav, gassing people in cars, Evil Clone Martha) to make it even remotely scary.

I'm quite liking the 'Doctor wards off alien with everyday object' thread in this series - first a waterpistol, now a racquet and ball. This series is pretty strong so far, especially given how poor the first half of S3 was.

Old Who Sontarans were genuinely quite sinister in the the two serials I've seen them in (The Time Warrior and The Sontaran Experiment).

xpost

Best bit of this episode - the look on Evil Child Genius's face when the Doctor corrected his grammar.

Second best bit of this episode - "it's driving me round the bend".

I did like that they kept the voice.

they practically had mike the cool person saying 'your puny weapons are no match for our superior intellect'

i would like Sontaran/Judoon army/police face-off - surely the latter are harder

Just breaking my self-imposed Doctor Who thread avoidance to point out that Sontarans are fucking awesome and if you don't agree fuck you.

loltarans

sonnedtarans in internet beef

IM IN YR PLANET

http://www.sf-radio.net/doctorwho/charaktere/bilder/sontaran.jpg

BREAKIN ALL YR SATNAVS

attack of the killer potatoes more like

Potato-faced Prussians with a short man complex and a release valve in the back of their necks are about a kajillion times more fun than twatting Daleks.

close run thing though

I was trying to explain to Mrs V why I love them so much and I can't, really. Something about them just triggers some primeval pleasure node in my brain.

never seen you and a sontaran in the same room, to be honest

Yes obviously I'm aware of the significance of my empathising with the short, dumpy, potato-faced, scrap-happy dudes.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/5916/4647212mg0.jpg

Me, earlier today.

- the hand reaching up from the glowing bubbling gloop was PURE PULP awesomeness (both (all three?) times)

- was the fact that Martha was exactly the same after her reprogramming an intentional joke or not?

- the donna/doctor moment when she realizes she needs to go check in with the family was such a sublime moment of acting by both of them - tate really is tennant's equal, at least within the confines of this show

- what's with the "donna/doctor" thing anyway? it's like a joke they've carried through.. are they one person somehow?? why did she get a salute?

I've been really pleasantly surprised by Tate so far. I'm not a fan of her comedy, but she can certainly inhabit a character. She sure shows up Freema's rather underdeveloped acting skills.

Going off Tate and her role as Russell Davies' conscience week by week.

Thought they was going to launch into Culture Club's "War Song" at some point tonight.

The embryo in the bubbling vat was the creepiest thing in nu-Who since The Controller at the end of series one.

poor old gramps, he finally meets an alien and then gets trapped in his car and suffocates. while the doctor only occasionally races back to it to futilely try the door again.

Was wondering why nobody tried to smash the window.

no see the glass of the window itself was remotely DEADLOCKED® by the sontarans

Hmmmmm.

The Sontaran's strategem seems kind of sneaky for a race so into honour and shit. I thought that was kind of their hook, that they were honourable? Or are they just all talk?

Cribbins is so not dead.

Better not be, or I'll cry real tears.

I'm pretty comfortable with watching him cark it.

No way is he dying off the back of a cliffhanger. Perhaps he'll die of boredom when the Sontarans start talking again.

Yes, I have to admit rather enjoying that one, which I did not expect when I saw it was written by the same person who did the rubbish Daleks-in-Manhattan one. As long as this one isn't solved by electrically-conducted DNA.

And I was really expecting to hate Catherine Tate, but I'm really enjoying her so far. Good stuff.

In the interests of science, here is a direct comparison of series 3 and 4 so far:

Smith and Jones>>>>Partners in Crime
The Shakespeare Code<<<The Fires of Pompei
Gridlock<Planet of the Ood
Daleks in Manhatten<<The Sontaran Strategem

So far S4 is wining by 2 '>'s.

I do like the UFO-spotter grandpa as Donna's confidante; them sharing a delight in Donna's secret adventures from the blowhard RTD-style mum. Assuming he isn't wiped out next ep, I hope he's kept on as a device for Donna to check in with from time to time. Give her one of those amped-up cellphones, help her to keep centered.

