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

It was somehwat gazumped promotion-wise by 1) new series of Top Gear 2) all the Saturday football

We only knew it was on as of 3 hours beforehand, when we were standing at a supermarket checkout queue and noticed it was on the front cover of the Radio Times on the shelves. Which made me assume that it must've been on on Saturday and I'd missed it - seemed a bit of a weird time, especially with Antiques Roadshow afterwards, but I guess Sunday evening is a traditional family drama slot on the Beeb.

Last 10 minute – as the Doctor decides that he has all this power and why the fuck shouldn't he use it? – were terrific. Thought the rest was an inferior run-through of the same plot that had already been used for The Satan Pit: human scientific settlement on remote planet, uncover some long contained hell through their meddling, it infects the crew ... How can they be saved? The difference was that The Satan Pit was actually scary, and played brilliantly on myths and legends from outside the Whoniverse (fantastic: the notion that Satan is not some product of religion, but a lifeforce so incomprehensibly powerful that even bazillions of years after its imprisonment, it continues to haunt the imaginations of those with no conception it could be real).

And of course, The Satan Pit was basically the plot of a thousand Sci-Fi films.

i think tWoM was better executed than The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit tho the latter was a stronger concept (and as i said upthread really seems better after a few views)...but then Waters of Mars only had 60 minutes to TIP/TSP's 90. i would gladly have watched another half hour of last night's.

thought there was a bit of a nod to Dr Manhattan who in Watchmen goes to Mars just to potter around and contemplate. not sure if this was intentional, but then it was never stated why the Doctor was there having seemingly chosen a random date.

I thought the bit at the beginning where he goes through the crew members' names and it cuts to some crappy website with biographical details - each one having a date of death of 2059 *dun dun duhhhh* - was hilarious. It was also something of a jump to go from "I'm hearing the agonised final moments of people and want to save them even if I shouldn't" to "I R WINNAH, GONNA PWN TEH WATERY N00BS, TIMELORD VICTORIOUS, W00T!", but then maybe I shouldn't be too upset about the minutiae of Doctor Who plot points. It was pretty fun overall.

It was also something of a jump to go from "I'm hearing the agonised final moments of people and want to save them even if I shouldn't" to "I R WINNAH, GONNA PWN TEH WATERY N00BS, TIMELORD VICTORIOUS, W00T!",

yeah you're right, they rushed this bit but i think it really hammered home how much I'm gonna miss David Tennant - I mean, no one pulls off heroically powerful but vulnerable and completely terrifying all in fifteen minutes quite like DT. that said, really hope the Moff/Smith-era Doctor won't be so fucking angsty all the time.

the rest of the episode was pretty fun if a bit too much of a retread of 42/The Satan Pit.

I like the angst but I'd like it centered away from the Doctor for a while so other people get to go thru hellish existential crises and he just has to watch impassively/give it the Arshavin shrug at the end of the ep. Also I'd like to go a season without the fabric of time and the universe being threatened in the last story plz.

other people get to go thru hellish existential crises and he just has to watch impassively/give it the Arshavin shrug at the end of the ep

well this was actually his intention

I thought they had done the other people's crisis pretty well with Donna actually but then they went and fucking wiped her memory! bastards.

xpost

I know and I think it would've been good but even then he was kind of "oh woe is me the pain of witnessing people die" - come on dude, you're how old? Think it's time to shelve the old horror at other people's mortality for a bit. In the end tho, the whole "HOW YA LIKE ME NOW MUVVAFUGGAS??? oh shit pwned" was far and away the best part of that ep.

The lack of a "how's he going to get out of this one?" cliffhanger is a good sign, too. No hint of a ludicrous deus ex yet, at least.

so in the WoM trailer you heard four knocks but in the episode its only three. typical RTD bullshit bait/switch.

Just watched it, and COR, that is what colin baker should've been like.

Thought this episode was mostly pretty dull until the last 15mins or so. Come on Rusty, you've only got one episode left, surely you can do better than a rehashed space station plot and some dribbling aliens. Actually what *were* the aliens anyway?

Why is it that seemingly everyone working on a space station in Dr Who is this baffled middle class mid-20th century middle class English person straight out of an ad for insurance or BT Vision or something?

The last 20 minutes were terrific though, Tennant's Doctor has been getting cockier and cockier as time goes by so it was good to see there are limits to his power. Rusty's been watching Lost, I think.

Actually what *were* the aliens anyway?

I liked that there was no definitive explanation, like in Midnight.

is this baffled middle class mid-20th century middle class English person

at least 4 of the crew weren't British tho - including SHANE RAMSAY. not bad going really.