Hell, with Rickey/Mickey off in other-other land, somebody's gotta keep up whoisdoctorwho, what with the only other site admin being taken out by autons in the pilot ep.

I'm expecting nobody smashed in the car window with a brick or something because that's how they're going to resolve the crisis next week - they always resolve cliffhangers but doing something cheap and easy. Like saying "Go to your room!" to the gas mask monsters, or, um, however they didn't die in the Dalek two-parter last year ("hey Human Dalek, don't kill us." "Okay.")

I'm enjoying Catherine Tate immensely, she and Tennant have great actorly chemistry. When the Doctor got all soppy saying goodbye and she just let him go on, feeding him more and more rope...awesome. Donna and the Doctor get on so well that it's making me retroactively fatigued with all the S3 Martha/Ten crush nonsense.

Yeah, the Tennant/Tate partnership is done superbly, and Donna is a very well realised character. Martha bleh, I don't miss her at all.

So I had to watch the last two (thanks Ed) and the Ood one was fantastic. Love some of the actors they've been getting in (Ayesha Dharker) and no, I really don't mind implied criticism of sweatshops in mainstream entertainment.

I'm not so down on Martha as you all are. And yeah, super creepy clone-o-vat.

If RTD has done one thing this season, he appears to have shown he can turn around the Taters, we are now beyond tolerating her, and actually enjoying her presence. It reminds me that there are more types of Who companion to try out (and that the lovelorn girl is actually a relatively new one).

Donna has the complicity of Romana II, with the morality of Sarah Jane? Certainly Tennant and Tate's chemistry feels more Baker and Sladen than any other we've had (ie she thinks he's great, and is enjoying the adventures, but has a fair bit of pause to thought about situations).

Why would you create a Sick Days folder if you knew you were never going to use it? And surely creating clone Martha is just so the Doc can watch her die / kill her himself?

I still think she's crap, sorry. The idea for the character is great but every time she starts getting shouty it reminds me that Tate really cannot act, and not in a low-key Martha way either. She's better at the emo stuff.

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. I've only ever seen a total of about three minutes of her previous work -- could that make a difference? Cause I believe every single thing she does in this show. It could just be down to me liking her character a lot more. Imagine her dealing with Captain Jack, for instance.

I liked how she's been in what, four episodes so far and she's already had a montage flashback!

ha I hated that bit - it would have played better and funnier if that montage had run before she totally psyched the Doc out with her "I have to go home" routine.

But I did love how she and Martha get along instantly and there's no Rose-Sarah Jane type bickering at all.

i would like Sontaran/Judoon army/police face-off - surely the latter are harder

I thought this while watching, but then the Judoon are basically too thick to be much of a match for an alien race with proper strategies.

I am absolutely looking forward to a Donna-Jack moment.

I like the suggestion that once you hand the reins of empire over to a bratty, dickish American he'll immediately encourage fuel consumption, cut deals with warmongers and threaten to engulf us all in a planet-wide conflagration

I'm expecting nobody smashed in the car window with a brick or something because that's how they're going to resolve the crisis next week - they always resolve cliffhangers but doing something cheap and easy. Like saying "Go to your room!" to the gas mask monsters, or, um, however they didn't die in the Dalek two-parter last year ("hey Human Dalek, don't kill us." "Okay.")

"Go to your room" was genuinely clever and unexpected though. The Dalek one was a bit crap, yeah. That's the trouble with bathos as a dramatic device, it's very easy to overuse.

i hated the Cyberman one where he did some laser beam thing with a ring he pulled out of nowhere

the Human Dalek thing wasn't a sticky cliffhanger tho. it was just 'heeeey check THIS out'

The human Dalek thing was brilliant, until we saw where it all went.

The Rani absolutely must come back now. Licence to kitsch like crazy.

Somewhere, Lance Parkin is fuming...

"Back of the neck!"