Didn't quite get why the two survivors would tell everyone that she killed herself to save the earth, and why that in particular would inspire her grandaughter to go into space after her. I mean, more than having space travelling grandmother would have inspired her anyway. The exploding Mars station I can see, but the final eventuality just didn't make sense as a pivotal moment in human history to me.

there was no attempt to explain how Adelaide could've saved Yuri and Mia or how any of them got to Earth, or who found her body - you could read in the web screen flashes (if you paused them...um...) it just said 'inexplicable circumstances' etc. presumably this won't actually be explained in a Jaws: The Revenge "I won't trouble you with the details of my escape" type deal? tsk

I couldn't read the end websites so I assumed that the gun was some sort of vapourising gun that left no body - and thus everyone would still think they all died in space (provided the other two kept a low profile). That made more sense to me. But whatever.

the text did change form 'died on Mars' to 'died on Earth', Back To The Future-style tho. vapourising occured to me and probably does make more sense yeh but seems not.

I really liked this, and I was going in kind of grumpy towards it. It looked like it was going to be a retread of IP/Satan Pit and 42, and I feared it was going to be the same-old thing where David Tennant does his usual mannerisms while saying Rusty's usual guns-suck/"sorry-so-sorry" dialogue, but I thought it managed to hoist itself up past that and become really affecting by the end.

All the screenshots of Intergalactic Wikipedia were pretty lol though, especially when they went and updated themselves IN THE DOCTOR'S BRAIN at the end. My sister also laughed when she heard the Cloister Bell at the end, like the TARDIS was saying "you are acting like such a douche right now."

This is in fact the true function of the Cloister Bell.

ha ha. coincidentally the Cloister Bell seems to have rang way more for this Doctor than previous ones.

he also seems to be getting a lot more notice about his impending doom than any previous dr (correct me if i'm wrong)

I think the Committee for Impending Timelord Doom have had a lot of time on their hands recently, they're probably just trying to fill the hours in the day.

Lots of stuff I would really prefer writers try and find their way round - characters nattering away while a monstrous mutation happens behind them - all these people who aren't checking to see whether the person they are talking to is listening deserve everything they get.

Also, approaching horribly transformed characters who have their back to you by slowly moving closer them and whispering their name, instead of shouting 'Found him! He looks fucked!'

I think I can just about stand 'Hey, stop mucking about!' to people whose heads are swiveling about or who have turned black and such like, but it's wearing pretty thin.

But yes, hubristic time lord was good, and the whole 'water just waits' thing was pretty good as well.

Yeah, I said to the fam on Sunday night "Why do they only send astronauts who've never, ever seen a horror movie?"

The "Is the Doctor famous or isn't he?" thing seems to get played fast and loose with a lot too. I was pretty sure that in the existing timelines he'd be some super-famous saviour of the Earth by the time of the Mars mission.

Was pretty disappointed Adelaide didnt shoot the doctor in the back after saying 'But who can stop you?!?!' or whatever.

how would that work tho? he's still got to face the Master before regenerating

And why was the Ood at the end wearing the Doctor's suit?

wasn't it just the standard Ood jumpsuit? i was wondering why it still had the white ball and cord thing as i thought they'd been emancipated after Planet Of The Ood so wouldn't need these still (otoh maybe it beats carrying your brain in your hands)

Nah, definitely dressed in a Tennant suit

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4392/oodj.jpg

Was pretty disappointed Adelaide didnt shoot the doctor in the back after saying 'But who can stop you?!?!'

You could tell that she was considering it for a moment on her doorstep, but she probably figured that shooting him may not necessarily stop him.

I don't think she considered it really, she's not a killer (didn't want revenge against the Daleks etc.) and surely thought that to shoot him would make her no better

That whole Dalek thing was a bit WTF.

when you wish upon a dalek

Within the story I'm not really thinking about the logistics of the story that has to happen later or that I should know when the regeneration must happen because of future episodes - like Nicole I picked up on her looking back. I would have liked her to at least give it a go, even figuring it might not stop him. When watching it just seemed the logical step to me, esp considering what she just said before turning away. She's not a killer etc but having seen him and what he can do she would surely think she was saving the world from this mad man who thinks he can play with time as he pleases. That she doesnt feel the need for Dalek revenge, but it actually being the doctor who pushes her over that line makes sense to me. And when you're just about to nobly sacrifice yourself for the good of the future doesnt it make sense to try and remove the thing which threatens it? Rather than just hope your actions make them think about what they've done.

I liked the end but as others said, I assumed it would have played out as if history had never changed and thought it would have been better that way. Also adding the question of what kind of lives has the doctor given these people by saving them, of them having no choice etc.

I mean, even if it doesnt hurt he just deserved a bit of a slap. And if you've got a laser gun that will do, right?

The whole When You Wish Upon A Dalek thing meant Adelaide at least must have known who the Doctor is, given it made such an impression on her. In fact, she must have been old enough the previous year for Doctor Jesus/Doctor Tweety as well so it's even more surprising she doesn't know who he is. INTERESTING CHRONOLOGY FACT is that it's confirmed during the show that The Stolen Earth was 2009, not 2008 as previously stated in Rusty's internal timeline.

My biggest problem is that none of the water "not even a drop" can ever get to the Earth. So driving a robot through a giant waterfall of it, then into the TARDIS, then leaving it outdoors on Earth immediately afterwards MIGHT NOT SEEM THAT CLEVER.

All that said, this was OK I suppose, although it felt too much like a retread of previous ideas - Midnight, Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, the Ood episode from the Donna series, the Christmas one with the spider woman, 42 to name just the obvious ones.

i'd suggest all the water on the robot evaporated during its super-fast dash to the TARDIS

i liked the Dalek bit (how did it know the girl was important? who cares really). no-one knew it was the meta-crisis Doctor who destroyed the Daleks so how would Brook know who he was from that time? and the 'Last Of The Time Lords' events were wiped from history so he didn't become famous from that.

xpost - said much succintly above
This is impossibly geeky, but in terms of chronology this is how I thought things stood:
The Jesus/Doctor thing occurred during the paradox. When the paradox was undone then Martha walking the Earth spreading his name, etc. didn't happen. It only exists in the minds of those at the centre of the paradox storm when it collapsed.
As for the Stolen Earth stuff only the Doctor's companions, UNIT, Torchwood and Donna's family know that the Doctor(s) were responsible for moving the Earth back home. All people on Earth knew was the Earth moved and then they were back in orbit around the sun.
If that's the case the Doctor is still not a known public figure on Earth and therefore Adelaide doesn't have a clue who the Doctor is.

Evaporated? In the freezing cold? Plus I'm guessing you've never worked that intimately with heavy machinery to notice its propensity for storing water away inside joints or behind panels, just where you're not expecting it.

Jesus/Doctor bit agreed, but not the whole events were reverted. Only the bits after the rift gets opened get changed i.e. just what happens after the President gets killed- everything before that still takes place. Actually, that makes the writing worse because what that then means is OH NOES THE PRIME MINISTER HAS BEEN SHOOTED FIND THE CULPRIT.

I was positive there was a 'stand out in the streets, three cheers for The Doctor' bit in The Stolen Earth, but I'm fucked if I'm putting myself through watching it again to find out. You may well be right.

I don't even like the fact that the general public know about Daleks and Sonatarans and shit. It destroys the notion that all this crazy stuff could really be happening under our noses. I mean, in the old series, all Earth invasions either took place in the future, or were covert operations, right?

I can confirm that I have never been intimate with heavy machinery.

stand out in the streets, three cheers for The Doctor

actually did happen in the last Christmas episode when no-one remembers/documents the Cyber King

xpost

This is the problem, for me. I knew the Jesus/Doctor bit had been erased from time but so many of the Eccleston/Tennant stories have involved OH NOES HUEG GLOBAL CATSTROPHES that I can't believe the Doctor isn't some kind of major public knowledge by now.

YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO THINK TOO HARD ABOUT THESE THINGS exhibit a) being that no one has ever mentioned the giant robot that trampelled Victorian London.

I know, I happily suspend disbelief to a point. But glaring apparent inconsistencies in the middle of a plot end up bugging me during the interminable running about sequences.

maybe Moffat feels the same as he's never done a story like that (tho may have to now). this 'end of time' stuff does indicate some sort of reset for the Doctor beyond just a normal regeneration...but not sure to what extent (other than bringing back other TimeLords somehow).

was wondering if the Master in the next two is in fact Lucy Saxon's son given that he's now a hoody with spiky blonde hair. that scene from the trailer where he briefly turns into hologram skeleton thing also v wtf.

I'll be surprised if we don't see a wholesale return of the Time Lords. In fact, we were just saying the other night how the Dalek prison from The Void and the repetition of "both sides had their secrets" doesn't mean there's a whole pile of Time Lords in a similar prison ship somewhere just waiting to be discovered.

We do know the forthcoming Moffat series is going to be 'Series 1', right?

What I really did enjoy about the ending for this special is that the Doctor was clearly expecting another "Yay! Three cheers for Doctor!" type reception, only to be greeted with horror and disgust.