As self-referential gags go the "are you my mummy?" line was a good one.

enjoyed the uk news "it's like dunkirk" and then the american news "it's a biblical plague".

pretty good one, i thought. don't much about who history, so can someone please explain the daughter thing?

When a daddy Timelord and a mummy Timelord love each other very much ...

Oh god. Just dreadful.

What, last night? You SOOO picky. "Back of the neck" was good, "are you my mummy?" was Vince Hilaire.

'Are you my mummy' was misplaced and stupid. The Doctor was out of character, the plot was rubbish, the Sontarans are ever bit as shit as they always were, Martha was pointless, Donna did almost nothing, 1/2 hr of people in silly caps running around shooting things, just crap.

This is why I don't read these threads :(

xp In fact the whole eposide rode on a fetid jetstream of in-jokes and obscure fanwank.

I mean yeah, sorry, I'm not aiming that at you but the whole thing really was awful.

We all watch for different things, I guess.

It's particularly annoying because the new show is regularly witty, clever and involving, but occasionally you get this quasi-Hollywood shallow nonsense. The kiddies probably get a kick out of it.

It's still ostensibly a kids show. To be honest there aren't that many of the "deep" eps that I think are especially awesome, I just try and take the series as the variety bag it is.

The variety is nice, definitely, but when they waste 90 minutes on running around and blowing up things, it's not exactly gratifying to those of us who are bored by that sort of thing.

I'm sure no-one will disagree with me when I say that that was hugely entertaining stuff from beginning to end.

For those of us who still like fun, obviously.

I liked the Mummy line. Made the character more believable, for me.

Rose's face flashed up on the screen in the Tardis, didn't it?

It's getting a bit samey.

I thought I saw Rose being flashed up, yeh.

I rather enjoyed all that. "You will face me, sir!" Although I did think of this thread when doctor was running around making the atmosphere-conversion gizmo that would save the episode while explaining his plan at a frantic pace.

Unbelievably bad. Helen Raynor should never be allowed near the show again.

I LUV YOU YOUR MY FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHMILY is the new running up and down corridors. Utterly pointless and sucks all the momentum out of the show.

Next week looks like a big pile of wank. "Oh yes, when I kept on crying because I was the last one, I was actually lying because I always knew there was another one. Sorry." Plus it was guaranteed as soon as Georgia Moffett was announced that this was what she was doing. OMG THE DAUGHTER OF A DOCTOR IS THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER I AM SO CLEVARR BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP ME I AM RUSTY I AM GENIARSE.

aldo otm

i don't usually agree with Autumn Almanac on Who EVER but 'Are you my mummy' was misplaced and stupid. OTM

'whole world under attack' episodes never work for me

Well I thought that was enormous fun.

It was fucking rubbish.

was sad when they shot Stephen Gateley

I missed the end but surely

"in-jokes and obscure fanwank"

is not the same as

"quasi-Hollywood shallow nonsense"

the effects are getting better and better tho. fiery sky all over the planet was good.

Well I thought that was enormous fun.

-- chap, Sunday, 4 May 2008 12:46 (1 hour ago) Link

It was fucking rubbish.

-- Alba, Sunday, 4 May 2008 12:48 (1 hour ago) Link

ILX in 2 posts.
I'm on Chap's side. I loved that the Dr had to give the sontarans a choice. And the list of countries with nucleur weapons.

" I loved that the Dr had to give the sontarans a choice" he does this every time.

i thought this was v poor. i've only really liked the first 2 eps so far this series.

I thought that one was bloody great, but then I like it when they do the enormous stupid blockbuster thing. It's for the kids, really, and today's kids would switch off old-Who in seconds.

It's pretty obvious that Timelords will keep coming back for ages, plus the Doctor's daughter looks hott, so I'm looking forward to next week's as well.

'OMG it was just running around shooting things and blowing everything up this would never have happened under William Hartnell YAWN!'

I must admit I have kind of missed Aldo popping up every week to shout 'WANK!' and 'OH JUST FUCK OFF DAVIES!' every so often. Doctor Who threads haven't quite been the same without it.

Who has always done 'save entire Earth from aliens using sticky-back plastic' type thing. When I was a kid I didn't notice this so much tho, or feel a preference for those stories. So tho as an adult I prefer the more subtle/smaller scale problems+solutions stories I'm sure many kids would too.

Holy! Inter-galatic Child Support Payments!

Doctor'll have to sell the Tardis.

So, uh, is that hot blonde woman Susan's mother?

Just found out the hot blonde woman is actually Peter Davison's daughter!

This was mentioned by aldo in disparaging tones above.

she looks like she could be M Pompadour's sprog (but obv not)

"I thought that one was bloody great, but then I like it when they do the enormous stupid blockbuster thing. It's for the kids, really, and today's kids would switch off old-Who in seconds"

well me too. but i still didn't like it. more out of it being so by-the-numbers predictable in every way. and nothing interesting being done with the stuff set up. also this whole story (like the ood one) was like old who - just with better CGI.

It's nice to be missed, I will try harder in the future.

You know the biggest problem? It's Rusty referencing his own previous series and believing that makes his references to the 'classic' series important. THEY'RE BOTH WANK.

I could rant for hours, really. Hartnell isn't better, it's just different (and my kids get on with it just fine, don't think of pacing being a difficult issue - and fuck me, I watched Invasion of Time yesterday and it's VERY VERY BAD) but I think the main thing is that someone wasn't trying to make it look like Hollyoakes.

GPWM, this was better than Invasion of Time. faintest of praise there.

" I loved that the Dr had to give the sontarans a choice" he does this every time.

I don't see this as a criticism.

I missed the end but surely

"in-jokes and obscure fanwank"

is not the same as

"quasi-Hollywood shallow nonsense"

-- Tracer Hand, Sunday, 4 May 2008 23:13 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Fortunately this episode had both in spades.

Blowing-up-the-world stories can, and have been, done better. Nothing happened in this one, just loads of running around with guns and the Doctor whinging about guns.

A few explosions is all some people need.

But is she actually going to turn out to be the Doctor's daughter? But is she? BUT IS SHE?

IS SHE???

OR IS SHE???

Who gives a shit, someone was bound to eventually answer a question that was asked 45 years ago. They should go the whole hog and bring back Susan for the season finale, played by, I dunno, Becca from Hollyoaks or something.

(Guess who hasn't watched Hollyoakes in 5 years, kids)

Actually, yeah, more interested in Susan than any other NEW family members.
Regarding the Sontarans, watched 'The Time Warrior' with my wife on the weekend, as she only knows new-Who and wanted to see where Sarah Jane first showed up, and it had the probic-vent-thing-meaning-Sontarans-must-always-face-the-enemy thing in it, so that was there from the start. Also, Sontarans are creepier when they keep sticking their tongue out slightly every few minutes, like a lizard or a B-movie sex criminal.

TBH the most OTM criticism of nu-Who is how cloying the emotional stuff actually is. There's nothing wrong with injecting a bit of emo into the format but I can think of just three instances where it's actually been done well (The Girl In The Fireplace, Father's Day and whatever the pre-WW1 two-parter in S3 was called) and two out of those three were written by Paul Cornell*.

*Who might be a better call for S5 main writer than Moffatt, over the course of a whole series.

Billie did show up on the screen, yes, mouthing what looked like the word "Doctor". Those two were OK, really, but dear God Freema Agyeman is a terrible actress. Still liking the total lack of love interest with Donna, the bit where he was all "ooh, here is a key to the tardis, this is a big moment for us" and she was all "er, yeah, can we do this later when we're not about to be killed please" was nice.

kungfu daughter next week looks beyond shite though.

I don't know about that it looks like a Brits in SPAAAAACE episode, and I think they have been good so far.

During the TARDIS-goes-haywire final scene there were a few shots of the hand-in-jar bubbling away. I WONDER IF THIS REMINDER IS SIGNIFICANT AT ALL?

Yeah, there is something that already grates about the alien-kicking, boy-snogging, acrobatic, self-satisfied Brit-Buffy posh-girl that is the Doctor's daughter. But... we'll see.

"Go with the Doctor and see the stars, and maybe bring a little piece back for me."

"lol here's your souvenir from early 21st century Cardiff/London Grandad!"

people dissing Agyeman in this episode do realise she was playing an emotionally stunted clone of Martha for most of it tho yeah?

Yes she was good at that, like Keanu Reeves is excellent in clueless asshole roles.

I'm enjoying this series on the whole, except when I read this thread and realise that I agree with most of the criticisms but I soon get over it when another daft/fun episode comes around.

^OTM

Mrs H was in bits at the "Are you my mummy?" line - because she's enjoying the show for what it is, and not getting het up in fanwankery like, erm, some peop... er, me. Oh go on, I laughed too.

I don't think any episode's been up to much this year, but I reckon the other three series have been much the same, i.e. they hit their stride in the second half. For what it's worth, this weekend's episode stirred the blood more than the preceding four.

"alien-kicking, boy-snogging, acrobatic, self-satisfied Brit-Buffy posh-girl"

This is a bad thing?!?!?

S2 actually got worse in the second half but yeah I reckon they're holding over the best stories for later in the series, especially the Moffatt two-parter.

Do we have writer details for the rest of the series? Incidentally, killing off all the Timelords seems like a stupider idea as nu-Who progresses.

Doctor's Daughter: Stephen Greenhorn
Unicorn & The Wasp: Gareth Roberts
Silence In The Library: Steven Moffatt
Forest Of The Dead: Steven Moffatt
Midnight: Rusty
Turn Left: Rusty
The Stolen Earth: Rusty
Journey's End: Rusty

Look! I have not even slagged it off! Despite one of the most ridiculous rumours imaginable being all but confirmed for the finale.

Ugh four Rusty's in a row. I do want to read this ridiculous rumour though - any chance of a link?

Mail me and I'll fill you in (although it will be later as I can't see the address linked to when I'm at work).

I actually think the first of Rusty's 4 sounds like the most Old-Who of maybe his entire era, but it's bound to feature AGELESS CREATURES FROM BEFORE THE DAWN OF TIME and EMO WUB NONCESENSE so it won't end up that way, I'm sure.

Man, I leave this thread for three weeks and everyone is twice as bitchy. Oh, ILE, how it goes...

I just watched the last 3 straight in a row, and I'm surprisingly... entertained? Especially Planet of the Ood, totally expected that to be terrible, but it wasn't. The effects were actually pretty decent for the the last Sontaran episode, as said up there. All of them felt like a good mix of old school/new school Who - real big on chases and action, with incredibly unsubtle themes on war and capitalism, but higher budget production.

I can't help it, I love Martha, but I keep feeling like the actress and (ESPECIALLY) the character are wasted half the time, especially her run in Torchwood. Donna is holding up as a companion much better than I expected, too. Almost fell out of my seat at the "Are you my mommy?" line. Classic. And I really have no problem whatsoever with the emotional family stuff, only the overdone harpy bitch mother trope, making Mrs. Noble #3 in this series. Other than that it's good, I like the actors.

Let's save the future bitching until the episodes air, at least - remember, last season's finales were written by Davies too, and it was damn good stuff.

Well apart from all of the last episode, obviously. And a big chunk of the one before it. And the last 10 minutes of the one before that.

I am 100% amazed that so many people love the 'are you my mummy' line.

Well, me too. But I seem to be the strawman here so I didn't want to mention it for fear of weakening your argument.

We need to form an official clique and give it a memetastic name in order to confuse people.

FURTDAYCM Cru?

Fuck U (to be DOWN WIV DA KIDZ) RTD And Yr Cunty Mates

DWZC

Hahahaha if the last episode is as preposterous as what I've read then it really is preposterous. But still possibly less so than the ending of last year's.

preposterous vs boring

I really, really wish I hadn't emailed aldo for what happens at the end.

Hurts yr brane, doesn't it.

only the overdone harpy bitch mother trope, making Mrs. Noble #3 in this series

I could almost convince myself that RTD dragging this one out again and again for any mother character or anything resembling it (alien foster nurse from Adipose episode, hello) is kind of irresponsible for a family show.

I'm probably just being silly here, but still, there's young kids watching this, probably quite often with their mothers; it just seems a bit rude that RTD wants to cram in "this is what mothers are really like" every week.

(Let them decide that for themselves! They probably will as soon as they hit their teens anyway.)

The mum of the main child character in 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' is another mum from hell, too.

Don't kids see that as escapism, though? I doubt there's a whole new generation of burgeoning mum-haters because of this show.

Quite like to see the post-Rusty reboot do a series without a family, and without having to pop back to London in 2010 every few episodes. I'm sure the viewers won't run away and never return for lack of identification.

Although I generally think stories on Earth > stories on other planets > stories on fucking identikit industrial space stations with lots of high platforms and dry ice.

The high platforms and dry ice are getting ridiculous, yes.

Pulling away from earth and identifiable characters is just too great a risk to take for a show that relies on mass appeal in order to be made at all.

Also I'd like to see some stories in modern-day Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Leeds etc.

Pulling away from earth and identifiable characters is just too great a risk to take for a show that relies on mass appeal in order to be made at all.

is this more of a problem now than it was in the 60s/70s/80s?

Surely the Angel of the North is going to come off its pedestal at some point?

They could get round the identifiable characters thing by having a larger entourage in the Tardis but yeah I see your point.

Dr Who is all about dry ice, especially where unit involved (good to see this last week). Quite frankly I'm always a little dissapointed when Dr Who doesn't look like this:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2246/1880122176_327d9c73ae.jpg

They could get round the identifiable characters thing by having a larger entourage in the Tardis

But this is an inherent problem with OOH DOCTOR I WUB YOU :SADEYES: bollocks. For all this might improve things (Mickey's one real trip, the kid from the Pompeii episode would have been a companion in any other era of the show) it can't be allowed to happen because it would fundamentally alter Rusty's will-they-won't-they dynamic.

Lizo on CBBC has given tomorrow night's episode the lowest rating of any NuWho and even a couple of the most severe Rusty boosters on some other forums have agreed it's the 'least good' NuWho yet.

Oh you'll like this - "Freema gives her first duff performance in this episode. There's a scene with her and a Hath in a bog with is worse than the cliffhanger in Dragonfire."

Both of those seem pretty unbelievable. And this came from someone who still kind of liked the episode.

Freema gives her first duff performance in this episode

OK, this person has no clue.

Yeah, my point being if they thought the rest were good, and this was bad, how utterly terrible must it be?

Oh fuck. Please let this not be the case. I don't think I could handle another shit episode this year.

We both enjoyed this year's Torchwood far more than Doctor Who. (For perspective, we did not like Torchwood at all the first time round.)

I'm always wishing they'll pick up companions from other time periods, ie a Victorian adventuress, a pirate, an ancient Chinese scholar, whatever, rather than just modern-day folk. That's partly why companions like Jamie were groovy.

wtf, here at karaoke bar. why the fuck are there _8_ billie piper tracks in the songbook?! she didn't have any singles that charted in america, did she?!

We both enjoyed this year's Torchwood far more than Doctor Who. (For perspective, we did not like Torchwood at all the first time round.)

Here too.

Yeah.

Mothers' day tomorrow, so I won't see this one until the day after, and I could not care less.

Mothers' day tomorrow

This scared me more than anything in Dr Who. Bloody Americans.

Would be quite good if in a future episode the Dr was put on trial for killing off the world's entire bird population. Aside from emus, peacocks and penguins.

Also hopefully we get to see young Bernard Cribbins in the 1960s/1950s at some point.

and I could not care less.

And the fact that this is your 49857689th post on a Dr Who tread makes that clear.

It's a contrast to the past few years of counting down the minutes each week.

(Mothers' day tomorrow)

This scared me more than anything in Dr Who. Bloody Americans.

Um, huh?

You made me think it was Mother's Day tomorrow. It isn't, at least not in the UK.

Britisher Mother's Day is in March, hence teh fearrrrr.

Oh, well I'm not American, so there's my fear.

(also teh fear that I have to see my mother tomorrow)

OH FFS

I spy a spin off show

I feel dirty.

That felt like eps 3 and 4 of an over-padded McCoy era story.

Looks like Rusty has found a new way to get Rose Tyler: Earth Defence made.

I broke up with my girlfriend this afternoon, so I decided to just switch off my critical faculties and enjoy it, and you know what, it was just the ticket. Not ashamed to say I choked up a bit at the end considering the circumstances.

Slightly reminiscent of a Hartnell story, what with the traps and the mazes and the problem solving.

Slightly reminiscent of The Search For Spock at the end, I thought.

Horrendous dialogue aside, I actually enjoyed this. I don't know if my expectations were just low because of the reviews upthread.

Can someone explain how she was created though?

McCoy story, Hartnell story - funny it reminded me of a Davison era story. Sort of a (initially) inconsequential, cheapo runaround in someone else's boring war, which the Doc ends up ending.
I started off not liking it, but I thawed a little by the end. The emo was ladelled on a bit thick, and I don't know why Martha was even in this really. But... yeah. Okay, in the end. Catherine Tate had all the best lines, and stole the show.

So. Is Jenny going to be (yet another) ally who is going to pop up every so often? In her rocket ship, at the end she reminded me of Chris Barrie's "smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast" chracter in Red Dwarf.

baker (t) stories also recalled - underworld, face of evil

The Hath were pretty old school looking.

Very old school Who in both good and bad ways (the good being the proper sci-fi short storyness of the 7 day war - the bad being the "oh noes it is a pointless war). Jenny was nowhere near as annoying as she could have / should have been* and open ended enough for hand in box fun in a later series. Some terrible dialogue, Tate wins the day again and the real feel of a Baker four perter condensed into 45 mins (yay!). Hath were very plasticky but a really nice concept (except for their boiler suits).

I kinda liked it.

*When she regenerated at the end, for a second I thought she had turned into Billie which would have been an awesome WTF, even if it made no sense. She should have changed her face at least though.

Her keeping the same face when she regenerated kinda didn't make sense.

Fucking nice face, mind you.

Someone on another board suggested that she didn't regenerate, but it was the terraforming gases that brought her back to life. Maybe the Hath that Martha dimwittedly got killed in the bog will emerge from the ground, good as new!

Before this season started, I read some old old interview with RTD where he talked about how much he hated guns and violence, which seemed like an OK-enough sentiment. But this new level of the Doctor going around yelling about how much he hates guns and violence just feels lazy.

Definitely the worst nu-Doctor Who episode so far.

*When she regenerated at the end, for a second I thought she had turned into Billie which would have been an awesome WTF, even if it made no sense.

Yeah, that occurred to me as well.

What was with all the "I don't kill people, I don't do genocide" bollocks, btw? This is/was the "no second chances" doctor, right?

I started off not liking it, but I thawed a little by the end. The emo was ladelled on a bit thick, and I don't know why Martha was even in this really. But... yeah. Okay, in the end. Catherine Tate had all the best lines, and stole the show.

-- DavidM, Sunday, 11 May 2008 05:43 (15 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I'm with you on this.

Also, Agyeman's acting was fine considering she basically did monologues for half of it.

the writers make it very difficult for martha/freema - she was better last series i'm sure

jenny's resurrection seemed more in line with captain jack than the doctor.

Yeah I didn't really see the point of Martha being in this one, other than Freema Agyeman was contracted to appear in a certain number of episodes. Shame because the pace of this one felt a bit rushed, could have done with more space.

I was disappointed from the start that she wasn't the Doctor's original daughter/Susan's mother and I struggled to get over that diappointment and care much about what was happening for the rest of the episode. The Hath looked pretty cool though and Jenny = rowr. The ending was totally 'Oh HAI I HAS A SPINOFF' though but bringing Jenny to life just to kill her 45mins later seemed pointless as well. She might make a good companion in the future.

Despite the writers over-egging the pudding with the dialogue, that was probably Tennant's best 'gravitas' moment, but god I'm starting to hate that swelling sub-Celtic Moods orchestral theme that appears every time there's a scene of great emotional importance.

The next episode looks awesome though, hope they ratchet up the creepy factor on this one.

I thought that was pretty terrific. I couldn't really follow the plot, which was refreshing.

Cellular-free mobile phones are in danger of becoming the nu sonic screwdriver, though. I think they explained them working in the Tardis before, but now they seem to just work anywhere.

> but god I'm starting to hate that swelling sub-Celtic Moods orchestral
> theme that appears every time there's a scene of great emotional
> importance.

I was going to say. It really hit me during this episode how sad it is that a series with such a strong musical heritage should have descended into using the worst kind of mush. It's not just the emo scenes. Pretty much all the incidental music is ruinously bad.

And the Ood song in episode two could have been something truly eerie or moving but ended up just being comical. That was still my second favourite one so far this series, though, even if, as mentioned above, the canoodisation of the Doctor was somewhat nonsensical. Maybe I just like vaguely amphibous-looking aliens.

Agatha Christie trailer did look good. First historical character one I've looked forward to.

I spy a spin off show

The ending was totally 'Oh HAI I HAS A SPINOFF'

Either that or, inspired by the Doctor being peaceful and teaching her to save the scary aliens, she goes and aligns herself with, say, dalek Caan or someone.

I always imagine Dalek Caan is related to James Caan somehow.

Caan? Caan! CAAAAAAAAaan!!

I was very down on Tate becoming a companion but I was totally wrong: she's great. She gives even the simplest of lines a real kick, but you know that when she said "I'll travel with this man forever" that she's not long for this Whoniverse.

It's had a sniffy review or two already, but I like the look of next week's. Even on a second viewing of the trailer Donna made me lol with the exchange...
"Agatha Christie"
"What about her?"
".. That's me"
"No... !"

Yeah Donna is so getting zapped by a Dalek in the season finale.

I was disappointed from the start that she wasn't the Doctor's original daughter/Susan's mother and I struggled to get over that diappointment and care much about what was happening for the rest of the episode.

The ultimate bait-and-switch.

That worked quite well considering the whole daughter thing was so arbitrary and stupid. Having recently rewatched series 3, I don't quite get all the Martha-hate, I just think she was underused.

Precisely.

I think Donna may get accidentally crushed by the Tardis, like the witch at the start of the Wizard of Oz.

Anyway, I digress, I thought this weeks episode was quite good. Though the Hath they are just another Ood, right?

Yeah, they all look the same to you, don't they? Racist.

Best bit of this episode - "let's just save your feminine wiles til later, just in case of emergency".

Is it wrong that Donna is growing on me?

I'm getting tired of the whole the companion really fancies/loves the doctor thing.

Except she doesn't fancy or love the Doctor.

Exactly thats why I like her as opposed to Martha.

Ah right, I get you. Incidentally, this picture from the Christmas special looks pretty spoileriffic.

But not in the way you'd think.

Donna's grate.

yep, she's totally grown on me as a real character - though i hope we won't get more of the 'ooh this is all so amazing omg + where is your heart???' stuff, b/c ugh i mean i'd be super excited too for sure but still c'mon, be cool
also they should stop making her wear those wear tunic/dresses over pants by which i mean trousers - is there something abt the doctor who lighting that causes thighs to be offensive to viewers? i do not think so

i think she looks the best she's ever looked in the preview for next wk's ep, where she's in the flapper-style dress! perfect

Last night I was listening to Kylie Minogue on my headphones and suddenly realized..

Two hearts... beating together...

oh come ON

Never thought id say this but donna is great. Dr Who doesnt need Rose or Martha. Donna with the Dr and the occasional appearance of captain jack and jenny will do fine.